CS Professor Argues Silicon Valley Is Exploiting Both H-1B Visas And Workers (huffingtonpost.com) 318
schwit1 quotes Norm Matloff, a CS professor at the University of California at Davis, on H-1B visa programs:
The Trump administration has drafted a new executive order that could actually mean higher wages for both foreign workers and Americans working in Silicon Valley. The Silicon Valley companies, of course, will not be happy if it goes into effect... Their lobbyists claim there is a "talent shortage" among Americans and thus that the industry needs more of such work visas. This is patently false. The truth is that they want an expansion of the H-1B work visa program because they want to hire cheap, immobile labor -- i.e., foreign workers.
To see how this works, note that most Silicon Valley firms sponsor their H-1B workers, who hold a temporary visa, for U.S. permanent residency (green card) under the employment-based program in immigration law. EB sponsorship renders the workers de facto indentured servants; though they have the right to move to another employer, they do not dare do so, as it would mean starting the lengthy green card process all over again.
Computerworld also argues this year's annual H-1B visa lottery "may be different, because of President Donald Trump," reporting that the lottery has historically favored the largest firms heavily. "In the 2015 fiscal year, for instance, the top 10 firms received 38% of all the H-1B visas in computer occupations alone. All these firms, except for Amazon and to a partial extent IBM, are outsourcers."
To see how this works, note that most Silicon Valley firms sponsor their H-1B workers, who hold a temporary visa, for U.S. permanent residency (green card) under the employment-based program in immigration law. EB sponsorship renders the workers de facto indentured servants; though they have the right to move to another employer, they do not dare do so, as it would mean starting the lengthy green card process all over again.
Computerworld also argues this year's annual H-1B visa lottery "may be different, because of President Donald Trump," reporting that the lottery has historically favored the largest firms heavily. "In the 2015 fiscal year, for instance, the top 10 firms received 38% of all the H-1B visas in computer occupations alone. All these firms, except for Amazon and to a partial extent IBM, are outsourcers."
Lack of talent my ass!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Seeings how they are TRAINING their low wage replacements, exactly how low talent are they??
Anyone who doesn't understand that low talent is the new code word for "we make too much money according to you" needs to wake up!
Re: Lack of talent my ass!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
I worked for a big IT outsourcing company. Every couple weeks they lay off 100-200 americans. Quietly. This way the media doesnt pick up on it. They are then replaced by folks from india. There is actually a written HR policy titled "india first"
Customers have gotten wise to this and started putting it in their contracts that we must use US based labor. They got around that by bringing in h1b labor.
They started laying off everyone in mexico because they said that labor was too expensive.... moved those call centers to the phillipines.
It has nothing to do with talent. Its all money. We had, and still have, no shortage of qualified US labor. We just laid them off at every opportunity to bring in cheaper labor. Thats why i left. Good thing i did. 2 months later, they gutted my dept of folks making six figures.
Re:Lack of talent my ass!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe they should limit H1B to people who teach US workers. After all, if they are low talent... Train them up!
Seems like banning outsourcing companies from getting H1Bs would solve most of the problem.
Re:Lack of talent my ass!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
The very fact that they are training their replacements means that these jobs are not H-1B eligible jobs and that visa fraud is being committed. H-1B visas should be used when no workers with the skills are already available in the work pool. This would be workers who are already citizens, or permanent residents ('green' cards).
The fact that an American citizen is currently doing the job, and is willing to continue doing the job means that there is an American citizen available to do the job. Therefore the job is not eligible for H-1B visa.
Companies commit this fraud through the Human Resources (HR) equivalent of 'creative accounting'. The company will define a title for the current worker, just a descriptive label that has no legal status, something like 'Systems Design Analyst, Level III'. Then HR will define a description for the job, again a made up label, like 'Programmer First Class level IV'.
The company will say, "Oh boo hoo! We have no "Programmer First Class level IV" programmers and can't seem to find any in the USA! Whatever will we do? Our profits are doomed!" The company happens to work with a partner in India who sources H-1B visa worker, and amazingly this Indian company has a whole bunch of recent graduates with freshly printed certificates that show what good "Programmer First Class level IV' programmers that they all are, and look how cheap they are as well.
