Microsoft & Intel Get a Pass On Higher H-1B Fees 209
theodp writes "Criticizing companies that outsource high-paying American jobs, Senator Charles Schumer described Indian IT company Infosys as a 'chop shop'. (Nine Indian companies accounted for 20,000 H-1B visas as of 2007. In 2008, Infosys held 4,500 of the visas; the number was down by a factor of 10 in 2009.) The comments came as the Senate scrambled to fund the $600M Mexican Border Security Bill by hiking application fees for H-1B and L-1 visas. The Senate measure increases H-1B visa fees by $2,000 per application on firms that have 50% or more of their employees on this visa. Schumer pointed out that the bill would not affect high-tech companies such as Intel or Microsoft 'that play by the rules and recruit workers in America,' although they are among the biggest beneficiaries of the H-1B program."
Nothing to do with Intel or Microsoft? (Score:5, Informative)
FTFS: ``The Senate measure increases H-1B visa fees by $2,000 per application on firms that have 50% or more of their employees on this visa.''
And Microsoft and Intel evidently are below this 50% limit. As far as I can tell, this isn't Microsoft and Intel "getting a pass", as the title states. No company is being singled out here. It doesn't matter who you are, what matters if you have 50% or more of your employees on H-1B visa.
Re:why? (Score:4, Informative)
Interesting portion of the article
and
Re:did i read that right (Score:5, Informative)
Posting as an AC due to the high number of H1B's in my office. But they don't work for us. They work for the contracting company we hire. The contracting company will get the bad press, slightly increase the per hour fee and the big company will point out that they're hiring American and not mentioning that they're contracting a lot more jobs than they hire and the contractors are rarely (if ever) American.
Re:why? (Score:1, Informative)
The tax is because you're not supposed to be using immigrants as a source of cheap labor. Immigrants are willing to work for cheaper than Americans, so employing too many immigrants lowers the standard of living. I think the idea is that a small tax might tip the scales towards local labor and prevent companies from using immigrants to make up the body of their company.
dom
Re:You are right (Score:2, Informative)
This is just spin to try and make MS look like the bad guys getting special treatment.
Posted by kdawson on Monday August 09, @02:02AM
In other news: water is wet and the sky is blue. Film at 11.
Re:Nothing to do with Intel or Microsoft? (Score:2, Informative)
copponex wrote:
Do try reading the article next time. I'll quote the relevant section.
Re:Do these H1-B stay in the US (Score:1, Informative)
They actually paid for my 1-way ticket back to Europe
They legally have to pay for that.
This is why so many Americans are out of work (Score:1, Informative)
I've worked at MS of and on since the mid 90's. Today, as an American born citizen with over 15 years in software engineering the best I can get at MS today is a low pay rate contract position while the rest of the team (99%) is made up of full time or contract employees who got green card status from their H-1B or LB visas or are still work here on such visas. The average American born worker at MS makes up a very tiny fraction of the work force at MS anymore. It is time that our US elected officials end the visas and send these workers home and give those jobs to the very citizens of the US who are more then qualified. If they are not qualified then B.G. and company should be investing more to train their own country men instead of bring over the cheap labor. Think about that philanthropist man.
Re:Is that a viable business model? (Score:1, Informative)
50%+ of your employees are H1-B's, I would suggest that the Employment Inspectors should come around and ask why no Americans could be found and ask difficult questions.
If the percentage was >70% then there should likely be an investigation and heavy fines if the H1-B's were ordinary folk.
In Australia there are a few Indian firms abusing our equivalent of H1-B's. It turns out employees do not get paid lawful 'overtime' money for march-of-death/impossible deadline projects and expected to work crazy hours to deliver, the the company won, because no-one else bid so low. And the cherry on the cake - a vague possibility of citizenship if they shut up and say nothing.
Re:Nothing to do with Intel or Microsoft? (Score:3, Informative)
Picking out MS and Intel in the headline was clearly meant to troll Slashdot. Google and almost every other big tech company gets a 'free pass' too.
Re:did i read that right (Score:3, Informative)
How could one know that the standard would actually raise, instead of the work being offshored?
When a company actually plays by the rules, they aren't bringing a random programmer to the US: They bring one that, in his home country, would probably be at least leading a team and making them a whole lot more competitive, while the lack of said programmer here makes his firm less competitive.
Make the salary requirements for H1-Bs more stringent, and facilitate the Green Card process, and you'll have a far healthier system than we currently have, where not only are H1-B hitting the cap every year, but there are tems, if not hundreds of thousands of H1-Bs that have applied for Green cards and wait in line over a decade, with a more limited ability to switch jobs looking for a better wage.
Re:did i read that right (Score:3, Informative)
And if they left, they would compete against qualified Americans from another country with a cheaper standard of living. Claiming that wages would go up if they left is forgetting the other side of the coin altogether.
I'd also argue that, outside of a few companies that have HR departments that are more than ready to exploit the weaknesses of the program, hiring an H1-B is such a hassle that you'll still pick a comparable American instead if the salary is remotely similar.
My two rupees ;-) (Score:2, Informative)
Why an American company would want to hire H1-B holders instead of citizens:
- Contractors are cheaper (No need for 401K, benefits etc etc)
- Contractors are easily expendable (If, Heavens forbid, we have another meltdown like 2008)
- The American company can plan inaccurately and dial the contractor workforce up or down based on budgets/company or project performance. You can basically tweak your bottom line by controlling the contractor cost. Its a luxury and has made people lazy and almost incapable of being able to accurately estimate work.
Sad truths:
- Not all H1-B visa holders are doing things which Americans themselves can't
- Many H1-B holders are poorly skilled (too bad there's no technical interview at the port of entry)
What America/ American companies can do:
- Some one mentioned 67.3% if Infosys revenues come from the NA region - care to check how much of that is from the B&FS space? Fix the Financial system. It is shamelessly bloated and is driving inflation for everyone else.
- The education system is too expensive & not being rigorous enough & is disconnected with industry. Where I go, not going to college (albeit lower standards on average) is not an option even for my maids kids (Yes, they can scrape through financially)
- Fact: The youth here that do go to college spend so much for it, have almost none of the issues we have to contend with in developing countries (comparitively speaking) & still don't produce enough per dollar to match us. Otherwise, why the hell wouldn't an American company hire an them instead of me?
Earlier generations Indians wanted to come to the US and probably settle down. In my case (and others in my generation), you can send me back. I'd be more than happy to go back to India and be with my family. The standard of living is not very different plus its my own country. I'm just here because my company sent me to do some work. And my company itself has better margins when I work from India, FYI. (Please note this discussion is NOT about offshoring work so I won't get into that)
H1B is specificly designed to replace US workers (Score:3, Informative)
A US company can hire an H1B even when a US worker is available. This happens all the time. US workers are frequently required to train their H1B replacements.
This has a very harsh "chilling effect" on aspiring tech workers. Why train for a job when you're just going to replaced by a cheaper H1B?