"The Economist found that between 2012 and 2015 the three biggest Indian outsourcing firms—TCS, Wipro and Infosys—submitted over 150,000 visa applications for positions that paid a median salary of $69,500. In contrast, America’s five biggest tech firms—Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft—submitted just 31,000 applications, and proposed to pay their workers a median salary of $117,000."
None of those salaries listed are competitive with what a non-H1B (read citizen or permanent resident) would earn. Indeed.com quotes the average SD salary in Seattle (think Amazon and Microsoft) as 126,000 and San Francisco at 134,000. Companies sponsoring H1B need to be held to the letter of the law -- the salaries must be competitive. The demand for H1B visas would fall if the imported labor was paid fairly.
This is the man who refers to H1B visas as genius visas. I have worked with many Indian outsourcing companies and while talented people do exist, calling their employees genius is wholly inaccurate (as would be calling most software devs in the Western world genius).
I did laugh when I read irving's original post on LinkedIn and some former employer of GoDaddy expressed just how Mr Irving was using his H1B allocation I.e. to get the same job done for less dollar...
What's the argument against using an auction for H1-B visas rather than a lottery? That'd maximize the tax collected from their salaries and ensure the salaries are on par with the going rate for said workers. Arguably it's in the interests of everyone besides companies trying to get cheaper labor via H1-B visas.
The only counterpoint I've ever heard is "It's not fair for company XYZ in low cost of living Podunk, USA because we can't compete at those high salaries against banks / SV / expensive cities". So what? I doubt they can compete against the ability of TCS or Infosys to game the system and get the lions share of the visas either.
The objective of the visa is to enable business. It is beneficial to America that business flourishes in America. If a pharma business is viable only if it pays $100k to its researchers and if it is being hamstrung by lack of researchers in America it doesn't matter that a software engineer can charge $200k for his services.
The pharma researchers may argue that this should present an upward price pressure on their salaries but their industry isn't solely driven by salaries alone.
At the higher salary that gets a company enough researchers, the company may become unviable. In addition, if there are only 100 researchers and there are 1000 jobs, rising salaries will still leave 900 jobs unfulfilled.
These are things one doesn't care about if one is a researcher because systemic economic slowdown will take a while to catch up to you because there are more jobs than researchers.
But thinking above that in the long term, it is advantageous to have more researchers since more jobs filled leads to more successful companies which leads to growth.
In truth it's more complicated. There are a large number of unqualified people who carry the credentials claiming they're qualified. For the same title, skill levels vary substantially. This is why people believe good lawyers are far better than average lawyers, that good doctors exist, and that the concept of a good software engineer exists.
This means that while there is apparent supply, there is no real supply. This makes the problem less apparent but no less real.
The government distorts markets for its own reasons and one of them is the long term economic health of the country. The most efficient distribution may be that most companies should be in Africa. The government doesn't want that. It wants companies in the US. It organizes in the long term to allow this.
The points I've seen and agree with for an argument against an auction is:
- It is a tacit acceptance of the falsehood that there is a skills shortage.
- It ultimately relies on scarcity of visas. There will be a number of visas to auction off and this number will become a political football that is tweaked and tweaked until it is meaningless. What is the point of an auction if there are a million visas being auctioned off?
- It does not address the corporate/education institution partnership loophole.
Ultimately if they are the best and brightest the visas should be given to the employee not the employer and, if the employee wants, they should be put on a fast track to a green card as soon as they start (6 mo-1 year)
Considering things from the point of view of the immigrant, the current h1b system seems to me like the only route to immigration for a person who is not exceptionally skilled or wealthy or connected. So there are definitely people who would like to immigrate who would lose out if it became an auction.
I'm not saying those people should necessarily be a major consideration, but you did say "everyone besides companies trying to get cheaper labor".
The argument is probably that you'd end up in a situation where the highest-paid fields get all the H1-Bs and the lowest-paid fields get none. Workers in that highest-paid field would still get their salaries undercut and, in those lesser-paid field, there would be problems finding people with the right skills.
I'd favor a policy that looks at the ratio of citizens/green card holders to H1-Bs when determining priority. Want more H1-Bs? Hire more citizens and green card holders. This is similar to what other countries do in mandating that a certain number of locals be employed before you can employ a foreigner.
