US Senators Question Indian Firms Over H-1Bs

xzvf sends us a link to a BusinessWeek report on the campaign of two US senators to get answers to how H-1B work visas are actually being used. Yesterday Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Richard Durbin (D-IL) sent a letter (PDF) to nine Indian outsourcing firms that, among them, snapped up 30% of the H-1B visas issued last year. The senators want to know, among other things, whether the H-1B program is being used to enable the offshoring of American jobs. "Critics say outsourcing firms, including Infosys Technologies and Wipro, are using the visas to replace US employees with foreign workers, often cycling overseas staff through US training programs before sending them back into jobs at home."

The non-intuitive solution

[by Anonymous Coward]

The solution to keeping jobs in the USA is to keep the best of the foreign talent here in the USA. We should be pinning a green card to anybody with an engineering, medical, or CS degree and encouraging them to stay, and bring their families, and start many JOB GENERATING BUSINESSES *here*. Reduce the incentives to go home. Reduce incentives to hire offshore (like onerous medical insurance costs, ahem), and in 10 years, you'll have a nice technopoly in the USA instead of India, China, Russia, etc.

Re:The non-intuitive solution

[damista (1020989)]

Well, this is kind of how the system was intended isn't it?

Instead of complaining that foreigners take American jobs, you (not you personally but "you" as in the US) got to ask yourself, where the US would be today, if it wasn't for the immigrants. Not every foreigner is an idiot, just like not every American is the best choice for a certain job. Some immigrants will fail miserably and others will succeed and maybe even start their own, successful business and create new, American jobs. Those who fail will be replaced, be it by Americans or new immigrants.

Btw. US companies exploit workers from other countries as well and take jobs from others. I don't want to know how many companies have been bought by US based businesses and then closed down, since the only interest the US companies had, were the product portfolios and the customer base. So why should Indian companies care about US jobs, if the US couldn't care less about other peoples jobs?

What the US must never forget is that they need the rest of the world just as much as the rest of the world needs the US.

Re:The non-intuitive solution

[ecuador_gr (944749)]

Exactly my feeling and situation. After an MS in CS at a decent US University (my European BS is in Physics), I started working as an H1-b at a US firm. After two years, I am one of the most valuable members of my group and my employer definitely wants to keep me here in NY, however my fiancee is from Europe and cannot work legally here (even if I marry her). It is kind of harder for her to get an H1-b visa (her BA is in Classics, plus H1-b's are snatched instantly). The company lawyer told me that it is highly unlikely for me to get a Green card in the foreseeable future, no matter how indispensable my employer thinks I am, since according to the rules, I cannot use my experience in the current company as part of my qualifications to justify the Green card. And of course the fact that you might be exceptionally good does not matter in the application for a Green Card (unless you have made headlines - there is provision for Nobel price winners etc). So, I am kind of thinking of heading back home, of course I do make enough for a family here but my fiancee hates not being able to work and I can't blame her...
You don't have to say the US will loose if I myself leave (you don't know me to judge if it is the case), but I am sure there are many talented people out there in such a situation.

Could We Train Away Their Accents?

[morari (1080535)]

I don't have anything against India or its citizens, but I do so hate having to call some place up with a problem only to struggle to communicate with some guy because; a) He probably doesn't speak English very well and can't truly understand a lot of what I say. b) Everything he knows comes from a script. c) His accent is so fucking thick that I can't understand a lot of what he says. I'd rather speak with a machine in most cases, so long as it's not voice activated...

The US is the big loser in this abuse

[Opportunist (166417)]

Aside of the abuse to create cheap offshoring opportunities that hurt both, the US population and the US taxes, this creates a problem: H1Bs ain't a goodwill thing of the US, "generously" granting people from other countries the opportunity to live in the US. H1Bs are first and foremost to enable companies to hire good, qualified people from abroad. No company would go through the hassle of an H1B app to get a new janitor. What they try to hire is simply someone with a qualification or experience that you can't find in the US, or at the very least, not in enough quantity.

In other words, by leeching those H1Bs from the pool, those companies harm the US economy by creating a shortage of qualified workers. And I do see this as grounds for investigation and, if they're guilty of such a practice, applicable fines and punishments.

happy this is happenning

[thinkingpen (1031996)]

I worked at one of these firms in India before. The common practice there is to file for a H-1B visa in anticipation of future onsite trips. Many hundreds go unused. A number of my collegues got their visas stamped, but never travelled. Some were never intended to be used at all. The project manager told me they are just a backup in case of emergency situations (e.g., an onsite contractor might have to go back to India within short notice etc.) I think this is the main reason behind the recent inflation in number of H1-B applicants. This is certainly abuse of the H1-B program!

