Citigroup to cut 17,000 jobs, but India headcount set to rise

PTI reports World's largest financial services firm Citigroup Inc today said it will eliminate 17,000 jobs or nearly five per cent of its global workforce, even as it plans to move 9,500 positions to India and other low-cost locations.

The company could move a large chunk of its jobs -- which could be in the range of 5,00-8,000 -- to India, especially for equity research, investment banking and back-office transaction-related activities, sources close to the developeent said. The total number of jobs to be eliminated equal more than half of the total number of positions Citigroup added to its workforce in 2006.More than 9,500 jobs will be moved to lower-cost locations, both domestically and internationally, the company said.

ISB student bags $274,000 job offer

From Hindustan Times:

In a world where any job offer is better than no offer, a graduate of the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad has walked away with a Rs 1.18 crore (over $274,000) annual package at the end of another great year of placements at the campus. The student from the Class of 2007 attracted the highest international cost-to-company annual package of Rs 1.18 crore, while the average global CTC stood at Rs 59.5 lakh, the school's dean M Rammohan Rao said, announcing the results of the placement season.

IBS as some of you may know was founded on December 20, 1999 by a group of Fortune 500 entrepreneurs in collaboration with Andhra Pradesh's state government. Nara Chandrababu Naidu, the then chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh played a key role in establishing the institution. IBS partners include London Business School, Wharton Business School and Kellogg School of Management.

Signs of changing times?

March Visa Bulletin

The reason I didn't blog the March visa bulletin is simple, it's exactly the same as the February visa bulletin. Absolutely no movement in any of the employment-based visa dates. So the USCIS is telling each of the half a million applicants, please wait another month to see if there is any change. What a joke! I can't believe this is supposed to be the most advanced nation in the world. If the USCIS were a company, they would be bankrupt by now!

Update on the Developer position

It's now over three months since we started the job search. We had a candidate last week, who also got two other offers in much bigger firms. Come on all you unemployed, under employed programmers/developers, where are you? Ron Hira would like us to believe there are plenty of them but we can't find any!

Labor substitution to be eliminated

The U.S. Department of Labor(DOL) is planning to eliminate a provision whereby companies who filed for Labor Certification for a candidate could replace it with another candidate. This may seem as if DOL is getting strict, but the fact is that companies use the approved labor certs to lure new candidates or even sell it to unscrupulous elements when the person for whom the original labor cert was filed is no longer with the company. With the backlog elimination expected to be completed by September, there are going to be a lot of older labor certs approved where the person is now no longer with the company. It is only fair for the people waiting in the retrogression queue to get the visa numbers before new candidates are sold these approved certs with earlier priority dates.

Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill

It's round two of the CIR bill drama. Senator Kennedy (D-MA) is planning to introduce the bill in the Senate this month with most of the action due in April. Watch for more anti-immigrant rhetoric appearing among the "Faux" news crowd. Last time around, the Senate had passed the bill by a majority (and the Indian news media celebrated as if it was already a law!), but the bill was left in the dust by the House Republicans. It was election year and no one wanted to get caught with mud on their hands. This time around it's a different story, the Democrats control the House and the Republications who did the maximum mud-slinging, all lost their seats. It would be interesting to see what Tom Tancredo (R-CO) and Co. do this time to stop this bill from being passed.

Another attack on H1 visas

Ron Hira, the Indian born professor at Rochester Institute of Technology has come up with numbers that may pose this question. Indian outsourcers file the most applications for temporary H-1B visas. Are they using them to train staff for jobs abroad? Everyone knows that India is becoming the IT hub of the world. So is it any wonder that Indian companies use the most H1 visas? I wonder what he's trying to convey. That's when I did some research to find Ron Hira's history. (Note: Ron is not an Indian name, he probably changed it to Ron to make him appear more American, what a faker!)

Back in April 2005, he came out with a book, Outsourcing America: What’s Behind Our National Crisis and How We Can Reclaim American Jobs. So that's what it is, he's a book salesman. He will continue to twist numbers to suit his views in the book. He make these ridiculous claims without any credibility in economics.

