Despite layoffs, Microsoft holding firm on H-1Bs
In the 18th century, the epistolary novel was all the rage in France and England. Now, it seems, the tit-for-tat style of opposing letters has become a preferred method of dialogue between Iowa Senator Charles Grassley and Microsoft.
Grassley: Not thrilled with Microsoft's H-1B policy
In late February, Grassley urged Microsoft to rethink the use of "H-1B or other work visa program employees over qualified American workers." Grassley issued his letter after Microsoft announced its first across-the-board layoffs.
"I encourage Microsoft to ensure that Americans are given priority in job retention. Microsoft has a moral obligation to protect these American workers by putting them first during these difficult economic times," Grassley wrote.
Microsoft responded with an anodyne statement at the time but declined to engage the Senator.
Until now.
In a detailed response, the company's general counsel, Brad Smith, said there would not be a "significant change in the proportion" of employees working at Microsoft with H-1B visas.
Here are the key excerpts from Smith's letter to Grassley:
H-1B employees have always accounted for less than 15 percent of Microsoft's U.S. workforce, the level that is used in immigration law to determine whether a company is "H-1B dependent." Nonetheless, the ability to tap into the world's best minds has long been essential to our success. Although they are a small percentage of our workforce, H-1B workers have long made crucial contributions to Microsoft's innovation successes and to our ability to help create jobs in this country. We are confident this will continue to be true in the future.
We focus our recruiting for core technology jobs at U.S. universities, which continue to be among the best in the world for computer science and engineering graduates. However, as one recent study found, in 2005 temporary residents earned more than 40 percent of the engineering and computer science degrees at U.S. higher education institutions. For doctoral degrees, that number was even higher, as temporary residents accounted for 59 percent of the degrees awarded in these fields that year.
The substantial majority of H-1B petitions filed by Microsoft are for core technology positions, and technology and engineering positions account for about 90 percent of Microsoft's H-1B workforce. Many of these H-1B employees have been seeking permanent resident status for many years and would no longer be dependent on their H-1B visas but for multi-year delays in the green card process.
With these factors taken together, we do not expect to see a significant change in the proportion of H-1B employees in our workforce following the job reductions.
Microsoft declined to comment beyond the text of the letter.
Update:
After publication, Grassley's office sent me the following statement from the senator.
"I appreciate Microsoft's response and while I'm happy to learn of the company's efforts to boost science and technology initiatives in both American secondary and post-secondary schools, I'm still left without much information about how Microsoft is ensuring American workers are being protected or specifics of its H-1B hiring practices. I'm interested in learning more details."
Charles Cooper has covered technology and business for more than 25 years. Before joining CNET News, he worked at the Associated Press, Computer & Software News, Computer Shopper, PC Week, and ZDNet. E-mail Charlie. 
Many smaller companies (particularly outsourcing firms) do bring in general programmers thatthey can pay cheap but the top ones don't.
Maybe Grassley will look in the issue that grad school discriminates against white males since little or no incentives are offered while minorities and foreigners are greatly encouraged to continue their eductions.
We received an application from a Indian person a few weeks ago that was awarded a partial graduate school scholarship with a <3.2 GPA. He was a civil engineer with traffic design/controls specialty. What are the chances he would find work back home?
If you read Ballmer's announcement carefully, you will see that job cuts were mostly in sales, marketing, HR, legal, IT personnel ? not in core development teams, were we develop such products as Office and Windows. You will hardly be able to find H1B workers in< for instance, marketing, H1Bs are mostly in core development and test. That is why not a lot of H1B employees were affected ? not because they are cheap. I was H1B myself, got my green card a few years ago ? and change in status didn't affect my salary in any way. I believe all Microsoft employees get honest deal.
When we interview potential new hires we never even consider their visa status ? it is all about qualification and merit. Interviewers are mostly the people from the group with open position, they are not HR personnel, and these people are interested in getting the best colleague with whom they would want to work, salary is not considered at this stage. Job offers are made only to the best candidate ? absolutely not to the cheapest. If this person happens to be H1B holder - so be it. Unfortunately, there are limits on H1B - so sometimes we can't get the person we would like the best, simply because they will not get the interview because of these stupid limitations.
OH...AND BY THE WAY...LARRY KUDLOW IS THE STUPIDIST SO CALLED AMERICAN THAT EVER PUT ON A BROOKS BROTHERS SUIT. LARRY, YOU SHOULD BE REPLACED BY A FOREINER BECAUSE YOU ARE SO FREEKEN LAME.
LOOK, ITS REALLY SIMPLE. CAN I GO TO INDIA, CHINA, GERMANY, JAPAN AND GET A JOB THAT DISPLACE THEIR CITIZENRY DURING ECONOMIC CRISIS. I HARDLY THINK SO.
