H-1Bs: Should US visa policies adjust in this economy?

Its all about chasing shadows. By that I mean latching on to this or that latest, most innovative idea that some self styled money making guru has put out in the hope it?ll go viral and make them a lot of money off the backs of all the headless chickens who will follow them blindly down a blind alley. Its a shame but a truism nonetheless that people will follow where someone they see as an expert leads. Even if they lead them to certain disaster, which is what most of the gurus tend to do to their flocks. The trick is to recognize a shadow when you see it! www.onlineuniversalwork.com

I was just laid off from my job on Friday. I worked with a team of 6 Engineers. Of the 6 Engineers, only three were US citizens. The others are here on H1 visas. My position was the only one terminated. I have 7 years relevent experience. One H1 holder is a recent college grad and has only 1 year experience. I was told I was laid off instead of him because of the difficulty it was cause him due to his visa. I ask, should a US citizen be laid off instead of a non-resident because of the "hardship" it will cause him?

There will be a mix reaction on it.

H1 visa should be only available for US graduate foreign nationals.

THERE ARE 3 WAYS TO IMMIGRATE LEGALLY INTO THE UNITED STATES: 1) SECURING A JOB THROUGH AN H-1B VISA OR L-1 VISA, IN CASE OF A TRANSFER 2) WINNING A LOTTERY (LITERALLY, IT IS A LOTTERY BECAUSE JUST A HANDFUL OF NAMES ARE PICKED FROM THOUSANDS OF APPLICATIONS) THIS IS A COUNTRY OF IMMIGRANTS!!! IF YOU GET RID OF THE H-1B VISAS, THAT MEANS YOU DO NOT WANT IMMIGRANTS IN THIS COUNTRY...SO WHAT IS IT??? AT LEAST THOSE APPLYING FOR AN H-1B ARE DOING THE RIGHT THING, NOT CROSSING THE BORDER ILLEGALLY AND LEACHING OFF THE SOCIAL SECURITY NET (OH YES, THE UNDOCUMENTED THEY GET FREE HEALTHCARE, FREE FOOD, FREE SCHOOLING, ETC).... SO WHAT IS IT???

I agree with those comments equating H1-B to lower labor cost. It so happened I almost married the daughter of an investor that prays everyday for more erosion in the American educational system and higher college tuitions. Why? It becomes justifiable to tell Congress, ?The United States of America is no longer supreme in math and science due to a disappointing primary and secondary school system, untrained teachers, poor family structure, the consumption of drugs by our youths, and lost neighborhoods. These and other social problems are the causes why colleges and universities are not supplying Corporate America with the technological skills needed. H1-B, although unpopular, fills a void enabling us [Corporate America] to stay technologically competitive and maintain our technological leadership in the World.? From my point of view the H1-B candidates are only taking advantage of an induced political policy. If H1-B is to be abolished as a political policy in the United States, we should label our nation?s CEOs, Senators, Congressmen and Congresswomen as inefficient to the People of the United States of America, or perhaps label them as traitors.

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services has received only half the 65,000 H1-B applications it requires to fill up the general quota category in the first five day after it began receiving applications April 1.

Above comment cleary from a H1B holder. It''s all about money saving for big corporates. Let Americans get Americans job''s. We do have enough talent.

After looking so many comments on this story, I came to know that the reason behind successful H1 visa program and why American Govt. and corporate still want H1 visa guys. In place of working, US citizens are involved in reading news and writing comments on the stories and I am one of them in place of working. Think.. Work.. Think.. Work.. Think..Work?

Don - Great comments but how many of these countries can call themselves as technology leaders or innovators. If we are all worried about creating US jobs, why do you go to WalMart and buy Chinese made goods. Why not buy local? It is simple logic: as long as you are not affected by something like H-1B, you didn''t care. Now that economy is slow and people are losing jobs, this has become a big issue. In March, 742000 jobs were shed (i.e about 10 years of H-1B visa quota). How do you plan to get these 740000 people their jobs back by stopping H-1B visas. What America needs to do is to stop buying Chinese and start producing local.

Hi, I don't think this recession will affect good companies bringing people to USA. I work for Accenture and I am brought here on L1 visa. I am doing programming even if documents show I am Manager. I think my company knows what how to work around laws as both my bosses Ashish Vimal and Indranil Chowdhury are Indians. -Prateek Shrivastav Accenture/Bestbuy

H1B Visa and "free trade" globalization advocates need only research ONE issue: If you (as a US citizen) wanted to move and get a technical or professional-level job overseas (anyplace in Europe or Asia for example) what program is available there to help you? Isn''t is much more likely you will be bluntly told (as a non-citizen) to leave before your tourist visa expires and go home for a job by these same friendly countries who are so happy for their own citizens to get employment in the USA? Level this playing field first. Then lets talk about permitting H1B Visas here.

> Everyone has to think logically. Oh! Great. That all the logical reason you came up with for keeping these fraud H1/L1 visas? What a short sighted approach. You are eligible to become a CEO of a financial company!! In your logical reasoning, did you think of the following? What about those US citizens who lost their jobs because of the rampant H1B/L1/L2 visa frauds, burdening the government with, unemployment benefits? These folks are without health insurance and without income source for their mortgage? Who will take care of education of those kids of those US citizens?

US Government must cut the entire H1B quotas for the next 4 years so that US unemployed workers will get the job and rate of the un employment as well as employees loosing job will come down. It is totally outrageous the government still allows H1Bs as regular law whe this only applied if US workers are not available. When plenty of talented, experienced US employees like me available, why would the companies need H1B. This is totally cheating the law. The companies are totally cheating US law by bring the workers from other countries when the US workers are on the line for jobs. TOTALLY OUTRAGEOUS. CALL YOUR SENATORS TO TODAY AND COMPLAIN THIS. H1Bs OUTGHT TO BE STOPPED AT LEAST UNTIL US ECONOMY IMPROVES AND UNEMPLOYMENT RATE GOES DOWN.

Hellooooooooooooooooo!!! wait..!!!!! Everyone has to think logically. 1). Gov''t will earn $3000 - $4000 per application visa fee. 2)so, that govt get money as well can pay to employess in Ebassy worldwide. 3)Govt will get atleast $1500 as tax on each person per month. 4). those number H1b people travel to usa and indirectly help Air-industry business flowing money . 5).those H1B are hitech employess and those doesn''t effect much on unemployement. since Major job loss in banking , manfacturing, electronics, sales , etc. 6). By stoping H1B its just loosing money for government and acheive nothing of it and let economy go down further. Apart there will be lot of pressure from industries . 7).It is not easy getting job in time, so those people didn''t get job will go back and indirectly helping air-industry business by travelling. 8)its better keep open H1b quota rather loosing money and letting economy going down further. Hope everyone accept it . that is the logic behind the government decision letting H1B to issue. thanks,

I think the discussion should be objective, since in many times this subject is brought up, it seems totally driven by emotion and personal experiences. First of all, 1) not all experiences are the same with H1-B workers 2) I have met with plenty of skilled American workers and skilled foreign workers in my field, so the factor should be the suitability to the job. Generalizations don''t work. 3) H1-B visas are not always to drive wages down. I am an H1-B visa holder and I don''t think my starting wage was any less than an American candidate. On job duties, I''m treated the same. 4) If some companies cheat to hire unneeded, unskilled, or underwaged H1-B holders, it doesn''t mean all companies do that. The system should be fixed but not necessarily by withholding all H1-B visas 5) All around the world, foreign talent is allowed. Different regulations exist, but it is not unseen in Europe for example to find foreign workers playing a key role in their companies 6) To drive forward innovation, it is important to embrace people from all around the world. There are so many successful examples in the US. Those who talk about the US innovating alone forget the flow of German and Italian scientists after WWII. It all boils down to companies being responsible about it and only bring in the talent that is good for the job. In my case, I can fairly say that I fare very well with my American coworkers in technical skills.

