H1B visa growth signals recovery

[ChromeFoundry]

Source: The Economic Times of India

27 Jun 2010, 0455 hrs IST,Ishani Duttagupta,ET Bureau

There’s good news on the US work front. The number of work permit visa issuances in India has gone up and US authorities say they expect the numbers to continue rising during the fiscal year, with a 10% year-on-year growth in all categories of work permits.

The number of H1 visas issued in the year to June 25, 2010 stood at to 55,477, as compared to 55,050 in the same period for the previous year. Likewise, there has been an increase in L visas too, from 31,314 to 35,504 in the same period.

“We expect the rise to continue in the remaining months of this financial year. There was a bottoming out last year because of the economic downturn. But now there’s an upswing,” James W Herman, minister, counsellor for consular affairs at the US Embassy, told ET. In China too, there has been a sharp 30% increase in work permit visas. “The higher growth in China than India is probably because we issue shorter duration visas in China,” he added.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services now expects the quota for H1B visas for 2011 to get used up by August 2010 and the PhD and graduate students H1B quota to get filled up by the end of July 2010. For 2010, the H1B cap quota was filled up only in late December 2009.

For the first time in the financial year 2011, the H1B cap quota lasted for about eight months, signalling the economic downturn. In past years, they’ve always been filled up within days after applications started being accepted on April 1. Another interesting trend was that many Indian companies, which have traditionally been among the top users of US work permits, dropped out from that list. Big names include TCS, Infosys and Satyam.



Read more: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/features/the-sunday-et/business/H1B-visa-growth-signals-recovery/articleshow/6096661.cms

[Ruby the Liberal]

1. So does unemployment.

Color me unimpressed, nay, disgusted by this statistic.

[liberalmike27]

47. Fantastic

So they are issuing H1B visas, so workers from India and China can be insourced, to take jobs high tech Americans normally would be doing, for less money, just like Mexico.

Let us all celebrate the continued a-f*cking of the American worker, at all levels of competency. Way to go.

Um...why are we happy about this, here at DU? Saying we don't have enough, is BS. This is just another way to drive down salaries of upper-class Americans, just like Brining Mexicans in to do construction labor.

[xchrom]

2. I thought we had something three years worth of grads

Finding it hard to get placed in jobs?

Something isn't adding up.
We have states double digit unemployment.
Not all of those folk are unskilled.

[stray cat]

4. How many of them are engineers or physicists or PhD level scientists?

Americans have gone into business and not sciences - they want a perceived fast buck with less work or training

[OhioChick]

7. Sure American kids are going into the sciences.....

College enrollment in computer science, engineering on the rise


http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009-03-17-engineering-computer-enrollment_N.htm

[superconnected]

41. That person is being an idiot or they're working for an H1B recriuiting firm.

Since I work with mostly people on H1-B visas right now, I can tell you that NONE of them are physicists or scientists, etc. They're all normal computer people - programmers, data base administrators, server admins etc. All of the American's who were doing those jobs got laid off and replaced by these H1-B's. And that's the story at nearly all large companies now a days.

The idea that 99% of the H1-B's are anything other than average jobs Americans are going to college for, is a lie.

[amandabeech]

8. Business currently pays better than science.

That wasn't the case not too long ago. Before H1B abuse.

Bringing in more and more H1Bs, who work for less and don't have student loans, will depress the number of U.S. kids who go into science and technology. They have to eat and pay back the loans.

Oh, and it doesn't hurt that U.S. companies here have forced their U.S. employees to train their H1B replacements.

News like this will only discourage more kids from sticking in with science.

Maybe they'll want to read a book a week for each class and turn out at least four major papers a semester instead. It's just too easy!

[aggiesal]

29. " ... train their H1B Replacements. ..."

That's illegal.
The only way a company can get an H1B engineer is to prove
there isn't a US engineer that can do the job.

If you have to train your H1B replacement, you can do the
H1B engineers job.

This is the kind of abuse that needs to be reported to SOMEONE.

[amandabeech]

34. A lot of the way the H1B program works in practice is illegal.

Your replacement will do it, and often not as well, for less.

From what I've seen, workers don't want to be blackballed, lawyers are expensive, and people are just totally demoralized.

The cheap labor crowd seems to win them all.

I encourage people to speak out. Today, what do they have to lose? A job at Pizza Hut?

