Cvs abusing the H1b system

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sosoo

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is there a reason why CVS does more H1b visas than walgreens, rite aid (#1 and #3) pharmacies combined? also add walmart and cvs is still dolling out more H1b than they all combined.... is cvs abusing the H1b system? with pharmacists around the country struggling to find jobs and repay student loans, how long will we allow this abuse to go on? anyone like to bring this to the media? again walgreens is the #1 pharmacy in america, not cvs! yet it does a fraction of H1b that cvs is doing!

Pharmacist: 2017 H1B Visa Report(Job Title) | MyVisaJobs.com

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is there a reason why CVS does more H1b visas than walgreens, rite aid (#1 and #3) pharmacies combined? also add walmart and cvs is still dolling out more H1b than they all combined.... is cvs abusing the H1b system? with pharmacists around the country struggling to find jobs and repay student loans, how long will we allow this abuse to go on? anyone like to bring this to the media? again walgreens is the #1 pharmacy in america, not cvs! yet it does a fraction of H1b that cvs is doing!

Pharmacist: 2017 H1B Visa Report(Job Title) | MyVisaJobs.com
Why is it wrong?
 
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Is 138 really that many? It appears CVS employs 30,000 pharmacists. That's less than one half of one percent; 0.46% to be exact.
 
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Some H1B pharmacists attended school in the U.S. and many have been in the U.S. for quite some time. I also think an H1B permit confines you to one store, so if you have to work at another store you need a second permit.
 
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No one forced you take student loans out to pursue a career with a difficult job market. your sense of entitlement is not doing you any favors. h1b visa holders might have just as much debt as you do and are just as deserving of work as you are (maybe even more). There are a lot of issues with h1b visas that need reforming, but more in order to protect h1b visa holders from being exploited, and ensure that h4 visa holders have protections (e.g. not have to deal with tough choices like staying married to an abusive spouse or leaving said spouse and risking deportation); not to protect your sense of entitlement.

I get it, the job market is gloomy and it's stressful, plus it's ****ty to feel like we're just some interchangeable commodity. lashing out towards pharmacists who are even more vulnerable than you is not a good solution. It's a cheap shot, and it doesn't effectively address the problem.
 
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is there a reason why CVS does more H1b visas than walgreens, rite aid (#1 and #3) pharmacies combined? also add walmart and cvs is still dolling out more H1b than they all combined.... is cvs abusing the H1b system? with pharmacists around the country struggling to find jobs and repay student loans, how long will we allow this abuse to go on? anyone like to bring this to the media? again walgreens is the #1 pharmacy in america, not cvs! yet it does a fraction of H1b that cvs is doing!

Pharmacist: 2017 H1B Visa Report(Job Title) | MyVisaJobs.com

What's your problem with it? Afraid the immigrants are gonna come and take your job? Go cry to Trump.
 
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my problem again is that cvs is a 2nd rated company..... take a moment to dig that in..... there's no reason whatsoever that cvs is abusing the system such that it's far surpassing walgreens, the #1 pharmacy in the country. not only that, but you combine walgreens with rite aid (#3 in the country) and walmart and they are still less than Cvs! that clearly is an abuse of the system...
 
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Some H1B pharmacists attended school in the U.S. and many have been in the U.S. for quite some time. I also think an H1B permit confines you to one store, so if you have to work at another store you need a second permit.

It does not confine you to one store. You can easily be moved. Most of the positions that go to H1-b are usually open a long time. The highest that I have seen is 2 years.
 
I can't believe the others are ok with H1B pharmacists being hired. I'm against it 100% and I don't think it has anything to do with a feeling of personal entitlement. It's common sense. If there aren't enough jobs for citizens and permanent residents, it doesn't make any sense to give the jobs to H1B pharmacists. Even 1 is too many. From what I understand, even Canada doesn't allow visas for foreign workers if there is a Canadian who is qualified to do the job. They give the visas out for hard to fill jobs where internal supply does not meet the demand.

