-Caveat Lector-
From
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/329/nation/High_tech_layoffs_cause_f
uror_over_foreign_workersP.shtml
>>>Now, it would occur to me that this is smart "business" sense. If
they bring in foreign workers and when the time comes to lay them
off, they get what kind of benefits? Job over, visa over; homeward
bound. To hire Americans, then they have to kick in benefits. As
this may be the case, I would also suppose that the policy would
ignore Americans as they already have / had jobs. Plus, it would be
the companies losing the employees that would have to pay the
unemployment compensation. To rehire laid off people would mean
those benefits would shift to the gaining company, no? Whose bank
account is affected seems to be the driving factor. A<>E<>R<<<
}}}>Begin
THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING
High-tech layoffs cause furor over foreign workers
By Jube Shiver Jr. Los Angeles Times, 11/25/2001
WASHINGTON - Amid a wave of layoffs in high technology, US companies
have received government approval to bring in a record 163,200
foreign workers, under a program that critics say is being abused to
hire cheaper overseas talent.
The number of approved visas under the program, known under
immigration laws as H-1B, fell short of the 195,000 allowed annually.
But the hiring binge in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 still has
caused a furor in high-tech, where more than 600,000 people have
been laid off in 10 months.
''At a time when hundreds of thousands of Americans are out of work,
many employers are rubbing salt in the wound by hiring foreign
workers,'' said Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for
American Immigration Reform, a Washington group critical of the H-1B
visa program.
More than a year ago, Silicon Valley mounted a campaign to persuade
Congress to expand the program to satisfy demand for highly skilled
workers. The result was a record number of applications, mostly from
foreign workers.
At the time, executives from companies such as Sun Microsystems Inc., Intel Corp., and
Motorola Inc. successfully argued that if the economy were to continue to boom, it was
crucial for the government to admit more skille
d workers from overseas.
But by the time Congress raised the H-1B visa limits from 115,000 to 195,000 last
October, the technology boom was waning.
Industry officials say they are eager to hire Americans. But they also say that even
with this year's layoffs, the number of US workers with technical skills isn't large
enough to fill all the job vacancies.
''The dot-com boom may be over, but we are still in the middle of a skills shortage,''
said Theresa Cardinal Brown, manager of labor and immigration policy at the US Chamber
of Commerce in Washington. ''Every organization
in the country has a need for information technology workers.''
The surge in workers' visas over the past 12 months is in part attributable to
pent-up demand for engineers, as US colleges and universities have graduated fewer of
them. In addition, companies rushed to hire more foreig
ners last year before a $500 visa application fee increase was imposed.
Murali Krishna Devarakonda, a software engineer and a board member of the Immigrants
Support Network, a group based in Budd Lake, N.J., that assists H-1B visa holders,
said the INS statistics are misleading.
He said the INS data indicate only the number of approved visa applications, not the
number of foreign workers who come to the United States.
But demand has remained robust through the downturn. Besides the surge of applications
this summer, the INS still has 29,000 applications pending.
Daniel M. Larson, director of government relations for Texas Instruments Inc., where
H-1B workers number 800 and make up about 3 percent of the work force, said the market
for electrical engineers is still highly competit
ive.
''We are dependent on H-1B workers and consider them a valuable part of our company,''
said Larson, whose company has laid off 2,500 workers in the past year. He did not
have figures on H-1B workers were a part of the lay
offs.
For some technology workers laid low by the economic slump, the explanations provide
little consolation.
''The level of anger over this program ... just keeps rising,'' said John Miano,
chairman of the Programmer's Guild, a group in Summit, N.J., that represents software
engineers.
The rancor has spilled over to Congress, where one lawmaker has introduced legislation
that would scale back the program.
''I never believed for a moment these companies really were unable to find a citizen
who wanted the job,'' said Representative Thomas G. Tancredo, a Colorado Republican
who has introduced a bill that would slash the numbe
r of H-1B visa holders to the pre-1998 levels of 65,000 annually.
The H-1B visa program was created by the Immigration Act of 1990. It
allowed companies to hire foreign workers with hard-to-find technical
skills. Those include not just engineers, but also fashion models,
physicians, chefs, and others with specialized talents.
About 60 percent of the H-1B visa holders are in computer programming
and other information technology fields, according to a report
released last year by the General Accounting Office.
Workers get a visa for up to six years and are supposed to earn the
same salary and benefits as US-born counterparts.
This story ran on page A2 of the Boston Globe on 11/25/2001.
� Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.
End<{{{
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