[HN Gopher] Updates to H-1B
___________________________________________________________________
Updates to H-1B
Author : sul_tasto
Score : 189 points
Date : 2024-12-18 13:54 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.uscis.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.uscis.gov)
| pseingatl wrote:
| Cancel the program.
|
| It's not needed.
|
| It's used to game the system.
|
| It's not supposed to be a backdoor to a green card.
| garyfirestorm wrote:
| lmao, what do you mean by backdoor? how else would someone
| legally immigrate?
| toast0 wrote:
| Some people get upset that someone on a 'non-immigrant'
| 'temporary employment' visa can apply for permanent
| residency, although that is allowed by the H1-B program.
|
| Otherwise, one could immigrate through a different visa;
| there are some employment visas that are explicitly intended
| for those with intent to immigrate. Or like a family or
| lottery visa, I guess.
|
| I think it's possible to have a permanent residency
| application sponsored by an employer from abroad, but
| especially if the candidate is from China, India, Mexico or
| the Philipines, the timelines make even less sense than H1-B
| timelines (submit your application in a two week window near
| the beginning of March, for the chance to start in October).
| I don't know too many places that want to commit to a hire
| that can't start for 7 months, although it's not unreasonable
| for those on post graduate visas with work eligibility.
| ganeshkrishnan wrote:
| It takes around 20+ years to go from H1b to permanent
| visa/green card. In the meantime your kids born in US have
| grown up, graduated, you have a house and everything could
| be yanked at the border when you are travelling.
|
| Meanwhile vast majority of them pay into taxes and social
| security and leave the US and never see a dime of that
| money.
|
| Immigrants are the easiest group to exploit by everyone
| because they have no voice and are vilified by vast
| majority of the people include the so called intellectuals
| in here.
| newyankee wrote:
| Yup, left US after years of working and doubt will ever
| see social security for self.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| I'm sure this is no consolation, but as a born-and-raised
| citizen who has paid into social security for 15 years
| now, I have serious doubts about seeing a positive return
| on those taxes myself.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| That's not how social security works. You're not supposed
| to get a positive return. You directly pay a basic income
| to retired people (minus administration costs). When you
| retire, workers pay a basic income to you.
| dataflow wrote:
| I'm pretty sure they understand how social security
| works. You missed the point they were making.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Asking for a positive return on social security is like
| asking for a positive return on welfare. The positive
| return comes from not having so many homeless old people
| all over the country. It's not a personal investment
| vehicle.
| FredPret wrote:
| It could be that OP expects Social Security to be kaput
| by the time he gets to be old.
|
| Looking at the population graph, that's a valid concern.
| There's a ton of boomers and a ton of millenials, but
| very few babies to pay for our retirement.
|
| (This phenomenon could invalidate even individual stock
| investment retirement plans as well. We need a future
| generation of workers, investors, entrepreneurs,
| consumers).
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| The issue is that, for me and anyone else who reaches
| retirement age after 2034, only about 80% of that basic
| income will be available. For reasons I'm not super clear
| on, this idea tends to get coded as a conspiracy theory
| in many circles, despite being uncontroversially true and
| widely reported on.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| That's a perennial Boogeyman. Policymakers have a wide
| array of tweaks they could make (from adjusting the cap
| to adjusting retirement age) at any time that could push
| that out by another century.
| https://www.epi.org/blog/a-record-share-of-earnings-was-
| not-...
| bombcar wrote:
| This is how it works, but it is not how it was sold (and
| all the "work tracking" confuses people as to what it is
| doing).
| radicality wrote:
| Social security also kinda feels like a Ponzi scheme. Use
| current 'investors' money to pay for retired people.
| lesuorac wrote:
| If you were paying retired people with investors money
| then why does SSA have a giant surplus of nearly 3
| trillion [1]?
|
| The surplus is because of all the people that have payed
| into the program and haven't retired yet ...
|
| [1]: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/assets.html
| commandlinefan wrote:
| If only they just used the current 'investors' money to
| pay the retirees. They actually use the social security
| taxes to pay for "whatever" and hope they can come up
| with the rest when they need it.
| ganeshkrishnan wrote:
| >I'm sure this is no consolation, but as a born-and-
| raised citizen who has paid into social security for 15
| years now, I have serious doubts about seeing a positive
| return on those taxes myself.
|
| Look at the bright side though: You get a chance to get
| conscripted for a war against Iran/Russia/China and also
| get to blow up windowless mudhouses in the desert to
| protect democracy and freedom back in the states.
| geodel wrote:
| So these highly skilled and smart immigrants coming on H1
| to US without ever understanding what they are getting
| into?
|
| They should absolutely be shunning this unfair system and
| helping India become _vishwaguru_ of software.
| umanwizard wrote:
| The byzantine US immigration system absolutely _is_ an
| impediment to people coming and staying here, and in my
| (admittedly anecdotal) estimation is a major competitive
| disadvantage, and a big part of the reason the UK, EU,
| Canada and China are making progress towards becoming
| tech hubs.
| geodel wrote:
| Well everyone is making progress. Relevant point is how
| far they have come and how long they've taken.
| aylmao wrote:
| Those particular cases have benefited by the shortcomings
| of the USA actually. I know some big tech companies send
| workers who weren't able to secure US immigration
| specifically to offices in Canada, the UK or the EU. For
| example Meta and Google [1][2].
|
| One can expect the company then grows an interest in
| developing full engineering teams in these sites. One can
| also expect some people might simply decide to not come
| back to the USA.
|
| With the general rise of China's tech scene, recently
| there's been a trend by which the USA doesn't retain
| Chinese international students and they instead opt to
| return home. One has to imagine the very, very long
| immigration process they have to go to has to do with
| this [4].
|
| [1]: https://www.teamblind.com/post/Does-Meta-relocate-
| you-to-Can...
|
| [2]: https://www.quora.com/Is-it-difficult-to-relocate-
| from-the-G...
|
| [3]: https://news.cgtn.com/news/2024-08-29/The-return-
| wave-Why-80...
|
| [4]: https://www.statista.com/chart/16528/long-wait-
| times-for-gre...
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Outcomes aren't binary. For any marginal increase in
| immigration difficulty for skilled tech workers, there is
| a marginal decrease in US tech competitiveness relative
| to other countries.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > It takes around 20+ years to go from H1b to permanent
| visa/green card.
|
| Primarily only for Indians. For almost everyone else,
| it's much quicker. Most people I know get it in 2-3
| years. Many in under 2 years.
|
| (And yes, it's frankly immoral that they have a separate
| queue for Indians).
|
| So don't get rid of H1B. Make it one queue.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| 20 years only if you're born in India married to someone
| born in India. Not great either way though, but it's
| really affecting the Indian community because of their
| particular norms.
| toast0 wrote:
| If your spouse is a US citizen or permanent resident on
| their own, great. But if you're on H1-B and your spouse
| is on H-4, I don't think their country of birth makes a
| difference?
|
| If you're both on H1-B, then sure, having a different
| country of birth can help.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > your kids born in US have grown up
|
| And now even their citizenship is threatened.
| addicted wrote:
| > Some people get upset that someone on a 'non-immigrant'
| 'temporary employment' visa can apply for permanent
| residency, although that is allowed by the H1-B program.
|
| The H1B visa is explicitly a dual intent visa.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_intent
|
| Becoming a permanent resident is explicitly allowed under
| the H1B visa. By contrast, if an immigration officer even
| had a suspicion that you intended to immigrate on any other
| visa, that would be sufficient grounds for them to disallow
| you from entering the country.
|
| Further, the dual intent nature of the H1B visa means H1B
| employees pay social security and Medicare, even though
| they themselves are not eligible for it. Something you
| don't have to do if you earn money on a non dual intent
| visa.
|
| The H1B visa is indeed temporary. It lasts only 6 years.
| But it allows you, or your employer, to apply for your
| permanent residency on the basis of other categories while
| you're in the U.S. on an H1B visa. IOW, the only real use
| of the H1B is that it lets an employer get to know an
| employee well enough that they're willing to sponsor their
| permanent residency.
|
| Also, the other reason the H1B appears overused and not
| "temporary" is because in a moment of brilliance Congress
| wrote laws so that there were an equal number of green
| cards handed out to people from Jamaica as those from
| China. As a result, when Indians and Chinese apply and get
| approved for a green card, they need to wait decades to
| actually get those green cards, whereas someone from Greece
| would get it instantly.
|
| Since Congress hasn't been able to write new immigration
| laws in 3 decades, extending thenH1B visa is the only way
| to allow folks who have essentially approved green cards to
| remain in the U.S., because they're discriminated by their
| country of birth.
| toast0 wrote:
| > The H1B visa is explicitly a dual intent visa. ...
| Becoming a permanent resident is explicitly allowed under
| the H1B visa.
|
| I am aware that this is allowed. However, the DOL
| describes the program like this: [1]
|
| > The H-1B program applies to employers seeking to hire
| nonimmigrant aliens as workers in specialty occupations
| or as fashion models of distinguished merit and ability.
| A specialty occupation is one that requires the
| application of a body of highly specialized knowledge and
| the attainment of at least a bachelor's degree or its
| equivalent. The intent of the H-1B provisions is to help
| employers who cannot otherwise obtain needed business
| skills and abilities from the U.S. workforce by
| authorizing the temporary employment of qualified
| individuals who are not otherwise authorized to work in
| the United States.
|
| So I understand why people would be confused or upset
| when nonimmigrant aliens with temporary employment
| authorization end up immigrating.
|
| I also agree that allocating a limited number of
| residencies by country of birth is pretty bizarre. There
| are some countries where the whole population could get a
| green card in a single year (if they were all eligible),
| but people born in Mexico and India have a 20 year
| backlog in some categories. Some sort of population or
| land area factor should apply. The impacted countries may
| want to consider strategic division to improve their US
| immigration backlogs ;P and they could gain more votes in
| the UN General Assembly, too.
|
| [1] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/immigration/h1b
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| They should just get rid of the green card limit
| altogether.
|
| There is already a limit on people who can get H1Bs and
| move into the country. Once they are actually living here
| on a semi-permanent basis, converting to actually
| permanent should be based on the person themself, not
| based on how many other people decided to become
| permanent residents.
| ganeshkrishnan wrote:
| The rabid chants went from: we need to stop illegal immigration
| and make sure everyone enters legally
|
| To:
|
| We need to make sure we only allow valuable immigrants that add
| to the economy
|
| To:
|
| Cancel this program. They are gaming the system.
|
| You can choose the game to play but you can't choose the rules
| of the game.
| duped wrote:
| > We need to make sure we only allow valuable immigrants that
| add to the economy
|
| Replace this with "white" and it makes more sense
| zer8k wrote:
| Ah yes the classic "huwhite people and muh racism" gambit.
|
| It's tired. H1Bs are gamed to the point of uselessness.
| Most companies internally post H1B job offerings so people
| are aware. I've yet to see one with a competitive salary.
| They are used to source cheaper labor and avoid paying
| actual Americans the fair wage they deserve. The last 15-20
| years of tech has slowly seen the InfoSys-ization of the
| tech economy. I work with more contractors from Mexico,
| India, and Eastern Europe, and more H1Bs from India than
| literally anyone else. On my team I can count the number of
| Americans on one hand.
|
| The program should be extremely limited. I am a fan of
| charging 2-3x the normal tax rate for H1Bs so companies
| have to actually justify hiring "talent you can't find in
| America". There are 300,000 unemployed tech workers. I find
| it hard to believe none fit the bill. Just that most won't
| take a 60% haircut for more work.
| geraldwhen wrote:
| I haven't hired an American in many years. It's
| forbidden.
| throwaway7783 wrote:
| I have a hard time hiring an American too, especially for
| backend jobs. But thats because they simply don't apply
| to the open positions we have. We don't disclose salary
| upfront, so the argument that "you pay less thats why"
| doesn't hold. We just don't get those resumes - through
| recruiters, direct channels, LinkedIn - even when we said
| we prefer citizens (due to legal costs).
| 0x457 wrote:
| > We don't disclose salary upfront, so the argument that
| "you pay less thats why" doesn't hold.
|
| Yeah, it does. I assume you don't post it because it's
| not competitive, and in every case I've personally
| encountered this was the case.
| epicureanideal wrote:
| What are the specific job requirements? Have you posted
| on HN Who's Hiring?
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| > the fair wage they deserve.
|
| Why do american citizens deserve more than non american
| citizens for the same work?
| carlosjobim wrote:
| That's what every non-American should ask their own
| government and their own companies.
| short_sells_poo wrote:
| The American people get to decide who they want to allow
| in and under what conditions. If the American people
| decide that they should get compensated more than non-
| American citizens for a role falling under American
| jurisdiction, they can do that. And other nationalities
| can retaliate or pound sand, but that's it.
| throwaway7783 wrote:
| Sure, there is nothing non-americans can do about it. But
| want!=deserve
| zifpanachr23 wrote:
| Other countries are free to compete, nobody is arguing
| otherwise, but it is explicitly the right of any country
| to determine who is allowed to compete within their
| nation.
|
| What people want or deserve is irrelevant. If you live
| elsewhere and feel you deserve more, then that's not
| America's problem.
| bdangubic wrote:
| > The American people get to decide who they want to
| allow in and under what conditions.
|
| I am an American, no one asked me to decide this. Who are
| these "American people" making these decisions...?
| ImJamal wrote:
| You can vote for politicians who make this decision. You
| can also work to get an amendment passed.
| bdangubic wrote:
| oh so fantasy stuff :)
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| The government of the people exists to benefit the
| people. Ideally.
| pratnala wrote:
| > I've yet to see one with a competitive salary.
|
| Nonsense.
| throwaway7783 wrote:
| I have been on H1B forever now, and my salaries have been
| more or on par with the role. I tend to agree there is a
| lot of H1B misuse, especially by large Indian consulting
| firms. This needs to be curtailed.
|
| But, there may be 300,000 unemployed tech workers. While
| I also find it hard to believe none fit the bill, I
| believe most don't. So many are out of random bootcamps,
| self proclaimed programmers who can't solve fizzbuzz. I
| also have not seen any H1B in my career that is good and
| willing to take a 60% haircut. In my own company, they
| are the highest paid and are grumpy we are not paying
| more. They are all really good engineers too. Heck, when
| I was looking to move to the US, I refused tons of low
| paying jobs. When we opened up backend programming jobs,
| only a handful American citizens even applied. We hired
| one of them, while we needed 4. The rest didn't make it
| through the interview process. We also rejected tons of
| H1bs because they didnt make it through the process. Same
| salary range offered to H1Bs. And we are a fully remote.
| So I wonder where are these 300,000 unemployed tech
| workers.
|
| Cut the fraud and it automatically becomes a decent
| program. Now, if one is entirely against the program of
| attracting foreign talent, thats a different discussion.
| zifpanachr23 wrote:
| How do you know they are on par for the role if you are
| part of the program intended (by the detractors) to push
| down wages for everybody?
|
| Seems that there is no way you could possibly determine
| that given the circumstances besides speculating about
| supply and demand.
| 0x457 wrote:
| > How do you know they are on par for the role if you are
| part of the program intended (by the detractors) to push
| down wages for everybody?
|
| Because they know their salary, and what is supposed to
| be for their role?
| bdangubic wrote:
| some people believe that mere presence of the program
| itself is driving the wages down which is... funny...
| 0x457 wrote:
| Well, the way program exists now, it's utilized by two
| kinds of companies:
|
| 1) Someone like Verizon that uses it for cheap labor
|
| 2) Someone like Netflix that wants to hire good engineers
|
| The way the program works now (before those changes?),
| it's much easier for group 1 to fill its positions via
| staffing agencies overseas. That's true even if a company
| from group 2 already know who they want to hire, since
| it's a lottery system.
|
| Would be easier if this were two different visas (or
| program got revamped in a way that it actually works as
| it's sold to public), but we can't have "Cheap Human
| Labor Visa" for various reasons.
