New H-1B Visa Bill Offers Relief to Companies Hungry for Skilled IT Workers - Brief Article

Workforce, April, 2001 by Jennifer Schu

Recruiters were given a boost last fall by new legislation that significantly increases the number of new visas available to foreign workers in the high-tech industry Approved in the Senate by a nearly unanimous vote of 96-1, the measure raised the cap on H-1B visas from 115,000 to 195,000. This means that for each of the next three years, 80,000 more skilled foreign workers will be allowed to enter the United States on temporary visas.

The measure provides H-1B workers more options to extend their status and work longer in the United States. There's also a welcome new stipulation that requires the Immigration and Naturalization Service to reduce processing time for the visas.

This is good news for Paul Wilson, HR director at FutureNet, an e-business consulting firm with Fortune 1,000 clients. He says he must fill between 200 and 225 IT positions a year. Before the new legislation, he found it difficult to tap foreign IT talent. The allocation for visas was so low that most were already given out by midsummer of each calendar year.

"If candidates weren't in the queue by July or August, they basically had to wait until the next year," Wilson says. About 7 percent of his hires are H-1B visa holders, and he now expects that number to rise significantly.

In the past, employers were sometimes reluctant to interview foreign candidates in line for visas because of the time-consuming bureaucracy involved. "You had to get clearance from INS before you could hire them, which could be a three-month process," says Bruce Fram, CEO of Luminate, a management service provider located in Silicon Valley. "You never knew if they could start in a month or three months. With American citizens, you knew they could start in two weeks."

Prasad Aloni, a Philadelphia-based IT professional who emigrated from India eight years ago, says the new measure should be an improvement over the former H-1B visa. The former rules "greatly limited me both professionally and personally."

Bureaucratic rules and regulations made it tough for H-1B workers to change jobs, even if they felt unhappy or exploited. They were often at the mercy of IT "body shops"--staffing companies that imported foreign workers. They couldn't negotiate for salaries or working conditions equal to those of their American counterparts.

Because they didn't know how long they'd be allowed to stay in the United States, they would often hold off from buying homes or cars and putting down roots. Fram says he feels compassion for his H-1B employees. "I know them, their kids, their families. It creates a lot of consternation for them. Can they stay? Can they buy a house?"

Foreign IT workers prize H-1B visas. Pranav Patel, a senior development globalization specialist with SAS Institute's national language division, says he has several family members in India who are waiting to come to the United States. Thanks to the plethora of IT training centers in his native country, all have advanced degrees in technical fields as well as training and experience in the software industry.

Hiring companies claim that jobs taken by H-1B workers are primarily at high-tech companies that couldn't fill the positions with qualified American workers. In other words, visa holders will supplement the current workforce, not replace it. That's because there's a chronic shortage not just of IT workers but also of employees that Fram calls "A players" -- those with the talent to play a major role in getting a high-tech product out the door on schedule.

At SAS, Patel works with a group of H-1B workers from India, helping them make the transition to the United States. He says they are always surprised by how warmly they are welcomed by their American neighbors.

The new measure should help the United States raise more homegrown IT talent, since it allocates funds for math, science, and technology education in American elementary and high schools. The $500 fee for each visa generates funds for scholarships for 60,000 U.S. students and training programs for 150,000 workers.

The United States is only protecting its own economic interests by raising the visa cap, Patel says. "If the increase was not made, then the work would be sent to countries like India, and the U.S. would not benefit."