H1B lottery – beginning of the end of another gold rush?
April 29, 2017 1 Comment
The din over the H1B saga is growing louder and the accusations against 3 Indian MNCs seem to be a bit over the top. I am not trying to exonerate them in any way, they have indeed played their part in deteriorating the situation, but they are not the only ones involved.
I believe the US government itself has diluted the true purpose of the H1B visa. The objective of the H1B visa is for the American MNCs to recruit and move skilled people from around the world to work from the US. Now which are the companies that fit into the category of American MNCs? Apple, Google, Facebook, IBM, Microsoft, etc. are the names that first come to mind. Do these companies need to bring in 65,000 people every year from abroad to work for them in the US? Only fresh applicants and the ones whose visas have expired consume the 65,000 visas. The lifespan of the visa is 3 years and at any point in time, 130,000 active visa holders are already out there in the market on top of the 65,000 visas issued in any year. It would be unbelievable to even imagine that American MNCs would bring so many workers into the country every year. What will happen to the employment market for local people? Even then, Bill Gates and many other IT corporate honchos have been openly advocating about increasing the H1B visa numbers. So if the American MNCs are not getting a decent enough piece of the pie, who are the demons gobbling up the visas?
I am a little blurred at the moment with regards to the definition of a MNC. Top American companies have operated in the US for many years before they expanded their presence to other countries. Indian companies operating out of India register their companies in the US and they become MNCs? Is it just that easy? Why is not required that a company needs to have a pedigree and legacy of operating out of its parent country for say, 10 years in a given industry and have documented proof to show that they are a profitable company before they are allowed to set up offices in other countries? Why didn’t the US government set up a different visa quota system for American and foreign MNCs? With due respect to everyone and without any racial discrimination, a company registered in the US solely with the intention of outsourcing work from the US to the native country of the founder/a stakeholder should not be given the status of a MNC. Why didn’t the US government strictly ensure that Indian MNCs pay their foreign workers the same salary as local employees in the US? Indian MNCs have made mountains of money by paying a fraction of the salary of what they should have.
What Theo Negri experienced (http://www.firstpost.com/world/h-1b-whistleblower-theo-negri-on-how-lottery-salaries-are-gamed-by-tcs-infosys-cognizant-3404384.html) and what the real threat to the visa system is does not come from the Indian MNCs though. Indian MNCs ensure that they do enough background verification of the employees before they hire them. But there are plenty of devious companies that don’t. They don’t hog visas but the damage they do to the visa system and genuine applicants is enormous. They have offices in the US, they hire people from India on their payroll, take them to the US and contract them out to work for companies there. People have to pay a lot of money to these companies to get the visa and they are tied down for at least 2 years on bond to work on the company’s payroll. Contracting can happen through several intermediate companies with the effect that what employees get in hand as salary becomes very less. It becomes an uphill task for these people to recoup what they spent and break even. These body shopping companies develop excellent knowledge of the US market requirements and they know how to showcase the resume of potential candidates that fit the job requirements. Bloated work experience and skills and even fake certificates are the usual methods these companies use. They even know which cities people should fly to in the US at any given time, where border entry checking would be a bit more lenient.
Indian MNCs have also misused other types of work visas like the L1 and the B1 visa. How did this blatant misuse of the US work visa system continue for so many years? How is it possible that these companies openly flouted the country’s labor laws? How do body shopping companies know which city to be used as port of entry? Why did the US government allow the visa system to be manipulated so badly that people with below average skills could enter the country and get employment? There has to be a lot more at play here that is seen. The powerful Indian lobby in the US must have kept the entire visa system at bay by keeping all the stakeholders happy. After all, the money involved here is monstrous. Forget everything else; I was wondering one day about the number of people who might be applying for US visa of any type every single day. They all have to pay visa application fee. Many of the visa applications get rejected as well but the application fee is not reimbursed. How much money is the US government making each day simply from visa application fee from around the world? It is staggering.
With the Green Card as the point of attraction, the world ended up believing that US is the heaven in the new world, just like the people of Europe believed Jerusalem is a land flowing with milk and honey and headed there to start the Crusades. From the time Europeans arrived on the Mayflower and landed on American soil, people have had to toil really hard to make America what she is today. Life is not different anywhere in the world and to come up in life, we have to toil hard no matter where we are. The higher value of the dollar and the status symbol of being in the US is what drive most people in India to the US. It even helps Indian grooms get more beautiful wives and higher dowry. The gold rush had to stop sometime. I saw this coming in the aftermath of the 2008 economic meltdown. I am surprised it lasted so long.
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Completely agree with the body shopping companies.
But don’t just give a clean-chit to the Indian companies either. In fact, their methodology is also copied by the American MNC’s Indian branch, while applying from India. Not just H1B, but L1 and B1 also needs reform, because they are adversely affecting the job market in India as well.
There are Indian workers who are willing to flow with what the company says and gives as US salary, just to have a US visa stamped.
The others, who ask for a higher salary at par with their US counterparts are arm-twisted to follow the line – put them on bench, threat of layoff etc etc. I know one Mr. X, who had to toe the line and accept a marginal increase in the pay offered. In fact, he was marked by his US colleagues (both Indian and US origin) as the Indian who asked for at-par pay, and was given some of the toughest assignments – just to rub it in.
These Indian companies run a well-oiled machinery to game the visa system, and it is tough to take them. Their clout in the US govt is massive. I doubt anything will come out of this exercise, unless someone goes for their jugular.
As far as I foresee, in the end you will have these Indian companies opening a few centers in US (which will be used as bait a few years later), and a few body shopping companies going out of business – and a photo-op by the Indian CEO’s smiling smugly with Trump.