| bdangubic wrote:
| every problem has a solution except in America where what
| we THINK is a problem (and discuss ad naseum on HM) is
| there by design. Group 1's lobbyist are paying A LOT more
| than Group 2 - hence they get the most benefit out of the
| program. it'll be interesting to see next four years, I
| suspect the program will at minimum triple
| sunshowers wrote:
| I was paid between 400 and 600k a year while on an H1B.
|
| > I am a fan of charging 2-3x the normal tax rate for
| H1Bs so companies have to actually justify hiring "talent
| you can't find in America".
|
| This is extraordinarily racist if you spend more than 5
| seconds thinking about it, and honestly you should
| question every one of your choices that have led to this
| point. It is time for you to re-examine your entire
| worldview.
| geodel wrote:
| > but you can't choose the rules of the game.
|
| Well you of course can. These rules are set by government and
| they have power to change as they see appropriate.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| I think it's called democracy or something.
| ritcgab wrote:
| Dog whistle.
| dbbk wrote:
| How do you propose hiring tech talent then
| observationist wrote:
| Right, the desperate need for talent is the reason these
| programs are used so heavily. It's not discounted salary and
| cost savings in benefits, insurance, and other areas for non-
| permanent employees, or having leverage over immigrant
| employees in negotiations. Corporations only ever use these
| programs to get the absolute best of the best and they
| absolutely aren't abused to bypass the stricter regulations
| and requirements for citizen employees. /s
|
| There's nothing wrong with brain draining other countries and
| incentivizing legal immigration for work visas and H1B style
| programs. We should want to be the best place in the world to
| work. This shouldn't come as a detriment to the citizens of
| the US. Legal immigration and jobs programs need to be
| better. The H1B program suppresses legal citizen wages as
| well as immigrant wages because companies are able to use the
| threat of deportation as an effective negotiation tactic.
| Companies use immigrants for cheap professional labor, and if
| the immigrant pipes up, they get let go. With everything in
| tech life being designed around pushing people into paycheck
| to paycheck lifestyles, this can wreck someone's life through
| no fault of their own if they do something like ask for a
| raise, or better health insurance.
|
| In turn, if citizen employees try to negotiate, the company
| can replace them with more immigrant workers unless or until
| they can hire local replacements at the company's preferred
| rate of pay.
|
| We need a cleaner, easier path to citizenship, without the
| endless bureaucratic nightmare that is the current system. We
| need better work visa programs, so that people who
| legitimately make the world a better place aren't penalized
| for arbitrary technicalities, while at the same time
| recognizing the sovereignty of the US and reasonably
| protecting borders.
|
| Sometimes countries need to be overthrown, and the US
| shouldn't act like a pressure release valve for dictators. We
| also shouldn't be in the business of regime management or
| perpetuating political nightmares that causes a lot of
| illegal immigration, as well.
|
| TLDR; There's no shortage of US tech talent. The problem is
| that we've painted ourselves into a regulatory corner - in
| order to be competitive, companies have to shortchange
| payroll by abusing migrant salaries. To fix it, we must
| strengthen migrant rights so companies can't hang the threat
| of deportation over employee's heads, and reduce the
| financial burden of hiring citizens, so you get the same bang
| for your buck regardless of the immigration status of the
| employee.
|
| Microsoft and Lumen and FAANG and all the tech industry
| titans shouldn't have penny pinching strategies designed to
| bump stock prices using methods that are fueled by human
| suffering. Get rid of those options and stop blindly
| implementing systems where the incentives are so obviously
| awful.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| I didn't believe it until I saw it, but look at the
| classified section of the San Francisco newspaper where big
| tech companies post job listing knowing that Americans
| won't see them so they can say they tried to get domestic
| talent.
|
| My neighbor is on a visa from mumbai working at Chase who
| was brought in as the lead frontend engineer (def can't
| find Javascript devs in the US). Even he admitted it's
| weird that his whole team is from India on visas. They just
| aren't hiring citizens.
| jonnycoder wrote:
| As a senior software engineer who was unemployed for over
| a year, I can confirm almost nobody is hiring USA
| Javascript and Python devs with 10+ years of experience
| with some big accomplishments. I got lucky with a
| backfill.
| pacoWebConsult wrote:
| And once a team reaches that point, less citizens will
| want to work on a team where they're the outsider
| anyways.
| rbanffy wrote:
| I find that diversity extremely rewarding. I learn new
| things, learn about other people's traditions and learn
| different ways of thinking and organising. Approach the
| challenge with an open mind.
| ChadBrogramer69 wrote:
| Yeah except they don't share the same liberal sentiment.
| They look at you like a silly clown.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| These are the fun, but token advantages of diversity in
| this specific context. There are lots of advantages and
| disadvantages to diversity - because it is an extremely
| generic term. I have first hand experience of teams
| completely losing all the original members, who were
| extremely talented and all born in the US, because they
| hired such a huge number of people who were from a
| different culture (India, in this case). It had nothing
| to do with racism - they just had nothing in common. It
| was fun to talk about their different religious
| celebrations and so on, but they were emotionally aliens.
| They were reasonably smart, yet there was zero
| intellectual spark in conversations between the two
| groups. They were just too different to thrive with each
| other. Different culturally, ideologically,
| intellectually, emotionally. Different in methods of
| communication, in treatment of the business hierarchy, in
| assumptions and expectations. We can blame the business
| for making an incompatible team, but the compatibility
| parameters were too tied to culture and race. It's hard
| to account for that without essentially being racist.
| __loam wrote:
| They could try hiring one of the hundreds of thousands of
| citizens they laid off over the past 3 years.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| By offering wages appropriate for the economy your fellow
| citizens are accustomed to, as opposed to the economy
| citizens of other nations are accustomed to.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Already done.
|
| I mean, you didn't provide details/data, so I don't know
| what you have in mind.
|
| The rules require you pay prevalent wages for the geo
| you're in.
| Glyptodon wrote:
| Saw a university (like 7 years ago) H1B'ing postdocs for
| like $30k, maybe $35k a year, by valuing the benefits at
| like $20k. It was kind of a joke IMO.
| BeetleB wrote:
| That is the prevailing wage for postdocs, domestic or
| foreign.
|
| The abuse of postdocs and grad students exists, but is
| entirely unrelated to H1B and foreigners. They paid them
| poorly even before the country was flooded with foreign
| students.
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| no, just make it an auction system with compensation.
| ritcgab wrote:
| Guy who born with natural citizenship is too privileged to
| imagine how hard it is to get a green card.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Everybody is born with natural citizenship.
| petesergeant wrote:
| You should take a moment to look up what "stateless" means
| carlosjobim wrote:
| God forbid somebody says that every dog has four legs and
| a hacker hears it...
| ritcgab wrote:
| Stephen Miller does not approve this.
| lubujackson wrote:
| Great comeback, except you completely ignore the point (its
| purpose is not meant to be a backdoor) and attack him for...
| being an American?
|
| Instead of telling everyone else to check their privilege,
| maybe check your expectations. The world doesn't owe anyone
| anything. Claiming your desires are everyone else's problem
| is a deeply self-centered way to view the world.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| This is a hideous tone that will do nothing but antagonize
| proud citizens and sour voters on the idea of generosity.
|
| Thoughtful discourse is predicated first on basic respect.
| asdasdsddd wrote:
| What is the correct pathway to green card for a worker
| immigrant?
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| America does not owe the world a green card.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| That wasn't and has nothing to do with the question asked.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| A path needn't exist.
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| Did you know they raped all the dogs in Springfield?
| 0x457 wrote:
| Yeah, you have no idea of the process of getting green card via
| h1b works.
|
| You can ditch the US, get permanent resident status in Canada,
| become Canadian citizenship, get TN visa to work in the US if
| you want to and someone who thinks that h1b is a backdoor to a
| green card will be just starting on green card paperwork. And
| that's if there are no issues with application.
|
| This is all after participating in h1b lottery for years. Trust
| me, it's an extremely slow and painful way of getting a green
| card. If h1b is your way to a green card, it means either:
| you're already married, you have no idea what are you doing.
|
| It's no a backdoor in any way, person move to the US for work
| and builds a life here, accumulate assets, I think it's pretty
| reasonable to give those people a way to settle in the US
| permanently in these cases.
|
| The program needs to be revamped because it's not working in
| the way it's sold to voters.
| screye wrote:
| > not supposed to be a backdoor to a green card
|
| So...what's the front door to the green card ? How does one
| arrive legally to the nation with the highest [1] historic
| immigration rate of any nation in the world ?
|
| https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/net...
| tartoran wrote:
| Does anybody know what are the updates are in layman terms?
| ganeshkrishnan wrote:
| here it is https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/uscis-
| announces...
|
| I read through it and even asked chatgpt for summary and it
| looks like "passport is now required" and "one beneficiary one
| draw" that is if you put in multiple petitions it will only
| consider you once.
|
| I thought Elon was talking nonsense when he mentions frivolous
| government rules but reading these h1b changes makes me
| question my own sanity about the government "rules" which they
| aptly named it as "Final rule" (wtf?).
| impish9208 wrote:
| Some highlights from the Federal Register:
|
| > 2. Bar on Multiple Registrations Submitted by Related Entities
|
| DHS will not finalize the proposed change at 8 CFR
| 214.2(h)(2)(i)(G) to expressly state in the regulations that
| related entities are prohibited from submitting multiple H-1B
| registrations for the same individual. On February 2, 2024, DHS
| published a final rule, "Improving the H-1B Registration
| Selection Process and Program Integrity," 89 FR 7456 (Feb. 2,
| 2024), creating a beneficiary-centric selection process for
| registrations by employers and adding additional integrity
| measures related to the registration process to reduce the
| potential for fraud in the H-1B registration process. In that
| final rule, DHS states that it "intends to address and may
| finalize this proposed provision [expressly stating in the
| regulations that related entities are prohibited from submitting
| multiple registrations for the same individual] in a subsequent
| final rule," but that "[m]ore time and data will help inform the
| utility of this proposed provision." 89 FR 7456, 7469 (Feb. 2,
| 2024). Initial data from the FY 2025 H-1B registration process
| show a significant decrease in the total number of registrations
| submitted compared to FY 2024, including a decrease in the number
| of registrations submitted on behalf of beneficiaries with
| multiple registrations.[1]
|
| This initial data indicate that there were far fewer attempts to
| gain an unfair advantage than in prior years owing, in large
| measure, to the implementation of the beneficiary-centric
| selection process.[2]
|
| Under the beneficiary-centric selection process, individual
| beneficiaries do not benefit from an increased chance of
| selection if related entities each submit a registration on their
| behalf. As such, DHS has decided not to finalize the proposed
| change pertaining to multiple registrations submitted by related
| entities.
|
| > C. Summary of Costs and Benefits
|
| DHS analyzed two baselines for this final rule, the no action
| baselines and the without-policy baseline. The primary baseline
| for this final rule is the no action baseline. For the 10-year
| period of analysis of the final rule, DHS estimates the
| annualized net cost savings of this rulemaking will be $333,835
| annualized at a 2 percent discount rate. DHS also estimates that
| there will be annualized monetized transfers of $1.4 million from
| newly cap-exempt petitioners to USCIS and $38.8 million from
| employers to F-1 workers, both annualized at a 2 percent discount
| rate.
| blahblahgov wrote:
| Yup, as expected. Not dealing with the effects of clustering.
| Great job GOV.
| https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1fyx9hp/cognizant...
| addicted wrote:
| Looks like that's going through the legal system so is already
| illegal?
|
| You can't make a rule that says "hey don't break the rules".
|
| That seems logically fallacious.
| lukeramsden wrote:
| Can't read the full article due to paywall but ostensibly
| it's due to bias rules on race and not visa rules? Sounds
| like visas being abused and then backstopped by unrelated
| rules does not mean the visa rules shouldn't be fixed.
| r-johnv wrote:
| Several positive outcomes, including expanding cap-exemption to
| non-profit and other research institutions, and stronger
| enforcement mechanisms.
| patrickhogan1 wrote:
| Ah, classic regulatory theater. The administration, after 4 years
| of not introducing these changes, is now suddenly scrambling to
| roll them out. They're dropping them right before a major
| transition, with an implementation timeline conveniently set for
| after the transition.
|
| It's a clever little maneuver. When the inevitable reversal
| happens, they can show up at fundraising galas telling donors,
| "We tried! We were so close! It's just those baddies who always
| come along and pull the rug."
| lesuorac wrote:
| Eh downvote.
|
| The USG has to go through a very length period of coming up
| with a proposed rule. Allowing comments to be made about it,
| adjusting (or not) the rule based on those comments, and then
| finally submitting the final rule.
|
| Nobody at USCIS wrote this document yesterday and published
| this today. This is the result of years of work. Do you
| seriously expect the USG to shut down anything they don't think
| they can finish under the current administration?
| fasdfdsava wrote:
| Maybe it's a total coincidence that this final rule takes
| effect the Friday, January 17 and Trump's inauguration is
| Monday, January 20th. But I sort of wonder.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > has to go through a very length period
|
| Doesn't the bottom of this announcement describe a previous
| rule that was announced in January 2024 and then implemented
| in March 2024? Interesting that rules process was far more
| rapid than this one.
| lesuorac wrote:
| And?
|
| So a different related rule started its process awhile back
| and a second rule was in the works concurrently. Is the USG
| only allowed to do one thing at a time?
|
| The comment period for this rule ended last year to give
| you an idea of how long this has at least been in the
| works. All of this information is rapidly found via the
| submitted url at the top of the page.
|
| https://www.regulations.gov/docket/USCIS-2023-0005/document
| akira2501 wrote:
| It's the same question. What decides when a long process
| and comment period is required and when it isn't? Why
| does this agency have such variable performance when it
| comes to similar rulings?
| xiphias2 wrote:
| It's not the only last minute thing the administration does
| that it could have done before:
|
| - Launched rockets from Ukraine - remote work contracts
| extended to 2029 after Elon + Vivek wants people to RTO -
| TikTok ban
|
| And the classic answer is always the same here: ,,it was all
| planned for years'' (sure, but the decision is made after the
| elections on purpose)
| wat10000 wrote:
| We all know how a distant deadline can make us slack off.
| Then suddenly the deadline is in three months instead of four
| years, you'll discover a bunch of things you could do faster.
|
| That's not to excuse the slowness, but I imagine this stuff
| was in process for a while.