How is shelling out all this money to banks going to create jobs in America? Something has to stop the current attitude that hiring Americans is distasteful. Sorry, H1B's, but we did just fine without you in the past.

This is a no brainer. Of course the H1-B visas should be suspended immediately. And I wonder about all those companies who hire undocumented workers from Mexico et al. I am waiting for an uprising from within to call for vigorous expulsion of undocumented workers from the U.S. so that CITIZENS who are out of work can get jobs.

The H1B Visa situation should be adjusted to the Economy. The main issue is that the US is not churning out enough qualified Graduates in the disciplines required. All the H1B program does is circumvent putting money into the US''s education system. My proposal would be this: "For every 1 H1B visa granted, the hiring company must pay a 1/3 of that salary to a University to fund an equivalent science discipline of the person hired". This means that every new person entering on an H1B is basically going to be funding their successor locally in the future. This would also allow for re-training of ''out of date'' Scientists and Engineers. I don''t have an issue with propping up the science community but there should also be some payback to the education system in return.

I would like to correct the statement Hoopla made. We are not picking on H1-B visas. 65K is the number of allowed H1 visas to private companies every year in addition to 20K of foreign graduates from US schools. Government, schools, and non-profit companies are exempt from this number. The total H1 visas that were issued in 2006 and 2007 were 135K and 125K respectively. From 2000 to 2003, the quota was set to 195K. Hiring H1 visas accelerated since 1990 and counting 150K visas per year on average. That is 3M visas since 1990 and it is not a small percentage of the 5 Million unemployed in the last 15 months anymore.

The simplest explanation is always the correct one. There is no shortage of engineers or engineering talent in the US. There is a shortage of engineers willing to work for minimum wage.

India Inc. gets White House meeting on H-1B visas www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9130258

Have you ever wondered why things are they way they are? Why do our elected officials and many business leaders do things that are so obviously damaging to the working middle class? The answer is 1913, the year the 16''th ammendment was ratified, the 17''th ammendment passed, and the Federal reserve act foisted on the public. Fast forward to the future, and you have populist senators who take bribes from big business (excuse me, campaign donations). The Senate is no longer a deliberative body above the political fray, looking out for the long term interests of the country. Instead, the Senate is loaded with populists who need to pander to you for your vote. The business lobby wants H1-B and other goodies and the have access to the Senate with their money. You, poor boob, are not represented, but instead the corporations are represented. Meanwhile, the banksters perpetrate fraud with inflation and deflation thanks to Fed policies. How much return are you making on your 401K? The H1-B''s are only a small part of a systemic problem.

What about Lottery system? Lottery system is directly burden on the US Economy. No one talks about Lottery system and other visas. We give 50,000 lotteries each year. If you calculate main applicants plus dependents will cross more than 200,000 people each year. There is no criterion for lottery system. Illiterate and literate people come under lottery system. Job losses are mainly in constructions, manufacturing, banking and mortgage. Technology companies are still doing better than last recession. I don?t know why you guys always cry for H1B. Guys please don''t cry for H1B. If you want to cry, please cry for Lottery system, family unification (Parents and spouse are accepted but why brother & sisters and relatives) and asylum. These people are directly burden on the US economy. God bless america.

We supplied homegrown engineers during the "space race." That ramp up took only a decade. The schools responded and we graduated the large amount of engineers needed. How come it worked then and not now? The reason...market forces are disturbed by H1-B visas, offshoring, and other attacks that corrupt market signaling mechanisms. The market is like an alive organism, and if you inject poison into it, it doesn''t work as well as it should. Enough poison and it dies. Inflation destroys money and hence you cannot do long range planning. The government capriciously changes the rules and you may go out of business. If a competitor hires cheap HI-B immigrant labor, or illegal aliens, then you have to hire also to remain competitive. Businesses like the arrangement because in the short term it shifts money upward into the ruling elite. Bill Gates is very rich because of the work of the many laborers under him shifting wealth upward. Eventually the piper has to be paid as the poison works its way through the market system, and we are starting to see those effects now. American kids are not choosing engineering because the market is signaling to them that they are not wanted. H1-B''s, offshoring, and other negative policies have helped create a self defeating circle.

H1-B visas have never been about a shortage of engineers. I have been an engineer for over 30 years and from the beginning it was always about driving down the wages of engineers and especially software programmers. This resulted in the professions being less pursued by US citizens. Who wants to be a second class citizen? Now that the economy has tanked there will likely be an increase, engineering is now more of a trade than a professional position. This is unfortunate as our country is desperately in need of rational, logical thinkers.

We wish we had more senators like Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa to stand against the industry and media/experts lobby that is protecting and encouraging the fraud Visa programs such H1, L1 and L2. Most H1 (about 85%) and L1/L2 (about 95%) are very ordinary. The US citizens can be easily found/trained in most jobs that are being held by H1/L1/L2 visa holders. Visa frauds cannot be stopped fully. Minimally, have the following changes to H1/L1/L2 visa immediately. - H1/L1/L2 Candidates work directly (and ONLY) for the company (no staffing firms, head hunters, etc). This will reduce the undue interference of staffing firms/hiring managers on the the hiring process. That means, if a any_micky_mouse.inc applies for H1, the job has to be their requirement not some client requirement. - Allow free movement of H1/L1 visa holders to change employers without any restriction till the expiry of their Visas. - Do not allow green card processing during the H1/L1/L2 visa duration. Give them a choice. Either they can stay outside the country, apply for GC through their employer or come to the country and stay on H1/L1/L2 without a possibility of applying for GC. - Increase the fine for Visa frauds, and jail terms for the senior executives of the company. - Have a ETS type examination (similar to GRE). - Have the employer send the candidates year end W2 to Immigration authorities. Let the immigration authorities then send it to teh candidate for tax filing. This way, Immigration authorities can make sure the wages are not comprimised in the process. - Make sure, any company cannot have more than 10% employees on temporary visas - Make sure, only a US Citizen interview the job applicants for new open positions. Most of the fraud in hiring is originating at the interview phase, where H1/L1 candidates interview their own people.

Has anyone considered India/China going back to the "pre-Free Trade regime" - all multinational companies such as IBM, Pepsico, Citibank being thrown out the country?

I propose that we expand the H1-b program to include the congress and senate...that way we can improve the quality of our representatives because we certainly CANNOT find enough of qualified members here in the USA.

