Tech Watch | InfoWorld Staff » Is the Department of Labor refusing to post 50,000 plus high tech openings?

August 05, 2005 | Comments: (0)

Is the Department of Labor refusing to post 50,000 plus high tech openings?

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A very troubling story is enfolding out of the Department of Labor [DOL] over the right for U.S. workers to view, and thus apply for, more than 27,788 possible job openings remaining for foreign workers under the H-1B visa quota system.

The problem is the Department of Labor, to date, has not made these jobs available for viewing on their Web site, according to Kim Berry, president of the Programmers Guild.

The Department of Labor is stonewalling requests by organizations like his to publish on the DOL Web site these openings, despite the fact that a foreign worker with a valid 2006 H-1B visa could not start employment until October 1, 2005. Berry says that a disproportionate number of these openings are for software engineers and computer programmers.

The quota for 2006 is 58,200 but apparently according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services [formerly Department of Immigration and Naturalization] Website, 21,252 visas have already been approved while 27,788 are still pending.

The Department of Labor requires that U.S. employers who want to hire someone on an H-1B visa fill out what is called an LCA, Labor Condition Application.

Berry and others are calling for the DOL to post and make these LCAs searchable.

Via an email to me here's what Berry says.
"In effect DOL has a list of 50,000 tech job openings in the U.S., but is stonewalling efforts by U.S. job seekers to obtain that list of job openings so that they can apply --- to be considered on an equal basis with foreign workers."

Berry tells me that employers are under no obligation to hire Americans but the DOL should be obligated to make the information available to the public before the jobs are filled, not after.

I called the Department of Labor and my request for an interview is going through channels. I will keep you posted at this blog site.

For those that don't know what an H-1B visa is, here's how USCIS defines it:
"Established by the Immigration Act of 1990 (IMMACT), the H-1B nonimmigrant visa category allows U.S. employers to augment the existing labor force with highly skilled temporary workers. H-1B workers are admitted to the United States for an initial period of three years, which may be extended for an additional three years. The H-1B visa program is utilized by some U.S. businesses and other or-ganizations to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theo-retical or technical expertise in a specialized field. Typical H-1B occupations in-clude architects, engineers, computer programmers, accountants, doctors and college professors. The current annual cap on the H-1B category is 65,000."

Posted by Ephraim. Schwartz on August 5, 2005 02:00 PM

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