The current worker, who is not qualified for the job on paper but created all the software the job entails, is given the option of working for six months, training their replacement, a severance package, and no argument when they apply for unemployment insurance, or getting fired immediately and having the company deny them unemployment insurance.
The very fact that an American citizen is training an H-1B replacement means, in the real world, that visa fraud is being committed. However, there are no laws for truth in job descriptions like there are laws for truth in accounting that prevent companies from easily committing this massive fraud.
If there is truly a talent shortage, higher H-1B wages will help create a drive to train more workers within the USA and will reward any H-1B talent that is brought in to the US for their work. The only reason not to pay H-1B workers more is if you want to commit fraud and replace Americans with cheap labour.
Re:Lack of talent my ass!!! (Score:5, Informative)
You, like everyone here, get the general intent of the H-1B program correct, but you miss the legal loophole that tech companies put in. It requires companies to prove they're not displacing American workers OR pay H-1B holders $60,000. Guess which option companies choose?
https://www.theatlantic.com/bu... [theatlantic.com]
"n 1998—during the tech bubble—lawmakers amended the law to provide more visas at the request of the growing tech industry. At the same time, legislators cracked down on outsourcing companies that were employing large numbers of H-1B workers from Asia, and then contracting them out to American companies looking to save money. Though these consultants are typically called “outsourcing firms,” in a sense their work related to the H-1B visa program is better described as “insourcing,” since what they’re doing is helping companies find workers abroad whom they bring here for new jobs.
Under the amended law, companies that rely heavily on H-1B workers (more than 15 percent of their workforce) would now face additional scrutiny when applying for visas. These companies would have to promise not only that their H-1B workers would not replace American employees at their own company, but that they wouldn’t be used as replacements at firms that the company had contracts with either.
The new requirement would have provided some additional security for American workers, but a seemingly small, yet significant exemption was also written into the law. It allows those same H-1B reliant companies to ignore the requirements about protecting American jobs as long as they pay the foreign workers at least $60,000 a year, or hire a foreign worker with a master’s degree. It’s unclear why this exemption was included, though critics of the H-1B program say tech companies lobbied for it to undermine the new, tougher restrictions that might impact their ability to hire foreign workers. Considering the average IT worker in the United States makes far more than $60,000, that exemption makes it lucrative—and legal—for companies to displace American workers with cheaper H-1B workers. And it effectively undoes the additional protections of the 1998 bill."
Re: (Score:2)
There is a big misconception that workers are training their replacement. They are not training they are doing knowledge transfer. There is a lot of configuration and company specific practices in any IT setup. It would take considerable time to reverse engineer the details if proper documentation has not been done (which face it is not done otherwise the current employees would be efficient enough to not need replacement)
When outsourcing of a function is done, the company is not really replacing the worker
Re: (Score:3)
They could reuse the same employees being replaced and have better outcomes.
Really? Then why with that option and the massive labour pool available to them on and offshore do the outsourcing companies fail to deliver even equivalent outcomes?
Outsource your IT if you want to hit headcount numbers. Do not outsource your IT if you want to improve outcomes.
Re: (Score:2)
Obviously they are getting better outcomes else why are they doing it? I believe the opinion of management running multi billion companies counts more than yours on what defines a good outcome
Re: (Score:3)
Holy shit you're naive.
Outsourcing comes and goes in cycles. It gets sold to management as a big cost saving, they reduce headcount, cash in the big bonus and fuck off on a fat pension.
New management realise how shit the service they're getting is, end up rebuilding the whole in house capability.
Repeat.
what defines a good outcome
That big fat pension. Nothing else, or they wouldn't fucking outsource.
Re: (Score:2)
I've seen this firsthand. It started with the idea the companies should focus on core competencies [wikipedia.org] and outsource everything else to 'experts'. IT was one of the first things to go because it was relatively new compared to accounting and HR, and theoretically more easily split off. The reality was that IT was no longer part of the corporate team, if you will, and their goals, such as keeping support costs to a minimum, while keeping everyone's management happy would piss
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, IT outsourcing used to have the 'non-core' justification.