These companies should not be granted so many visas. If you want to increase competitiveness grant more visas to foreign students from top universities in the US. Giving out visas to these companies will only get you mediocre people who know nothing about computer science (yeah well, they know a lot about time sheets, status reports and how not to manage a team) - ofcourse there will be exceptions, but the largely the crowd that comes here aren't any super skilled programmers. They would just know a bit of their client's business and a few programs in some subsystem that is written in COBOL.

I am happy to have left that sweat shop in pursuit of my masters degree a couple of years ago. Never wanna go back to them! they do not do anything related to computer science there! it's all plain business. You are not allowed to fix ugly code if you feel like it - the client should be ready to pay for that too !! no smart ideas here please .. every solution to every possible problem is documented (hey we're a CMM level 5 company!) and no process that wassn't used before should ever be encouraged.

Trust me, tis nothing like cutting edge. Far from it. I laugh when Bangalore is called the silicon valley of the East!

Re:happy this is happenning

[The Cydonian (603441)]

I think this is the main reason behind the recent inflation in number of H1-B applicants.

This is insightful.

This is certainly abuse of the H1-B program!

This isn't.

I work at an IT consultancy firm (not Indian; it is headquartered in Seattle, if you're tracking all this), and am based out of Singapore. I am required to, at times, fly in and out of some neighbouring countries at a very short notice. Now travelling in South East Asia (even for Indian passport-holders) is outrageously simple; you pack your bags, show up at the airport, fly in to, say, Bangkok or Hong Kong, and... that's it. All visas are processed on-arrival, you can stay for a month, and then fly out. It's a similar thing in Europe as well; the Schengen area covers some 17-odd countries, and it's very very easy to travel across countries in these globalized times.

For a variety of reasons (911, huge immigration numbers etc), US is not one of those countries where you can slip in and out quickly. While Wipro etc applying for H1-B's en masse is definitely a loophole, I'd still argue that they're doing it for a very valid reason; it is important for professionals to travel across the world without too much hassle.

You are not allowed to fix ugly code if you feel like it - the client should be ready to pay for that too !!

This isn't really a problem with IT alone; any profession where you charge by the hour ('man-hours') suffers from the same problem. Consultant work is more time-bound, than delivery-based, for very good reasons.

Trust me, tis nothing like cutting edge.

I think you've had a bit of an expectations mismatch. IT consultancy was never about using the best and brightest technology out there; it's about understanding a customer's requirements, both said and unsaid, and about thinking what's the best thing the customers shouldn't do. In that sense, contemporary IT consultancy is closer to M&O from, say, 1980's, than it is to, say, implementing AJAX in that intranet application for that big-shot bank. You really shouldn't be expecting an Accenture or an IBM Global Services or HP Consulting to be in the forefront of technology development, because that is not their job.

I laugh when Bangalore is called the silicon valley of the East!

Yes, Bangalore isn't a 'valley'; it's a plateau that's 1000m above sea-level, so calling it a Silicon Valley isn't really correct. Besides, very few of the companies in Bangalore use silicon chips the way the first wave of tech companies in the San Jose- Sunnyvale area did. So in that sense, you're right; extremely misleading to call Bangalore a valley, much less a silicon valley at that.

However, don't, for a moment, presume that there is no product-development (as opposed to project development, which is what TCS/Wipro/etc specialize in) going on in India. As I see it, that's the next big wave in Indian IT, and for the same reason that starting-up in the (real) Silicon Valley makes sense; proximity to potential customers, closer cultural ties and so on. In any case, Bangalore, I think, is in a much better position than of the other cities in the East are, both in terms of access to talent and markets. Much worse than starting-up in Fresno, if you will, but despite increasing land-prices and a rickety infrastructure, still better than Manila or Ho Chi Minh City.

Now, it would definitely have helped if our universities had that startup-ambience that American universities have, and for sure, it'd have been greatly beneficial if we were able to retain at least _some_ of that graduate population leaving the shores, but yeah, we're getting there.

I'm amazed no one's said it yet

[PeeAitchPee (712652)]

These overseas folks are here principally because of a lack of skilled US citizens in critical areas. The ire being posted on this thread is largely misplaced. Instead of ranting about foreigners suckling "your" jobs out of this country, perhaps we should have better funded engineering education programs and engineering-related incentives for prospective college students so we have enough Americans to do the work? Banning the H1Bs will only make it harder to fill these vacancies, which helps no one.

Honestly, I've never understood the sense of entitlement some have about their IT jobs. If you're half as good as you say you are, you should have no problem landing your next gig.

