Some Good News on Foreign Employees

[ethics]

Congress set a cap of 65,000 such visas per fiscal year. By the end the work day Friday, Citizenship and Immigration Services already had received enough applications to meet the limit.

Agency spokesman William Strassberger said applications filed by Friday will be considered. For any after that, "It's too late," he said.

Under the H-1B program, U.S. employers must pay foreign workers the prevailing wage for their job fields and show that qualified U.S. workers are not being passed over. The foreign worker must have at least a bachelor's degree or the equivalent.

Unions and other critics say the program allows businesses to fill jobs with cheaper foreign labor, but those that use the program say they can't find enough Americans with the necessary math, science and engineering skills.

Sensitivity about exporting American jobs overseas has made Congress reluctant to raise the cap.

Congress last raised the cap in 2000, when the country was enjoying a technology-propelled boom. The H1-B worker limit rose to 195,000, but it fell back to 65,000 last year.

Finally some good news. (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/high_tech_visas)

[Steve]

Let's see....land in North Dakota is, er, dirt cheap and the state is desperate to attract jobs and businesses.

So, here I am in, oh say, San Francisco. I move my company to North Dakota, it's cheap to build, cheaper to buy, and there are all sorts of incentives.

I offer to bring some of my employees along, but who wants to move from SF to ND? And since there aren't any professionals of the type I need in ND, I hire a bunch of H1-B visa workers. Oh, and the prevailing wage for their job fields in ND is way lower than in SF.

Just one example of how companies can get around this.

I think the larger problem is expressed clearly in the article: finding enough qualified workers with the necessary math, engineering, and science skills.

Remember that statistic about how few people actually read literature anymore?