From Rob Sanchez' Job Destruction Newsletter:

<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1832 -- 3/10/2008 >>>>>

The National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) just came out with the
most nonsensical study of the week. I'm qualifying that because it is the
first day of the week, and it's possible that we will see avalanches of
stupider stuff leading up to the Bill Gates visit to Washington DC.

The NFAP is a front organization for Stuart Anderson, who has been in the
business of promoting H-1B ever since he left the Immigration and
Naturalization Service in 2003. Stuie is just another sordid example of the
corrupting influence of the revolving door in Washington DC.

So here is Stuart Anderson's latest fastball -- see if you can catch it:
According to the NFAP, for each H-1B position requested in labor condition
applications at least 7.5 additional workers were hired. A mere application
for an H-1B creates jobs for Americans, according to the NFAP. Just like
Midas, anything that an H-1B touches turns to gold!

The most obvious flaw with Stuart Anderson's study is that he never said
what types of additional job positions were created, and never makes a
correlation between new positions created and the hiring of an H-1B.
Anybody the company incidentally hires could be used to pump up and distort
the bogus statistic -- which means that jobs that might be included would
be ones like janitors, construction crews, errand boys, security guards, or
any other type of worker.

If you believe the NFAP study, and you can bet most of the mainstream media
will, every time a company hires an H-1B there are many times more
Americans that get put on the payroll. The luminaries that authored this
study, such as economist Jagdish Bhagwati, seem to think that the H-1B
program creates more jobs than it destroys. Actually it would be more valid
to conclude that companies hire more janitors and security guards than H-1B
visa holders -- which is not exactly a revelation.

If H-1B creates jobs as the NFAP claims, then that means every time an H-1B
is hired the unemployment rate should go down because at least seven job
seekers get hired. I enjoyed the fuzzy math from the last newsletter so
much I decided to do some simple math to calculate how many H-1Bs are
needed to solve our nation's unemployment problem.

According the the BLS, there are 7.4 million unemployed people in the U.S.
Keep in mind that the number of jobless people is far higher but since the
BLS doesn't accurately track the number of people who are jobless, let's
use total unemployed for the sake of argument.

You can see the recent unemployment stats here:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

Assuming that every H-1B creates 5 jobs for Americans (conservative
estimate), we need to allow about 1.5 million more H-1Bs to come to the
U.S. to drive unemployment down to zero. In the month of February,
employers cut 63,000 jobs, which means we would have had to issue 12,600
H-1B visas just to break even for this month. Does anybody actually believe
that 12,000 H-1Bs a month would solve unemployment problems?

The NFAP doesn't stop with that tomfoolery -- they say that US high-tech
companies have on average 470 job openings because, as they say, there just
aren't enough talented Americans:

A key problem America faces is the long-term stagnation in U.S. skill
level and the legislative inertia that hasprevented liberalizing U.S.
immigration laws to permit the entry and retention of talented people
from around the world.

The NFAP claims that there are more than 140,000 total job openings for
skilled positions available, so if you have skills and need a job, go to
this page to see where the jobs are. Be sure to let me know if any of these
companies hire you.

http://www.nfap.com/pdf/080311talentsrc.pdf

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +

http://www.informationweek.com/story/sh ... =206902716


U.S. Tech Companies Add Five Workers For Each H-1B Visa They Seek

A report says large tech companies with more than 5,000 employers added an
average of five workers for every H-1B position requested; smaller
companies added 7.5 workers.

By Marianne Kolbasuk McGee, InformationWeek
March 10, 2008
URL:
http://www.informationweek.com/story/sh ... =206902716


For each H-1b visa position requested, U.S. technology companies increase
their employment by an average of five workers, says a new report released
today by the National Foundation of American Policy, a research
organization.

The NFAP examined all H-1B Labor Condition Applications, or LCA filings, to
the U.S. Dept. of Labor from 2001 to 2005 by Standards & Poor's 500
technology companies. The NFAP report says researchers used "a regression
model that controls for both general market conditions and firm size" in
analyzing the association between number of positions required in H-1B LCA
documents and the percentage of total employment.

Through this analysis, NFAP determined that S&P 500 technology companies
with more than 5,000 employers added an average of five workers for every
H-1B position requested. For companies with fewer than 5,000 employees, the
average increase in employment was 7.5 workers for each H-1B position
requested.

The S&P 500, which consists of mostly American companies, currently
features about 76 technology companies.

