Reading into the press release, there is a distinction that probably escapes most native citizens here: they are talking about EB2 visa, not H1B. PERM certification is not the same labor certification done in H1B.
PERM is a much more rigorous and demanding process and it costs a lot more money than anything related to H1B. The reason is because it leads to a green card, not just a work permit. Often, it requires an advance degree and higher qualification than H1B too, PhDs or experienced masters. The money is paid upfront and USCIS then look into it and approves PERM on a case by case basis often taking a year or more. Then when the PERM passes, the applicant can finally get on the green card backlog and wait a few more years, or a decade if you were born in the wrong place...
This is to say the quality of applicants here is very high and Apple actually felt it was worth it to invest tens of thousands of dollars on each of them just for a green card gamble, which the employee can get then quit Apple immediately after and nothing can be done to them because they are now a permanent resident. No such thing as wage depression or abuse at this point because they are for all legal purposes, an equal to any American once they have EB2.
If the PERM process at Apple is anything like what I saw at Facebook a couple of years ago, then all these “applicants” are actually people already working at the company on non-immigrant visas whom the company wants to retain.
There is no reason to assume that they’re being paid any less than others at Apple. They’re already in the country and have been doing the work for years. Why not give them a path to a green card? Why make the company jump through hoops like having to advertise a position that’s not actually open?
I’ll admit that I’m biased because I was in this process at one point. But the notion that I was taking the job of a native-born American was ridiculous because I had been doing the job in London before. So if anything, I brought a UK job to USA. And to turn that into a green card, the company would have to advertise the job on their website. It makes no sense.
You are writing like we are talking about rocket scientists.
PERM applies to both EB2 and EB3 (so in real world anyone making from as low as $50k+/year depending on role qualifies) and most bodyshops apply for green card for all employees - it's just part of business cost. For EB2 PhD is not needed - MS from online paper mill is enough. For EB3, any degree works.
It's not tens of thousands in cost - it's below $10k all in. PERM Fees to USCIS are around $1200.
The whole system is abused to the end and need to be completely gutted and redone so high end engineer working for Google making $700k was differentiated from Wipro employee making $80k. Right now they are in the same queue. Prevailing wage is a joke as it does not include stock options and does not reflect real salary levels.
>PERM is a much more rigorous and demanding process
It's not rigorous or demanding; it's a mostly pointless bureaucratic exercise in bogus paperwork where lawyers and the gov. make bank. From the article : It also required all PERM position applicants to mail paper applications, even though the company permitted electronic applications for other positions," the DOJ said.
>Apple actually felt it was worth it
Apple doesn't feel. It's just commonsense and market pressure. The alternative would be indefinite indentured servitude.
Dept. of Labor takes a year to evaluate these PERM applications. PERM has charming and quaint requirements like taking out an ad in a Sunday newspaper so that applicants can apply and other nonsense. All while the employee is already working for the company on a visa. The whole thing is farcical.
> there is a distinction that probably escapes most native citizens here: they are talking about EB2 visa, not H1B.
> Often, it requires an advance degree and higher qualification than H1B too, PhDs or experienced masters.
Perhaps I'm mistaken, but the PERM process applies when H1B holders seek to gain permanent residency too - at least that's been my experience. It also applies to the L1 etc:
PERM certification is required to get a GC on an H1B (it's not needed to get an H1B, just required when the H1B holder seeks to get permanent residency).
There's another side to this story that the media reporting almost never mentions on this; many in the PERM process have lived in the USA for a long time and established families, children, communities etc. To deny them during PERM literally means in many cases to ship them and their American children "home" to a country they may not have seen for 20 years. In some cases the American kids won't even be able to speak the main language of their parent's birth country.
The solution as always is pretty simple - we need to divorce immigration status from employment - the processes should not be linked. This would at a stroke remove incentives for less scrupulous employers to abuse the system too.
> or a decade if you were born in the wrong place...
That's being generous. I'm pretty sure that for people born in India the backlog is well over 100 years. The reason being that only 7500 green cards per year can be issued to people of any particular nationality. If there are 750k Indians with approved GC applications under employment category, that's a 100 year backlog. I'm sure there's a statistic somewhere, and I remember reading an article a couple of years back that claimed that this particular backlog has surpassed 90 years, so it's not unthinkable that today it's over 100.
EB2 final action date for Indian nationals is currently at 01JAN12. Which means that USCIS is currently processing applications from almost 12 years ago. Which means they have to wait a decade before their application even gets approved.
