WCA September 2015

From the Americas

provisions deemed too partial to unauthorised immigrants. The Times called that “a tragedy” for the 11 million unauthorised immigrants seeking legal status to live and work in the USA.  With no immediate possibility of an immigration overhaul, the editorial board wrote, opportunistic tech companies are pursuing their own narrow agenda, pushing for vast increases in H-1B visas: “That might help their recruiting problems, but leave much of the system as dysfunctional as ever.” Rising enrolment in computer programming “boot camps” signals keen interest in high-paying technology jobs While the labour shortage in the American IT sector mentioned above (“H-1B programme”) may persist, graduates of domestic computer coding schools will more than double in number this year. According to data from Course Report , a website that enables students to rate the schools, over 16,000 people will graduate from programming boot camps – up from 6,740 in 2014. The intensive two- to six-month programmes train students in the creation of websites and mobile apps. Citing government statistics, John Lauerman of BloombergBusiness reported that computer-related jobs are expected to grow faster than the US median for all occupations through to 2022. Average starting salaries for computer science graduates top $65,000, and elite schools including Harvard University are hiring teachers to keep up with demand. (“Coding Boot Camp Enrollment Soars As Students Seek Tech Jobs,” 8 th June) Again according to Course Report , the tech boot-camp industry is less than four years old and graduated only about 2,000 students as recently as two years ago. Graduates do not receive diplomas or certificates. Their credentials are the software programs that they coded while in school. Mean boot camp tuition is now $11,063, about 10 per cent higher than a year earlier, and can go as high as $21,000, Course Report said. Total boot camp industry revenue is expected to be about $172 million in 2015, up from about $52 million last year. “We’re still seeing people getting placed,” Liz Eggleston, co-founder of Course Report , said in a BloombergBusiness telephone interview. “I’d say the market isn’t saturated yet.” A 2013 graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara, told Mr Lauerman that he will pay $17,780 to take classes at Hack Reactor in San Francisco six days a week, 11 hours a day, for three months. “The programme and curriculum are intense,” said the prospective code-writer, who had studied biopsychology and Spanish in college. “That type of mentality is healthy, and I want to be pushed.” Dorothy Fabian – Features Editor

work permanently in the US. In general, it takes about two years to obtain a green card through EB-5. The wait is much longer – sometimes decades longer – under other visa programmes.  Created by the US Congress in 1990, the EB-5 programme remained all but dormant until the recession of 2008-2011 made it more difficult for American developers to finance their projects through banks and other traditional lenders. Wealthy foreigners seeking US residency for themselves or their families presented a ready alternative source of financing.

Abuses are alleged in the H-1B programme created to meet labour demand in the USA information technology sector

“It hardly needs saying that immigration policy should not undermine Americans’ jobs, wages, or working conditions. The problem is that what some companies want – cheap, exploitable, disposable labour – is exactly what the system can be twisted into giving them.” If the EB-5 programme described in the previous item centres on investors, the H-1B programme that drew the indignation of the New York Times editorial board centres on workers: those displaced by others from overseas under what the board members see as a flawed reading of US law. (“Workers Betrayed by Visa Loopholes,” 15 th June) The H-1B programme, which provides up to 85,000 visas a year to foreigners, mainly highly skilled technical workers, was created by Congress to enable companies to fill work-force gaps with specialised employees unavailable in the United States. But the Times asserts that companies both in the USA and overseas “ruthlessly” exploit loopholes in the law – notably one permitting outsourcing firms to fill the openings with their own workers – to slash their payroll costs. On 16 th June the Labor Department announced it was investigating two of the largest companies that supply H-1B workers, Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services, both based in India. Senators of the two principal political parties asked for the inquiry after reports that Southern California Edison, the utility company, turned to Infosys and Tata for H-1B workers even as it was laying off 540 workers — many of whom said they were required to train their replacements. While importing workers to do the jobs of Americans they displace is clearly not what Congress intended, the Times editorial board noted that, despite common perceptions, H-1B does not require companies to recruit American workers before looking overseas. It called for a reform of the programme, including added protections for H-1B workers who themselves are vulnerable to exploitation because of their dependence on their employers. An earlier call for H-1B reform appeared in a Senate bill for comprehensive reform of the USA immigration system. That bill died, killed by hard-liners in the House who objected to

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Wire & Cable ASIA – September/October 2015