MICROSOFT OFFERS BIG MONEY FOR MORE H-1B VISAS

While Congress is not increasing the H-1B visa cap and USCIS undercuts the few visas that are left, the Seattle Times reports that Microsoft Corp. is offering to pay millions of dollars to the U.S. government for the right to hire more foreigners, with the money going for educational training to eventually fill those jobs with Americans.
Microsoft has said over the years routinely that they have thousands of high-tech job openings that it can't fill, and by expanding the H-1B program and by greatly increasing the fees charged for those visas, the country could use that money to train Americans to eventually fill those jobs.
Money paid from H-1B visa fees have already gone to train hundreds of thousands U.S. workers with employers paying from $750 to $1,500 per employee at least twice which goes to a fund to train U.S. workers.
Microsoft is offering the government $10,000 per worker - which is a lot more than many smaller businesses can afford - but I doubt Congress will do anything even with this lucrative incentive. Read more at:
http://seattletimes.com/html/microsoft/2019276648_microsoft28m.html

Aging Baby Boomers Face Losing Care as Immigrant Healthcare Providers Go Home

The United States, which is among the developed countries that rely on Philippine nurses and Indian doctors to hold down costs in the $6.5 trillion global health-care industry face greater competition for talent just as baby boomers in the U.S., Europe and Japan reach the prime age for medical care. Economic growth in emerging economies, despite some signs of recent slowing, is causing foreign doctors and nurses to stay at home or go somewhere else.

There has been a great imbalance that has caused a severe shortage of healthcare workers in developing nations. For example, Japan had 2.2 doctors and 9.5 nurses per 1,000 people in 2009, while the U.S. had 2.4 doctors and 10.8 nurses, according to the OECD. In India it was 0.7 and 0.9 during the same time. It is going to get much, much, worse as baby boomers age and an entire generation of doctors and nurses will retire over the next decade.

The Philippines for example plans to build and rehabilitate more than 2,700 hospitals, clinics and community health centers next year as part of $9.7 billion investment in infrastructure. The nation’s $225 billion economy expanded 6.1 percent in the first half, and the peso is the best performer against the dollar among Asia’s 11 most-traded currencies this year, advancing about 5.5 percent. Better jobs are available for its citizens so some of them choose to stay home.

Save the Children, an organization based out of Westport, Connecticut, said recently that there is a world shortage of more than 3 million healthcare workers, including at least 1 million community nurses and doctors.

In New Zealand, 34 percent of doctors and 21 percent of nurses are from abroad, the highest among developed countries, while in the U.S. 27 percent of doctors and 5 percent of nurses are foreign, the WHO said in its 2006 World Health Report. Philippine and Indian nationals lead the supply, each making up 15 percent of all immigrant nurses and doctors respectively in the 34-member Organization for Co-operation and Development.

The cost of healthcare workers is likely to rise, which is good new for immigrant doctors also. But other countries compete with the U.S. For example, a full-time registered nurse in the U.S. makes about $57,000 a year, while in Australia they earn as much as A$75,000 ($78,000). If the U.S. does not ease its immigration requirements for doctors and nurses, they will stay behind with shortages that are about to get much, much worse. 

USCIS SYSTEMATICALLY UNDERCOUNTING H-1B CAP USAGE

News from Greg Siskind: 

Attorney David Rubman in Chicago, Illinois has just shared with me the answer to a Freedom of Information Act request which definitively shows that USCIS has been undercounting H-1B usage by nearly 15% over the last five years. Approximately 45,000 too few H-1Bs have been approved between fiscal year 2008 and 2012. USCIS is required to approve 65,000 H-1B visas per year. They determine when the H-1B cap is hit each year based on their estimate of how many cases will be denied. They also are supposed to add withdrawn H-1Bs back to the total. USCIS has had wildly inaccurate estimates of their denial rates which has resulted in the undercounting. For example, for the current fiscal year, USCIS stopped accepting applications last January. But their data shows only 55,706 applications were approved and 1,820 cases were withdrawn. That means 11,000 more applications should have been approved.

This is an extremely serious failure on the part of USCIS and the employer community deserves an explanation. Right now, we're in a 13 month blackout with no H-1Bs available. The cap for the coming fiscal year was reached last June. USCIS more than likely has undercounted again and they need to reopen the application process. Furthermore, USCIS needs to add back cap numbers to account for the undercounting.

Here are the numbers for each of you to see. Now let us see how USCIS responds.

