Congressional committee pushing signaled to raise up of minimum salary of h-1b holders while nasscom put front

Important  movement to know for H1-b visa holders as  US Congressional key committee member on Monday voted to pass a legislation that proposes to raise the minimum salary of H1-b visa holders from $60,000 to $90,000 and imposed a number of restrictions as to work visa popular in professional from India. The Protect and Grow American Jobs Act (HR 170) introduced by courts, Intellectual Property and Internet Subcommittee Chairman Darrell Issa was passed by the House Judiciary Committee during a markup hearing on Wednesday morning. Currently bill heads to Full House for necessary action as similar version of bill is first to be passed by Senate before it can be move to White House for signed marked by the US President Donald Trump to form it a law. Though there are differences in Republican and Democratic lawmakers and White House as to various aspects of immigration reform including H-1b while to become as for now it appear to be an order.

However Bill has prohibition as to H-1b dependent employers from replacing American workers with H-1b employees there are no longer any exceptions. As it also lengthens the no lay -off policy as H-1b dependent employers and their client companies for as long an h-1b employee works at the company, which means they cannot layoff equal US workers. As per Protect and Grow American Jobs Act which dramatically increase the H-1b workers, for to them exempted from requirement that US workers be recruited first.

According to media release issued by House judiciary Committee “They must pay the lower of $135,000 which is indexed for inflation or the average wage for the occupation in the area of employment, but with a floor of $ 90,000 wage”.

While voice was raised by NASSCOM President R Chandrasekhar in statement said on HR 170 which is adopted by House Judiciary Committee, the step will harm US Businesses and impose an extraordinary amount of bureaucratic red tape on a programme that contributes to growth and prosperity of US. As said by Chandrashekaran “It also could disrupt the marketplace, threaten thousands of US jobs, and stifle US innovation by unfairly and arbitrarily targeting a handful of companies who used just 16 per cent of the new H-1B visas in FY 2016 while imposing no new requirements on the vast majority of companies that use the visas to do the same exact same things”.

Congressman Issa putting up front as to defending bill said lawmakers have a responsibility to ensure that H1-b is not abused by those misusing it to outsource jobs and while undercutting American workers. While further he added saying  “Unfortunately, the loopholes left open in H-1B have allowed a small handful of companies to game the system and crowd out employers who need the limited slots available to bring in the best and brightest individuals from around the world”.  As act is a common-sense updates that will go long way to protecting American workers while helping companies have better access to the talent they need to grow their business and create new jobs here in America.

NASSCOM is strongly opposing and disagreeing at the same time with US lawmakers. Congressman Bon Good latté, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said the immigration programmes must put American workers and nation’s interest first and “unfortunately” that is not case currently with the H-1b visa programme as they said it much needed reforms to H1-B programme to curtail abuse of the system and protect American workers.

Though NASSCOM President’s putting input is as per his statement” Unfortunately, this legislation is being driven by myths, not reality. US government data show very significant shortages of high skill talent around the country. The data show that the high skill visa programmes are not a major cause of US unemployment, and IT specialists working on temporary visas are not cheap labor.” As he show s further analysis as per US Bureau of Labor Statistics throughout US economy approximately 20 million people per year lose their job due to reason not linked to hiring H-1B employees as with comparing to that of annual number of H-1b granted to top 10 Indian centric IT service companies in 2016 was just little fraction of US workforce.

Chandrashera as to argued putting facts from  study by the Pew Research Center, based on fiscal 2016 data from US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) data, for eight of the top 10 India-centric IT companies, the average salary for workers on H-1B visas was higher than the median salary for US citizens in computer and mathematical jobs. So he says to support efforts to root out any fraud or abuse in the H-1b system and added fact that for the very reason our member does not deserve to be treated differently from their American or European counterparts as per news sources.