There are people that will quite literally never see an EB2 or EB3 green card in their lives despite having an approved application. The only viable path to a green card for those is marrying a US citizen, period. (as that category has no cap or quota whatsoever)
EB2 requirements: BS or equivalent + 5 years of progressive experience. Or, alternatively, a very light version of EB-1 "exceptional ability" checklist. The fees are couple grand and the major expense is in interviewing and rejecting enough candidates to justify the need. You seem to be confusing it with EB-1.
While it's true these people already work there etc. etc. EB2, just like EB3, requires the DOL certification that "there are not sufficient U.S. workers able, willing, qualified and available to accept the job opportunity in the area of intended employment". [1]
This sucks for firms like Apple because there are quite enough U.S. workers able, willing, qualified and available to take a whole bunch of jobs that are being held by a BS with 5 years of experience... Imagine you are an officer of the U.S. government and a lawyer from Apple sends you an application for a, for example, front end developer. Will you honestly believe that there are literally no U.S. workers able, willing, qualified and available to take such a job? At Apple no less. It's not "some folks won't take a job at Apple/FB/Google/etc for political reasons, so there!". It's literally a claim that there are no US citizens or LPRs who could do that job. How credible you'd think such a claim is?
There is a reason companies pay for this process: they are allowed to maintain the worker for as long as the process goes. And for many people this can take up to 10 years, depending on nationality. If they have a good employee, it is a no-brainer to pay so they cannot leave the company, under the penalty of having the green card process cancelled or restarted.
PERM certification is the closest to corporate brain drain that exists. On top of that, people overlook the O1 visa. Both of these are visas that the regular person just can't compete with. They're for individuals the US wants to drain from another country (and are extraordinarily capable of it) and are given to individuals of high accomplishment.
If you're afraid of foreign competition, you should be worried about H1B and similar visas (visas for foreigners willing to slot into a normal "skilled" position), which this article isn't touching on at all. Those are the visas of your peers that companies are willing to hire extranationally.
Doesn’t that make it worse? That they’ll pursue a far more difficult and costly approach rather than, idk, just try to hire the best candidate for the role?
> No such thing as wage depression or abuse at this point
You're saying that Apple can't find people from less-developed countries with these specific credentials and then offer them a starting salary that's $100k under what they would have needed to offer to someone from California?
> because they are for all legal purposes, an equal to any American once they have EB2.
Equal to an American in legal rights perhaps, but there is no right to competitive pay.
I think this relates to something called batch PERM where they can apply for employment based (EB) green cards for batches of their existing visa employees in similar roles instead of doing recruitment for every single position.
Meta got in trouble with the DOJ for the same thing. They advertised for positions in newspapers and only accepted paper applications for PERM positions, unlike their other jobs which are advertised online. This is mainly because you don't want anyone actually applying for the PERM roles, since you need to prove no minimally (not most) qualified US citizen or PR could be found.
I think long term this is going to make getting PERM approved more difficult. It already takes 2-3 years now (without any audits) to get an I-140 (green card) application approved, not to mention getting the card can take decades in some cases.
People on H1B work visa can't stay on it for more than 6 years unless they actually get through PERM and get I-140, so I'm expecting this change will have a chilling effect on employers sponsoring work visas and applying for PERM unless it's a very specialized role. Why would you sponsor someone if you know they can't work in the country long term ? Hard times ahead for people on visa.
I suspect that this is more a "certain managers wanted certain types of employees," as opposed to a systemic, companywide decree from Up High (like IBM's ageism).
Apple just makes too damn much money to worry overmuch about salaries. If anything, a lot of managers like H1Bs, because they can drive them like slaves. I've seen exactly that, in front of my own eyes. It's pretty disturbing, if you are a manager like me.
Well, if X is working for a manager M for 3 years at Apple(for that matter, any company), M wants to make sure that wheoever applies to X's role during the PERM process (labor certification to ensure that no US citizens/perm residents are available to fill X's role) gets dinged 100%, no exceptions whatsoever. The way they can ding applicants takes shape in different forms: (a) make the job very very specific, thereby showing that other applicants don't have specific skills (b) make the job very generic, then ask for very very precise skills that X's role needs (c) make the interview really tough (d) add extra rounds of interviews (e) a combination of all of the foregoing.
Or more relevant to this, Apple wanted to retain the employee that had been working for them for 3-5 years instead of replacing them with a completely new hire because of bureaucratic legalese.
The PERM application was almost certainly submitted for an existing employee, who had most likely been employed with Apple for somewhere between 2-4 years. Thanks to bureaucratic nonsense they were then required to open up that position to outsiders instead, and if they found someone else who could be hired fire the person that had been doing the job well enough that Apple was willing to pick up tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees to go ahead with their PERM application.
