An employment offer is needed to get an H-1B visa, but economic conditions may limit opportunities. Part 41 of our Foreign Student Series. Transcript of radio broadcast:
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
We answered a question last week about how American college students find jobs after they graduate. Now, we discuss foreign graduates. The process for employing foreign workers in the United States is long. It involves different government agencies. It also involves a hot political issue.
President Obama signing the $787 billion federal stimulus bill into law on February 17
For example, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that President Obama signed into law in February dealt with this issue. It included conditions against foreign workers displacing qualified Americans at companies that receive federal stimulus money.
Job cuts have slowed in some industries. But the economic downturn has cost millions of jobs and recovery will take some time.
Foreign graduates need a job offer to get an H-1B visa. This is a non-immigrant visa for work in the person’s area of specialty. The employer is the one who applies for it. The visa is good for three years and may be extended for another three years.
Cheryl Gilman directs visa services at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She noted that H-1B visas were still available for next year. This tells her that the recession is preventing employers from sponsoring as many foreign nationals as they have in the past.
Sixty-five thousand H-1Bs are awarded each year to graduates with a bachelor’s degree. Bill Wright at the Department of Homeland Security says fewer than forty-five thousand applications for these visas had been received as of this week.
There was more demand for twenty thousand other H-1Bs for those with advanced degrees. In addition, thousands of the visas are awarded to other groups, such as university researchers.
Amy Ramirez is an administrator at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. She says foreign students who work for their school or at an internship probably have the best chance for a job after graduation.
She points out that many foreign graduates ask to stay for what is called optional practical training. This lets them accept temporary employment in their area of study for twelve months after graduation.
Many times, the employer will then apply for an H-1B. But Amy Ramirez and Cheryl Gilman both say foreign students should understand that visa rules change often. That can make it difficult to plan ahead for what to do after graduation.
And that’s the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. Earlier reports in our Foreign Student Series are at voaspecialenglish.com. I’m Steve Ember.
Credit remains tight even as the U.S. economy has returned to growth, with government support. The job market took a long time to recover after the last two recessions. Transcript of radio broadcast:
This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.
America’s economy has started to grow again. Now what about jobs?
The government says productivity jumped in July, August and September. That meant companies produced more with fewer workers. Also, new claims for unemployment aid fell last week to the lowest number since January.
People waiting in line at a job fair in Livonia, Michigan
But eight million jobs have disappeared since the recession began in December of two thousand seven.
Jack Strauss at Saint Louis University in Missouri says recent recoveries have been slow to create jobs.
JACK STRAUSS: “Historically, during our last two recessions in ninety-one and two thousand one it’s taken twenty-three months in ninety-one and about thirty-six months, three years, in our last recession in two thousand one for the United States to regain the jobs lost in the recession.”
Experts debate the reason for these so-called jobless recoveries. But Professor Strauss says a banking crisis is especially hard to recover from, because there is less money to lend to support growth. Banks have been holding bigger safety reserves.
On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve kept its target rate near zero for overnight loans between banks. The central bank said levels are likely to remain “exceptionally low … for an extended period.”
Low interest rates and growing federal deficits have weakened the dollar. But that also lowers the price of American exports, which could help drive job creation. Yet where exactly will future jobs come from?
Investor Warren Buffet says America’s “future prosperity” depends on its rail system. On Tuesday his Berkshire Hathaway company agreed to buy the nation’s second-largest railroad, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe. The forty-four billion dollar deal is Berkshire’s biggest ever.
The Obama administration is also putting money into transportation to speed recovery. A program that paid Americans to buy new vehicles with higher fuel economy lifted sales for automakers. Ford just reported a profit of almost a billion dollars for July through September.
A second government program — a tax credit for first-time home buyers — has helped the housing market. These two programs fueled a lot of the recent economic growth.
But economist Jack Strauss says credit conditions threaten the main engine of job growth since two thousand one — small businesses.
This week, CIT, a lender to small and medium sized businesses, sought bankruptcy protection from its creditors so it can reorganize. Taxpayers will likely lose more than two billion dollars in federal rescue money.
And that’s the VOA Special English Economics Report, available online at voaspecialenglish.com. I’m Mario Ritter.