I expect that there are a lot of people who will read your post, and maybe you have given some of them courage to report abuse.

Thank you very much for your response!

[aggiesal]

38. Unfortunately, I don't know who to ...

report the abuse to.

A lot of communities are getting tired of their citizens going on unemployment.
Here in San Diego, the city is considering stripping companies of their tax breaks
if companies continue to outsource or in-source using H1B's.

It's a start.

[amandabeech]

46. That's an excellent start.

If the feds do nothing, people will take matters into their own hands, often to the consternation of lots of people here on DU.

I'd start with the U.S. Department of Labor, and keep at it until you find the right agency.

On EDIT--I'd also call ICE-immigraion. These are visa matters.

[MindPilot]

62. Hypocritical that while San Diego would consider penalizing businesses

the city itself is outsourcing its own IT functions to an India-based company.

[aggiesal]

71. Are you sure?

I thought it was San Diego County that was outsourcing it's IT department.

[amandabeech]

68. Please see my new post #67 for a better idea of where to start. n/t

[superconnected]

42. Who? I see it at every company I work for. WHO DO I REPORT IT TOO?

[amandabeech]

67. I did a quick web search a little while ago, and this is what I found.

It looks like the U.S. Department of Labor may be the best place to start. Yesterday, I thought the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcment division of the Department of Homeland Security) might be a good place to look, too, but after my search, I think that the Department of Labor is the place to start.

It looks like two divisions of the DOL are involved in the H1B program. They are the Wage and Hour Division and the Department of Foreign Labor Certification. I'm not so good at imbedding links here, but Google "United States Department of Labor". When at the website, use their internal search function to look for H1B or the divisions that I have suggested.

I'm not saying that I've located the exact folks that you need to talk to, but I think that if you're persistent with these two DOL divisions, you will get your answer.

[superconnected]

40. PLEASE OPEN YOUR EYES

The average person here on visa is not a doctor or physicist. They are in normal programming, computer or networking jobs and have replaced American's who were doing the job just fine. I know this first hand as 3/4th of my office are people from India on work visa that replaced the Americans doing those jobs. They're CHEAPER.

[aggiesal]

54. H1B's can only ...

apply to technical positions, as I understand it.

If you're seeing it at you're company I say report it. 75% is a huge number. I can't believe the gov't can approve visa at this rate.

[Owl]

3. Just Say NO to H1B visa's.

[stray cat]

6. Thats one way to shut down nuclear power plants and anything requiring engineering expertise

[seabeckind]

11. That's bullsh!t also

We have engineering grads in this country who can't get a job. We have journeyman engineers who can't get a job.

For crissake, our people wrote the dam manual that these people read.

[Lost4words]

19. what a load of garbage that is.

[scentopine]

23. LOL! - I remember my engineering family going to India

to solve infrastructure problems because they had almost zero engineers. We have great engineers in this country. H1Bs are not subject to the same labor regulations as US employees. They are treated like indentured servants. They keep their mouths shut and tell their bosses what they want to hear even as bad technical decision ruin a company. Jsut one bad move and they are back to India.

You do get what you pay for however, Quality of work is still very low. That will change over time as Fortune 500 is outspending municipal school budgets training low skill labor in India. Fortune 500 see a bonanza in exploiting low skill, unregulated labor markets in Asia.

I know technology s/w and h/w inside and out. There is no truth to your assertions. What keeps more people from entering engineering school is the inflation of tuition, the outsourcing and the constant, erosion of benefits, lay-offs. Who the hell wants to spend $100K on tuition, work their asses off for top grades only kto find themselves out of work to a guy in Bangalore making $7/Hr whose first real experience with a computer came at age 24?

Having said that there is no shortage of engineers. There is a shortage of engineers willing to work for $7/Hr.

I just put an ad for engineers, got so many replies - I'm overwhelmed. I can barely bring myself to look through so many skilled people out of work. I feel like I want to throw up.

Our country can't do anything anymore. Wall Street's greed and indifference to the social costs for their behavior our rapidly bleeding every last bit of intellectual property out of the USA and selling it to Asia for pennies on the dollar.

Until we stop voting for centrist democrats who only represent the rich, we will continue the deep slide into economic hell.

[girl gone mad]

44. You are right, there is absolutely no shortage of scientists or engineers in this country.

Quite the opposite.

http://www.miller-mccune.com/science/the-real-science-gap-16191/

[InfiniteThoughts]

55. please stop sterotyping ....

