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White Collar Jobs Threatened

Article By Writer Michael Kraft Author: Michael Kraft
Published: June 18, 2007
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We had a recent comment posted by a reader that is also a preofessional in the human resources industry. It is safe to assume this poster knows more about office atmosphere hiring than the senators that will be affecting his lifestyle with their amnesty bill.

We thank this contributor with the use of their sentiments as a featured editorial.

In addition to legalizing the status of those who entered this country illegally, this bill also threatens the careers of American white collar workers because it would greatly increase the number of H-1B visas issued to foreign professional workers.

As a Human Resources professional, I see first hand how the H-1B visa and employment based green card programs actually work together to drive U.S. white collar workers from their jobs and even from their careers. To begin with, there is virtually nothing in the law that prevents employers from hiring H-1Bers for open positions even if qualified Americans are available and willing to do the work. Americans are routinely laid off and replaced with lower paid H-1Bers also. In these cases, Americans have practically no legal recourse available under current law.

H-1B is also a dual intent visa, so an employer may sponsor an H-1Ber for an EB green card for legal permanent resident status. When a company seeks to sponsor a foreign worker for an EB green card, they are required by law to demonstrate a good faith effort to recruit Americans first. This process is called labor certification. But employers routinely game the labor certification process for green card sponsorship to defraud even well qualified citizen job applicants in favor of low wage foreigners. They use fake job ads and/or bad faith interviews of American citizens to convince the federal government that they tried to find American workers first. These practices are common in high tech and even in some non-tech industries, but HR people are told to keep quiet about it or lose their jobs.

I would be in favor of a program that issues a small number of self-sponsoring green cards for truly innovative foreign nationals on a competitive basis. But very few of the H-1Bers or green card applicants that I have seen in 10+ years even come close to being truly innovative. Most are just practitioners with skills that are actually quite common among the domestic workforce. The only thing special about these foreigners is that they will work for substantially less than Americans in order to have a chance to become legal permanent residents. Thus they are used by management to sweeten corporate balance sheets.

The prevailing wage regulations are supposed to insure that foreign nationals are paid the same as their American counterparts in the same job functions, but these regulations are so riddled with loopholes that they are a bad joke.

Since my work allows me to have access to salary records, I can tell you that the labor cost savings for H-1Bers and green card applicants is substantially greater than the costs of filing the applications with the government.

Citizens who call to oppose this bill should also demand that both the H-1B and employment based green card programs be abolished in their current form.

A writer on our site offers up a human resources view of the threat of illegal and legal immigration under the new amnesty bill

amnsety

work permission

temporary worker permits

work permit

green cards

6 Responses to “White Collar Jobs Threatened”

Lalit on June 18th, 2007 12:29 pm

Sure you can say H1B employees depress wages and are “rarely” innovative, after they have contributed billions of dollars in GDP to this country and formed majority of 100 billion+ corporations in this country. They contribute billions in taxes and social security taxes, which many of them will never get in return. They come here work hard and may be get paid a little less than the “American” who could have been paid to sweeten the “Corporate Balancesheet”. Now let’s examine the basic ideology on which America was built: Capitalism. It ensures that the rights of the stockholders many of which are “Americans” comes before any one else. So more profit is always welcome. However, I am not saying misusing H1B is the way to go. But on the flip side if these companies don’t save money and rely on these workers they will eventually hire more people abroad just to be competitive. What really surprises me that after all this crying and moaning no one seems to explain the lowest unemployement rate in this country. In silicon valley employers are struggling to find workers. Where are these so called “qualified americans” who have been laid off and why can’t they find jobs when there are tons of jobs out there. I think people who got laid off or lost their jobs to a foreigner should stop being sore losers. This is the reality of the new world where boundries are shrinking and if someone from abroad out smarts you, don’t be grumpy but just improve your skills and get back in the game.
Babs on June 18th, 2007 2:39 pm

The argument that if we don’t let in H1Bs then we offshore more jobs is false. H1Bs are often step one in a process that results in the offshoring of work. As for getting back in the game, the vast majority of H1B positions are NEVER posted or advertised where an American candidate might see and apply for them. There are also documented cases of ads specifying H1B only need apply. As for them doing America so much good, who was it who built America into the world leader in engineering, technology, and innovation? It wasn’t H1Bs because America has been in that position for decades before any noteworthy number of foreign guestworkers were ever on the scene. H1Bs were NEVER supposed to displace an American or get paid enough less to alter a balance sheet, and to admit that they sometimes are is proof positive that the system is being grossly misused.
Vin on June 18th, 2007 4:18 pm

I appreciate the efforts of Mr. Kraft for drawing the plot of H1B and green card but I must say that it’s far more unclear, incomplete and derived from personal knowledge. Gigantic companies like Microsoft, Google, AT&T, FedEx, UPS, etc. (these are just to name a few) aren’t insensible to hire incompetent and unskilled people if it is to do with their top notch products and the name they have today in this competitive market, neither will it pinch them to pay for the best and still we see millions of H1B holders working for these companies earning 90k to 250k, would Mr. Kraft still say that they are not innovative and they work for less? I’d say he might be working for such a firm where he doesn’t even get to see these brilliant and talented people.

There’s no such system with 100% favorable outcomes and we always find both positive & negative aspects, it just depends on what perspective are you looking from. Also, there’s always a room for improvement and author would have rather tried to balance and justify this program than to talk about fake job ads and abolishing H1B & green card program. Could he answer what’s the multiplication of 19 and 3 without a calculator? One can not be an expert in multiple fields. Finally, I would like to make a point that if someone works for less, it’s again one of the innovative ideas, they’re atleast earning something!
anp on June 18th, 2007 5:19 pm

I understand that H1B program was started in 90’s, and the great American innovations were not done by H1B’s. But can an AMERICAN citizen boast of creating the atom bomb w/o an immigrant writing the e=mc^2 equation?, statistics have shown % of companies formed by immigrants.
Second argument that H1B is a first step towards offshoring. There have been numerous examples of offshoring helped survive companies and turned around to hire American workers.
HEARD first hand from several VCs that, they would not fund companies / ideas / business model that does not show an offshoring model. We can come up with legislation to stop these practices?
Michael Kraft on June 19th, 2007 12:13 am

Not my article Vin, thanks for the kudos though. This was left in a comment by a visitor and he claimed to work in Human Resources. I would not pretend to know this subject be he had a point he wished to share, so he wrote about it clearly and we gave him a forum.

Best Regards.
Vin on June 19th, 2007 9:29 am

My apology Mr. Kraft, I did realise that but after posting my comments! Sorry.