The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 4 (of 5)

H1B visa cap reached

Yep, you read that correctly. No new H1B visas are being granted for the current fiscal year:

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5161069.html

burninator
Thursday, February 19, 2004

wow, thats gonna change my life.

does this mean that the large segment of boring old men droning on about the evils of H1B visas and outsourcing will shut up for a while? (maybe until next fiscal year?)

FullNameRequired
Thursday, February 19, 2004

I thought the cap was fixed at 65,000 dropped from 190,000. They've stymied entry short of a thousand applicants at 64,000 and only 5 months into the fiscal.

Sathyaish Chakravarthy
Thursday, February 19, 2004

No such luck "FullNameRequired"! Even though the talk about H1B visas is likely to go down (hopefully) but outsourcing will still remain as the current hot topic what with the election year coming up and just about everybody jumping onto the outsourcing bandwagon.

All those in favour of outsourcing raise their hand.

Just kidding! :)

T-90
Thursday, February 19, 2004

"All those in favour of outsourcing raise their hand."

<g> on the bright side, maybe those who tend to pontificate about the evils of outsourcing will be the first to go....

FullNameRequired
Thursday, February 19, 2004

On the flip side of the same coin, the move is gonna encourage outsourcing, rather offshore development. With the clamp down on the H1-B visas, the US is only encouraging full time offshoring through virtual departments. It costs much lesser to offshore than to import people.

Sathyaish Chakravarthy
Thursday, February 19, 2004

"the move is gonna encourage outsourcing, "

yeah, that was the first thing that occured to me too.
<g> I wasn't mad enough to say it aloud on this forum though, it will only start YAOA (yet another offshoring argument)

comes under political games I guess...

FullNameRequired
Thursday, February 19, 2004

The real scandal lies with the T1's, since they allow employers to have all the benefits of outsourcing cost savings with none of the disadvantages of having the devlopment thousands of miles away.

Stephen Jones
Thursday, February 19, 2004

From another article, it looks like it only affects applicants for new H1B visas. Those of us that already are in the US on an H1B are allowed to extend it, change employers, get a second H1B, etc. It still sucks, but at least my life as I know it isn't over if I get laid off. At least I hope it isn't.. :)

sid6581
Thursday, February 19, 2004

You're right, its not for the three year H1B extensions.

Sathyaish Chakravarthy
Thursday, February 19, 2004

Yup. No more visas will be issued until October. National Public Radio just had a segment on this issue yesterday. Apparently, there are a lot of employers out there who have lobbyists in Washington fighting to increase the current quota. I guess "who cares if it is an election year" is their motto.

In some ways the H-1B visa cap is irrelevant since many companies can get their labor fix via third party body shops who are using the L-1 visa (no quota) to bring people into this country.

Thursday, February 19, 2004

Sathyaish, it's a standard PR line of the offshoring lobby that crack-downs on H1-B will exacerbate offshoring.

But you know what? Offshoring is critically dependent on those temporary worker visas, so people can be trained and acquire on-the-ground expertise. Cut backs in H1-B will actually make it harder for the offshorers. That's why Nasscom and your prime minister lobby against cut-backs.

As others have said, it would be more useful if similar controls were imposed on L1's too.

FullName, sorry buddy, you still can't get in.

Thursday, February 19, 2004

ho there strange anonymous poster,

"Sathyaish, it's a standard PR line of the offshoring lobby that crack-downs on H1-B will exacerbate offshoring."

yeah, thats because its such obvious common sense that only a moron wouldn't get.....oh...sorry....

"Offshoring is critically dependent on those temporary worker visas"

how much do you want to bet? thats just plain wrong.

"
FullName, sorry buddy, you still can't get in."

LOL

actually I can. Im american by birth and citizenship, New Zealander by choice.
Frankly, at the moment, I dont _want_ to get in.

FullNameRequired
Thursday, February 19, 2004

FullName, sometimes you claim to be a New Zealander, and sometimes you claim to be Australian. There's a term for that condition, you know.

FullName, the connection between H1-B/L1 abuse and offshoring is made by bigger people and me and is quite logical.

Tata, Wipro and Infosys file enormous numbers of H1-B and L1 visa requests for their operations in America. Many times higher than for American companies. The reason is that they're cycling offshore employees through to get experience with applications and business in America. Of course, this also applies in other countries too, but it's biggest in America.

