High-skilled immigration: When demand outweighs supply
According to the Hindu Times:
An arbitrary cap on the number of HIB visas issued ignores the needs of the American economy, especially when it has been proven that the “cheap foreign labour” neither depresses wages nor takes jobs away from Americans. H1B professionals represent a small portion of the total number of workers in the American labour force and their presence does not increase the unemployment rate but rather creates jobs. Every spring, the immigration debate gains fervour as thousands of foreign nationals compete for a limited supply of H1B numbers. The H1B is quite popular as it allows many foreign nationals who have either a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree , or its equivalent, to work in the U.S. for up to three years, with an option to extend it for another three. The number of available H1Bs this year is arbitrarily set at 65,000, plus an additional 20,000 for those with a U.S. Master’s degree. Applicants can file their H1B petitions from April 1 each year, but in April 2007, the USCIS had received about 1,50,000 applications by April 2.
This year in 2008 the USCIS confirmed that it has already received more H1B petitions than allowed under law. It is believed that a large number of the H1B petitions filed were made on behalf of Indian nationals by the large H1B user companies and many “body shoppers” that process H1B petitions. The USCIS will randomly select by computer the chosen few from the pile of petitions it receives and returns the remaining unsuccessful petitions. Advocates for an increase in available H1B numbers for skilled professionals criticise the U.S. government for not taking in to account the demands of the economy when setting this cap. In 2000, the cap went from 65,000 to 115,000, and then rose again to 1,95,000 from 2001 to 2003. But the H1B quota was again reduced due to economic slowdown and has hovered at 65,000 since 2004, despite a revived demand for professionals in the tech sector. In fact, with the addition of about 6,000 H1B numbers allocated to nationals of Singapore and Chile under U.S. Free Trade Agreements with those two nations, the H1B quota has been reduced to just over 58,000 for the rest of the world... click to continue.