The qualified citizen rule applies in the US as well, but the important caveat is not just a qualified citizen, but a qualified citizen job applicant. If no qualified citizen applies to the job, and a business is willing to deal with the additional paperwork and the hoops they need to jump through to bring an h1b applicant on board, I don't see what the problem is. US citizens still get first dibs.

Also, the numbers sosoo posted include renewals, and it wasn't that long ago that there was a pharmacist shortage. Why should the h1b visa holders have to sacrifice their job and the employer have to deal with rehiring a new pharmacist now that the shortage is over? Also, we are literally talking about less than 1% of pharmacist jobs. This is not a real issue.
 
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is there a reason why CVS does more H1b visas than walgreens, rite aid (#1 and #3) pharmacies combined? also add walmart and cvs is still dolling out more H1b than they all combined.... is cvs abusing the H1b system? with pharmacists around the country struggling to find jobs and repay student loans, how long will we allow this abuse to go on? anyone like to bring this to the media? again walgreens is the #1 pharmacy in america, not cvs! yet it does a fraction of H1b that cvs is doing!

Pharmacist: 2017 H1B Visa Report(Job Title) | MyVisaJobs.com
I'd assume H1b holders are a better fit for cvs as it is much more strenuous RX work compared to all other retail employers. In my area cvs is known for hiring H1b and foreign graduates.
 
I always thought the reason was that CVS was such a crappy company to work for that Americans stayed away, and the only way CVS could get and retain pharmacists to staff their worst locations was by getting desperate H1Bs. Because if they quit, they get deported lol
 
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CVS tends not to offer signing bonuses AFAIK so it's hard for them, esp given their reputation, to attract new grads to BFE areas, unlike Walgreens and Walmart. H1B is a solution to that problem
 
150 jobs are really going to make the difference when thousands of excess are graduating.

Sure are a lot in Florida, though.

Back when I was practicing, retail pharmacists in Florida, whom I would call in large numbers in the fall and spring when the snowbirds came to and from, almost always seemed to be Asian women who were somewhat less than fluent in spoken English.
 
Is this like where we compain that immigrants are takin jobs doing work that we self-righteous 'Mericans would never lower ourselves to doing? Like locations so undesirable that CVS had to go through the hassle of dealing with the visa process to fill?
 
I think anyone that thinks that the H1B program is a good thing for America doesn't understand the program. Its modern slavery and any company uses it knows exactly what they are doing. I have seen it personally on both the employer and employee side. The program is just now starting to get some media attention but in Silicon Valley its been a way of life for over 2 decades. Imagine that your DM comes in tomorrow and tells you that a new pharmacists is going to shadow you and learn how you do your job for the next 90 days in order to get your severance. I don't care if it is 0.0001% of a company's FTE, it is still 85,000 jobs that are affected.
 
I think anyone that thinks that the H1B program is a good thing for America doesn't understand the program. Its modern slavery and any company uses it knows exactly what they are doing. I have seen it personally on both the employer and employee side. The program is just now starting to get some media attention but in Silicon Valley its been a way of life for over 2 decades. Imagine that your DM comes in tomorrow and tells you that a new pharmacists is going to shadow you and learn how you do your job for the next 90 days in order to get your severance. I don't care if it is 0.0001% of a company's FTE, it is still 85,000 jobs that are affected.



The video you posted is about the process involved with a current h1b visa employee applying for an employer-sponsored green card. yes, the company in this case is trying their best to game the system without actually violating the law, but the law is kind of backwards. The company already has an H1B visa employee, and they want to retain that employee (i.e. hire them on as a "permanent employee"; H1b visas are only good for six years in most circumstances), so they go through the process of sponsoring them for a green card (permanent US residency). The law requires that they post a wanted ad for the job that the h1b visa employee is currently occupying, in order to demonstrate that no other qualified us citizen would apply. Of course the company is going to do whatever they can to minimize the cost of jumping through this hoop and not actually put a good faith effort to hire a new employee - their goal is to retain the employee they already have (and have likely had for close to six years)!
 
