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This is totally insane!!! To my knowlege this is a matter of great concern, this is not a good news for anyone who is on H1 status or wanting to get H1 status from US after graduating in grad or undergrad. Think like this most H1 is applied by Indian companies like TCS, Infosys, SATYAM, and numerous other companies. If the USCIS approves this limit there will me more IT guys coming to US there will be a overpool of IT personnals in the US. We are already facing problems in getting jobs. Jobs that use to get filled in 2-3 months are getting filled within few days. If more people are coming to US those jobs will be filled in few min. The market is already very competative in terms of getting jobs now if we have more H1 there will be a competetion in the salary. Having a H1 status shouldn't be your concern getting a job paying atleast 52K in a full year period should be your goal, because if you don't you have to pay .26 percent of 52K which comes out to be roughly $13,500 out of your pocket.
Say for example u are in H1 status and u are getting paid $70,000/year. Caution: if your employer can get someone else who will do the same job for $52,000 you will certainly gonna loose your job and may be your current H1 unless you find your ways out. This way your wages are being cut and possibly your job is highly volatile. The offshoring of jobs are already an issue and bringing more people in IT field is gonna make it even worse. So, people who are trying to graduate and get H1 approvals your chances are very slim.
Disadvantages are already there. How you would ask? Think about this way who do u think is benefiting from this move. The answer is the US government and the client companies. They want people from other countries to make money and pay them taxes. How is the US government benefiting? The answer is you are paying to IRS. How many months do you think you will work in H1 status out of a 12 month period these days? May be the chances are 6 to 9 months, unless you are hired as a permanent employee(are you lucky? remember the chances are very slim). So, if I understood this right, your salary for a H1 is minimum of 52K and if u make 30K during the whole year you still have to pay taxes for the 52K salary mark. This way you are not making the whole 52K and you are paying taxes for the unearned income. So how much are you makeing in a year? Very less. may be a max of 30-40K. So, you are not actually making even 40K, otherwise may be 32K a year NET. That is getting paid roughly 15-17dollar an hour if u work the whole year around in other jobs working 40/hr/week. Another disadvantage is do you really think just getting out of college will get u a job? My friends from India with 3 years of SAP real time experience is getting a hard time to find a job. He is competing and likely not getting a job soon and even if he is an eligible candidate he has to go thru the pricing wage war with others.
So thinking logically there is not much room for any of us for survival and its a trap designed by the US government and the multinational companies getting cheap labor inside US and elsewhere. It is no different as having the illegal mexicans draging the mimimum wage down, because comeon I have been here in US for over 10 years and the fedral minimum wage is still the same( state min.wages might vary) but even if the wages has gone up, so has inflation. Just the gas price has gone up dollar and half in a year and your size of hambugers has shrinked in sizes or the quality of food and goods we consume has gone down as well. That is a whole other story.
But if you guys are in H1 or applying for H1 this April ask other H1 holders what the situation is. 8-10 years ago it was a different story now it is a whole new ball game.
WoW, forgot one other thing, if you are in H1 you cannot work in any other jobs besides your field. Now that is totally a trap. Get people from a third world or any other countries and make them pay taxes on wages that they really don't earn and they are obligated.
Some of you wouldn't agree with me, which I know, but people always look into a big picture and the reality of the real world.
Who is making the money? Consulting companies ofcourse, the US gov.= IRS and ultimately the Companies who saves money having cheap labor.
Who is in loss? H1 holders and eventually GreenCarders and the US citizens. Its a survival for fittest but that holds true in Natural envirounment not in manupulated envirounment. So good luck to you all. I am a GC holder if I loose a job I can go flip hamburgers if I have to survive. Do you think you have an option? Working underneath the table. Guess what there is a competetion there too. I know well qualified people working for less wages in gas stations or other unrelated field who are in IT filed. This holds true in any field of H1.
Concluding my statement: These are just my thoughts and my math, but my analysis is coming from the realtime experience and from the east and the midwestern states. The US economy has a lot to do with the current situation which is another major issue.
Hope you guys enjoyed my thoughts, but seriously think about it..........
IMATTQE