H1B and L1 visas are the most abused visas in the world. In which country do you see staffing firms openly advertising that, on job board, "Only H1B visas" are allowed to apply for their jobs!! Shockingly, I recently came across one such advertisement. If you want to check how a resume with H1 attracts staffing firms, try posting a resume in some popular job sites mentioning that you have a valid H1, willing to work in any location and at any time!! You will be surprised how many of them are staffing firms and many are indian owned staffing firms hiding their true identity on their web sites!! There is great benefit for the company hiring managers in getting a candidate through staffing firms. One reason which is (valid to some extent) is, they get to know the candidate before they plan to hire permanently (try and buy option!!). But, the main reason is, the hiring manager does not get any incentive if they hire a candidate internally which is cumbersome in lots of cases (I work for a 100+ billion dollar comany, and have seen a hiring process for a very long time not to notice). It is very easy to hire a temporary worker instead (who most likely work for them 6+ years anyway!!). For over 10 years all along I have observed, H1 candidates who knew nothing getting trained from the same staff who are on their way out. After they let go experienced staff ( who are most likely citizens ), the companies hire more candidates from staffing firms on the pretext that, the work load has increased. The reality is, the newly replaced H1/L1 candidate is inefficient due to his/her inexperience. But, the hiring manager can never say that!! or the company will fire him!! Why companies prefer H1? There are various reasons, and the usual reason that, the talent is not available in US (they are no more better than a fresh graduate from any decent US Graduate school) is a big, convincing and a very popular lie spread through the media and news paper outlets (Thanks Vivek Wadhwa). It is, their (H1B candidates) flexibility of working any odd hours, their willingless to accept any last minute un-scheduled deployments and outages at a short notice, their relative young age (mostly under 30) which makes them less likely to fall sick, saves companies huge money in terms of group health coverage, pensions, etc. Once H1 candidate joins a team in a company, and you can see a flood of them in the team in few months. The reason is, staffing firms now have an insider to know the new requirements of the company and can influence better the hiring manager. The staffing firms love H1bs, as H1b candidates are less likely to change jobs in any market as they do not want to disturb their green card processing. Recent immigration laws gives them some flexibility to change companies without losing the priority date of the GC filing. Still there are some fine prints in the law, that most H1 candidates are less likely to pursue that course. For staffing firms, lots of immigration law firms, H1b visa is their bread and butter (They may dispute it, but it is a fact). A typical H1B-GC processing easily costs 12K+ for the candidate. No US worker is afraid of a qualified H1/L1 candidate. Progress of an individual or a country is always dependent of moving forward with bright ones. It is the fraudulent way of bring the unqualified ones that is hurting the US workers and the overall work ethics in this country. What is the fix? There is not much any of us can do as the whole system is corrupt. There has to be a whole new approach. Have a government body with experts in respective fields setup an exam (which is more practical oriented) and not theoritical based, and have new H1/L1 new hires go through before they are brought in to the country. And, for such successful candidates, who gets through these strict evaluation of their skills, provide them a Green card right before they arrive (within the limits set per country). This will prevent the staffing firms from body shopping. Everyone wins. Companies get bright candidates and the US worker jobs are protected as staffing firms are less likely to manipulate the hiring process.

The failure of US leadership is evident in those CEOs and managers who will not hire the massive number of overqualified Americans, preferring cheap substitute labor.

Not everyone is saying H1s are not needed. Filter the system to bring in only the talented ones, to keep this country competative. Presently, the system is being misused by fraud companies, staffing firms helped greatly by the misguided articles by fraud experts to bring in average and below average folks who obviously are ready to undercut wages of US citizens. Not ALL smart ones are willing to come to USA. Lot of them are staying back for better oppurtunities. I know my cousin, who graduated from top MBA schools in India, and refused to job offer from Cisco/Microsoft because he felt the oppurtunities are better in other industries in India. Hence, not all IITs and top graduates in India are eager to work for US companies. This is proving an oppurtunity aided by the visa lottery system for H1, is allowing junk candidates to get it. At the same time, Microsoft or any companies moving to India is for cheap talent and to under cut the wages of US workers. Afterall they are businesses and do ANYTHING to keep their company afloat. There is nothing wrong in it. It is the responsibility of the governemnt and the immigration that, these companies do not use USA whenever they want and move jobs out when it is convenient. If they like India so much, let them move their head offices and move their entire operation including the CEO homes to India. There has to be balance between greed and responsibility towards a nation for these companies, just like an average US citizen is expected to. It is shame, an average citizen is telling the company, what their responsibilities are. In this country, If every kid drops out of school because of high cost of education, every adult loses job because of age/outsourcing and fails sick with no health insurance what will happen to the future of this country? It is easy for us to sit at home comfortably and argue and write great articles about the merits of outsourcing and immigration, why we lack talent, etc. But look into the future and thing about your kids in this country. We need talent, but that does not mean we are going to bring in the entire world''s brightest engineers into this country, and push even the existing out. There has to be a sensible balance.

Have you guys not seen the quality of the H1/L1/L2 around around you, brought in my the companies (both US and India) in the guise of non-availability of talent here? I work for a fortune 20, with 20 years IT experience. Do you want me to tell you how many junk candidates are being dumped by the staffing firms weekly on a regular basis, convincing the immigration that they are all highly skilled and such talent is not available in USA? Do you know, how many honest hard working US Citizens have lost jobs due to a cheaper replacement. In reality, we as a country are becoming more vulnerable.- An US Citizen is without work, unproductive, is on unemployment, his/her family may not have health insurance, mostly under foreclosure notice, etc ? The blame is not just on CEOs of US companies. Even Indian IT companies have to take blame for misusing the visa provisions. It is the entire system, including the immigration authorities for looking the other way, while they are expected to protect the jobs of US Citizens. How many Europian countries, Asian countries allow massive inflow of immigrants and allow them to start influencing the ?laws of land? to depreive the oppurtunities for the locals. Have you seen the web site, immigrationvoice.com, where the immigrants are actively advising each other on how to beat the system, how their employers are harassing them?

Please realize that not every H1 worker is an Indian or a Chinese Engineer. We offer H1s to various very smart people on Wall Street, Medicine, Law and managerial Corporate roles. These are individuals with advanced grad-level education. We need these guys to outsmart others. It just isn''t practical or possible to outsource eveything to East Asia. We need smart foreign workers here in professions outside tech. Let us just be aware of that, before we harp on the technology-worker bandwagon. There is a world outside tech, where the need for employing smart individuals here in the US is very important.

I read every comment from the beginning and clearly very few ppl want H1 workers in US. I am a indian and my firm is applying for H1 this year ,my firm has not laid anyone in the US so far. I had to struggle a lot in last 2 years to get approved in my firm's employee transfer program from India to US , now when it is approved there is this whole visa crisis. I hope they dont blacklist every H1 applicant I think the key differences between a indian and american worker is as below 1. Indian has faced lot of struggles in his first 20 years of life in India (for e.g competition to get into good schools, low living standards, poverty, buearucracy, long queues ,financial problems) 2. all this leads to a person who is extremely fearless and can do watever it takes (work on low wages, work 80 hrs a week, save every cent if possible) Now obviously when this person confronts an american , the indian is far well equipped to handle life. The american's always had it easy . There forefathers won the wars and secured their next 100 years ,butthose 100 yeasrs are over .They are not adapting to the basic law of life " hard work beats everything" Mark my words the future of the world lies in the third world countries unless Americans do something about it

It's hilarious that someone cited Tata vs Lexus. I almost fell off the couch reading that one. Tata Motors can atleast thum their chest because of Nano, Tata Steel can thump their chest in being the lowest cost steel producer (and labor costs don't explain that alone. It's efficiency), Lexus and its owner Toyota can count multiple accomplishment of theirs. All that said, I was scratching my head if GM, Ford ar Chrysler could cite some exciting and saleable innovation they have been involved with recently and I couldn't come up with anything. If anything, I realized this one ironic problem that US Automakers have that has driven them to their current agony. Guess what ? - Far too high wages of UAW. Enuff said !!

I am simply amazed at the ignorant hyperbole being spewed here by the anti-H1 brigade. I realize that the system works on allowing loot and mayhem and then look for convenient scape-goats later but this witch-hunt is simply unbelievable. In all this mess when more than 5 million people have lost jobs in the last 15 months, all you guys focus on are mere 85K H1 visas given over this period, many of whom were likely revoked subsequently because H1B holders are also among the people who have lost their jobs. Most ignorants also fail to realize that H1B workers need to be paid atleast the prevailing wage for their occupation. If someone isn''t being paid that, it''s fraud. Think rationally before engaging in ridiculous witch-hunt and throwing baby out with the bath water. Protectionist policies, particularly mindless ones, haven''t worked well anywhere and they are unlikely to do so here.

