Stiumus plan restricts H-1B hires

Industry is portraying the TARP H-1b provisions as "onerous." For pete's sake, all it says is you must first make an effort to hire an American worker - shouldn't be too hard in this economy - and you must not lay off qualified Americans just to displace them with fresh meat.

The TARP provisions should be expanded to apply to all H-1b hires. GATT treaty does not say that USA must hire foreign workers at the exclusion of qualified Americans.

It's a lot more than just making companies try to hire American workers first - existing H1B visa regulations already do that. This is about regulating the business cycle - few companies can take on the burden of promising to keep their employees employed for six months (three months before an H1B hire and three months after) - companies can go bankrupt in such a timeframe or whatever else. Even if a company hires three H1B employees spread out through the year, then the company would be also required to promise to the government that it won't lay off any its employees for a whole year (that is irrespective of whether or not the H1B employees are affected by a layoff decision). In practice, this means a complete freeze of H1B hires since no executive in their right mind would tie their hands in a labor dispute. And that, sadly, is hurting the American economy. H1B workers pay taxes just like anyone else. In many cases, where the company cannot hire the qualified worker on an H1B visa, they would simply send the worker to an overseas office, thus outsourcing the function. Uitimately, this means lost taxes. Not only that, but H1B visas are limited to 65,000 and the 15,000 of those which get awarded to financial companies are the highest paid of the bunch. This means that in general, the H1Bs would go to workers in other, lower-paid sectors, thus further decreasing tax revenue.

I have 3 decades of IT experience as a software engineer, business analyst, project manager, and solutions architect ... yet, despite excellent references, cutting edge skills, etc, but since 9/11 I've been unable to find work in the field for more than four months a year.

Why? The H-1Bs!

Even though I charge the same (or lower) hourly rates, H-1B (or Green Card) Managers tend to hire H-1B candidates.

H-1B workers are generally younger ... and I am in my 50s. I'm consistently labeled "overqualified".

Indians are perceived as "smarter" than the typical US IT worker - even though a good many of us have Mensa-level IQs.

US IT workers usually don't engage in resume "fluffing" like foreign workers, so we are seen as not having the one or two "required" skills that THEY do. (And trust me, I've done a lot of recruiting - 80% of them fail standardized skills tests.) Ten years ago, employers typically hired someone who had 85% of the required skills, and would "train" you on the missing ones.

In the past few years, hourly rates have tanked. In 1999, an experienced Business Analyst could expect $60-70/hr for a contract gig. Earlier this year, those same spots were offering $35-40/hr!

This article explains why the number of e-mail queries I get about available contract jobs has doubled in the last month. And the rates -- in the last week, two of the emails were for Business Analyst positions paying $60-70/hr!

Corporate America is in for a shock. Vast numbers of us have left the industry, especially highly-talented workers with 20+ years of experience. The work wasn't there, and a lot of us weren't willing to accept the same hourly rates as a union automobile assembly line worker.

Myself -- I went back to school for a degree in Graphic Design over a year ago. I won't finish for another 18 months, but I was able to get work in the field about 6 months after starting. There is plenty of it available, and a lot can be done remotely. Some of it even pays more than I was making in 1999!

These hiring companies did it to themselves, and finally it's time to pay the price. You can bet it's going to be a stiff one.