High-tech immigrants see dreams deflating

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SAN FRANCISCO - Ajay Jindal arrived last spring from India and tapped the Silicon Valley gold rush as a computer programmer at $80,000 a year, 10 times what he earned back home.

Swept up in the giddy rise of the high-tech economy, the 24-year-old man persuaded his friends to leave steady jobs in India for the lure of U.S. riches.

How times have changed. Jindal hasn't worked as a Java programmer since January, and some of his friends arrived to find no work at all.

Last week, he twice rented a car to take his roommates to the airport for the one-way trip home.

"They came in December, and my company says, `We can't hold you guys, goodbye,' " said Jindal. "I am all alone now."

And he wonders if he won't be far behind.

Growing numbers of immigrant workers brought to the United States to propel the high-tech economy ever higher are sitting idle because of the recent job-cutting frenzy.

Particularly hard hit are so-called consultancies, which are job shops that hire out temporary computer programmers and engineers for projects at larger firms.

Many of these consultancies rely on workers who came to the United States on H-1B work visas. Recipients can stay six years, and more than 400,000 now live in this country after emigrating from places like India, China and Eastern Europe.

U.S. companies say these immigrants are needed because they can't find enough skilled U.S. workers to fill high-tech jobs.

No longer enough work

No one is sure what percentage of H-1B workers end up at consultancies. What's clear is that there isn't enough work to keep them all busy.

The trouble began in December and accelerated in March, as major players such as Cisco and Intel announced cuts of up to 5,000 employees each. Spokesmen for both companies said those cutbacks will likely include H-1B workers.

Such cuts have crippled the hundreds of consultancies that sprang up since the mid-1990s to capitalize on the Internet boom.

Some are little more than a list of workers who sit "on the bench" waiting for a call. Others employ dozens of programmers and engineers full time.

"Last year, I could bring busloads of people and they'd all be working within two weeks," said Pavel Peroutka, owner of Manarola Technology, a 20-employee software firm in San Rafael, Calif. "This year was just a disaster so far. We had to send people home. They show up, we market them to our clients and they don't want them."

Employers say there still is demand for the most highly skilled programmers and engineers. But those with less-specialized skills suffer.

To keep afloat, many consultancies keep workers on the bench for longer periods at low pay. They also cut their rates, for example, from $60 to $30 an hour for a programmer who develops Microsoft Windows-compatible applications.

"Everybody's trying to squeeze more for less," said B. Lindsay Lowell, a Georgetown University demographer. "The soft underbelly of the industry are these job shops."

Temps earn much less

But consultancies survive because they offer a flexible labor pool at marketable rates. Lowell's research shows temporary workers earn about half the salary of permanent workers.

He also found that 15 percent of H-1B workers do temporary work, three times the rate of nonimmigrant tech workers.

With some consultancies saying revenue has fallen as much as 60 percent, demand for even the most specialized H-1B workers has dropped by half.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) reported 16,000 new H-1B workers came to the United States in February, down from 32,000 a year ago.

Although the INS doesn't track how many H-1Bs return home before their visa expires, laid-off H-1B workers risk getting caught in a confusing web of INS regulations.

If an H-1B's employer fires the worker and then notifies the INS, the worker will have about 90 days - the time it takes to process the change - before leaving the country, according to INS spokeswoman Eyleen Schmidt.

Workers can appeal a revocation but have to show they stopped working under "extraordinary circumstances," she said.

That burden of proof angers H-1B worker advocates.

"If you can't find another job within the magic time period, after that you'll be out," said Murali Krishna Devarakonda, an H1-B software developer who speaks for an advocacy group, the Immigrant Support Network. "Imagine someone who's been here for five years, with their family, kids, in society. We are at the total mercy of the employers and the economy."

As the economy has slumped, Jindal has become all too familiar with San Francisco International Airport.

Last week he saw off three friends, all the while job hunting from a seat on "the bench" at the consultancy that originally hired him.

"I am angry and a little disappointed," said Jindal. "They must have earned a lot of money from me. They know how good I am at work. They should also take care of me."