h1b facts once again

[Federico Lucifredi]

Hello There,
    Since the "hate the foreigner" attitude won't quit, I decided to lay
bare some facts:

    -There are 3.8 million Americans working abroad. Conversely, there are
about 250.000 H1bs and as many L1s according to a recent Business Week
article. That is less than 0.1% of the number of people living in the
continental US for each visa category.

    -The US is already the hardest place on earth for a foreigner to come to
on a work basis, barring Openly xenofobic Japan. As I remarked before, the
rightist Austrian leader Jeorg Haider got censored by the EU on nazi charges
after he proposed an immigration law for workers in Austria that in fact
reflects the H1 program.

    -This is also the developed country with the lowest unemployment rate
among those with a sizable population (> 50 millions).

    The rest of the developed world lives with higher unemployment rates
without turning on immigrants *even* to the point of establishing H1 as it
is today. The "undeveloped" world has often to live with unemployment rates
of the order of 20/30%.

    I fully agree when you call loophole the way the L1 program is used
today. It was not meant for the use comapnies are making of it. But the H1
program is already the most restrictive employment law for foreigners
barring those of Japan - to give you an example, if you were among those 3.8
million Americans working abroad (most of them in the developed world), in
most European countries all that an employer has to do is tell the
governement that the foreigner has a job and that it will be paid at least
minimum wage and that's that (no labor law certification of equal wage in
the job sector, nothing of the sort -- and these permits are not time
limited unlike the H1s).

    So go right ahead, if the lowest unemployment rate among large developed
nations is not enough for you, you can turn on the 0.2 % of the people
living in this slice of land so that you can get off on something. I wish to
note that, exactly how it happened for the imports of steel two years ago,
the rest of the rich world is going to respond in kind. you might eventually
get those 500k  non-immigrants off the payrolls, but you will also see some
of those 3.8 M Americans working abroad flowing back. So much for the gain.

    And by the way, as this is also one of the most expensive labor markets
of the world, please note that if The Prophet cannot go to the mountain,
then the mountain will go to the prophet -- meaning that if you do not allow
for a relief valve on labor costs from coming in, the jobs will pour out. It
is happening, and the more you do this the more it will. India for software,
Russia for engineers and so on. At least with H1s the jobs are still *here*.

I am sure Congress will only be happy to oblige on closing the pipe on the
L1 program -- I know I would in their shoes. But your raving about H1s seems
quite unjuestified and I find it quite tasteless. there are currently 32
million Americans who are foreign borne. that is 10% of the population. You
are talking about a number of people that are as large as 0.2% of the
population. If you are concerned about foreign labor, perhaps you should
wonder how so many "immigrants" do come in, rather than raving about the
people that are here as "non-immigrants" (and even if they were, they are so
few compared to the actual immigrants!).

Perhaps as a foreigner I should go out hunting for an H1 -- and I assure
you, I would not get it. The foreigners I know have H1s at above market
average wages because they are experts or research scientists, not because
they are selling themselves into slavery.

In history, people in distress have always proved ready to turn on
scapegoats. As I have remarked before, I hold this country to a higher
standard (Americans did not turn on the Jews during the depression, the
Germans did). if you feel that a recession that still maintains the lowest
unemployment rate of the developed world is too hard for you, knock yourself
out and go after those poor H1s. But please remember, this country does not
produce enough science/engineering/technology brains as a fact (as a
professor I can tell you that enrollment rates of foreigners on higher-level
degree programs in this country exceeds the number of US nationals -- now
that is in the science/engineering/technology areas, not in Business wich is
a much more favorite subject of locals. Of course, foreigners come because
US universities are excellent, but they are also sucked in because not
enough locals get out of high school with decent math and science.  In a
recent talk I had with the father of a Freshman, I told the man that I was
simply astounded a country would toss away 400 billions on weapons when the
high schools are graduating a sizable number of students that cannot speak
English as if it were their goddamn first language - lets not even speak
abouth math...but that's another story - and quite a sad one when you think
how much rethoric is wasted speaking of care of children here - time to DO
something about it). Oh well, I guess I drifted on a subject I feel
passionate about -- eduaction.

to go back to the bottom line of the discussion at hand: this place is a job
heaven compared to the rest of the world. Honestly, still complaining about
it make some of you look quite spoiled.

-Federico

PS: As I said before, I was hoping we were done on the subject on the public
mailing list. But if you still want to talk politics, please give me some
clue as to how the high school system can be fixed. Perhaps you could write
your senator about that. Not that the current congresss is likely to make
labor more expensice or to cut the pentagon's budget, but heck, if we gotta
do some mailing list dreaming....

BTW: The rules for overtime are being revamped by the labor department.
Several million people are going to be inelegible for it after the cange. If
I were you, I would be a lot more pissed about this piece of change
occurring at all, much less without legislation....