(follow this link): http://www.docstoc.com/docs/130551432/H-1B-FOIA

SCHUMER PROPSES 55,000 MORE VISAS FOR STEM GRADS

New York Senator Charles Schumer is releasing information about a bill he plans to introduce before the Senate tomorrow. The bill calls for the creation of a two-year pilot program that would allow 55,000 additional green cards each year for foreign-born graduates with master's degrees or higher from American universities in science, math, technology or engineering (STEM) fields. This would be wonderful.
This bill is substantially similar to the one introduced by Texas Representative Lamar Smith in the House except that Smith's bill would eliminate the Diversity Visa (DV) Lottery altogether.
Schumer's office has reportedly already been reaching out to businesses in the high-tech community to rally support for his measure. Of course, it remains to be seen whether either Mr. Schumer's bill or Mr. Smith's will ever even be voted upon, as there is very limited time remaining in this session of Congress; perhaps both of these bills are just political maneuvers, attempting to cull additional business support before the election without intending to provide any real change.
Good news, let's see the language and whether this gets voted on.

SEATTLE TECH COMMUNITY CALLS FOR H-1B VISA REFORM

Many Seattle-area businesses, most of which are technology giants, immigration reform is a critical issue that may make or break their businesses. Last Friday morning they discussed immigration reform at an event hosted by the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, where USCIS Director, Alejandro Mayorkas, was the keynote speaker.
Technology companies in the Seattle area, such as Microsoft, Amazon and Expedia, use some of the highest numbers of H-1B Visas in the country, most of which are given to computer/tech related occupations and industries. With the low amount of visas that are allowed to be given each year under the Congressional cap, technology companies are struggling to recruit and hire necessary workers.
Mayorkas admitted that his department struggles to understand the business community's needs when it comes to issuing H-1B Visas and other immigration issues. This is an understatement.
Mayorkas said that “The way we interact with the business community needs to change,” that there is no direct way to communicate with the business community, and as of now, the only line of communication between the government and businesses is through lawyers filing requests for evidence. Well, the vast majority of these requests for additional evidence coming from the agency are unnecessary and unduly burdensome. Some of these are outright outrageous asking companies to prove anything and include any document. Opening up to businesses means training officers and going after officers who abuse the system and really limiting the use of the RFE (requests for additional evidence) that ask for specific, relevant and limited information when absolutely necessary, not just to satisfy a whim of an examiner.

IMMIGRANTS FOUNDED 28% OF NEW BUSINESSES IN 2011

A new report issued this week by the Partnership for a New America Economy states that immigrants started 28 percent of all new businesses in the U.S. in 2011, which is a very impressive number considering immigrants are less than 13% of the U.S. population, so immigrants are twice as likely to be entrepreneurs than American born.
The report is based on the Census Bureau data. Business start-up rate among immigrants has jumped 50 percent since 1996 while the start-up rate for native-born Americans, declined by 10 percent during the same period.
The report recommends that if we want the U.S. economy to recoup, pass immigration reform so that more immigrants can start new businesses. This is what we have been telling everyone for years.
The report was authored by Robert Fairlie, an economics professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. It found that immigrant-founded businesses tended to be smaller than other businesses, but collectively they post more than $775 billion in revenue and employ one out of every 10 workers at privately owned companies.
I agree. Immigration reform is sorely needed and we need an immediate fix to the legal immigration crisis we are facing, shortage of H-1B and immigrant visa numbers and Congress is still doing nothing in the name of protecting the American worker. This just causes outsourcing of these jobs outside the U.S.
The report is available here: http://www.renewoureconomy.org/index.php?q=open-for-business

HIGH DEMAND FOR H-1B WORKERS IN METROPOLITAN AREAS

Another story broke recently in the news reiterating the fact that American businesses cannot fill some jobs fast enough and there are not enough qualified employees out there. Most of these jobs include highly paid positions in science, including computer science, engineering and healthcare.
Most of the demand is in metropolitan areas that are mostly populated, such as the tri-state area around New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania who have the greatest need for the highly skilled H-1B visa workers.
According to this new report, called 'The Search for Skills: Demanding for H-1B Immigrant Workers in U.S. Metropolitan Areas', by the Brookings Institute, the bulk of the demand for H-1B workers, from the Northeast U.S., accounts for 16.3 percent of all H-1B visas issued. The top four metropolitan areas, each with between 14,000 to 18,000 H-1B visa worker requests, are Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, California, and the greater Washington, D.C., area.
The report recommends key policy changes, such as creating an independent commission that can recommend timely changes to immigration policy to respond more quickly to high-demand job markets (to possibly increase the cap), target H-1B visa fees to geographical areas to upgrade the skills of the existing workforce, especially where needed.
The report is available at: http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2012/07/18-h1b-visas-labor-immigration#overview Congress really needs to put its act together and increase the quota. It is really hurting businesses and individuals alike.