Wall Street Journal article

Date: Tuesday, August 28, 2007 2:55 AM

<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1745 -- 8/28/2007 >>>>>

The Wall Street Journal published a very biased article to make a case for
more H-1B visas. This is all part of the national PR campaign that is being
initiated by the cheap labor lobby to pressure Congress when they come back
from their lavish vacations.

The WSJ article is loaded with the usual clichis, but this one really grabbed
my eye:

Many of the Intel Corp. job candidates who failed to get H-1Bs will
stay in school and try for the visa next year while Intel holds
open the jobs; one will work abroad for a year, then plans to come
to the U.S. on a different visa.

I suspect most of the foreign students are already working at Intel on
optional practical training visas (OPT) so the job positions will never be
offered to Americans. Intel should make a new logo that says "H-1B Inside!"
It's worth noting that Intel is so determined not to hire Americans they are
willing to hold job positions open for over a year if the foreign student's
OPT runs out and has to return to their home country to get a visa alternative
to H-1B. Apparently foreign students aren't expected to "hit the ground
running" like Americans do.

The following excerpt is actually kind of funny. The WSJ makes it sound like a
big deal that Microsoft budgets several thousand dollars for the legal fees
for each H-1B they hire. I'm sure they budget that much money but only a
nincompoop like a WSJ reporter would fail to ask how much Microsoft actually
spends. Most H-1B visas entail nothing more than some routine paperwork so the
total cost is usually not close to thousands of dollars.

Employers who use H-1Bs say they aren't trying to save money;
they say they incur significant expenses to obtain foreign
workers with much-needed skills. Intel and Microsoft say they
budget several thousand dollars in legal fees for each
foreign hire, to cover an H-1B visa and a permanent-residency
permit.

Predictably the WSJ author never thinks to ask about the total cost savings
for employers who use H-1B visa holders instead of more expensive Americans.
Microsoft and so many other companies are willing to spend $3,000 for an H-1B
because they can save at least $120,000 on wages (assuming $20K for six
years). For corporate employers it's simply a matter of cost per unit of
labor.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB118816920171709180-lMyQjAxMDE3ODI4NzEyNjc5Wj.html

Managing Firms Get Creative To Work Around Visa Bottlenecks

By PHRED DVORAK
August 27, 2007; Page B1

Janet Reardon wants to hire a senior engineer for her company's Los Angeles
office -- but first she has to send him to Canada. That's because the
engineer, an Indian now working in Kuwait, is among tens of thousands of
educated foreigners offered jobs in the U.S. this year but unable to get
visas.

Ms. Reardon, a human-resource manager at Corrpro Cos. Inc., has asked the
corrosion-prevention firm's Canadian unit to take on the engineer until the
company can reapply for a visa next year. But no one is particularly happy
about that. The engineer, with 20 years' experience, would rather move to
Southern California; Corrpro's Canadian managers are reluctant to hire an
employee they might lose in months; and Ms. Reardon can't be sure that next
year will bring the coveted visa.

But she persists because corrosion specialists are rare. "It's like hitting
the jackpot," she says. "Corrosion is not the sexiest industry."

As opponents worry about foreigners undercutting well-paid American workers
and debate continues over reshaping U.S. immigration laws, companies like
Corrpro are quietly taking matters into their own hands, with elaborate
workarounds to retain foreign job applicants who can't get visas.

Since 2004, the U.S. has limited the number of so-called H-1Bs -- three-year

visas for skilled workers with college degrees -- to 65,000 per year; an
additional 20,000 visas are available for applicants with advanced degrees
from U.S. schools. The quota was originally set in the early 1990s and was
boosted temporarily to meet soaring demand -- particularly for technology
workers -- earlier this decade. When jobs dried up after the tech bust,
pressure faded to keep higher caps. Now companies are claiming they need more
workers again, but disagreement on how to fix the broader immigration system,
including what to do with undocumented workers, is bogging down change.

In 2004, it took about 10 months to reach the cap; last year, it took just
under two months; this year, the cap was reached the first day applications
were accepted in April. That forced the government for the first time to hold
a lottery to allocate all of the visas, which take effect Oct. 1.
About half of the applicants missed out, including the Indian engineer Ms.
Reardon wants to hire and one of Corrpro's three other H-1B applicants.