I work for a big Indian contractor company. There is close to thousands of us here at this very big telecom GiantC. We are all on H1. Two weeks ago, we were all asked to leave because our jobs have been cut. Our management company asked us to take a huge pay cut (almost 40%) and negotiated a deal to stay at this GiantC. Today, I heard that the GiantC decided to lay off some other permanent employees instead.

EDN comes up with this crap once in a while just to increase readership. Pathetic!!

H1B and L1 visas are totally killing American''s jobs. These guys come here with low skills(although they claim they are good), the companies are cheating American tax payers. Americans are buying their product but greedy American companies do not respect that. If everyone loses American jobs who will buy these companies products. Better stop H1B and L1 visas(it seems there is no limit to L1 visas, congress should take a note of this), else this whole country will go bankrupt.

While it is agreeable that at this present time of economic downturn, there is a need for revisiting and stopping import of foreign talent. But talking nonsense about foreign worker is absolutely not required. At the same time present american should also realize that their forefathers were immigrant. So cannot hold bitterness towards other new ones. Also someone was comparing an Indian automotive company with Lexus, Is there an American made car he can compare with Lexus, I doubt it. Given an opportunity Tata can make car for even European quality requirement. Americans do have the opportunity and resources but the lack of accountability and irresponsibility in the senior management and inefficiency and laziness in the lower level and blue color has caused present status America is in and it pulled the other countries with it. So instead of looking someone else to blame one should learn to fix their own problems and get out of the mess it is in.

You miss the point! It''s about money, money, money. They don''t want talent, they want cheap! Make them pay more, and the demand for H1Bs will be zero.

To Hmm: Whether or not an American citizen is willing to work for less or if there is a shortage of talent is irrelevant! Here in the United States the government is "government of the people, by the people, for the people" not the corporations! WE ARE ENTITILED BECAUSE THIS IS OUR GOVERNMENT! THE POLITICAL POWER OF THIS GOVERNMENT LIES WITH THE PEOPLE! The corporations get the PRIVILAGE to have access to the U.S. market! These same corporations say there is a shortage of Engineers but at the same time lay-off U.S. Engineers. Look at Intel, Motorola, TI, and IBM, all having layoffs and yet lobbying for more H1B''s. It seems that the talent pool argument has been disproved. Why would these corporations request more H1B''s unless you mean to fill the positions vacated by U.S. engineers with foreigners. If the Global Trade Agreement was properly enforced, India and China wouldn''t have the cheap labor advantage it has enjoyed for years.

In my 20+ years in the industry and in Silicon Valley, I have yet to see, ever, any H1B employee anywhere that wasn't either a) a friend of the boss or b) a cheaper alternative to get the same talent already available here. BTW, any H1B laid off has only 2 weeks to get a new job or get out, so they will do anything the boss wants: work 16 hour days, every weekend, never assert their rights, etc. If it really is as companies say, for talent and not money, then require that all H1B's be paid in the 90% bracket for their position+experience in the company and city of hire, which ever is higher. Do that, and demand for H1Bs will drop to nil, proving that it's all about getting cheap, slave labor. BTW, there is a thing called a T1 visa, which really is all about talent, but none of these companies want to do that because you really do have to demonstrate good faith.

Iam a H1-B visa holder.Just like any other human being , iam here to earn my liveihood. H1 Visa is not created to help anyone.You invited foriegn national for the specific skill shortage and i needed a job and income just liek you do. It does not take much time to realise that American culture is nothing but ''Use and throw'' and talk big about the values they never had''. We worked here, paid taxes like any ohter citizens and recieved less benefits in return. If you are planning to combat recession by banning h1b worker , i would say that is just another ''Bull sxxx.''strategy.American''s have got lazy and lack simple practical common sense.So, now it''s time for us to leave this country.We are leaving.There is no need to discuss/ or pass remarks about ''Indian /or European/or Chinese culture, why did they come here, ..bla..bla..bla''.Hope Americans can find peace in life now. .

The salaries of engineers in China are ones-seventh to one-tenth of those in USA. Probably similar in India. This explains why foreign engineers want to work here. It also explains why Microsft and other companies want to hire them - to take advantage of their lower salary expectations. What is mind-boggling is why US government wants to adopt a rigit H1-B system that short change the welfare and job security of its own engineers even at this bad econmic times.

Do you think you can sell something made at US labor rate ? If yes, then try to stop buying foreign products because they are cheaper. Same holds true for engineering. Companies have to stay competitive. After all USA is a capitalist economy. So that''s one of the baseline, keep costs low so that they can have bigger profits and payback the shareholders ( the american people). Now if that goes wrong because of some greedy individuals (big banking giants) everybody cries foul ??? Also, this is the age of global economy and I believe the rates should be averaged over countries not just one. US has created a market where the labor rates are higher than rest of the world, so that pulls talent or normal workers to this place. Try to adjust your lifestyles to rest of the worls and this will start to change.

A company that I worked for some 18 years (it was a startup when they hired me) had some engineers on H1B visas. The policy of the company was to hire the right people for the jobs we had. We only went for the H1B candidates when no domestic engineers were available that met our specific needs, so we did hire a number of them. Many have become close friends. Some have become US citizens. Others have returned to the countries of their origins. In any case, my opinion is that H1B visas should ONLY be used when suitable domestic (US citizen or permanent residents) candidates cannot be found after a suitable period of search for technically demanding positions.

More than 25% is fraud .. See the link. This also provides a route for Terrorists(Cyber or regular) to come into this country. --------------------------- mycentraljersey.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080612/NEWS/806120388&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL

I am a HR recruiter and worked with Indians for quite some time now and frankly I dont know what they see in America and the American dream. They are underpaid, pay social security without getting benefits. Can''t invest or buy property here as they can be sent back anytime. Pay higher rent for short term rents/leases. Their family members aren''t allowed to work. Stay away from their larger family, which apparently is a big deal for them. Have trouble settling into an american way of life because of cultural issues. Face anti h1b hate propaganda. Can''t hope of becoming a permanent resident either as it takes longer then 10 years etc etc etc How can anybody not realize that they are a cultural misfit here and that Americans today dont like them so much either. Obviously, they still find it advantageous to be here, or they would have left. I doubt its their love for America, but something really wrong with India which forces them to come here in the first place.

Dear EDN - Just a few months back you talked about H1-B issue and posted a few articles. The articles became a hot topic and were well debated. Why are you posting another article in such a short period? Do you really think people''s feelings would have changed in this short interval or are you trying to play with the emotions of your readership?? I really don''t see a point of talking about this in this forum esp. if the fact remains that it was a very recent hot topic. Please stay with you technical articles and do not unnecessary stoke the hurt side in people. We can leave it to our 24 hour news channels to play this game. But on the other hand, if there are any positive changes you want to recommend or get feedback from your audience, please try to steer the discussion towards that.

On the othe hand suggest the administration should increase the quota for H1B scientist and engineers. Where else can you get labor cheaply. Not only cheap labor, but who needs the expense of maintaining colleges to train them. students these days don''''t care to pursue tough degree programs since labor rates are maintained at reduced levels vis H1B quotas. Why bother competing with big business, Microsoft & Bill gates, etc? Just another opinion from the wilderness. RS00

This is a fools bargain. We need young and experienced engineers that are American citizens developing our products. Foreign engineers that are either willing to undercut the going US labor rate, or who are hear to become educated and plan to return to their countries to compete with US design/manufacturing are VERY BAD for the US economy. Except for a very few cases, NO H1B visas should be granted. Make those US employers to to American universities and hire American engineers--before there are no American engineers left to hire!

