No Americans Need Apply – 100 Want Ads Exclude Americans From Us-Based High-Tech Jobs

Sixty-eight percent (68%) offered H1-B visas.

Industry-wide Discrimination Harms America’s Tech Future
“The public is led to believe that companies can’t find Americans to fill high-tech jobs when, in fact, they are not searching for Americans—as these ads show,” said Conroy. This closely guarded industry secret has been damaging America’s technological promise, especially in Silicon Valley. According to the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley in 2008 had fewer Black, Hispanic and female IT professionals than in 2000.

While the US continues to have an overabundance of experienced, highly-skilled American IT professionals and new science and technology grads whom the US has paid dearly to educate, a disturbing fact is revealed in the report—foreign nationals may also have high rates of unemployment. A number of ads in the study mention temporary periods of unemployment, or offer non-existent jobs to the targeted foreign citizens. Employers advertised free lodging in 27% of the ads, presumably for those foreign nationals awaiting jobs. More than half of entry-level job ads offered free accommodation in a company-owned “guest house.”

The report shows twenty of the 100 ads excluding Americans only gave promises of employment with phrases such as, “Will help you in getting job”, “We will give 100% support to find the jobs”, and “We will provide job assistance.” In an effort to place these foreign nationals in the highly competitive temporary job market, these companies also advertised résumé services and mock interviews.

The report comes out a time when Infosys, an Indian outsourcing giant, is under allegations the company resorted to visa fraud and President Obama’s re-election campaign has been hitting Mitt Romney hard for profiting from companies involved in shipping jobs overseas.

Senate Bill Will Prohibit Excluding Americans In Job Ads
Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) will re-introduce the H1-B & L-1 Reform Act later this year to prohibit such exclusionary advertising for the purpose of recruiting foreign nationals using the H1-B program. The act would also require companies to seek American talent first by posting the job opening, with salary offered and contact information, on the Department of Labor (DOL) web site for 30 days so US applicants can apply. Bright Future Jobs is urging quick passage.

“New H1-B visas for Fiscal Year 2013 have been exhausted. Media reports conclude this shortage reflects a shortage of US talent. However, as the ads in this report illustrate, it actually reflects a shortage of companies that seek American talent and follow EEO recruiting and hiring guidelines to fill their US job openings, “ explained Conroy.

The report is asking for emergency legislative and regulatory action to prevent employers from exclusionary advertising using all temporary visa and work permit programs.

Where These Job Openings Were Located
New Jersey had the most discriminatory job posting with over one quarter of the total (26), followed by California (11), Michigan (9), Texas (8), Illinois and Virginia (7), New York (6), Pennsylvania (5), Georgia and Ohio (4), Massachusetts (3) and Washington, DC (2). Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, Nebraska and New Mexico had one discriminatory job ad each.

Who We Are
Bright Future Jobs is a tech advocates organization dedicated to counteracting claims that Americans can’t do science and technology. We lobby to require employers to seek local talent for US job openings before recruiting abroad.

Our exposure of federal government documents declaring that the H-1b law’s intention is to bypass the US workforce resulted in the introduction of the bipartisan Durbin-Grassley “H-1B and L-1 Visa Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act of 2007?. We were instrumental in securing the passage of a Cook County resolution urging passage of the Durbin reform bill in September 2007.