Rescued Banks Sought Foreign Help During Meltdown 749
theodp writes "An AP review of visa applications has found that major US banks sought permission to bring thousands of foreign workers into the country under the H-1B visa program, even as the banking system was melting down and Americans were being laid off. The dozen banks now receiving the biggest rescue packages, totaling more than $150 billion, requested visas for more than 21,800 foreign workers over the past six years. (It's not known how many of these were granted; the article notes 'The actual number is likely a fraction of the... workers the banks sought to hire because the government only grants 85,000 such visas each year among all US employers.') The American Bankers Association blamed the US talent pool for forcing the move, saying they couldn't find enough Americans capable of handling sales, lending, and bank administration. The AP has filed FOIA requests to force the US Customs and Immigration Service to disclose further details on the bailed-out banks' foreign hires."
Re:I want to know... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I want to know... (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, you're referring to my way out of date geocities page, which I'm too lazy [...]
Yup, great. "too lazy" to update a website but wanting a 75k salary? :-)
Ok, fine, the page is out of date, but employers WILL google you. It's a fact of life. You can't decide what information about you an employer will use in his or her decision to hire, aside from a couple of protected categories such as age or race. Especially as an IT person, you need to keep all facets of your online information up-to-date.
Then again, as an IT person, I'd be extremely hesitant to hire anyone who ever had a Geocities page. ;)
Re:Could I give a tip to my fellow Americans? (Score:2, Funny)
Nope, all he implied was that there might well be a similar _share_ of qualified applicants among Amerincans. Most applicants in any given pool are useless, and it's impossible to interview everybody. So if (simplifying here) all US resumes are crap, there is no realistic way to find out which of the 100s of applicants are worth interviewing; in other words, the probability that the couple dozen you'll have come in will be crap are very high, and therefore it's not cost-effective to consider them at all, with more informative Indian CVs allowing for a higher signal-to-noise ratio of initial selection.
Re:I want to know... (Score:5, Funny)
No, no, no - don't you know that America is a classless country where everybody has a chance to make it big and live the American dream.
There are no such things as elites oppressing the underdogs in the US - that's purely something that happens in socially decrepit places like France.
Clearly you've been missing the propaganda all these years.
Re:I want to know... (Score:5, Funny)
To run the computers, or to run the companies? Because it is pretty obvious where the real skill shortage was. Are CEO positions H-1B eligible?
Re:I want to know... (Score:1, Funny)