The video you posted is about the process involved with a current h1b visa employee applying for an employer-sponsored green card. yes, the company in this case is trying their best to game the system without actually violating the law, but the law is kind of backwards. The company already has an H1B visa employee, and they want to retain that employee (i.e. hire them on as a "permanent employee"; H1b visas are only good for six years in most circumstances), so they go through the process of sponsoring them for a green card (permanent US residency). The law requires that they post a wanted ad for the job that the h1b visa employee is currently occupying, in order to demonstrate that no other qualified us citizen would apply. Of course the company is going to do whatever they can to minimize the cost of jumping through this hoop and not actually put a good faith effort to hire a new employee - their goal is to retain the employee they already have (and have likely had for close to six years)!

No. The company does not have a job that the visa applicant is currently occupying and that is the course of action. You cannot first hire a H1B visa without advertising the position. Are you implying that the employee in on another type of work visa? I would also caution about the snowball effect. Nobody gave a damn that a few new pharmacy schools popped up 17 years ago but now we talk about saturation. The same thing goes for these visas. The numbers start low and grow until the avalanche buries everyone.
 
No. The company does not have a job that the visa applicant is currently occupying and that is the course of action. You cannot first hire a H1B visa without advertising the position. Are you implying that the employee in on another type of work visa? I would also caution about the snowball effect. Nobody gave a damn that a few new pharmacy schools popped up 17 years ago but now we talk about saturation. The same thing goes for these visas. The numbers start low and grow until the avalanche buries everyone.

The video you posted specifically addresses the process of sponsoring an employee for a green card, not for an h1b visa. Those are two very different things.
 
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This is an unbelievably stupid conversation. Here would be something interesting, has that number grown or shrank over the last five years?

And what do you think we should do with the current holders, deport all few hundred of the them so that not one American can perceive the slightest bit of unfairness leveled against them?
 
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Comparing H1B abuses in the tech industry to pharmacy is an apples and oranges comparison. Does the fact that CVS sponsors more H1Bs than Wags/Rite-Aid/WM combined raise some eyebrows? Sure. But would a hiring manager rather hire a U.S. citizen and not jump through these hoops? Absolutely.

Show me examples of newly licensed pharmacists from overseas who are being granted H1Bs in 2017. Good luck. The pharmacists I've known who were on H1B were licensed 2005-2009. These were not pharmacists being sponsored to work in Phoenix or Vegas. Roseman existed and Midwestern existed during this period, yet no new grads would stick around in the BFE Colorado River towns.
 
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Are people here suggesting that CVS prefers to hire H1b over non-H1b applicants? From reading these SDN I just pick up a bias that many pharmacists don't want to work for CVS... some even if they are unemployed. I understand there are different perspectives on wether this means the company should alter their habits or offer more to change the opinion of those seeking employment but I also understand the capitalistic nature of business and fiduciary duty to do what they can in the interest of their shareholders.

Bottom line if they are hiring H1b in place of other qualified candidates who apply and have interest in the position then I'm against it. If there is no one to fill the needs of the business, I support any business doing what they can (legally) to meet their needs.
 
I know that they won't hire an intern that is H1B.
 
Anybody who is willing to work for CVS for 10 long years = automatic citizenship.


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I used to be on H1B visa, then I acquired permanent resident status, then I paid off student loan, then I started a real estate business with multiple properties for rental. I contribute a lot for this country.
 
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It is really up to CVS if they want to go through the effort and expense to sponsor a visa. They aren't abusing the system, they are hiring these pharmacists legally.
 
think of it this way. the way the DEA determine abuse is by comparing one pharmacy's dispensing of opioids versus the next guy. if one pharmacy dispenses wayyyyyy more opioids than neighboring pharmacies, abuse is determined,, n license revoked.. cvs is a second rated pharmacy, and its doing wayyyyyy more h1b visa than walgreens, the #1 pharmacy.. thats not enough, u add rite aid and walmart and cvs is still dolling out more h1b than they all combined! how is it not an abuse?
 
