Firms continue to hire foreigners to work in the US despite job cuts
December 15 2009 by Liam Clifford
US technology firms continued to hire foreign US visa work holders throughout the recession, according to figures.
Figures for the
take-up of H-1B highly skilled US work visas show that although many firms hired
fewer foreign workers through the scheme this year, they continued to do so
while they were making job cuts elsewhere.
The US Citizenship and
Immigration Services (USCIS) data show that firms like Infosys Technologies cut
back on the number of H-1B visas they sponsored in the 2009 fiscal year. They
sought just 440 such visas for foreign staff this year, compared to ten times
that number during the previous year.
However, firms including Microsoft,
Intel and IBM continued to hire H-1B US visa holders despite making US employees
redundant and while unemployment was rising in the UK overall.
These data
suggest that technology firms in the US, many of which were founded by
immigrants, continue to find it necessary to hire talent from abroad.
Another sign that the technology firms are still desperate for foreign
talent is that they continue to campaign for the abolition of the H-1B US visa cap.
Or, at the very least, they call for the cap to rise to allow them to submit a
larger number of petitions once the economy has fully recovered.
See the latest Immigration News