My experience as an employer and former H1B worker

[by Anonymous Coward]

I first came to the US in 2000 on a H1-B, I got a green card about a year ago, and now run a software company that employs a number of US citizens as software engineers, we are also bringing over a few people from other countries on H1-B visas. We aren't paying those people any less than their US counterparts, we are bringing them over simply because we can't find people with the specialized skills we need in the US.

Unfortunately due to the H1-B quota being hit on the first day, only two of our three H1-B applications were accepted. This doesn't help anyone, it means that the remaining person has to work remotely for at least a year (and therefore their taxes go to a foreign government), and its a PITA for us and them. Who wins here?

Frankly, any US software engineer that is having trouble finding a job in this economic environment should look in the mirror to see what their likely problem is, rather than trying to blame the H1-B visa program.

Re:Yes...

[Axe (11122)]

The same can be said about outsourced project - both domestic and overseas.

Legitimate H1B - not from the contractor sweat shops are not taking any jobs aways. Tried hiring anybody decent recently?

Re:Yes...

[amitabh_bachhan (826514)]

This is not completely accurate. Indian students who graduate from US universities also work on H1-B when they join American companies and they are certainly not paid lower than their American counterparts. So you would still need something like H1-B to use foreign (as in those who dont have a right to work without a permit) students from US univs.

Re:Yes...

[by Anonymous Coward]

...and they are certainly not paid lower than their American counterparts.

WRONG! Sorry to bust your bubble, but this has been studied. H1-B's average less than their American counter parts. You can't pull that one off here Buckwheat!

Have you been through an MBA program lately? Well along with my 15 years of engineering experience and my BS EE and MS CS, I earned my MBA 3 years ago. We studied these sorts of things. The use of H-1B's and offshoring were stressed as a means to bring down laybor costs (not just in tech, but in health care, accounting, etc).

And as a manager I can tell you that upper management EXPECTS us to lower costs using these "tools".

Re:Yes...

[penrodyn (927177)]

I'm on a H1-B and I can guarantee that I am not paid less than my peers.

Re:Yes...

[Billly Gates (198444)]

Alot of newer MBAs do not consider I.T. workers capital.

Instead they view IT workers as cost centers. Accountants write their salary in red as a loss since I.T. does not make anything and brings 0 value. But something like Sales can be written as capital as they can show they bring money in for example.

Of course that is BS but alot of new MBA graduates whose professors spewed this crap when the .com boom collapsed, are now bringing this philosphy into practice. They view outsourcing as a way to slash red ink of the cost center in labor rather than selling capital. Wow, that sounds alot better to the CEO and CFO doesn't it?

Re:Yes...

[zero_offset (200586)]

so you can demand far harsher conditions of work from them than any American (outside of undocumented workers) would take

There is no such thing as an "undocumented worker." We already have a phrase for that, and it's "illegal alien." These people are, by definition, not Americans. They are breaking the law, and as such, deserve capture, deportation, and probably they deserve some form of punishment to discourage future criminal activity. I have many friends and colleagues who are foreign-born or foreign-nationals who are here legally, and they endure a certain degree of expense and trouble to maintain their legal status because the benefits are worthwhile. Illegal aliens do not deserve your respect, protection or support. The mechanisms to permit a legal presence are easy to understand and readily available. There is no excuse.

To one degree or another, I agree with almost everything else you have posted. H1B has essentially destroyed an entire job market.

Re:Yes...

[ciscoguy01 (635963)]

There is no such thing as an "undocumented worker." We already have a phrase for that, and it's "illegal alien."

That's like calling a drug dealer an Unlicensed Pharmacist

All sillyness aside, take a look at this:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0420/p03s01-usec.htm l [csmonitor.com]
about programmer Michael Emmons, who worked for Siemens ICN in Florida.
The company imported Indian workers to sit at the fired American's former desks, and do their jobs.
Not as employees, but as contract employees hired through an Indian agency.
The agency paid their salaries back in India, they made no money in the US, but were paid "expenses" which were then tax free.

So here you have people living here in the US, using our roads, sewage system, police services, etc.
Paying no taxes whatsoever since they made no money here. The company had to pay no social security or medicare taxes as they did for their American workers. They saved a bundle, even if the salary were the same (but I'm sure it's not).
That's a distortion of the way the system is supposed to work. Outrageous.

Re:Yes...

[Vancorps (746090)]

I think you miss how the whole deal works and why the parent makes such a bold claim. If you're willing to pay people what they are worth finding good people is not hard to do. That is the problem, they don't want to spend the money to make money so they take whatever shortcut they can despite the problems it brings. Especially in IT its very important not to have a lot of turnover as implementations are usually company specific. I've never seen two companies deploy their infrastructures in the same way. That means even talented people will take at least a little time to become familiar enough to properly take over a network. Turnover is a huge problem. The higher ups at my company used to just burn out every IT guy they came across until they met me, then they decide it was best to give me more money, open the wallet to get some quality equipment and now things are running smooth in a high redundant environment administered by myself.

