three good commentaries on H-1B
three good commentaries on H-1B
Date: Saturday, September 06, 2008 5:40 PM
<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1912 -- 9/06/2008 >>>>>
The organization Californians For Population Stabilization (CAPS) mailed the
first article to all their memebers. Don't be fooled by their name because
they have members all over the USA. CAPS tackles a wide variety of immigration
issues including H-1B. Check out their home page because they often have new
articles and blog commentaries. Be sure to check out their new videos that are
being broadcast on select TV stations.
The CAPS home page is at:
http://www.capsweb.org/content.php?id=430&menu_id=8#
The next two commentaries are quite interesting. It's seems the author got a
lot of feedback after he wrote the first one.
http://www.capsweb.org/content.php?id=430&menu_id=8#
First Came the 'Jobs Americans Won't Do'... Now It s the 'Jobs Americans
Aren't Smart Enough to Do'
http://xeniagazette.1upmonitor.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=160570&SectionID=17&SubSectionID=452&S=1
A STEM Shortage?
http://xeniagazette.1upmonitor.com/main.asp?SectionID=17&SubSectionID=452&ArticleID=160748&TM=84531.02
The STEM Shortage -- one more time
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http://www.capsweb.org/content.php?id=430&menu_id=8#
First Came the 'Jobs Americans Won't Do'... Now It s the 'Jobs Americans
Aren't Smart Enough to Do'
Californians For Population Stabilization by Maria Fotopoulos, CAPS Writing
Fellow
When Bill Gates testified on Capitol Hill this spring, he said American
business needs more foreign workers. Gates said, ideally, he would prefer no
cap on the number that could be brought in to work in the United States.
Microsoft is reported to have about 4,000 employees for whom it is now working
to obtain permanent residency.
There are numerous work-related visas that are used to bring in foreign
workers, and U.S. businesses are clamoring for even more of those workers,
many lobbying under Gates vision of no limits. The visa getting much
attention -- and what Gates was arguing for unlimited access to -- is the H-
1B. Theoretically, it is used to bring in nonimmigrant foreign workers to fill
highly skilled professional slots in science, engineering, technology and
programming.
In actuality, applicants in recent years have ranged from companies seeking a
business communications specialist for an Oriental rug dealer in Los Angeles
at $17 an hour to a mortgage loan officer for an annual salary of $39,000 in
San Francisco. Immigration attorney Angelo Paparelli, who also is president of
the Alliance of Business Immigration Lawyers, says he sees H-1B requests for
"virtually every professional classification and every size business."
WHO WANTS AN H-1B?
Accenture, Bank of America, Barclays Global Investments, Booz Allen Hamilton,
The Boston Consulting Group, Charles Schwab & Company Inc., Cisco Systems,
Deloitte Consulting, Ernst & Young, The Gap, Goldman Sachs, Google, IBM, J.P.
Morgan Chase & Company, KPMG, McGraw-Hill Companies, Macromedia, Pacific Gas &
Electric Company, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Providian Financial Corporation,
Visa U.S.A., Wachovia and Wells Fargo have been among past applicants to the
H-1B visa program. They are among the highly recognizable brand names. There
are many other applicants that don t have the high recognition brand name. But
in total, there are many swimmers in the foreign labor pool.
As reported on CNN by Lou Dobbs, eight of the top 20 companies requesting H-1B
visas last year were based in India. "Those firms want to bring cheap labor
from India to the United States," Dobbs believes, "so they can outsource
middle class jobs to those workers here -- so they don t have to go to all
that trouble of sending them all the way to India."
Kim Berry, president of the Programmers Guild, notes that there is no
requirement that H-1B sponsors be U.S. citizens. Indians account for about
half of all H-1B visas issued. Thus the Indian consulting firms, which are
bringing in workers for low paying jobs through H-1Bs, can in turn further use
the system for green cards and a path to citizenship.
The H-1B visa program allows for the importation of 65,000 foreign workers
annually who have a bachelor s degree or equivalent and an additional 20,000
with advanced degrees from U.S. universities to work here on a temporary basis
up to six years (one three-year period with one three-year renewal).
Foreign workers who originally came to the United States as students factor
into the H-1B visa equation, as 13 percent end up remaining in the country.
These students have been able to stay in the country after graduation and work
on a student visa for a year -- now two and one-half years by way of recent
legislation -- then bridge to an H-1B visa, then file for a green card and
ultimately work towards permanent residency. Foreign-born students make up
more than 50 percent of graduates with advanced degrees in science and
engineering.
