H1B hit the headlines on the NYTimes Today.

For those that can:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/01/business/worldbusiness/01visa.html?th

For those that can't:

Cap on U.S. Work Visas Puts Companies in India in a Bind
By SARITHA RAI
The H-1B program has become an issue as the United States
economy softened and employment slumped.

.[snip].
a sharp drop - to 65,000 from 195,000 - in the number 
of H-1B visas granted for skilled foreign professionals. 
The change, effective Wednesday, is making the business
 environment tougher for Indian software services 
companies like MindTree.

.[snip].

But critics now point to another visa, the L-1, that is 
used to bring in cheaper foreign workers who may be 
replaced once they are trained. Congress is also looking 
at the L-1, which has no quotas. The L-1 visa has grown 
in use, rising nearly 40 percent, to 57,700, last year 
from 1999, and some say technology employers are 
switching to this type of visa.

According to an estimate by the American Immigration 
Lawyers' Association, there are some 900,000 H-1B 
employees in the United States, 35 percent to 45 
percent of them from India.

.[snip.

As the economy recovers, industry executives envision 
an even more acute shortage of skilled workers. "If 
there are no visas to bring talent to the U.S.," Mr. 
Badiga of Wipro said, "American companies will eventually 
say, 'Let's go to India where the resources are.' "

BT


Tracy Johnson
MSI Schaevitz Sensors 
 

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