I learn more and more about the business the longer I'm here and the more I learn the more I can do to help. I've more than made up my salary and equipment costs in other cost savings. That's the way at least in my opinion IT should work in a company. I got lucky of course as it was a combination of timing as well as skill.

Regardless, I've hired help that was inexperienced, we pay them competitively and teach them the environment and now I don't have to worry about help-desk work. It's simple, keep them around, problems will go away assuming you didn't hire an idiot which has happened to me in the past as well.

Their should definitely be more protections for H1B workers though, they should not have to live in fear anymore than an American should. Perhaps a complaint system could be created that would be government controller ensuring that the companies they work for would not know. If enough complaints are filed an investigation could then be triggered. This is much the same way sexual harassment works for ADP. Employees of member companies can file a complaint to them and they will start a 3rd party independent investigation. It prevents a lot of abuses of power.

How about...

[Belial6 (794905)]

How about we just require that H1Bs get paid 1.5 to 2 times the prevailing wage. This would stop companies from hiring them to save money over local workers. It would mean that if a company hired them, they really needed them.

Look in the mirror....

[EmbeddedJanitor (597831)]

That pair of shoes made in the Phillipines could have been made in USA too. So could that ipod, phone etc made in China. Every time you buy a foreign made product you're helping write a US factory worker's pink slip.

It's easy to bitch when you're losing out, but look at the bugger picture. Why should highly paid tech workers feel they should have protection yet are willing to let factory workers get screwed so that they can enjoy low-cost products?

Why this years visas were filled in one day

[by Anonymous Coward]

I agree.

On a positive note though, over 100,000 visa holders are going home this year, and another 100,000+ in each of the next two years.

There were 190,000 visas issued in each of the years 2001, 2002, 2003, before the limit went back down to 65,000. THIS is the single reason why all of the H1-B visas were used up in one single day.

300,000+ H1-Bs is a VERY significant number of the IT unemployed. So this might look good, unless Congress changes things.

Unfortunately, Congress is debating RIGHT NOW on increasing this limit. The current proposals are to bump the number back up to 195,000; either directly, or indirectly through a new quota system.

If you don't want to repeat the years after the dot-com bust, you need to fax or write (preferrably not email) your representatives in Congress RIGHT NOW. That means this week. Otherwise, there's a very good chance that this limit will change upwards, as there's a lot of money driving the issue.

Also, the people driving the lobbying efforts have stated that if they don't get this passed this year, it won't get changed next year, as that's a major election year.

Re:Why this years visas were filled in one day

[Copid (137416)]

A while ago somebody here proposed auctioning off the visas. I think that's a fascinating idea, as it would guarantee that nobody was hired simply because they were available below market rates. The auction process would immediately make the median wage equal to or greater than the market wage. At that point, the companies do battle over how special their special talent is.

Another positive effect would be that the people who actually are most valuable will get the visas rather than the people who got lucky in the lottery. Imagine a brilliant person whose employer would gladly pay $500K to sponsor getting sent home because some other average schmuck got the visa. Kind of sucks for everybody but the schmuck. That's not exactly what we were hoping for when the program was instituted.

Re:Yes...

[Vicissidude (878310)]

However let's consider the other options we might have instead of outsourcing? IBM moving all their employees out of America? Why have a company in America when you can get cheaper work in India?

Because there are advantages to hiring developers from the same culture as the intended customer market. Because intellectual property laws in third world countries are a joke. Because for some work, particularly defense work, it is actually illegal to use foreign developers. Because even though managers are happy hiring workers from overseas, those same managers don't want to move to the third world themselves, and there are certain advantages to having your development staff close to management and marketing instead of half a world away.

Most of the work that could go overseas is already overseas because it is so much cheaper. The jobs that are now left in the US is work that is harder or impossible to ship overseas. We can decide to fill those positions with US workers or foreign workers. If we decide to fill the jobs with foreign workers, then we are training our future foreign competition while telling US college students not to enter CS or IT. If we decide to fill the jobs with US workers, then we are going to keep high-paying jobs here in the US while telling US college students that they will have a bright future in either CS or IT.

Re:Yes...

[karmatic (776420)]

Simple- don't allow companies to move.