Apple seems to have an unusually long-term orientation with respect to employees and to value tenure and retention in a way that the rest of Silicon Valley does not.
Isn't the foreign national's status kind of captured at the discretion of the employer?
It sounds like a larger power asymmetry and as an employer, you want that as large as possible.
I mean it also increases stress on both ends, which affects executive function so the parties become handicapped by the relationship, but that's apparently less valuable than the large power differentials to many.
I wonder if there's quantitative studies of firms performances with respect to this. If the theory is right, it's long term one of the more disadvantageous strategies. (Using Apple as N=1 doesn't cut it as a study here)
> Apple just makes too damn much money to worry overmuch about salaries.
Apple is a publicly traded company whose shareholders would not tolerate overpaying for labor.
Further: Apple was caught colluding with other major tech industry employers with regards to hiring/salary.
So please do go on about how Apple doesn't care about labor costs.
And also, look at the wages and benefits for Apple Store employees which are shit for the level of technical expertise they're expected to have and the products they're selling (there's usually at least some correlation between compensation and the cost of goods being sold - obviously not anything approaching linearity.)
Then look at how Apple store staff are starting to unionize, much to the terror of their Head of Retail, who likely makes half a million dollars a year in cash compensation alone - $250/hour, which is more than ten times the base wage for a retail employee (supposedly now $22/hour.)
Your naivete is pretty stunning. There isn't a single corporate employer on the planet who doesn't do everything they can to minimize labor costs.
I worked at a company owned by some large banks. When the immigration lawyer came for a meetings roughly once per year, the place got super quiet. Everyone I worked with did basic stuff ... docker, Spring Boot, and I didn't understand how such basic positions needed visas in such a large metro like Phoenix. Yet, the pay was comparable ... there must be some angle I don't understand.
This is the thing where when you want to sponsor a specific employee for an H1B you have to post notices pretending to look for American citizens instead.
Every FAANG is guilty of this. Every startup is guilty of this. There is no law less adhered to in the US.
Everyone posts the notice on the office fridge or the receptionist stand or runs some newspaper ad to cover the nominal letter of the law. It's completely pointless.
Those tricks definitely occur, but they are also not required in most cases: the relevant obligations only apply when (1) the employer falls under the regulatory definition of either an H-1B dependent employer or a willful violator , BUT NOT IF (2) the candidate is paid at least $60k per year or has a relevant master’s degree.
In our industry it’s rare for condition 2 to be false, even when condition 1 is true. So usually they can just be brazen about not trying to find American candidates. Regardless, non-discrimination rules still apply.
Are you telling me all those job opportunities in the back of IEEE Spectrum where they give 1 line job descriptions and tell you to mail your resume to some anonymous post office box aren’t actual job opportunities? I can’t believe it!
In other words, professional societies are complicit in this too.
The idea that asking companies to fire their existing employer just to hire some "citizen" employee is dumb beyong measure. H1B visas should not exist in first place. Just give green card and let the person be citizen.
The problem is compounded by the racial quota for Indians in greencards. Indians are extremely good at hacking systems and longer they stay in that queue, they would totally destroy this sort of idiotic system. (This is a complement to Indians).
I'm sure many US-based tech companies can be blamed for preferring the cheaper option ... I would think our visa process plays no small part here, further the lax compliance on what "special skillset" means in the case of H-* visas.
The system allows it, why not take advantage of such.
Work visas of this type should pretty clearly provide a path to at least permanent residency, otherwise the workers are captive employees, and, in any case, highly educated skilled workers that an employer is arguing they can't replace out of resident populations seem like a population that even people that want restrictions on immigration would consider good candidates for it.
I find it interesting that Apple hasn't done what many other large US corporations have done and just open offices in a country like India. Then they essentially get rid of any US based employees. No H1B's needed and you're still paying pennies on the dollar for the work.
I've noticed this at companies I've worked at. Either at the team level, org level, or even the company level. I've observed it from White, Chinese and Indians. I think there's just a human tendency of in group bias.
You don't want to be the odd one out on a team since you'll be the first to get laid off. Either find a team with a good mix or stick to your own color.
As sibling comment explains, this is a natural outcome.
Interviews are a poor proxy for predicting on-the-job performance. The manager is disproportionately affected by poor performance of an employee. So, they try to minimize it. To do that, they try to get signals outside of the traditional interviews. And one such extra signal is reputation. Seeking candidates with high reputation leads to developers with open source contributions getting hired, but also those from the manager’s personal network get hired too.
My company's goal seems to be to hire every Indian south of Hyderabad. I do wonder when Americans are going to wake up and realize these high-paying jobs could be going to them.
