Mr. Average gets American working visas
By Shalini Singh

The lobby in America pushing for more working visas (aka H-1B) pants a picture that without more tech workers on such visas, USA would loose its competitive edge.  And that these ‘best and brightest’ on H-1B visas help America keep its leadership position in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

But a new report from the Center for Immigration Studies shows that many of the tech professionals who arrive on such working visas are Mr. and Ms Average and not bright sparks they are portrayed.  Naturally, there is a minority of such workers who are exceptionally bright and skilled.   This information was common knowledge in the IT industry, but the general public was not aware of such ground realities.

The report titled 'H-1Bs: Still Not the Best and the Brightest’ and written by Dr. Dr. Norman Matloff, a professor of computer science at the University of California is based on the premise that in a market economy outstanding workers are paid high wages. Professor Matloff determined that by computing the ratio of the foreign workers salary to the wage figure stated by the Employer, he would work out an index of skills and talents.  This report labels the ratio the ‘Talent Measure’ aka TM.  A TM value of 1.0 would put the worker on the H-1B visa as average and not outstanding.  Where the report stumbles is on the fact that $100,000 would be considered a high wage in USA, but any qualified migrant worker would be happy to do the same job for $60,000 during a 2-3 year working stint in USA.  And while skills are an issue, the driving factor is primarily cost.

According to his report:

- The median TM value over all foreign workers studied was just a hair over 1.0.
 
-  The median TM value was also essentially 1.0 in each of the tech professions studied.
 
-  Median TM was near 1.0 for almost all prominent tech firms that were analyzed.
 
- Contrary to the constant hyperbole in the press that 'Johnnie can’t do math' in comparison with kids in Asia, TM values for workers from Western European countries tend to be much higher than those of their Asian counterparts.
 
-  Most foreign workers work at or near entry level, described by the Department of Labor in terms akin to apprenticeship. This counters the industry’s claim that they hire the workers as key innovators.
 
Techgoss note: The report titled 'H-1Bs: Still Not the Best and the Brightest,' by Professor Dr. Norman Matloff, of the University of California can be seen at
http://www.cis.org/articles/2008/back508.html
 
The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent research institute which examines the impact of immigration on the United States.

Techgoss note: Every year, USA allocates 65,000 work visas (aka H-1B).  And Indian tech companies have always got a very large share of the pie.

In 2006, Infosys got 4,908 work visas, Wipro, 4,002, Microsoft 3,117, TCS 3,045, Satyam 2,880, Cognizant, 2,226 and Patni 1,391 work visas.

In 2007, Infosys topped the list again with 4,559 visas, Wipro got 2,567 and other Indian companies also got a large number of the working visas allocated.