I am on H1, and I am not training to be doing any work overseas. My hard work over that last few years have made this company grow more than 100%. And thank the press for publishing any story they can get on this topic without doing a background check on the person. I know three companies including mine who are trying to hire Americans for a senior developer position and can't get any good candidates. Two out of the five candidates we got for interviews were Asian Americans. This trend seems to be growing as we see the economy posting record growth.

NEWS FLASH FOR ALL H1B HATERS: We're out of the 2002 recession, so all H1 haters, wake up and go get a real job. There are so many out there. You may be my next colleague.

Immigrants behind 25 percent of startups - BusinessWeek

Foreign-born entrepreneurs were behind one in four U.S. technology startups over the past decade, according to this study by Duke University and UC Berkeley. BusinessWeek further reports from the study that immigrant entrepreneurs' companies employed 450,000 workers and generated $52 billion in sales in 2005, according to the survey. Their contributions to corporate coffers, employment and U.S. competitiveness in the global technology sector offer a counterpoint to the recent political debate over immigration and the economy, which largely centers on unskilled, illegal workers in low-wage jobs.

One of the study's biggest surprises was the extent to which Indians led the entrepreneurial pack. Of an estimated 7,300 U.S. tech startups founded by immigrants, 26 percent have Indian founders, CEOs, presidents or head researchers, the study found. Indian immigrants founded more tech startups from 1995 to 2005 than people from the four next biggest sources -- United Kingdom, China, Taiwan and Japan -- combined.

Without permanent citizenship, inventors are more likely to take valuable intellectual property elsewhere -- and U.S. companies would have to compete with them, Wadhwa said. "The bottom line is: Why aren't these people citizens?" Wadhwa said. "We're giving away the keys to the kingdom. This is a big, big deal once you figure out what this means for U.S. competitiveness."

Agriculture workers get preference over high skilled workers

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who has been relentlessly pushing the AgJobs bill since the CIR days, has introduced her puppy in the 110th Congress by itself. The bill plans to provide the previous illegals the Blue Card status for two periods of three years each. The Senate passed CIR bill of 2006 had these provisions in them and now they can't even wait for the bill to be re-introduced this year. Sounds a little surprising right? Well then here is the alarming part. Quietly worded in painstaking detail in the bill are provisions for their spouses to work too. This is an outright slap in the face of H-1B workers. Their spouses cannot work even if they have a Master's degree. Yet, spouses of former illegal aliens can now work legally? I'm not against their spouses working but does it sound fair on the thousands of spouses here legally on H4 visas?

The lack of legal work privileges for spouses of the skilled workers is why you see a majority of unmarried younger individuals on H-1B visas. Younger workers generally have lesser experience. Lesser experience means lesser starting salaries. This would then appear as if foreign workers are working for lesser pay than Americans. The anti-H1 groups then use this statistic to point out why they should restrict or stop the H1 visa program. This then causes the law makers to be extremely careful when enacting legislation, to not give too much away to the H1 workers. Not enabling spouses to work is one such restriction to prevent too many American jobs going to foreigners. Doesn't seem fair right? But that's how it is!

February 2007 Visa Bulletin

Every month around the 15th day, the U.S. Dept. of State, releases the visa bulletin which lists who can avail of a visa number next month to adjust status to permanent residency. This bulletin breaks down the numbers based on the category and also separates out over-subscribed countries from the rest of the world. When you apply for permanent residency you get a case number and a priority date. If your priority date is earlier than the date listed in the visa bulletin for your application category, USCIS will proceed with your case and in most cases you will get your permanent resident card in a few months. Here are the cut-off dates for employment-based permanent residency categories from the February 2007 visa bulletin:

For persons born in India:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	08 Jan 2003	No change
EB3	08 May 2001	No change

For persons born in China:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	22 Apr 2005	No change
EB3	01 Aug 2002	No change

For persons born in Philippines:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	01 Aug 2002	No change

For persons born in Mexico:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	15 May 2001	No change

For rest of the world:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	01 Aug 2002	No change

Since the past eight months, EB3 India has not advanced beyond May 2001. This is the first visa bulletin in a while where there has been no change in any of the above visa categories. Must have been due to the December vacation month.

Cisco's Grand India Ambitions

Here's the big story of the day and further proof that globalization is forcing companies to change they way they do business.