This both addresses the CoL objection you cited as well as the type of business objection I listed. But it would also destroy the body shops that basically only employ H1-Bs.
I guess an argument could be made that this would only maximize short-term tax revenue, and only tax revenue that is, as you said, collected from income taxes, which might or might not correlate to the guest worker's long-term direct and indirect contributions to the federal budget (and the American economy in general).
The country is run (roughly) on something resembling democracy and equality. If, instead, the ethos changes to "more power to people who pay more", we give up any pretence at democracy. We might as well just advertise that politicians are for sale.
Which the mostly are right now, but at least they have to pay lip service to the people. Once that's gone, the culture of the country will change enormously. And not for the better.
See William Shirer's "Collapse of the Third Republic" for what happens to countries in this situation. It's less well known than "The rise and fall of the third reich", but I found it a lot more informative.
The economist proposes getting rid of the rule that requires H1B workers remain within the company that sponsors them
That sounds reasonable, but why then require that a company sponsor an immigrant in the first place? Why not let that immigrant choose where he or she will work?
In fact, why not let the immigrant choose what to study, where to work, where to live, all in response to market signals?
People have posted various lists for the average H1-B salary at what they consider top companies, like Google. $130k. Is that the salary in mountain view?
You know, I actually think that salary is somewhat low for what a talented and well educated person can earn in the Bay Area. Why force these people to get hired as developers? Why make them study what google says they should study, take interview exams on second year data structures and algorithms the way google says they should? Why on earth should google get to have this power, over anyone?
Let's just have immigration. All immigrants arrive in the US free, free to choose what they will study, where they will work, how they will go about it. They can sell real estate, install drywall, write python code, write novels, paint portraits, or whatever they wish to pursue. Nobody owes them success, but in the US, they should have the freedom to pursue happiness as they define it.
Not as Facebook defines it. If working as a dev in an open office so big it has a horizon line for a CEO who says things like "young people are just smarter" for $152m a year doesn't sound as appealing as the flexibility and stability of working as a dental hygienist for $110 a year (roughly the median salary in SF), then that's the market's answer.
I still maintain this - any immigrant system that allows corporations to decide who gets to come here is flawed. Allowing immigrants to quit once they're here would be an improvement, but it still allows corporations to decide who does and doesn't get to come here.
'I still maintain this - any immigrant system that allows corporations to decide who gets to come here is flawed.'
Corporations ARE the workforce market, which should indicate what kind of workforce is needed.
It can only go from employer to employee, not vice versa.
You can also look at that from company's perspective:
You not only paid for someone's visa but also went through all the paperwork and then the person leaves in a month, just because he got a bigger offer. This should somehow work in both directions.
This is the moral, practical, and efficient solution.
It's disheartening to see so many smart people blame H1B immigration for "harming" the tech econonomy, when the tech industry has comparatively high salaries and low unemployment. The amount of vitriol towards people trying to get by in life is unwarranted.
^^ Rahul Reddy, an immigration attorney, discussing with a group of "body shop" owners how immigration reform allowing free movement of people on H-1B can be bad for business and what can be done to lobby against it.
One, salary is not total compensation. Two, if an H1B can job hop, you have to include a nice carrot along with the sponsorship to keep them around (vesting RSU, vesting profit share %, tiered bonuses etc). Let the free market work.
Looking at the discussion so far - probably going to get trolled/downvoted but here goes:
From all of the above comments - people are trying to undo only the parts of globalization that they don't like (wage arbitrage is one of them - stop crying!). I truly wonder what would happen if the Indians (and the rest of the world) started treating Americans the same way the America treats them and starts to roll back the impacts of globalization:
1. Stop American businesses from getting favors under trade deals and especially with sales of military equipment
2. Ask each American to provide all their social media account information when entering the country or throw them out
3. Set quotas for American businesses to sell their products/services.
4. Force Google, etc to locate servers and data-centers in China/India directly and give the keys to local governments (if the US government can get access why should other governments not?)