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| Parkinson's law: "work expands so as to fill the time
| available for its completion."
| tssva wrote:
| The decision regarding TikTok was not made after the election
| and the law was passed with strong bi-partisan support.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Regardless, these are good changes, I hope they stick around.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > The administration, after 4 years of not introducing these
| changes
|
| They might have spent the last four years negotiating what
| exactly the changes would ideally be. Government doesn't work
| well with the "let's see what sticks approach".
| patrickhogan1 wrote:
| Negotiating with who?
|
| This is an executive power. USCIS - the President can modify
| regulations, such as how H-1B applications are processed or
| the criteria used in selection lotteries.
| eweise wrote:
| It will make Trump look great reversing a policy that steals
| good paying jobs from Americans.
| cyberax wrote:
| > Ah, classic regulatory theater.
|
| No, the classic people not understanding how the government
| works.
|
| These are changes that were done through the rule-making
| process, not legislation. The rule-making process is (by
| design!) VERY SLOW to give the stakeholders a chance to voice
| their opinion.
|
| Typical rules take about 2 years to be implemented. And I guess
| Biden hoped to get a real immigration reform that would have
| made these changes unnecessary.
| root_axis wrote:
| Unlikely to be reversed. The incoming president's largest donor
| strongly favors a larger and more dynamic H1-B work force.
| n144q wrote:
| The same president used coronavirus as an excuse to ban all
| H1B entries.
| bdangubic wrote:
| those were then times, now billionaires shelled out a whole
| lot of money to put him in power and payback time is
| coming. h1b may double/triple/... in the coming years.
| policy will be to keep "bad people out" (southern border)
| while taking in a bunch of "smart people, best people" from
| other countries
| sitkack wrote:
| Anything to keep wages down.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| I'm very happy for everybody on H1-B whose live this improves!
| Does this include renewal in USA?
|
| But as an American the "bonafide job requirement" makes me
| nervous. We have a massive ghost job problem that really needs to
| be a federal crime. Will this make that worse?
| packetlost wrote:
| Yeah, there really needs to be some worker protection
| legislation makes ghost jobs a crime.
| lazide wrote:
| It already is. It just isn't enforced by the DOL/ICE. (Those
| offers need to actually be legitimate, or it's fraud).
| tartoran wrote:
| Is this actually enforced? There are still ghost jobs being
| posted.
| umanwizard wrote:
| The comment you're replying to already said it's
| unenforced.
| lazide wrote:
| Near as I can tell, it's similar to 'don't talk about
| salary at work' stuff - technically maybe if you can
| prove it and complain to the right person, but it's
| _everywhere_.
| vsskanth wrote:
| they mean "bonafide job offer". What is happening right now is
| staffing agencies (mainly in India) mass file H1B applications
| for all their staff, and then once they get picked in the
| lottery, they find assignments in the US and file the entire
| petition after. This heavily disadvantages non-staffing
| companies who file H1Bs for their staff outside the country or
| those in the US on F1 visas for actual jobs.
|
| This change is meant to close that loophole. This used to not
| be a problem, because you had to file the entire petition
| BEFORE you enter the lottery, but now you just pay some nominal
| fee and get your name in, leading to a highly profitable
| situation for staffing companies.
| ziddoap wrote:
| https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/12/18/2024-29...
|
| The tweet is a super brief summary, reproduced below.
|
| Founders can self petition (& spouses can work) -
| Own >50% of the entity, or have majority voting rights
|
| Roles tied to research institutions cap-exempt -
| Organizations where fundamental research is a key activity now
| qualify - Startups can hire researchers (AI, health,
| hardware) year-round
|
| Students get seamless transition - Cap-gap work
| authorization extended to April 1 - Prevents employment
| gaps for F-1 OPT to H-1B switch
|
| Faster H1-B transfers for job changes -
| Flexibility to start working immediately upon petition filing
|
| Clarification of specialty role - Less strict on
| the direct link between degree/job responsibilities -
| Recognizes that AI may require multiple academic background
|
| Cracking down on fraud - Stricter compliance
| rules - Employers must demonstrate a bona fide job exists
| - Site visit codified: refusal to comply = petition denial
| dang wrote:
| (This was originally posted in the other thread
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42451271, but it's useful
| here too)
| wooque wrote:
| > Founders can self petition
|
| Wait, so I can just open LLC and get H1B visa for it? There
| have to be conditions and limitations, otherwise it will be
| misused.
| tacker2000 wrote:
| Yea thats what I also thought. Opening an LLC is pretty easy.
| ramarnat wrote:
| You'd still have to comply with the H1-B rules for the job
| you are petitioning for, like the duties you are performing,
| the salary requirements etc. And the legal costs of doing the
| petition.
|
| Now, misuse could come if you are independently wealthy and
| can self fund, but at the end of the day if you are doing
| that in the US, the economy still benefits.
| shin_lao wrote:
| There are better visas and even green cards if you're
| wealthy.
| paxys wrote:
| Exactly. You can literally buy a green card with a ~$500K
| "investment". No need to jump through H-1B hoops.
| ramarnat wrote:
| That's more than what you would need if you were hiring
| for a prevailing wage position.
| ramarnat wrote:
| Yes, but the prevailing wage threshold would be lower
| than the investor visa, as will the commitments. The
| investor visa you have to show a plan, hire people etc.
| cyberax wrote:
| If you're "wealthy", you can immigrate by officially
| starting a business with just an $80000 investment (E-2
| visa).
|
| Or you can just buy a green card for a $800000 investment
| (EB-5).
| thiagocmoraes wrote:
| E-2 is not available to all countries.
| cyberax wrote:
| You can first get an investor-based citizenship in one of
| the countries that has signed the tax treaty with the US.
|
| It'll cost you about $50-100k extra.
| admissionsguy wrote:
| So can I now go to SF, set up an LLC, and get the sweet SF
| dev rates?
| 0x457 wrote:
| Sure, as long LLC that you have set up generates enough
| revenue to pay your salary.
|
| I'm not sure you understand how this works.
| punksatoni wrote:
| ** Wait, so I can just open LLC and get H1B visa for it?
| There have to be conditions and limitations, otherwise it
| will be misused.
|
| No, you have to first post a job posting at a low salary,
| preferably with an in-office requirement in a HCOL city. If
| you get applicants, give them Leetcode Hard and no one will
| pass.
|
| Then, when no one applies or passes the interview, you claim
| there is a shortage.
|
| Viola!
| geraldwhen wrote:
| I'll believe it when I see it. Until then, I look forward to
| teaching H1B recipients to turn on a computer.
| paxys wrote:
| > - Site visit codified: refusal to comply = petition denial
|
| Wonder how this works for remote-only positions/companies.
| kccqzy wrote:
| What's the reason for cap-gap extension to April 1? I thought
| that the government fiscal year starts on October 1, so H-1B
| statuses take effect on that date and therefore the extension
| is only needed until October 1. What is the motivation here?
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| Expect this to be rolled back fully on January 20
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Unclear. They're not going to be consistent or competent, and
| the intent of everything they do will be to either part out the
| government to their friends, weaponize the US government
| against perceived enemies. And they might reward people who
| kiss the ring by granting exceptions.
|
| Really, given the premise, anyone sane should kill H-1B
| entirely for tech:
|
| "The intent of the H-1B provisions is to help employers who
| cannot otherwise obtain needed business skills and abilities
| from the U.S. workforce by authorizing the temporary employment
| of qualified individuals who are not otherwise authorized to
| work in the United States"
|
| There is no shortage of qualified US software engineers. CS
| schools are full. The very concept is ridiculous. Kill this
| law, liberalize immigration instead.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Also, there are going to be endless, endless lawsuits on
| everything, because everything they do is going to violate
| either the Constitution or existing US law. I'm not sure how
| much that will slow them down.
| n144q wrote:
| > CS schools are full
|
| I guess you never paid any attention to the nationality of
| students enrolled in CS classes.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| ... not that it was _ever_ used that way, since its
| inception.
| parineum wrote:
| Why?
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| Trump in term 1 was the most hostile to legal immigration
| President in decades and that was before he started
| slandering Haitians with legal status
| halyconWays wrote:
| He ran on a platform of _easier_ legal immigration.
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| I think you are excessively credulous and that's the most
| polite I can be.
|
| I'm a natural born citizen that's the wrong skin color and
| I'm planning on carrying my passport everywhere come Jan 21 -
| I'm not going to chance being thrown into the back of a
| BORTAC van.
| M3L0NM4N wrote:
| I think a natural born citizen carrying their passport
| everywhere starting Jan 21 is even more credulous in the
| other direction.
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| I don't think you've thought through the downside risk. A
| coworker - himself of my ethnicity - assumed I was
| foreign born, I'm not going to leave it to chance when
| the promised deportation dragnet starts up.
| alephnerd wrote:
| I'd recommend carrying a passport card instead of the
| actual passport. A REAL ID would be helpful as well.
|
| I don't think the chances of something that drastic are
| high, but it doesn't hurt to err on the side of caution.
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| Problem with the passport card is it requires me to send
| my existing passport for several weeks. In the event of a
| government shutdown I'd be SOL.
|
| REAL ID is plausible but I don't really trust it, given
| that illegal immigrants can get identity cards in my
| state.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > I don't really trust it
|
| REAL ID is a bare minimum. It shows that you at least
| have legal residency.
|
| FWIW it's trusted by DHS so that's all that matters for
| your usecase or assumption.
|
| If you are worried about the risk of being hauled by ICE,
| then you should get a REAL ID.
|
| > it requires me to send my existing passport for several
| weeks
|
| Last I remember, you can do it in person.
|
| Here are the passport offices -
| https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/get-
| fas...
|
| > In the event of a government shutdown
|
| The US Passport Office remains open during the commonly
| termed "government shutdowns"
| int_19h wrote:
| It is, but only the "Jan 21" part.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_Americans_fr
| om_...
| n144q wrote:
| Funny I see this kind of misguided comments all the time.
|
| Their immigration policy is never only about illegal
| immigration. Do you actually think it is possible to tighten
| immigration policy without affecting H1B?
|
| If you need evidence, just look at what happened between
| 2017-2021. H1B denial & RFE rates were way up, and the
| administration tried multiple times to roll out policy that
| significantly restrict the eligibility of H1B visas. They
| even used coronavirus as an excuse to issue travel bans on
| H1B. How is that making legal immigration easier?
| ashconnor wrote:
| Read the RAISE Act if you think that the incoming
| administration is going to be easier on legal migrants.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAISE_Act
| ajsidncjcnbd wrote:
| Trump has said he'd like to "staple green cards to diplomas".
| Despite what the media portrays, he's not pro American, pro
| white, pro nazi, whatever.
|
| He's owned by a different slice of the parasitic ruling class
| that, while opposed to some of the goals the Biden admin was
| for, still share a common theme of not caring about the average
| American at all. He has probably the most pro Israel cabinet
| we've ever seen and appears to be cozying up with big tech
| (thiel, musk, zuckerberg, etc).
|
| If he was truly pro American H1-B would be thrown out and we'd
| require these companies that are wildly profitable to invest in
| educating American workers. H1-B is used to exploit both
| foreign and domestic labor to the benefit of a tiny population
| of capital holders.
| creer wrote:
| Wouldn't attaching green cards - or at least temporary work
| permits - to US university degrees be a positive change
| compared to employment agencies / contractor firms trying to
| sneak in piles of people without such degrees and screening?
| That would be a good response to the issue of training
| (ideally) highly qualified smart people and then kicking them
| out.
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| Except he was president for four years and did the opposite
| - remarkable that people want to forget 2017-2021
| creer wrote:
| There is that. And the idea of trying to retain new grads
| would already have worked 30 years ago and yet here we
| are.
| cma wrote:
| Didn't Trump try to prevent even _greencard holders_ from
| returning if they were from overseas from the wrong religious
| area of the world, after promising a Muslim ban? And was then
| only stopped by courts? Or am I misremembering that?
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| Yes, he did, it affected greencard holders for a brief
| period because it was a poorly designed idea thought up by
| malicious and stupid people.
| bdangubic wrote:
| > If he was truly pro American H1-B would be thrown out and
| we'd require these companies that are wildly profitable to
| invest in educating American workers. H1-B is used to exploit
| both foreign and domestic labor to the benefit of a tiny
| population of capital holders.
|
| This is exactly right and exactly why Trump won't do anything
| about it... when you surround yourself will billionaires
| you'll want to make this that this tiny population of capital
| holders prospers even further :)
| root_axis wrote:
| Unlikely. Elon heavily favors more H1-Bs. If they roll it back,
| they'll introduce their own version that is even more favorable
| to those that gain by suppressing tech worker salaries.
| umanwizard wrote:
| What does this change, if anything, for software engineers at
| FAANG and similar companies?
| Cerium wrote:
| This is key: "Flexibility to start working immediately upon
| petition filing"
|
| Currently workers are often abused since the system puts
| intense pressure to keep a job and don't move around.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| I expect a lot of H1B applicants creating shell corporations.
| roughly wrote:
| Well, they've passed the "culture" part of the citizenship
| test, then
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| H1B isn't citizenship.
| roughly wrote:
| I'm aware.
| binarymax wrote:
| From what I understand you also need to be able to pay yourself
| a $60,000 salary minimum, from that LLC. If people can do that,
| then power to them and let them stay!
|
| If you're worried about people shortcutting a line to get a
| visa by injecting money into the US economy, again by somehow
| getting 60K into the LLC to pay the salary of the recipient,
| this is also a win.
|
| So what is the problem here exactly?
| jpollock wrote:
| Allowing spouses to work on a H4 visa is a HUGE change.
|
| It was a big problem for our family.
| itissid wrote:
| And obama made that happen in his last days in office in Dec
| 2015/Jan 2016
| jpollock wrote:
| I thought that was specifically for when you were waiting for
| the residency permit, not a random H4.
| vsskanth wrote:
| Spouses on H4 cannot work unless the primary H1B has an
| approved I-140 immigrant petition. It's not automatic.
| fakedang wrote:
| Seems like the current admin trying to stuff all the laws right
| in time for the next admin to dismantle...
|
| Oh no, the 50% rule won't be exploited sir.
| autoexecbat wrote:
| I hope it says that they _remain_ above 50%
| frgtpsswrdlame wrote:
| Regarding this part:
|
| Clarification of specialty role - Less strict on
| the direct link between degree/job responsibilities -
| Recognizes that AI may require multiple academic background
|
| You really won't need to clarify whether the role is a specialty
| one or not if you just increase the minimum wage for H1Bs. I
| really don't know why we don't have some rule that pins H1B wages
| to like the 90th percentile wage.
| bombcar wrote:
| It would be exceptionally easy to solve the "H1B problem" by
| making sure that H1Bs are more expensive than local talent;
| then they really only would be used when local talent doesn't
| exist.
| richwater wrote:
| Yet even more ways for corporations to underpay native, domestic
| workers.
| physhster wrote:
| How so?
| hgs3 wrote:
| It's supply and demand economics: if there is a low supply of
| workers and a high demand for them, then employers are
| supposed to compete for them with more pay, more benefits,
| training/education, etc. When the supply of workers is
| artificially increased, then companies have less incentive to
| compete. It becomes a buyer's market for employers.
| ritcgab wrote:
| > if there is a low supply of workers and a high demand for
| them
|
| Employers outsource all those works to overseas.
| throwawa14223 wrote:
| Then throw them in prison?
| syndicatedjelly wrote:
| For what?
| bradlys wrote:
| They've said this for decades and SV engineers still
| pulling down $500k+/yr while someone in Hyderabad isn't
| making anywhere close to that.
| nosequel wrote:
| > Roles tied to research institutions cap-exempt
|
| And in comes a flood of "Research Software Engineer" roles
| cflewis wrote:
| Yeah, I wonder what that is going to ground out to. With the AI
| race, basically anything tangential is research, at least in
| the definition of "doing something scientific-looking that's
| not been done before". That could include a _lot_ of companies
| from massive to tiny.
| crmd wrote:
| It's never been clear to me why this program exists in the first
| place, other than to put downward pressure on US STEM wages. What
| am I missing?
| creer wrote:
| You are missing that it is used a lot in spite of that process
| (1) being a major administrative headache for the users, both
| employees and employers, (2) costly compared to hiring "locals"
| although that's moderated by perhaps lower salary with not a
| huge amount of evidence, and (3) rather unpredictable and risky
| for both employees and employers.
|
| You don't see the need but perhaps the users do.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Hypothetically it exists to allow companies to hire singular
| overseas experts like von Braun or Einstein that don't have
| domestic equivalents. It has become totally accepted to lie on
| the application though and now it is used to hire Java
| developers.
| mportela wrote:
| I believe that's the O-1 visa, not the H-1B.
| whatshisface wrote:
| That's a sign of how accepted it has become to say that you
| can't find any local workers that know Python when filling
| out the H1-B forms. The requirement is there but it's
| normally overlooked.
|
| "The intent of the H-1B provisions is to help employers who
| cannot otherwise obtain needed business skills and
| abilities from the U.S. workforce [...]"
|
| https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/immigration/h1b
| rbanffy wrote:
| At some point it becomes "couldn't obtain the required
| talent at the prices the business was willing to pay".
| strongpigeon wrote:
| That is incorrect. People with exceptional abilities are
| covered under EB-1 green cards (and O-1 visas). H-1B was
| created to bring people in specialty occupations requiring a
| bachelor's degree or equivalent experience. A Java developer
| definitely meets the bar (with the right degree or
| experience).
| whatshisface wrote:
| It's impossible to truthfully state on an H1-B form that
| the US labor market can't provide an experienced Java
| developer.
| strongpigeon wrote:
| That is correct, but tangential to the original point of
| extraordinary abilities.
|
| But it's also possible to say that one hasn't been able
| to find a skilled-enough Java developer.
| risyachka wrote:
| True, but at the same time immigrants have nothing to
| lose and everything to gain, thus in many cases they will
| work harder/longer and as result often be more skilled
| than an average developer.
|
| And in general skilled immigration has many times over
| been proven to only benefit the country and that java
| developer you mention.
| returningfory2 wrote:
| This piece of misinformation seems to be trotted out every
| time H-1B is discussed. H-1B is not for "extraordinary
| ability", the O-1 is. The H-1B is just designed for regular
| workers in a "specialty occupation". This is how Congress
| designed it in the Immigration and Nationality Act.
| remarkEon wrote:
| You're not missing anything. Other than that, seemingly, STEM
| roles are the only industry where the laws of supply and demand
| do not apply, and a positive supply shock of something does
| not, for some reason, drive down the price.
| jandrese wrote:
| If a supply shock doesn't drive down the price then it
| suggests that the supply constraint was larger than than the
| shock and that the market was being artificially constrained
| to prevent the prices from rising to meet demand.