The networking-equipment maker is shifting 20% of top brass to India, in a bid to set up a global, developing-technology hub on the subcontinent. After 11 years of low-key presence Cisco is now investing $1.1 billion in India in a variety of initiatives. "This is the largest commitment outside of Silicon Valley, as India is important to our global strategy," said John Chambers, Cisco's chairman and chief executive officer.

So what is the reason for this sudden transformation? It appears that they have learnt a lesson or two from their experiences in China.

In China, homegrown rivals like Huawei and Harbour Networks have been grabbing share from Cisco. The other issue is cost. Huawei can compete against Cisco on price because of its cheap talent pool. Facing those pressures, Cisco will find it hard to maintain its high margins unless it develops its own vast force of low-cost engineering talent.

This is an excellent example of how globalization works. While it opens up vast new markets, it also makes the business extremely competetive. There is no way Cisco can compete unless it employs a model similar to its competitors. Closed-door restrictionists will only see one side of this story - Cisco is moving top jobs to India..waah waah, mommy help me!

... Cisco now wants to make India its global hub for developing technologies in routing, software, and network management. It is investing in a manufacturing facility in Chennai in south India, and has roped in global manufacturing partner Foxconn of Taiwan to help out. While Cisco will make specific voice-technology products initially for the Indian market, it will eventually use the facility as a global sourcing base to export high-tech products. To make all of this happen, Cisco is tripling its headcount in India to 6,000 in the next couple of years. The move comes at a time when India is facing a severe dearth of engineers and every big and small information-technology company is on a hiring spree.

All those who made New Year resolutions to changes jobs and move to U.S., think twice, as we will see more top companies shifting top jobs from the U.S. to compete globally.

Disadvantages of not having a green card

A green card(permanent resident card) is not just another DHS document. It has a lot of importance when you travel internationally, open bank accounts, apply for driver's license. A post on ImmigrationVoice summarizes the hassles caused to persons without the green card owing to indifferent government rules.

Transit visa required at many international airports such as London, Paris, Germany. None required if you hold a recent valid U.S. permanent resident card.

Hassles and extra paperwork to open bank accounts, applying for student loans, home mortgages. Many application forms specifically allow U.S. citizens or green card holders only.

Problems with job changes. This is the single biggest disadvantage to not having a green card. One post summarizes this well.

"The biggest disadvantage for us is in our jobs - so many jobs are advertised with a clear mention that they don't support visa. This is not restricted to some mom and pop tech shops even some bigger companies do that. Also in big companies where H1B's are welcomed (like Cisco, Microsoft etc); they dont take you if you have less remaning time on your H1B. I knew a case where a friend of mine was interviewed and offered a very good position in one such reputed companies. The interview/background check process took two/three months at the end of it they realized that the personal have only 1year 4months left on his H1B visa. So they told him they wont take him; reason given is company policy that they need atleast 2 years on your H1B so that they have enough time to sponsor greencard etc. There are so many such instances where we are losing big time on our careers in the peak of our lifes." - nk2006

Driver's license issues. Here it all depends on your luck as one post summarizes it all:

"I have been in different states and this drivers licence rule differ substantially. California / florida strictly goes with your H1b validity date. For H4, it is much more difficult and my wife did not get it in CA but somehow managed ot get it in FL. When I moved to wisconsin, they gave me 3+years over my H1b validity date and also for my wife. The entire DMV process took us 5 mins whereas in FL, we stood in line from morining 3 am till evening 5pm and eventually got appointment for next day. When I asked about this in WI DMV, they said Wisconsin does not follow this and they are not aware of this." - GCBy3000

Missing out on thousands of dollars in savings on federal programs for students.

"My son who is in high school goes for a federal funded summer program every year. he is cursing me now as he cannot claim the $1000 stipend since he doesn't have an SSN(green card)." - GCAmigo

These are the real life hardships that legal residents face when there is no judgment on their application for permanent residency even after years of filing their papers. Many people think that the green card is just a document granting them permanent resident status but the examples above summarize the many real life scenarios where that single card is the difference between a simple and smooth transaction or a stressed out experience involving a lot of time and money.

Happy New Year!

Wishing all of my readers a very happy new year 2007. If you like me are stuck in the legal permanent resident application black hole, I hope this is the year where we see some light.