These days most businesses are IT businesses. They just don't necessarily realise it.
Re: (Score:2)
The thing is, poor management is generally MORE work for the rank and file, they jkust don't have anything to show for it later because management took it's eye off the ball. Replace the management and they will likely be very happy to find they're doing less pointless work and actually have something to show for it.
There is no work out there that doesn't seem twice as hard when you know it's pointless.
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, some of these aren't very good, so knowledge transfer is useless without skills transfer too.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
they always promise 3-6 months of severance if you train your replacement. someone cracks and then the rest fall.
Re:Lack of talent my ass!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
IF there is a lack of talent, why is that? Could it be because wages are too low to attract people into that field? So the cure is to raise wages, not to lower them even further by bringing in more foreign workers. Republicans and neo-liberal Democrats pretend to believe in the free market... in everything except labor. A free market in labor means that salaries rise until the needed workers are attracted.
Re:Lack of talent my ass!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
IF there is a lack of talent, why is that? Could it be because wages are too low to attract people into that field? So the cure is to raise wages, not to lower them even further by bringing in more foreign workers. Republicans and neo-liberal Democrats pretend to believe in the free market... in everything except labor. A free market in labor means that salaries rise until the needed workers are attracted.
Let me tell you logically why the argument doesn't hold up. India has 4x our population. They are supposedly much more educated than Americans thus we need their H-1B visas to fuel our tech sector due to the so-called shortage of equivalent American workers. One would think if India is so much more advanced in the STEM field that because they have 4x the amount of people their tech sector ought to be booming and much more advanced thus compelling Americans and other countries to do the equivalent of the H-1B visa to go work there for better opportunities. Except... that's not happening. Why?
Re:Lack of talent my ass!!! (Score:4, Informative)
One word - oil. America's wealth is built on being the Saudi Arabia of the early 20th century.
There was a lot of capital created by the robber barons and they invested it in multiple companies which could afford to innovate due to the capital cushion .
America still produces more oil than Saudi and throughout the last 120 years has been one of the top 2 or 3 producers. With cheap oil= cheap energy everything becomes easier. India has negligible amounts of oil. Don't kid yourself that Americans are rich because they are superior, they are just lucky.
A bonus word - immigrants. In every generation the wealth of America attracts the cream from around the world. They keep the innovation factory running. Even though their 1st and 2nd generation descendants revert to the American mean it doesnt matter as newer , smarter, hungrier immigrants keep coming.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So Politicians are actually Super cool guys who had to do all the most evil and vilest things so that average Americans can feel good about themselves without staining our hands in blood.
It's like sacrificing themselves to do the necessary evil so we can all be hippies and hipsters and embrace awesome lifestyle choices!
Man they are so misunderstood! Respect!
What an incoherent jumble. Are you suggesting that Americans should be devoting themselves to propping up the rest of the world? Why isn't that ever reciprocated? I don't see any other countries that are enjoying the benefits of their protectionist policies giving anything back like China.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I don't buy this. You could equally argue that not enough people are getting the educations they need to do these jobs because they know the jobs are going to foreign workers at cheap rates. In other words the H-1Bs could, at least in part be the cause of the "shortage" if such a thing really exists.
That is PRECISELY my point. The facts don't support a true STEM worker shortage. Back when the H-1B visa program was passed in 1990, that was the claim, that there was a shortage of STEM workers. I think when you say H-1B's could be the part of the shortage, what you must mean is that the shortage from the American worker's perspective is because less jobs available for American citizens for fair wages and working arrangements because they are going to H-1B visas because they will work more hours a week
Re: (Score:2)
During the recession the H1 quota never got filled. It shows that the free market works
Re: (Score:3)
Indeed. I like one idea I've heard that H1-B workers should be required to be paid well over the market rate for their position. After all, if there's honestly a talent shortage that's what you would expect to happen.
That, and give H1-Bs an employer-independent path to citizenship to avoid the worst abuses of the indenture trap.
I'm all for importing skilled labor, *if* it's not done in a way directly leveraged to bring down wages. I mean yeah, increasing the labor supply is going to unavoidably have some
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Lack of talent my ass!!! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There's plenty of charity in the US to keep your family from actually starving, so that's a bit hyperbolic.