Employers have the right to hire whoever are best for the jobs that keep their business competitive. There is no reason for employers not to hire locally if they can find them better than H1Bs in every aspects.

Yes, Talent and Attitude are important. But, neither is important for the company if the price is right!! I have observed during the past 8 years, many US workers with a good attitude and real skills getting laid off. I have a DBA group in our company, where they once were conducting the weekly meeting in Telugu!! They did not even realise it, till I politely told them, I cannot understand their language. I see another indian manager having 90% of the folks in his group from India. His group is not small. The group has 170 people, all contractors!!!. Are you telling me, that only 10% of the US folks only have good attitiude in such case? Then why are you in this country? The companies bring in H1 and L1, because it is CHEAP. They can show all the possible ways to show otherwise, and world is not going to believe it. I am an Indian and I was on H1 once. The issue is not as simple as "frog in a well" saying. There is a wide spread fraud and needs to be addresses ASAP.

It''s been a while since I went to do recruiting, but when I did a few things were clear. (1) The foreign students were for the most part getting much better grades. Grades aren''t everything, but it''s hard to take someone with a 3.1 GPA seriously for an R&D position. (2) The foreign students did better on technical interviews. They just seemed to of learned their stuff better. When I''m piking someone I have to do hard technical projects with, I want the best. Good enough isn''t a valid concept. I love it when I find a sharp American kid that knows their stuff. But finding ones that meet top R&D standards is few and far between. Anyone who has been in this buisness for long knows that 1 star quality engineer can do the work of 5 good engineers, and 1 bad engineer can make enough work to keep 10 good engineers busy for years cleaning up their mistakes. It''s never been a problem with seeing enough engineers produced. It''s a problem of getting enough GREAT engineers produced. GREAT engineers are so dang rare, that when you find one you don''t care if they are white, yellow, brown, black or polka dot.

It is not the talent alone, you need talented locals with Attitude to compete with hard working world - for any country to succeed - you need that. If we have that in USA, the US companies will not need to go to China or India, or will not need to bring students from abroad, or H1B. Do we have plenty of "we can make it", or plenty of those who wd like to have just good life at the expense of others? when the world has become FLAT - stopping Right talents, is to put your self in the situation of a "Frog in the well". Make your choice.

Yet again EDN plays this game... It seems that every two months they post a article about H-1B visas, which gets everyone in a tizzy and wanting to post their opinions... I really believe this is a waste of their services. If I want to hear about immigration I will turn to NPR or CNN. EDN, PLEASE POST TECHNICAL CONTENT!!!!!!!!

(cont'd)(1) Turn off the TV and set aside the video game, and find out what technologies, skills, and professions are going to have value for the next 10-20 years. (2) Pick some of those areas and put together a plan on how to become proficient in them. (3) Begin executing the plan; crack the books and begin learning and doing. (4) While you are at it, learn another language or two, because if you want to be valuable, you may have to go places where English is not the only (or even the main) language spoken. (5) Put together a real budget and start saving rather than spending every dime on a "good time". The money you spend on beer and TV sets may need to be plowed instead into savings for you and your family to continue learning and being productive. (6) Finally, give up any hope of Washington putting on their Superman capes and saving the day for you. Washington can''t even rescue itself, much less the whole country. Washington has put us $55 trillion in debt, and our grandchildren are already indentured servants to our debtholders. That's a pattern we have to reverse. Instead, use your vote to begin cleaning house by VOTING INCUMBENTS OUT EVERY TIME. In 8-10 years the money sources will realize that buying a Congressperson by financing their campaign doesn't provide the same ROI it did, and change will become possible again. Your choice and mine: Do we do the hard things to set the country right, or sit and whine while it collapses?

To the Americans calling for the end of immigrant programs, and for businesses to "hire American", I have some questions. (1) Are you willing to forego in your families and in your lives the incessant focusing on personal pleasure, the excessive need for someone to entertain you on television, the refusal to discipline yourselves or your families? (2) Are you willing to commit yourselves and your families to lifelong learning and relearning so that you continue, in this rapidly-changing world, to have skills that an employer will value? (3) Are you willing to stop spending every dime you make on pleasure and toys and start seriously saving your income to prepare for the future? (4) Are you willing to use your vote to go after corruption in Washington, rather than continue the status quo? If you aren''''t willing to do these things, stop whining and accept your demise. If you are, get busy.

Does this mean that we 'goddam foreigners' should also prevent the flow of US workers and goods to Europe, Middle East, Japan etc. in a 'tit for tat' response? Nothing would delight us more than to stop the dumping of cheap US steel being sold way below market values in an effort to pump up your economy. Get real America, you depend on world trade, the flow of talent both ways and a free market to bolster your software, silicon and financial industries.

dig your own hole. America is great, but it bases it success in foreign born talent. What is the ratio of American which were born in the US which respect to the total population? Then do the same ratio for Americans winning a Nobel price. Ratio between US born and foreign born.... Just an example. Looking at your belly bottom would only make things worse. If America is great is because it has been opened to everyone that wanted to work hard and contribute to the american dream. Unfortunately America is also full of bigotry and narrow mindness which might kill that dream.

I am an Indian and a former H1-B visa beneficiary but I fully support America and its citizens for some of the justifications stated above. Many Indians don''t actually deserve a H1-B as they mainly get it by Fraud and deceit. At the same time US should make policies to bolster its education system. Things need drastic changes in America to be intellectually competitive. We in India strictly believe in these two sayings "Spare the rod and spoil the child" & "Stitch in time save nine" :-) Things should start at home and very early. Parents should take the initiative to mould the childs future appropriately. I feel there are a lot of things the US can learn from the Indian family system and its child upbringing styles. I feel the H1-B system is similar to the failed Credit System which did miserably due to bad policy making. The lawmakers have to be smart and also the people. Every country has its problems and sometimes it does not justify to criticize its citizens due to the flawed policies of its governments. I just hope we come out of this global mess quickly and more smartly and sustain ourselves that way.

We cheated H1-B employees. We got nailed. We learnt a lesson! Search in Google for Department of Labor Vs Ipsil

The so called "H1B Talent" is nothing more than the dirty greed of those corp executive crooks. Those corp crooks use the "talent" hired as slaves to create wealth for themselvs and at the same time make use of "talent slaves" to enslave the great people of this great nation. That''s why they like the "talent slaves" and do not like the real talent from this great nation.

The biggest problem with Engineering is that it is an up and down field and not surprisingly, when it is down the number of US students entering engineering drops drastically. Last time that happened, President Bush, in Nov 2001, radically increased the number of H-1Bs. The number of kids entering the field dropped even more. This also had an effect of discouraging high school kids from studying math and science. If America wants to compete and get our kids interested in engineering, then make it worth their while to go into it. Stop the chaos this H-1B program is creating.