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think of it this way. the way the DEA determine abuse is by comparing one pharmacy's dispensing of opioids versus the next guy. if one pharmacy dispenses wayyyyyy more opioids than neighboring pharmacies, abuse is determined,, n license revoked.. cvs is a second rated pharmacy, and its doing wayyyyyy more h1b visa than walgreens, the #1 pharmacy.. thats not enough, u add rite aid and walmart and cvs is still dolling out more h1b than they all combined! how is it not an abuse? do u guys even took statistics and or able to make analysis?
You keep saying CVS is number two, but is that true? I would think after buying all those Target pharmacies it would be number 1.

Also since we are talking about statistical analysis, what can we say about analysing such small numbers? If pharmacy A is dispensing 150 controls a month out of 14,000 scripts and pharmacy B is dispensing 380 controls a month out of 15,000 scripts, is B "abusing"? It's not that simple, and I think you know that. All the H1B visas combined make such a small percentage of the workforce that making a meaningful analysis is difficult. Basically what is the P value for your hypothesis that CVS is abusing the system? ;)

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think of it this way. the way the DEA determine abuse is by comparing one pharmacy's dispensing of opioids versus the next guy. if one pharmacy dispenses wayyyyyy more opioids than neighboring pharmacies, abuse is determined,, n license revoked.. cvs is a second rated pharmacy, and its doing wayyyyyy more h1b visa than walgreens, the #1 pharmacy.. thats not enough, u add rite aid and walmart and cvs is still dolling out more h1b than they all combined! how is it not an abuse? do u guys even took statistics and or able to make analysis?
In addition to owlgrad's post, you also aren't controlling for any confounding variables. If pharmacy B is geographically closer to more ERs then it would make sense that they dispense more controls than pharmacy A. If CVS has more pharmacies in hard to employ areas, then it makes sense that they have more H1B visa employees.
 
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do u guys even took statistics and or able to make analysis?

What?

But in all seriousness, there's so many things wrong with the entire statement. Like owle said, what makes walgreen's #1? CVS has more stores, not including target pharmacies, and more employees, so what metric are you using and what proof do you have?

And no, abuse is not determined nor is licenses solely revoked purely on number of narcotics filled. I'm sure you didn't mean that, but that's how you're sentence is worded.
 
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This is an unbelievably stupid conversation. Here would be something interesting, has that number grown or shrank over the last five years?

And what do you think we should do with the current holders, deport all few hundred of the them so that not one American can perceive the slightest bit of unfairness leveled against them?

I'm not sure if anyone cares what company is using the visas but the fact that they are asking for them period. Here are some stats from the DOJ for 2016 applicants that were approved.
The chain pharmacies are not the majority but CVS is using 20% of staff pharmacists for the year. I guess we don't have much saturation if companies are using this program. Must be plenty of jobs out there and more reasons for a school to consider opening a pharmacy school.

Pharmacist

Total Pharmacist H1b: 458
Average Salary: $109,000
Total Hires CVS: 94
Total Hires RA: 85
Total Hires WAGS: 27

Pharmacy Manager
Total Pharmacist H1b: 121
Average Salary: $118,000
Total Hires CVS: 63
Total Hires RA: 0
Total Hires WAGS: 7
 
Reality is, no company is hiring any new H1B visa pharmacists. The reason they aren't is because it has become cheaper with the glut of pharmacists, to hire US pharmacists, rather than pay for an H1B visa pharmacist. The H1B visa pharmacists here have held their job for many years, and if they lose their job they will be deported, because nobody else is going to hire them. Now whether or not H1B is being abused in other jobs, I don't know, but it's not happening in pharmacy.
 
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