It you're in "IT" you might as well be making buggy whips at this point, and should have an exit strategy. If you're a software developer, there are plenty of jobs to be had automating all the "IT guys" out of a job.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Lack of talent my ass!!! (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
keeping it's citizens alive
Drama queen much? Even in the Great Depression, before there was any kind of social safety net, almost no-one actually starved. The government has no business giving money to anyone, beyond what the democratically expressed will of the people require. If the people want to government to take over for the various private secular mutual aid societies of the 30s-50s, that's OK. But that's not only the government's job if and to the extent the majority want it to be.
The sad failure mode we've entered is ass
Re: (Score:2)
Are the owners in on this? If not, they might not realize their management is backstabbing them to funnel money to management's friends. You might send the owners a letter about this - the results could be entertaining.
Have laptop. Will work. How about free roaming? (Score:2)
I want to be able to take my self, my team maybe, my family maybe (depends on the situation) to whichever piece of rocky real estate on this watery planet that I want, as long as it has an Internet connection, and frickin' work and play.
I'm not telling you where I was born or grew up, because it doesn't matter and it's none of your damn business, as far as I can tell.
What's wrong with this model?
I suppose remnant governments fixing the roads and hospitals and stuff would still like to collect some tax on th
Re: (Score:2)
A heck of a lot of problems are easier to solve with people in the same room together. I have worked with some colleagues remotely trying to solve some incredibly difficult problems and what it finally took was everyone in the same room together for a few days to get it figured out.
Lots of paper, stuff written on the white board and discussions with far too many math equations but the problem was solved.
If you work for a company that makes a physical product you often have material engineers, electrical eng
missing tag (Score:3, Funny)
#noshitsherlock
Don't tie the green card to the company (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Green card is not H1B. Never mix the two.
Green card is not tied to employer, but usually need an employer to sponsor it. Employers are usually reluctant to sponsor because the employee is the free to leave.
Re:Don't tie the green card to the company (Score:4, Informative)
Stop repeating that obsolete nonsense. Employees on H-1Bs can easily change employers (I've done it); the old employer won't even find out until you have your new job. That's been the law of the land for a long time.
Re:Don't tie the green card to the company (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not whether they find out or not, the real issue is that most employers have a "waiting window" for new H1B hires. Nothing stops you from moving to a new company but you will have to put in that initial time (which many HR heads blame the legal team for taking a long time, and in many cases the legal team can "lose" your paperwork or it can get rejected on technicality due to a law change). So this has nothing to do with you (as employee), but more to do with profits. While you are in this waiting period you will work hard and I have seen people pretty much live at work. This is pretty much indentured servitude. And if they don't like it they can leave anytime, and start this process again with still no guarantee that they will get a green card. People in charge (usually head of HR and whoever is doing payroll/finance, CFO or CIO depending on company), know that they are getting a good thing, why not get the most of it.
I have worked in this industry for over 3 decades and met many good people who were stuck in this process, some lucky ones got their green cards after 5 years because they were very good (and often had to threaten leaving to "hurry" the legal process) and the company could not afford to lose them. I have worked with people who were on it for over 10 years and some just went back home because they got tired of the hours and low pay and missed their families; QA, support and IT people had it worst, as they were worked for very long hours and I felt that there was no urgency to get them green cards because they could be easily replaced. Software developers (especially good ones) had a significantly easier time.
It's a well intentioned system that as always gets abused for profit.
Re: (Score:2)
How does that make you an "indentured servant"? You are free to change jobs while you are on an H-1B (what you erroneously call a "waiting period"); if you think your old employer is too slow applying for a green card for you, switch to a new employer.
Re:Don't tie the green card to the company (Score:5, Interesting)
Changing job with an H1B is trivially easy. Changing job while in the process of getting a green card, will reset your application and set you back years.
Re: (Score:2)
There is an easy solution. Make the Greencard priority date portable. Or go by European Union's solution. GIve a Greencard automatically without company sponsorship after you have spent 5 years in the country. If you were good enough to be part of the US workforce(and pay taxes) for 5 years you should be good enough to be here permanently.