BY THE NUMBERS
The numbers allowed in under this employersponsored program have moved up and
down since the program was implemented in 1990 and have been as high as
195,000 in a year. Interestingly, the increase to 195,000 was for 2000, the
year dot-coms began melting down. Prior to that, Congress had increased the
65,000 limit to 115,000 starting in 1998 and running through 2004. Also since
2000, there has been no limit on the number of H-1Bs for universities and
nonprofit and government research facilities.
In recent years, demand for H-1Bs has been higher than supply. This year,
applications were received for nearly double the allotted number of visas.
The high number of applications notwithstanding, whether there truly is a need
for foreign workers is hotly debated. Immigration attorney Paparelli believes
the visas are "critically valuable," allowing "American companies to reach
business objectives without damaging the country or citizens." He says his
business clients are more than frustrated. "They can t fill the jobs."
While this is one side of the discussion, organizations including the
Programmers Guild say there is a large surplus of qualified U.S. tech workers
ready and willing to work. In May, total unemployment in the United States
stood at 8.5 million. Of that number, nearly 1.2 million were in job
categories used by financial, professional and business institutions.
DEMAND FOR H-1Bs GREATER THAN JOB CREATION
According to a recently published report by the Center for Immigration Studies
(CIS) and authored by John Miano, job creation was actually less than the
number of H-1B visas issued for computer workers in 2001, 2002 and 2005. The
same held true for engineers every year since 2001, writes Miano, who
concludes that the H-1B visa program has little linkage to job creation, but
rather serves as a delivery mechanism to bring more immigrants to the country.
In fact, his study for CIS says, "If current employment trends continue and
the H-1B quota remains unchanged, the United States will approve enough H-1B
visas for computer workers to fill about 79 percent of the computer jobs it
creates each year." Proposed legislation would bump up the number of H-1B
visas for computer workers to more than the number of computer jobs created
annually.
The discussion on increasing H-1Bs also is occurring against an overall grim
backdrop of limited job creation and failed education during the last eight
years. In June, California s unemployment rate jumped up to 6.9 percent.
Nationwide through May there was a loss of 124,000 jobs in the professional
and business category. Further, new figures from California s Department of
Education show that one-third of California s students are dropping out, while
the dropout numbers for the Los Angeles Unified School District -- previously
beyond shocking at 50 percent -- are now at 60 percent.
So while Rome burns, American business and government bring in mercenaries to
work, and not temporarily, but permanently. Yet, the social contract with the
country s citizenry is to provide excellent public education so that American
workers can compete for available jobs in their own country and not have to
compete with cheaper foreign labor. That contract was first eroded and then
broken by greed.
We are accepting the write-off of hundreds of thousands of American students
by taking what s become the money-saving route. This has been exacerbated by
the swamping of many of our previously exemplary public schools by more
difficult-to-educate English language learners, whose parents are imported for
the same reasons as computer programmers. Cheap labor at both ends of the
skill spectrum is now the focus of our elected officials, no matter to whom
the ultimate costs accrue.
Paparelli, from his legal vantage point, believes fixing our educational
system will take years. In the meantime, he believes America has benefited
from the visa program by being able to bring in bright and talented people
from abroad to create economic vitality and to lead to scientific innovations
and new products "we would never have without it."
FOREIGN BORN PERSPECTIVE
A native of Canada, Mike Murray came to the United States to work after
college and benefited from the dot-com boom, working in the Bay area and
Myrtle Beach before returning to Canada and then coming to the States again.
He found the amount of paperwork to be able to work here ridiculous.
"Effectively my home is here, but going back to Canada, I didn t know if I d
be able to get back to the United States."
The manager of information security professionals believes the old way is
broken and agrees with Gates that there should be no limits. Being familiar
with "every angle of this," says Murray, "there s a real advantage to bringing
in the best and the brightest." Murray says some of the most talented
engineers he s worked with have been on visas.
"If you can bring in highly talented people, you re increasing the tax base,"
says Murray. "Silicon Valley has been built on bringing the best and the
brightest from anywhere." Murray believes America is producing generalists
when the world isn t built on generalists anymore. "You can t know everything
anymore," he says.
"In this economy," Murray believes, "there may be only one or two people in
the world who have the specialty you need." As such, he believes a company has
to be able to go get the human resource it needs -- wherever that resource
resides. "To get the best computer programmers, there might only be 5,000 in
the world," he explains. "What are the chances that they ll all be in the
United States?"
THE MYTH OF THE HIGHLY SKILLED FOREIGN WORKER
The opponents of H-1Bs, however, see the importation of tens of thousands of
foreign workers differently.
