Impending immigration reform affect jobs prospect for MFE students

Andy Nguyen

Andy Nguyen

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A very important issue being debated whose outcome may affect the life of millions of people in the US. In a smaller scale, it will affect the likelihood of getting a H1-B visa after all the hard work you put in your MFE study.
WASHINGTON, June 24 — Bill Gates and Steven A. Ballmer of Microsoft have led a parade of high-tech executives to Capitol Hill, urging lawmakers to provide more visas for temporary foreign workers and permanent immigrants who can fill critical jobs.

The number of green cards for employer-sponsored immigrants would gradually decline, to 44,000 in the fifth year from 115,000 in each of the first two years. No green cards would be set aside for employer-sponsored immigrants after that.

Many high-tech companies bring in foreign professionals on temporary H-1B visas. The government is swamped with petitions. On the first two days of the application period in April, it received more than 123,000 petitions for 65,000 slots.

The Senate bill would raise the cap to 115,000 in 2008, with a possible increase to 180,000 in later years, based on labor market needs.

Many high-tech businesses want to hire foreign students who obtain advanced degrees from American universities, and many of the students want to work here, but cannot get visas.

Under current law, up to 20,000 foreigners who earn a master's degree or higher from an American university are generally exempt from the annual limit on new H-1B visas. The Kyl-Cantwell proposal would double the number.
Read full article at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/25/technology/25tech.html
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Hi Andy,

Good article! If we look at the H1B visa in a larger context, it seems to me that Indian nationals are the top beneficiaries of the visa. Bill Gates, of course, will look after his interests to make sure that he can keep getting very good software engineers from overseas, mainly India, and keep his operations costs low, and by the same token increase his profits. If there is a maximum number of H1B visa alloted, as there is currently, then the government ought to have a quota per field, say 3000 for MFE, 5000 for nurses, 10000 for software engineers, for example, and so on. But now with the computer randomly selecting winners, the process is nothing but bias because you have a sample made up mostly of computer techies, and smaller subsamples composed of MFEs will have little chance of being selected. I just feel that under the current H1B visa system, if you are not a software engineer and the computer has to randomly select your application,your chances get smaller and smaller.
 
On the other hand, wouldn't assigning quotas by job type be discriminatory towards occupations that are not given a fair share of visas?

I would think the U.S. government is not the most efficient in "picking winners" of a theoretical quota system (incentives for inefficient and costly lobbying come to mind as the first reason), it probably couldn't pick winners anyway...
 
The point system reminds me of the Canada system and the article i read the other day. A case study of what may become should this bill passes.
The point system has helped Canada compete with the United States and other Western powers for highly educated workers, the most coveted immigrants in high-tech and other cutting-edge industries. But in recent years, immigration lawyers and labor market analysts say, the Canadian system has become an immovable beast, with a backlog of more than 800,000 applications and waits of four years or more.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/27/washington/27points.html
 
JuanFangio said:
On the other hand, wouldn't assigning quotas by job type be discriminatory towards occupations that are not given a fair share of visas?

I would think the U.S. government is not the most efficient in "picking winners" of a theoretical quota system (incentives for inefficient and costly lobbying come to mind as the first reason), it probably couldn't pick winners anyway...
Click to expand...


Hey, I saw your post from a while back on the review of Berkeley's MFE program. You commented on Wilmott's books. Did they help? and how much if so ?( also in terms of leverage over other students ( im an undergrad with little finance work experience so i'll take all the leverage I can get)) and which of his books will you recommend before starting the MFE? Thanks
 
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