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There are plenty of out of work Americans out there and there are 65,000 people coming from outside the country to work.
Should we suspend H-1B work visas until the unemployment rate goes down?
I think we can make exceptions in some areas but I think until the unemployment rate is down to around 6 percent, we should put a hold on granting work visas.
If measured according to the methodology used when I was assistant secretary of the Treasury, the unemployment rate today in the US is above 20 percent. Moreover, there is no obvious way of reducing it. There are no factories, with work forces temporarily laid off by high interest rates, waiting for a lower interest rate policy to call their workforces back into production.
The work has been moved abroad. In the bygone days of American prosperity, CEOs were inculcated with the view that they had equal responsibilities to customers, employees, and shareholders. This view has been exterminated. Pushed by Wall Street and the threat of takeovers promising “enhanced shareholder value,” and incentivized by “performance pay,” CEOs use every means to substitute cheaper foreign employees for Americans [How Well-Educated, Hard-Working Americans are Treated in America, By Rennie Sawade, WashTech News, September 14, 2009 ]. Despite 20 percent unemployment and *** laude engineering graduates who cannot find jobs or even job interviews, Congress continues to support 65,000 annual H-1B work visas for foreigners.
In the midst of the highest unemployment since the Great Depression what kind of a fool do you need to be to think that there is a shortage of qualified US workers?
In a word, yes. Then there should be some sort of penalty structure for companies who outsource. And tax credits for companies who bring those jobs back to the US.
We can't afford to take care of everyone else if our own people are unemployed.
BTW, there is a whole small science written around figuring out ways to advertise jobs so you get no American candidates. The advertising thing is a prerequisite to bringing in H1B folks.
So whatever happened to hiring the closest fit you could find and training that individual? Does anyone REALLY believe those H1B folks don't need training? I've been there when those people showed up and I know the real story.
Don't believe for 1 minute there are no US citizens qualified for the jobs going to H1B people. Sometimes they advertise impossibly low salaries. And that's exactly what they pay to the H1B person they hire.....but then they sweeten the pot by giving that individual perks. Like a free place to live, a car, education, trips home, sometimes they even pay utilities and food. They call it relocation assistance, stipends for wives/husbands, or some other name, not salary. Add it all up and these people are not making starvation wages an American wouldn't work for.
What's the true cost to all of us? How much time have we wasted due to communication difficulties? How many times have we needed to hang up and call back just trying to find someone who spoke/understood enough English to help us? Trying to find someone who spoke enough English to DO the job they were hired to do? Employers also seem to expect much more from US citizens than they do from the H1B folks. Those of us who were still around had to work much harder to pick up the slack for the people who have no IDEA what it is they are supposed to be doing. Why do we do this? Because if we don't, our jobs will go next.
That whole program needs to be abolished and set up with something more effective. It is fraught with loopholes and fraud. It needs to be done differently somehow. There are other threads on this, that cover this subject extensively.
I don't think we should abolish it. But I do think that we need to make it more difficult for employers to bring in guest workers, and I think we need to make it harder to renew those Visa's without an additional search for a qualified applicant. At this point I don't think we need I/T workers, but there are some medical fields that we have a shortage of, RN's comes right to mind.
I know someone teaching at a prominent university from abroad. I think he must be on H-1B.
He makes an incredibly low salary and he has a doctorate in a very tough scientific discipline.
I think it's true...they know foreigners who work in the USA teach here primarily for experience. Then they can go back to their own countries and be treated like kings. (because they worked in the USA).
(1) Employers pay a tax on wages to H1-B employees.
ie. If the person makes $50,000, the employer ( like Microsoft )
has to pay $50,000 tax to the government for that employee.
( The $50,000 should be a minimum tax. It's more for the
H1-B employee who makes more. )
Effectively, the employee costs the employer $100k.
Employers will only use H1-B employees if they really need that person's unique skills.
(2) Employers get a double tax deduction for wages paid to citizens.
ie. If citizen makes $50,000 salary, currently an employer, of
course, deducts that money just like they would deduct office
supplies.
Let the employer deduct $100,000 for wages paid to that
American who makes $50,000. ( They would get to deduct
$30,000 for people who make $15,000 and so on. )
(1) Employers pay a tax on wages to H1-B employees.
ie. If the person makes $50,000, the employer ( like Microsoft )
has to pay $50,000 tax to the government for that employee.
( The $50,000 should be a minimum tax. It's more for the
H1-B employee who makes more. )
Effectively, the employee costs the employer $100k.
Employers will only use H1-B employees if they really need that person's unique skills.
(2) Employers get a double tax deduction for wages paid to citizens.
ie. If citizen makes $50,000 salary, currently an employer, of
course, deducts that money just like they would deduct office
supplies.
Let the employer deduct $100,000 for wages paid to that American
who makes $50,000. ( They would get to deduct $30,000 for
people who make $15,000 and so on. )
--+-- PROBLEM SOLVED --+--
That's not going to solve the problem for staffing in fields that there truly is a labor shortage in, like nursing. It's only going to lower patient care quality and raise health care costs.
There's no need to quote my entire friggin' post right under
the original post. Either edit it or use the [Post Reply] button.
Berserk quoting is bad form and lazy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by annerk
That's not going to solve the problem for staffing
in fields that there truly is a labor shortage ...
My proposal is not to solve the problem of "staffing
in fields that there truly is a labor shortage."
My proposal is to curb the obvious abuses.
The point is that if there is truly a shortage, then the the employer
will pay for the H1-B labor and if not, they will hire a friggin' American.
I really don't care if there is truly a labor shortage in nursing.
There is currently a flood of people entering that field as we speak.
Compensating for a shortage in a small minority of fields by
subsidising H1-B use is not as important as allowing Americans
a fair shot at the jobs H1-Bs are taking.
No because then compoanies will move those jobs overseas as we ahve seen. We just can't supply the higher techncal workers needed bascially.
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