If all their job postings are not actually hiring, then they won’t get any applicants for the jobs that actually are, and then they can use that as evidence that they can’t find in-country candidates.
So basically the only way to find any real job posting is to spam-apply to everything. Is there a service for that?
All the FAANG and similar corps have been doing this for decades at this point. Our government works for them. This judgement is a joke designed to save face.
The DOJ wants them to allow electronic submission of applications to PERM jobs and to publish these jobs anywhere they publish other jobs. Apple agreed to this and to train their relevant employees about the issue for three years.
The article doesn't come right out and say it, but the case seems to have turned on PERM jobs being only available when there isn't a citizen/refugee/permanent-resident available to fill the position and that applying in paper was an unreasonable hurdle to these classes and that the positions should be advertised as widely as other jobs to ensure they aren't missing potential protected class workers who might like to apply.
I'm pretty sympathetic to Apple here. The article makes it sound like they did this for no reason, but the point of these hidden PERM positions is to be escape valves for the bonkers H1B system, which otherwise requires that skilled, valuable employees get booted out of the country after 3-6 years. If the government doesn't want Apple jumping through loopholes they should pass a more reasonable skilled visa program.
> required all PERM position applicants to mail paper applications, even though the company permitted electronic applications for other positions. In some instances, Apple did not consider certain applications for PERM positions from Apple employees if those applications were submitted electronically
> the company acknowledged in a statement that it had "unintentionally not been following the DOJ standard"
I'd love to know what sequence of events led to this very archaic but unintentional violation! Should be a fun read!
I don't know if Apple does this but various bodyshop companies (eg Infosys) absolutely do. Other comments have argued PERM applicants are high-quality. That's often not the case. Let me explain the process for non-Americans on how you go through employment-based immigration to the US.
You get a work visa. There are typically 4 options. There are 4 major options (there are others that are less common):
1. H1B: requires a bachelor's degree or equivalent experience. There is an annual quota. There are now more applicants than visas so there is a lottery. If you don't get picked, try again next year. H1B is issued for 3 years and can be renewed for another 3. Beyond that, you have to leave or file a PERM application and you can stay while it's pending. H1B is transferable with minimal effort to a new employer;
2. TN visa: available to Canadians. It's a 3 year nonimmigrant intent visa that requires. It can technically be renewed repeatedly but CBP is free to decide you're really living here and just deny your visa. The conservative approach is that TN holders wishing to immigrate will transfer to an H1B when possible. H1Bs can have weird conditions like when and how often you can re-enter the country. Some countries don't allow re-entry beyond the first year so leaving means going to a consulate and applying for a new visa;
3. E3 visa: much like a TN but available to Australians. It's 2 years, nonimmigrant intent and not transferable. There's a quota but it's never been hit. Many wishing to get a green card will also try to get an H1B at some point;
4. L1 visa: large companies use this for transfers. Work in Canada or London for a year and then get transferred.
This brings us to PERM. It's basically a 2 step process:
1. File a PERM. This involves many steps like getting a labor certification. This takes 6-24+ months. USCIS may randomly audit you, which can add 1-2 years. They may have a reason too but but they also randomly audit a large number of applications, allegedly to stop the system being gamed. The reality is that it's arbitrary and capricious. Things may just randomly take 2 years longer for no reason at all. Once your number comes up (more on this below), you go to the next step;
2. File an adjustment of status ("AoS"). There are 2 forms that can be filed concurrently (I-141 and I-485 IIRC). This should only take 6-12 months. It depends on your service center though. If there's something weird about your application it may take longer with multiple rounds of RFE ("Requests for Evidence") that each take months to be examined.
PERMs have a total quota and a per-country quota (of 7% of the total). And by "country" I mean "country of birth". Your passport doesn't matter at all. If you're born to Norwegian parents in Mumbai, you'll be in the India queue and you don't want to be there. Expect to wait 10-30 years because there is a backlog in the millions.
Occasionally there's some talk of Congress reforming this but nothing much has changed in a long time.
So where's the abuse? It takes 2 forms:
1. The Department of Labor is meant to ensure you're not underpaid (ie exploited). But they look at average pay for software engineers in a geographic area. For a Big Tech company, this could be substantially higher. But they don't have to pay you that higher amount technically because you're beholden to the company. If you leave you need to file a new PERM (but you keep your priority date). Still, this might add a year or two; and
2. Oncd you have your green card you don't need work authorization anymore so you can freely take a new job. So if you're from India you're effectively an indentured servant for decades because of the backlog.
