Google executives complain about 90 denied H-1B visas
Never mind that it rejected over a million other hopefuls last year: Google is really steamed that only 210 of its 300 work-visa hopefuls won the H-1B lottery. And Google lobbyist Pablo Chavez has also had it up to here with critics who say Google isn't doing enough for Americans and underprivileged U.S. students, insisting that Google has a diverse workforce and may even have some non-offshored money for black and Hispanic students — once they've proven their worth by completing two years of a computer-science or computer-engineering major on their own with a 3.5+ GPA — this at a time when budgets are down across the board for academic computer-science programs.
Pablo goes on to argue that if it was left up to U.S.-born talent, great software like Orkut might never have been developed. There you go!
In a follow-up, Computerworld reports Google PR is tap-dancing around the question of whether the 90 workers denied H-1B visas were actually denied any job at Google or just U.S.-based jobs. "As a company with a global presence, we're fortunate enough to be able to have employees work for us in other countries if they're not permitted to stay in the U.S.," a Google spokesperson emailed. "That said, many of our core products are created and improved upon here. We also believe that worker satisfaction is higher when employees can work in the location they prefer." So there you have it: According to Google, it's not applying for H-1B visas because it needs to have its workers in the U.S. It's just doing it for fun.