There are plenty of qualified Americans without jobs. I was recently trying to find a job in mid-west. I have an advanced degree from a US school, solid 15+ years of experience in IT, with experience in most current technologies in a multi billion company (in a senior role) with lots of recognitions in my career. When I applied for a job, I received immediately with in few days more than 100 responses from various companies (even in this market). I am not exaggerating (nor, is a lie). About 90% of the responses are from head hunters mostly owned by India folks (with their company web sites displaying their broad international experience in ofshore projects, but showing mostly non-asian pictures on their web site to hide their true identity ;-). ). From my educational qualifications and the schools I studied, they realized that, I am from India but they were not aware of my immigration status. The moment the head hunters/staffing firms found out that, I am an American Citizen and do not need any sponsorship, they lost all interest. One of the staffing firm representative even had the audacity to tell me (in email ;-) ), that I am overpaid for my skills in my present job!! I did not realize the impact of my proud US Citizenship till I tried to test the waters in this fraud job market. Now, after testing this job market, I know now that, the skills matter the least in criteria to get a new job. It is more important to show, how helpless you are, and how effective you can prove it to your future employer (and particularly to staffing firm/body shoppers). Basicaly, they want you to be desperate for a job!! All these "skills talk" are pure BS. These visa programs are fraud. The best option is, allow the H1/L1 candidates to change jobs without any restriction, limit the H1/L1s to only real qualified ones (and advanced degree holders), and to ask the US employers (when they ask for H1 visa), what steps are going to be taken by them to reduce their dependency on H1/L1 visas. Most importantly, make any company ineligible to apply H1/L1 visa, if they had let go any US Citizens in the past 2 years.

In 2007, the top three hedge fund managers in the US earned over $2 billion each. The top guy earned over $3 billion. Their combined income was about $9 billion. In recent years, about 70,000 college graduates in the US earn a bachelors degree in engineering. An optimistic estimate for their average salary is about $60,000. That''s $4.2 billion, at most. It''s less than half of the pay of the top three hedge fund honchos. We pay THREE GUYS more than we pay TWO ENTIRE GRADUATING CLASSES of engineers. Imagine an old-fashioned balanced scale, with 140,000 engineers on one side, hanging high in the air because three fat cats on the other scale outweigh them. That''s how we divvy the fruits of our collective labor in modern America. Then we wonder why all of the smart kids who are good at math want to get rich helping Wall Street destroy the economy, instead of working for slightly above average wages in engineering positions with ZERO job security in industries that add value to the economy. To add insult to injury, we accuse our kids of laziness and stupidity. In fact, they see more clearly than most journalists that the game is rigged against them if they become engineers.

who are we? where we comes from? are we native?

To me H1B is only a mere symptom of a greater issue more profound. (1) Until the world goes really FLAT everywhere in terms of wealth and cost of living (2) and as long as capitalistic forces drive the economy, the affinity for businesses for H1B tampering, jobs going outside and outsourcing is going to be there. Perhaps it can be slowed down by Govt! but cannot be stopped! This is very similar to manufacturing going out of US several years ago. Why should a company pay more for a service if they can get it cheaper? Or rather, can any business have such a laxury to buy at a higher price in our capitalistic competive market? Walmart just boosted profits while several others businesses are busting themselves! Why? If they kill the H1B - then businesses will find another way - may be taking the job itself outside the US to where it can be done cheaper - It all boils down to the cost! or largely the ''cost'' involved This is the new face of capitalism being the Villian! All this time it was in favor of US, but now it is yet to seen. What we know is that it is bringing misery to some of the poeple in this country. Will the US stick to its Capitalistic principles that have made them the best and comeout of this crisis? If they did how can they compete with competition from contries where an engineer can be hired for 1/5th cost of a one in the US? The issues are more complex and demand a greater attention! We saw the end of communism - and now...are we seeing the same with Capitalism? Will it always do good for a country? Time will tell! And yes H1B should be controlled, but don''t expect that to solve the problems coz H1B is not the real problem - its just a symptom!

To those clueless individuals who say that ending H1B will hurt us in the long run because we dont produce enough engineers ourselves, I say, if you want our nation to produce the engineers we needs, you have to make engineering attratctive to our youth, in terms of job security and prestige. That means ending H1B so that engineering graduates do not face competition for jobs from foreigners who will work for below market wages. To "H1B worker" who thinks that an "inbred economy" is bad, are you not aware of the quality of Japanese products? Japan is what many would call an inbred society, but if you compare the quality of, let''s say, a Lexus to a Tata, an Indian piece of sh*t that won''t even meet US safety standards, you will see what I mean. The H1B program should come to a screeching halt until the US technical unemployment rate is.... ZERO.... POINT.... ZERO.

Yes. Please stop, but also stop selling any American products to the rest of the world. You can have an inbred economy and see where that takes you.

No more H1 lottery. There is such a massive pool of talent searching for jobs right now its hard to believe that we cant find talent in this country. Wasting tax payer''s money to import people and make the job market worse seems AIG-like in its incompetency.

By the way I am bi-lingual and married to a person not born in the U.S.A. She has since become a United States Citizen and our son is fluent in two languages. Since, apparently, EDN does not want me to mention the most popular book in the world,let me suggest chapter 11 of the first book of this very popular book.

I believe I was censored ABSOLUTELY! the H1B VISA should be canned. I had to deal with foreign languages being spoken around me all the time, creating division and exclusivity. If "these people" are going to come to my country and take my job, then, by God they can speak my language. Shame on AMAT for letting this cancer grow in their company that was birthed in my country and flourished under "our" government! Shame on Ed Kennedy. If you want to create division in a group of people, make them all speak different languages

Millions of Americans have lost their jobs. There should be NO H1B visas granted. It is nothing more than a farce for big business to import cheap labor at the expense of American workers and American society.

ABSOLUTELY! the H1B VISA should be canned. I had to deal with foreign languages being spoken around me all the time, creating division and exclusivity. If "these people" are going to come to my country and take my job, then, by God they can speak my language. Shame on AMAT for letting this cancer grow in their company that was birthed in my country and flourished under "our" government! Shame on Ed Kennedy. If you want to create division in a group of people, make them all speak different languages

One of the tactics, supporters (I mean the media/experts) of H1/L1 visa use is to scare people that, if those folks are not brought in here, then the job gets outsourced. In reality, it has made job move much faster. I work for a multi billion dollar company and it is scary how fast the jobs are being outsourced. At this rate, we only will have folks on food stamps including those fraud experts and their families!! We should allow H1 to the bright ones but ONLY to the bright ones if it is absolutely needed. What we are getting are junk candidates from India and other countries dumped by staffing firms and head hunters, a direct result of their greed. The H1/L1 resembles an Ant colony. They are hardworkers but not skilled to the level, as the media/experts tries to convince us about them. The H1/L1 candidates are themselves innocent. Everyone including those Mexican illegal immigrants have one goal - that is to improve their and their family life better. There is nothing wrong in it. Tighten the screw on H1 (and L1) fraud, get a better screening test to make sure the talent is definitely not available/trainable in US. If "YES", provide a Green card and welcome this great talent on red carpet!!

When it comes to high-tech, we need to stop talking about H1-Bs. It''s a poor solution, regardless of whether you think the cap should be raised or lowered. We need to make it easier for foreign nationals with engieering degrees to become US citizens. Let''s populate the US with the wonderful talent that was educated and cultivated in the US. Doing so will ensure the innovation stays in the US and creates more jobs here. If it''s too difficult for US companies to hire the talent they need to fill jobs in the US, they''ll just move those jobs elsewhere. Clearly, we don''t need to give US companies an even greater incentive to do this. When the jobs move offshore, how likely are they to return?

Eliminate the H-1B program all together! Get our schools producing the talent that we need for the jobs. Bring customer service and production jobs back into this country. Tax and fine those companies that outsource to other countries. They are saying that they can''t find the talent here? Go where you say the talent is (and yes I say leave america!!!).

Drop any restrictions on the flow of talent into or out of this country. Let freedom ring.

The H-1b program is a way for employers to obtain skilled labor at reduced wages and absolutely should be curtailed in this economic climate. I recently was forced to eliminate SW developer positions in my department, and one of my sons was just put on the street from his SW developers job at another company, all US citizens.