If a trade war did happen:
Specific to India: Their economy is mostly non-export oriented (except the IT services part) - they will probably take longer to raise the quality of living for their population - but it will probably be a better path to take (a trade war would probably help grow domestic businesses faster)
Specific to China: The USA needs access to the Chinese markets rather than the other way. Plus they can always dump all those treasury notes
Perhaps a trade war (rather de-globalization) would be a good idea for the developing world - it would bring better balance to the world and undo globalization as a whole and not parts of it (which is exactly what USA voted for when they elected Trump).
P.S. Please don't give a self-righteous BS response about USA being the land of the free and so on.. I think it's pretty obvious most immigrants are there for the money and quality of living (the kind of quality that comes with money and not society, safety, etc)
You're severely underestimating the impact U.S. business has on other countries. A trade war with any of the countries you have listed would harm them much more than it would harm the US.
China holds about 8-9% US debt. Their entire economic model is based on the devaluation of their currency so that the US and other countries purchase their products. If China dumps US debt, there is plenty of demand elsewhere.
Look, I'm not some extreme pro-America nationalist - but you have to look at the facts and it is simply an indisputable reality that no other country in the world can compete with the US on economic grounds.
You are overplaying your hand if you think that a trade war with the US would end favorably for any of those nations.
If a trade war happened, it would wound the developing world a great deal more than it would impact the United States.
The US could be self-sufficient in terms of resources and manufacturing with relatively minor policy shifts and subsidization of domestic industries.
China's export-driven, currency-manipulating economic engine pretty much needs the US as a market so it doesn't collapse under its own weight. China already isn't playing ball by allowing American companies to compete within its domestic market, so it's not like that would be any great loss on that front.
Personally, I'd love to stop subsidizing the third world at the expense of American citizens. Developing countries need the US a lot more than the US needs them.
The company applied for my position with a salary of ~$100K/yr (on the LCA and the H1 application) but they actually paid me ~$240K/yr. This year and the next, it will be well north of $300-$330K/yr.
Why would they do this? Simple - to be able to pay me a prevailing wage and keep me in status in case the shit hits the fan.
If they applied to the government saying they'd pay me $240K/yr, and for some reason they had to give me a pay cut, I'd be out of status or we would have to make a less-confident amendment to my H1 auth. A pay cut amendment should be viewed with skepticism in my opinion and I would avoid it.
It's like underpromising and overdelivering.
My actual salary will never be reported in an H1 database. But it will be on my tax returns.
This isn't a common case but just something to keep in mind.
>Although it is true that foreign workers at the Indian consultancies receive more visas than higher-skilled workers at better-known firms, a simple solution exists. Congress could raise the number of visas issued. Given that the unemployment rate for college graduates sits at 2.5%, it is fair to say that most native workers displaced by H-1Bs land on their feet.
Absolute scum. Native workers displaced by H1Bs is ok because the fired workers eventually find other work? Vile.
A significant proportion of IT and STEM graduate are unable to get work in their chosen industry, and proceed to waste years of education by going into other areas out of necessity.
I can't believe somebody could shit out the quoted text and have it published.
The idea that a US citizen could rack up tremendous debt on a 4 year STEM degree only to be passed over in favor of a cheaper H1B "indentured servant" that received a degree from a low cost diploma mill is vile indeed.
A significant proportion of IT and STEM graduate are unable to get work in their chosen industry, and proceed to waste years of education by going into other areas out of necessity.
Therefore all the talk about a tech talent shortage is complete and utter bullshit and coding bootcamps and H1B visas are another strategy to keep wages low and make it so companies don't have to pay for training, don't have to have signing bonuses.
Truly terrible, but consistent with the Economist. I don't want to bring Trump into every comment; but with "solutions" like this floating around and decision making based on an unemployment statistic - not happiness, job fulfilment, job challenge or job earning potential - you can really see why he picked up the votes.
"A significant proportion of IT and STEM graduate are unable to get work in their chosen industry, and proceed to waste years of education by going into other areas out of necessity."
Not contesting this statement, but is there some research or data supporting it ?
My very anecdotal experience is that the number of people that I know with a CS or STEM degree that have been unable to find work for more than a few weeks/months is basically zero.