I am not for unfettered H1B program but some of your statements are just plain old stereotypes. Most Indians (at least these days!) have access to computers at a very early age. I recently visited a village in rural India and their computer center was one of the only 3 places in the village that had 24 hour power access (the others were religious centers).

The second stereotype that i encounter in these discussions is that of quality. In a lot of my experience, i have seen that quality is a function of hunger for learning than anything else. I have seen a lot of poor resources, right from MIT PhDs who were pathetic to Indian Tier-II/Tier-III engg college grads who weren't any better! On the flip side, i have seen a great number of indian & US engineers. The best of indian enggs were no worse than the best of US guys!

Let's stay focused on the issue of unemployment rather than bash a group! H1B visas need massive rethinking but the bigger issue that needs resolution is medium to high paying manufacturing jobs!

[OhioChick]

61. Quote:

"the bigger issue that needs resolution is medium to high paying manufacturing jobs!"

You are joking, right? BOTH sectors need "resolution." Why throw the US techies under the bus?

Why is it acceptable to post about "cheaply made Chinese shit" yet it's "stereotyping" to talk about poorly written code coming out of India? Seems to be a double standard.

[ChromeFoundry]

63. first hand XP is not stereotyping

Accusing someone of stereotyping and then using broad-brushed statements like, "Most Indians have access to computers at a very early age." without any citation from a real source is rather pointless.

If you visited a village in India, where the computer center was one of three places that had 24-hour power... I'm guessing that most of the people that live in that village do not own their own computers, have broadband access, etc... I'm guessing not a lot of young hobbyists are learning how to program like they are here in the US... I noticed the other two places with a 24-hr power access were not schools. Does this environment really promote the next wave of, "the best and the brightest?" Kind of hard to to feed that "hunger for learning" if they have no infrastructure to service those needs.

Let's stay focused on the issue of unemployment rather than bash a group! H1B visas need massive rethinking but the bigger issue that needs resolution is medium to high paying manufacturing jobs!

Medium to high paying manufacturing jobs have taken up residence in China; didn't you get that memo? Tech work has now taken up residence in India, didn't you see that other memo?

If you want to focus on fixing unemployment then there is a solution.

1) inform people, like yourself, on the actual issues so they stop with the horse-blinder & Cliff notes solutions.
2) repeal the so-called free trade agreements.
3) repeal tax-breaks for companies that offshore jobs.
4) place the entire H-1b program under a cessation (until it completely rewritten and no longer used as a tool to stimulate short-term profits).
5) stop the influx of illegal immigration.

Problem solved.

[cosmicone]

69. Applause n/t

[OhioChick]

58. You're absolutely right. n/t

[MadHound]

32. Well you apparently don't know anything about nuclear power plants

I do, I worked at one. Most of the plant engineers, HP's and techs, the folks who run the reactor come out of the military, Navy specifically. Spend a few years running a nuclear plant at sea, you can run anything on land.

[superconnected]

43. What friggen BS. Are you and H1-b recruiter or someone on H1B visa?

[OhioChick]

5. What horse shit. n/t

[seabeckind]

9. Ditto on that

Tired of having smoke blown up my ass.

They can take this H1B staistic and shove it. F' these people. Experts my ass.

Meanwhile I can't get any customer support from somebody inside this country.

[aggiesal]

17. I agree. What horse $hit ...

I've been complaining about H1B visas since before I became unemployed.
In San Diego, I call the Qualcomm campus "Little Calcutta". I'm not trying
to sound racist, because I've been accused of that, but there are Indian
engineers everywhere. San Diego has a section of the city known as
Little Italy, and that's not considered racist.

Qualcomm I feel abuses the system more than any other SD company.
They place an ad in the Podunk Times in the middle of Nowheresville
and when no engineer applies for the position, oh well, we'll just
hire an H1B engineer.

I read a statistic stating that there are more US engineers on
unemployment then there are H1B engineers.
That means you can kick out all the H1B engineers, hire US engineers
to fill their positions, and you would still have US engineers on
unemployment.

I believe that the number of H1B's should be tied to the unemployment
rate. The higher the unemployment rate, the fewer H1B visas. The lower
the unemployment rate, the higher the H1B visas.

[OhioChick]

20. Quote:

"I read a statistic stating that there are more US engineers on
unemployment then there are H1B engineers."

