Vivek Wadhwa Shilling America

Date: Wednesday, February 12, 2003 1:49 PM

H-1B and JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

www.ZaZona.com

Vivek Wadhwa is a shill that somehow manages to parade himself as a
reporter and industry spokesman. He has an obvious self interest in
H-1B because he uses them to staff his company. It is gross negligence
for reporters to feature Vivek without also mentioning his own selfish
interest in furthering H-1B.

Vivek's writings usually extol the intellectual superiority of Indians
and are usually quite racist in content. He routinely denigrates
American workers. His drivel is typically printed in rags like
IndiaInfo.com but now it seems that he is somehow infiltrating our
mainstream American newspapers with the help of Will Edwards. This
article is appearing in various newspapers like for instance at:
http://www.iht.com/articles/85866.html

In January of 2002 Vivek was part of a group that advised President
Bush on the IT industry. His goal was to convince Bush to continue the
high levels of H-1B importation so that companies like his can exploit
cheap indentured foreign workers. Bush got his message while ignoring
the true victims of H-1B, the American workers that are being
displaced.

By doing a database search of Vivek's company Relativity, at
www.ZaZona.com/LCA-Data I found that Vivek hires computer programmers
for as low as $32,000. Is the cost of living in North Carolina really
that low?

Letters to the Editor can be sent to: opinion@charlotteobserver.com

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/5141049.htm

Posted on Sun, Feb. 09, 2003

Skilled immigrants bolster the work force

Willingness to hire foreign workers gives some countries a competitive
edge
WILL EDWARDS
Bloomberg News

CARY - The U.S. gave Vivek Wadhwa, a native of India, a chance in 1980.
More than two decades later, he's made his mark on its economy.

"I'm an example of what happens when you bring skilled workers into the
country," said Wadhwa, now 45 and a citizen.

"America is the world leader because we're an open society."

After coming to the U.S. on a work visa as a Xerox Corp. computer
programmer, he went on to create information systems for First Boston
Inc. that are still used by large companies including Charles Schwab
Corp.

Today, Wadhwa runs Relativity Technologies Inc., a software vendor in
Cary that employs 90 people at a time when 3.3 million Americans are
seeking work. The U.S. jobless rate in January was 5.7 percent.

Germany, Japan and other nations that haven't been as receptive to
young, skilled immigrants may lose competitive ground as their
populations age and more jobs go unfilled, economists said. That means
higher labor costs for companies and increasing tax burdens on
individuals.

Immigrants accounted for almost half the rise in the U.S. labor force
from 1996 to 2000 and helped slow the rise in the average age.

"We have to seriously consider accepting foreigners," said Hiroshi
Okuda, chairman of Toyota Motor Corp., Japan's largest automaker. He is
also chairman of the Keidanren, or Japan Business Federation.
"Considering the needs of the nation, the door still isn't open
enough."

Time is the enemy. For nations in Europe and Asia, plunging fertility
rates mean their populations will age faster, creating the greatest
need for replacement labor.

While the median age of the world's population is set to rise from 26.5
years in 2000 to 36.2 years in 2050, Japan's will rise by even more,
from 41.2 to 53.1, according to projections by the United Nations.

Japan's population of 126.7 million is about two-fifths of the U.S. and
includes a smaller percentage of foreign-born residents. Japan had 1.69
million registered foreigners at the end of 2000, according to its
Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The U.S., with a population of 290
million, had about 28.4 million legal and illegal foreign-born people
in the 2000 Census. Some 13.2 million arrived between 1990 and 2000.

In Europe, the median age is forecast to rise from 37.7 to 49.5, as
fertility rates there continue to drop. Immigration would help blunt
the impact of the aging on national economies because immigrants tend
to be younger and more mobile than native-born populations, economists
said.

Jobs left unfilled

"This is the first time since the Industrial Revolution that these
countries have had to manage secular declines in population," said
Richard Cooper, international economics professor at Harvard
University. .In Europe, net migration into the 15 nations that comprise
the European Union fell from 5.2 million in the first half of the last
decade to 3.0 million in the second.

"If Europe wants to remain a rich region with growth potential, it
needs to attract skilled immigrants, especially with the current
demographic pressures," said Yves Gassot, head of Montpellier,
France-based Idate, a telecom/tech research firm.

In an attempt to fill more than 1 million skilled-job vacancies in
Germany, which is already home to more than 7 million foreign
residents, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder pushed a bill through the
Bundesrat last March that would have granted permanent residence to
skilled foreign workers. Germany's highest court in December ruled its
passage was illegal.

Pushing up wages

Labor scarcity tends to push up labor prices over the long run. That in
turn reduces companies' demand for workers and boosts unemployment
levels among young people. It constricts the tax base for
government-sponsored pensions and raises the tax burdens on individuals
and businesses.

While lower-skilled immigrants have been shown to take jobs away from
native-born workers, those in medium- to high-skilled occupations
complement the labor force, causing wages to rise, according to a
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta working paper.

Imagine a doctor's office where the addition of a new specialist adds
to the practice, making it able to draw more clients.

Of course, American companies aren't focused only on attracting
immigrants into their work forces. In many cases, they are sending jobs
overseas.

To cut costs, Charlotte's Bank of America plans to outsource up to 5
percent of 21,000 technology and operations jobs overseas. The bank has
contracts with India technology giants Tata Consultancy Services and
Infosys.

Certain grads are scarce

As was the case with Relativity's Wadhwa, higher-skilled immigrants can
also help entrepreneurship flourish. Chinese and Indian engineers were
running a quarter of Silicon Valley's high-tech businesses in 1998,
accounting for more than $16.8 billion in sales and more than 58,000
jobs, a 1999 study by the Public Policy Institute of California
found.Dallas-based Texas Instruments Inc., the world's biggest maker of
chips for cellular telephones, "would be less competitive" without its
foreign-born workers, said Dan Larson, TI's government relations
director.

Electronic engineering graduates, on whom the company depends to design
and make semiconductor chips, have been steadily declining in the U.S.
at "alarming rates," he said. Since peaking at about 25,000 in 1987,
their numbers have been cut in half.

To fill its needs, the company brings in workers from around the world
on temporary work visas.

Keeping older workers

Economists and demographers point out that immigration is only one part
of the solution to the world's aging work force. Even with
immigration's gains in the U.S., for example, the median age is still
projected to rise from 35.5 to 40.7 over the next 50 years, according
to U.N. forecasts.

By 2012, U.S. employers will be 6 million short of the 18 million new
college graduates needed to fill jobs and replace retirees, the
Employment Policy Foundation projected in August.

Convincing older employees to stay on the job longer and drawing more
women into the work force would also help, they said.

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