기사 원본입니다.
Some Boston-area companies that have long used a special federal visa program to import technical talent from abroad now say they’re cutting back.
On April 1, 2008, when the US government opened the process for granting last year’s H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers, the full quota of 65,000 applications was met in a single day. But this year’s visa rush, which begins tomorrow, may be a good deal slower, thanks to the severe recession.
Usually, individuals from abroad apply for their own visas to enter the United States. But under the H-1B visa program, US companies, or American subsidiaries of foreign firms, request visas for talented foreign workers they want to bring into the country and employ for three to six years. The basic program is limited to a total of 65,000 visas; a supplemental program for foreign workers with advanced degrees has a quota of 20,000.
Chip maker Analog Devices Inc. got approval to hire 33 workers under the H-1B program last year, according to statistics from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services. An Analog spokeswoman who asked not to be named said the company would seek 60 percent fewer H-1B hires this year.
Financial services firm State Street Corp. got approvals for 22 H-1B visas last year. But spokeswoman Arlene Roberts said the number “will be significantly lower” in 2009.
The government has imposed restrictions on the use of H-1B visas by companies that took federal bailout funding, and State Street received $2 billion in bailout money.
But Roberts said State Street’s retreat from the H-1B visa program is entirely due to the weak economy. “It’s just market-driven,” she said.
Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates in Gloucester got just one H-1B visa approval last year, and may not be seeking any in 2009. “We’re able to find some very qualified people right now without having to get visas,” said Bruce Stokes, Varian’s vice president of human resources.
“We do have one we’re looking at, but we’re not sure right now,” he said. Varian, which builds equipment used in making microchips, has been hit hard by the dramatic slump in demand for consumer electronics. The company has laid off about 300 employees over the past year.
Progress Software Corp. of Bedford, which makes business-management software, got approval for a single H-1B worker last year, and hopes to pick up three or four this time around.
Joseph Andrews, vice president of human resources, said his company needs technically skilled workers who speak Spanish and Portuguese to provide technical support to Progress customers in Latin America.
But Andrews also said Progress is still hiring Americans as well, though at a slower pace than in previous years. He said the present downturn is a good opportunity to hire highly skilled US citizens who’ve lost jobs with other firms.
“Given the current economic conditions, there’s a lot of great talent based in the States,” Andrews said. “We see this as an opportunity to take advantage of that and go after these folks.”
Giant data storage company EMC Corp. in Hopkinton is still in the market for H-1B workers, but the company won’t say how many, or whether it’s seeking fewer visas than last year, when it got approval for 71.
“While we cannot discuss our specific hiring intentions,” said EMC spokeswoman Lesley Ogrodnick, “with more H-1B visas available, we’ll have the opportunity to hire or retain more of these employees if needed to achieve our short or long-term business needs.”
Ron Hira, professor of public policy at Rochester Institute of Technology, said some companies have used H-1B visas as a way to hire cheaper foreign technology workers.
But Hira said many companies will retreat from H-1Bs, because they don’t need new workers at any price right now.
“I think you’ll see their demand way down, because those firms are not hiring,” he said.
But Hira noted the four biggest visa recipients last year were Infosys Technologies Ltd., Wipro Ltd., Satyam Computer Services Ltd., and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., all giant Indian outsourcing companies.
They have US subsidiaries that use the visas to bring foreign-born workers to the United States and hire them out as contract workers to American companies.
“Those four firms got 10,693 of the visas in 2008” out of 65,000 total, said Hira, who predicted these companies would seek visas as aggressively as ever.