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| It's also possible that the supply itself is what creates
| more demand. People who move to the US are probably less
| risk-averse than the average person, and more likely to
| start new companies, creating more jobs.
| remarkEon wrote:
| So in other words, yes, for whatever reason tech is this
| special case that doesn't apply anywhere else and supply
| shocks don't matter.
|
| An odd claim, wish there was more evidence for it being
| true. As in, what is the "artificial constraint" for front
| end web developers?
| sunshowers wrote:
| Have you engaged with the Card vs Borjas literature at all?
| We learn about the world by studying it, not by simply
| thinking about it from one's armchair.
| remarkEon wrote:
| No, and after that brief description I definitely won't.
|
| You learn about the world by living in it, not by reading
| about it.
| sunshowers wrote:
| Indeed, you are part of the grand American tradition of
| reveling in ignorance.
| Aperocky wrote:
| STEM roles already pay incredibly well in this country, and
| even more so if you compare it globally.
|
| What is the downward price shock you're talking about? What
| do you think the salary would or should be, assuming all H1B
| worker are magically gone the next day?
| renewiltord wrote:
| The program exists to get skilled workers into the US. It has
| done this well. There are few other programs to get them in and
| onto a pathway to permanent residence and citizenship. STEM
| wages don't exist in a vacuum. Increased utility to the US
| economy is more important than them. The US government
| rightfully determined that having people like Elon Musk here
| makes this nation more competitive. Likely the effect was also
| to increase software engineering compensation but that's harder
| to tell.
| strongpigeon wrote:
| It's enabling companies to bring highly skilled individuals to
| work in the USA rather than having them open offices in other
| countries.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| If it's about urgently needed skills, then anybody who has a
| H-1B visa is of course the highest paid worker in his or her
| company. Right?
| margorczynski wrote:
| That's how it is marketed to the masses. From what I hear
| from many US citizens it actually looks quite different in
| reality.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| The reality is US is a tech powerhouse, many successful
| companies have been started by former h1b holders and US
| tech workers are highest paid in the world (even PPP
| adjusted). What you're hearing is not the reality - it's
| just vibes.
| rbanffy wrote:
| For the "highly skilled" there's the O-1 visa.
| 0x457 wrote:
| Not really, O-1 is essentially a visa to bring a specific
| person to the US. While H1B is a wide net (yes, visa given
| to a specific person, not what I'm saying).
|
| o-1 is to bring Albert Einstein and h1b is to bring some
| physicist that matches criteria.
|
| As in, O-1 is person-focused, while H1B is role-focused.
| nirav72 wrote:
| >h1b is to bring some physicist that matches criteria.
|
| those are exceptional cases. The majority of the 65K year
| h1b visas granted every year are for filling IT related
| positions. Mostly dev related positions.
| 0x457 wrote:
| I only used physicist because I couldn't come up with a
| name for O-1 recipient that isn't already a US citizen
| from top of my head.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Global competition exists. If US companies can't hire the best,
| others will. I hope you don't assume that all the best
| workers/researchers are born within US borders.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| I don't think countries should hire the best. Pretty good
| should do. They should foster a greater sense of community
| within their borders. Now, I'm not against immigration. I
| myself am an immigrant. But I think there's too much global
| fluidity and not enough attention paid to taking care of
| one's own.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| The best people are in no small part a product of their
| environment. You can have the best people but with no
| resources they won't be productive.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| You are mixing up purpose and effect. The purpose is to provide
| more and cheaper STEM workers. The effect is downward pressure
| on wages.
|
| Phrased differently, the goal is to help industry, not hurt
| workers. Hurting some workers is an acceptable cost, not the
| goal.
|
| One idea is that having a thriving industrial ecosystem helps
| those same workers more than the downward pressure.
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| As somebody who does not live and work in the US, it seems
| plausible to me that the H1B system helps prevent other
| countries from obtaining similar talent hubs as Sillicon
| Valley. A lot of the talent is in the US, which attracts more
| companies, which attracts more talent, which means it's
| easier to go to the US and work there and start companies
| there than to do it anywhere else.
| rbanffy wrote:
| There's also the easier financing, but yes - I'm sure the
| outcome is dominated by the network effect of having denser
| talent. That's one of the reasons Silicon Valley is so hard
| to replicate elsewhere.
| tssva wrote:
| If the purpose is cheaper STEM workers than downward pressure
| on wages is a goal and not just an effect.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The goal isnt to hurt workers for its own sake. The goal is
| to help industry.
|
| If harm was the goal, something like a STEM worker tax or
| cutting R&D tax incentives would be easier.
| danans wrote:
| > If harm was the goal, something like a STEM worker tax
| or cutting R&D tax incentives would be easier
|
| These would affect all STEM workers equivalently. The
| H1-B program, whatever one thinks of its merits, hurts
| domestic STEM workers and helps immigrant STEM workers.
|
| Perhaps the result is that the overall opportunities are
| greater because the larger talent pool results in more
| companies being formed. That depends a lot on how mature
| the industry is, and whether technological trends like
| generative AI will replace large swaths or STEM workers
| altogether.
| rbanffy wrote:
| This argument is kind of "I'm going to extract all your
| blood, but it's not to kill you, but to increase my
| profits".
|
| You can't really separate the two sides of the same coin.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think you can exactly separate them. One is the goal,
| and the other is the effect.
|
| Im not extracting all your blood for the fun of it, or to
| kill you. profit is the motivation.
|
| Saying the motivation is to kill you is simply not
| correct. It is a byproduct.
| danans wrote:
| > phrased differently, the goal is to help industry, not hurt
| workers. hurting some workers is an acceptable cost, not the
| goal.
|
| The phrase "help industry" has many dimensions. The simplest
| of course is that by increasing labor supply and suppressing
| wages it increases profit margins, rewarding shareholders.
|
| Another important function is that by having more workers
| overall in the US, it increases the productivity of the
| domestic industry itself, due to increased competition for
| jobs driving up the productivity of the average worker. This
| in turn makes the industry more competitive vs its
| equivalents in other countries.
|
| The average worker (whether permanent resident or
| temporary/H1B) who doesn't have significant investments
| likely doesn't receive much of those productivity gains,
| since they mostly go to capital owners.
|
| Long term, it boosts returns to capital while capping returns
| to labor, the same trend noted by Thomas Piketty some years
| back.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I dont think there long term impacts are so clear or
| cynical. the question is less about productivity, but
| network effect, number of jobs, and quality of jobs.
| danans wrote:
| > I dont think there long term impacts are so clear or
| cynical
|
| The economic impacts I described are looking backwards,
| not forward, and the data is pretty clear that long term
| returns on capital swamp the returns on labor (especially
| since the 1970s). STEM workers have been somewhat
| insulated from that due to the industries they work in
| growing in the past few decades faster than the labor
| supply. It's anyone's guess whether or not either trend
| will continue into the future.
|
| > the question is less about productivity, but network
| effect, number of jobs, and quality of jobs.
|
| I'd argue productivity and returns to capital are almost
| everything when it comes to what informs immigration
| policy from an economic lens. "Network effect" is a
| mechanism, not an outcome, and outcome metrics like
| "quality of job" or even "quality of life afforded by a
| job" are not a concern of such policies. On average, they
| might improve, or they might get worse, but productivity
| and returns on capital will always go up, whether they
| require workers or not.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I understand that you are trying to make a point about
| return on capital, but I dont understand how you are
| connecting it to the question of H1-B visas and if local
| benefits to industrial expertise outweigh the downward
| pressure from labor competition.
| danans wrote:
| > I dont understand how you are connecting it to the
| question of H1-B visas and if local benefits to
| industrial expertise outweigh the downward pressure from
| labor competition.
|
| Because what you are calling "local benefits to
| industrial expertise" is ultimately realized in the form
| of returns on capital.
|
| Whether these benefits outweigh the costs is an open
| question.
|
| When the tech industry's growth was very talent
| constrained as it was in the last few decades, arguably
| opening labor competition had the effect of increasing
| overall growth (mainly through new production invention).
| The list of immigrant technologists who have created new
| technologies and products - and jobs as a result - could
| probably fill an encyclopedia.
|
| It's unknown whether that type of growth - the kind that
| creates more and better jobs - will continue, especially
| given recent developments in AI.
|
| If the benefits going forward are largely going to be
| based on massive increases in labor efficiency, then it's
| not as clear that the benefits (mostly to capital)
| outweigh the costs (mostly to labor). Most business
| models in AI are predicated on replacing people, who are
| expensive, not making more or better goods. Sure, we'll
| get some neat robots along the way that actually make
| stuff, but that will likely be a small fraction of the
| money to be made.
|
| Or perhaps we are at the dawn of a new era of technology
| which will make more and better jobs. We'll see.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| OK, so you were changing the topic to something else you
| wanted to talk about. That was not clear to me. I thought
| you were making a rebuttal to what I was saying.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| The US owes much of its success to its ability to poach talent
| from other countries. By letting all the people who would start
| competing firms move to the US instead international
| competition is reduced and the products built in the US are
| better.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Software is one of the few STEM fields where one can get a
| fantastic job with just a Bachelor's. In most other engineering
| fields, a MS gives you a significant boost, and a PhD may do so
| as well.
|
| The reality is that in most of those fields, few Americans get
| an MS/PhD. Go to a typical engineering department and you'll
| often see the majority of advanced degree students are
| foreigners.
|
| So it's a question of: Do we want to continue to train
| foreigners, only to not have them contribute to the US economy?
|
| If you move out to the pure sciences, you pretty much need a
| PhD to get a good career. Once again, a big chunk, if not the
| majority, are foreigners.
|
| Look around at the highly skilled folks you see who are not of
| US origin, and you'll find most of them are in the US due to
| the H1-B program (only a tiny percentage come via other
| programs like the O visa).
|
| Yes, H1-B is often abused, but this is the reason it exists.
| It's a lot harder to get an H1B visa and then permanent
| residency if your degree is in the humanities, for example.
| memtet wrote:
| Ooh yes, let's address next how US top universities are all
| profit machines incentivized to take as many foreigners as
| possible, driving up the tuition they can charge so US
| citizens can't afford to get degrees. Let's do talk about how
| if you get a part time job to be able to pay for college then
| they yank your financial aid.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Why taking in foreign students raises the cost of tuition?
| Aren't they paying full price for it?
| BeetleB wrote:
| While foreigners definitely are a cash cow, I think you'll
| find in STEM fields most foreign PhD students are _not_
| paying tuition, but are instead funded by US grants.
|
| As for the cost of tuition, there are many, many reasons,
| and I suspect if you did a PCA, you'll find "raising
| tuition to milk foreigners" to be of minimal impact.
|
| In my state, for example, a local university publicized
| their finances going back decades, and the increase in
| tuition has been mirrored by a drop in state support per
| student. Overall the university is not making more money
| per student than they were 30 years ago - the only thing
| that changed is the entity making the payments.
| bradlys wrote:
| Isn't it well known that the main reason that most foreigners
| have advanced degrees is because that's how they get into the
| country legally in the first place?
|
| I don't see many people getting employed straight out of
| undergrad from India or China and moving to the US directly.
| They get their advanced degree here first to get into the
| country then they get employed...
| BeetleB wrote:
| > Isn't it well known that the main reason that most
| foreigners have advanced degrees is because that's how they
| get into the country legally in the first place?
|
| Yes, and ...?
|
| I mean, if it were a requirement to start a business and
| employ 10 Americans gainfully, would you go and say "Yeah,
| but the reason so many foreign born people do that is so
| they can get in legally."
|
| So?
|
| As long as they have higher level training than most
| Americans, and as long as we spend money training them (via
| research/teaching grants), isn't it a good idea to keep
| them?
| bradlys wrote:
| You're assuming people are really learning anything in
| those programs that they wouldn't have had in their
| undergrad. I've never met an American with an undergrad
| who is underperforming compared to their foreign MS
| counterparts. The MS is merely a cheaper tool to get into
| the country than other investment visas plus you get
| credentialed. I think it's also a bit of a validation
| tool that the person actually has studied at the same
| level as US counterparts. I have met some people from
| India who were surprised at how difficult college was
| when they came to the US compared to back in India.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| I was surprised at how easy college was in India when I
| saw the coursework.
| stackskipton wrote:
| I think vast majority of Americans not going on to higher
| education is because system is so screwed up due to debt and
| unlimited student visas.
|
| Debt means most Americans go "I need to enter into the job
| market so I can pay off these debts".
|
| Also, alot of foreign students are willing to work/study
| insane hours because visa hanging over their head. I have a
| friend who got MS in Engineering but didn't want to continue
| because he looked at what's required and started talking with
| his mentor about his PhD. His mentor said it's 996 schedule
| and if you don't want to, I can likely find a student visa
| student who will.
| breadwinner wrote:
| US tech exports in 2018 was $338 billion. Tech is our biggest
| export by far. Think of the US tech industry as a siphon that
| sucks in wealth from foreign countries. Would you want to make
| that siphon bigger or smaller?
|
| If you want to make that siphon bigger -- and more competitive
| -- how would you do it? By limiting the people that can work in
| tech to whoever companies can hire locally, or by bringing in
| the smartest people from around the world?
|
| Read more: https://mckoder.medium.com/does-america-need-
| immigration-781...
| PessimalDecimal wrote:
| Does "The US" siphon that money off? Or Meta, Google, Amazon,
| Microsoft, etc. siphon that money off? And where and to whom
| does it go from there?
|
| The major benefit of reducing or eliminating the H1B visa
| program is that those companies can continue to do well, and
| Americans can do well along with them.
| strongpigeon wrote:
| Restricting or eliminating the H1B visas will cause these
| companies to hire more in oversea offices. Consulting
| companies however are a whole other deal.
| tartoran wrote:
| Why aren't they doing that now though?
| dilyevsky wrote:
| Because the talent is already here or will be here (on
| h1b/o1). It's common complaint I hear from people doing
| offshore consultancies type of businesses that their best
| workers leave for US $$$ paycheck.
| strongpigeon wrote:
| They are to an extent.
| breadwinner wrote:
| The money this siphon brings in is benefiting not just tech
| workers and tech shareholders. When the money is spent it
| turns the wheels of our economy, which leads to prosperity
| for all Americans, not just the 8% or so that work in tech.
|
| The tech industry vacuums up money from foreign countries
| and pumps it into the economy of our country. The
| beneficiaries include all Americans, including those who
| work in restaurants, retail, healthcare, insurance,
| education, housing, transportation, entertainment and so
| on.
|
| Limiting tech industry to whoever companies can hire
| locally will hurt its global competitiveness. Such a move
| will not just hurt the few would-be tech immigrants that
| are prevented from immigrating, but American prosperity in
| general.