Is there a single major industry where foreign workers wouldn't displace any native workers? If you go back a century or two, I'm sure the Irish/Italian immigrants displaced a whole lot of native workers as well. By your reasoning, the US would completely shut off all avenues for immigration.
I used to work at American Express as full time H1B employee, Arizona location as an Engineer I (10 years exp). They paid me 80K while they paid 110K starting salary for fresh American graduates from Arizona State for Engineer III position. (Engineer I > Engineer III). Also they were promoted from Engineer III to Engineer I within an year, while I did all the hard work with no promotions or salary raise.
H1B visa abuse at its best by an American Company. I am not in US anymore. Left it for good.
Ex-TCS employee here:
Seen this every year during my tenure at TCS. Every year in February / January project teams are requested by HR to send "list of eligible candidates" to apply for H1-B visa. The eligibility is weirdly composed, like they keep out graduates who have CS background and senior associates out of it. This is to ensure the associates stick longer with the company once they move to US.
Finally the list comprises of 1000's of applicants for whom the Job Position is either falsely certified by Labour Department (LCA). (Dont understand why the Labour department never carries out an investigation).
That's really useful data. As always with statistics, I've thought about what factors could influence the data. One is population, so the obvious thing would be to weight the number of visas issued (which should be proportional to the number of visas applied for if it's a lottery) with the population of that country, specifically the number of people with bachelor degrees or higher.
But even with weights controlling for educated population, from rough calculations I've done, H1-B visas seem to be issued disproportionally often to Indian nationals.
If it were somehow possible to see the average H1-B wage per nationality, that would also be very interesting.
But neither would answer why that's the case, a simple (and probably wrong explanation) could be that Europeans are simply less likely to wait for H1-B visas given the benefits inherently provided in those countries. (Edit: What I mean is you still can't tell if this disproportionality is a good or bad thing, only that there is such a disproportionality.)
Slightly off topic. My understanding is that for every H-1B application that is filed the US government takes a ACWIA fee that is supposed to be used for improving competitiveness of the American worker and providing scholarships.
"SEC. 414 Collection and use of H-1B nonimmigrant fees for scholarships for low-income math, engineering, and computer science students and job training of United States workers".
I am curious whether they could quantify/prove/debunk the skills shortage theory using the scholarships that are given. Does anyone know about this?
Citing the low unemployment rate of STEM graduates to indicate that native workers have nothing to worry about is silly. Basic economics says that wages do not increase until full employment is reached. I may have a job but my wage would be higher if I wasn't competing with 100,000 H1-Bs
As an H1B visa holder, I think the issue of abuse at its core has to do with two things(at least):
1. Too many tech firms require/opt for low cost workers to subsidize their payroll bill. If you raise H1B salaries, firms that have thin margins might automate and outsource. I think to scrap the lottery, and add the market based approach to H1Bs like in the House Bill that was proposed in Jan is a better alternative, it would force firms to be more productive and boost payroll more organically.
2. The program is underfunded, its entirely fees driven and the fees is clearly not enough to prevent abuse we keep hearing about so much.
Remember top end silicon valley's don't really need to care about the salary issue as long as the reform does not dry the talent from coming to the US completely.
A constant theme for support of H-1B's is that they supply the US with an irreplaceable resource for starting new technical companies.
Despite this I have not heard reference of any individual who came to this country on a H-1B visa to work for an Indian outsourcing company who later participated in a significant successful startup. Honest question, does anyone know an example of this having occurred?
Several in my current circle and I followed that path.
I came to the US earning $63K per year at an outsourcing firm.
I am currently in a SaaS co with sales at $800K / year and 3 employees including me, growing and we will at least double our sales next year.
Thanks to my work (and trying not to brag here), earlier start-ups I've worked at (building their marquee products, pre-fundraising) have raised several millions and employeed 10s - 100s of people.
I don't think that it has to be a startup. What I'd like to hear from actually high skilled people with skills beyond that found in the US. I think that the H1-B program makes sense if a company need nuclear scientist, etc.