While the line "the best and brightest" is overused in discussions about H-
1Bs, it s also misused Norman Matloff has found. He has written extensively
about the negative impacts of hiring foreign workers to fill jobs in computer
science in the United States and found that most of the foreign workers are
"people of just ordinary talent, doing ordinary work."
This includes those at most of the big tech players.
"Lawmakers are often dazzled by the idea that these people are working with
computers," according to Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center
for Immigration Studies, "but this is the post-industrial era, and an H-1B
worker today is not much different from a railroad worker of 100 years ago.
"This is just a cheap-labor program and another example of American
businessmen being against capitalism," says Krikorian.
CIS found that between 2001 and 2004, more than 400,000 Americans lost IT
jobs, while U.S. high-tech companies were bringing in more than 250,000 H-1B
workers. Entry level workers or trainees held half of these jobs, according to
CIS research.
Looked at another way, the flow of H-1B visa workers has similarities to the
flow of illegal aliens to work at low-wage jobs. Since H-1Bs often are used to
fill needs at the bottom of the professional job funnel, just like with
illegal aliens working the lower wage jobs in agriculture, hospitality and
construction, a continuing stream is needed to keep feeding the bottom demand.
This also means hiring younger foreign workers versus older, experienced
American workers.
This can be seen in the public accounting sector, which historically has had
an "up or out" approach to its staffing. Whereas in the past the firms
recruited accounting graduates who were American citizens, these entry level
professional positions are now increasingly filled with foreign born.
This is borne out through discussions with those working in the industry and
by looking at the number of users of the H-1B program that are accounting
firms.
The founder of two software companies, Vivek Wadhwa knows from experience that
H-1Bs are cheaper than domestic hires, and he s on the record saying that.
Numerous studies support the position that H-1B workers are paid lower wages
which drives down wages. For example, cheap foreign labor has driven down
hourly rates of U.S. consultants by an estimated 10 to 40 percent, according
to the Independent Computer Consultants Association. One study of 2004
salaries indicated Oracle paid its H-1B workers an average of $18,000 less
than the median U.S. wage.
"Staying competitive" really is code for lowering wages.
Basic economics would indicate if there is an existing supply of workers to
fill jobs and the supply is increased, with demand being constant, wages would
fall. In addition to functioning as a wage depressor, it can be argued that H-
1Bs put workers in a position of servitude, as they are not allowed to change
jobs without employer buy-in.
OVERSTAYING THE WELCOME
An estimated half of all illegal aliens came to the United States legally and
overstayed their visas. One California Web designer who has lived in the
country for several years now said he had done that and saw no problem with
doing so.
Such nonchalance is hardly surprising given America s longstanding failure to
enforce its immigration laws, a stance which has essentially served as a
looped broadcast to people across the border and across the world that if they
can figure out how to get here, they can likely make a home here. Pass go;
collect $200.
It s worth remembering that all of the 9/11 airplane hijackers were in the
United States legally, having come into the country on temporary visas.
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
Any "process" not thoroughly conceived can be gamed. Even when well conceived,
undoubtedly there are unintended consequences. H-1Bs are no exception.
A Department of Homeland Security report stated that an estimated 11 percent
of H-1B visa petitions are fraudulent, while a Department of Labor audit found
that 19 percent of H-1B workers were being paid salaries lower than what had
been promised by their employers on the filed labor application forms.
As well, numerous companies have had complaints filed against them for
recruiting specifically for H-1B visa holders. And the Portland Press
Herald/Maine Sunday Tribune conducted an investigative series on a shell
company set up to file fraudulent paperwork for foreign workers using the H-1B
program.
Most recently, the Associated Press reported that the country s largest
immigration law firm, Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, is being audited by
the Labor Department to determine if it aided its clients in disqualifying
American job applicants in favor of foreign workers. Among the firm s clients
are large corporations such as Bank of America and Intel.
CONCLUSION OVERPOPULATED AMERICA
Immigration -- both legal and illegal -- is out of control in the United
States. The country needs to call a timeout. At least 3 million people are
added to the country annually, with no end in sight. The current U.S.
population is 304 million, and projections indicate America will have a
population of 420 million by 2050. The majority of the country s growth is due
to immigration. Until achieving population stability, America cannot expect to
see a sustainable future.
While the H-1B visa is just one piece of the immigration puzzle, it does have
long-term impacts on both the economic direction and the population growth of
the country.
