I don't understand why they would compare the average wage of all H1B workers spread throughout the US against that of a particular job title (Computer Systems Analyst) in Los Angeles CA. Wages obviously vary by job title and location. No surprises that wages in CA are higher.
I searched to see what Infosys (1) and TCS (2) actually pay a "Computer Systems Analyst" and found:
- For Infosys, there's only one result for Houston where the salary came out to be ~105K.
- For TCS, it's around 85K-87K for San Franscisco area. Didn't find anything for Los Angeles.
I can't vouch for the correctness of data but the site says they get it from the Department of Labor. Infosys and TCS would probably be using different job titles on their H1B petitions to try and get a lower wage determination.
Can someone explain to me why H1Bs are problematic? They are an immigrant workforce just like the people who cross the border illegally. Yes, immigrants, by increasing supply do have a depressing effect on wages, but, in a global economy, don't we also believe in a global workforce?
People seem to have a problem with H1Bs, but people are happy to enjoy the benefits of cheap fruit and vegetables possible with labor of (illegal) immigrants --farmers, even descendants of immigrants oppose amnesty because that would result in the help actually getting legal jobs which pay more. But here, in the case of H1Bs, people seem to have a strong dislike for them. They are just people looking for jobs like anyone else.
Is the implicit argument we should have a different system to allow a greater supply of tech immigrants but with a more flexible visa, maybe even grant residency status thus eliminating this kind of soft exploitation?
Evidently not, as foreign doctors aren't allowed to immigrate to the US and practice medicine without first going through a costly and onerous relicensing program. As it stands, all foreign doctors, even from first-world nations with statistically better health outcomes than the US like Germany or Japan are all deemed unqualified to practice medicine in the US: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/12/business/economy/long-slog...
The real question is why programmers should be singled out for this kind of treatment when US doctors are the highest paid in the world, price-per-procedure is the highest in the world, and medical bills remain the number one cause of bankruptcy.
Further, a global workforce is only one component of free trade. What about a global retail market? Did you know that there is presently a federal law barring the re-importation of prescription drugs from nations where they're sold for pennies on the dollar? That form of free trade is bad for the bottom line of big corporations, so it is illegal.
Lots of people don't believe in a global economy either, and the idea of a global workforce comes at a very bad time.
The last few years, I've lived and worked in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Wilmington. All are shadows of their former shells, hollowed out by deindustrialization. What little remains is threatened by automation. Proponents of technology, and of globalization in capital and labor tell me that it will lead to greater prosperity for everyone. New, better jobs will replace the ones that are lost. We're waiting.
Tell that to the national governments that make it difficult for me, as an American, to move to their countries. We've got tons of treaties that require free movement of goods and capital but, very interestingly, I think, few that deal with the movement of people (labor) and almost none that make it an easy process (I realize there are zones where this is possible, such as in the EU, I'm speaking as an American).
> Is the implicit argument we should have a different system to allow a greater supply of tech immigrants but with a more flexible visa, maybe even grant residency status thus eliminating this kind of soft exploitation?
I, personally, would prefer a system of multi-lateral "free labor" agreements. If the US wants to let in workers from country A, then those workers should be 100% free to come to the US and work, no strings attached, no industry preferences, nothing. BUT, the same should also be true for US workers who wish to go to country A, otherwise, no deal.
This would create a truly more fluid workforce and, unlike with H1B, would benefit everyone instead of a few big companies and the handful of workers they bring in each year (while hurting everyone else).
>Can someone explain to me why H1Bs are problematic?
Did you read the article? Here are the subtitles from the article and the first line of the referenced article:
- Lower wages
- H-1B is not a bridge to permanent immigration
- H-1B is not about skills or skills gap
"Information technology workers at Southern California Edison (SCE) are being laid off and replaced by workers from India."
The problem with H1B is that you are serf to your sponsor. If H1B was instead work visa that once you enter the US, you are free to work for 10 years the situation would have been different.