The NFAP's report findings dispute a common argument by critics of the H-1B
visa program who assert that the hiring of foreign technology professionals
reduce employment opportunities for American workers.

"At the minimum, this shows that H-1Bs are complementary to other U.S.
workers being hired, not displacing them," said Stuart Anderson, executive
director of NFAP in an interview with InformationWeek.

Stuart, a former staff director of the Senate Immigration subcommittee,
says NFAP, is "a non-profit, non-partisan public policy research
organization that's independently funded by foundations and private
contributors, and does not lobby for legislation."

The LCAs filings examined by NFAP are documents that companies file to the
Dept. of Labor to specify details such as job location and pay that an
employer plans to provide for a position they'd like to fill by an H-1B
worker. The LCAs are "supporting evidence" employers provide to the U.S.
Dept. of Labor before the company can apply for H-1B visa workers. LCAs
need to be certified by the DoL before the employer can petition the U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services for an H-1B visa.

However, the NFAP research did not examine the types of job positions that
S&P companies added to their employment, or the pay for those positions.
Anderson said the research did not conclude that companies added to their
employment because they were saving money by hiring H-1B workers. In fact,
he said an opposite argument may be true.

"We did not see increases in H-1B hiring by companies when they faced
harder times and needed to reduce their payrolls," he says.

On April 1, the U.S. government begins accepting H-1B visa petitions from
employers looking to hire foreign workers for fiscal 2009, which starts
Oct. 1.

In another report NFAP released on Monday, the organization said its
analysis of S&P 500 employers found that there are more than 140,000 job
openings for skilled positions at those companies today.

Major U.S. technology companies today average more than 470 U.S.-based job
openings for skilled positions, while defense companies have more than
1,265 each.

The skilled positions include all jobs that require at least an
undergraduate degree. NFAP examined posting for U.S.-based jobs at all
companies in the S&P 500 companies. The vast majority of the data was
gathered in January 2008, with the rest compiled in December 2007 or
February 2008, says NFAP's report.

So, who's trying to fill the most jobs? According the NFAP report, S&P 500
employers with the most job openings as of January 2008 are Microsoft
(4,005), Northrop Grumman (3,925), Lockheed Martin (3,901), General
Electric (3,07, Countrywide Financial (2,415), JPMorgan Chase (2,164),
Tenet Healthcare (2,050), United Health Group (1,927), Raytheon (1,694),
IBM (1,670), Computer Sciences Corp. (1,666), Cintas (1,664), L-3
Communications (1,61, Bank of America (1,600), U.S. Bancorp (1,562) and
Cisco Systems (1,504).

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +

http://www.nfap.net/pdf/080311pr.pdf

National Foundation for American Policy
Embargoed for Release
1 PM EST, March 11, 2008
Contact: Stuart Anderson, 703-351-5042, info@nfap.net
New Research Shows Major U.S. Tech Companies and Defense
Firms Struggling to Fill Thousands of Job Openings
Separate Study Finds H-1B Hiring Associated with Increases in
Employment at U.S. Technology Companies

Arlington, Va. -- American businesses continue to experience difficulty in
filling skilled positions in
the United States, concludes a new study released today by the National
Foundation for
American Policy (NFAP), an Arlington, Va.-based policy research group. The
study, "Talent
Search: Job Openings and the Need For Skilled Labor in the U.S. Economy,"
found that major
U.S. technology companies today average more than 470 job openings for
skilled positions in the
United States while defense companies have more than 1,265 each. The
first-of-its-kind analysis
involved examining job postings for all companies in the Standard and
Poor?s (S&P) 500.
In a second, complementary study also released today, "H-1B Visas and Job
Creation," NFAP
examined H-1B filings and year-by-year job totals for the technology
companies in the S&P 500
and found hiring skilled foreign nationals on H-1B visas is associated with
increases in
employment at U.S. technology companies.

Both studies can found on the NFAP website at www.nfap.com.

