Washington – Investigation: Banks In Bailout Money Sought Foreign Workers

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    file photo Foreign  bank tellers Washington – Banks collecting billions of dollars in federal bailout money sought government permission to bring thousands of foreign workers to the U.S. for high-paying jobs, according to an Associated Press review of visa applications.

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    The dozen banks receiving the biggest rescue packages, totaling more than $150 billion, requested visas for more than 21,800 foreign workers over the past six years for positions that included senior vice presidents, corporate lawyers, junior investment analysts and human resources specialists. The average annual salary for those jobs was $90,721, nearly twice the median income for all American households.

    The figures are significant because they show that the bailed-out banks, being kept afloat with U.S. taxpayer money, actively sought to hire foreign workers instead of American workers. As the economic collapse worsened last year — with huge numbers of bank employees laid off — the numbers of visas sought by the dozen banks in AP’s analysis increased by nearly one-third, from 3,258 in fiscal 2007 to 4,163 in fiscal 2008.

    The AP reviewed visa applications the banks filed with the Labor Department under the H-1B visa program, which allows temporary employment of foreign workers in specialized-skill and advanced-degree positions.

    It is unclear how many foreign workers the banks actually hired; the government does not release those details. The actual number is likely a fraction of the 21,800 foreign workers the banks sought to hire because the government limits the number of visas it grants to 85,000 each year among all U.S. employers.

    During the last three months of 2008, the largest banks that received taxpayer loans announced more than 100,000 layoffs. The number of foreign workers included among those laid off is unknown.

    Foreigners are attractive hires because companies have found ways to pay them less than American workers.


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    10 Comments
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    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    15 years ago

    So who says slavery ended with the Emancipation Proclaimation by Obama’s hero? Salary slavery and benefits slavery is alive and well. You can blame unions for some of this, but high positioned white collar workers aren’t unionized. The stock holders demand dividends. We think of stock holders as big holding companies but there are plenty of grandparents out there who invest too. As long as people are the highest cost for a company, then there will be ways to lower the people cost. Either fire them, restructure salary and benefits, make them pay more for benefits, etc. that way the cost to the company goes down and the dividend “should” go up. What’s the joke about all of this? When you outsource your company to India and you have zero control based on intercompany agreements that your line people cannot affect, your bottom line goes down. When a consumer of your goods requires 5 tries to get a question answered, your bottom line goes down. The cost of doing off-shore business has been proven to be greater than the costs of salaries and benefits in America. Regardless, until we base our credit and other benefits on disposable income, not gross income, there will be more financial headaches. Go Obama, please just go.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    15 years ago

    at first you want to be angry with the banks, but then you realize that it is Obama’s insanity that is causing these gyrations. Given half a chance, plus some help from Pelosilini, and Reid it is clear he is out to destroy the country. It is as if he views America as so messed up that he has to basically start it over from scratch, using a marxist model.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    15 years ago

    #1

    As with all products and services, there are choices to be made based on qaulity and price.

    There are call centers in India staffed with cheap nitwits and others that are highly trained so that you would never know that u are speaking with an Indian call center

    AuthenticSatmar
    AuthenticSatmar
    15 years ago

    I’m no fan of Obama, but how is this Obama’s problem? This was going on in the Bush era.
    What needs to happen, is that all major employers should fire everyone earning over 75,000$ and offer to rehire them at half their salary.
    There is no reason why a programmer fresh out of school should be earning 150,000+. This is pure insanity, and its what’s killing our economy. When the salaries come down, the costs come down too, allowing for a quicker recovery.
    But of course the Demcrazi’s in Washington believe that by giving ACORN billions of dollars we’ll recover. The bill is nothing more than a Democratic payback and an attempt to lock in their power.
    I hope that the people of the USA will revolt against the insanity, and in 2 years vote out every Congressman that supported it.

    Get Government OUT of our business!!!!
    Get Government OUT of our business!!!!
    15 years ago

    This is only the beginning of the Obama Socialist Plan. Do we really want the government involved in our businesses? Do we want them involved in our lives acting like BIG BROTHER monitoring what we do & how we conduct our business & our personal affairs?

    What we are seeing so far is with only 1.8 TRILLION DOLLARS of government money ‘invested’ in our private businesses. Imagine what is to come!

    Wake up & smell the coffee. Shtey Oif! Vek Oif!! Call your senators & tell them to vote NO on this or any other ‘stimulus’ package that is not geared ENTIRELY to the tax paying public. There can be NO money given directly to businesses. Give everyone additional tax credits on their 08 taxes. That is how money begins to flow. Any president who issued TAX CUTS no matter what party they belonged to will tell you that!

    PLEASE DON’T SUPPORT THE STIMULUS BILL WHICH WILL ONLY STIMULATE THE GOVERNMENT!!!

    anonymous
    anonymous
    15 years ago

    Authentic satmar
    I have been working for over 10 years in computers at some of the top firms and I don’t make 150k. Noone straight out of college gets that kind of money. People should check their facts before talking.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    15 years ago

    Your contributors wail about Acorn the biggest fraud is that bail out money is planned for theCarlyle Equity Firm and other private equity firms. The investors in these companies are millionars. KKR, Blackstone and Carlyle investors are not main street Yidden. Nobody seems to get excited about this fraud