Tech firms faking job ads to avoid hiring US workers?

Companies like Hewlett Packard, Cisco, and others are being accused of skirting federal laws to hire foreign workers while laying off American geeks. Cringely labors to uncover the truth.

Meanwhile, HP recently announced it's slashing 24,600 employees as a result of its merger with EDS, half of them employed in the States. According to SiliconValley.com, "HP said it plans to replace about half those jobs with new positions performing other functions."

It will be interesting to see how they define "other functions."

Of course, HP is hardly the only company suspected of doing this. Cisco has been accused of running similarly bogus ads. Last year, the Guild posted a YouTube video showing Pittsburgh law firm Cohen & Grisgsby giving a tutorial on how to skirt the legal requirements to hire H-1B workers that created a small firestorm on the Net and even woke up two members of Congress. (They resumed their nap shortly thereafter.)

Is this illegal? Technically not, says Berry. "But the companies are supposed to make a good faith effort to hire Americans. It's not good faith if they're getting resumes from highly qualified candidates and looking for reasons not to hire them."

Finally, frequent Cringe contributor J. H. shares this viral video, titled "Developers Are in Pain." It doesn't have anything to do with immigration or H-1B visas, but it's pretty damned funny -- and very true.

Have you been PERMed out of a job? E-mail your tale of woe to cringe@infoworld.com. We'll get back to you...after we've interviewed Enrique, Sanjay, and Vlad.

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