Posted on 06/18/2007 6:38:12 AM PDT by BornInASmallTown
Despite the Senate's failure to act on sweeping immigration legislation, the technology industry still sees comprehensive reform as the best way to get more H-1B visas for foreign engineers and computer programmers, and to reduce the backlog for green cards.
Demand for H-1B visas, which allow highly skilled foreigners to work in the United States for six years, dramatically exceeds supply. The federal government received 150,000 petitions for fiscal 2008's allotment of 65,000 H-1B visas on the first day it accepted applications.
This visa shortage hurts companies like Google Inc., where H-1B visa holders account for 8 percent of its U.S. work force, and helped lead the development of Google News and orkut, Google's social networking site. "Each and every day we find ourselves unable to pursue highly qualified candidates because there are not enough H-1B visas," said Laszlo Bock, vice president of people operations for Mountain View, Calif.-based Google.
The original version of the Senate immigration bill would have raised the annual cap on H-1B visas to 115,000, gradually increasing up to 180,000 a year if needed. But the bill failed to include exemptions, passed by the Senate last year, for foreigners with advanced degrees. An amendment restoring these exemptions, and addressing other alleged flaws in the bill's H-1B visa provisions, was pending when the Senate stopped work on the legislation. The amendment also calls for an employer-sponsored pool of green cards. The original bill would have ended employer sponsorship of individuals for green cards, which enable foreigners to live permanently in the United States.
(Excerpt) Read more at triad.bizjournals.com ...
Well shame on you, TopDog, for thinking that proven experience and a willingness to improve your education and skill set was going to get you anything. Like a higher salary.
And as for GoMeanGreen, look past the salary. There are plenty of studies that show that hiring more experienced workers for positions you may think are beneath them does pay off in the long run. Someone like TopDog may cost more in the short run but can usually suggest changes and/or new processes that lead to cost efficiencies and significant savings down the road. I'm not going to lie and tell you that everyone out there are gems just waiting to be discovered. But there are enough so that taking the time to dig and find them is worth while. Focusing solely on age and experience will cost you a lot of people willing to do the job and reward the company for having faith in them.
Nope.
OTOH, the law doesn't require that you hire (and pay extra for) someone with any additional skills.
After all, Pradesh, Thuy or Zhou are perfect for the job as described how could you not hire them???
Well shame on you, TopDog, for thinking that proven experience and a willingness to improve your education and skill set was going to get you anything. Like a higher salary job.
No kidding. I guess I'll cancel my plan to get a certificate in project management...
Yep, slavery lite - - it's ugly. Is it possible that this is President's Bush's way of sticking it to his brother, Jeb? Jeb's children have brown skin - and, if this bill passes, they'll be seen as the color of "second class" citizens.
Oh please. Up the salary and they will come.
What you mean is no one is willing to work for the niggardly wage you are offering.
I have a friend with a PhD in physics and math and was current in his field (astrophysics) - until being laid off in 2003.
BTW he also happens to be 52. His position was filled by an H1B visa holder making half his salary.
Where should he apply for all those jobs you say exist for which there are no Americans capable of filling ?
So, you'd rather have an H1b that can't leave the job, no matter what the salary or working conditions? Sounds to me you are looking for a slave, not an employee.
Funny thing that. First he says he can’t find Americans to do the job, then he says you are overqualified.
Hahahaha. He’s talking out of both sides of his mouth. Jeez, I can hire kids out of US high schools who, within 2-3 months, I can train to be good desktop support folks. Shoot, I met an 8th grader last week in a parochial school who was very conversant with getting a school laptop on a wireless network.
If his idea of high tech jobs is desktop support, I have to laugh.
Maybe you should try advertising at the local technical schools.
But again, you prove my point. If you can’t find qualified applicants at your price, up the salary or grow your own. H1B visa holders just allow you to hire them cheaper than the local talent wants to be paid.
You nailed it. It’s indentured servitude for the 21st century.
The way they get around the employer owning the visa, of course, is to use contracting companies to “own” the H-1Bs.The Indian “body shop” picks up the H-1B and contracts Prakash out to Microsoft or whoever, and then when Microsoft no longer needs the labor, the body shop moves Prakash on to another contract. They’re paying him maybe 40-50% of what he’d get if he were a citizen, and they’re charging 70-80% of the rate. It’s very profitable...but then again, indentured servitude always has been, as long as you weren’t the indentured servant.
}:-)4
Nah, just get your PMP instead. You can stick coders in some third world cesspool, outsource your systems administrators to Outer Mongolia if the money is right, do away with business analysts entirely, but when it comes to communicating with the client they still have a preference for clear, concise, understandable English. Project management seems to be an area that they have some problems shifting overseas because of the customer contact and for the time being at least a PMP is still the standard they measure PMs by. Admittedly it doesn't prove anything other than you could pass a test, but companies seem to like it.
Signed,
Non-Sequitur, MBA, PMP
Yeah. China and the former Warsaw Pact states + Russia are fertile ground for outsourcers these days, cheaper than India. They don’t have quite the massive pool of educated talent that India does, but China does churn out a fair number of technically-minded folks, and Russia’s got a ton of underemployed Ph.Ds right now. I think the bulk of the H-1Bs are still going to the Indian subcontinent, but companies setting up offshore shops are looking far beyond India.
}:-)4
I own 3 companies with 38 employees.
If I can’t find someone who meets every skill requirement but meets a number of them, I hire and train as necessary.
And what do I get - very satisfied and loyal employees.
You might try it sometime.
“We pay a comparable wage, and we still cant fill our positions.”
A comparable wage for your area or a comparable wage for downtown Bangalore?
If you were so inclined to post the job here I imagine you could get some useful feedback on your situation.
But that would require thinking outside the bean counter box.
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