This article is repeats the false idea that you cannot switch jobs to other companies. You can switch jobs to other companies that are willing to transfer your H-1B visa. Plenty of tech companies will happily do a visa transfer. Yet, this facetious lie is often repeated. It just goes to show how inaccurate and poorly-researched this article was.
(EU citizen point of view) I'd never consider a role in US that pays less than 150k (outside SV) $200k (SV/NY).
H-1B is really bad because the holder has limited bargaining power vs US citizens hence he's forced to accept a lower salary when competing for jobs.
There's also no clean way to allow talent to move around the world.
A fair solution would be to agree on visa free movement of specialists earning above certain threshold ($100, $150k etc), even if it starts with a group of "most favourite nations".
Once in the US, an H1-B auth holder can move at will to another company without informing the current employer. If the H1 transfer fails, it is a silent failure,
Bargaining power is an illusion once the employee is in the US.
Everyone knows that most H1-B visas are used up by Indian firms for Indian nationals. Not by American firms for international talent. All the politicians have known about this abuse for years but this part of US foreign policy and lobby group efforts. India is a considered a natural ally against China and the Muslims.
This has been true for 15 years at least, which is one reason why Wipro/Infosys was getting most IT assignments for US market. When you look into how it worked it is amazing to realize the way the system was abused while no action was taken for decades.
Well it takes The Economist to point of this fact which I've been telling about it for ages. None of them believed that it was Indian who are favored to get H1B compared to other nationality. Indian take so much pride with Indian worker in these large tech firms and other places instead of realizing the fact they are favored. Why not give other nationality a chance to see what is going on? I've seen it happen with firm like Microsoft with HR manager being Indian and favoring Indian internee and granting him job then Pakistani developer who was without a doubt better performer.
I would go further and say that underpaid H1-B's are a straw man to the real mechanism that depresses American wages. Even if imported workers are paid exactly market, that still means market prices do not go up as there is no one to bid up salaries. That means people are not being compensated for delivery high value, or for developing skill in a difficult or rare area.
There is a lot of hot air between the salary a person would accept versus the value they generate for a company. Having some unemployed people makes it so that the balance always tips towards the low end.
[+] [-] loph|9 years ago|reply
"The Economist found that between 2012 and 2015 the three biggest Indian outsourcing firms—TCS, Wipro and Infosys—submitted over 150,000 visa applications for positions that paid a median salary of $69,500. In contrast, America’s five biggest tech firms—Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft—submitted just 31,000 applications, and proposed to pay their workers a median salary of $117,000."
None of those salaries listed are competitive with what a non-H1B (read citizen or permanent resident) would earn. Indeed.com quotes the average SD salary in Seattle (think Amazon and Microsoft) as 126,000 and San Francisco at 134,000. Companies sponsoring H1B need to be held to the letter of the law -- the salaries must be competitive. The demand for H1B visas would fall if the imported labor was paid fairly.
[+] [-] planetjones|9 years ago|reply
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/amp.timeinc.net/fortune/2017/02...
This is the man who refers to H1B visas as genius visas. I have worked with many Indian outsourcing companies and while talented people do exist, calling their employees genius is wholly inaccurate (as would be calling most software devs in the Western world genius).
I did laugh when I read irving's original post on LinkedIn and some former employer of GoDaddy expressed just how Mr Irving was using his H1B allocation I.e. to get the same job done for less dollar...
[+] [-] koolba|9 years ago|reply
The only counterpoint I've ever heard is "It's not fair for company XYZ in low cost of living Podunk, USA because we can't compete at those high salaries against banks / SV / expensive cities". So what? I doubt they can compete against the ability of TCS or Infosys to game the system and get the lions share of the visas either.
[+] [-] arjie|9 years ago|reply
The pharma researchers may argue that this should present an upward price pressure on their salaries but their industry isn't solely driven by salaries alone.
At the higher salary that gets a company enough researchers, the company may become unviable. In addition, if there are only 100 researchers and there are 1000 jobs, rising salaries will still leave 900 jobs unfulfilled.
These are things one doesn't care about if one is a researcher because systemic economic slowdown will take a while to catch up to you because there are more jobs than researchers.
But thinking above that in the long term, it is advantageous to have more researchers since more jobs filled leads to more successful companies which leads to growth.