AMERICA HAS PLENTY OF "BRANIACS" AS KUDLOW SO MORONICALLY STATES WHAT IS NEEDED FROM FOREIGN COUNTRIES. WHAT A CROC. KUDLOW PROBABLY DRIVES A LEXUS....AND HE DOESN'T GIVE A ROYAL RIP HOW THAT HURTS OUR COUNTRY. WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO WAKE UP THAT THIS ISN'T A TRUE GLOBAL ECONOMY. FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS SUBSIDIZE AND TAKE CARE OF THEIR WORKERS, SEND THEM OFF TO THE USA, PAY FOR THEIR SCHOOL, AND THEN HELP THEM TO GET JOBS IN AMERICA. PLEASE
And by the way, if you go to a country like India, you can definitely find work but do you want to. Of course not, its underdeveloped right? Even though the US is superduper developed most foreigners who came here struggled through their first couple of years, learning new things and yes, adjusting to an alien culture.If you can do that, then more power to you.
So how do you really define American? What made you American? Just that fact that you were born here? Don't take it personally but if NC said I will only employ north carolinians even if they are a thousand times dumber than you, would that be acceptable to you?
Try spending your energy making yourself competitive. Microsoft is not discriminating against americans. They are going for thebest talent they can get. Good luck to you.
I would like to add my opinion,
Who started discrimination among US worker & H1B ??
Politics.
Why people or I came from other counteries to work in US ?
Because USA honour skillset /hard work which we were not able to get in our countries .
But to get this skillset we have worked hard and spend monmey and time .
Who is getting affected by rescession?
Both H1B and US workers.But when we help your company to make profits , you loved us.
Now when there is economy slowdown .Politiciana want us to go back ??? Is this right ???
We came here legaly and we are payed taxes.
Why do we get less wages?
Because there is money involved in doing our H1 or green card .Who should pay this ??Do you think any business will help from there pocket ??
Mainly the crappy help support giving but also the experience to find that many h1b are filled with certification but nothing much else.
In India exist a misconception of quality, indians (for IT) are like a diamond mine, where from 1 ton of carbon you can find a single diamond. So, if a diamond mine produce a ton of diamond is not because is filled with it but because they worked hard to extract several tons of useless material. The same happens with indians and h1b, exist good material but they are the exception to the rule.
And can you define fully qualified? Its always relative. The qualifications for a software analyst are not the same as they were 3 years back and the competition ismuch more intensenow.
Nobody is making a US citizen unemployed on purpose? If a company is discriminating against US citizens then yes that's a big problem. Butatleast companies like MS, IBM, Intel etc. aren't.
@magallanes,
why do you keep going back to help support? What aboutpeople like Sabeer bhatia who created hotmail? and please, the analogy with a diamond mine is a stupid one. Agreed, maybe only 2% of IT folks from India are actually good. Microsoft is goingafter that 2% and 2% of 100 million (assuming 1/10th of the population in India is IT literate)is still a big number.
@frustratedandunemployed,
what made you a "REAL AMERICAN"? i havelived here for 10 years and invested all my pay in the local economy even though savings account rates back in my country of birth are around 8-10% APY. I was investing in whatI considered home. So stop trying to make it look like H1Bs are looting this country out of its wealth
And maybe instead of a grammar class, you should go take a class at the local university on operating systems and such - that's more important to microsoft
In Computer Science and Engineering degrees, in their own country, American students are slowly becoming a minority.
There are many factors for this:
1. Exorbitant cost of higher education
2. Competing with applicants worldwide even at this stage
3. Mindset (even high-school considered optional in this country -- let alone college, masters degrees or PhDs)
4. Constantly declining math skills among high-school graduates (how are they supposed to compete for college education in CS without math skills?)
The factors involved here are many -- parenting, school environment, standardized testing with ever lower expectations, underqualified teachers, government not doing enough to subsidise (invest in) higher education, etc. In that light, it doesn't make sense if we blame an individual company for their reliance on H1B workers.
There are "body shop" type consulting companies that can rightly be targeted for misusing the H1B program of course. But if we want our companies to compete with the best in the world (and to do business all over the world) we need to allow them to hire the best talent in the world, whereever that talent comes from.
If we want to increase the percentage of that talent that is home-grown, we need to address the first set of issues -- rather than taking individual blue chips to task.
I know 6 unemployeed people with degree's right now. They could start a job tomorrow if companies removed the H1-B works. They were there to fill in when we needed the help. That's not the cast now. We can take care of ourselves and should right now. I'm truely sorry and that really sucks but we need to protect our own.
"I know 6 unemployeed people with degree's right now."
And they are of course qualified, right?
Having a degree in itself doesn't mean much. People who didn't keep their skills up will of course have problems to find a new job. That's completely independent of the H1.
