http://www.shrm.org/hrnews_published/CMS_015467.asp

1/26/06 7:30 AM

Report: Firms use H-1B visas to avoid hiring Americans

By Kathy Gurchiek

Employers use the H-1B temporary visa program more often to import cheaper labor than to fill vacancies for which no U.S. workers are available, says a recent report by the nonprofit Center for Immigration Studies.

Not only that, H-1B workers recruited for computer jobs are paid on average $13,000 less per year than Americans working the same job in the same state, it says.

Using fiscal 2004 data from the U.S. Department of Labor, The Bottom of the Pay Scale: Wages for H-1B Computer Programmers focuses on wages for foreign workers in computer programming, because the so-called “high-tech� nonimmigrant visas historically have been issued to those workers and to workers in the engineering and science fields.

Employers applying for H-1B visas first must make an initial applicationâ€â€