Americans Fired, Foreigners Employed

The New Observer
October 28, 2015

Some 450,000 Americans were fired by the big capitalist corporations in 2014—while at the same time, almost every one of those companies applied for H1-B visas to employ foreign nationals—mostly from the Third World.

The three largest offenders—Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, and Cisco Systems Inc., have together axed more than 45,000 American workers, while at the same time applying for thousands of H1-B visas, which are designed to allow foreign nationals the right to work and settle in the US.

According to a survey of job cuts published earlier this year by the 24/7 Wall Street financial news service, job cuts among US companies in 2014 totaled 450,531 through November.

Technology companies were the largest downsizers, 24/7 Wall Street said. Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, and Cisco Systems announced the most job cuts, not only among tech companies, but also overall. That industry as a whole announced more than 58,000 job cuts in 2014, the highest number among all industries.

No company announced more layoffs in 2014 than Hewlett Packard, which reported a total of 21,000 job cuts.

However, according to the website Myvisajobs.com, which tracks the number of H1-B visa applications made by each company using data provided by the US Department of Labor and various immigration services, these three companies in particular are also some of the highest ranking H1-B visa sponsoring companies.

For example, Hewlett-Packard filed 2668 labor condition applications for H1B visa and 815 labor certifications for green cards, and was ranked number 30 among all visa sponsors.

The citizenship of those who applied through Hewlett Packard were, according to the data, as follows (listed in order of highest number of applicants first): India, Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom, China, Brazil, Spain, Singapore, Czech Republic, and Israel.

This pales in significance with Microsoft, however, which filed 15,998 labor condition applications for H1B visa and 10,500 labor certifications for green cards. Microsoft was, not surprisingly, ranked third among all visa sponsors.

The citizenship of those who applied through Microsoft were, according to the data, as follows (listed in order of highest number of applicants first): India, China, Canada, Russia, Mexico, Australia, United Kingdom, Israel, Pakistan, and Egypt.

Cisco Systems, Inc. filed 1920 labor condition applications for H1B visa and 1428 labor certifications for green cards, and was ranked 34 among all visa sponsors. The citizenship of those who applied through Cisco Systems were, according to the data, as follows (listed in order of highest number of applicants first): India, China, Canada, Pakistan, Israel, South Korea, United Kingdom, Mexico, Brazil, and Australia.

The 24/7 Wall Street report added that the industry with the second largest number of layoffs in 2014 was the retail sector, where nearly 42,000 job cuts were announced.

Financial companies, too, were among the top companies cutting jobs. JPMorgan Chase, for example, cut 5,500 jobs in 2014—but also has filed 4530 labor condition applications for H1B visa and 509 labor certifications for green cards, and was ranked number 24 among all visa sponsors. The nationalities of those who applied for H1-B visas through JPMorgan were India, China, Canada, France, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Mexico, United Kingdom, Brazil, and South Korea.

Meanwhile, most US states reported overall job losses in September 2015. Missouri lost 16,500 jobs in September, the most of any state, followed by Pennsylvania, which reported a drop of 16,400. Michigan shed 9,800 jobs, the third largest decline, followed by Hawaii, where jobs fell 8,100. West Virginia lost 11,400 jobs in the past year. It also has the nation’s highest unemployment rate, at 7.3 percent. Even North Dakota has shed 7,300 jobs in the past year, media reports revealed.

At the same time, the nonwhite invasion of America continues unabated. Mexico’s former ambassador to the US, Arturo Sarukhan, recently told MSNBC  that there were actually 30 million “undocumented immigrants” living in the United States.