| tartoran wrote:
| When is that prosperity coming to the US? It seems that
| it's been leaving the US for the past decades and life is
| harder and harder and the American Dream is hardest to
| attain in decades.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| What you are referring to is the velocity of money.
| Compared to wage income the velocity of money from
| capital is quite low.
| jimberlage wrote:
| Thanks for adding this - I feel like people who can't
| understand why populism is at it's peak misunderstand this.
|
| Walmart is a U.S. company that historically did well, but I
| don't see why anyone would care unless you buy their stock
| or live in Bentonville.
|
| People don't care about macro indicators that lump the 1%
| and the 99% together.
| DragonStrength wrote:
| I'd like to see some geographic restrictions. Sure seems
| like certain states are reaping the benefits of all these
| smart immigrants while creating policies which
| disincentivize having families. That these workers can
| never vote, essentially, yet count to census data points
| even more to the winners in the scheme ignoring the losers.
| whereismyacc wrote:
| you can grow the sector. there's not a fixed supply of jobs.
| getting more talented people into your economy will likely just
| lead to more companies, more agglomeration effects etc. it's
| good.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| I think you should ask why any feature of our immigration
| system exists. Each way is cruel, byzantine and expensive for
| no discernible benefit to anyone except the directors of those
| programs.
| rbanffy wrote:
| It's also designed to attract talent from other countries. You
| didn't have to invest in their education, so that part comes
| for free.
| sunshowers wrote:
| Education. Learning. Expertise.
|
| As Asimov pointed out, "[t]here is a cult of ignorance in the
| United States, and there has always been." American culture is
| profoundly anti-intellectual. Every Dunning-Kruger rando thinks
| they have something valuable to contribute to every discussion.
| eweise wrote:
| That's exactly the reason. I don't remember working with any
| H-1B visa people in the 90s then the dotcom boom happened and
| demand soared. A couple years later I started working with H-1B
| engineers and my salary flatlined for over decade since.
| outworlder wrote:
| The program exists to brain drain other countries of talent.
| It's very successful at that.
| bdangubic wrote:
| 65k or 80k or say even 250k GLOBALLY per year is going to
| "brain drain" 8+ billion Global population? Yup, you got it,
| that's what US is doing...
| 0x457 wrote:
| What make you think that majority of that 8 billion
| population is worth to drain?
| bdangubic wrote:
| nothing at all :)
| 0x457 wrote:
| I'm not saying it's good or bad at brain drain, I'm just
| saying without knowing how many people overseas are worth
| "draining" that's not an argument.
|
| The program might have been designed for this, sold as
| this, but it's definitely not used for that anymore.
|
| H1B was created in 1990, that's when Russia (and ex-USSR
| in general) had a lot of idle brains that wouldn't mind
| moving to the US. Today isn't 1990 tho.
| bdangubic wrote:
| my apologies, I was just being sarcastic in my initial
| comment... the brain draining other countries by taking
| in 65k or whatever yearly is ... funny for the lack of
| worse but respectable word :)
| nirav72 wrote:
| Bringing over 10K java developers a year is going to brain
| drain other countries of java developers?
| hector_vasquez wrote:
| Put simply: It is in the national interest to have the world's
| most talented technologists here. It is yet more in the
| national interest that they work here, for us, and not for our
| enemies. One of the best ways we can compete with China is to
| attract their best and brightest with our free society and high
| wages.
| h1bgamer wrote:
| This H1B program is gamed so hard its a joke at this point.
|
| I personally witnessed someone that submit multiple applications
| that this person won the H1B lottery. This person even had fake
| office, fake business address, etc for the fake entities.
|
| I already reported it, but no action has been taken. This person
| is now happily employed in the US using H1B.
|
| Unethical life pro tips but work: for those of you trying to get
| H1B, just submit multiple applications to multiple "companies".
| There are services like this out there, just need to find out
| where.
|
| Good luck. This nation is for plunder.
| mksreddy wrote:
| Didn't the rule change last year where all applications by same
| person is considered as one?
| h1bgamer wrote:
| Yup but they actually can't check.
| ashconnor wrote:
| Erm they can. They are looking at passport numbers now.
| n144q wrote:
| Dude that's just not true. You need to submit almost every
| single detail about yourself before the lottery, including
| information on your passport. In fact this has dramatically
| decreased the duplicate entries to H1B lottery.
| JonoBB wrote:
| According to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42451726,
| this is much less of a thing than before.
| AcerbicZero wrote:
| [flagged]
| 999900000999 wrote:
| I'd rather have H1-B visas be a 5 year unrestricted work permit.
|
| America needs to keep attracting the world's best and brightest,
| but linking it to a specific employer is problematic. Opens up
| employees to mistreatment.
|
| I'd say charge a straight up fee, 500k upon approval. That gets
| you 5 years, if your wiz making 400k a year it's a great deal.
| daveguy wrote:
| If you're trying to get the best and brightest why would you
| charge 500 thousand dollars?! I don't care what kind of wiz you
| are, that's prohibitive.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| You need to already have means otherwise your out competing
| the lower end of the tech sector.
| mksreddy wrote:
| I thought it is a terrible idea from first sentence. Last
| paragraph completely changed my mind.
| jandrese wrote:
| I hate that it is time restricted at all. Just make it a green
| card program with a path to citizenship outright. Brain drain
| the rest of the world. Instead we are providing work experience
| to our future competitors.
| aylmao wrote:
| I worked many years under H1B, but moved out of the USA.
| Unsure if I'll come back, technically I still have time on my
| H1b, but man, it's just so stressful to lay roots knowing
| they're conditional on all sorts of ticking clocks and hoops
| to jump.
|
| I like working at early stage startups-- works pretty well
| with H1B but it makes the process of getting a green card via
| work complicated. Some people can deal with all that stress,
| I just rather not.
| remram wrote:
| If you need to already set up the business that can generate
| 500k in your home country before coming here, you do the
| opposite of bringing value and innovation to the US. You have
| already given most of that to the home country.
| aylmao wrote:
| I suspect most people that have a business that can generate
| $500k in their home country probably wouldn't want to move to
| the USA at all.
|
| Unless their business generates way more than $500k, in which
| case they'd probably be moving as businessmen, not as skilled
| workers.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| Are we actually doing that though? I managed H1-B employees at
| Verizon and honestly it felt like a scam. They weren't the best
| and brightest despite being awesome people in general, and they
| were also getting exploited by the company in terms of
| compensation. The only one benefitting seemed to be Verizon.
| whereismyacc wrote:
| would they have preferred not being able to live/work in the
| US at all?
| bastardoperator wrote:
| I would have preferred for a multi-billion dollar company
| to use the H1-B program as intended and to pay an American
| wage to someone living and working in America.
| codegeek wrote:
| "charge a straight up fee, 500k upon approval."
|
| There is already a work visa for that called EB5 even though
| the requirement is $1M (800K for rural areas) and you will need
| to hire 10 American workers. Plenty of rich people from other
| countries are using that already.
| hparadiz wrote:
| The biggest loop hole for not being allowed to hire non citizens
| or permanent residents is not the H-1B. It's actually B2B
| contracts that have absolutely no restrictions what so ever.
|
| At least the H-1B lets us keep some tax revenue.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| The new administration will likely reform USCIS around
| eligibility criteria rather than speed of processing and these
| reforms will be undone as quickly as Mayorkas is gone.
| DataDaemon wrote:
| I wonder how many people will move from socialism & bureaucracy
| Europe to the US.
| varjag wrote:
| Approximately none on top of the usual migration patterns.
| Eumenes wrote:
| Vast majority of H1bs are from India, and China. Only a few
| hundred per year from EU countries.
| kqgnkqgn wrote:
| Seem like sensible changes, though more is still needed.
| Requiring H1B holders to leave the country to renew paperwork is
| an insane anachronism. The per-country caps also seem like a
| throwback to the early 1900's era immigration exclusion policies.
|
| Re: the concerns over "immigrants taking our jobs!". As a native-
| born American working in a large tech company today - the threat
| is very clearly not from H1B's and other visas. The threat to
| American tech jobs is when US tech companies choose to build out
| offices in lower cost of living countries (and I'm very much
| including Europe in that, I think that's even a bigger problem).
|
| It's much much better for America if tech companies hire workers
| in the US, regardless of whether they are citizens. Americans are
| eligible for those jobs, and that money stays within our economy.
| Versus employing workers elsewhere, where American's can't easily
| be hired, and those resources leave the US.
|
| If we want to keep opportunities here - that's the issue we
| should be focus on fixing. What regulatory steps could we
| advocate for that would address this risk? Immigration is the
| wrong problem, and the focus on that in certain populist circles
| really demonstrates they are rather out of touch from what's
| actually happening in the industries that are driving the US
| economy today.
| Threadbare wrote:
| Following the sun is a win, faster project delivery and lowered
| cost of development
| kelnos wrote:
| Follow the sun is great for on-call rotations, but I'm my
| experience, for regular project work, the need for a handoff
| each day ends up being too much overhead. The teams in vastly
| different time zones wind up working mostly independently on
| completely different projects.
| rbanffy wrote:
| It brings its own set of communication and cross-cultural
| challenges.
| pdntspa wrote:
| That's for stuff that requires 24/7 support, not some
| harebrained project management technique that will make all
| your teams hate you
| akira2501 wrote:
| > to leave the country to renew paperwork is an insane
| anachronism.
|
| I always took it as a means of proving they still could return
| somewhere if necessary. Which is a reasonable thing to assure
| on a visa.
| kelnos wrote:
| That's pointless. They need to prove they have somewhere to
| return to while regretting their visa that lets them... not
| return there? Dumb.
|
| Ultimately it just wasted time and money, and causes lots of
| stress, for no useful purpose.
| akira2501 wrote:
| It's a visa. The whole point is that it's not permanent and
| you are ultimately expected to return home permanently. You
| may also be asked to leave at any time. It's reasonable for
| the host nation to want to ensure that outcome is still
| available and that someone hasn't actually fully emigrated
| here with no options for return.
|
| Ultimately it's known to anyone who applies for a visa that
| this will be the requirement, and so, if they don't want
| the economic opportunity of working in the US, they're free
| to avoid the stress and just stay in their home nation.
| cyberax wrote:
| > The whole point is that it's not permanent and you are
| ultimately expected to return home permanently.
|
| No. H1b is a "dual intent" visa. It's expected that you
| will file for a permanent residence while on this visa.
| bdangubic wrote:
| > It's a visa. The whole point is that it's not permanent
| and you are ultimately expected to return home
| permanently
|
| probably do not have to tell you this but not all visas
| are created equal... this one is particular is a dual-
| intent visa so what you are saying applies to SOME visas,
| just not this one :)
| rbanffy wrote:
| > It's much much better for America if tech companies hire
| workers in the US
|
| I used the same argument in Brazil to support a strong free
| software preference in all government functions. Support from
| voters in Redmond wouldn't get anyone re-elected in Brazil.
| fmeyer wrote:
| Then we got RedHat using the same strategy to sell support
| for the government :D
| remarkEon wrote:
| >It's much much better for America if tech companies hire
| workers in the US, regardless of whether they are citizens.
| Americans are eligible for those jobs, and that money stays
| within our economy. Versus employing workers elsewhere, where
| American's can't easily be hired, and those resources leave the
| US.
|
| I want to pick on this point, because it's the general refrain
| about this topic. If there is some thing that American workers
| can't do in an in-demand field, and the government sets up a
| system to allow non-citizens to do those jobs, most people will
| say that this "helps" America. But does it? If the education
| pipeline is inadequately preparing Americans for being
| competitive in this in-demand field then perhaps _that_ is the
| problem that should be addressed. Right now it feels like we
| have a (highly suspect) "labor shortage" that is addressed via
| immigration, which doesn't send a signal back to the
| educational/training infrastructure that they're doing
| something wrong.
| chabons wrote:
| I don't have statistics, but given the student visa -> H-1B
| pipeline changes, it would seem there are a number of H-1B
| holders who are educated in US colleges (either at the
| undergrad or graduate level). This indicates that the problem
| is not entirely a training gap.
| hash872 wrote:
| The US is only 4% of the world's population, so there's an
| enormous number of extremely smart people who live outside
| its present borders. I don't think anyone believes that even
| the world's greatest educational system can bring all of its
| students up to an extremely high level of general
| intelligence. We should be letting very smart people born
| outside the US emigrate here, which is a win-win for everyone
| involved
| remarkEon wrote:
| Sure. But the government of the United States is,
| allegedly, there for the benefit of its citizens. I'm not
| really following where this "should" comes from. "Should"
| in what volume? "Should" over what time frame?
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| If you don't think that having Linus Torvalds as a US
| citizen tremendously benefits the US public as a whole,
| enough to offset any imagined downsides of a great many
| merely average immigrating tech workers, there's nothing
| more to be said. And that's just him alone but he is
| merely one example of many other famous examples.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Linus works from home, he could do that from anywhere.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| A national government functions as a labor union on a
| national scale.
| hash872 wrote:
| Letting in a lot of smart people benefits the citizens of
| the United States, that's why I said it's a win-win. Do
| you think we'd be better off if we excluded Musk to hire
| a native-born American instead in our aerospace industry?
|
| Just going back in time, do you think the US would be
| better off if we'd excluded Irish immigrants? Italians?
| Germans? If blocking immigration somehow benefits native-
| born citizens, you'd logically have to think our
| population should have stayed the same as it was when we
| broke away from Britain. We'd be about the size of say
| Colombia, maybe with a bit higher GPD
| vkou wrote:
| > Do you think we'd be better off if we excluded Musk to
| hire a native-born American instead in our aerospace
| industry?
|
| Given where he ended up, probably.
|
| Cheap rockets are nice, but speed-running a complete
| destruction of public trust, culture, and of any illusion
| that the country is one with rule of law for the benefit
| of a few insecure billionaire narcissists is a juice that
| wasn't worth the squeeze.
| remarkEon wrote:
| The current immigration regime is still relatively _new_
| , it is not as if it has existed for the entirety of the
| existence of the United States. It's an artifact of the
| late 20th century, and only just now accelerated in the
| early 21st. That's barely a single generation. So, no, I
| don't take it as a given that essentially limitless
| immigration - even if loosely constrained on "high skill"
| - is somehow axiomatically good for the United States.
| hash872 wrote:
| I'm a little confused. It's possible to be very pedantic
| and say that the current immigration law only dates back
| to the 60s, but the population of the United States is
| 97.9% not from this continent. There was a wave of
| British, Spanish, and French immigration in the 17th &
| 18th centuries, followed by Germans, Italians, and Irish
| in the 19th & 20th. In the 19th century the legal regime
| about immigration was literally 'open borders', there
| were hardly any legal controls at all. The vast vast
| majority of us are the descendants of immigrants (my
| apologies if you personally are 100% Native American,
| didn't mean to lump you in)
| BJones12 wrote:
| > The per-country caps also seem like a throwback to the early
| 1900's era immigration exclusion policies.
|
| Canada does not have that and it is going very poorly. Lots of
| people are calling for the implementation of the same policy.
| aylmao wrote:
| How is not having a per-country cap going poorly in Canada?
| focom wrote:
| Have you heard of Brampton?
| aylmao wrote:
| Nope, what's that
| BJones12 wrote:
| Because there are an overwhelming number of immigrants from
| the same state (or two) in India.
| aylmao wrote:
| Is this bad due to the hypothetical loss of diversity?
| ie, it'd be better if there were a mix of Indian,
| Chinese, Brazilian, Mexican, etc immigrants, vs only
| immigrants from a single state in India?
| fourside wrote:
| It'd be interesting to understand why immigrants to
| Canada are disproportionately coming from a small number
| of locations. Unless there's a good reason behind it I
| think it's reasonable to find a better balance.
| Hilift wrote:
| > leave the country to renew paperwork is an insane anachronism
|
| Not really. This is really Customs and Border
| Patrol/Immigration way of saying, you can always do the
| default/what everyone else does. You can leave and return six
| months of the year. The key is leave (which they do), they are
| already declared non-immigrant, and are self-sufficient.
| outworlder wrote:
| Not sure what you are talking about. This is about H-1B, aka
| dual-intent visas. You can have immigrant intent.
|
| Also, if you leave for six months, how are you even working
| in the US? Which is the point of the visa.
| cute_boi wrote:
| The per-country caps is very important. Otherwise, you will see
| flood of same people which makes everything biased.
| xtreme wrote:
| It's a policy based on unsound reasoning. Why is India
| treated as a monolith when it is more diverse than the EU in
| terms of linguistic and cultural diversity? If tomorrow India
| magically broke off into 30 separate states, all the same
| people who have been waiting for decades would be immediately
| eligible for green cards. How does it make any sense?
| bdangubic wrote:
| H1B program is also diversity program, much like green card
| lottery...
