Coming from the high-tech industry, this issue is close to my heart.  As Microsoft is laying off 3,000 people, a first in the company history, it received over 1,000 H1-B visas for foreign workers last year.  I guarantee the first ones to go will not be the foreigners.  And their reasoning boggles my mind:

A company spokesman said the option to hire foreign workers is necessary to protecting and increasing Microsoft’s ability to continue providing U.S. workers with jobs.

I’m not quite sure how that works.  The only thing that I can think of is if they can get some of the talent here (which American’s don’t lack), they don’t have to open foreign offices.  But, they still do, so that doesn’t make sense.

My personal experience with this issue is that these companies can pay less for a foreign worker that will often do more. Foreign workers have often come to America to go to school and then are hired at a company and work until they can get a green card.  Before that, these workers are tied to the company — they can’t go anywhere else without a green card. 

One of my friends graduated from an American university with a masters degree.  We were hired at about the same time at the same company, and I only had a bachelors degree at the time.  Her starting salary was still 10% less than mine.  They knew she was stuck at the company, and she felt that if she did anything wrong, she would lose her job.  And that meant going back to her home country. 

I’m OK with some amount of foreign workers here.  I think people who work hard should be allowed to work here and earn a green card after going through the proper channels.  My problem is with companies like Microsoft and Dell petitioning the government for more H1-B visas at the same time workers are being laid off in America.  The “unique talent” argument doesn’t hold water since most of them are educated at the same universities the American workers are.

Update: Hot Air has a post about a similar trend in the illegal labor market.  Illegals are raided and deported, and the wages magically go up.  H1-B visa undercutting, however, is all above board.