It’s unclear whether staffing firms like Infosys are using the H-1B visa for the reasons it was originally intended for. The H-1B visa was created in 1990 to “bring in high-skilled workers who could complement the skills of US workers,” said Julia Gelatt, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. “The sense at the time was that there were growing industries in the United States in areas that the US wanted to develop to be globally competitive, but there weren’t necessarily enough US workers who [were] qualified and ready to fill those jobs.” Whether the work that companies outsource to firms like Infosys is aligned with the original intention of the H-1B visa program is somewhat up for debate.
On one hand, the jobs often require college degrees and some technical knowledge; on the other, many of the Infosys employees interviewed by The Verge saw the positions as menial and certainly entry-level.
Infosys has run into trouble with visa rules. In 2013, the company settled a lawsuit with the US Department of Justice, which alleged that Infosys had obtained visas for its foreign workers through “systematic fraud,” specifically by bringing workers to the US under a B-1 visa instead of an H-1B visa. The distinction matters because while B-1 visa holders are allowed to enter the country and attend meetings, they aren’t actually allowed to perform work in the United States.
But Infosys’ three-decade reliance on the H-1B visas came under siege during the Trump administration, which instituted new rules in 2020 targeting the visa program. And while those rules were struck down by the courts, the Trump administration did drag their feet when it came to approving new visas for Infosys and other competitors, a trend that only reversed when Biden took office. “There certainly was a lot more scrutiny being applied to H-1B applications, and that was particularly true of some of the outsourcing firms,” said Gelatt.
According to Infosys, the Trump era visa restrictions were tangential to the company’s expansion in the US. “We are continuing to do what we are doing in spite of the fact that there is a new administration in the US,” Kumar told The Verge. Instead, Kumar said, the change was driven by Infosys’ clients, who wanted their contractors to be closer to home.
To meet their aggressive hiring goals, rather than hiring expensive experienced engineers, Infosys returned to their roots and invested in training. “Since 2017, we’ve been very aggressively growing as a company, so we need talent,” Kumar said. “The only way you can get talent is to build it if there …….
Source: https://www.theverge.com/c/22820291/tech-jobs-outsourcing-infosys-bench-paid-to-do-nothing