A Modest Proposal to Solve the H-1B Visa Crisis

[JMaguire]

Mike Elgan offers a solution to the H1B problem:

"Rather than raising the H-1B visa cap, let's increase the rights and privileges of skilled worker immigrants, and fast-track them to citizenship."

Here's his article:

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/col...le.php/3711551

What's your take?

[n6532l]

The basic problem with your modest proposal is that it implicitly accepts the proposition that industry needs 65,000 foreign workers a year. Lou Dobbs has an excellent rebuttal to this assumption at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP...13/ldt.01.html

DOBBS: And, we'll challenge corporate America's repeated assertions it can't find enough qualified Americans to fill key technology jobs. It turns out it just ain't so. Imagine that. We'll have that story, and a great deal more as we continue, live tonight with our "Independents Day" tour, live from, you guessed it, there's the Space Needle, Seattle, Washington. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DOBBS: New study show American colleges are producing more than enough graduates in Science and Math in this country to fill the needs of U.S. business, but corporate America continues to claim there simply aren't enough Americans trained in those fields and they must hire foreign workers, workers that of course end up being paid quite a bit less than American workers.

Bill Tucker has our report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There is no shortage of students studying for careers in Math and Science. There is a shortage of jobs. That's the simply bottom line finding of a new study from the Urban Institute.

The study shows that between 1985 and 2000 435,000 U.S. citizens and permanent residents a year graduated with Bachelors, Masters, and Doctoral degrees in Science and Engineering. That's three times the number of jobs in Science and Engineering added per year, 150,000 during that time.

Separately Michael Teitelbaum at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation told Congress last week that neither he nor a separate study by the RAND Corporation can find any evidence of worker shortages. These studies are not anomalies.

VIVEK WADHWA, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Bottom line is that all of our research at Duke and now at Harvard shows the same thing. That there is no shortage of engineers; there's no shortage of scientists. Companies aren't going abroad because of skills. They're going abroad because it's cheaper.

TUCKER: As a result, Wadhwa says that more than half of the engineering graduate students at Duke don't pursue engineering as a career and there is another indicator that the market is anything but short of scientists and engineers.

PAUL ALMEIDA, DEPT. FOR PROF. EMPLOYEES, AFL-CIO: We should be trying to figure out how to incentivize (ph) students to advance in these Math and Science areas. It's clearly that there is no shortage. If there is a shortage, the supply and demand wages would be going up in these areas.

TUCKER: Wages in the science and engineering fields over the last five years when adjusted for inflation have been basically flat.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TUCKER: Now Lou, that's the Urban Institute, the Alfred P. Sloan (ph) Foundation, Duke, Harvard, the RAND Corporation. Studies done independently of each other, different researches, different funding, all reaching the same basic conclusion that there is no worker shortage. Lou, the problem is not a lack of workers. The problem these studies all conclude is a lack of companies hiring them. And as we've reported many, many times on this program those companies either off-shore the work or as you mentioned at the top, demand more H-1B visas and then pay those workers less -- Lou.

DOBBS: We've been reporting on this issue, the exporting of American jobs, the outsourcing of American jobs, middle class jobs, for four years. And point of fact, the idea that all of these highly regarded, highly respected institutions have found the same thing that we have reported her for four years. Congress just last week, the subcommittee on technology and innovation, suggesting that 30 to 40 percent of American jobs now are at risk of being outsourced, in addition to the H-1B problem.

TUCKER: Right.

DOBBS: Let's put this in some context. Let's just deal with that H-1B program, which all of these companies want to bring those foreign workers in under. What's the number of Indian companies that are using H-1B visas, seeking H-1B visas for the purpose of outsourcing those jobs right here in the United States?

TUCKER: Well five of the top six users of the H-1B visa program, Lou, as you well know, are Indian companies.

DOBBS: Yes I did, but I wanted because I'm in Seattle, Washington, tonight Bill Tucker, and I thank you very much -- I want to repeat that just for the purpose, the benefit, the illumination, the education, the enlightenment of one of the -- this city's most famous citizens, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. Bill Gates is among those calling for more H-1B visas. In fact, Bill Gates wants an unlimited number of H-1B visas. And we really think it's important that he be brought up-to-date on this issue. Gates testified before a Senate committee in March -- by the way, he was the only witness and there was only one fellow chariot -- that was Senator Ted Kennedy -- and Gates said the United States should allow, as he put it, an infinite number of foreign workers. We can't get above infinite no matter what we do.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL GATES, MICROSOFT CHAIRMAN: We have to welcome the great minds in this world, not shut them out of our country. Unfortunately, our immigration policies are driving away the world's best and brightest precisely when we need them the most.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DOBBS: Bill Gates, you just heard the RAND Corporation, the Urban Institute, Harvard University, come on and look at the facts. Most of those H-1B visas are being used by Indian companies seeking to outsource jobs at a very, very reduced wage. In fact, most of the H-1B computer professionals in this country are brought in at the lowest skill levels; about half of the H-1B visa computer professionals recently admitted to the United States, in fact during the (INAUDIBLE) entry level salaries, so much for the advanced, best minds. These are entry level jobs, not the highly skilled jobs seeking those H-1B visas.

So Mr. Gates, I certainly hope that you and I can have a discussion on that. I'm sure that you would be delighted to do that, but I'm going to ask for something less than an infinite number of H- 1B visas and when we compromise, as a matter of fact, I want to return to two years ago levels.