So H1Bs have no per-country quota but green cards do. We issue way more H1Bs to Indian-born workers than we issue green cards to so the queue is only getting longer. Bear in mind tooo that if you're a worker with a spouse and two children you'll need 4 from the quota not 1.
So these bodyshop companies that employ a lot of Indian nationals flood the H1B pipeline. It's why there's a lottery. The companies don't care who does and doesn't get a visa. These are relatively low paying jobs, which in practice have bad conditions. The threat of being fired keepes workers from demanding better pay and conditions let alone leaving.
Was apple engaging in these practices? I have no idea (and certainly no direct knowledge). But that's what PERM abuse looks like.
Honestly, work visas should just automatically convert to a green card after 6 years.
Not the opposite. The full group referenced here is “US citizens and certain non-US citizens whose permission to live in and work in the United States does not expire," and they went after SpaceX for discrimination against the latter (refugees and asylees, specifically).
The unstated truth here is that when you advertise in order to get PERM certification, you really don't actually want to get applications. The 99% scenario is you've already got an employee who is on a non-immigrant visa, that you're invested in, and that you want to get onto the green card trajectory.
tomohelix|2 years ago
PERM is a much more rigorous and demanding process and it costs a lot more money than anything related to H1B. The reason is because it leads to a green card, not just a work permit. Often, it requires an advance degree and higher qualification than H1B too, PhDs or experienced masters. The money is paid upfront and USCIS then look into it and approves PERM on a case by case basis often taking a year or more. Then when the PERM passes, the applicant can finally get on the green card backlog and wait a few more years, or a decade if you were born in the wrong place...
This is to say the quality of applicants here is very high and Apple actually felt it was worth it to invest tens of thousands of dollars on each of them just for a green card gamble, which the employee can get then quit Apple immediately after and nothing can be done to them because they are now a permanent resident. No such thing as wage depression or abuse at this point because they are for all legal purposes, an equal to any American once they have EB2.
pavlov|2 years ago
If the PERM process at Apple is anything like what I saw at Facebook a couple of years ago, then all these “applicants” are actually people already working at the company on non-immigrant visas whom the company wants to retain.
There is no reason to assume that they’re being paid any less than others at Apple. They’re already in the country and have been doing the work for years. Why not give them a path to a green card? Why make the company jump through hoops like having to advertise a position that’s not actually open?
I’ll admit that I’m biased because I was in this process at one point. But the notion that I was taking the job of a native-born American was ridiculous because I had been doing the job in London before. So if anything, I brought a UK job to USA. And to turn that into a green card, the company would have to advertise the job on their website. It makes no sense.
dfadsadsf|2 years ago
PERM applies to both EB2 and EB3 (so in real world anyone making from as low as $50k+/year depending on role qualifies) and most bodyshops apply for green card for all employees - it's just part of business cost. For EB2 PhD is not needed - MS from online paper mill is enough. For EB3, any degree works.
It's not tens of thousands in cost - it's below $10k all in. PERM Fees to USCIS are around $1200.
The whole system is abused to the end and need to be completely gutted and redone so high end engineer working for Google making $700k was differentiated from Wipro employee making $80k. Right now they are in the same queue. Prevailing wage is a joke as it does not include stock options and does not reflect real salary levels.
bubblethink|2 years ago
It's not rigorous or demanding; it's a mostly pointless bureaucratic exercise in bogus paperwork where lawyers and the gov. make bank. From the article : It also required all PERM position applicants to mail paper applications, even though the company permitted electronic applications for other positions," the DOJ said.
>Apple actually felt it was worth it
Apple doesn't feel. It's just commonsense and market pressure. The alternative would be indefinite indentured servitude.
Dept. of Labor takes a year to evaluate these PERM applications. PERM has charming and quaint requirements like taking out an ad in a Sunday newspaper so that applicants can apply and other nonsense. All while the employee is already working for the company on a visa. The whole thing is farcical.
giobox|2 years ago
> Often, it requires an advance degree and higher qualification than H1B too, PhDs or experienced masters.
Perhaps I'm mistaken, but the PERM process applies when H1B holders seek to gain permanent residency too - at least that's been my experience. It also applies to the L1 etc:
https://www.lawfirm4immigrants.com/h-1b-green-card-transitio...
PERM certification is required to get a GC on an H1B (it's not needed to get an H1B, just required when the H1B holder seeks to get permanent residency).
There's another side to this story that the media reporting almost never mentions on this; many in the PERM process have lived in the USA for a long time and established families, children, communities etc. To deny them during PERM literally means in many cases to ship them and their American children "home" to a country they may not have seen for 20 years. In some cases the American kids won't even be able to speak the main language of their parent's birth country.
