Monday, 9 July 2007

Microsoft Goes To Canada To Vent Ire Against US Immigration Laws

Bypassing the strict American immigration laws that bars foreign workers from entering or working in the US, Microsoft Corp. has decided to go to Canada to hire and retain workers. Redmond, Washington based Microsoft, the world’s biggest software company is opening a software development centre in Vancouver, Canada that will hire workers who are otherwise prevented from in the US.

For long, Bill Gates and many other IT companies have been complaining about the stricter law, but to no avail. Most of them want to bring in foreign workers from countries such as China and India so that the domestic shortfall can be addressed, but the parliament is yet to legislate on a new law that can increase the number of H-1B visas.

Microsoft said the new Microsoft Canada Development Centre will open this fall and be staffed by developers "from around the world."

Currently, businesses are competing with one another for a total of 65,000 H-1B visas that can be issued during the federal government's fiscal year, plus another 20,000 visas that are set-aside for workers with advanced degrees from US universities.

Demand for the visas is far exceeding the supply: In April, on the first -- and only -- day that the US Citizenship and Immigration Services accepted H-1B applications for the fiscal year that starts in October, about 150,000 applications were submitted.