Friday, April 6, 2007

USCIS should use wage to determine which H-1bs to grant

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has received 133,000 H-1b applications for 65,000 slots. According to this San Francisco Chronicle Article "Feds planning lottery to hand out H-1B visas":

"'In a few weeks we'll select the applications through a computer-generated random system. Since all applicants are well qualified, that's the only fair thing to do,' said Sharon Rummery, regional manager for the citizenship office in San Francisco."
The Programmers Guild disagrees that a "random lottery" is "the only fair thing to do." Many of these H-1b will be used by Indian bodyshops that grossly underpay their employees. We advocate instead that the applications that pay the highest wage should be given priority. The H-1b program is allegedly intended to bring in the "best and brightest" - which presumably are being paid the higher wages.

The USCIS should not arbitrarily discard a top candidate earning $100k in favor of a marginal bodyshop programmer earning $40k.
(Information Week reported this proposal on April 9th: As The H-1B Visa Cap Filled In Record Time, Reform Is In The Air.)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Most American could NOT get hired because of body shoppers.
When it come to H1 visa, body shoppers have REAL POWER over H1 holder AS THEY CAN FILE GREEN CARD. This is a tool used for exploitation. THEY KNOW THE SYSTEM. THEY MAY SHOW MORE SALARY ON PAPAER when it comes to salary. Most of time salary is reduced once candidate reaches USA. There are ways to do it (ask a body shopper). Company may not pay travel cost, visa cost, benifit and show more salary. H1 should always be granted on the basis of merit (degree from premier collge) and actual work experience in reputed firm. The companies developing software products and paying taxes from sales revenue for five years should get the visa and not the body shoppers. Random allocation will reject visa filed by Micosoft, IBM or Cisco and allocate it to a body shopper. For salary evaluation job description should not be the criteria as is written for non existing job. If a person did his degreee in 1997, he has experience of 10 years. You may consider it 8 years and should pay accordingly. If pay is less, most probably, he is being exploited. PLEASE NOTE THAT BODY SHOPPERS manipulate job description as it is non existant at this moment. (They do not have a vacancy). Requirement will be generated in future by the company who develop software.
THE VISAS SHOULD BE GRANTED TO ONLY COMPANIES WHO really get the software written by the employee. There he will be exploited less. Most small body shoppers do not hire American programmers or avoid them.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like an Indian guy who just finished his masters and wants a job. When you got your student F1 visa - didnt you promise the consulate officer that you will return after you finish you masters. No job, no immigration. Just go back.

No the H1 visa is the problem. Whoever makes use of it is a body shopper.

Anonymous said...

anonymous,

He will return, someday, it's just not now though, LOL.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Kim Berry,

I agree with that the H-1B candidate should get paid more or may be at least 1.5 times more than what American would make. This will make a distinction and then it will require companies to ensure that they hiring "the best and the brightest".
However, I disagree with the ProgrammersGuild that the USCIS should priortize the applications based on Salary. The only salary should not be part of the equation. It will be unreasonable and unfair using only salary as a reason to give prioirity. A company can easily shift the load of benefits to salary and then all people will have the huge salary in the end. That said, the companies can also temporarily raise the salary and then decrease it later, since there are no such restrictions on salary reducton. They should look all the aspects (for instance: experience, education, job description, company (obviously not McDonald), and then salary). In addition, the USICS should have a test for H-1B candidate to qualify for the visa. This will be helpfull determining individuals ability.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous - April 6, 2007 10:04 PM,

"Most American could NOT get hired because of body shoppers."
Be COMPETITIVE in the market and you should not have a problem.

You need ask yourself if American are so valued why not American Companies want to hire them?
Answer: Most of the Americans are worthless, lazy, ignorant, greedy, and untrust worthy. So Sad of you.
I personally respect intelligent people regardless of what part of region they are from and want to be challanged by them. Do you posses this attitude? No, you only want a pie to be served on table. Well, the little John must grow up.

"Most small body shoppers do not hire American programmers or avoid them."
If I am a hiring manger, I would not hire someone who want more money but don't want to work. NO DEAL!!! I would rather pay more and have the intelligent person work for me. That will save me a lot in the long run.

You have mentioned about the "BODY SHOPPERS". If these people get hired than it is the problem of the company who did not do good job interviewing them. But, I don't think there are many Body Shoppers do get hired. You should look at the statistics and find that the average H-1B candidate is working for a big company (like Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Cisco, Dell, and much more) which proves that these people are highly valuable. The country needs them and if you look at the history this country is built on Immigrants. The real Americans probabily don't even have jobs.

Also, You sounds so jealous!!!

Anonymous said...

This is unfortunate and unfair. I have a website http://www.nycsalary.com/ to aid immigrants find companies which have h1b jobs and how much they pay. Maybe you can give me some feedback.