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| A supposed shortage of qualified US applicants for tech jobs,
| especially software developers, doesn't jibe with the huge
| numbers of US developers currently looking for work, including
| highly experienced older workers suffering from age
| discrimination.
|
| I'd be surprised if more than 5-10% of H-1B positions are ones
| where the hiring company has even looked for US applicants.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| There is a shortage of applicants willing to work at what
| companies want to pay. If it is taking more than 30-60 days for
| workers to find a role, there are enough workers domestically.
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| > There is a shortage of applicants willing to work at what
| companies want to pay.
|
| That and companies are just hilariously bad at finding
| workers they _want_ to hire for nebulous reasons. I have no
| doubt even if my company hired 95% of the workers it had
| marked down as "no hire" they'd be able to squeeze a
| salary's of value worth out of each of them (well, if
| management is competent, which it tends to not be). I'm sure
| those of us who've been around long enough can all attest to
| some side of seeing form of this dysfunction. I'm more than
| happy to reject them for selfish reasons, of course, like "I
| don't want this person on my team" or "this person seems like
| an asshole" or "I don't want to teach this person their third
| language after java and typescript". Etc.
|
| I mean there are _terrible_ interview candidates out there,
| but the people who literally can 't code at all tend to be
| easy to filter out.
|
| I'm curious if there's any way to observe the salary margins
| that separate the top of the labor market from the bottom.
| Surely there are. That would probably give a big signal as to
| how much undue attention is given to, e.g., Senior vs Junior
| developers and American workers vs H1Bs. I'd put money that
| some of this complaining about lack of labor is actually not
| wanting to hire fresh grads and eat the cost of training when
| they'd be just fine. (Also the H1B thing, but that's already
| discussed to death)
| throwaway7783 wrote:
| Okay, I have interviewed hundreds of people in the last
| decade, and I can tell you that _most_ are not good enough.
| There are companies that are downright abusing H1B for wage
| suppression, but as a startup founder, I will try my
| hardest to avoid hiring people who I have to squeeze their
| salary 's worth and still get mediocre results (nothing to
| do with citizen or not - I had this experience with a
| Canadian contractor - just not worth it).
|
| I have been successful in liberating money from VCs and
| create jobs, and I want the best people _that money_ can
| buy. Turns out, there are great American and non-american
| candidates who are willing to work for the money I can
| offer. Also in my experience, I hardly even get resumes
| from Americans for backend jobs. Frontend is different and
| I get a LOT of American resumes. Our frontend engineering,
| PS, CX, Sales and Marketing is all-american, and backend is
| a mix of american, greencard, H1b - because thats all I get
| in the resume pipeline.
|
| If I have to cut costs, I will have to cut the team in US
| and _move_ the jobs to a low cost region regardless of
| their citizenship status.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| >> If I have to cut costs, I will have to cut the team in
| US and move the jobs to a low cost region regardless of
| their citizenship status.
|
| Read that sentence again. If you're hiring an American
| team in the Us, and cutting in the US, it's not
| regardless of citizenship - unless you're abusing the
| H-1B program
| lubujackson wrote:
| "Not good enough" or not good enough to pass your leet
| code gauntlet that has nothing to do with the day-to-day
| role?
|
| Because those aren't the same thing. Also don't discount
| interview stress - I read that psychologically the most
| difficult thing to do is be on stage in front of people
| and do complex math problems... which is basically what
| live coding tests are.
| afavour wrote:
| I hate leet code gauntlets too but I don't see what it
| has to do with hiring immigrant workers. No matter your
| status you are equally vulnerable to failing a code
| gauntlet test.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| Math problems usually have one right/wrong answer. Many
| interview 'challenges' have multiple ways of doing
| something correctly. Without necessarily knowing any more
| about the context of a problem beyond a few sentences,
| you work with what you've been given. You can deliver a
| working solution but if it's not the way they were
| expecting... you're out of the running.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| I wonder what your investors would think if they found
| out you can't manage and need to 'hope you find suitable
| talent' and that you are incapable of growing it?
| seneca wrote:
| > I wonder what your investors would think if they found
| out you can't manage and need to 'hope you find suitable
| talent' and that you are incapable of growing it?
|
| Not hiring mediocre talent is a key part of management.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Every company talks about finding talent. VCs are very
| familiar with this because many startups don't have
| familiarity with this stuff. It's not surprising to have
| a VC help hire for roles the startup is unfamiliar with
| hiring for. An investor is not someone's boss. Once
| they've handed over the capital, they're very invested in
| making sure that there aren't any blockers to the
| company's success.
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| > Okay, I have interviewed hundreds of people in the last
| decade, and I can tell you that most are not good enough.
|
| Me, too. I straight-up disagree; I think interviewing is
| just so broken it gives a false impression of quality
| issues in the labor pool. Realistically if you have a
| handful of core skills you can ramp up to basically any
| problem with enough time. That's time on the order of
| _months_ , maybe, not _years_. Companies just don 't want
| to bother training anyone anymore. Why bother when you
| can just complain endlessly and hope some politicians
| throw cheap labor your way? In that sense you're
| absolutely right, but the whole "quality" thing is
| completely unrelated.
|
| > I have been successful in liberating money from VCs and
| create jobs, and I want the best people that money can
| buy.
|
| I think people seriously overestimate the difference
| engineer quality makes. Most products can be built with
| mediocre talent. I'm sorry, that's the truth. We all love
| to have strong opinions on who we should hire and I say
| "almost anyone, just throw meat at the problem". Most
| problems are solved with time and not cleverness.
|
| Startups are definitely more sensitive to quality, but
| startups don't make up much of the labor pool, and they
| don't pay competitively with much larger companies that
| _don 't_ need the quality.
|
| I'm being a little hyperbolic here--you do need people
| with experience and ability to see red flags to lead the
| flock--but not by much.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| This is the truth that peoples egos can't seem to handle.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Add in that in the search for the _perfect_ candidate
| that has all 16 bullet point requirements you 'll come
| across folks who have, say, a solid 13 of them, but
| they'll get passed over waiting for the perfect candidate
| to come around. Which can take many months... years even.
| In the meantime you could have been bringing up one of
| those 13-point candidates getting them up to speed on
| those 3 missing bullet points. And you'd likely have
| gotten to a desired level of productivity faster than by
| waiting for that perfect candidate while wringing your
| hands that there just aren't enough qualified people out
| there.
| Aperocky wrote:
| > Most problems are solved with time and not cleverness.
|
| Yes, because given time someone clever would have came in
| and fixed it.
|
| It's like doing push up in the elevator and believing
| that arriving at the 100th floor is due to doing push
| ups.
|
| The GE, IBM, Intel, Boeing are few examples that didn't
| believe in quality - and not just people apparently, and
| their problems aren't getting solved with time.
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| Eh, I just don't see it. GE and IBM and Boeing are
| solving the problems they want to solve. Management
| dysfunction can't be blamed on low-quality workers.
| Anyway, I'm a little reluctant to draw the parallel with
| Boeing because I simply don't know what kind of work goes
| into that sort of engineering. Maybe cleverness is a big
| part!
|
| > Yes, because given time someone clever would have came
| in and fixed it.
|
| I can't emphasize enough how much software engineers
| overestimate the value of their own cleverness. Bugs are
| fixed with persistence, in my experience--I've used
| "cleverness" to find only a handful of bugs across my
| entire nearly two-decade career. I don't want to say I'm
| "the best engineer on the team" or anything like that,
| but I dependably fix the bugs that are put on my plate
| regardless of how frustrating they are to crack,
| regardless of what tools I need to bust out to get the
| job done. Debuggers, printf, valgrind, core dumps, packet
| captures, profilers, repls, disassembly, whatever's
| necessary. But all of these take _persistence_ to reach
| for and use to crack the case. Experience is a short cut,
| but that 's a very different thing than cleverness, and
| you very directly pay for that experience.
|
| Not to mention if I see "cleverness" in a code review
| you're gonna bet I'm gonna comment and ask you to make it
| less clever unless that cleverness seems to neatly solve
| a problem. Even then, commenting is absolutely critical.
|
| Time, not cleverness, is the key.
|
| Hell, the joke used to be that being a software engineer
| is 80% googling. Now that barrier's been lowered even
| further with chatbots: you can literally ask it to find
| the bug, explain behavior, _fix the bug_ , etc. It
| doesn't take _much_ competence to correct the output. All
| it takes is not giving up when you see problems.
| dunkelheit wrote:
| > That and companies are just hilariously bad at finding
| workers they want to hire for nebulous reasons. I have no
| doubt even if my company hired 95% of the workers it had
| marked down as "no hire" they'd be able to squeeze a
| salary's of value worth out of each of them (well, if
| management is competent, which it tends to not be).
|
| Isn't it ironic that a comment making fun of companies for
| not hiring workers who can barely contribute above their
| salary's value, in the very same sentence blames management
| for incompetence. Well, guess what, managers are hired
| workers too, so if you apply the same principle to them,
| this is what you get.
|
| What you suggest makes sense from the "homo economicus"
| point of view, but the result will be a barely functional
| hellhole riddled with incompetence (at least this is what
| it will feel like from within.) Can we blame people for
| being "selfish" and not wanting to work in this kind of
| environment?
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| > Well, guess what, managers are hired workers too,
|
| I didn't comment on hiring "managers", did I?
|
| > Can we blame people for being "selfish" and not wanting
| to work in this kind of environment?
|
| I did cop to this behavior, right? I do agree. It makes
| my life easier rejecting candidates. I'm just saying this
| complaining over lack of quality talent seems like the
| corporate equivalent of feigned helplessness rather than
| an actual problem.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| There's a shortage of applicants with the skills that
| companies need. Engineers, like most qualified workforce,
| aren't interchangeable.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| This is not what the data shows [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. Also,
| the efforts of many US firms recently to grow their India
| and LATAM presence [6] demonstrates this is for cost
| reasons, not a lack of qualified workforce. Companies will
| hire contractors from IT outsourcers and similar to launder
| the labor cost cramdown operation. IT unemployment is ~6%
| [7], why are we issuing any H1Bs beyond exceptional, highly
| compensated talent (~$300k-$500k/year and up)?
|
| [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-cognizant-h1b-v
| isas-... | https://archive.today/jaXNo
|
| [2] https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-
| widespread-wage...
|
| [3] https://cis.org/North/Unlikely-Sources-Confirm-Wage-
| Suppress...
|
| [4] http://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2015/05/economists-h-
| 1b-vi...
|
| [5] https://gspp.berkeley.edu/assets/uploads/research/pdf/h
| 1b.pd...
|
| [6] https://stig.net/latam-outsourcing-destination-us-
| companies/
|
| [7] https://www.wsj.com/articles/it-unemployment-
| hits-6-amid-ove...
| throwaway7783 wrote:
| I mean, If I have an India or LATAM presence, why would I
| hire in the US at all, even H1Bs? Unemployment rates mean
| nothing if its a skills job. Eng #1 is not the same as
| Eng #2. You can see this plainly in interviews. Our hit
| rate for engineering is roughly 1 in 20 - purely based on
| the skill match. So 6-7% unemployment might as well mean
| they are not good enough?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Indeed, it's why policy will be an important component,
| just as tariffs can be used to stoke domestic production
| (to bring outsourcing costs to domestic cost parity).
| I.R.C. SS174 touches on this with an amortization delta
| between US and non-US based development and R&D cost
| accounting, for example.
|
| https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/posts/tax-and-
| accountin...
|
| > Beginning in 2022, all costs related to R&D must now be
| amortized over five years for US-based companies or 15
| years for non-US companies.
|
| With regards to "not good enough", maybe expectations (as
| a hiring manager or org) are unrealistic? Very
| subjective, so I find this topic to be difficult to argue
| effectively. I am not unsympathetic to the fact that
| hiring is hard, but the evidence of bad faith behavior at
| scale is undeniable and requires accounting for. If we're
| going to live in a socioeconomic system where people are
| forced to work to survive and there are little, if any,
| social safety nets, domestic employment must take
| priority over potential profits and economic gains of
| owners and similar controlling interests arbitraging
| labor cross border (or importing cheap labor) imho. As a
| founder/business owner, I can appreciate you're
| optimizing within your local minima.
| dingnuts wrote:
| > There is a shortage of applicants willing to work at what
| companies want to pay
|
| Translation: companies would rather have underpaid immigrants
| as indentured servants to exploit than Americans who can
| demand higher wages
| rtpg wrote:
| A problem solved if visas are not associated to employers,
| because then an employer couldn't hold onto the employee
| like this.
| TechDebtDevin wrote:
| No. Because it still floods the job market with off short
| talent that is willing to work for 30% less. Construction
| workers arent tied to a single employer (usually) and
| that drops the price of labour across the board even in
| union dominated markets.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| The simple solution is for the government to put a tax on
| the visa. For each H1-B the company does, they pay the
| government an additional $200,000 per year (or some other
| large, arbitrary sum). If they really need them that
| badly, they'll pay up. What I think happens is that they
| discover they don't need them quite so much.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| Tariffs on visas?
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Great idea
| aylmao wrote:
| I mean, I can think of a lot of things businesses could
| greatly benefit and grow from, but would have to do
| without if it came with $200,000/yr price tag.
|
| IMO this is not about wether a business can do without X.
| Most businesses can do without a lot of things, just more
| poorly. IMO this is about finding the right balance
| between the benefits and drawbacks of hiring foreign
| specialized workers.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Ranked by salary is an alternative I've heard.
| aylmao wrote:
| A lot of things "flood the job market". In 2021, >104k
| degrees CIS degrees were awarded by US colleges [1].
| There's a flood of young people entering the market every
| year, and they're willing to work for >30% less than
| experienced engineers because it's their first proper
| job.
|
| IMO as with all things money, it's all about negotiation.
| Of course a lot of negotiating power simply has to do
| with the market supply/demand, but a whole lot has to do
| with policy and rules. Giving more negotiating power to
| H1Bs would definitely put upwards pressure on salaries.
|
| Re: construction workers. Same problem, worker's rights.
| A lot of construction workers are undocumented: an
| estimated 20 percent [2][3]. Undocumented immigrants have
| virtually no negotiating power. Allowing this solid 1/5th
| of the workforce to confront their employer without fear
| of deportation would go a long way increasing
| compensation for the industry as a whole.
|
| [1]: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d22/tables/dt22_
| 322.10.a...
|
| [3]: https://limos.engin.umich.edu/deitabase/2024/05/28/u
| ndocumen...