Or take the sponsorship of immigration out of private company hands. Immigration should be in govt hands.
A point system based immigration where English skills, college deg
Re: (Score:3)
Not the same thing. Green card applicants on H1B have not broken the law by coming in illegally and hoping for an amnesty. Do not conflate legal and illegal immigration.
Re: (Score:3)
You can't be that dumb - you must see that legal immigrants and illegal migrants are not the same category. Of course you do - you're just lying.
Believe me, all the legal immigrants who've gone through all the shit you have to go through to get a Green Card know the difference!
Re: (Score:2)
Let the H1-Bs change companies easily. Those who suck will stay low wage and not be a problem for me. Those who are good can easily find a job that pays them what they're worth.
In case you didn't know H-1B is a temporary work visa meaning they come here, make our money then leave and take it back to their own country. How does that help America?
Re: Don't tie the green card to the company (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In case you didn't know H-1B is a temporary work visa meaning they come here, make our money then leave and take it back to their own country. How does that help America?
They come here, they pay taxes like everyone else, they help their employer make money as everyone else, they pay rent as everyone else, and if they leave the country the US doesn't have to deal with the elder years.
Re:Don't tie the green card to the company (Score:5, Insightful)
They can! It's called an H1B transfer. So if you have such a visa and are working for, say, Microsoft, and you want to move to Avanade, you can. It doesn't go against the national H1B cap since it's a visa that's already been issued. Which is why companies are more willing to do H1B transfers as opposed to a brand new H1B, which runs into those limits
The real issue in question is what was mentioned in the summary:
EB sponsorship renders the workers de facto indentured servants; though they have the right to move to another employer, they do not dare do so, as it would mean starting the lengthy green card process all over again.
So the issue workers have is not that an H1B can't be transferred, but rather, that if a worker changes companies, then the company he's quitting would obviously stop applying for his Green Card, and the process would be reset w/ the new company. Also consider the fact that few employers would apply for a Green Card immediately: they'd want the worker to be w/ them from 6 months to a year. So, in the above example, if Srinivas' I-140 has been approved and he decides to leave Microsoft and join Avanade, not only does he lose that I-140 approval and everything, he then loses that time it's taken him, PLUS the time Avanade would like to try him out before deciding whether to file his I-140. So that is what would keep him in that company at least until his Green Card is approved
easy to fix without adding more limits (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
If you want to end exploitation of H1B visa holders, it seems like the easiest step would be to let visa holders change employers without restarting the H1B process. This would reduce the exploitation factor, since employees could walk away from bad jobs. It wouldn't require guessing what a reasonable salary bound would be, but would let the market decide that, instead.
That's good for H1B visa holders but it still means that people in the United States now have to compete with everyone. Not everyone from a particular country, everyone on planet Earth. This means you are competing with the lowest common denominator for quality of life. Life in country XYZ maybe a hellscape and working in the US for minimum wage and living with nine other people in a home is much better. This means that workers in the US need to be willing to work for the same low wages and live in home
Re: (Score:2)
No that is good for everyone. Because the american worker (citizen or permanent resident) would only be competing against legal alien, and not the population of the entire world. These work visa could still be restricted per field and have wage lower bounds.
What we would gain with visa portability is visa holders would become indistinguishable from the american worker to the companies. Then doing statistics on them to decide how many new visa to emit the year after and how to change the minimum wages bounds
Re: (Score:2)
I got a better idea. How about we just scrap the H1B program and let people immigrate normally.
Re:easy to fix without adding more limits (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
e H1B an auction, where employers bid for them instead of distribution by lottery.
If you mean "allocate by highest-salary first", then that is in fact the proposal Trump made, and is the current bill in the House with bi-partisan support. It also adds as $130k minimum wage for H1-Bs, thanks to a Dem rep from CA.
$130k minimum, allocate by salary. This will fix all but the worst of the exploiters, and make the people with actual talent shortages happy (the worst exploiters just steal the pay back, so it doesn't matter how much).
Re: (Score:2)
If you want to end exploitation of H1B visa holders, it seems like the easiest step would be to let visa holders change employers without restarting the H1B process. This would reduce the exploitation factor, since employees could walk away from bad jobs. It wouldn't require guessing what a reasonable salary bound would be, but would let the market decide that, instead.
