Google’s "People Operations" Guy Talks Immigration Policy
June 6th, 2007 | Published in Google Public Policy
Today, there are literally hundreds of examples of immigrants and non-immigrant foreign workers playing a vital role at Google. Googlers holding H-1B visas -- which allow foreign-born workers with specialized skills to work in the U.S. on a temporary basis -- have helped lead the development of Google News and orkut. Immigrants from countries like Canada, Iran, and Switzerland now lead our business operations, global marketing, global business development, and data infrastructure operations.
As Congress grapples with various immigration reform proposals, Laszlo Bock, our Vice President of People Operations, testified today before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration about the practical impact that the U.S. immigration system has on Google.
In his testimony, Laszlo said that, due to limits on the number of H-1B visas, Google is regularly unable to pursue highly qualified candidates. Over the last year alone, the artificially low cap has prevented more than 70 Google candidates from receiving H-1B visas. Laszlo encouraged Congress to significantly increase the annual cap of 65,000 H-1B visas, and urged them to address the backlog of employment-based green cards for highly-skilled workers.
Check out the video of Laszlo's opening statement: