Foreign Talent
Today, Business Week magazine posts an interesting article: "Still wanted: Foreign Talent and Visas". The author wrote that even as job losses in the U.S. increases and millions of people losing jobs, many U.S companies are still hiring oversea skilled workers, especially in the software field. According to data from the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services. This year so far the U.S has granted 65,000 visas for foreign workers to come and work in the U.S under the H-1B program. With this program, foreigners can stay and work in the U.S for up to 3 years, with the possibility of extending for additional years.
The majority of workers came to the U.S are from India where most of them have the software engineering skills which are most needed in the U.S as more students in the U.S are enrolling in Business schools instead of Engineering schools. Due to the declining in software engineering enrollments, many companies have to bring workers from India, China, Europe to fill the gap. According to the data, last year Microsoft was No. 2 on the list with 1,318 foreign hired, while Intel ranked No. 3 with 723. U.S laws requires that when foreigners are legally working in the U.S, they have to be treated the same as U.S employees that means they should have the same salary and benefits. Currently, a newly graduated software engineering could earned between $60,000 to $100,000 USD a year, that is why many top software people all over the world are applying for this program and it creates a backlash from their countries as the U.S is "draining away" their top scientists and engineers. A recent graduated Chinese software engineer told the local TV station that if he stays in China, he will make about $12,000 USD but as he is working for Microsoft now, his salary is $ 80,000 USD in which he could help feed his family in China and still making a comfortable living in the U.S. Another students from India told the local newspaper in Portland that he wanted to learn as much as possible from Intel and save money so in few years he could return to India and creates his own company. However, according to some statistics from U.S Immigration Services, most people from the H1B program eventually stayed in the U.S with less than 2% return to their own countries.
Recently the program is being criticized by many people. Ron Hira, associate professor of public policy at Rochester Institute of Technology complained "Considering the state of the economy, with 15.4 million people unemployed in the U.S., companies should be able to find qualified workers here." With the Obama Administration struggling to create jobs, politicians are debating whether the program needs some change. Senators Bernie Sanders and Charles Grassley have introduced a bill to prevent companies that lay off U.S. workers from hiring foreign workers through H-1B programs. They said: "We have a responsibility to ensure that companies do not use the foreign worker program to replace American workers". However, as software companies are still needing more skilled workers, especially in the newer technology fields such as Bio-technology, Life Science, Software Engineering, and Energy and with dropping enrollment in these areas it would be difficult to stop skilled workers from entering the U.S.
When being asked about this situation, Sridhar Ramasubbu, Wipro's chief financial officer for international said that the U.S is NOT the only place that Indian software engineers could come and work. Due to high demand for this skills globally, other countries are still opening their doors to highly skilled workers. He concluded that "We're now operating in 58 countries and we will expanding to more as the demand is still high and the supply is still low"
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