It's not nearly as "simple" as you might think. It's fairly trivial to start sending business to a foreign subsidiary. So, we ban that. What's to stop the company from then having an "affiliate" company that gets 95% royalties on whatever they sell. Ok, ban that too. Companies can then "license" their technology to a foreign company cheaply, and operate the other company instead. Or, they can enter into business deals with the foreign company that cost a great deal of money, allowing them to funnel the money in the company to the foreign one. Finally, they have the option of just closing up shop, and when approached about business, say "we're not in business; however, we recommend the services of [foreign company] instead".

Legislating away all the ways one can move overseas would require such stringent legislation that nobody would want to do business here at all. It would take laws regulating (among other things) who you could do business with, require certain profit margins on all deals, impose requirements regarding ownership of multiple companies (remember that stocks convey ownership), regulate who you could recommend for services, and a number of other things which would greatly increase the size of government, decrease freedom for individuals and companies, cost a lot of money, and make the US a (even more) difficult place to do business.

I run a business in the United States, and I would like to continue to do so. We have a Hungarian engineer, not because he's cheap (he's not - he makes more than me), but because there isn't anyone better at what he does that we know of. We outsource to India on occasion because of the simple fact that for some jobs, we cannot compete at American wages. Which is better for America - an American company, paying American taxes, and hiring a few Indians as needed, or an Indian Company, paying Indian taxes, hiring only Indians?

If America started to take the steps to make it impossible to (effectively) move business overseas, regardless of the collateral damage, I would move. America is no longer the "shining beacon of liberty" it once was - we willingly, gladly trade real liberty for imagined security. Don't believe me? How is a Metal Detector going to stop a suicide bomber with some dynamite, a fuse, and a book of matches? George Bush has done more harm to this country's freedoms than any other person in history, congress and the police ignore the constitution at every occasion, we're turning into a police state, and we lose more life waiting in the airport security line every year than was lost on 9/11.

We squander money like it's going out of style, and our economy is doomed [housingdoom.com]. Housing prices are way overinflated, we have no savings, and the FDIC doesn't have enough cash to make more than a token gesture at fixing things when the inevitable crash happens.

So, if this country is so bad, why don't I leave? Well, it's (at the moment) a favorable environment for business, and I have family here. I also think that it may be possible to save our freedoms, and that an economic crash may help wake people up, and will be good in the long run (affordable housing, smaller government from lack of funding, etc.). So I stay, run my business, and work to make the country a better place. Take away my business, or threaten it, and I will lose much of my reason for staying. Companies aren't the only ones who can move.

Re:Yes...

[h2_plus_O (976551)]

It's not nearly as "simple" as you might think.

Yes, it is.

In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they often are not. Law and code have a shared characteristic: unintended consequences can make a good idea (in theory) into an unmitigated disaster (in practice).

The law is littered with unintended outcomes:

• The income tax deduction for interest paid on home mortgages actually drives up the rate the market will bear, making it more expensive for non-itemizers to borrow than it otherwise would be. The mortgage interest deduction was intended to promote home ownership by making it cheaper, but for the majority of people (who do not itemize) it makes it more expensive.
• It's illegal to hire undocumented workers. These laws are intended to protect domestic workers, but they actually create a black market of undocumented labor that can't negotiate fair wages for fear of being deported, which undercuts the prices domestic labor would theoretically command.
• Making drugs illegal was intended, in theory, to marginalize their use by making them too expensive or risky. Instead, pot is our #1 cash crop and the funding source of choice for organized crime.
• We subsidize farmers to make food plentiful and cheap. They then sell their (cheap) crops on the world market, putting farmers around the world out of work. The farmers go to cities to compete for manufacturing jobs, producing cheap manufactured goods for import back into the US at rates cheaper than US workers can compete with, putting US manufacturers out of work.
• We also subsidize farmers to protect their way of life. This attracts corporations who compete for the tax subsidies and benefits available to farmers, crowding family farmers out of the business.

I might go so far as to speculate that the ratio of unintended consequences to intended ones for any given law is postive. Doubly so if the law tries to thwart economic reality.

Wow; I see why u remain A.C.

[WindBourne (631190)]

Look, I did a 2'nd round of BSCS in 1992-1993 (had a BS microbio already). At that time, I was mature enough that I was number 1 in all my classes. But right behind me were Indian's and Chinese. Why was that? Because they worked at it. When I was studying, so were they. I routinely saw American's cheating at their exams (one is now a high up manager in a mapping company). What did it say about Americans vs. other foreigners? That the foreigners wanted their degree while Americans treat it as a given. While you might be pissed that jobs are being taken away and sent to uneducated ppl in other nations (and that is the case), to denigrate those that came here (or to canada) and work their ass off is plain wrong. I have been impressed by the Indian and Chinese culture.