This is something they can do already. What can change is that if they are already in the process of getting a Green Card and switch jobs, then the process won't be reset. That way, they won't have to work under ugly working conditions, and can move to better jobs w/o slowing down their naturalization process
"Indentured Servitude" looks a bit different (Score:3, Interesting)
In particular, there is no early way out and after you have served your time you are free. This really does not match what is going on here.
As to the issue itself, if H1Bs are reduced enough or made economically non-viable, companies will just move the jobs offshore. There really is no way for US workers to win this one and anybody saying differently is a big fat liar, ah, I mean "purveyor of alternate facts" of course!
Re:"Indentured Servitude" looks a bit different (Score:5, Insightful)
FALSE.
The jobs overseas are *already* much cheaper than what the H1B's are getting paid. If it were possible to have these jobs overseas ---they would already be there---, and that is cold hard fact. The jobs going to H1B are jobs that require face-to-face interaction with people here in the United States.
The 'alternate fact' here is the obvious bluff from tech companies (Let us play by our rules or we'll ship jobs overseas). The only response that has any integrity is "Well, take your goddamn ball and GO home then."
Re: (Score:2)
The current mode of outsourcing is companies having their IT staff manage onsite consultants who work with offshore resources. Take away H1Bs and the model will change with no more onsite IT staff. Not just the H1B contractors but also the employees would have to go and the work would now be on amanaged services basis where the entire department is offshore. This is difficult to pull off but once done it means those jobs are never coming back. In the current model as India becomes more expensive the jobs ca
Re: (Score:3)
"As to the issue itself, if H1Bs are reduced enough or made economically non-viable, companies will just move the jobs offshore."
Setting up a whole new offshore operation, or having to deal with a new international subsidiary, is a much more expensive and complicated process than just lying to the feds about your abuse of the H-1B system.
If H1B's really were about bringing talent (Score:3)
a big win for Silicon Valley (Score:4, Insightful)
Companies like Google and Facebook pay their H-1B workers quite well. Their problem has been that the H-1B visas in recent years have been snapped up by low-paying outsourcing and contracting firms who have spammed the H-1B lottery with applications.
Trump's proposed system gives priority to H-1B visa applications based on salary. This is a big win for Silicon Valley companies, because they pay some of the highest salaries. It's a big loss for the outsourcing and contracting firms.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:a big win for Silicon Valley (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you read anything I wrote? Trump's changes to the H-1B program are intended to change that, so that the visas go to the most high paying, most specialized jobs.
SV isn't "setting policy"; SV backed Clinton, who generally has supported the current lottery program combined with increases in the number of visas. Trump is proposing to decrease the number of visas but allocate them to the most well-paying jobs. That's probably a good thing for SV, but it's not what SV was lobbying for.
Re: (Score:2)
The Silicon valley companies pay high salaries to their R&D staff. They do not pay high salaries to IT staff. They use a shitload of contractors from big outsourcing firms to run their IT most on H1. They oppose H1 reform because while they would gain on the R&D front the disruption on the IT front is an unknown. It could actually disrupt their companies enough for some of them to go out of business. Google and Apple both use outsourced IT. Imagine a world without Google and iPhones.
Simple solution (Score:2)
Matloff's myths on "indentured servitude" (Score:2)
I guess people have caught on to the fact that H-1B visas became portable long ago a
Re: (Score:2)
Well, yes and no. H1B are not actually that portable. The only thing that "portability" means is once you have an H1B, any new H1B application for you is no longer capped for quotas. But you still need a new H1B visa.
That means that your new employer still needs to fill a full application for your new H1B visa. That is an expensive process, and many companies do not want to do that or do not have the legal department to follow up with that.
So while yes, H1B are more flexible that people think, they are not
Re: (Score:2)
You're shifting the goalposts here. The claim was that H-1B workers are indentured servants; they clearly are not since they can change jobs and usually many employers are happy to take them.