On the economic front, after first outsourcing jobs to other countries, it
appears business with its aggressive lobbying for more foreign workers is bent
on providing the remaining jobs to foreigners giving no preference to American
workers and even working to disqualify American workers from the job selection
process. It s theorized too that the H-1B is just one tool to help further
ensure the smooth offshoring of jobs. H-1B workers come in and learn a job and
then the job is sent offshore where the worker returns to fill it.
On the population front, a visa holder is likely to apply for a green card as
the clock starts to run out on the H-1B. So ultimately this program is adding
more permanent residents to the United States -- along with spouses, children
and the chain migration that can ensue. Assuming the majority of H-1B visa
holders remain in the country (versus the theory that they re being trained
and then returning to home countries), this policy has added as many as 1
million people to the country, and that excludes spouses, children, etc.
It has been proposed to increase the fee an employer pays for an H-1B visa
petition and put those funds towards scholarships for American students to
pursue studies in computer science, health care, math, science and technology.
That energy might be better directed to first reducing the number of H-1Bs and
assuring that those issued really are used to bring in the "best and the
brightest" at the top of their fields. Second, corporate America should expend
energy doing its part to reaffirm a commitment to citizens.
As University of California computer science professor Norman Matloff has
concluded, there s no shortage of qualified and skilled American workers
-- just too few employers willing to pay for talent and elected politicians
willing to do the right thing.
For more information, contact info@capsweb.org
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http://xeniagazette.1upmonitor.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=160570&SectionID=17&SubSectionID=452&S=1
Monday, August 11, 2008
A STEM Shortage?
By BILL TAYLOR
Monday, August 11, 2008
Part II
It seems to me that the claims of a shortage of Scientific, Technical,
Engineering, and Math (STEM) workers among our homegrown talent are nothing
more than balderdash and tommyrot to use old-fashioned polite terminology - or
just plain bald-faced lies to use more blunt jargon. There is overwhelming
evidence that the arguments that we don t produce enough STEM workers here in
the U.S. are a smoke screen to conceal the fact that companies are using the
H1B visa program to import cheap labor. These visas, which are issued in
response to business s petitions, are supposed to satisfy the demand for high
tech workers that cannot be met by our own citizens or legally resident
immigrant STEM professionals. But the truth is that there is no such shortage.
Let s start with one simple idea. When there is a shortage of something, that
is, the demand is greater than the supply, the cost of that commodity goes up
- if there is a greater supply than demand, the cost goes down. So if there is
now and has been a shortage of scientists and engineers, their salaries should
reflect that shortage by rising- right? Care to guess what has actually
happened? To quote from a study put out by the Urban Institute, " Research
finds that the real wages in S&E (scientific and
engineering) occupations declined over the past two decades and labor market
indications suggest little shortage." Oops! But what do other studies have to
say?
"Science Careers" reports the following, "(There is a) striking discrepancy
between the glutted market for early-career scientists and the numerous
prestigious reports calling for training and importing ever more scientists to
head off a looming shortage. Numerous labor-market experts have found no such
shortage ..." And as for the quality of our STEM folks? How about another
quote from a researcher? "Dozens of employers asked to compare American
engineers to their much-vaunted colleagues from India and China agreed that
in education, training, quality of work, you name it, in every which way,
Americans are better. Even the best schools in those countries don t hold a
candle to our best schools. "
OK, so maybe there isn t a real shortage and maybe our graduates outshine
those of other countries, but what about the report that, between 1995 and
2005, 25% of all start-up engineering and technology firms had at least one
foreign-born founder. Well, here's the results of a statistical analysis sent
to me by a reader. "Over 12% of the U.S. population is foreign born.
If a company has 2 founders the pure random chance probability that it will
have an immigrant founder is 23%. If a company has three founders the same
random chance of having an immigrant founder is 32%. So what does that figure
of one-quarter show? If the average number of founders is 2.2 or higher, the
analysis reveals immigrants are founders at a lower rate than natives." And
other analysis shows the claim of an increase of five workers for every H1B
worker is highly questionable at best.
So why the big push to get these foreign STEM workers into this country?
Well, remember each foreign STEM worker is here to fill a specific job for a
specific employer. Not only can t the worker change jobs, but the employer can
fire the worker and have the government deport the former employee. How much
power do you figure that gives to the employers in controlling wages, work
hours and such? Furthermore, glutting the marketplace with imported labor
results in the wages of all STEM employees remaining low or even decreasing -
thus reducing costs and increasing the profit level of the companies. Perhaps
this is best summarized in one sentence. There is no shortage of engineers and
scientists in this country and importing foreign workers is driven by cost
savings.