In "H-1B Visas and Job Creation" the data show that for every H-1B position
requested with the
Department of Labor, U.S. technology companies increase their employment by
five workers. For
technology firms with fewer than 5,000 employees, each H-1B position
requested in labor
condition applications was associated with an increase of employment of 7.5
workers. This is
particularly remarkable since the actual number of people hired on H-1B
visas is likely to be much
lower than the total number of applications filed with the Department of
Labor.
"Combined these two studies show that U.S. employers continue to need
skilled labor, including
individuals not born in the United States who, the empirical evidence
indicates, are creating new
opportunities for U.S. workers," said NFAP Executive Director Stuart
Anderson. "While every H-
1B hired may not necessarily lead to five to seven Americans being hired,
the data does strongly
imply, at minimum, that new H-1B professionals are complementing other U.S.
hires, rather than
displacing them, as critics allege."
According to "Talent Search: Job Openings and the Need For Skilled Labor in
the U.S.
Economy," a number of companies have thousands of skilled positions open,
with this level of
openings persisting for a year or more. This is part of a longer-term trend
that threatens to harm
America?s economic future, with U.S. companies lacking access to the
skilled professionals
needed to grow and innovate inside the United States.
More than 140,000 job openings for skilled positions are available today in
the 500 companies
that make up the S&P (Standard & Poor?s) 500. S&P 500 companies employ
only about 14
percent of individuals working in America, so the overall demand for
skilled labor in the U.S.
economy is much greater. The Department of Labor?s JOLTS survey indicates
there are
approximately four million job openings in America every month at all skill
levels.
The S&P 500 companies with the most job openings as of January 2008 are
Microsoft (4005),
Northrup Grumman (3925), Lockheed Martin (3901), General Electric (307,
Countrywide
Financial (2415), JPMorganChase (2164), Tenet Healthcare (2050), United
Health Group (1927),
Raytheon (1694), IBM (1670), Computer Sciences Corp. (1666), Cintas (1664),
L-3
Communications (161, Bank of America (1600), U.S. Bancorp (1562) and
Cisco Systems
(1504). These are openings for jobs in the United States requiring a B.A.,
professional degree or
higher.
The NFAP study "H-1B Visas and Job Creation" used a regression model that
controls for both
general market conditions and firm size and found that there is a positive
and statistically
significant association between the number of positions requested in H-1B
labor condition
applications and the percentage change in total employment. The research
also found that even
employers that reduced employment reduced it less if they had filed for
H-1Bs visas. Examining
companies in the sample that had layoffs, the regression results found for
every H-1B position
requested on a labor condition application, total employment is estimated
to be two workers more
than it otherwise would have been. Data were used on total employment and
H-1B labor
condition applications between 2001 and 2005, allowing calculation of
employment growth for
2002-2005.
An NFAP survey of 120 major U.S. technology companies, with a 22 percent
response rate,
indicates preventing companies from hiring foreign nationals by maintaining
a low limit on H-1B
visas is likely to produce the unintended consequence of pushing more work
to other countries.
Sixty-five percent of technology companies responding to the NFAP survey
said in response to
the lack of H-1B visas they had "hired more people (or outsourced work)
outside the United
States." This is significant in that even if those companies responding to
the survey are heavier
users of H-1B visas it means that these are the companies most likely to
hire outside the United
States in response to an insufficient supply of skilled visas for foreign
nationals. Fifty-two percent
of companies believed that for every H-1B professional they hired it
created one or more
complementary jobs at their firms or in the U.S. economy. Twenty-two
percent thought the hiring
of an H-1B visa holder created 10 or more jobs. Seventy-four percent of
company respondents
said an inability to fill positions because of the lack of H-1B visas has
potentially affected their
"company?s competitiveness against foreign competitors or in
international markets."
"The research showing H-1B visa holders are associated with increased
hiring at U.S. technology
companies is further evidence that current restrictions on high skill
immigration are
counterproductive and the result of legislative inertia, rather than
legitimate concerns," said NFAP
Executive Director Stuart Anderson. "The survey results indicate that when
H-1B visa restrictions
block cutting-edge companies from hiring foreign nationals in America
companies are likely to
place more of their human resources outside the United States."
About the National Foundation for American Policy
Established in the Fall 2003, the National Foundation for American Policy
(NFAP) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit,
non-partisan public policy research organization based in Arlington,
Virginia focusing on trade, immigration
and related issues. The Advisory Board members include Columbia University
economist Jagdish Bhagwati,
Ohio University economist Richard Vedder and other prominent individuals.
Over the past 24 months,
NFAP?s research has been written about in the Wall Street Journal, the
New York Times, the Washington
Post, and other major media outlets. The organization?s reports can be
found at www.nfap.com.
2111 Wilson Blvd., Suite 700, Arlington, VA 22201
phone: (703) 351- 5042 fax: (703) 351-9292 www.nfap.com

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