[mgaedwards]

Blank check for software engineers not needed

Mike your article

A Modest Proposal to Solve the H-1B Visa Crisis

will not address the problem of "too few" American born software engineers or IT people. In fact it will do the reverse. A blank check for foreign born software engineers will flood the market for IT workers, lowering the wages even more, and causing American IT workers to seek higher paying jobs outside of IT.

Many of the 65k H1B workers are going to enable the off shoring of IT work to other countries. Surely this is not the intent of H1B program.

Your proposal only makes sense if these immigrant workers can not work to enable the offshoring of this work, and the number of IT worker immigrants is limited so that American born IT workers are not affected.

It is unfortunate that the noise for upping these numbers gets extremely loud right before the economy goes into a recession. IE the last time was 97-2000 when companies were allowed to over hire H1b immigrants. We all know what happened when the economy crashed and IT workers were layed off right and left.
It took several years for the IT market to bounce back. Meanwhile college students being the bright students they are, saw no reason to pursue a degree in Computer Science largely because there were no jobs.

[microface]

I worked at a small company called Eigen Medical LLC in a town outside Sacramento California. I have a Master's in Chemical Engr From Stanford Univ, a Master's in Computer Science From the same University and this company would ONLY HIRE H1-B people. This company's CTO was himself an H1-B inductee and would not hire any American Citizen. So I was working at 40/hr with no medical Benefits and paying all my own taxes, while the other 8 H1-B employees were paid 80 - 85K with medical benefits, and 401K etc etc. The only reason they hired me for awhile is because I knew a specialized medical networking protocol called DICOM.

I of course looked and looked and finally after 6 months, now have a full time job at a company that actually will hire American Citizen's

From my experience any company that has greater than 10% H1-B population should be immediately sanctioned, stopped or something in order to protect even highly skilled workers like myself.
I will never vote for any politician who supports or votes for raising any H1-B caps. I do not want any other American Citizen to go through the turmoil and emotional hell that I went through.

[nbjunk]

I agree with this idea. This will help bring the best, brightest and most industrious to the US.

The biggest problem I see with the current H1-B program is that it creates "H1B Slaves". They get paid less because if they buck the system they may lose their job and get sent home. As a result they accept a fraction of what most American contract personnel are paid. Its very difficult for American contract and consulting personnel to compete in many areas of the country

As the proposal includes, I personally would recommend a program that, after appropriate screening, would offer immediate green cards - and an accelerated path to citizenship - to well educated individuals. If you have a master's or phd in desirable fields, welcome.

My point is that by giving them green cards instead of very conditional visa's, they no longer have to work for slaves wages. Companies would have to pay them prevailing wages, or they'd leave for another company.

I differ on one point. I would offer this green card only if they bring their family with them. Make this their home and country.

I would basically do away with H1-B visas.

[macaca]

DOBBS: New study show American colleges are producing more than enough graduates in Science and Math in this country to fill the needs of U.S. business, but corporate America continues to claim there simply aren't enough Americans trained in those fields and they must hire foreign workers, workers that of course end up being paid quite a bit less than American workers.
------------------------------------------------
I am an American and I disagree with Mr. Elgan's proposal. I would like to also point out that graduating from an American educational institution does not mean you are an American (as might be mistakenly assumed from Mr. Dobbs' article).

I graduated in the late 80's with a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering and have since added a Master's degree. I attended different institutions in different states, but a common trait between them was the large number of engineering students from foreigh countries.

I believe the problem of the lack of Americans with the skills desired by American high technology companies starts at the American educational institutions. There are many bright Americans that did not make it through the "weed-out" process of the first several years in the engineering curriculum because their grades ended up on the wrong side of the "bell curve" due to the intense competition with foreigh students. The foreign students were not well-rounded, but put everything they had into getting good grades (including doing their work together, in some cases), while the American students were doing all the life-learning, extra-curricular activities for which young Americans are notorious.

I have worked in high technology in the Silicon Valley for nearly 20 years and although productivity is good, I believe it would be even higher if a larger percentage of the workers were Americans. There are cultural and language barrier issues with foreign workers that hamper productivity. It is my opinion that Americans are more imaginative and creative than their H-1B counterparts. I also believe that these barrier and creativity issues would more rapidly decrease if the foreign workers that are in the US were more immersed into the US society than they presently are under the H-1B system.

I am all for legal immigration into the US and I have met many amazing people from other countries that are working here in the US and want to end up staying here and becoming Americans. Those are the only types of foreign workers that I would support under any proposal.

[anti-socialist]

Multinational corporations continuously rebalance their operations all over the globe. This is based on the cost and availability of resources.

For tech based companies there are more resources currently available in other parts of the globe (such China, India) than US and they are available at cheaper cost. So in order to provide the best return for our 401 K's (!), the companies have two choices: (1) Shift more of their operations to other countries (2) Import part of the resources (human, in this case) to US, so that at least the overall operations stay in US.

The first option will not benefit anyone in US. The second will benefit at least the non-technical staff in US. It will also help economy as new immigrants generally earn much more than average american salary, and will consume from local economy.

The US tech workers want to artificially keep the supply down inorder to maintain uncompetitvely (from global perspective) higher salaries. This is the same old socialist game. Small minority lobbying hard to the detriment of larger population (and Mr. Dobbs joining hands).

Take the case of Microsoft. Fed up with US immigration policies they are shifting more operations to Vancouver. Mr. Dobbs should get all the credit for this. And yes, 50% of graduate students in US are from foriegn countries.