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > There is a shortage of applicants willing to work at what
| companies want to pay
|
| If you want the best candidates, it makes sense to have a
| wider pool of recruitment.
| amykhar wrote:
| That is absolutely what these kinds of Visas are NOT supposed
| to be addressing.
| thephyber wrote:
| > If it is taking more than 30-60 days for workers to find a
| role, there are enough workers domestically.
|
| This makes no sense, even if I agree with your first
| statement.
|
| Not every company is willing to completely retrain a worker
| for something outside of their core competency. Lots of
| candidates simply aren't competent, or even reliable
| employees. Lots of companies would rather a position go
| unfilled than make a bad hire that is very expensive to fix.
| dmayle wrote:
| This is why H1-B visas should have a minimum salary
| requirement equal to 20% over whichever is greater, median
| salary for the role in the industry, or median salary for the
| role in the company (and whichever is greater, US-wide, or
| local pay scale).
|
| This way, a company is always incentivized to find local
| talent, but when they are actually unable to, they have a
| path to find the expertise they need. The U.S. could relax
| restrictions on H1-B, lowering red tape, and removing a lot
| of churn that comes with the H1-B program
| Spivak wrote:
| I feel like this whole issue could be solved short order if we
| agreed that not being able to find qualified applicants _at a
| given fixed price_ does not a shortage make.
|
| It's the same with the "fast food shortage," I bet the shortage
| would dry up real fast at $50/hr so all we're really doing is
| haggling over price. If in order to hire a H1-B at a salary of
| x you had to offer US workers 2x with say a $100k floor on x
| then I bet Americans would show up.
| sunshowers wrote:
| So you want to depress wages of vulnerable people on visas
| even more? What is wrong with you?
| LPisGood wrote:
| It seems to me that there is a dichotomy between that or
| allowing companies to continue to snub US workers for
| vulnerable foreign labor.
|
| Maybe you could escape the dichotomy by requiring H1-B
| workers to be in the 5% paid employees at a company or
| something.
| sunshowers wrote:
| No, what needs to happen is to give workers mobility. H1B
| workers are preferentially hired at some firms because of
| their lack of mobility -- they're easier to abuse than
| other workers. Addressing that would let everyone be on
| an equal footing and share the benefits of agglomeration
| (immigration increases supply and demand!) It would also
| be far more just and equitable.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Parents idea is better.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| On a market with free pricing there _are_ , pretty much by
| definition, no shortages or surpluses.
|
| Instead prices go up or down until supply and demand meet.
|
| So talking about "shortages" in this context doesn't really
| make sense to me. Yet that's the terminology in this field,
| and the resulting confusion is unavoidable.
| jltsiren wrote:
| A shortage is a situation, where the market cannot bring
| high prices down by increasing the supply. For example, if
| software engineers earn more than equally demanding roles
| in other engineering fields and the situation persists long
| enough, there is a shortage of software engineers.
| lastiteration wrote:
| Who decides if the price is high or low? That should be
| the market. High salaries -> more people decide to pursue
| it as a career -> more competition -> lower salaries.
| They are trying to force salaries down quicker
| cherryteastain wrote:
| > On a market with free pricing there are, pretty much by
| definition, no shortages or surpluses.
|
| Remember the "chip shortage" all throughout the pandemic?
| It's not like the whole world switched to a Soviet style
| command economy between 2020 and 2022 yet we still had it.
| whaleofatw2022 wrote:
| "Free market" folks tend to ignore the ladder-pulls and
| existing regulations that make it a non-free market.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| That's an interesting case!
|
| ChatGPT mentions some factors for why suppliers didn't
| just raise prices until the demand met the supply:
|
| 1. The industry often has long term contracts that fixes
| prices months or years in advance.
|
| 2. Even without such contracts, the value of stable,
| long-term relationships with major customers made
| suppliers keep prices stable.
|
| 3. Governments intervened to prevent "price gouging" for
| favored industries, and even without such intervention,
| perceived price gouging can be more damaging long term
| than is made up for by near term profits.
|
| So you're right that there was a real shortage for a
| time.
|
| But note my original caveat: "On a market with free
| pricing". Unfree pricing (contracts/regulation) was one
| factor.
|
| But PR considerations, which I admit I didn't think of,
| was also a factor. So I learned something here!
| eru wrote:
| > I feel like this whole issue could be solved short order if
| we agreed that not being able to find qualified applicants at
| a given fixed price does not a shortage make.
|
| It could be solved by realising that letting immigrants in,
| especially highly skilled ones, is good for the country (and
| for the immigrants!), independent of anything like a 'skills
| shortage'.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| So then call the H1-B program what it is - a way for US tech
| companies to depress wages to the point that you can't afford
| to live the US, unless it's a bunch of H-1B holders living
| together in a house share.
|
| The same goes for offshoring for jobs. Lovely for
| shareholders and the CEO's bonus, but not so great for US
| residents having to compete with them who are paying US cost
| of living, not Indian/etc overseas cost of living.
|
| It'd be nice if the US government would pass laws benefiting
| its own citizens/residents rather than corporations.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| It's racist to prefer citizens over non-citizens though.
| The US government should pass laws benefiting all people of
| the world equally.
| gmueckl wrote:
| It's nationalist, not racist. Passports and border
| controls are the practical foundation of all nationalism.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| Huh? There are US citizens of all sorts of ethnic/racial
| backgrounds.
|
| Preferring US citizens over outsourcing is patriotic, not
| racist. It's also being a good corporate citizen -
| supporting the country/people you are gaining your
| profits from.
| nirav72 wrote:
| not sure if your comment was an attempt at sarcasm and I
| just missed it. In case it wasn't - it's not racist for
| country to look after its own economic interest or the
| interest of its own citizens.
| closeparen wrote:
| House sharing is a problem with the numbers of people that
| FAANG wants to employ in West Coast communities that aren't
| having it, not with their identities. When people making
| $300-500k can't have their own houses, the problem is not
| money.
| strongpigeon wrote:
| Good news: the USCIS makes this data available! [0]
|
| Google, Microsoft and Meta definitely look for (and hire!) US
| applicants. One can reasonably have a gripe with the consulting
| companies on there (Infosys, Tata, Cognizant, etc.) but they
| don't represent 90-95% of H-1B issued.
|
| [0] https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-
| studies/h-1b-employe...
| pnw wrote:
| One might have more than just a gripe with Infosys given they
| recently admitted to defrauding the visa system over decades
| and paid a record $34m fine. How many Americans lost out on
| jobs as a result? We'll never know.
|
| https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/indian-corporation-pays-
| re...
| strongpigeon wrote:
| It's worth saying though that this fine is for lying and
| abusing the B-1 visas (to circumvent H-1b limitations).
| That being said I still believe there are a lot of issues
| with these companies regarding their H-1bs in the first
| place.
| guiomie wrote:
| Actually, looking at your link, Google, Meta, Apple, Amazon
| are all in the top 10... on the link you shared, am I missing
| something?
| strongpigeon wrote:
| My point was that those companies are indeed in the top 10,
| and those companies also look at and hire US applicants.
| This was in response to the commenter's point that they'd
| be surprised if 5-10% of H1Bs listing even considered US
| applicants.
| philosopher123 wrote:
| If you filter out Information only ( which i am being
| conservative because this does not include healthcare and
| other sectors ) that is about 20K high paying IT Jobs. This
| def smells funny that they cannot find "quality" candidates
| in US that can build APIs and do FE work. Maybe out of that
| 20K workers, 500 might be actually be doing something special
| but rest are doing the work that does not need any
| specialization.
| aylmao wrote:
| I wonder if this shortage has to do with the recent strong
| swing back to in-office work
| warkdarrior wrote:
| Well, what is a company supposed to do if local candidates do
| not want RTO? It seems logical to hire workers who are OK
| with RTO, especially if they are outside of the country and
| clearly willing to relocate for RTO.
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _Well, what is a company supposed to do if local
| candidates do not want RTO?_
|
| Well one option, of course, would be not forcing staff to
| return to office.
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| It just takes the negotiation power from the employees
| though. The question is, whether it's more important to
| make the employees happy or the businesses. Both have valid
| cases.
| eru wrote:
| Talking about a shortage of local applicants is really
| irrelevant and at most a distraction.
|
| It's the old 'the foreigners are taking our jobs' routine.
| semiquaver wrote:
| > I'd be surprised if more than 5-10% of H-1B positions are
| ones where the hiring company has even looked for US
| applicants.
|
| But H1B employers are required to certify that they took good
| faith steps to recruit U.S. workers for these positions and
| were unable to find qualified candidates to hire.
|
| You really think a business would do that? Just go to the
| government and tell lies?
| pnw wrote:
| Yes, some of them have been doing it for decades.
|
| https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/indian-corporation-pays-
| re...
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| Yes - it seems this is routinely done for H-1B positions. You
| meet the requirement for having advertised the job by running
| an ad for 1 day in the back of the fisherman's chronicle. You
| tailor the job description so closely to the H-1B candidate
| you've already decided to hire, that it'd be easy to defend
| why you rejected other candidates (should they inconvenience
| you by seeing the ad and applying).
| vetrom wrote:
| "Good faith" by the letter of the law is often established by
| chichanery like posting job ads with nebulous requirements in
| _print_ newspapers, requiring mail in resumes, and
| slowrolling a process.
|
| Not lies, strictly, but I see plenty of evidence pointing to
| the 'fake job' phonemena that seems to be discounted, like
| this example: https://www.teamblind.com/post/Intuit-firing-
| up-ads-in-local...
|
| Filtering out real information from data and anecdata is a
| challenge at the best of times, but I am ill convinced of the
| honesty of most of the recruitment market.
| bdangubic wrote:
| there is limited number of H1B visas that are issued each year
| (as if I have to even say this)... so they won't make a dent if
| you are correct with "the huge numbers of US developers
| currently looking for work."
|
| we abolish the program and boom, 65k people out of this
| apparently HUGE number of US developers looking for work won't
| make a dent... so this argument holds absolutely no water ...
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| ...other than... you know... the entire point of the H1B visa
| program... is to get talent the US DOESN'T already have ...
| bdangubic wrote:
| I am not arguing the merits/purpose of the program. just
| the silly that this program is affecting US population tech
| (un)employment
| Aperocky wrote:
| Well, if there aren't such programs people like Elon or
| Satya and Pichai might have never started out. You look at
| them as being successful and exceptional today (regardless
| of some of the more questionable antics and decisions),
| when they just started, it's hard to argue that you can't
| find similar, exceptional talent in the US.
|
| But if you shut off that valve, they would not be here 25
| years later.
| ashconnor wrote:
| As a non-immigrant to the United States, I don't really buy
| into the idea that companies prefer H1B candidates purely for
| financial reasons. The H1B process is frankly a rigid,
| unreliable and time-consuming process.
|
| It's hard for even Canadians and Mexicans to find jobs in the
| US and we have access to the supposedly easy to obtain TN visa.
| Australians too with E3.
|
| I'm more inclined to believe that H1B workers have other
| benefits to employers such as longer tenure due to the
| restrictions of moving jobs.
|
| Which in itself should be an argument for further
| liberalization say by giving I140 approved petitioners access
| to EADs.
| lupusreal wrote:
| > _I 'm more inclined to believe that H1B workers have other
| benefits to employers such as longer tenure due to the
| restrictions of moving jobs._
|
| That _is_ a financial motive. Companies don 't want to pay
| the kind of compensation which would induce employees to be
| loyal to the company, and so they use H1B quasi-indentured
| servitude as a cheaper alternative.
| gmueckl wrote:
| It doesn't quite work that way. H-1B employees need to have
| above average compensation or their field. This is part of
| the application process.
| ashconnor wrote:
| I think you're assuming that everyone has a price.
|
| Also H1Bs can't also start their own businesses (at least
| before this rule). So that was another restriction.
| orochimaaru wrote:
| I've been on an H1B before, a long time back. Most
| companies do not want to deal with your immigration issues.
| Bigger enterprises have the resources. But the moment you
| get smaller, there isn't a whole lot of patience or energy
| for that.
|
| As an H1B I May have made marginally less than my peers who
| were not immigrationally challenged. But as promotions
| picked up I think that wasn't an issue anymore.
|
| The one thing I still have though is I'm never the squeaky
| wheel. Getting laid off on an H1B is brutal. So your
| tolerance for corporate bs and workplace toxicity is quite
| high.
| whaleofatw2022 wrote:
| This last point is a big one.
|
| I've seen more than one shop that would use contract
| houses as a way to 'paper over' their internal turnover
| issues.
|
| After all, even if the internal resource at the body shop
| asks for and gets a transfer, they've got another body in
| to finish the contract.
|
| Plus the fringe benefits. That h1b is a sword of
| damocles, contractor will work 6/10+ even if the main
| shop is doing 45 on average for engineers.
|
| Which, doesn't get you better code typically, but it
| let's suits say people are working long hours to get the
| task done.
| closeparen wrote:
| Only in the context of H1B does anyone conceive of tech workers
| as having a binary condition called "qualified." In white-
| collar jobs worth having, impact scales essentially infinitely
| with skill. You aren't looking for people who are merely
| capable of some baseline, you are looking for the best. The
| world is much bigger than America, so even if Americans are
| very good, many of the best are still foreigners.
| silisili wrote:
| I agree with this in theory, but in practice...
|
| I've worked directly with probably 50 or so H1B folks in my
| career. I can only think of a few I'd call exceptional. Just
| like Americans, most were a mixed bag from good to terrible.
|
| So the idea and argument of best of the best is sound, but
| it's definitely not being used solely that way.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| The idea of 'best of the best' relies on the assumption
| that it is measurable which history has shown that it is
| not.
| closeparen wrote:
| I mean, this is basic VC logic: because the returns are
| power law distributed, and it's very hard to know in
| advance which ones are going to hit, you should probably
| invest at least a little bit in anyone who seems
| basically plausible. Imagine having denied a visa to
| Sergey Brin!
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Money is measurable, engineer quality is not. Sure with a
| smaller startup you could average amongst the engineers
| but it's an imprecise value. The million threads on
| leetcode and interview are proof positive engineer
| valuation is hard.
|
| It's all well and good to gamble when someone else, the
| public, is picking up the tab.
| closeparen wrote:
| What tab? H1B engineers are definitionally employed,
| usually in the upper tax brackets.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Unpriced externalities. Housing is unaffordable in no
| small part due to immigration. Opportunity cost for
| Americans workers.
|
| Generally the government manages the economy to make
| things 'easy' but not necessarily reflecting the true
| cost of any behavior.
| closeparen wrote:
| Housing is unaffordable because tech brings high-paying
| jobs into regions that don't want housing growth. Whether
| the people coming to fill those jobs and throw those
| salaries around in the housing market are from India or
| from Wisconsin hardly matters, except that it's more
| comfortable for local governments to be overtly hostile
| to the Wisconsinites.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Housing requires land which inherently does not scale.
| fellowmartian wrote:
| Most people are missing the fact that there's a whole
| immigration economy on the other end, it's not a passive
| storefront (that was banned in the 19th century). People
| want to immigrate, but the people who are best at
| immigrating aren't necessarily best at their job.
| calculatte wrote:
| H1B doesn't test for skill. It is a lottery. And judging from
| the skill of hundreds of H1Bs I've worked with, it is a
| failure of a system.
| bdangubic wrote:
| where the F do you work when you are surrounded by
| "hundreds of H1Bs" - at the airport's baggage claim when
| they arrive?
