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."
why? (Score:3, Interesting)
And why does it make sense to tax legal immigration to fight illegal immigration? As if legal immigration causes illegal...
Re:did i read that right (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Nothing to do with Intel or Microsoft? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Every Infosys site I have been on has been 99% India citizen staffed. When they go back to their country for personal reason like marriage or death another one flies over and takes their place. Maybe 2% of US citizens is all I have ever seen in any department run by them.
Talk about Cliques
You are right (Score:5, Interesting)
This is just spin to try and make MS look like the bad guys getting special treatment. The reality of the situation is that if companies hire a majority of American (meaning either citizen or resident alien) employees then they don't pay the extra fee. MS and Intel were noted in the article as tow companies that "play by the rules" and hire a majority of American workers, but they were not given special dispensation.
My guess is the logic is twofold:
1) It is to help protect American jobs and encourage companies to hire local. After all if it costs more to hire H-1B employees, then it is not as attractive a proposition.
2) To derive the funding for the measure from a relevant source. The measure deals with immigration, so companies that bring in the most immigrants get to shoulder the burden. While it isn't a direct thing (since the bill is about southern border security) it is still related.
Re:Nothing to do with Intel or Microsoft? (Score:3, Interesting)
The submission is from theodp... what did you expect, an anti-Amazon patent rant?
Do these H1-B stay in the US (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:why? (Score:3, Interesting)
What else is Chucky Schumer to do?
In an election year, the voters have three priorities: jobs, borders, and deficits.
Like any good Democrat he knows that you can't tax the illegal immigrants: they are already poor, and you will piss off many liberals.
You also you can't tax regular citizens because they might vote you out!
But by taxing work visas it looks like you are creating more jobs for Americans, while funding the borders, while reducing the deficit! Killing three birds with one stone!
Re:Nothing to do with Intel or Microsoft? (Score:4, Interesting)
FTFS: ``The Senate measure increases H-1B visa fees by $2,000 per application on firms that have 50% or more of their employees on this visa.''
And Microsoft and Intel evidently are below this 50% limit. As far as I can tell, this isn't Microsoft and Intel "getting a pass", as the title states. No company is being singled out here. It doesn't matter who you are, what matters if you have 50% or more of your employees on H-1B visa.
You must not be from america..... Or you failed you high school civics class. Of course it's worded this way, if it said the specific companies that didn't get taxed it would be a bill of attainder. The question is who it targets, 50% sounds like a round number, but you would be surprised at how many people probably lobbied to get it set that high. A good question is which companies would have been hit if it was set to 25% or 75%.
Protectionism by another name (Score:3, Interesting)
This is just protectionism - why shouldn't American companies be able to hire whoever they want?
Re:did i read that right (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, it's just an incredibly huge bonus for them if they can hire the person really cheap [vs hiring a non-import].
If indeed, Microsoft and Intel are following the rules, they must pay AT LEAST the average wage in the local area, so they're not going to save all that much. Abusers don't follow that rule, they "report" that they pay the average or more, but then don't pay that amount to their H-1B employee aka Slave labor. However, one could argue that the companies can get top rung foreigners for average US worker prices, thus are really underpaying the foreigners.
Who needs H1Bs anymore? (Score:4, Interesting)
I would say that any H1B in this economy is pretty frustrating if just based on perception (and perception tends to be reality...); I guess I just don't believe there aren't enough American workers to do those jobs.
Open World (Score:1, Interesting)
There is, and that is when the whole world gets to a standard above 1$/day. Artificially limiting where people can work and travel solely based on where they were born is quite a medieval practice that we have yet to get rid of. Globalization is all about more goods moving around then people. The reason you get cheap labour intensive goods such as Tuna, Rice, Coffee etc is because millions of people are artificially forced to live in unlivable conditions because they can otherwise do nothing or cant go anywhere else.
If your skillset is such that other people can compete easily then distinguish yourself, don't just advocate the medieval practice of limiting people's freedom of movement.
An open world is a world where goods and services are more fairly priced, not underpriced (third world goods) nor overpriced (certain first world goods, such as medicines). It is a world where 6 billion people can be as productive as the 1 billion in the western world. It would be amazing to live in such a productive world.
Re:did i read that right (Score:1, Interesting)
Ah the old cheap myth. So, as a recipient of an H1B this year from MS (hence posting anon *grin*) my situation is as follows.
There's nothing cheap about hiring an H1B, at least not the way MS do it. Now the likes of InfoSys, sure, they bring over lots of people, with little benefits and set them up 4-10 to a house. That's pretty scummy, especially as they're viewed as cheap labor. MS have already started the green card process on my behalf - they're treating me like a permanent member of staff and will do what it takes to keep me.
Decry MS's business practices all you like, or the software quality, but one thing they don't do, or at least didn't where I was concerned, was use an H1B as a way of getting cheap talent.
Re:Open World (Score:5, Interesting)
So if you went to school to become a nurse, but now the employers are importing them the Philippines, you should go back to school to become what, a programmer? After figuring out employers are just importing programmers, what do you, go back to school to become an accountant? But that won't be safe either. Maybe the only good thing to train for is college professor.
In the medieval system you advocate, the middle class disappears because there is no hope for having a middle class job. Some few people become super-rich, and most Americans become poorer and poorer until we look any third world country. In essence, you say we should give up 70 or 80% of our income so we can become a poor unstable country with all chaos that goes with that. I think it is a bad deal for us. Yeah, selfish, but when did it become our duty to impoverish ourselves?
If you're going to have immigrants; (Score:3, Interesting)
It strikes me that the "problem" is how to keep and feed huge numbers of US citizens that are not in this league professionally. The problem to my mind is not so much that there are only so many highly-skilled tech jobs around as that there are fewer and fewer productive things for people that lack high-end skills to do. If we are looking for a way to fully employ America and maintain a strong middle class (ie, what passes for socialism here) then we need to look for solutions for Americans in the bottom 50% of qualification and not worry about a few thousand high-end earners.
For the bottom 50%, H1Bs look like a winning proposition to me because they assume their burden of the tax base.