[Alberta's Child]

OPT isn't all it's cracked up to be for the employer. In my 15+ years of corporate management experience we hired ONE immigrant employee under the OPT program -- and only because he was a recent graduate of a U.S. college who had worked as an intern for our best client. We basically hired him because the client asked him to.

The first thing I'll say is that the paperwork and HR process to administer this was a pain in the ass.

The second thing was that we found ourselves in a bizarre situation where we negotiated a salary with him, then found out afterward that we had to pay him more than he asked for because the OPT rules require employers to pay the immigrants based on published salary rates for professions. And even though our industry doesn't place a high value on a graduate degree, the published industry salaries for OPT hires with graduate degrees is substantially higher.

[zeestephen]

Re: "OPT isn't all its cracked up to be for the employer."

Three primary attractions...

(1) 7.65% employer exemption for SS & Medicare. And, the foreign worker gets a 7.65% raise.

(2) Possible top students for the median salary.

(3) Most will not quit if hit with salary covered overtime each week.

Also, the foreign students use OPT to roll into H-1B jobs.

H-1B is the turnpike to a Green Card and Permanent Residence, which is almost as good as citizenship, unless you want to work in a Classified military or intelligence job.