In truth it's more complicated. There are a large number of unqualified people who carry the credentials claiming they're qualified. For the same title, skill levels vary substantially. This is why people believe good lawyers are far better than average lawyers, that good doctors exist, and that the concept of a good software engineer exists.
This means that while there is apparent supply, there is no real supply. This makes the problem less apparent but no less real.
The government distorts markets for its own reasons and one of them is the long term economic health of the country. The most efficient distribution may be that most companies should be in Africa. The government doesn't want that. It wants companies in the US. It organizes in the long term to allow this.
[+] [-] ones_and_zeros|9 years ago|reply
- It is a tacit acceptance of the falsehood that there is a skills shortage.
- It ultimately relies on scarcity of visas. There will be a number of visas to auction off and this number will become a political football that is tweaked and tweaked until it is meaningless. What is the point of an auction if there are a million visas being auctioned off?
- It does not address the corporate/education institution partnership loophole.
Ultimately if they are the best and brightest the visas should be given to the employee not the employer and, if the employee wants, they should be put on a fast track to a green card as soon as they start (6 mo-1 year)
[+] [-] mac01021|9 years ago|reply
I'm not saying those people should necessarily be a major consideration, but you did say "everyone besides companies trying to get cheaper labor".
[+] [-] curun1r|9 years ago|reply
I'd favor a policy that looks at the ratio of citizens/green card holders to H1-Bs when determining priority. Want more H1-Bs? Hire more citizens and green card holders. This is similar to what other countries do in mandating that a certain number of locals be employed before you can employ a foreigner.
This both addresses the CoL objection you cited as well as the type of business objection I listed. But it would also destroy the body shops that basically only employ H1-Bs.
[+] [-] DrJokepu|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adekok|9 years ago|reply
The country is run (roughly) on something resembling democracy and equality. If, instead, the ethos changes to "more power to people who pay more", we give up any pretence at democracy. We might as well just advertise that politicians are for sale.
Which the mostly are right now, but at least they have to pay lip service to the people. Once that's gone, the culture of the country will change enormously. And not for the better.
See William Shirer's "Collapse of the Third Republic" for what happens to countries in this situation. It's less well known than "The rise and fall of the third reich", but I found it a lot more informative.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Collapse_of_the_Third_Repu...
[+] [-] geebee|9 years ago|reply
That sounds reasonable, but why then require that a company sponsor an immigrant in the first place? Why not let that immigrant choose where he or she will work?
In fact, why not let the immigrant choose what to study, where to work, where to live, all in response to market signals?
People have posted various lists for the average H1-B salary at what they consider top companies, like Google. $130k. Is that the salary in mountain view?
You know, I actually think that salary is somewhat low for what a talented and well educated person can earn in the Bay Area. Why force these people to get hired as developers? Why make them study what google says they should study, take interview exams on second year data structures and algorithms the way google says they should? Why on earth should google get to have this power, over anyone?
Let's just have immigration. All immigrants arrive in the US free, free to choose what they will study, where they will work, how they will go about it. They can sell real estate, install drywall, write python code, write novels, paint portraits, or whatever they wish to pursue. Nobody owes them success, but in the US, they should have the freedom to pursue happiness as they define it.
Not as Facebook defines it. If working as a dev in an open office so big it has a horizon line for a CEO who says things like "young people are just smarter" for $152m a year doesn't sound as appealing as the flexibility and stability of working as a dental hygienist for $110 a year (roughly the median salary in SF), then that's the market's answer.
I still maintain this - any immigrant system that allows corporations to decide who gets to come here is flawed. Allowing immigrants to quit once they're here would be an improvement, but it still allows corporations to decide who does and doesn't get to come here.
[+] [-] steevenwee|9 years ago|reply
Corporations ARE the workforce market, which should indicate what kind of workforce is needed. It can only go from employer to employee, not vice versa. You can also look at that from company's perspective: You not only paid for someone's visa but also went through all the paperwork and then the person leaves in a month, just because he got a bigger offer. This should somehow work in both directions.
