H1-B claimants 'ordinary' workers, not geniuses: Report

[size=10pt]H1-B claimants 'ordinary' workers, not geniuses: Report[/size]

[size=10pt]WASHINGTON: Most of the claimants of the H1-B visas, much sought-after by skilled professionals including Indians, are people doing 'ordinary' work and not the geniuses as claimed by industry lobbyists, a report said here.

"Those arguing for an increase in the number of H1-B visas (ostensibly temporary visas for 'specialty occupations', many of them in the computer industry) claim that continued US leadership in science, technology, engineering and mathematics hinges on our ability to import the world's best engineers and scientists," the Centre for Immigration Studies said in a statement.

"But this new data analysis shows that the vast majority of H1-B workers, including those at most major tech firms, are not the innovators industry portrays them to be," it added.

The report titled 'H1-Bs: Still Not the Best and the Brightest' is published in the May issue of CIS and is authored by Norman Matloff, professor of computer science at the University of California, Davis.

The argument is based on the fact that in a market economy, if workers are indeed outstanding talents, they will be paid accordingly.

This has been determined by computing the ratio of the foreign worker's salary to the prevailing wage figure stated by the employer with the report calling this the 'Talent Measure' or TM.

A TM value of 1.0 means that the worker is merely average, not of outstanding talent.[/size]