The immigration scene has changed in this country. Decades ago when immigrants entered this country, there was no support group (one mentioned later). As a result, the new immigrants in those times were helpless in larger extent and had to face whatever the rule of the law says about their immigration status. But, now things are different. Now, the new immigrants have a voice, such as immigrationvoice.com, various yahoo groups, law firms offering chat boards, etc. There is always a colletive effort to send mass mailings to immigration authorities, to senators, house of representatives, editorial boards, Fraud experts providing Bogus and BS information, ( such as US citizens do not have skills needed for 21st century, US citizens do not work hard,lazy, etc), so that the media would pick up and post it as facts, etc. The new immigrants lobby are aided actively by the corrupt system, Businesses thirst for cheap labour, the fraud staffing firms and unethical head hunters, the politicians urge to quickly cater who ever makes more noise for the fear of future election loss, the immigration authorities to quickly make money by increasing the filing fees for Visas (instead of trying to streamline and fix the fraud that they knew was all around), the immigration law firms using this windfall oppurtunity to make money, and the desperation of the candidates themselves to get a GC whatever it takes, helped the corrupt system. And, the new immigrants know that the law can be changed at will and have learnt how it get changed their way. They have seen it in the past 10 years, number of times the H1, L1, LC certification, RIR process, PERM process, etc got changed by Immigration authorities (and the congress), just by mass mailing, mass flowers, etc and using the media effectively.

We should drop a visa requirement for any immigrant that wants to come to the US and work hard and create value inside the US economy. Protecting US jobs by kicking out innovation is always a bad policy. Given the barrier to getting an alien an H1-B, typically an H1-B alien is expected to be more talented than an equivalently paid domestic worker (it doesn't always work out that way); companies do not spend money to get H1-Bs for mediocre talent. In the short term, curtailing H1-B may seem to create more jobs locally, but in the long term we are saddling our companies with lesser domestic talent while forcing talent overseas. These overseas talent will go and stoke the engines of companies that will eventually come back to compete with the US. Especially in emerging markets like China, these companies will have lower salary structures and their products will be very price competitive with US products. The last thing we need is for these products to be feature-competitive with US products because we sent them all the talent they needed to create good products, care of visa restrictions. It's been a long-term concern of mine that at some EE degree programs, we have more foreign applicants with the surname "Lee" than we have domestic applicants overall. So it's no surprise that our universities are educating primarily foreigners in these EE programs. Many of them can't find jobs here in the US, so they simply go home. We're sewing the seeds of our own demise by educating our competition and then kicking them out. It's gotten to the point now where I, as serial entrpreneur in the US, is considering leaving the US to start a company in China. The pool of talent out there has gotten so big, and so economical to hire, that it's extremely hard to justify raising venture capital to pay the fat salaries of unmotivated US engineers when you can bootstrap a fast-moving, fast-pace startup in China on pocket cash. The Chinese engineers are often western-educated, but they lack western leadership. Thanks to our habit of kicking out talent due to visa restrictions, the tail is now wagging the dog -- the talented labor pool overseas is compelling to the point where entrepreneurs like me want to leave the US and start companies over there. It's just too hard to create jobs in the US -- too expensive, too burdened with taxes, too burdened with regulations. However, at least the best talent was here in the US. But thanks to H1-B restrictions, there's now good talent overseas and every year we export more talent into low-cost labor markets. If you want to keep startup-types in the US, keep the talent in the US, because the good entrepreneur goes where the talent is.

Hey, I heard it was soooo cold yesterday that politicians had their hands in their OWN pockets!

Heh other. Talent?? The best talent in this country won''t study engineering because they have all seen their parents and their parents friends get screwed over one too many times by the lame H1B and other programs. H1B is just the tip of the iceberg. Don''t you even understand these posts? Every American with a post here knows a lot of family and friends that are being cheated by our Congress because of the BS H1B program and their ilk. There is no shortage of labor. We just refuse to be slaves to people who are lying to us.

It looks that H1B has two parts. The 1st part (65,000) is used to hire foreign workers from abroad directly. It should be eliminated completely. These people not only bring down salary, but also bring their bad work habits here. These people tend to be backstabbers. The 2nd part (20,000) is used to hired graduates with master & doctorate degree. It should remain. These people have passed the vigorous entrance requirements, and proved themselves. Especially, they have been educated (cultured) before going into workforce. These are not assumptions. They are personal experiences. I know, there are exceptions. I am speaking in a general term.

Absolutely we need to adjust with the economy. It is only common sense. When there is sufficient talent domestically why do we need to import more? To lower wages and raise unemployment?? See no logic in that. No ther G7 country is as open to foreign workers as the USA. It''s time to put our own talent back to work!

Maybe if US engineers expected less, worked harder and had more talent then foreign engineers would not be needed. Ask not what your country can do for you!

Heh PM, excuse us Americans for feeling just a little entitled to the rewards of our fore-fathers sacrifices. It wasn''''t India saving Europe via Normandy. It wasn''''t India that invented the transistor. It wasn''''t India that invented the computer. So bring us something we need, not something you can just do for cheaper. We fought for the 40 hour work week, not to have some overpopulated country come over here and crowd our country. Quite frankly, I don''''t see what India has to offer. India doesn''''t even want to share its mineral resources so why should we share our jobs?

If you know how to convert ADABAS/Natural (an old mainframe programming language) to Visual Basic and SQL-Server I know of an employer in San Antonio that needs 20 people. ~~~ If you know .NET threading I know of another position. ~~~ If you can program Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) in Microsoft Access, there is a government site in San Antonio with 3000 Access databases that have beed cobbled together by non-coms over the last ten years or so. You would need a security clearance. ~~~ The point being is that there is no end of work, but what people have experience with is the 'path of minimum energy'. They did some a web development project that was mostly user interface, or they were given a slice of a major project and know enough C# to get them through that project, or they're good at VB6 (out of date) connecting to Access .MDB databases. What people need is a more in-depth understanding of databases (both abstract and vendor-specific), an idea of how to keep a set of books (some basic accounting knowledge), how to use a collection of (not just one) of the more advanced features of their favorite language/development platform. It's amazing how much stuff is half-baked. ~~~ Over the last few years I've worked with a number of people with H1-Bs, and our experience with them was across the spectrum: some really good, some got along, some didn't have a clue. I did notice that an immigrant with a Master's or Ph.D. was generally worse at coding than someone that had a basic degree. ~~~ People have to assess the market, take the initiative to learn a few things that they don't presently understand, and be ready to take work with employers that may be short on benefits or (because it's GOVT) are going to bother your family and neighbors with nosy questions. In the current environment, be prepared to kiss some frogs.

To Worried: The best money (better than stealing money and getting bonuses at AIG or BofA) is taking bribes as a politician. Tell your son to study political science or law (as a path to elected office).

How many H1Bs does it take to program a Credit Default Swap Derivative that will bankrupt an economy? And yes, Virginia they are now employing H1Bs for finance and other non-IT functions. There is direct correlation between the Tsunami of low cost illegal labor undermining the wages of the poor, while there is a concerted attack on the wages of the middle class with H1Bs and other wage reduction programs. How do you think global corporations are able to support such a disparate salarry range between executives and the rest of the company. This disparity did not exist until the massive influx of labor. And they wonder why there is a decline engineering graduates in this country.

We should stop H1 now.

Just sit at EBAY building's entrance in San Jose in the morning, and you'll see caravans of Indian H1B coming in. Come on EBAY, pay those H1B same wages as you pay US workers, and will see if you still beg for more H1B visas. By the way, EBAY's CEO is running for California governor office. Will we see California hiring H1B for public works ?

