[HN Gopher] Tech companie use the H-1B visa program at a time of...
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       Tech companie use the H-1B visa program at a time of mass layoffs
        
       Author : gadders
       Score  : 25 points
       Date   : 2023-04-17 20:34 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.epi.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.epi.org)
        
       | avidiax wrote:
       | What I would like to see for the H-1B program:
       | 
       | * No more points, education requirements, etc. Application
       | acceptance is sorted by total-comp for a minimum 2 year contract,
       | highest wins. Bar is set at the 90th percentile, no more quotas.
       | 
       | * Once they are in, from day 1 they can leave their contract at
       | any time, and they have 1 year to find any job that has at least
       | 80% of the total comp. New company has no paperwork to file.
       | 
       | * No more country based green card quotas or backlogs. If they've
       | been in the US in good standing for N years, they get the card.
       | 
       | This system would mean that employers actually have to provide
       | great working conditions and compensation to H-1B's, which
       | preserves the working conditions for local workers. It removes
       | the "2nd class" treatment of what are very valuable additions to
       | the country.
        
         | booleandilemma wrote:
         | I would like to see the H-1B program abolished.
         | 
         | I hate knowing that every H-1B employee I see is filling a job
         | that an American could have had.
        
           | epylar wrote:
           | Why is it necessarily always better that an American has a
           | job in the US vs a non-American?
        
         | throwntoday wrote:
         | H1-B should be only allowed in circumstances where foreigners
         | are paid the same wage as their American counterparts, and the
         | employer should have to front a sizeable fee to bring them in
         | to disincentivize replacing American workers and incentivize
         | training Americans instead.
         | 
         | It's absurd that every other nation is allowed to prioritize
         | the employment of their own people but the US should just bring
         | foreigners in to do the job for less. H1-B is a total scam as
         | it stands.
        
           | podric wrote:
           | H-1Bs actually tend to get paid higher wages than their
           | American counterparts as per this 2017 Glassdoor study:
           | https://www.glassdoor.com/research/h1b-workers/
        
         | diebeforei485 wrote:
         | > Application acceptance is sorted by total-comp
         | 
         | Trump implemented this but the courts rolled it back because of
         | a technicality. The secretary of the department hadn't yet been
         | confirmed by Congress, or something.
        
       | umeshunni wrote:
       | Pointless article, considering that companies that hired in early
       | 2022 (since H1B petitions are due in March) could have done
       | layoffs later in 2022 and in 2023.
       | 
       | The totals are especially misleading, given that most of the H1Bs
       | issued are for outsourcing companies, which by definition, have
       | no US layoffs.
        
       | tadfisher wrote:
       | The authors go to great lengths to insinuate, but not state
       | outright, that these firms are _replacing_ those laid-off workers
       | with H1-B visa holders. They do this because the data is
       | insufficient to draw said conclusion.
       | 
       | This data does exist for at least the top two firms discussed,
       | because both Google and Meta are subject to the WARN Act and must
       | provide public notice of the actual count of terminated employees
       | broken out by job title, and the USCIS by necessity holds these
       | records per-employee and -employer.
       | 
       | The argument for H-1B reform is compelling enough on its own
       | merits, so it's unfortunate that "firm X laid off M people and
       | hired Y people through H-1B" point is being used here. After all,
       | these same firms hired more non-H-1B than they did H-1B employees
       | during the same period.
        
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       (page generated 2023-04-17 23:01 UTC)