The Wall Street Journal today has an interesting article regarding the number of H-1B workers in the US.
There’s also a list of companies who had 100 or more H-1B petitions approved in fiscal year 2008. Indian consulting companies appear to get most of the visas.
An article in the Wall Street Journal suggests that, “The Obama administration should seriously consider granting resident status to foreigners who buy surplus houses in this country.”
In order to reduce the excess inventory of houses, it is suggested to “offer permanent residence status to the many foreigners who are clamoring to get into the U.S. — if they buy houses of minimal values (not shacks). They wouldn’t need to live in those houses, but in order to remove the unit from the total housing market, they couldn’t rent them.”
According to the article, “Each year, 85,000 H-1B visas are granted for foreigners with advanced skills and education, and last year, 163,000 petitions were filed in the first five days after applications were accepted. The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation estimates that as of Sept. 30, 2006, 500,040 residents of the U.S. and 59,915 individuals living abroad were waiting for employment-based visas. Many would buy homes if their immigration conditions were settled.
These people tend to be highly productive. In 2006, foreign nationals residing in the U.S. were listed as inventors on 25.6% of the patent applications filed in the U.S., up from 7.6% in 1998. A Council of Graduate Schools survey found that in the fall of 2007, 241,095 non-U.S. citizens were enrolled in graduate programs. Some 55% were in engineering and the biological and physical sciences, compared with only 16% of U.S. citizens. In 2007, more people on temporary visas received doctorates in physical sciences and engineering than U.S. citizens.
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Indian outsourcers, along with Microsoft and Google, again lead the list of companies bringing foreign workers to the U.S. on the H-1B visa program.
According to U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Service (USCIS), Four India-based companies topped the list:
Infosys Technologies (INFY, India): 4,559 H-1B visas approved in 2008, 4,559 in 2007
Wipro (WIT, India): 2,678 H-1B visas approved in 2008; 2,567 in 2007
Satyam (SAY, India): 1,917 H-1B visas approved in 2008; 1,396 in 2007
Tata (TCS.BO, India): 1,539 H-1B visas approved in 2008; 797 in 2007
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT): 1,018 H-1B visas approved in 2008; 959 in 2007
Google (NASDAQ:GOOG): 248 H-1B visas approved in 2008
Lehman Brothers: 130 H-1B visas approved in 2008
In fiscal year 2007, six of the top 10 visa recipients were based in India; two others among the top 10, Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTSH) and UST Global, are headquartered in the U.S. but have most of their operations in India, according to BusinessWeek
USCIS will begin taking H-1B applications for the next fiscal year on April 1 and will distribute the new visas on Oct. 1.
Source: U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Service (USCIS)
According to AP, CNBC: “Microsoft Corp. is slashing overtime, hours and pay for U.S. temporary workers as part of an overall push to curb expenses during the recession.
Microsoft will cut what it pays the staffing agencies by 10 percent for current projects and won’t raise the rate it pays for temporary workers who return after a mandatory annual 100-day break. The company also plans to reduce overtime and the total number of hours clocked by temporary workers.”
~News submitted by upthecreek
According to Channel Web: “Cisco Systems (NSDQ:CSCO) confirmed to Channelweb.com that it has eliminated a number of positions in the U.S. and abroad as part of its realignment and restructuring initiative that will chop $1 billion out of its operating budget throughout fiscal year 2009.
Cisco would not confirm on Wednesday how many positions were cut. Sources, however, said employees started receiving notifications on Tuesday, and roughly 250 of the positions eliminated were based in San Jose, Calif. Overall, sources said, the number of employees affected was fewer than the 1,500 to 2,000 that Cisco CEO John Chambers hinted at on the company’s earnings call for the second fiscal quarter.”
A provision requiring banks receiving federal bailout funds to give hiring priority to U.S. workers over foreigners with H-1B visas made it into the final version of the economic stimulus bill that President Barack Obama signed last week.
But House and Senate negotiators dropped a separate proposal that would have forced all employers benefiting from stimulus money to use the government’s Web-based E-Verify system to vet the employment status of their workers.
Source: ComputerWorld
Federal investigators discovered fraud in more than 20 percent of applications they examined in which employers were requesting H-1B visas to hire foreign professionals in the U.S., a finding they called a “significant vulnerability.”
In a report released late last year, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service cited one especially egregious case in which an employer petitioned for a business-development analyst position but later told investigators the worker would be doing laundry and maintaining washing machines.
Source: The Seattle Times
According to ComputerWorld: ” Federal agents on Thursday said they arrested 11 people in six states in a crackdown on H-1B visa fraud and unsealed documents that detail how the visa process was used to undercut the salaries of U.S. workers.”