The solution as always is pretty simple - we need to divorce immigration status from employment - the processes should not be linked. This would at a stroke remove incentives for less scrupulous employers to abuse the system too.
sgjohnson|2 years ago
That's being generous. I'm pretty sure that for people born in India the backlog is well over 100 years. The reason being that only 7500 green cards per year can be issued to people of any particular nationality. If there are 750k Indians with approved GC applications under employment category, that's a 100 year backlog. I'm sure there's a statistic somewhere, and I remember reading an article a couple of years back that claimed that this particular backlog has surpassed 90 years, so it's not unthinkable that today it's over 100.
EB2 final action date for Indian nationals is currently at 01JAN12. Which means that USCIS is currently processing applications from almost 12 years ago. Which means they have to wait a decade before their application even gets approved.
There are people that will quite literally never see an EB2 or EB3 green card in their lives despite having an approved application. The only viable path to a green card for those is marrying a US citizen, period. (as that category has no cap or quota whatsoever)
pandaman|2 years ago
While it's true these people already work there etc. etc. EB2, just like EB3, requires the DOL certification that "there are not sufficient U.S. workers able, willing, qualified and available to accept the job opportunity in the area of intended employment". [1]
This sucks for firms like Apple because there are quite enough U.S. workers able, willing, qualified and available to take a whole bunch of jobs that are being held by a BS with 5 years of experience... Imagine you are an officer of the U.S. government and a lawyer from Apple sends you an application for a, for example, front end developer. Will you honestly believe that there are literally no U.S. workers able, willing, qualified and available to take such a job? At Apple no less. It's not "some folks won't take a job at Apple/FB/Google/etc for political reasons, so there!". It's literally a claim that there are no US citizens or LPRs who could do that job. How credible you'd think such a claim is?
1. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/foreign-labor/programs/perm...
coliveira|2 years ago
deaddodo|2 years ago
If you're afraid of foreign competition, you should be worried about H1B and similar visas (visas for foreigners willing to slot into a normal "skilled" position), which this article isn't touching on at all. Those are the visas of your peers that companies are willing to hire extranationally.
thaumasiotes|2 years ago
Wage depression is a function of being willing and able to work in the field, not of residency type.
Residency type can only depress individual wages for the person with the odd residency.
x86x87|2 years ago
PERM is one stage in the Green Card process. (it goes: PERM -> I140 -> I485. https://maggio-kattar.com/three-stages-employer-sponsored-pe...)
https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-eligibility/gree...
goodluckchuck|2 years ago
Lamad1234|2 years ago
standardUser|2 years ago
You're saying that Apple can't find people from less-developed countries with these specific credentials and then offer them a starting salary that's $100k under what they would have needed to offer to someone from California?
> because they are for all legal purposes, an equal to any American once they have EB2.
Equal to an American in legal rights perhaps, but there is no right to competitive pay.
mbs159|2 years ago
I hope that by this you mean Native Americans. Or are colonizers now considered native citizens?
vsskanth|2 years ago
Meta got in trouble with the DOJ for the same thing. They advertised for positions in newspapers and only accepted paper applications for PERM positions, unlike their other jobs which are advertised online. This is mainly because you don't want anyone actually applying for the PERM roles, since you need to prove no minimally (not most) qualified US citizen or PR could be found.
I think long term this is going to make getting PERM approved more difficult. It already takes 2-3 years now (without any audits) to get an I-140 (green card) application approved, not to mention getting the card can take decades in some cases.
People on H1B work visa can't stay on it for more than 6 years unless they actually get through PERM and get I-140, so I'm expecting this change will have a chilling effect on employers sponsoring work visas and applying for PERM unless it's a very specialized role. Why would you sponsor someone if you know they can't work in the country long term ? Hard times ahead for people on visa.
az226|2 years ago
ChrisMarshallNY|2 years ago
Apple just makes too damn much money to worry overmuch about salaries. If anything, a lot of managers like H1Bs, because they can drive them like slaves. I've seen exactly that, in front of my own eyes. It's pretty disturbing, if you are a manager like me.
Jochim|2 years ago
raincom|2 years ago
addicted|2 years ago
The PERM application was almost certainly submitted for an existing employee, who had most likely been employed with Apple for somewhere between 2-4 years. Thanks to bureaucratic nonsense they were then required to open up that position to outsiders instead, and if they found someone else who could be hired fire the person that had been doing the job well enough that Apple was willing to pick up tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees to go ahead with their PERM application.
closeparen|2 years ago
kristopolous|2 years ago
It sounds like a larger power asymmetry and as an employer, you want that as large as possible.