[+] [-] alexmingoia|9 years ago|reply
It's disheartening to see so many smart people blame H1B immigration for "harming" the tech econonomy, when the tech industry has comparatively high salaries and low unemployment. The amount of vitriol towards people trying to get by in life is unwarranted.
[+] [-] mavelikara|9 years ago|reply
^^ Rahul Reddy, an immigration attorney, discussing with a group of "body shop" owners how immigration reform allowing free movement of people on H-1B can be bad for business and what can be done to lobby against it.
[+] [-] runT1ME|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ticviking|9 years ago|reply
The point seems to be to let immigrants punish punitive or abusive situations themselves.
[+] [-] throwaway100217|9 years ago|reply
It is a two way "at-will" law that supersedes any employment agreement.
[+] [-] throwaway251|9 years ago|reply
From all of the above comments - people are trying to undo only the parts of globalization that they don't like (wage arbitrage is one of them - stop crying!). I truly wonder what would happen if the Indians (and the rest of the world) started treating Americans the same way the America treats them and starts to roll back the impacts of globalization:
1. Stop American businesses from getting favors under trade deals and especially with sales of military equipment
2. Ask each American to provide all their social media account information when entering the country or throw them out
3. Set quotas for American businesses to sell their products/services.
4. Force Google, etc to locate servers and data-centers in China/India directly and give the keys to local governments (if the US government can get access why should other governments not?)
If a trade war did happen:
Specific to India: Their economy is mostly non-export oriented (except the IT services part) - they will probably take longer to raise the quality of living for their population - but it will probably be a better path to take (a trade war would probably help grow domestic businesses faster)
Specific to China: The USA needs access to the Chinese markets rather than the other way. Plus they can always dump all those treasury notes
Perhaps a trade war (rather de-globalization) would be a good idea for the developing world - it would bring better balance to the world and undo globalization as a whole and not parts of it (which is exactly what USA voted for when they elected Trump).
P.S. Please don't give a self-righteous BS response about USA being the land of the free and so on.. I think it's pretty obvious most immigrants are there for the money and quality of living (the kind of quality that comes with money and not society, safety, etc)
[+] [-] Helmet|9 years ago|reply
China holds about 8-9% US debt. Their entire economic model is based on the devaluation of their currency so that the US and other countries purchase their products. If China dumps US debt, there is plenty of demand elsewhere.
Look, I'm not some extreme pro-America nationalist - but you have to look at the facts and it is simply an indisputable reality that no other country in the world can compete with the US on economic grounds.
You are overplaying your hand if you think that a trade war with the US would end favorably for any of those nations.
[+] [-] throwawaytw5454|9 years ago|reply
The US could be self-sufficient in terms of resources and manufacturing with relatively minor policy shifts and subsidization of domestic industries.
China's export-driven, currency-manipulating economic engine pretty much needs the US as a market so it doesn't collapse under its own weight. China already isn't playing ball by allowing American companies to compete within its domestic market, so it's not like that would be any great loss on that front.
Personally, I'd love to stop subsidizing the third world at the expense of American citizens. Developing countries need the US a lot more than the US needs them.
[+] [-] throwaway100217|9 years ago|reply
The company applied for my position with a salary of ~$100K/yr (on the LCA and the H1 application) but they actually paid me ~$240K/yr. This year and the next, it will be well north of $300-$330K/yr.
Why would they do this? Simple - to be able to pay me a prevailing wage and keep me in status in case the shit hits the fan.
If they applied to the government saying they'd pay me $240K/yr, and for some reason they had to give me a pay cut, I'd be out of status or we would have to make a less-confident amendment to my H1 auth. A pay cut amendment should be viewed with skepticism in my opinion and I would avoid it.
It's like underpromising and overdelivering.
My actual salary will never be reported in an H1 database. But it will be on my tax returns.
This isn't a common case but just something to keep in mind.
[+] [-] anjc|9 years ago|reply
Absolute scum. Native workers displaced by H1Bs is ok because the fired workers eventually find other work? Vile.
A significant proportion of IT and STEM graduate are unable to get work in their chosen industry, and proceed to waste years of education by going into other areas out of necessity.
I can't believe somebody could shit out the quoted text and have it published.
