My question: Why do we keep laying off skilled and capable US citizens for lower paying unskilled (but US trained) foreign workers?
For 2016, the US Government has received more than 236,000 (233,000 in 2015 an 172,500 in 2014) applications (for 85,000 available visas) from US companies for skilled worker (H1-B) visa. About 20,000 of the 85,000 applications are for foreign workers with advanced degrees from US universities.
The more we try to weave a web around the immigration and US citizen employment issues (including the lucrative almost $100 Billion outsourcing market), the more we stab ourselves in the back.
According to a 8-29-2013 article on Page B8 of the Wall Street Journal, the (noble) current legislative attempts by US Congress will prohibit H1B visas from companies employing lots (>75% of US based employees) of foreign computer science workers (i.e., India, Southeast Asia, other non-US place). Furthermore, the companies with >15% of US based employees on H1B visas can’t perform hardware or software services, and will further restrict use of H1B visas..unless…more US workers are employed (by telling Sally or Billy NO, you’re not going to be a liberal arts major) or….by US companies laying off US citizens and hiring H1B visa employees who fall far below the 75% threshold….or…
Several companies split up and spinoff and operate under different (i.e., non-US) companies and game the system….which is what most companies do – find the loopholes around it.
Interesting side note: about 120,000 new computer science jobs will need to be filled in 2013 and roughly 52,000 (less than half) will be produced from US colleges. So there will be a shortage to be made up by whom – Martians?
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