"With the travails of the high-tech industry and the jump in IT unemployment, fewer U.S. companies can tap the H-1B program these days by saying qualified Americans aren't available. At the same time, many employers looking to slash costs have discovered that they can use firms that hire L-1s to dump high-paid Americans in favor of cheaper workers from abroad. "

This type of visa is already widely used now in the tech industry, and obviously would be very useful in the healthcare industry as well. The full article "A Loophole as Big as a Mainframe" appears in the March 10, 2003 issue of Business Week.

The H-1B visa, which we are most used to, requires employers to pay the foreign worker at the prevailing US rate, while the L-1 visa does NOT require that.

Since it is copyrighted, I don't include the full article here. Those who subscribe can find it easily enough on the BW website, however, those who don't subscribe can't access it there. Try your local newstand or your local library for what is likely to be the next big thing in healthcare staffing--agency staffing with foreign nurses at MUCH LOWER costs than regular employees.

Sjoe

Does this apply to Canadian RN's?

I know that many, many,many of my fellow ICU RN's have "gone south" with no problems or concerns regarding their visa's.

Actually just emailed exchanged (this am) with one who left for California and loves it there. Too bad, I miss him!

That's how I got my visa to stay in the UK so I can't say it's a bad thing. The nursing shortages here have got so bad the Home Office is willing to give visas to anyone with the right qualifications who is willing to stay and work. It can't just be any job though (to the best of my knowledge anway). In the UK and in Australia, there must be evidence that the job has been advertised internally and externally for long periods and remains unfilled after a certain amount of time (I think it's about 6 months). If you are an RN, have a UK-equivalent degree, have some experience and have UK registration, you are almost certain to get a visa to fill a nursing post. There are loads of agencies here who specialise in finding nurses overseas to fill posts, and they're making a killing.

Canadian Nurses get a TN Visa :)

Same thing happened in the early 1990's. The hospital where I worked at that time hired foreign recruited nurses with no-cancel contracts for lower pay. They then "phased out" the higher paid employees by cancelling enough shifts that the income went away.

One reason I went with union represented facility when I moved on...