I mean it also increases stress on both ends, which affects executive function so the parties become handicapped by the relationship, but that's apparently less valuable than the large power differentials to many.
I wonder if there's quantitative studies of firms performances with respect to this. If the theory is right, it's long term one of the more disadvantageous strategies. (Using Apple as N=1 doesn't cut it as a study here)
KennyBlanken|2 years ago
Apple is a publicly traded company whose shareholders would not tolerate overpaying for labor.
Further: Apple was caught colluding with other major tech industry employers with regards to hiring/salary.
So please do go on about how Apple doesn't care about labor costs.
And also, look at the wages and benefits for Apple Store employees which are shit for the level of technical expertise they're expected to have and the products they're selling (there's usually at least some correlation between compensation and the cost of goods being sold - obviously not anything approaching linearity.)
Then look at how Apple store staff are starting to unionize, much to the terror of their Head of Retail, who likely makes half a million dollars a year in cash compensation alone - $250/hour, which is more than ten times the base wage for a retail employee (supposedly now $22/hour.)
Your naivete is pretty stunning. There isn't a single corporate employer on the planet who doesn't do everything they can to minimize labor costs.
ergocoder|2 years ago
gymbeaux|2 years ago
clumsysmurf|2 years ago
supportengineer|2 years ago
thewileyone|2 years ago
justrealist|2 years ago
Every FAANG is guilty of this. Every startup is guilty of this. There is no law less adhered to in the US.
Everyone posts the notice on the office fridge or the receptionist stand or runs some newspaper ad to cover the nominal letter of the law. It's completely pointless.
Just to add some context here.
jkaplowitz|2 years ago
In our industry it’s rare for condition 2 to be false, even when condition 1 is true. So usually they can just be brazen about not trying to find American candidates. Regardless, non-discrimination rules still apply.
pridkett|2 years ago
In other words, professional societies are complicit in this too.
rhuru|2 years ago
The idea that asking companies to fire their existing employer just to hire some "citizen" employee is dumb beyong measure. H1B visas should not exist in first place. Just give green card and let the person be citizen.
The problem is compounded by the racial quota for Indians in greencards. Indians are extremely good at hacking systems and longer they stay in that queue, they would totally destroy this sort of idiotic system. (This is a complement to Indians).
jmspring|2 years ago
The system allows it, why not take advantage of such.
BobaFloutist|2 years ago
at-fates-hands|2 years ago
ramadan_steve|2 years ago
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VirusNewbie|2 years ago
meowtimemania|2 years ago
billy_bitchtits|2 years ago
threadweaver34|2 years ago
mavelikara|2 years ago
Interviews are a poor proxy for predicting on-the-job performance. The manager is disproportionately affected by poor performance of an employee. So, they try to minimize it. To do that, they try to get signals outside of the traditional interviews. And one such extra signal is reputation. Seeking candidates with high reputation leads to developers with open source contributions getting hired, but also those from the manager’s personal network get hired too.
This effect is not limited to immigrant managers.
dartharva|2 years ago
kderbyma|2 years ago
booleandilemma|2 years ago
slipshady|2 years ago
jl2718|2 years ago
So basically the only way to find any real job posting is to spam-apply to everything. Is there a service for that?
Tildey|2 years ago
lessbergstein|2 years ago
JAlexoid|2 years ago
But the fact is, that no one is happy with the immigration process. It's utterly inhumane and expensive.
robotnikman|2 years ago
jws|2 years ago
The article doesn't come right out and say it, but the case seems to have turned on PERM jobs being only available when there isn't a citizen/refugee/permanent-resident available to fill the position and that applying in paper was an unreasonable hurdle to these classes and that the positions should be advertised as widely as other jobs to ensure they aren't missing potential protected class workers who might like to apply.
paulddraper|2 years ago
jkaplowitz|2 years ago
SpicyLemonZest|2 years ago
shadowgovt|2 years ago
trident5000|2 years ago
nojvek|2 years ago
Even though FB/Meta is hiring again and you apply with a referral link, even as US citizen you still get no responses.
No email, no phone call, totally ghosted.
Almost seems like their job board is to appease DOJ rules but they hire on other criteria.
93po|2 years ago
phendrenad2|2 years ago
> the company acknowledged in a statement that it had "unintentionally not been following the DOJ standard"
I'd love to know what sequence of events led to this very archaic but unintentional violation! Should be a fun read!
kepler1|2 years ago
Because if we didn't, we'd have random people just crossing the border at will and living in the country with no repercussions whatsoever.
