Posted on 09/22/2003 12:14:29 PM PDT by AntiGuv
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is about to cut the number of employment visas it offers to highly qualified foreign workers from 195,000 to 65,000, immigration experts said on Monday.
Unless Congress acts by the end of this month -- and there is little sign it will do so -- the change will automatically take effect on Oct. 1. Employers, especially technology companies, argue the move will hurt them and the economy.
The change will affect the number of H1-B visas that can be issued each fiscal year. The visas are mostly used to bring high-tech experts from Asia, especially from the Indian sub-continent, to work in the United States for up to three years.
"The fact that Congress doesn't seem anxious to act reflects the political climate, with a lack of jobs for Americans," said New York immigration lawyer Cyrus Mehta.
"The pressure to change the limit will build up again when the economy picks up."
The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the issue last week. Republican chairman Orrin Hatch of Utah noted that many U.S. high-tech workers are unemployed and the committee needed to find ways of helping them without hurting the country's ability to compete globally.
Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy said: "Given the weakness of our current economy, and the rising unemployment we have experienced under President Bush's stewardship, many who supported the increase in 2000 now believe that 65,000 visas are sufficient."
But Patrick Duffy, Human Resources Attorney for Intel Corporation, said finding the best-educated engineering talent from around the world was critical to his company's future.
"We expect that we will continue to sponsor H-1B employees in the future for the simple reason that we cannot find enough U.S. workers with the advanced education, skills, and expertise we need," he said.
Elizabeth Dickson, director of immigration services for the Ingersoll-Rand Company, speaking on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said: "In the near-term, we simply must have access to foreign nationals. Many of them have been educated in the United States. By sending them home, we are at best sending them to our own foreign plant sites, and at worst to our competitors."
Immigration attorneys expect the new rules to set off a scramble by companies to fill their slots early before the ceiling is reached. How quickly that happens depends on the state of the economy, they said.
That is some incoherent gibberish you've got there.
I didn't accuse anyone of making too much money. I'm accusing IT workers (the group to which I belong) of demanding more than the market is capable of paying. To get my current job 1 1/2 years ago, I took a pay cut because I saw the writing on the wall. I saw the decrease in demand, so I lowered my expectations. I had no trouble getting a job, because I did not expect my "brick and mortar" employer to pay the outlandish salaries I had been paid by the now bankrupt dot-coms. I'm not asking the government to interfere, that's what protectionist lefties (and apparently, righties) do.
My tax dollars are used against me in all sorts of ways, but not by "importing cheap labor". My tax dollars have nothing to do with it. If foreign students attend State Universities, they pay full price (i.e. out of state rates, which is "cost" for the uni). They are taking nothing from me.
In case you missed the past 40 years, we live in a globally-interconnected economy. At each point of increased globalization, the American economy has gotten stronger.
When the Japanese roared on the scene in the 70s, and the demise of the American automobile was heralded, what happened? A little consolidation, but the automobile industry in the US is thriving. The only country suffering right now are the Japanese, really.
When the "Asian Tigers" roared in the 80s, and hi-tech manufacturing was sent east, doom and gloom was predicted for the US. Are we worse off now? No, we are better off, and those Asian economies are much better off as well. We both won.
As India has gotten stronger in the 90s, with their vast swathes of "cheap IT labor", have we been hurt? In fact, no. We are coming out of a recession (caused by the irrational exuberance of the late 90s and the war on terror, not "cheap labor"). Cheap IT labor will mean cheaper IT products, and a greater variety of them.
Throughout history, national economies have become more and more interdependant, and the US has thrived through each revolution. Why? Because we have stayed away from knee-jerk anti-competitive behavior and have had the captial available to facilitate and lead these revolutions. Unfortunately, we seem to be going the way of the protectionist Europeans and may lose out on this next revolution.
The days of software development as cash cow are ending. Take it from someone in the industry, while there may be some specialty software development in the works, and the occasional niche market may develop, enterprise-wide solutions have been done to death. Industry consolidation is taking place, and margins are going bye-bye. We can't stop those days from coming. There will be another boom, which appears to be somewhere in the health care field, with bio-engineering, genetics, what have you. American companies and investors need to have the capital available to make strategic investments in he next wave of technology that is to emerge. That capital stays available if American companies keep their costs low, either through exporting work or importing "cheap labor".
We cannot win by protecting jobs that were successful in the past. America will only thrive by finding the successful industries of the future. If you neo-Luddites would take time away from smashing your printing presses and insted read a book on economics, you'd understand things a bit better.
And what, offshore those as well>
If you neo-Luddites would take time away from smashing your printing presses and insted read a book on economics, you'd understand things a bit better.
Ah yes, the typical elitist condescension of the annointed spokesmen of the Free Trade religion. If you'd but read the Holy Text, you'd understand things a bit better, you silly rube who doesn't understand your unemployed place in the new Randian Utopia.
For one thing, the Fed isn't the only player in this game. Even if the Federal Reserve actively spent all of its treasure buying up surplus Dollars on the foreign exchanges, it would be hard-pressed to make up for our current trade and budget deficits (both of which pump Trillions of surplus Dollars into the world market over time).
For another thing, you are ignoring basic economics. If the Dollar buys fewer Rupees, then yes, absolutely, it costs more Dollars to pay for projects outsourced to India. You can claim to "disagree" with that fact all day long, but such "disagreement" won't change the reality on the ground.
In addition, you are **assuming** that the current elevated level of the U.S. Dollar is its fair value (i.e. the Fed wouldn't want to change it). That's a wrong-headed assumption.
In a free and fair market, the Dollar would decline in each year wherein we had an import surplus. Likewise, the Dollar would normally decline in each year when we had a federal budget deficit (because that borrowed money has to come from somewhere, and the additional Dollars that get pumped into the market alter the Supply side of the Supply versus Demand equation for price/value).
But that's not happening. Rather than let the Dollar adjust downward (which would devastate their export-based economies), foreign central banks are buying up all of the surplus Dollars on the market...and then they are hoarding those Dollars so that they remain out of circulation (thus altering the "Supply" aspect of the supply v demand equation). This props up the value of the Dollar, making imports into America vastly cheaper than they would be in a free and fair market (i.e. one without massive government direct intervention in the currency market).
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