Like literally everything that the Federal Government is involved with, H-1b visas are a result of corruption. In this case, corporate lobbyists line politician''s pockets with copies amounts of money in exchange for allowing large numbers of H-1b visas. Corporations using this as a way of artificially holding down engineering saleries by importing aliens. H-1b visas should NEVER be used as a way to hold engineering saleries down. Always remember: Absolute power begets absolute corruption.

I have several friends who are or got here on H1B visas. While I would not want to see them leave, the fact remains that they do NOT truely have any special skills. Perhaps the real problem with engineering is the continued decline is prestige, respect and wages measured in real dollars. Why work as an engineer when you can steal money and get a bonus at an AIG or Bank of America! I am so glad that my son in college is NOT going to be an engineer, even though I used to love being one.

Americans endlessly complain about jobs going to foreigners and about jobs going to foreign countries. Somehow Americans think they are entitled to everything in this world. They seem to forget that skill, cost and ability of execution was what kept progress happening around that world. You can look at any teenager in US to tell that jobs are not here to stay. If H-1b workers are ready to work at cheaper rate, what stops the American (who can legally work on multiple jobs and businesses) from doing the same. Thanks to H-1b, many companies are still around here and not in Europe, UAE, Australia or India.

Visa programs such as H1, L1, L2 are all false, and was pushed and increased in scope by the congress over the years, with active participation of corrupt businesses, bogus media experts repetatively telling Americans that, we do not have skills - for their greed at the cost of American Citizens. We have enough folks who can do the work, willing to be trained and have the ability to learn. I do not understand, how long these greedy companies are going to sell this country? I work for a multi billion dollar industry and I see daily, thousands of H1/L1s doing one of the basic software testing jobs and other very routine tasks that, a 10th grader is more than enough for such jobs. Are these companies telling us, that US Citizens cannot be found for this job? H1/L1 visas probably was opened with honest intentions, but the fraud is widespread and the US Citizens are summarily rejected even without an interview call. Read what an Indian is taking about H1 fraud, and how it works. Search for the page in google: evil-called-desi-consultant.html There is a wide spread fraud, even in job posting. Most jobs you see online are NOT really the jobs available. They are already filled in by the companies with temp immigrants. Those job Ad are just an immigration formality, needed to be posted for 30 days. It is time to freeze the visa programs, re-open after closing all the loopholes used by these greedy companies, and get ONLY the skilled ones after making sure that these jobs are NOT the replacement for American jobs.

Yes we should limit the H1B based on the economic situation. There should be more provision added like is the company actively hiring US employees, has the laidoff US employess in the last one year for the category they are applying for new H1B etc. And the goverment should take immediate steps to stop L visa program all together, which is just a means for the companies to transfer the employees with low pay to US. They are not bringing any innovation only taking away US jobs and helping to take away more US jobs.

Yes, of course we should adjust H1Bs to economy. But nothing will happen because Big Biz has thoroughly corrupted both parties in DC. Does the knee-jerk bailout of Wall Street, in spite of all their evil, tell you anything as to who matters first to the Washington suits? This is an old issue already and I don''t know why you even raise the question, I guess you had to get something in to your editor...

There is not a shortage of talent - there is just not enough people willing to work at the low wages the technical employers desire to pay. The H1-B program should carry a fee per visa equal to a year''s salary so that only really critical spots will be filled by non-citizens. Once salaries rise at a reasonable level for some of our smartest citizens the shortage will take care of itself. Anyone every wonder why there is no "shortage" of highly compensated CEO''s, MBAs etc?

I hold an H-1b visa. Quite honestly, there is not a shortage and there has never been a general shortage. If there was ever a shortage, it was among very senior level positions. They should stop any more H-1b workers from coming into the United States. I am having a hard time staying employed and am on the bench right now. I work for an Indian owned "body shop" who pay me less than what they claimed with the Department of Labor. This happens so often, I can''t even count how many times I have known someone who this happened to.

I sincerely hope this doesn't turn out to be the start of a forced reverse brain drain from USA. In my humble opinion rewarding incompetence in terms of jobs or salaries or anything else can only lead to poor quality products at higher prices and eventual failure of corporations.

It''s time to stop the same leadership that is sinking the ship from continuing these practices in all areas of business. The H1B program is bogus especially during times of severe economic distress in America and it shows the total cavalier disregard of Americans by corporate executives. It is irresponsible and unpatriotic. Corporate governance is dominated by greedy executive staff personnel and has been reduced to a big joke at best and a band of felons at worst. This program is about legally allowing indentured servitude and displacing citizens from jobs. It has nothing to do with bringing in talent and everything to do with robbing America blind.

Another perfect example of an excuse by corporate america to simply tighten the payrolls! Just like overseas cheap labor. When is this going to simply stop in the name of outsourcing our country? Is it no wonder the middle class consumer can no longer fuel the consumption/purchasing needed to bolster the economy? Am I the only one to see the common sense in this? Unbelievable!! Outsource congress!

Yes, visas should only be available in special cases. There was never a need for this large of a job outsourcing program except to artificially raise executive bonuses in exchange for suppressing the salary scale of US engineers.

Increase the fees such that companies will only see out foreign workers when they truly add a benefit. You can''''t prohibit it, it would cause outsourcing when local talent can not be found. It should not be random or lobbied, it needs to be studied how much each sector needs.

The last thing the unemployed, hungry, engineer needs is more 1-B visa competition. The engineers imported from India, China or wherever are good, but they are willing to work for less often because they don''''t have families, houses, cars, or education bills to pay off. Undermining the present group of workers isn''''t going to help America. There is no shortage of engineers when there are so many unemployed with the experience and degrees needed to meet any work assignment. If there are no jobs for locally grown engineers you might as well close the local engineering schools as they won''''t be needed as well.

Visas should be adjusted based on the number of unemployed engineers. We should not bring in any engineers from overseas until all the US engineers have jobs

I think that while H-1B''s are a great tool in recruiting talent but it does create a "brain-drain" in several countries. America has plenty of talent and I should think that we must at some point evaluate the rate in which we accept professionals from other countries.

Yes, employment-based immigration should adjust to the economy: Given the massive layoffs the H-1b and related programs should be SUSPENDED IMMEDIATELY until Microsoft et al start hiring U.S. grads and unemployed U.S. workers. Under ARRA Congress is spending about $100,000 PER JOB to create jobs - including IT jobs. Why are Americans being taxed $8 billion to create jobs for the H-1b Raffle winners?

Yes, they should adjust to the economy! Canada, UK, Australia, NZ have floating numbers based on the economy and sectors which have shortage of professionals. The shortage is studied (not lobbied) and shortages are not created by associations by letting fewer professionals graduate/accepted (doctors in US). And the visa holders let in gain permanent residency in a year and citizenship in 3 years which forces them to put down roots! The saddest part is the visas are for temporary workers not permanent worker this causes a segment of underpaid workers with no bargaining rights and under the mercy of the employer. And the wait for permanent residency status is anywhere from 8-12 years if one survives in the same job (with no promotions and little pay raise) and shells out $15,000 in fees!

I would like someone to draw a graph that shows a time series from 1980 (original IBM PC) to 2009 showing the rate of growth in programming and engineering talent (or at least bodies) in comparison to the transistor/processor cycle count. Since the latter is growing exponentially, it would seem like the number of new designers needed should be equal to the entire number employed at some point within that series, or perhaps any point in that series. "Needed" depends on whether you're talking about companies that are hiring or actual needs by consumers in the marketplace, the former is certainly in short supply but the latter exists irrespective of the presence or absence of vendors. ~~~ "...is a mere fraction of the total 598,000 national unemployment number." Were you thinking 5.98 million? Or is this limited to those with Bachelors degrees?