Oh wait, huh. So, why do we make skilled people prove with mountains of paperwork and credentials that they should be allowed to enter the country?
mbfg|2 years ago
Georgelemental|2 years ago
jmyeet|2 years ago
You get a work visa. There are typically 4 options. There are 4 major options (there are others that are less common):
1. H1B: requires a bachelor's degree or equivalent experience. There is an annual quota. There are now more applicants than visas so there is a lottery. If you don't get picked, try again next year. H1B is issued for 3 years and can be renewed for another 3. Beyond that, you have to leave or file a PERM application and you can stay while it's pending. H1B is transferable with minimal effort to a new employer;
2. TN visa: available to Canadians. It's a 3 year nonimmigrant intent visa that requires. It can technically be renewed repeatedly but CBP is free to decide you're really living here and just deny your visa. The conservative approach is that TN holders wishing to immigrate will transfer to an H1B when possible. H1Bs can have weird conditions like when and how often you can re-enter the country. Some countries don't allow re-entry beyond the first year so leaving means going to a consulate and applying for a new visa;
3. E3 visa: much like a TN but available to Australians. It's 2 years, nonimmigrant intent and not transferable. There's a quota but it's never been hit. Many wishing to get a green card will also try to get an H1B at some point;
4. L1 visa: large companies use this for transfers. Work in Canada or London for a year and then get transferred.
This brings us to PERM. It's basically a 2 step process:
1. File a PERM. This involves many steps like getting a labor certification. This takes 6-24+ months. USCIS may randomly audit you, which can add 1-2 years. They may have a reason too but but they also randomly audit a large number of applications, allegedly to stop the system being gamed. The reality is that it's arbitrary and capricious. Things may just randomly take 2 years longer for no reason at all. Once your number comes up (more on this below), you go to the next step;
2. File an adjustment of status ("AoS"). There are 2 forms that can be filed concurrently (I-141 and I-485 IIRC). This should only take 6-12 months. It depends on your service center though. If there's something weird about your application it may take longer with multiple rounds of RFE ("Requests for Evidence") that each take months to be examined.
PERMs have a total quota and a per-country quota (of 7% of the total). And by "country" I mean "country of birth". Your passport doesn't matter at all. If you're born to Norwegian parents in Mumbai, you'll be in the India queue and you don't want to be there. Expect to wait 10-30 years because there is a backlog in the millions.
Occasionally there's some talk of Congress reforming this but nothing much has changed in a long time.
So where's the abuse? It takes 2 forms:
1. The Department of Labor is meant to ensure you're not underpaid (ie exploited). But they look at average pay for software engineers in a geographic area. For a Big Tech company, this could be substantially higher. But they don't have to pay you that higher amount technically because you're beholden to the company. If you leave you need to file a new PERM (but you keep your priority date). Still, this might add a year or two; and
2. Oncd you have your green card you don't need work authorization anymore so you can freely take a new job. So if you're from India you're effectively an indentured servant for decades because of the backlog.
So H1Bs have no per-country quota but green cards do. We issue way more H1Bs to Indian-born workers than we issue green cards to so the queue is only getting longer. Bear in mind tooo that if you're a worker with a spouse and two children you'll need 4 from the quota not 1.
So these bodyshop companies that employ a lot of Indian nationals flood the H1B pipeline. It's why there's a lottery. The companies don't care who does and doesn't get a visa. These are relatively low paying jobs, which in practice have bad conditions. The threat of being fired keepes workers from demanding better pay and conditions let alone leaving.
Was apple engaging in these practices? I have no idea (and certainly no direct knowledge). But that's what PERM abuse looks like.
Honestly, work visas should just automatically convert to a green card after 6 years.
civilized|2 years ago
> Honestly, work visas should just automatically convert to a green card after 6 years.
Taking us from an extreme form of indentured servitude to the kind that was commonly practiced in the 18th century. An improvement!
TeeMassive|2 years ago
This is a slap on the wrist.
m3kw9|2 years ago
Racing0461|2 years ago
superduty|2 years ago
okwubodu|2 years ago
umeshunni|2 years ago
paulddraper|2 years ago
Opposite in the sense of the direction of the discrimination.
PabloRobles|2 years ago
jkaplowitz|2 years ago
unknown|2 years ago
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avereveard|2 years ago
trident5000|2 years ago
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NovemberWhiskey|2 years ago
VinLucero|2 years ago
unknown|2 years ago
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ren_engineer|2 years ago
I'm sure that will be devastating for a company with 162 Billion in cash and really make them think twice
deathanatos|2 years ago
unknown|2 years ago
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Elena120|2 years ago
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Elena120|2 years ago
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