An H-1B jobs database the tech industry may hate

[OhioChick]

Just what does 'good faith' hiring mean?

May 8, 2013 06:00 AM ET

WASHINGTON -- Within the U.S. Senate's comprehensive immigration bill is a proposal to create a database that may shed new light on H-1B hiring.

The intent of the database is to help improve the odds that a U.S. worker may get hired over a foreign worker. But the bill's effectiveness may rise and fall on fuzzy concepts, such as "preference" and "good faith" hiring efforts, and its enforcement provisions. This is where the legislative battle may be fought.

There are a string of provisions in the Senate's bill its proponents say are intended to help U.S. workers. One is a requirement for the government to create a national database of jobs that employers want to fill with H-1B workers. U.S. workers will be able to apply for those jobs, which will be posted for 30 days. Employers are also barred "from recruiting or giving preference" to visa workers over U.S. workers.

The tech industry is concerned that the immigration bill's recruitment and database provisions may extend the amount of time needed to hire an H-1B worker and, more broadly, increase the risk of litigation and government oversight.

More: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9239002/An_H_1B_jobs_database_the_tech_industry_may_hate

[SharonAnn]

1. It may "extend" the amount of time to hire an H1-B worker? That's the whole point of it.

And increase the risk of litigation and government oversight? Well, if they're not doing anything wrong, they won't need to worry, will they?

Sheesh, what a bunch of crooks. I'm retired from the IT business and I've watched how this has been manipulated and how many IT workers in the U.S. are either unemployed or underemployed.

If there really was a shortage of IT talent in the U.S., then wages would have been going up. They haven't, because there isn't a shortage. The companies just want cheaper labor.

[Addison]

2. The Tech industry wants cheap labor

And there are plenty of wacky ideas cooking to avoid paying American tech workers when overseas workers can be hired much cheaper . . .

From the La Times:

PALO ALTO — Even here in the world capital of far-fetched ideas, this one is more outlandish than most.

Two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, frustrated by the shortage of visas that keep some of the world's brightest science and engineering minds from building companies on dry land, have hatched a plan to build a start-up colony in the middle of the Pacific.

. . .

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/13/business/la-fi-high-seas-immigration-20130313