From November until March I was flooded with job emails from contract companies for low paying jobs where they wanted me to move at my own expense. I got an email from one company where the whole email was about how they had an immigration lawyer on staff. A company called "Ace Technology" had an amazing offer. I would move at my own expense to New York city for a temp job at about $20-25k less than I could get on salary at a regular company there with real benefits. Ace Technology is very interesting. They claim that many people stay for 7 years or more which is about how long it takes to process H1Bs. There are alot of these "employee" temp jobs where you move at your own expense around the company from "project to project" at less than you can make somewhere else. The spam completely stopped at the time of the H1B processing.
H1B laws "require" companies to pay H1B's the "prevailing wage". However, this is not enforced, "prevailing wage" is not defined, and there are no penalties for not doing this. What is the "prevailing wage" anyway? I was on a contract last year where I was contacted by 8 contract companies for the exact same job. Low to high the difference in rate was over $20/hour (about $40k/year).
Congress changed the H1B laws a few years ago making it easier for H1Bs to switch jobs and still be processed for a greencard. However, keep in mind a few things. First off only a limited number of companies process H1Bs. Many companies require H1Bs to sign contracts that make them pay back the entire "cost" of processing their greencard(by their definition of the cost), and if an H1B is unemployed for a period of time they are kicked out of the country. This means H1Bs are by nature risk averse to switching jobs for a pay increase. They are also more willing to move at their own expense for low paying temporary jobs.
If you google "Desi Consulting", you will see quite a few people in India complaining about the H1B process. According to them there are H1B companies that have people pay their own H1B processing(which is against the rules), lie on their resume(which is never checked), and then find themselves a job and they take a cut(which is also against the rules also) of the rate. This is why there are so many H1B applications.
Here is a very simple solution to the H1B issue. Give them all Greencards with a direct path to US citizenship. The argument is that the US needs high skilled workers. If we need high skilled workers we want them to stick around. So lets make it easy for them to become US citizens. We are basically giving a blanket amnesty to illegal aliens, so why not make it very easy for high skilled people to become citizens as well.
What does this do? It decreases the profit that H1B companies get for hiring H1Bs, because it makes it very easy for them to quit. If we do this then we will see the real economic need for H1Bs. Are companies really going to want to bring someone in from another country if the person can quit on them in 2 weeks without restrictions? In some cases yes. I think you will see this more in very niche professions. You will see less Java Developers coming in and more slots used for Doctors who are needed in rural areas. Or people with PhDs to do research for Intel or Universities. I hope I don't insult and Java Developers out there, but a doctor and a technical PhD has alot more value to the US economy than they do. I also read that the state of Texas is using the H1B program to recruit math and science teachers. This also allow the new technical Greencard holders to become entrepreneurs if they so choose and create their own business.
Right now about 2/3s of all H1Bs get funneled into IT. This means that with 50,000 more H1Bs next year there will be about 33,000 more IT people coming into the US next spring. That is alot for a profession that has only about 1.7 million total jobs. That will have a direct impact on employment. There will be less jobs and more jobs that require you to move around the country at your own expense. Plus rates and salaries will be stagnant.
There also needs to be legislation restricting the employment contract that these new technical Greencard holders may be forced to sign. I worked for one company where all H1Bs(even if they were already in the US) had ot sign a contract that said if they ever quit before getting a greencard they would have to reimburse the company for all greencard processing expenses. They were also not allowed to process it on their own with their own lawyer. This amounted to $17,000. I know that two of them went 3 years without a raise and were the lowest paid people on the team by atleast $10,000. These contracts need to be legislated so they don't use legal terms to scare people into sticking with the company.
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This is complete hogwash! It seems the US is the only country clamouring to commit social and cultural suicide as soon as possible. So the argument is that, because evil companies can take advantage of the poor H1-B victims, we should legalize them thereby taking out the middleman. OK fine -- you can make the same argument with drugs like cocaine: if you legalize it, you'll take out the middle-man and the dealers from NYC to Columbia!
And the argument is that, there arent enough smart people left in this country such that now we have to import doctors and scientists. This is premised on the notion that they might be different than other human beings and possibly want to practice in rural areas in the middle of buttfok, Iowa. Are you kidding me? These folks are gonna wanna be pumping gel into fake boobs in Bev Hill just like the next med school student!
Here's a more reasonable approach to justice and truth for the poor H1-Bs: if they dont like it here, if it's a little too rough in our kitchen, let em walk back home!
This country will also not need to import so many "highly-skilled" people as soon as it realizes that there are more important things in life than Idol and Big Macs.
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