Should we bar STEM immigrants? Of course not. This is a nation of immigrants -
that s one of the underlying truths that has made us great.
But we shouldn t permit the myth of poor quality U.S. scientists and engineers
or the equally mythical shortage of qualified workers govern our national
immigration policy. At least that s how it seems to me.
Bill Taylor, a resident of Greene County since 1966, can be contacted at
solie1@juno.com.
His new book is available at either office of the Greene
County Dailies.
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http://xeniagazette.1upmonitor.com/main.asp?SectionID=17&SubSectionID=452&ArticleID=160748&TM=84531.02
Monday, August 25, 2008
The STEM Shortage
one more time
By BILL TAYLOR
Monday, August 25, 2008
It seems to me that anyone writing an opinion column occasionally has to
wonder if anyone is reading what he or she has written. Readers don t usually
write or call the newspaper to say they re reading some particular columnist
unless they are unhappy with something or other.
Columnists themselves sometimes get e-mails or in-person comments - both
brickbats and bouquets - but generally the readership is relatively quiet.
Perhaps that s why I was so surprised at the response to the first column in
this series about Scientific, Technical, Engineering, and Math (STEM) workers
and the so-called shortage which allows businesses to import foreign workers
to fill job openings in this country.
This column is published on Tuesday, so much to my surprise when I opened by
e-mail early on the Tuesday morning that column was to appear, I discovered a
whole flock of e-mail messages about that column waiting for me - and my own
paper hadn t even been delivered yet. Furthermore, messages continued to
arrive throughout that day - and the next - and the
next- and the next - through the entire week. I found that the newspaper
releases the opinion page at about four o clock the afternoon before the
printed edition is delivered, but that sure didn t account for the
overwhelming response to my column - the largest I have ever gotten.
Furthermore, messages continued to arrive following my second column on this
subject.
The gist of the notes was the concern over what is happening to our U.S.
workers in science, engineering, computer programming, and other high-tech
fields. I was provided with a torrent of data showing that the importation of
foreign workers in these fields is having a devastating effect not only on
current U. S. high tech workers, but also those of the future. There isn t
room to go into specifics here, but the threat to our home-grown skilled
professionals is clear and obvious.
OK, so why is this of interest to folks in this neck of the woods? Well, it s
because we have thousands and thousands of people working in engineering,
science, computers and the like right here - and jobs are being threatened by
these imported technical people, that s why. ( I was informed by a reader that
one high tech company hereabouts has hired so many foreign STEM workers that
they have had to set up dormitory-like accommodations to house them all - but
I haven t been able to confirm that claim.)
Business, government, and academia (that s a three dollar word meaning
colleges and universities with all their teaching and research activities and
such) all are part of the high tech scene - and we have all three hereabouts.
The research and development work centered at Wright-Patterson AFB is a huge
driver with the billions of dollars of projects there.
Businesses that support these projects have grown up along our own high tech
beltway and the local universities provide both high tech education and
research. Oh, yes, we mustn t forget the super-secret, hush-hush intelligence
organization at Wright-Patt that employs hundreds of scientists, engineers,
computer specialists and who knows what other technical experts.
There are other high tech business activities around here that are not
necessarily connected with the base - including those involved in Information
Technology (IT) which is one of the prime areas in which U. S.
workers jobs are under attack by the importation of foreign laborers.
Despite studies such as one by Duke University which show that there is no
shortage of engineers and that the oft-repeated claim that China and India are
graduating 12 times as many engineers as the U. S. is a sheer myth, the
argument that even more imported workers are needed is governing our
immigration policy. One of the presidential candidates reportedly came out
recently with a policy statement that there must be an increase in foreign
high tech workers because there is a critical shortage. That s scary, not only
because it is what the Duke study calls "bunk", but because a reality check
shows that our policy of importing cheap labor is discouraging our own
youngsters from pursuing careers in engineering and science as they realize
future jobs are be filled with foreign workers.
Well, folks, that s about it. Our future, including thousands of local high
tech jobs, depends on having highly trained technical specialists and we are
rapidly approaching the point where that future will be in jeopardy.
The only way to reverse this trend is if our political leaders start paying
attention to what is really going on and stop relying on lobbyists who are
being paid by companies which are only interested in imported cheap labor.
And its up to voters to let the politicians know that. At least that s how it
seems to me.
Bill Taylor, a resident of Greene County since 1966, can be contacted at
solie1@juno.com.
His new book is available at either office of the Greene
County Dailies.
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