As far as the H1 is concerned, a company hiring third-rate US developers over first-rate foreigners would act contrary to the interests of its shareholders, and contrary to the interests of the public, since such a company would lose revenue and the country would lose taxes.
The best protection of our own is to make our industry stronger. And includes getting the best people for the job, regardless of where they are.
Erecting barriers makes us weaker, since it just makes our competition abroad stronger, and makes it harder for US companies to sell their products abroad. Microsoft, for example, gets over half its revenues from abroad. If we make the competition abroad stronger by erecting barriers, you would not just know 6 unemployed people, but 600.
PLEASE
When I talked to the person who was hired, they were qualified only in the speciality being advertised, and were ignorant of all the supporting diciplins, plus, they could not speak English, could not type, could barely identify which box was the computer, and were dangerous in the lab.
My solution to the visa issue is simple. A company can get all they want, just buy them from the Immigration department at $200,000 (yes, two hundred thousand dollars) each and then lets see how many are so vital.
He took the BEING FIRED ROUTE. Nice day to be an American in USA yes?
The "prevailing wage" part of the law ensures that, while H-1B workers are available, IT wages will not increase. Meanwhile, H-1B workers are tied into the company that hired them; they can't change employers without returning home and hoping. Look up "indentured servitude" to see where this could lead.
Also, before complaining about the reading and writing abilities of others you should probable start by looking at your own literacy skills first.
Are you even American???
Please explain where Microsoft gets tax money. If anything, they PAY taxes. And if they lose market share because they can't compete with their competitors from abroad, they pay less taxes. So, preventing them to hire good people from anywhere is bad for us, is bad for the US.
That's econ 101. Go and take that course. You obviously need it.
on the other hands, if you start controlling h1-b, guess what, american companies will become less competitive and more jobs will go overseas. the only way to fix the issue is to encourage americans to be interested in science.
when we were in school, we all laughed at those american who cannot understand math. so stupid!!!.
jw
I can understand your frustration but you need to introspect first if you guys did all you could to keep yourselves competitive.
btw, most indians are educated from kindergarten in English. The fact that English is a second language to them is actually a strenght because they are bilingual. So stop using that as an excuse and the last weapon in your arsenal. In fact, many citizens of former british colonies have better english than a majority (note I didn't say all) americans. Try taking the TOEFL, I bet most of you won't score anything close to a 80%. English is more about grammar and vocabulary than it is about fancy phrases, idioms and slang. Ever see the national spelling bee - how many non-asian kids do you see on there?
on the other hands, if you start controlling h1-b, guess what, american companies will become less competitive and more jobs will go overseas. the only way to fix the issue is to encourage americans to be interested in science.
when we were in school, we all laughed at those american who cannot understand math. so stupid!!!.
jw
go back to laughing at dumb americans!!
HOWEVER... Considering we are in a financial crisis that can only be saved by jobs for citizens it is unwise to raise work visa caps. The government should encourage companies that operate in the US to assist in rebuilding the economy with jobs. How are these companies encouraged to train/re-train workers if current laws allow them to lay off the old and hire new fresh models too easily?
MS CEO Ballmer?s latest speeches indicate he wants to hunker down to a R&D centric position through the crisis and then explode out of the gates with new innovations when its over (ala RCA). This means layoffs in all other departments while they ?hibernate? through the storm.
This is a smart but selfish business move, good for Microsoft, but does nothing to assist with economic recovery. In other words they want the government, and other companies to create jobs and rebuild the economy, while they sit on the sidelines, and then when the new economy is to speed they will rush in to collect profits.
But we as a nation have no directive to assist greedy companies that will not participate in the rebuilding. If MS is un-willing to help the most lucrative market they operate in by providing local jobs, why should we provide tax breaks or visas giving them access to foreign workers.
I say the US government A) does not increase H1-B levels, and B) institutes new rules to insure that ALL abused work visas (H-1B, L, O-1, 0-2) are held to higher standards insuring that we are only pulling the brightest, and only for high end research jobs. The concept of foreigners with mere BA's coming to the US and displacing US college graduates for front line jobs needs to be eliminated in full. The concept that companies should be able to gain favorable tax laws and visas to cheap experienced foreign labor without investing in their home economy also needs to end.
we know why companies like to hire foriegn worker, not because they are smarter, or more productive.
it's that they will work for much less than americans.
as steve martin said in "the jerk'...."oh!, so it's a PROFIT thing!!"
guess what as a H1B I made pay much better than most of my counterparts (because of the group I was in), the company paid for my business degree and gave me a decent bonus every year....
now I am just as worried abou tmy job as anybody else but please stop with this stereotyping
if you even think for a sec you are wrong :)
I think it would do the country some good.