“The arrests were carried out by federal, state and local agents working in Iowa, California, Massachusetts, Texas, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and New Jersey. The government’s action “is the result of an extensive, ongoing investigation into suspected H-1B visa fraud, mail fraud and conspiracy,” said Matthew Whitaker, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa, in a statement.”
“The company that seemed to get the most attention from federal authorities is Vision Systems Group Inc., which authorities said had its principal places of business in Somerset and South Plainfield, N.J., and an office in Coon Rapids, Iowa. The company was cited in a 10-count indictment.”
ComputerWorld worte on October, 2008: “An internal report by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) examining the H-1B visa program has found evidence of forged documents and fake degrees, and even “shell” companies giving addresses of fake locations.”
Update: The government arrested on conspiracy and mail fraud Shiva Neeli in Boston, Ramakrishna Maguluri in Atlanta, Villiappan Subbaiah in Dallas, Suresh Pola in Pennsylvania, Karambir Yadav in Louisville, Ky., Amit Justa and Venkata Guduru, both in New Jersey, and Vijay Myneni in San Jose. Charged with conspiracy, mail fraud and wire fraud was Vishnu Reddy in Los Angeles and Chockalingam Palaniappan in San Jose, who operated a company named Pacific West Corp. in Santa Clara, Calif.
Roseville, CA (February 10, 2009) Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) has announced today it’s plans to lay off all network engineers-contractors from it’s ProCurve project in Roseville, CA (Sacramento area). Dozens of engineers are affected, according to leaks from different anonymous sources from inside.
Update (2-18-2009): HP cuts full year outlook, quarterly revenue missed expectations, according to Reuters
~Please feel free to submit your comments and updates regarding HP’s layoff
According to FoxNews: “Satyam Computer Services Ltd., the Indian tech giant at the center of a $1 billion executive fraud and a World Bank ethics scandal, is involved in yet another kind of debacle — this time at the United Nations’ public health arm, the World Health Organization (WHO).
At issue is Satyam’s role in the development of a $55.5 million global business management system for WHO, which was slated to become the master control for staffing, financial payments and procurement by the organization by an initial deadline of September 2007.
That deadline has long since passed, and instead, according to documents obtained by FOX News, the project is far behind schedule, wallowing in glitches that have deeply affected WHO operations, and, despite management claims to the contrary, likely to end up far exceeding its budget.
Moreover, according to the documents, in the push to get at least part of the system up and running by last summer, Satyam ignored the instructions of the software’s manufacturer, Oracle, for implementing the complex system; ran user tests that validated the system without “being able to replicate a real-life situation,” provided little or no training to WHO employees; and failed to adequately involve health care professionals who see the system as a vital tool, among a host of other failings.”
According to ComputerWorld: “Financial services firms that receive federal bailout money will be prohibited from hiring H-1B workers if legislation introduced last night in the U.S. Senate wins adoption. The bill would bar any recipient of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), the program being used by the government to purchase some $700 billion of bad mortgage assets, from hiring anyone on an H-1B visa.”
~ News submitted by Kirk R.
According to CNNMoney: “The global economic downturn will continue to hammer computer networking giant Cisco Systems Inc., chief executive John Chambers said Wednesday.
In its current quarter, Cisco expects to see revenue decline between 15% and 20%, he said in a conference call with analysts.”
“We are not going to consider (layoffs) at this time,” chief executive John Chambers said. But he added, that if Cisco was forced to cut jobs, it would likely be a large cut of about 10% of its workforce.
According to India Times: “IT-BPO industry association Nasscom on Wednesday said software and service exports will grow 16-17% in 2008-09 to $47 billion, lower than earlier estimates of $50 billion as the global economic slowdown dampened demand.
The association had also estimated total IT-BPO revenues to grow 21-24% in the current fiscal. As per revised estimates, the total IT soft-ware and services revenues, including domestic revenues, are poised to grow 15.3% in FY09 to $60 billion. The total IT- BPO industry, including hardware, will be worth $71.7 billion in FY09.”
According to AP Investigation: “Banks collecting billions of dollars in federal bailout money sought government permission to bring thousands of foreign workers to the U.S. for high-paying jobs, according to an Associated Press review of visa applications.”
“The dozen banks receiving the biggest rescue packages, totaling more than $150 billion, requested visas for more than 21,800 foreign workers over the past six years for positions that included senior vice presidents, corporate lawyers, junior investment analysts and human resources specialists. The average annual salary for those jobs was $90,721, nearly twice the median income for all American households.”
“It is unclear how many foreign workers the banks actually hired; the government does not release those details. The actual number is likely a fraction of the 21,800 foreign workers the banks sought to hire because the government limits the number of visas it grants to 85,000 each year among all U.S. employers.”
“During the last three months of 2008, the largest banks that received taxpayer loans announced more than 100,000 layoffs. The number of foreign workers included among those laid off is unknown.”
Source: Yahoo Finance
~News submitted by Ben
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