Right you are!


U.S.: H-1B workers outnumber unemployed techies

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9133529/U.S._H_1B_workers_outnumber_unemployed_techies

[aggiesal]

27. Thanks,

The article stated the opposite.
There are more H1B engineers then there are
US engineers on unemployment.

In this case, all US engineers can be employed and
companies can still get a limited number of H1B engineers.

It's still pretty disgusting.

Again thanks, for the article.

[IndianaGreen]

30. Jobs for them, not for us!

To the American worker, this is still the jobless recovery!

[radhika]

10. Gee, what if US-based companies are forced...

to simply hired intelligent, well-trained Americans. HITLER!!!!

[seabeckind]

12. I think that's how it's supposed to work

They do an extensive search domestically for any qualified person before they do the visa.

right.

[pundaint]

36. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. More like will anybody do this job for $20/hr.

[ChromeFoundry]

13. Umm, gee let me think...

The United States would be more self sufficient an less reliant on paying the lowest possible wage to workers to fill their deep greedy pockets... More kids would actually be able to afford higher education, knowing that they would actually be able to find a job after graduation. The United States would increase exports rather than imports. Call me crazy, but isn't the job of our government to build this union of the people, for the people, by the people? Oh wait, companies are now people too...

Let me try and understand your logic...
"US Companies forced to hire US workers" = "Hitler"

Ok, I have no clue what that is supposed to mean.

[Demeter]

14. Recovery for India, Maybe

[zogofzorkon]

18. And for each H1B visa another American unemployed, another

lowering of pay, another increase in work load, another your lucky you got a job management attitude, another step closer to serfdom. It brings the same benefits to tech, engineering and PhD job markets that union busting, outsourcing the hiring of undocumented workers has brought to blue collar job seekers.
But yes it does lift an Indian national to the middle caste in his country.

[w4rma]

15. Recovery for India, maybe. It singles deeper depression for the U.S., however. (nt)

[DesertFlower]

16. the people from india are smart,

educated and hard working. corporations take advantage of them. they're paid less than half of what american workers are paid.

they usually rent an apartment which is shared by 4-6 people. they buy one used car and share it.

they live in apartments across the street from a certain corporation. they go home for lunch.

the money they save is usually sent back home to help the family.

it's good for them and good for the corporations, but bad for the american worker.

[Greyhound]

28. The people from India are just like the people here; most of them suck, a lot are competent,

and a very few are brilliant, but that is beside the point.

The H-1(b) visa workers suppress wages, increase job insecurity, and ensure that those that are not laid off keep their mouths shut and do whatever they are told, legal, moral, or otherwise.

[DesertFlower]

35. yep. i think many of them work 12 hour days.

they don't complain.

[amandabeech]

49. Are you saying that 12 hour days are a good thing?

Twelve hour days kill family life and communities. Kill those, and the country is not far behind.

[DesertFlower]

70. no. i'm saying that the H1B workers

don't have a choice.

i worked many 12 hour days, but i was well paid for doing it. it was my choice.

why are you looking for an argument?

[Heywood J]

21. We're using H1B visas as an indicator of economic recovery?

That's bullshit - H1Bs are an indicator of further economic decline when unemployment is above a few percent!

[IndianaGreen]

59. They are grasping at straws

anything that can be trumpeted as good news will be used.

[OhioChick]

60. No shit....

This is getting ridiculous already.

[droidamus2]

22. I don't understand

So what they had a recession in India too so now that we are hiring more of their people instead of training and hiring our own people we are helping end that recession. If you want to help the economy in the United States hire and train American citizens. It is so frustrating when you are within months of going under financially to see these asses hiring people from India to do the same jobs you can't get hired for. I am an IT worker with a college degree and 15+ years experience but need a chance to get some practical experience and maybe a little more training in the current platforms but I am lucky to even get an interview (I have managed to get some training and done a lot of reading up on and training myself in the new systems but without job experience and the fact that I will soon turn 56 it is all but impossible to get an IT job).

[earthboundmisfit]

26. Just turned 57 and in the same boat

Coming up on my second year now - unemployment ended, contract temp jobs all that seem to be out there, IF you can get one of 'em to tide you over for a few weeks/months...