Thursday, February 19, 2004

"FullName, sometimes you claim to be a New Zealander, and sometimes you claim to be Australian. There's a term for that condition, you know."

??? australian? Ive _never_ claimed to be australian.

I _live_ in new zealand, Ive claimed that pretty regularly.

I _am_ american, thats a matter of fact.

"FullName, the connection between H1-B/L1 abuse and offshoring is made by bigger people and me and is quite logical. "

?? pleased to hear it, I have no opinion on H1B abuse at all, presumably like all abuse its a bad thing...people should clearly follow the law.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was a link between H1B _abuse_ and offshoring, but surely thats irrelevant to the discussion at hand?

"The reason is that they're cycling offshore employees through to get experience with applications and business in America"

<G> let me guess, you know this because indians (or whatever) only stay in american under the H1B for specific periods of time, before returning to, for instance, india...right?

I bet once they return to india they look for jobs? and some of those jobs are with companies for whom they have previously worked....presumably because those companies know the employee and know their quality?

it all sounds incredibly natural and boring to me....what makes you think its a conspiracy instead of just, well, a pretty expected consequence?

or are the vampire people involved somehow?

FullNameRequired
Thursday, February 19, 2004

The whole point of the H1B controversy is the allegations that there's a lot of fraud involved, including industry's claims it can't find programmers.

Second, H1B's and L1's are imported within the Indian offshorers and then cycle back to India. You don't seem to understand how it works.

Thursday, February 19, 2004

"Second, H1B's and L1's are imported within the Indian offshorers and then cycle back to India."

??? so what? you want them to stay in america? perhaps you would like us to remove their fingers so they can no longer code?

I really dont see the problem, they come here under H1B, they work for the designated period and whilst do so pick up skills and experience that make them valuable, then they return to their native country and hire those skills out.

" You don't seem to understand how it works.""

I understand how it works, I dont understand your problem with it.

FullNameRequired
Thursday, February 19, 2004

H1-B's and L-1's are outside the normal immigration system. The rationale for them is that business desperately needs more programmers and can't find them. Now, that's never been true, but it certainly isn't now.

If Indian firms are using those visas to cycle though people purely to acquire the expertise to do the work in India, then that's an abuse of the intent of the temporary worker system.

That usage of the temporary worker system is intrinsic to offshoring. If the Indian firms were not allowed to abuse the temporary worker system, they would not be able to get the work or do the contracts they currently do.

The same thing happens in other countries.

Thursday, February 19, 2004

L 1's are like business visas. They are to enable management from the parent company to co-operate with the project on a short-term basis. They were never intended to allow the import of workers to do projects in the First World and be paid less than the going rate, or even the minimum wage (there was the fanous case in London of a load of North Indian stonemasons who were imported to build an Indian temple, given no accomodation outside of the building site and paid 50 cents an hour - they managed to win the court case but I doubt if they would have in the States).

L1's exploit both the foreign worker as well as putting the US worker out of a job, and allowing outside companies to collar contracts by unfair business practises. If US programmers teamed up with the Indian programmers, and even political parties and unions in India, then they could curtail the practise. However you scarcely hear a beep.

H1B's are outside the green card system. There are normally two reasons why a country accepts immigration. The first is that it needs workers to do the low-paid jobs that its citizens do not want (and a large number of immigrants to the States have started out that way), and the second is that it has a shortage in a certain skill set. The H1B visas address the second problem. They are also a little exploitative in that the worker is tied to a certain skill (though in the case of programmers paid between $50K and $120K I doubt if that is a real hardship) and theoretically to a specific employer, but there are sufficient safeguards in place to ensure they are not used to undercut the market (though obviously by increasing the numbers they prevent an upward spiral). Incidentally there are loads of Americans everywhere in the World who are working on the equivalent of H1B or L1 visas.

The strange thing is that all the hubbub is about H1B's, whilst the really dangerous L1's (and I think the figures for last year were in the region of 300,000) are scarcely mentioned. I rather suspect that the typical whiner somehow feels outraged when the H1B Indian who takes his job gets the same salary as he does, but actually doesn't mind as much as long as the LI replacement lives four to a bedsit and earns less than the programmer he replaced does at Walmart.

Stephen Jones
Friday, February 20, 2004

Free regn for this outsourcing conference:
http://www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaid=65263

none
Monday, April 5, 2004