H-1B Visas

I read an interesting article about H-1B visas and the impact on American job. As usual, Andrew Ross Sorkin’s Dealbook had the details – he has been coming out with some really thought provoking articles surrounding the American job environment. The question posed in the article was: does restricting H-1B visas help create American jobs? My understanding of the article is “no, American jobs are not being created; instead, corporations just outsource the jobs overseas.”

To repeat, restricting the number of visas just make companies go overseas. So instead of money, talent and ideas flowing through the American economy, all of that flows around in the foreign companies; we’re losing key ingredients that makes America successful. I’d rather keep the talent and money here than send it over there, wherever there is.

In the article, a company representative spoke about trying for two years to find the right American workers to fill their jobs but could not find anyone, so the company reverted back to using H-1B visas. However, there were not enough details in that story to determine whether the effort was a good faith effort. Did the company offer a high enough wage comparable to those offered in the community? What kind of job requirements were posted – were they reasonable or were they fantastical? I can’t tell if the company in that example exerted a good faith effort to find workers.

No, restricting visas isn’t going to keep jobs here. A deeper change is required. We have to change our capitalistic values, going from focusing exclusively on shareholders to balancing the needs of all stakeholders – the customer, community and employees in addition to shareholders. At least, that is the current thinking that I’ve been reading lately.

If you can’t access the article via the link, trying doing a search on “does restricting h1b visas create American jobs” and see if other links allow you to pass the paywall and read the article. I noticed that India Times had the article.