H-1Bs scarfed up in a day
Congress, in their concern for older IT workers being forced to accept a competitive wage, capped the number of H-1B tech visas at 65,000. For the 2007 visas, there were 150,000 applicants the first (and only) day applications were accepted.
"The congressman [Kucinich] believes it puts middle-aged professionals at a disadvantage because they're facing competition from people who are willing to work for less money," said spokeswoman Natalie Laber.
but
Employers like Iyer, meanwhile, are eyeing their options. He said he will search locally for talent but will prepare to send more work to Canada and overseas."Sometimes it's just plain impossible to find the skill here," he said. "The projects have to get done."
You can only cartelize labor if there's some way of restricting worker access to the jobs. In IT, there isn't. It's about as practical for your programmer to work in Bangelore as in California; communication and supervision might be harder, but you don't have to pay to bring him over. If you make him a team leader and do the whole project over there, you don't even have the communication issue. So tell me: since the foreign go-to guy is going to get the job anyway, what's better for America: to bring him over here, pay him lower-end American wages, and collect taxes from him (including Social Security he won't collect), or let him stay home, pay Indian wages, let the Indian government get fat on the tax revenue? All that's before we even deal with the rights of an individual to contract with whom he will.
I know there are scads of Case tech guys who read Case blogs. So tell me: how has this cap benefitted YOU? What am I missing in my analysis?
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