LTTE: H-1B visas allow companies to avoid hiring American workers

[Newsjock]

Source: Salinas Californian

In her Feb. 13 letter, Marjorie Atkinson makes a common mistake when she says corporations are allowed to give visas to people from other countries because Americans are not well-educated enough to fill the jobs.

... A few years ago I was having difficulty getting work in the computer industry. I knew an industry-leading company in San Jose was hiring, but no matter how many times I applied I kept getting an automated response telling me I wasn't qualified.

Finally, I took the job description, cut and pasted the exact verbiage into my résumé template and sent it back. A day later I was told, sorry, your job experience doesn't meet the requirements!

A week later the company CEO asked an additional 40,000 H-1B visas be authorized by Congress, because sadly, "no Americans are qualified for these positions."

True. That is, no Americans with one or more college degrees willing to work 60 hours per week with no benefits for 60 to 70 percent of the industry standard pay.

Norm Morris
Salinas

Read more: http://www.thecalifornian.com/article/20100217/OPINION03/2170311/1014/OPINION/H-1B+visas+allow+companies+to+avoid+hiring+American+workers

[musette_sf]

1. K & R 100X

[stray cat]

2. It may depend on the area of expertise - lots of Americans have exited math, physics, engineering et

and enough people in the US really are not qualified for the number of needed positions. The pay for example in nuclear power plants is quite good but they are having to scrape to hire engineers

[w4rma]

3. Nope. Try again. They just don't want to PAY qualified people to do the work. (nt)

[provis99]

4. uh, no. Engineers in the US have very high unemployment rates.

Engineering schools are turning out more graduates than there are jobs. Yet we import foreign engineers, and sign them to slave contracts where they can't leave their jobs without being repatriated back to their origin countries.

[cap]

5. You don't understand, Americans really prefer to be homeless and put their

kids on food stamps rather than buckle down and study and work hard in engineering. Honestly... they'd really rather not pay off their mortgages and credit cards. Hasn't anyone done a study of the pathological state of the American engineer?/sarcasm

[OhioChick]

6. K&R n/t