The visa squeeze leaves companies scrambling for ways to retain valuable job
candidates, including using other types of visas and temporary overseas
assignments. Google Inc., which filed more than 300 H-1B applications this
year, says it will send 70 new hires who didn't get visas to overseas offices
until it can try again next year. Many of the Intel Corp. job candidates who
failed to get H-1Bs will stay in school and try for the visa next year while
Intel holds open the jobs; one will work abroad for a year, then plans to come
to the U.S. on a different visa.

Some companies say they are moving jobs overseas in response to the
restrictions. Chip maker Analog Devices Inc. says it will hire more engineers
in countries like Canada and India next year, boosting the share of its
engineers overseas to 60% from 50%. National Semiconductor Corp., which has
design centers in India, China and Taiwan, says some job candidates from those
countries who didn't get H-1Bs are being offered positions at home.

Microsoft Corp., which was the third-biggest user of H-1B visas issued in the
fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2006, plans to open a new development center next
month in Richmond, British Columbia -- 133 miles from its Redmond, Wash.,
headquarters -- largely in response to the U.S. visa rules.
Many of the 200 initial employees failed to get H-1B visas this year, a
Microsoft spokesman says.

"Addressing this issue has been the No. 1 priority for this office," says Jack
Krumhold, who runs Microsoft's government-affairs office in Washington, D.C.

Critics of H-1B visas say employers use them to replace well-paid U.S.
workers with cheaper foreigners. Ron Hira, an assistant professor of public
policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology, says big information-
technology outsourcing firms, such as Infosys Technologies Ltd.
and Wipro Ltd. of India, gobble up a disproportionate number of them, applying
for thousands of visas to hire low-level technical workers for their U.S.
offices. The practice contributes to the visa shortage and displaces
Americans, Mr. Hira says.

Mr. Hira, an electrical engineer by training, urges better policing of rules
requiring H-1B workers be paid market wages, and an added condition that
companies be required to first look for U.S. workers.

Infosys and Wipro referred questions on their H-1B practices to industry
associations. Jeff Lande, senior vice president at the Information Technology
Association of America, says the companies already follow H-1B rules that
mandate that companies pay prevailing wages. He adds that this year's H-1B
application figures show there wouldn't be enough visas to satisfy demand even
without the Indian firms.

Employers who use H-1Bs say they aren't trying to save money; they say they
incur significant expenses to obtain foreign workers with much-needed skills.
Intel and Microsoft say they budget several thousand dollars in legal fees for
each foreign hire, to cover an H-1B visa and a permanent-residency permit.

The expense soars when companies have to park people, like Corrpro's Indian
engineer, in other countries while navigating visa issues. Leslie Dahan, an
immigration lawyer at Littler Mendelson PC, says one client spends $30,000 for
each employee it sends on an offshore assignment. Ms. Dahan says one client
this year shifted a Korean hire to its U.K. branch; another asked an Indian to
work from the Netherlands.

At Intel, which hired Littler Mendelson to handle its employees' visa
applications, Ms. Dahan started warning managers in March that H-1Bs would be
tight this year; she urged them to file applications the first day they would
be accepted, April 2. Intel filed more than 200 applications that day, but 30
of those prospects lost out in the lottery.

Ms. Dahan then counseled Intel's hiring managers on their options for
unsuccessful visa candidates, crafting "decision trees" to help managers
navigate tricky immigration rules. The next round of visas won't take effect
until October 2008, so managers had to find alternatives to cover roughly 18
months.

Prospective employees leaving U.S. colleges, for example, could legally work
in the U.S. for a year. If that employee gets the H-1B in 2008, that would
still likely leave them a gap of a few months before the visas take effect in
October of that year. Ms. Dahan says during those months, the employees could
return to school to legally stay in the U.S., take a leave of absence and
leave the country, or work abroad.

Other prospective hires were urged to delay graduation until the fall, so they
could work in the U.S. until October 2008; at least 47 people took that route.
Others enrolled in an advanced-degree program -- sometimes their second -- in
order to stay in school until the company could reapply for an H-1B next year,
says Ms. Dahan.

Where those alternatives weren't practical, Intel managers considered sending
candidates abroad, says Margie Jones, Intel's U.S. immigration manager.
Managers had to weigh whether Intel had an appropriate overseas office,
whether the job could be done remotely and whether the business division could
afford the expense. In some cases, managers rescinded job offers, Ms. Jones
says.

Ms. Dahan points out that the alternative strategies have a big flaw: They
assume Intel's foreign job candidates will be more successful in getting H-1Bs
next year.

Write to Phred Dvorak at phred.dvorak@wsj.com1

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