Modi hints at H-1B unease Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has addressed a joint sitting of the United States Congress, and offered a couple of barbs. As is customary on such occasions, Modi's speech heaped praise upon his hosts. He also pointed out that India is one of the reasons the USA is praiseworthy. “Connecting our two nations is also a …
THe H-1B visa program has been abused to the detriment of US citizens in the US. Many are very wary of the program because it has been abused so often. So to have a foreign government say it needs to be expanded is not going to get a positive response from the plebes who will lose their jobs.
... and, dear Modi, shouldn't you find jobs in your country for your people? And telling they are able to obtain all that CEOs and other jobs (and in my opinion, of companies created by others and often with abysmal results) won't make you more popular in the US, believe me...
And I wish I won't have to bend too much to India.... especially in some yoga positions I don't like (but I don't like yoga at all).
Yes, there are many Americans of Indian birth and descent living and working productively in the US.
But when you're talking about a CEOs and scientists, you are talking about positions that require very particular and demanding criteria to fill - you're looking for 'best in breed' type people: the best person for the job regardless of where they currently live.
Great, but referencing those edge-cases completely (and, I believe, deliberately,) ignores the problem that people have with these visa, which is that they are being used not for super-special, hard-to-fill, unique-skillset-and-experience jobs, but for rank-and-file positions, farmed out to the lowest bidder despite there being enough competent people locally.
It is really just an extension of the outsourcing that has seen helpdesk and call centre jobs shipped over to places like India: jobs are being farmed out to foreign workers whose SOLE advantage over local options is that they are cheaper.
And that system is being so broadly abused that it's at a point where a huge well of negative sentiment has built up and is manifesting in demands for restrictions and even the abolition of the program.
A reasonable and well-managed working visa system can benefit everyone but what we are seeing is the result of massive abuse, which has led to what many may feel to be an over-reaction.
Farming out low-cost Indian workers is big business for those Indian companies and the Indian government is not somehow immune to big business influence.
As a side note, national pride tends to be a BIG thing in India and things like a restriction of these visa can easily be seen as an insult to their country.
And you wonder why also, once rich, they don't return to their home country and invest money there founding and funding new companies using local manpower, if it's so skilled and competent.
Why we are not flooded by products devised and built by lots of advanced and productive Indian companies? Chinese are far ahead of them - and they risk to become China's "Chineses", look at Foxconn plans - maybe because they export less smart people?
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