Companies lobby for more foreign workers before announcing lay offs

[Frosty]

More of the change that "O"no has promised - he doesn't want jobs for Americans he wants to give them to the foreign workers. Our Senate & House are out of control. I hope everyone that voted for "O"no is happy without a job that some foreign worker has taken in the name of "CHANGE". So far the Dems. are pushing for MORE foreign workers and d not want to do anything about our borders.

Microsoft Lobbied for More H-1Bs Before Announcing Layoffs
Wednesday, February 4, 2009, 10:26 AM


According to a Business Week article, Microsoft posted a policy proposal on Barack Obama's transition website on Jan. 5 requesting that his administration remove the caps on visas for high-skilled foreign workers. The company announced just 17 days later that it was planning to eliminate 5,000 jobs as well as contract jobs.

Unemployment rates in the United States hit a 16-year high in December of 2008 when the rate reached 7.2 percent. According to a Chicago outsourcing firm, job cuts by tech companies increased by 167 percent in the second half of 2008. There were 186,955 jobs cut in the telecommunications, comupters and electronics industry in all of 2008 up 74 percent from the previous year.

 Yet compnaies like Microsoft continue their efforts to bring in skilled foreign labor. Their actions prompted a letter from Iowa Senator Charles Grassley who on Jan. 22 urged Microsoft to give priority to U.S. workers when considering layoffs.

The current cap on H-1B visas is 65,000 per year. The Department of Labor is responsible for making sure that H-1B visas do not displace American workers. But companies are often eager to hire foreign skilled workers over American workers because they can usually pay them a lower wage. The law requires that companies pay foreign workers under the H-1B program a fair wage, but companies will typically use the lower end of the government wage scale and hire younger workers who will demand less than American workers.

More on this story can be found at Business Week.

[1776 Rebel]

Importing cheap labor is nothing new. It has spread from the farms of America to high tech. Now if you really want to get all bent out of shape, take a look at WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS FOR THE BEST OF AMERICA. How about US companies placing Americans in jobs in India say at the prevailing wage rate of India? Yup that works for corporate America ! Now let's get BHO behind it and think of all the folks we can find jobs for ! We can work our way out of this economic mess by having our citizens labor in India for a while....


IBM Offers To Move Laid Off Workers To India

Big Blue wants to help redundant U.S. employees relocate to developing markets, according to an internal document.


By Paul McDougall,  InformationWeek
Feb. 2, 2009
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=213000389



The climate is warm, there's no shortage of exotic food, and the cost of living is rock bottom. That's IBM's pitch to the laid-off American workers it's offering to place in India. The catch: Wages in the country are pennies-on-the-dollar compared to U.S. salaries.

Under a program called Project Match, IBM will help workers laid off from domestic sites obtain travel and visa assistance for countries in which Big Blue has openings. Mostly that's developing markets like India, China, and Brazil.

"IBM has established Project Match to help you locate potential job opportunities in growth markets where your skills are in demand," IBM says in an internal notice on the initiative. "Should you accept a position in one of these countries, IBM offers financial assistance to offset moving costs, provides immigration support, such as visa assistance, and other support to help ease the transition of an international move."

The document states that the program is limited to "satisfactory performers who have been notified of separation from IBM U.S. or Canada and are willing to work on local terms and conditions." The latter indicates that workers will be paid according to prevailing norms in the countries to which they relocate. In many cases, that could be substantially less than what they earned in North America.

IBM has laid off more than 4,000 workers in the United States since the beginning of January, according to an employee group. The company has confirmed layoffs but won't comment on specific numbers.

A spokesman for Alliance@IBM, a workers' group that's affiliated with the Communications Workers of America but which does not have official union status at IBM, slammed the program. "IBM is not only offshoring IBM U.S. jobs but they want employees to offshore themselves through Project Match," said the spokesman.

An IBM spokesman said the program shouldn't be seen in that light. "It's more of a vehicle for people who want to expand their life experience by working somewhere else," said the spokesman. "A lot of people want to work in India."

In addition to India, China, and Brazil, IBM is offering to relocate redundant U.S. workers to a number of other developing markets, including Mexico, the Czech Republic, Russia, South Africa, Nigeria, and the United Arab Emirates, according to the notice, which was obtained Monday by InformationWeek.