Newswise — Vikas Anand, management professor in the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas and one of the few researchers who has investigated bodyshopping, a labor consequence of the H1B immigration process, is available to comment on the U.S. government's controversial program.
Each year, U.S. companies, primarily technology firms, submit so-called H1B visa applications to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service for highly skilled foreign workers, generally software engineers from India and China. Firms have one week to do submit applications. This year's application period started Tuesday and will end April 7.
The H1B program is controversial because the federal government will grant only 65,000 visas out of more than 300,000 expected applications. (By the end of Tuesday, the first day of the application period, the government received more than 200,000 applications.) Citing a shortage of highly qualified technicians and engineers, technology companies have asked members of Congress to raise the annual limit of approved applications. But some lawmakers argue that foreign companies have used the program to hire workers for less pay.
Anand has extensive knowledge and understanding of the H1B program. In 2005 he published a paper (http://dailyheadlines.uark.edu/5254.htm) about foreign workers' responses to psychological contract breaches by so-called bodyshoppers, the name given to U.S.-based firms that hire foreign software engineers and arrange for visas that allow the engineers to work in the United States. Anand discovered that these job-constrained, foreign workers remained motivated and dedicated employees and developed specific coping tactics to help them deal with breaches rather venting emotions toward their employers, not showing up for work or looking for a different job.
For more information about Anand's research, please visit http://waltoncollege.uark.edu/faculty/search.asp?type=profile&id=145000&letter=A .
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