Similar thing in Germany (Score:2)
The Society of German Engineers (VDI) regularly hyperinflates the numbers of required IT experts and engineers and open positions by orders of magnitude to get more people into University studying related fields to keep up the supply of fresh cheap graduates that can be bought cheaply and sold out expensively and score contractors some neat margins. It's the very same kind of ultimate bullsh*t, just with a slightly different goal.
H1B visas increase housing prices (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Rents would still go up if there were Americans working at IT jobs. Americans would not be paid less than H1s so how does that solve homelessness unless you are claiming the homeless are computer programmers (highly doubt that). Its a global world America has gained much more than it has lost from globalization. Without globalization a TV would cost 10000 dollars and people would buy one in their lives and pay a 20 year loan to afford it. Never underestimate the benefit of cheap goods to your lifestyle
Why does this come as a surprise? DUH! (Score:2)
Ok, so Silicon Valley contains a lot of tech companies that want to operate efficiently, so they’re going to naturally look for ways to cut costs, including employee salaries. H1-B workers are cheaper, so they’ll naturally want to investigate that option. Many H1-B visa holders are pretty decent, so they’re viable to hire. The tech company lawyers will be checking to make sure they’re being legal in their hires, but of course, they’re going to make sure they only conform to
Good business is exploitation (Score:2)
The more competitive and successful your business, the more you are exploiting the available resources - these days especially human resources.
If the resources being exploited are in agreement that it is a mutual benefit, then we're all good.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah but the problem is the companies are able to do the exploitation because they hold the key to immigration. Take immigration out of the hands of companies. Put in a point based immigration system and people will not stand the exploitation and ask for better working conditions (wages are already at par as per law. Its the working conditions where the exploitation happens. Unpaid Night and weekend work. Abusive bosses. Racist colleagues).
Why, are employers paying less for H1B's than... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's legalized slave trading. And pretty much everyone is doing it because it is easy and cheap and there are virtually no repercussions for gaming the system and abusing your workers.
This is why H1-B should go to the highest wages (Score:2)
All H1-B visa requests should go into a pool and from that entries should be selected in descending order from the highest wages. Then the companies that are seriously trying to bring someone in that they really can't get would get the people they need. I have seen companies try to bring a single person in and where offering a LOT for the job but never won the lottery for the H1-B slot.
This seems like it would almost entirely address the current problems of H1-B being used to drive wages down. It is hard to
Re: (Score:2)
The problem with the lottery is that companies cant wait months for critical positions. A lottery in April where the person becomes eligible in October means that the only people who can go for H1 are the consulting companies filing speculatively with the assumption they will have a job for the person in October.
A solution would be a monthly lottery. Application filed in the first week of every month would need to be processes and cleared by the end of the month (yes I know INS folks will actually have to w
Re: (Score:2)
One company I knew took 2 years to fill a position and finally hired someone that was not qualified and is trying to train them to do the job but the problem is that they don't really know how to train someone to do the job. There where some people in other countries that could have done the job but they where never able to get them to the USA.
Re: (Score:2)
If someone offshore knows how to do the job why not send the employee offshore for 3-6 month training assignment? Have an agreement that either he/she works for you 1 year after training completed or refunds the cost of training.
Re: (Score:2)
It would not take 3-6 months it would take 2-3 years.Some of these newer fields are combining knowledge of chemistry, manufacturing and computer science. It is just not that easy to teach someone to do it.
Efforts have been made to have different people do each part of it and mostly that has failed. The issues are complex enough that you really do need one mind to at least know enough about all of those that the problem can be fully developed and specialized tasks can then be divided out.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd like to be able to hire the old interns after they graduate. But NCGs aren't going to get the highest wage.
Having people come to the US, pay for our expensive Universities, and get a job here helps everyone. I'm happy to add a foreign worker who is likely going to become a permanent resident to our local tax base.
Re: (Score:2)
I see this as a separate issue. If you make it to a US university and graduate your diploma should come with a visa and a path to a greencard. There should be no H1-B or anything else. In my graduating class we had chemical engineers that had to return to their home countries in a field where unemployment is around 0.5%. They should have all been able to stay.
