The Myths And Facts Driving The H-1B DebateThe Myths And Facts Driving The H-1B Debate

MYTH: Nearly all the H-1B visas go to foreign outsourcers, whose workers take their U.S.-learned skills back to India.

It's true that use by India-based outsourcers has exploded. But U.S.-based companies and universities in total are still the biggest users. Microsoft hired 3,117 in 2006, according to congressional research, making it the No. 3 employer of H-1B visa holders; IBM hired 1,130; Oracle 1,022; Cisco and Intel, both more than 800; Motorola, 760. About one-third of Microsoft's U.S. workforce is here under some visa assistance. These companies generally hire with the goal of getting the person a green card to work in the United States indefinitely. And much of their recruiting comes on college campuses. "Companies aren't bringing people over. That's very rare," says Rod Malpert, an immigration attorney at Littler Mendelson. "Typically, these people have already been here four to seven years at U.S. universities."

FACT: The H-1B visa is the "outsourcing visa."

At the same time, the major offshore outsourcing firms have become dependent on the H-1B visa--as have the U.S. companies that hire Indian-based outsourcers to do work for them. Seven of the top 10 employers of H-1B visa holders have most of their staffs in India, and those seven employed a total of 19,400 H-1B workers in 2006. That's 30% of the unrestricted cap.

Tata Consultancy Services hired 3,046 H-1B workers last year, according to congressional research. A few will stay in the United States for two years or more, but most do project assignments lasting six to 12 months, says S. "Paddy" Padmanabhan, TCS's executive VP of global human resources development. "Ninety-nine percent go back to India," he says.

Sens. Grassley and Durbin proposed legislation to limit that, alleging that such short-term use of H-1Bs only fuels offshoring of work by U.S. clients. Critics label it "insourcing" and consider it a distortion of H-1B's purpose. Yet Indian firms say they're using the visas exactly as intended--for short-term work. The H-1B visa isn't an immigration issue but rather a trade issue, says Kiran Karnik, president of Nasscom, a trade organization that represents Indian IT services and software companies. Nasscom supports different types of visas for short-term work and the indefinite, green card-bound employees at places like Microsoft. "There is no visa appropriate for the IT industry worldwide," Karnik says.

MYTH: H-1B visas are a battle for the highest tier of talent--the world's best and brightest technologists.

Most companies don't even make the case that they're chasing the most skilled people. A full 56% of visa requests in 2005 asked for H-1B workers at the lowest of the Labor Department's four-tier skill level--just 5% were for the highest level, 8% for the second-highest. Programmers Guild founder Miano says this shows that these workers either aren't contributing substantially to America's ability to compete, or employers are understating workers' skills to justify paying them less. The former assessment, however, ignores the possibility that having a good supply of lower-tier talent could be what companies need to compete. But Norman Matloff, a professor of computer science at the University of California at Davis who has studied the H-1B issue, sees the visa fundamentally as a way to hire cheaper foreigners or to avoid hiring older U.S. workers seen as more expensive. "This is about cheap labor, period," says Matloff. "H-1Bs are being exploited, even as U.S. workers are being displaced."

FACT: The very best employers have other options.

The premier U.S. tech employers still search the world for the very best people. And if they can't bring them here, they have every reason to do more development abroad. Microsoft recently said it plans to open a development center this fall in Vancouver, British Columbia--a two-hour drive from Microsoft's Washington headquarters--in part for people who can't get U.S. visas. Microsoft plans to hire 200 people there but will have room to expand. Says Cornell's Yale-Loehr, "At the very top end, for truly multinationals like Microsoft and Oracle, it really is a competition for the best and brightest."

Continue to the sidebars:
U.S. Visa Holders Live With Uncertainty
and
To H-1B Or Not To H-1B?