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April 8, 2009
Unemployment's Impact on H-1B Visas
As the country bears through a severe recession and an 8.5 percent unemployment rate, H-1B visas are coming under attack.
With the national unemployment rate at 8.5 percent and approaching double digits, H-1B visas are coming under attack as opponents assert that using the visas is especially unpalatable this year.
The unemployment rate for engineering and computer occupations is rising faster than for other professionals, according to data released Friday by the United States Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. An analysis of the data by the IEEE-USA, an organizational unit of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), says first-quarter labor statistics reveal a significant increase in the jobless rates among engineers.
The IEEE this week reported that the unemployment rate for all engineers jumped from 2.9 percent to 3.9 percent from the last quarter of 2008 to the first quarter this year. According to the announcement, the numbers grew faster when compared with the increase in unemployment from quarter to quarter for all professional workers — from 3 percent to 3.7 percent — over the same period. Perhaps even more worrisome, the IEEE says, is the increase of the unemployment rate from 1.2 percent overall in 2007 to nearly 4 percent now.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) began accepting H-1B visa applications for fiscal year 2010 on April 1. Currently the U.S. grants 65,000 H-1B visas annually to high-tech workers, with an additional 20,000 visas possible for foreign workers with U.S. advanced degrees.
Today's job cuts across industries are raising economic anxiety and contributing to the backlash in Washington against H-1B visas, which critics argue deny opportunities to American workers and reduce salaries, making the U.S.'s longstanding impasse over immigration and visiting workers grow even more complicated. On one hand, more Americans are losing jobs and competition for available work is intensifying. On the other, the Obama administration wants to resist moves toward protectionism.
On Feb. 17, President Barack Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act ("stimulus bill"), which contained the Employ American Workers Act (EAWA). The EAWA prevents a company from displacing U.S. workers when hiring H-1B specialty occupation workers if the company received funds through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
Now companies receiving federal bailout money face extra hurdles before they can hire highly skilled workers on an H-1B visa. They must prove, among other standards of proof, they have tried to recruit American workers at prevailing wages and that foreigners aren't replacing U.S. citizens. (See H-1B Visa Concerns on the Rise, 3/3/09)
The amendment to the stimulus package came in the wake of an investigation by the Associated Press that found banks receiving the most federal aid had requested visas for thousands of foreign workers even as they laid off employees amid the economic collapse.
Wells Fargo & Co., one of the largest U.S. lenders, told employees last month that it's considering cutting foreign workers, citing political pressure stemming from the government's bailout of the banking industry, according to an internal e-mail obtained by MarketWatch. While the new legislation doesn't apply to current employees of Wells and other TARP recipients who need to have their existing H-1B visas renewed, "Wells is letting those visas expire anyway, according to a copy of an internal e-mail sent to some of its foreign employees on March 20 from the bank's human resources department," MarketWatch reports.
Said the e-mail:
The receipt of TARP funds does not specifically say that we can not renew visas ... [but] there are much more stringent expectations around it. Due to the fact that we have and will be displacing numerous U.S. citizens in your same positions Wells Fargo has decided to enforce a policy that prohibits lines of businesses to file visa sponsorships for foreign nationals that would hold positions that could otherwise be held by qualified U.S. citizens.
"The economy is affecting the way that companies are using H-1B visas," Workforce Management reports (subscription required). "Many of the applications will be for employees who are currently working but were denied visas in previous lotteries," Robert Hoffman, vice president for government and public affairs for Oracle and co-chair of Compete America, is reported to have said.
For instance, the new applications Microsoft is filing for the 2010 fiscal year, "a solid majority" are to convert existing employees currently employed on L visas to H-1B visas, because they have transferred to the U.S. from a foreign operation, rather than to make new hires.
"Given the economic downturn, we are filing substantially fewer H-1B applications than we filed last year," Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith wrote on the Microsoft on the Issues blog this month. However, Smith also said that Microsoft, which plans to lay off as many as 5,000 employees — or 5 percent of its workforce — "still sees the program as an important part of its strategy to hire the best people, regardless of their citizenship," the Seattle Times reports.
"Unlike previous years, a solid majority of our applications this year are for employees who are already working for Microsoft in the U.S., so we can retain their talent and specialized skills in this country rather than risk losing them to a foreign competitor," Smith wrote.
Indeed, H-1b supporters say the visa program is needed to help companies obtain the most qualified workers, particularly in math, computer science and engineering.
The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) late last month noted how the U.S. government's attitude differs greatly from the recent past:
During the boom years, Congress actually raised the number of H-1B visas, reserved for highly skilled immigrants. Now, some economists have suggested that allowing more foreigners into the U.S. — say, an immigrant who buys a house in exchange for a green card — would actually help jump-start the economy.