Become a licensed profession (Score:2)
The real cure for this is to make IT a licensed profession like teaching, accounting, medicine, law and engineering. Look back over that list of 5 professions - is there any serious doubt that quality, ethical IT that meets some kind of minimum standards is as needed for modern society as in those five?
But licensing has a second effect that has similarities to unionization. (In some ways, it's the opposite of unions - a state licensing body has to explain to new professionals every year that THEY do n
With an union as well! (Score:2)
With an union as well!
licensed profession like teaching, medicine, law and engineering are union in varying ways.
Visa issue behind block on travel ban? (Score:2)
Interesting that this started in Washington state.
Trump seems to have the law on his side, but the 9th circuit court seems determined to ignore the law, ignore the clearly defined separation of powers, and legislate from the bench.
U.S. Code, Title 8, Chapter 12, Subchapter II, Part II, p1182(f) 2013 reads: "Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such
BS (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That is what Trump is proposing.
Re: (Score:2)
Everyone and their mothers will be including "jobs for americans" in their campaigns for the next 12+ years, so indirectly he might end fixing it, assuming he don't completely wreck america.
Re: (Score:2)
You know what will happen if 135K is made the minimum salary? People with no computer skills will sign up for the job and then outsource it at a personal level to offshore counterparts. Pay the offshore guy 30K and you can still lead a good life for 100K. As long as you are willing to take a few phone calls after dinner you are set
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's (roughly) the way it works today, except it's they'll be paid 'more' than the average salary for the position they're in.
The problem isn't the 50% bit, it's the 'the position they're in' bit. The contracting firms like Infosys fill positions that are generic contractor roles - *not* highly skilled positions, which command low salaries. They then contract them out to other companies to do highly skilled jobs, at their low skilled salary.
Companies like Apple, MS and Amazon (which are not in those top
Re: (Score:2)
You should not just cancel all H1B. Many of them are certainly needed. H1B is not only for the tech industry, it is for a whole range of industries. And you can not believe that the US always has all the skills they need.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There are new fields the USA does not have yet. I went to Germany because of a research group here that is working on something that only a few other groups in the entire world are working in. Some US companies would love to hire the entire team so we could teach more people how to do what we do.
There are all kinds of advances in biotech, nanotech, quantum computing, genetic engineering etc and the fields are so complex and so specialized that it is easy to have a situation where the there are certain skill
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, this would be the magic bullet. Too bad for them that India is not a Muslim country, and that the bulk of Indian Muslims who emigrate go to Gulf countries, for good reason, rather than to Western countries
All these countries should go talent shopping to countries like Iran, Somalia, Yemen, Sudan, et al, so that all those Liberal activists who are on their case for hiring from India or Eastern Europe would be forced to prioritize b/w their Trump derangement vs the interests of US workers.
Re: (Score:2)
Too bad for them that India is not a Muslim country
I stand corrected, it's unconstitutional because it's an anti-Hindu executive order! That must be the real motive...
Re: (Score:2)
Since Hindus don't have the practice of claiming victimhood status the way Muslims do, that approach won't work here. The reason it's haram to say things against Muslims/Islam is that since Communism ended, they are the most major anti-Western group out there that's opposed to everything traditionally Western, thereby attracting the support of the hard Left (despite the misogyny, homophobia, animal-cruelty and whole host of other things that would be considered toxic by traditional Liberals). No other
How about this? (Score:2)
If you can only find your employees in India, etc., then move your company there, bitch.
There's clearly no shortage at all of skilled workers.
There's a shortage of ethical companies, that's all.
About that talent shortage (Score:2)
I am well aware there is a shortage of companies willing to pay what talent actually deserves. I've worked in the tech industry for over 20 (40 for me) years and it's exceedingly rare to find an engineer who actually knows what they're doing that will take a lowball salary, is under 30, doesn't need good insurance, doesn't live lik
Re: (Score:2)
H1B set 60K as a floor because not all H1s work in California. Those who work in the midwest or Southeast can lead a good life on 60K. The solution would be to have separate floors for each state .Its not complicated the H1 process already has prevailing wages for every Metropolitan Statistical Area. The 60K applies for the exemption to replacing na American worker. So just make it that the exemption applies (companies want the exemption as one of the reasons for going for H1 instead of Green Card is it ca