USCIS Memo on H and L Timing & H1B/H-4 Decoupling

From MurtyDotCom:

The USCIS has just released a memo dated December 5, 2006, that makes significant positive changes to the counting of time for H1Bs, H-4s, L-1s, and L-2s. This Memo addresses three separate issues. It decouples time spent in H-4 or L-2 status from the time limits spent in H1B or L-1 status, respectively. It permits extensions beyond the six-year H1B limit even when an individual has not been maintaining H1B status. Finally, it permits a person who departs the U.S. for more than a year prior to completion of the six years in H1B status to return for the time remaining of that six-year H1B period without again being subject to the H1B cap.

Ours To Lose

It is a fallacy to believe that in the incoming 110th Congress, there will be many newly-elected moderates/conservatives in the Democratic caucus. Writing in Roll Call on November 16, 2006, noted political analyst Stuart Rothenberg said "... I met dozens of Democrats running in 2006 - no, not everyone, but most of them - and I can’t find much more than a couple who merit the label "conservative." That’s not meant to be either criticism or praise. It’s merely a statement of fact ... Virtually all of the Democrats I interviewed were pro-choice, favored rolling back President Bush’s tax cuts and sounded traditional Democratic themes on education, the environment and foreign policy ... Now let me be very clear about my point. I’m not saying that it’s good or bad that most of these Democrats are likely to be pretty typical members of their party. I’m only saying that’s where they fit. A bunch of conservative Democrats didn’t win election last week."

The idea that immigration reform prospects early in 2007 must be limited because the Democratic caucus may have too many moderate/conservative Democrats who will resist liberal immigration laws is hogwash. However, there have been numerous press reports since the election which paint a grim picture for rapid progress on significant immigration benefits legislation in the early weeks and months of 2007. Here's why we have had this mis-information campaign.

Immigration lobbyists closely allied with liberal Democrats realize full well that they are now, for the first time since 9/11, on the offense, not defense. They realize full well that they are now on the cusp of enactment of major immigration benefits bills. However, with this new perspective has come hubris. Many of them now think that S. 2611 (the amended McCain-Kennedy bill) which would have granted legalization to 5 million, established significant quota relief for both employment and family immigration, established a modest guest worker program, etc does not go far enough, and is too punitive in its other provisions. In order to increase the reach of legalization, reduce punitive provisions, etc, they are pursuing what is essentially an all-or-nothing strategy. The immigration lobbyists' attitude appears to be that unless they get the original un-amended McCain-Kennedy or better, they would rather have no relief at all for the next several years.

We believe that the window of opportunity on immigration benefits is much smaller than most people think. We need not just a bill, but a conference report, in weeks, not months. Perhaps the memories of divided government have faded inside the Beltway. The last time we had a different party in charge at either end of Pennsylvania Ave (in the Clinton years), we had an ugly political climate, and legislative grid lock. There is every reason to believe that the same might happen again in a few months. Once the new Democratic staff are hired, and once the subpoenas from the new Democratic Chairs start to flow, Washington DC will be all-ugliness all-the-time. Furthermore, when last in the opposition pre-1994, the Republicans proved that they were masters of obstruction (does any immigration lobbyist relish the idea of crossing swords with the master-parliamentarian Mr. Lamar Smith, who will do everything in his power to destroy immigration benefit hopes from his new perch as ranking member of the House Judiciary committee?).The window of opportunity is only a few months (not the many months till the start of the 2008 Presidential season).

We believe it would be more prudent to pursue a limited strategy in early 2007 of obtaining a "down-payment" on comprehensive immigration reform. Perhaps we could just get DREAM, or just move the registry date from 1971 to IRCA's date, or perhaps, Congress could return to the business left unfinished on the morning of 9/11/01, when the House was to have voted on a Senate-passed extension of 245(i). We do not believe that the prospects of comprehensive immigration reform would be in any way damaged by getting a down-payment in hand first (a bird in hand is worth two in the bush). If later, we can get more reform, the immigration champions on the Hill will be heroes. If not, immigration champions will then be able to hold their head up high and say that at least they got something concrete in hand from this historic opportunity now before us.

We welcome readers to share their opinion and ideas with us by writing to editor@ilw.com.

Here We Go Again, Another Cycle of CIR Circus Soon?!

