I read an article on H-1B visas in the Harvard Business Review, and there was an interesting point made that I wanted to share.
Multinationals, desperate to fill technical positions, have been seeking alternatives to the use of H-1Bs. A solution that’s growing in popularity is intracompany transfer visas, which allow a firm to bring an unlimited number of foreign employees into the United States. But employees are eligible only after they have worked for the company for a year. So a multinational might, for example, assign a new hire to spend 12 months working in a country with looser immigration rules before bringing him or her to the United States.
The article then goes on to discuss how companies are also trying to simply avoid basing workers in the US at all. I suspect that — long term — this is not something we should want to encourage.
I thought this was interesting because it’s a clear demonstration of how companies will find a way around regulations, and how carefully regulation has to be designed so that is effective.