YOU DONT AGREE. FINE. GO BACK TO YOUR COUNTRY AND COMPLAIN...BECAUSE YOU ARE WRONG AND DONT BELONG HERE.
AMERICANS ARE BETTER THAN YOU IN EVERY WAY, SHAPE, AND FORM.
I don't agree that Americans are better Actors, dancers, athletes, etc. Oh please the majority of your hockey players come from Canada. Your football players can barely read and you have the best look people. Please you the nation with the highest cosmetic surgery ratios anywhere.
Also everyone one in America but Native Americans are decended from Immigrates. It was Immigrates that made this country. It is Immigrates who are bring skills and money into this country to start businesses that Americans are lacking in. Americans are lazy and poorly educated. Your schools lag behind and your kids have not ambition or drive. Mention computers or engineering to any of them and you get an eye roll and told they don't want a boring job.
Get off your high horse American because without Immigrates paying taxes and supporting this nation it will fold like a stack of cards.
Every single one of you is an immigrant so stop with this whole immigrants go home thing. Its not the immigrants who are responsible for this financial crisis, in fact, most "foreigners" are fiscally conservative than most of you are. Its your own "Americans" and their greed that caused this crisis.
We can get out of it together or end up weaker with the chinese staying in china and Indians and India making their countries technologically superior. They have enough reserves and human capital to make it happen while the US struggles with a trillion dollar debt.
In reality, H1B program has been abused by many (if not most) companies for several years. This has also impacted overall job market because companies are now comparing wages of an employee on H1B with that of a non-H1B employee...and are taking wage demand of citizen candidates as a sticker shock (even if such candidates are equally or more qualified). This it self has an adverse and long-term effect on economy. How many of us haven't met a person on H1B that doesn't seem to have proper qualification, skills, or even background on which they claimed their H1B?
Now let's think about time we are all in...Economy is tanked and job market is worse. So what can we do to at least save few jobs and help economy? Tough times require tough action. From total of 85,000 in H1B quota (20,000 for US graduates + 65,000 for local and overseas candidates), how difficult will it be for companies to find qualified local graduates and additional 40,000-50,000 skilled resources from over 1M that have been put out of work just last year? We are certainly not in a drought situation to not being able to find qualified local resources. In that case, government should cease H1B program for at least overseas candidates until economy thrives again. Government should also raise the bar for required qualification for H1Bs and have stricter review process to eliminate bogus filings.
If any one has started taking H1B as granted or claiming that as their birth right, answer a simple question...do you know if other countries, particularly in Asia and Europe, are encouraging worker visa programs while their economies are affected?
Having an American dream is good?but at the same time, an American must have that as a privilege. This is a great country and when it stands up again, doors will again open for every one.
I AM A CAPITALIST. I BELIEVE IN HARD WORK AND EDUCATION. UNFORTUNATELY, I HAVE BEEN ONE OF THE ABUSED AND MISTREATED EMPLOYEES OF CORPORATE AMERICA. AND FRANKLY, I AM SICK OF IT. IT IS TIME TO STAND UP AGAINST THE LARRY KUDLOWS OF THIS NATION AND TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY.
and yeah maybe I am day dreaming but I am certainly made a lot more as a H1B irrespective of that status....
Do YOU have statistics on how H1Bs are being used? Yet, you throw out statements like "H1B program has been abused by many (if not most) companies for several years" what numbers do you have around that? Its all anecdotal right?
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Keep up the good work Senator!
- by shanedr March 6, 2009 11:59 AM PST
- It does not matter whether there is an actual shortage of workers or not. The Senator needs to act to institute a bill that all H-1B workers must be paid the going rate for similarly trained US workers wages and a 10% wage tax to the government for H-1B workers that are hired. Doing so will ensure that companies search diligently for US workers before hiring overseas. The way it is now H-1B is used to get lower paid workers. Otherwise known as slitting your own throat.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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- by DigitalFrog March 10, 2009 9:23 AM PDT
- That suggestion actually makes sense, thanks for the moment of clarity Shanedr.
- Like this
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (62 Comments)This is a time honored tradition. A lot of the "Real Americans" forget that they only have to go back a couple of generations before they start hitting ancestors that were essentially the H-1Bs back then. If the H-1Bs are being used legitimately ie. not undercutting the wages (as your suggestion would prevent) and they are paying taxes and contributing to society, there shouldn't be a problem. Companies that are abusing the tool however, should be clamped down.
The fact that bothers me that nobody else seems to have taken notice of was the university stats that are mentioned. Why is are the numbers of US graduates dropping? Is it because they don't want to go for it, can't afford it, or is there a bias at the university towards accepting foreign over US students? As the universities are largely tax funded, that to me would be an issue of note.