Satyam among top H1B Visa users
By Bala Shah

The US had set up the H-1B visa program to hire on a short term basis highly skilled workers not available in America. While most Indian tech firms win contracts based on their quality computing skills and competitive costs and treat their H1B techies very well, there are others which exploit Indians at every opportunity.  There has been some misuse of the B-1 Visa as well. 

The US Govt has announced huge fines for some such firms.  The US Government has launched a probe into alleged Visa misuse by Infosys. The US Government has also tightened the rules and their enforcement for anyone who comes to work on a Working Visa.  Indians have been especially affected and our Government raises this with senior American officials whenever they can.

The US Government clamped down on H1B (65,000 every year plus another 20,000 for those who have done an advanced degree from America) and other Working Visa misuse only after a very concerted and vociferous campaign by Americans hit by their job losses.

Myvisajobs has collated the Top Visa Sponsors of 2011.  According to Myvisajobs ‘The report (part of it in the image above) lists the top H1B Visa sponsors in 2010. For example, the first record on this report means that Microsoft filed 2,505 Labor Condition Applications (LCA) for H1B Visa in fiscal year 2011. The average salary of those job offers is $96,497. The visa sponsors (employers) are sorted by the number of Labor Condition Application (LCA) submitted. The number includes new, renew and transfer of LCA. ‘

What was interesting was seeing how few H1B Visas TCS applies for as compared to Infosys which is among the Top 3. What is surprising is that Satyam Computer Services is among the top 25 users of the H1B Visa.  Satyam Computer Services crashed when its disgraced founder Mr. Raju admitted to frauding everyone and was jailed.  It was later taken over and rebranded Tech Mahindra.  Is Satyam still a legal entity while applying for working Visas?