Year after year, demand for these visas dramatically exceeds supply. A year ago, the USCIS announced that the entire H-1B visa quota for fiscal 2009 had been reached, for both the 20,000 advanced and the 65,000 general quotas, with the USCIS having received 163,000 applications during the first week of April and resorting to a lottery to determine recipients. For fiscal 2008, the entire quota was exhausted before the end of the first day on which applications were accepted.
Earlier
H-1B Visa Concerns on the Rise
H-1B Visa Program Fraught with Fraud
Nothing New: High H-1B Visa Demand Expected
Resources
The Employment Situation: March 2009
U.S. Dept. of Labor, April 3, 2009
Unemployment Rate for US Engineering and Computer Occupations Jumps Significantly
IEEE-USA, April 6, 2009
2010 H-1B Petition Season
USCIS
USCIS Announces New Requirements for Hiring H-1B Foreign Workers
USCIS, March 20, 2009
AP Investigation: Banks Look Overseas for Workers
by Frank Bass and Rita Beamish
The Associated Press, Feb. 2, 2009
Wells Told Employees it May Cut Foreign Workers
by Alistair Barr
MarketWatch, March 31, 2009
H-1B Visas Applications to Decline, Target Existing Workers
by Mark Schoeff
Workforce Management, April 1, 2009
Appreciating our Immigration System
by Brad Smith
Microsoft On the Issues, March 30, 2009
Microsoft Applies for Fewer H-1B Visas
by Benjamin J. Romano
The Seattle Times, April 2, 2009
U.S. Deters Hiring of Foreigners as Joblessness Grows
by S. Mitra Kalita
The Wall Street Journal, March 27, 2009
USCIS Reaches FY 2009 H-1B Cap
USCIS, April 8, 2008
USCIS Reaches FY2008 H-1B Cap
USCIS, April 3, 2007
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4 CommentsVa la información, espero sea de utilidad.
April 8, 2009 3:10 PMTypical North American Hipocresy. You only want inmigrants from two levels: the best qualified people in the world to boost your economy and technology, the lowest qualified people on your backdoor to pick up tomatoes and grapes. The is a bunch of people in the middle that would contribute a lot to your economy in many ways. But your consulates do not give them even a tourist visa to go and expend thousands of dollars in Disney World or Las Vegas or allow them to flee from non Democratic countries unless they show signs of torture, like us in Venezuela.
April 8, 2009 8:14 PMDiscrimination Is Occurring On A Massive Scale Against Qualified US Citizens.
The Middle Class Has Been Destroyed.
Families Have Been Torn Apart.
The EEOC, the OFCCP, the DOJ-OSC Have Done Next To Nothing To Protect US Citizens Whose National Origin Is USA.
Immigration Law Firms Are Harming American Workers.
The H-1B Visa guest worker program has “RESERVED” millions of high-value jobs for citizens of foreign countries.
"Fake Job Ads” consistently and routinely DENY, DEPRIVE, EXCLUDE and DISCRIMINATE against United States Citizens during the hiring process.
Here is Cohen & Grigsby, a prominent immigration law firm, displaying their Good Faith Efforts To Recruit American Workers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU
When companies have job opening, they "place an order" with job descriptions to third party recruiters like ManPower, Volt, Adecco, Robert Half, etc.
The job descriptions are not advertised publicly so that qualified US Citizens can apply.
This is a violation of EEO, the law of the land and the Civil Rights Act of 1967's "Unlawful Employment Practices'.
The available talent pool in the US workforce is being COMPLETELY BYPASSED
(and not just under-utilized).
Only mom & pop recruiting firms willing to $ub$cribe to the large third party firms services can see the job descriptions and then submit resumes from H-1bs…
Resume Blaster Streams $ubScribe to their service…also a violation of EEO…segregating resumes by National Origin…and it is all automated using information technology.
Out in the field, we are not seeing the job descriptions and the most meritorious candidates are not receiving any job offers.
US Citizens and Green Card Holders never know the job openings even existed.
This is exclusion / discrimination.
I personally believe there are too many foreign workers here in the U.S. We have many people out of work here, and many intelligent enough to be trained. I see no reason to allow so many to come from other countries to work. If they're so good at what they do, why are they not working in their own countries? Where's their national pride? In fact, there's a movement in the U.S. to actually block American workers from getting hired, in lieu of hiring foreign workers at lower wages. That disgusts me!
What? Why do I hear all this disbelief? Oh, you naysayers are naive, so here's a link to prove it: http://tinyurl.com/yp8jmb
There's a video about 1/3 of the way down I recommend watching. It's not very long, but it's informative -- and disturbing.
April 22, 2009 2:45 PM
