Why tech cos may not lobby for H1-Bs

[OhioChick]

20 Feb, 2009, 1025 hrs IST,REUTERS

NEW YORK: US technology companies, which are laying off thousands of employees, will likely have to water down their long-running campaign for per
mission to hire more foreign workers to avoid a political backlash this year.

The tech industry employs three out of every five foreign workers under the country's H-1B visa programme, which lets US companies hire up to 65,000 foreigners per year, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services data.

Tech companies have long argued that hiring should be tied to market needs and not capped artificially, seeing the ability to scoop up foreign talent as critical to America's competitiveness.

Through Compete America, an alliance whose members include Microsoft Corp, Oracle Corp and Intel Corp, the tech industry has lobbied for the right to employ foreigners freely to make up for domestic shortages of computer programmers, engineers and other skilled workers. But the H-1B visa programme has drawn new criticism amid a deepening recession, with the unemployment rate soaring to a 16-year high of 7.6 per cent in January and nearly 600,000 jobs cut.

"The bloom is a bit off the rose politically" for tech companies enamored of foreign workers, said Neil Sims, a managing director at executive search firm Boyden. Sims, who works in Boyden's technology practice, said it would be tough for corporate lobbyists to justify the need for foreign workers because the unemployment pool is brimming with laid-off American workers.

"Politically, it would be difficult to make that case to the American workforce right now," Sims said. Immigration lawyers and recruiters expect the annual firestorm around H-1B visa quotas, the applications for which are due in early April, to reignite in Washington this year.

Already, the US Senate this month barred recipients of government bailout funds from hiring foreign workers if they laid off American employees in the past six months. And in January, Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, sent a letter to Microsoft saying the world's biggest software maker had a "moral obligation" to preserve the jobs of Americans ahead of H-1B workers.

The move came after Microsoft announced plans to cut 5,000 jobs. The company said in a statement that it is laying off both domestic and foreign workers, and will extend support to every affected employee. Microsoft is one of the largest employers of H-1B workers and Bill Gates has been a vocal proponent of the campaign to expand the program.


More: http://infotech.indiatimes.com/News/Software--Services/Why_tech_cos_may_not_lobby_for_H1-Bs/articleshow/4158637.cms

[Vincardog]

1. Do you think they might send a note to Microsoft that they should not fire American workers and

expand their foreign operations?