[ramapo]

31. It is impossible to understand such a FU'd policy

I've been in IT for 20+ years. I've seen countless jobs go to India or be replaced by H1B holders. It is absolutely criminal. I was actually trained by an American company and went on to have a good career. Those days are long gone. The H1B program disgusts me and every president since Clinton has the stink of it. It is profoundly disappointing that Obama is on board. How we can allow any American jobs go to non-citizens in this time of unemployment is just beyond me.

[scentopine]

24. Geithner and Obama promise to bail out India...

Here you go...

Geithner also said that the administration of Barack Obama, President, would not seek to curb the investments of U.S. companies overseas as "our fortunes are tied with the world". There have been proposals to trim the tax privileges of U.S. companies that operate internationally. "We are not going to go down that path," promised Geithner. We know that it would make us weaker, not stronger."

http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/We_will_block_protectionism_Geithner_assures_India_-nid-66937.html


Yeah - it will make the CEOs weaker and American worker stronger. Can't have that. Jesus, American worker is the enemy of democrats and republicans.

[OhioChick]

25. "American worker is the enemy of democrats and republicans."

Can't argue with that, you're absolutely right.

[superconnected]

39. European countries demand that though - Germany is really strict with companies that hire foreign

labor - the jobs have to go away if German companies lay people off, too. Those jobs aren't allowed to be replaced by foreigners on visa like the standard procedure is here.

[amandabeech]

50. And the German economy is in good shape.

Folks in D.C. might want to check that out. Timmy, the guy in the Oval Office, and our esteemed, but defeatist, Veep can go first.

[muntrv]

33. For India, that is. Meanwhile, I have a friend who works at Meijers

and tells me 2 of his co-workers used to be electrical engineers who got laid off.

[superconnected]

37. Okay, yesterday I walked through the building I work in, in Redmond WA, not Microsoft but another

large company you would know the name of.

3 of 4 people there were on work visa - most from India.

That's how it's been most of the 2000's though.

Do American's know that when you walk through office buildings in America now a days that up to 3 out of 4 people are on visa from India? When I worked at Microsoft it was far worse but then their majority was from India, Bulgaria, Romania and other places.

I've had a lot of jobs in the last 10 years - all in offices, all with major companies, and I've seen hundreds of Americans laid off and replaced with people on visa from India. I saw that twice at my current job where whole departments were laid off and replaced by people on visas from India.

The work visas are way way way abused. Nearly all of my friends who worked in high tech can't get jobs now. I don't remember when it became legal to lay people off when their jobs weren't going away but that's the way it is now. It's too blatant to ignore.

I asked my coworker - who is on work visa from India what it's like working in India and he told me that after college he came to America on work visa and has never had a job in India before. He's always worked here. I asked him that last week. True story. He just hit 30.

[scentopine]

45. As US citizen, I've been a minority worker for last 10 years, you

have no idea what it is like. The ethics and standards of conduct are lowering to third world. I'm in a huge company - employees clean their own offices, empty our own waste baskets, etc. One of our H1Bs was proud to suggest that we could clean bathrooms every other day to save even more money.

Um, trust me, if you aren't building and selling great products, it isn't because you are spending too much money cleaning the bathrooms.

I'd like to take every fucking MBA and send them on a ship to India. Let them fuck up India. They've done enough damage here.

[superconnected]

48. I agree - companies are cheaper than ever now.

[amandabeech]

51. I like your plan! n/t

[Hugin]

64. The key word here is "Replaced"... H1Bs should never "replace" anyone.

They should only be used sparingly to "supplement".

However, as we all know... The program is being grievously misused and exploited... for profit... Just like most everything else.

[2Design]

52. growth for india but not workers

[Confusious]

53. Great. Sounds like I'm Fcked.

[ixion]

56. No, it does not. It signals more trouble.

More unemployment and lower wages for US tech workers.

[fasttense]

57. Thank Bill Gates. He loves those visa workers.

American workers are on unemployment lines, in breadlines, working at McDonald's and Wal-Mart for minimum wage, minimum hours and no health benefits. While visa workers from India and China scrub toilets and program computers.

Ain't corporate controlled America grand?

[andym]

65. How much less are the H1B visa engineers/scientists being paid?

Is there clear documentation with current data?
It would be helpful to mention these figures whenever this comes up.

[OhioChick]

66. "H-1B visa holders are paid less than US counterparts "

H-1B visa holders are paid less than US counterparts

http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/nm16/H-1B-visa-holders-paid-less-in-US/Article1-147259.aspx

There's one for starters....