The real reason corporate America wants more H-1Bs

Let’s take away the two strongest arguments from proponents and opponents of the H-1B visa program and see the reasons why a company might still prefer to hire employees under the H-1B visa program as opposed to U.S. citizens.

First the arguments.

Every CEO of every high-tech company is calling for an increase in H-1Bs. They claim there is a labor shortage and that in order to compete, they need to dramatically raise the H-1B cap. The latest call for more H-1Bs, for example, comes from a Google executive.

Professional organizations representing programmers and software engineers on the other hand say employers are just using the H-1B program to hire cheap foreign labor.

Let’s take both arguments off the table.

What’s left? If there was no labor shortage and salaries were exactly equivalent, would there still be such a hue and cry from the high tech C-level executives for an increase in the H-1B cap?

Yes, for the following reasons.

• Those H-1Bs who are contract workers employed by a job shop get all of their benefits, health care, sick leave, vacation, which is usually considered to be an additional 25 percent cost above the hourly wage, from the job shop, not from the company the H-1B visa holders are actually doing the work for.

• Many H-1B visa workers are here alone, without family, and are less likely during a typical work week to either arrive late due to babysitting and carpooling chores or require days off for family illness other family crises.

• H-1Bs take the corporate employer off the hook. They don’t have to pretend to care. If an H-1B visa employee turns out to have a drug or drinking problem or needs psychiatric services, the company just cuts them loose as opposed to a lifetime employee who becomes a so-called “part of the family” and must be sent to rehab at company expense.

The age of paternalistic companies that care deeply for their employees, if there ever was such an age, is over. High tech likes to use hired guns for all of the reasons above and more.

Sure, companies like Google make the work environment as pleasant as possible, but they have also learned the lesson well from companies like GM. They are non-union environments that can pull the rug out from under any benefit as soon as times get tough.

Out with the foosball, out with the massage and free lunch [as long as its eaten at your desk], and in with the question, “Working half a day?” when you leave at 6 o’clock.