[+] [-] mberning|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] omouse|9 years ago|reply
Therefore all the talk about a tech talent shortage is complete and utter bullshit and coding bootcamps and H1B visas are another strategy to keep wages low and make it so companies don't have to pay for training, don't have to have signing bonuses.
[+] [-] planetjones|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kurtz79|9 years ago|reply
Not contesting this statement, but is there some research or data supporting it ?
My very anecdotal experience is that the number of people that I know with a CS or STEM degree that have been unable to find work for more than a few weeks/months is basically zero.
[+] [-] whack|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwo5|9 years ago|reply
H1B visa abuse at its best by an American Company. I am not in US anymore. Left it for good.
[+] [-] almightykrish|9 years ago|reply
Finally the list comprises of 1000's of applicants for whom the Job Position is either falsely certified by Labour Department (LCA). (Dont understand why the Labour department never carries out an investigation).
[+] [-] rodionos|9 years ago|reply
Top H-1B countries: https://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/04040e14
[+] [-] guitarbill|9 years ago|reply
But even with weights controlling for educated population, from rough calculations I've done, H1-B visas seem to be issued disproportionally often to Indian nationals.
If it were somehow possible to see the average H1-B wage per nationality, that would also be very interesting.
But neither would answer why that's the case, a simple (and probably wrong explanation) could be that Europeans are simply less likely to wait for H1-B visas given the benefits inherently provided in those countries. (Edit: What I mean is you still can't tell if this disproportionality is a good or bad thing, only that there is such a disproportionality.)
[+] [-] vbierschwale|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raverbashing|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darkdreams|9 years ago|reply
From https://www.uscis.gov/forms/h-and-l-filing-fees-form-i-129-p...
"SEC. 414 Collection and use of H-1B nonimmigrant fees for scholarships for low-income math, engineering, and computer science students and job training of United States workers".
I am curious whether they could quantify/prove/debunk the skills shortage theory using the scholarships that are given. Does anyone know about this?
[+] [-] Chico75|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway251|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bischofs|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] itissid|9 years ago|reply
1. Too many tech firms require/opt for low cost workers to subsidize their payroll bill. If you raise H1B salaries, firms that have thin margins might automate and outsource. I think to scrap the lottery, and add the market based approach to H1Bs like in the House Bill that was proposed in Jan is a better alternative, it would force firms to be more productive and boost payroll more organically.
2. The program is underfunded, its entirely fees driven and the fees is clearly not enough to prevent abuse we keep hearing about so much.
Remember top end silicon valley's don't really need to care about the salary issue as long as the reform does not dry the talent from coming to the US completely.
[+] [-] forgotAgain|9 years ago|reply
Despite this I have not heard reference of any individual who came to this country on a H-1B visa to work for an Indian outsourcing company who later participated in a significant successful startup. Honest question, does anyone know an example of this having occurred?
[+] [-] throwaway100217|9 years ago|reply
I came to the US earning $63K per year at an outsourcing firm.
I am currently in a SaaS co with sales at $800K / year and 3 employees including me, growing and we will at least double our sales next year.
Thanks to my work (and trying not to brag here), earlier start-ups I've worked at (building their marquee products, pre-fundraising) have raised several millions and employeed 10s - 100s of people.
[+] [-] virmundi|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] winter_blue|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dominotw|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulus_magnus2|9 years ago|reply
H-1B is really bad because the holder has limited bargaining power vs US citizens hence he's forced to accept a lower salary when competing for jobs.
There's also no clean way to allow talent to move around the world.
A fair solution would be to agree on visa free movement of specialists earning above certain threshold ($100, $150k etc), even if it starts with a group of "most favourite nations".
[+] [-] throwaway100217|9 years ago|reply
Bargaining power is an illusion once the employee is in the US.
[+] [-] unsupak|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mavelikara|9 years ago|reply
Indians are "international". Or did you mean that only Europeans qualify?
[+] [-] ausjke|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattfrommars|9 years ago|reply
Would love to see some H1B crackdown happening.
[+] [-] nicholas73|9 years ago|reply
There is a lot of hot air between the salary a person would accept versus the value they generate for a company. Having some unemployed people makes it so that the balance always tips towards the low end.