Silicon Valley: Internet search
giant Google on Wednesday urged the US government to raise the number of
H-1B visas by highlighting the contributions of its co-founder Sergey
Brin and the company's principal scientist Krishna Bharat, both
foreign-origin workers.
In Congressional testimony, Google Vice President of people operations
Laszlo Bock cited the emigration of the parents of company co-founder
Sergey Brin from the Soviet Union to the United States in 1979 as
evidence that admitting foreign workers into the country benefits the US
economy.
"We opened our doors to Sergey's parents — a mathematician and an
economist," said Bock.
"Our educational system served Sergey well — he attended the University
of Maryland and Stanford University. Our free market economy supported
Sergey and Larry's entrepreneurship and rewarded it when they proved
that they could turn their idea into a successful business."
Bock said people were Google's most vital competitive asset and without
these talented employees and others, the company and high-tech industry
as whole would not be the success it is today.
Krishna Bharat, a native of India joined Google in 1999 through H-1B
visa, and was one of the chief creators of Google News and is now its
principal scientist.
Bock said without Krishna and many other employees Google "will not be
able to offer innovating and useful new products to our users."
Each day Google finds itself unable to pursue highly qualified
candidates because there are not enough H-1B visas, he said adding it
will encourage Congress to significantly increase the annual cap of
65,000 H-1B visas to "reflect the growth rate of our technology
driven-economy."
Bock said Google is not the only Silicon Valley company to benefit from
immigration. "In fact, Google is just the most recent story for
immigrants in Silicon Valley. Intel, eBay, Yahoo, Sun Microsystems, and
many other companies were all founded by immigrants who were welcomed by
America".
Over the last 15 years, foreign nationals have started 25 per cent of US
venture-backed public companies, accounting for more than $500 billion
in market capitalization and adding significant value to our economy, he
noted.
"Hiring and retaining the most talented employees regardless of national
origin essential to US ability to compete globally. Companies like
Google will benefit from improving our policies towards non-US workers
including in the area of H-1B so that we can continue innovating and
growing."
Bock said some 8 per cent of Google's US employees are in this country
on a six-year H-1B visa because the company's "need to find the
specialized skills required to run our business successfully requires us
to look at candidates from around the globe — many of whom are already
in the US studying at one of our great universities."
"We are not the only ones recruiting talented engineers, scientists and
mathematicians. We are in a fierce worldwide competition for top talent
unlike ever before. As companies in India, China and other countries
step up efforts to attract highly skilled employees, the US must
continue to focus on attracting and retaining these great minds," he
said.
In the knowledge-based economy companies depend primarily on their
employees for their success. "America's edge depends on the ability of
US companies abilities to innovate...and that ability to innovate and
create, in turn, depends on having the best and brightest workers," he
added.
The H1B visa programme allows foreign scientists, technologist and
engineers to work in the US for six years.
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