Thread: Firms try working around visa shortage

Firms try working around visa shortage
Some U.S. companies open sites abroad, while others plan multiple filings as H-1B application season nears.
By Jim Puzzanghera and Michelle Quinn, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
March 31, 2008

More Hi-Tech CEO's whining, wailing and gnashing of teeth because they cannot hire unlimited cheap foreign labor

WASHINGTON -- Driven crazy by U.S. immigration policy, Microsoft Corp. executives decided to drive some of their employees north.

Unable to land enough visas for a third of the foreign-born engineers and computer scientists it wanted to hire -- many of them newly minted graduates of U.S. universities -- the Redmond, Wash., company opened a software development center just over the Canadian border last year. About 150 people now work in Vancouver.

"Our immigration system makes it very difficult for U.S. firms to hire highly skilled foreign workers," Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates told the House Science and Technology Committee this month as he pleaded for more visas. "At a time when talent is the key to economic success, it makes no sense to educate people in our universities, often subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, and then insist that they return home."

Frustrated by the limited number of these so-called H-1B visas awarded each spring in a random lottery to highly skilled foreigners, U.S. technology executives have tried to find ways around the problem while lobbying aggressively to increase the annual cap.

Microsoft, Cisco Systems Inc., Intel Corp. and other large companies have opened or expanded research facilities outside the United States. And some companies have resorted to gaming the system: filing multiple applications, along with the $1,570 to $3,320 filing fee, for each potential hire to boost the odds of winning one of the coveted visas. The fee is higher for large companies and for expedited filings.

"You can imagine our frustration," said Robert Hoffman, vice president of government affairs at Oracle Corp., which, like Microsoft, insisted it has not filed duplicate applications. "We have 1,000 job openings at Oracle we can't fill because of the arbitrary nature of visas and the arbitrary way they are selected."

Efforts to increase the annual allotment of visas have become entangled in the even more volatile debate over border security and immigration reform that is stalled in Congress as well as by some lawmakers' belief that jobs are being taken from U.S. workers.

"This is an outsourcing visa," said Kim Berry, president of the Programmers Guild, a Summit, N.J.-based advocacy group that opposes more H-1B visas. Berry said it's cheaper for companies to hire new foreign college graduates than older U.S. workers.

Last year, U.S. immigration officials received about 150,000 applications for the 65,000 visas on the first day companies could file, forcing them to pick winners in a random annual lottery. The flood is expected to be worse Tuesday when U.S. Customs and Immigration Services offices open their doors to applications for 2009's batch of visas.

California technology companies, as well as financial institutions, culinary institutes, and healthcare providers, have pushed Congress to raise the annual limit on the visas. Temporarily increased to as high as 195,000 during the Internet boom, the cap dropped to its original 65,000 level in 2004 as job demand declined. Companies apply for the visas for prospective employees who have at least a bachelor's degree in a variety of specialized fields. The visas are good for three years and can be renewed for another three. Recipients often apply for permanent residency during that time.

While companies scramble to try to fill their jobs, potential workers are left in limbo.

"I've invested so much money into my degree, I should be given a fair chance to work here for some time," said Akbar Hajiani, 28, a graphic artist from India who recently earned his bachelor's degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York. He has been working for a Virginia graphic and production design company under a one-year extension of his student visa, and the company plans to apply for an H-1B to keep him in the U.S.

Microsoft's Gates cited a recent study by the National Foundation for American Policy that estimated 140,000 jobs were vacant at Standard & Poor's 500 companies and that for each H-1B visa requested, technology firms hire five additional employees.

With little hope for more visas for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, U.S. officials have closed the duplicate application loophole. The immigration service received at least 500 duplicate applications last year, said spokesman Peter Vietti.

"If I were a Fortune 500 company and I wanted to make certain that one of my workers, or how about several, were able to obtain an H-1B, it would be a drop in the bucket for me to file 15 to 20 applications on behalf of one person to put the numbers in my favor," he said.

Last year, some companies waited until June to apply, after prospective employees earned their degrees. But the visas were long gone by then. Intel doesn't take any chances. When it finds a doctoral student it wants to hire, it files the application early under the applicant's earlier degrees.

Intel expects to submit about 400 applications Tuesday, said Jenifer Verdery, the company's director of workforce policy. Last year a majority of its applicants received visas. Intel offered jobs to those people it wanted to hire but did not get visas for at facilities in Ireland, Israel, India or China.

This year is anybody's guess.

"We could get all or none," she said.
http://www.latimes.com:80/business/la-f ... 1722.story

HIRE AMERICANS! Problem solved.

FWIW : I truly think Gates is really doing America RAW . Microsoft lost a huge mutli-Billion dollar lawsuit to the EU not long ago . My guess is the cheap so-n-so wants it's back from labor costs . What a loyal American he is IMO. NOT . But i may be bias anyway since i don't use microsoft software anyways .

I've invested so much money into my degree, I should be given a fair chance to work here for some time," said Akbar Hajiani, 28, a graphic artist from India who recently earned his bachelor's degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York

How about u take that degree and go find work in your home country!

If surprises to me no end that everyone from foreigners here on visas or the people her illeglly figures the U.S owes them a job. Unfortunately our government feels the same way, jobs for everyone except Americans!

Message to bill gates-hire american workers ,you atheist idiot-he gave away millions but does not want to pay a decent wage-I mention he is an atheist because he has admitted that because he is one there should be no borders(how the two connect is in his mind)

Remember - Bill Gates never even finished his undergraduate degree.
(Of course, he's got honorary this-and-that up the wazzoo from everywhere - but, so what? I earned my degrees the 'old-fashioned' way).

Accordingly, he'd be an extreme longshot to land a job at his own company using the same set of standards he espouses for his desired labor force.
(Even worse, he is willing to overlook those WITH a basic degree - so that makes him a grade 'A' hypocrite).

And many of those American IT workers...

a). Have suitable IT/CS degrees
and
b). Have never been arrested too.

Some U.S. companies open sites abroad, while others plan multiple filings as H-1B application season nears

Anything and everything to avoid hiring American Workers!

Originally Posted by blkkat99

I've invested so much money into my degree, I should be given a fair chance to work here for some time," said Akbar Hajiani, 28, a graphic artist from India who recently earned his bachelor's degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York

How about u take that degree and go find work in your home country!

If surprises to me no end that everyone from foreigners here on visas or the people her illeglly figures the U.S owes them a job. Unfortunately our government feels the same way, jobs for everyone except Americans!

Good point blkkat. We allow these people to come from all over the world to attend some of our best colleges and universities, only to find they do not want to return home upon graduation, but expect to work and live here in the United States, thus displacing another American Worker.

There might need to be a reduction in the amount of student visas which are granted in this country to foreigners who wish to attend college in this country. The United States should have no obligation to educate the entire world, often at our expense.

Strange isn't it, these foreigner are educated in the same colleges as Americans citizens and yet the foreigners are more highly educated than the Americans and yet they probably sit right next to each other in the same class rooms Something wrong with this picture anyone?