H-1B labor arbitrage 20% increase each year!

[Robert Oak]

I wrote a diary on dailykos on the drastic increases and labor arbitrage aspects on the H-1B visa currently in the Senate, S.2611
Specter cheap labor fest bill.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/5/23/115858/162

[NoAmericanTaliban]

1. Good info. At least there is a small victory for workers in the US

overall the the H1 visa program is just another way for corp. to reduce the cost of labor. Cannot believe that any dems are for this but then again Clinton was. The big lie is that they cannot find american workers to do these high tech jobs - where have I heard that before.

[ThinkTiM]

2. Not necessarily

I went through a H-1B process in the late 90s (currently I'm on a greencard) and must say that while sometimes you might be right, generally I think that it is quite expensive for employers to do it.

I came over from Australia and my employer paid:
- above-average wages for my position in the IT field
- initial costs for temporary accommodation
- a legal agency to run my green-card process for the 3-5 years (in my case 4 1/2) that it took to complete

Believe me, it would have been cheaper for them to hire somebody locally. Why did they do it? Because they had trouble finding qualified and experienced equivalents in the US. There was a shortage of IT people in the 90s and it sounds like many are expecting another shortage it the next 5 years or so.

[NoAmericanTaliban]

3. Welcome to DU. You make some good points and in the 90's

we had a dot com boom - employers were paying good money and even offering incentives such as cars, 3 to 4 weeks vacation, free food, etc. - to recruit employees. (Those were the good ol days) There were plenty of US IT graduates from college & certificate programs, but the boom was growing at a bigger rate than the graduates. The caps for the H1 visa programs were increased to 260k or more per year & then went back to the pre-boom era to about 65k per year. Once the bubble burst the wages went down & are still down. There is some slight wage pressure now & that is why the corps want to increase the cap, not because the economy is booming and there aren't enough graduates in the US. And if there aren't enough graduates then shouldn't the corps invest in schools & offer student grants as a solution. Does Australia offer free college? A co-worker from India went to Australia to get a masters degree in CS. He liked it there a lot. I consider myself fortunate because I got my present job right before Bush got elected - so I tell myself that I got a Clinton salary in a Bush world & the companies hate it. :)

[Robert Oak]

4. Pascrell Bill

It wouldn't stop the program, just return it to it's original intent, which was to enable international talent which could not be located within the US to come here.

So, if you support the Pascrell Bill you won't be closing the door to how you immigrated...really more opening it to others who are exceptional...

odds are right now they aren't getting in simply because the H-1B has been hijacked as a labor arbitrage vehicle.