From Immigration Law:
A news report indicates that the Congress may introduce another form of Comprehensive Immigration Reform bills soon after the new Congress (110th) opens next year. The Congress keeps coming back to the immigration bills early each year without fruits at the end of the year. People are more or less exhausted of the circus. Let's see what kind of drama will unfold next couple of months.

January 2007 Visa Bulletin

Every month around the 15th day, the U.S. Dept. of State, releases the visa bulletin which lists who can avail of a visa number next month to adjust status to permanent residency. This bulletin breaks down the numbers based on the category and also separates out over-subscribed countries from the rest of the world. When you apply for permanent residency you get a case number and a priority date. If your priority date is earlier than the date listed in the visa bulletin for your application category, USCIS will proceed with your case and in most cases you will get your permanent resident card in a few months. Here are the cut-off dates for employment-based permanent residency categories from the January 2007 visa bulletin:

For persons born in India:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	08 Jan 2003	No change
EB3	08 May 2001	Moved ahead by 16 days

For persons born in China:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	22 Apr 2005	No change
EB3	01 Aug 2002	No change

For persons born in Philippines:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	01 Aug 2002	No change

For persons born in Mexico:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	15 May 2001	Moved ahead by 7 days

For rest of the world:

Category	Cut-off Date	Movement from previous month
EB1	Current	No change
EB2	Current	No change
EB3	01 Aug 2002	No change

Schedule A visa numbers which are used by Nurses and Physical Therapists are now retrogressed to 15-Jun-2004 for all countries. They have been current since Jan 2005 when the current retrogression started.

Last minute effort fails once again

Sen. Cornyn attempted to push passage of the SKILL bill in the Senate during the Lame Duck Session in the earlier half of December. However, within the Republican court of the Senate, there are some Republican Senators that oppose this bill. Besides, considering the fact that the Lame Duck Congress went out of session at the end of the week, unless a miracle happened, passage of this bill both in the House and the Senate would not have materialized.

Retrogression Math for Dummies - EB3 India Edition

For the seventh month in a row, the Employment based third preference category (EB3) visa cut-off date for persons born in India remains in April 2001. During the same period, EB3 worldwide has advanced by 13 months to August, 2002. Before reaching the April 2001 brick wall the cut-off date had moved steadily by 3 months during the previous 3 months.

So what could be possible reasons for this stalling? Some think that since Schedule A numbers are now used up, they're allocating EB3 numbers to the them and since a majority of the Schedule A numbers went to nurses and the likes from India, EB3 India is now at a stand still.

Others think its because of the amnesty given to illegal immigrants under section 245(i) which had a cut-off date of April 2001 and many illegal Indian immigrants may have taken advantage of this provision. This still wouldn't explain why countries like Mexico with traditionally higher number of illegal immigrants have better cut-off dates than India.

Finally that's when you switch on your calculator and start working with the numbers. There are 140,000 visa numbers available under all the employment based categories, with 7% per country limit and 28.6% allocated for EB3 and dependents counted into the numbers, there are only about 115 EB3 primary applicants allowed from India per month. Throw in a few thousand illegals into the mix and now you have the royal screw-up as is happening now. The law allows visa numbers from unused countries to be transferred to the oversubscribed countries but with nearly every category retrogressed this law won't apply for a while.

So there you have it, unless there is a change in law to at least temporarily accommodate the thousands of applicants whose lives are in limbo there is no chance that we'll see the numbers move anytime soon.

Here's a solution that would appeal to all those of you who say "well, if you don't like it then you can leave!". To them I would say, since a majority of the EB3 applicants were once on H1-B visas, why don't we put a 7% per country limit on the on H1-B visa numbers. That way only an equal number of people from India or China would come in as would from Kazakhstan and you wouldn't have this problem. You know that's never gonna happen. Why? Because the U.S. needs the Indian and Chinese skilled professionals in thousands to keep themselves globally competitive. The visas expire but there's always a new pool of foreign workers eager to come in (with the hope of green cards) every year. When its time to give them back something in return, they whimper. Grow some hair!

Excellent Q&A on backlogs, green card categories

Maryland Immigration Law blog has an excellent question and answers section on all the questions that you can ask regarding employment based permanent resident categories, backlogs and questions people have when they're stuck in backlogs.

Visa Retrogression Questions & Answers