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > A supposed shortage of qualified US applicants for tech jobs,
| especially software developers, doesn't jibe with the huge
| numbers of US developers currently looking for work, including
| highly experienced older workers suffering from age
| discrimination.
|
| While I tend to agree, this is a bit of a straw man.
|
| You can have tons of people looking for work who aren't
| qualified for the job - which is (I think) the FAANG argument.
|
| It's not like FAANG is paying less than what most unemployed
| techies are looking to make.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| FAANG companies have been laying people off at the moment, so
| it doesn't seem they are exactly suffering from a lack of
| workers. Until a year or so ago some of these companies were
| hiring people without any real work for them, just to deprive
| their competitors of talent.
| coliveira wrote:
| Well, tech companies claim that they cannot find good enough
| workers to fill their positions. But "good enough" is a
| subjetive classification. I can always create a test for which
| you are not good enough, it doesn't matter how much knowledge
| you have. And that's what tech companies have done for years.
| They'll aways craft a contrived interview process that will
| classify most people as not "good enough" and use this as
| evidence that there are not enough workers available, so they
| will get the opportunity to expand the pool of workers as much
| as they want.
| harichinnan wrote:
| It's really simple test. Dig into unemployment numbers for
| skill shortages. If your industry only has an acceptable level
| of unemployment filings, then it qualifies as an industry
| eligible for H1B. Within the industry, each company would
| interview you on SV style data structures and algorithms. If
| you don't make the interview, you are not qualified. The
| foreigner who could pass such a qualifying test would then get
| the job and visa is an accessory here.
| snakeyjake wrote:
| My employer cannot hire H-1Bs.
|
| You must be a US citizen to work for my company. No "US
| Persons" (visa holders) or foreigners allowed.
|
| You have to be eligible for a Secret security clearance. You
| don't have to get one if you don't want to as there is usually
| plenty of uncleared work to go around, but you have to be
| eligible in case that goes away and we need to put you in for a
| clearance.
|
| We cannot find qualified applicants.
|
| I've had this conversation many times on HN so here are some
| preemptive responses:
|
| No, we don't make weapons for the military. Well, we do but not
| my part of the company. The most harmful thing the products I
| build do is quantify in precise detail how climate change is
| dooming us all.
|
| No, our positions aren't ghost positions.
|
| Yes, we are willing to train someone who is motivated. We won't
| re-teach linear algebra to a developer applicant but we will
| pay a tech writer to go to school nights/weekends to get a
| degree in engineering (me, I did that).
|
| Yes, we have extensive high school and college work-
| study/internships and participants make $72k/yr. with full
| benefits for the duration of the program. That pipeline is
| actually successful.
|
| No, you can't work remotely. You (even programmers!) have to
| touch the things we build in order to build them and nobody has
| an ISO certified clean room in their house.
|
| Yes, we pay well.
|
| No, we don't pay as much as Meta. We build components for
| satellites that have been sold to space agencies and purchased
| by various departments/ministries of the environment, not your
| personal information to advertisers-- one party has more money
| to spend than the other.
|
| We have shortages in mech/EE/Aero, shortages in software, and
| critical shortages in engineering technicians.
|
| One issue is that we expect programmers to remember linear
| algebra and have more than the ability to shovel frameworks on
| top of each other until a phone app comes out the other side.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| What is your definition of qualified.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > No, you can't work remotely. You (even programmers!) have
| to touch the things we build in order to build them and
| nobody has an ISO certified clean room in their house.
|
| What part of the country are you in?
| MisterTea wrote:
| This. If you're not in or near a major urban center you're
| going to have to really be attractive to pull people in to
| work there.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| And if you are near a major urban center pay needs to
| reflect the HCOL environment or the unpaid commute time.
| edm0nd wrote:
| a lot of these fed or sec clearance type jobs in
| VA/Maryland area.
| mfer wrote:
| If someone is a software developer who has done non-trivial
| things and linear algebra but not recently and needs to be
| refreshed, do you provide time/training to refresh on the
| math skills?
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| I understand your struggle. I have worked with US and non-US
| orgs that are in similar boat.
|
| In my experience this is often and at least in part a self-
| inflicted wound. As you describe your side of the business,
| it should not restricted, but it is. _Maybe?_ Not enough
| detail to be certain.
|
| What I see time and time again is business not willing to
| implement proper DLP, labeling and isolation of restricted
| things. Instead, they just throw everything into a single
| bucket, because it is quicker, faster, some of the risk and
| compliance is shifted to third party, and _initially_
| cheaper.
|
| In short, a US, UK, Aus company that does government
| contracts will just force _everyone_ into NOFORN, on-prem
| requirements (because DFARS, CMMC, CE+, Essential 8, or
| whatever). It is way quicker to do this for entire company
| than actually label data, isolate environment and resources,
| and so on.
| geertj wrote:
| Why linear algebra? Honest question, i have not seen this as
| a specific requirement before.
| jmb99 wrote:
| It can be inferred that they're making satellites, or at
| least satellite components. It's pretty likely that vector
| math will be involved in some of the software being written
| in that context. In particular, if anything they write
| involves navigation (which is a lot of things when it comes
| to satellites, from actually maneuvering to observation
| correction) you need to have a pretty good understanding of
| linear algebra to write good software. And aerospace isn't
| an industry where you want someone relying on google for
| mission-critical logic.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Sure, but there's a huge spectrum between "mild
| competence" and "can recite strang's verbatim". My
| experience is that companies emphasizing specific math
| skills beyond normal professional baselines typically
| expect the latter despite usually offering the same (or
| lower) salaries than the former.
| panzagl wrote:
| Satellites go in circles and need to point at things.
| buckle8017 wrote:
| You might believe that you don't make weapons, but nobody
| else does.
|
| You're building satellite components, which I'm quite certain
| are dual use.
| snakeyjake wrote:
| The linux kernel is dual-use.
| buckle8017 wrote:
| This is why you can't hire anybody competent.
|
| Maybe try admitting what you're building and justify it
| as necessary instead.
|
| Insulting people's ability to reason is a certain way to
| repel anybody with a brain.
| snakeyjake wrote:
| I used to build fantastic little things the likes of
| which no human being had ever seen before that have
| killed many, many, people including (if reports from that
| side of the company are right, and they are) thousands
| and thousands of Russians and their tanks.
|
| Now I design radar panel assemblies for weather
| satellites.
|
| They're both a good living.
| p1esk wrote:
| _Yes, we pay well. No, we don 't pay as much as Meta._
|
| How well do you pay? If I were at Meta, my total comp would
| be 500-600k. I make half that at a small startup. Can you
| afford me?
| panzagl wrote:
| No they cannot, unless maybe you have advanced degrees and
| a couple decades experience.
| optimiz3 wrote:
| Yeah but then you're too old. Need to be in your 20s with
| a couple decades of experience.
| snakeyjake wrote:
| How many years of experience?
|
| I fall almost exactly on the low end of this range:
| https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/senior-aerospace-
| engineer...
|
| With 15 years of experience.
|
| I'm at the low end of my peers.
|
| Like I said, auctioning off access to your users to
| advertisers pays better than the European space agency.
| briffle wrote:
| Do you offer to sponsor people to get their security
| clearance? many jobs I see in the sysadmin space want someone
| who already has clearance, and are not willing to do the
| process of getting someone their clearance.
| calculatte wrote:
| You didn't name your employer for someone who might be
| interested. Perhaps visibility is one reason you can't find
| anyone?
|
| I applied to a similar position locally this year. I far
| exceed their requirements and experience and I got rejected
| at the application stage. And the same goes for nearly all of
| other places I applied to. Hiring has most definitely changed
| over the years. They are not just looking for "qualified
| applicants". There is something else going on.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| > You must be a US citizen to work for my company. No "US
| Persons" (visa holders) or foreigners allowed.
|
| Just to clarify, being a _dual_ U.S. citizen (e.g.,
| U.S.-Canadian, U.S.-Irish) doesn 't necessarily prevent a
| person from obtaining a U.S. "SECRET" security clearance.
| pseudocomposer wrote:
| What's your company? What exactly do you pay? I haven't done
| linear algebra in a while but certainly remember enough from
| graphics programming (and of course physics and linear
| algebra proper) in undergrad. Feel free to check out and
| contact me via any of the routes available on my GitHub:
| https://github.com/JonLatane
| drivingmenuts wrote:
| > You have to be eligible for a Secret security clearance.
| You don't have to get one if you don't want to as there is
| usually plenty of uncleared work to go around, but you have
| to be eligible in case that goes away and we need to put you
| in for a clearance.
|
| Y'all should probably make that clear. Usually, the moment I
| see something like that as a job requirement, I move on. Not
| because I may or may not qualify, but because I honestly
| don't remember a lot of the information required and because
| it's not clear that I can work in a non-weapon-building role.
| Probably should offer refresher courses in linear algebra -
| I've been a developer for 25+ years and have never knowingly
| used it.
| dcrazy wrote:
| > You must be a US citizen to work for my company. No "US
| Persons" (visa holders) or foreigners allowed.
|
| This is illegal under IRCA unless another law or government
| contract mandates it. [1] If every single role at your
| company requires a Secret clearance, then I question how
| separate "your part of the company" really is from the part
| that makes weapons.
|
| [1] https://www.eeoc.gov/national-origin-discrimination
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Obviously this company is a government contractor.
| dcrazy wrote:
| Not all government contracts require all employees
| working on the contract to have clearances or be US
| citizens.
| thephyber wrote:
| Then you should support this rule change:
|
| > Finally, the rule strengthens program integrity by codifying
| USCIS' authority to conduct inspections and impose penalties
| for failure to comply; requiring that the employer must
| establish that it has a bona fide position in a specialty
| occupation available for the worker as of the requested start
| date; clarifies that the Labor Condition Application must
| support and properly correspond with the H-1B petition; and
| requires that the petitioner have a legal presence and be
| subject to legal processes in court in the United States.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| H-1B is a scam for hiring Indian developers who then become
| beholden to the companies they work for. That's it.
| dosinga wrote:
| ah yes, like the CEOs of Google and Microsoft
| ivalm wrote:
| We don't support h1b, of the last 3000 applicants we had only 1
| was qualified. It's super hard to hire strong swe.
| sciencesama wrote:
| Well they charge you more ! Us is famous for not hiring
| programmers aged above 50 cuz they are expensive !!
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| I used to work for the U.S. Naval Undersea Warfare Centers, and
| it was a pretty good experience.
|
| U.S. citizens (and perhaps some dual-citizens) might want to
| look into such places (Navy warfare centers, NRL, ARL, etc.)
|
| TL;DR:
|
| The top starting pay is about $150k IIRC, which I'm told is
| somewhat below what a well-funded defense contractor will pay
| for really good people.
|
| But I worked with some great people, the work was interesting,
| and it was located in a medium-cost-of-living area.
|
| I left because of the siren call of the startup scene, and
| frustration with some bureaucratic stuff. But in retrospect I
| actually like it better there.
| FL33TW00D wrote:
| Surprised by all the negativity here.
|
| The USA benefits enormously from skilled immigration: "doubling
| the size of the US H1B visa program increases US and EU growth by
| 4% in the long-run"
|
| From a recent paper here: https://academic.oup.com/qje/advance-
| article-abstract/doi/10...
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| It's a slowdown in tech recruitment, so it is fair for citizens
| to think for themselves first. There are quite a lot of
| candidates that can fulfill most of the roles, and it has bad
| optics when the government tries to prioritize others.
|
| Disclaimer: I don't live in the states, but I can understand
| the frustration.
| punksatoni wrote:
| You have to first answer why few locals outside Stanford-
| Berkeley-MIT-CMU are hired out of school. Is it because all
| non-top-4 schools under prepare students? Is it before foreign
| workers are that much better? Or is it because companies are
| looking for underpaid workers they can abuse and keep in a
| state of limbo?
|
| If CS degrees from non-top-4 schools are not valuable, best to
| get that out so US students are not studying useless degrees.
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| This is the bit that I've always found confusing. When it comes
| to blue collar jobs, people in the upper echelons will gladly
| advocate the wonders of millions of people entering the job
| market to compete with Americans.
|
| But as soon as it's their own market that introduces additional
| competition, they will take the "just pay people more, the job
| seekers exist, just not at the wages employers are offering,
| this extra competition only depresses American wages".
|
| Which one is it? Is it "competition for other classes, no
| competition for my class please"?
| n144q wrote:
| I am not surprised.
|
| People don't like the fact that they actually need to be
| competitive in skills to get a job. Had there been no H-1Bs,
| they could submit a resume and immediately get a job offer!
|
| No joke. I look around in my company, Indians and Chinese
| (among others) are good at their jobs and do amazing work.
|
| Some people just don't like that. They blame not being able to
| get a good job offer on Indians taking away the opportunity,
| not themselves being good developers.
|
| This post is the place where they can vent.
| acedTrex wrote:
| You have had a very different experience with h1b workers
| then I have.
| n144q wrote:
| That says more about your company, and perhaps yourself,
| than anything else.
|
| Companies like Google and Meta don't pay people on H1B
| 400k/yr just so that they walk around doing nothing.
| pknomad wrote:
| It's also missing the point. The verbiage around H1B is "to
| help employers who cannot otherwise obtain needed business
| skills and abilities", not artificially inflate competition
| for jobs. This issue was contentious even during the good
| times and I'm not surprised that it's flaring up during the
| bad times.
|
| There are plenty of smart and excellent workers who come
| mainland China and India for sure but there are plenty of
| people who don't or come through the abuse of the program.
| returningfory2 wrote:
| Yeah. Do people really think that Silicon Valley would be such
| a huge economy (and a huge job creator for US citizens) if the
| US had never allowed immigrants to work there?
| Glyptodon wrote:
| Are they accepting them in descending order of total compensation
| yet?
| ashconnor wrote:
| This would be a great way to starve every industry outside of
| tech of H1B workers.
| bradlys wrote:
| The working conditions for Americans suck due to this fucking
| program. People come here to live subservient lives and bring
| along a toxic culture of submission. The level of ass licking
| that I see on the regular is akin to a well known Korean airline
| going into the side of a mountain. It is insane the level of
| deference you will find.
|
| All this hype about the "smartest, brightest, etc." is nonsense.
| I've worked with hundreds of engineers in SV who are all on H1B.
| They are no better than anyone else. My main complaint with them
| is that their work is fine but the culture they bring is insanely
| toxic and does not allow for any psychological safety _at all_. I
| know enough people in industry for a long period of time to know
| that it wasn 't always this way. There were always problems but
| it has hit a level that is insane. The fact that an American is a
| minority nationality when in almost any US tech company is
| bonkers.
| cute_boi wrote:
| I wish USCIS was very strict about those guys who is coming in
| H1b from India incapable of doing anything and hire guy from
| india to do all their work.
| asoneth wrote:
| I wonder if switching from a lottery to an auction would help
| curtail some of the abuse?
|
| That is, for each position a company wants to fill with a non-
| citizen they also have to bid on the visa fee they're willing to
| pay. The highest ~7,000 bids that month are accepted and paid to
| the government in exchange for a visa.
|
| We could debate things like sealed-bid versus open auction and
| uniform-price versus paying your bid but whatever details we pick
| I suspect this would allow us to discover which companies are
| actually desperate for skills and which primarily use it as a
| cost-savings measure.
|
| (I'm also curious how much H-1B visas would cost if there was a
| market: thousands of dollars? tens of thousands? hundreds of
| thousands? more?)
| punksatoni wrote:
| Yes it would.
|
| This would prevent abuse of foreigners who are underpaid. It
| would also allow most of the applicants to go to good jobs
| (FAANG) which can pay premiums salaries.
|
| Reverse auction is the best way to go. Good for foreigners,
| good for top companies, economically the best option.
| huevosabio wrote:
| Probably hundreds of thousands. A big reason master programs
| can command such a massive price tag is that they are tickets
| to enter the US labor market.
|
| It also has the benefit of giving the government an incentive
| to increase the quota to get more revenue.
| testfrequency wrote:
| Honestly insane how much racist rhetoric I'm reading online (and
| surprisingly now HN) regarding this news...
|
| I suppose 2025 is starting early.
|
| edit: case in point, downvoted for simply saying I'm noticing a
| lot of racism from the (you know who) crowd - as all the comments
| against this are often followed with "trump will fix this" or
| "your country needs birth control" or "india shouldn't be allowed
| to get visas"
| souvlakee wrote:
| If you're interested in judging others' work in hackathons for
| your O1 or EB1a, email me at halloumee [at] proton [dot] me.
| nojvek wrote:
| They still left the multiple applications for one person rule.
|
| Seems the lobby was strong to allow consultancies like Tata and
| wipes to continue what they are doing to get most of cap.
| jmspring wrote:
| If there are US Citizens available (even if not local), H1s
| should not be a consideration. Period.
| rayiner wrote:
| Why is this dropping the week before Christmas.
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