Report: Most H-1B visas for outsourcers, Microsoft gets 11th most

[eridani]

http://blogs.seattletimes.com/brierdudley/2013/02/14/report-most-h-1b-visas-for-outsourcers-microsoft-gets-11th-most/


With Congress considering Microsoft’s pitch to enlarge the tech visa program, Computerworld sifted through the list of H1-B visa recipients over the last two years.

It turns out the biggest visa users aren’t U.S. tech companies desperate to fill crucial jobs.

Instead, the largest users of the program by a wide margin have been outsourcing companies such as Cognizant, Tata, Infosys and Wipro that are performing work on behalf of clients in the U.S.

Perhaps American companies are outsourcing work to these vendors because they can’t hire enough people to do the work in-house. Or maybe they’d directly hire more overseas tech workers if the government made additional H1-B visas available.

But on its face, the data raises questions about whether additional H1-B visas really will benefit job creation at U.S. companies. Will it instead lead to an expansion of U.S. companies outsourcing their technology work to contractors? This isn’t all bad – with visas, the contractors will live and work close to their clients – but it’s not the same thing as creating permanent U.S. jobs.

Microsoft, which initiated the current push to expand the visa program, received the 11th most H1-B visa approvals last year – 1,497, up from 1,384 in 2011, according to Computerworld’s report.

[hollysmom]

1. Ah. something I actually know about.

Last edited Sat Feb 16, 2013, 01:09 AM - Edit history (2)

Before there were h1-b visas, companies hired from other countries using student visas, claiming these people were coming to the US to study our techniques/, but in reality it was to work for less pay and everyone knew it.

It is pure bull that there are not capable people here,I know plenty of them. I also know people who are not qualified and a lot of that is because companies do not invest in training anymore - they want you to come to them fully trained. I worked for a consulting firm early on , so training became a big part of my life early on - reading business periodicals to get the latest ideas and taking courses at night to increase my skills and there by increase my billing. Had I just worked for a single company, I probably would have rotted without training. In my last job, I was given a budget of 10K a year to train my staff of 12, I was blessed with a manager who gave me free reign. Usually the manager would spend that budget on themselves or their favorite, but I got an instructor to come in house and train them all (other managers snuck their people into the course, told them it was OK if my staff sat up front). There was no one responsible for training in the company. This was a large fortune 100 company and they had no plans to train their people! It was not only training people about technical skills, people also need to be trained on work processes - how to think through a complex job that at least has to be mentored into them.

H1B visas were originally meant for visiting professors and the rare genius, but that is not what it is being used for, most of the people coming in are your run of the mill engineer or IT person.

[Live and Learn]

2. +1 nt