Banks Hired Foreigners While Laying Off Americans

American banks chose to lay off American employees last year and hire foreign workers via an okay from the United States government for top paying positions. Visas were requested and granted for senior vice presidents and junior investment analysts for Citigroup and Bank of America. The average salaries for these positons given to foreigners started at $90,000.00. This new form of "outsourcing" is called "insourcing", which simply means bringing in foreign workers in to the United States to take the place of American workers. The banks that are now requesting a bailout from the government initially requested 21,800 visas for employees but since the government places a quota on visas for corporations, only a very small amount were actually granted to foreign workers. The primary reason corporations do this is in order to pay these employees a much lower salary than what they would otherwise pay to American workers.

While the practice is considered legal, there is the question of ethics involved. American corporations, on American soil, should have to consider first American employees, not foreign employees, even if it does save them a few dollars.

If these banks did not do so, they would not presently need a government bailout. Neither should the government grant corporations the ability to seek visas for recruiting foreign employees into the system.