There's nothing wrong in hiring immigrants. There is however something wrong where virtually every other profession has protection, but programmers don't. So wages will be lower compared to other professions, making it a job where skilled people might want to avoid even though they enjoy it.
You either immigration for every profession or non at all. Not screwing one profession in particular.
The issue I have is not with Immigration, it is with the H1-B System. Because of the limited supply of H1-B's and the nature of them to tie the visa holder to an employer with the carrot of a green card (some day), is ripe for abuse by suppressing wages, which appears to be exactly what is happening. The supply of H1-B's is not necessarily the problem, it is the nature that they tie them to a particular employer. The offer of a "green card" some day, has value or acts as a bonus that citizens cannot compete with, so H1-B's salaries can be lower because the promise of a green card has value.
I find it difficult to understand why these companies would go to such lengths to save at absolute most 15-20% on salary.
Even if there were no legal or immigration costs (which there definitely is), it seems to me they could easily do the same by getting someone from a less prosperous part of the US and moving them to, say, CA. I'm sure this happens all the time.
H-1B is intended to be temporary, 3-6 years. That means no need for pensions and no time to accumulate a great deal of raises or benefits.
I would also imagine it's a lot easier to convince an employee to "go the extra mile" when you're dangling their ability to remain in the country over their head, especially if they're also applying for citizenship.
For outsourcing firms its about institutionalized racism. In India, applicants put who their parents are, if they're married, where they were born, how old they are, height, weight, etc all on their resume. That is the kind of power they have if they only hire Indians. Why would they hire Americans who can sue them for discrimination?
It's also not just about saving money. Modern day corporations (and probably old fashioned ones) are basically extortion pyramids. The entire livelihood of everybody with employees at a corporation depends on having complete control over their subordinates. Why would you hire someone that can quit when you piss them off. Corps hire people for management jobs on visa as well. Its all about control. The thought is you're nothing if you don't have people under control. It's sad that corporations work that way, but that doesn't change the fact that they do.
> Even if there were no legal or immigration costs (which there definitely is), it seems to me they could easily do the same by getting someone from a less prosperous part of the US and moving them to, say, CA. I'm sure this happens all the time.
This logic seems wrong: if a person moves from somewhere to CA, they should now be paid a CA-level salary. Consider that at any point they can quit, and to every other employer they will look like a regular CA job market participant, so the other employers would offer them a CA-level salary. So you can't, in fact, hire someone from outside CA and have them work in CA at a low salary: they would just quickly move to a similar but higher-paid job.
This logic breaks down with visas that restrict your choice of employers. If your freedom to pick your employer is taken away, then your logic is correct: it would be possible to hire someone in CA at a low salary, without them immediately switching jobs, because they are forbidden from doing that.
The 20% premium that the company collects on the salary is (at least partially) a consequence of this lack of employee's freedom in the labour market. Without this restriction you would expect skill-adjusted salaries to be equal for visa and non-visa employees. It's not even anything to do with immigration per se, just this type of visa.
US companies bring in these consultants tens or hundreds at a time to a single office. If they hired locally for all these positions, they'd have to pay a lot higher than 20% premium. And if they flew in consultants from around the US, they'd be paying a fortune per hour (how many good USA developers seriously consider 100% travel jobs unless they pay ridiculously well?).
It's not about 15-20% for the N workers sponsored.
It drives down wages across the industry by increasing unemployed labor supply. It's a lever to put downward pressure on wages in a macroeconomic sense.
"I find it difficult to understand why these companies would go to such lengths to save at absolute most 15-20% on salary."
They're probably saving a lot more than 15-20%.
I understand this argument is often used to claim that it isn't about wages, it's about availability of someone, anyone to hire. But at what rate?
Suppose you say that you can't hire a developer with a particular in demand skill set. You've posted at what you've determined to be "market rate" for the position, or maybe a bit higher You pick up the phone and call various highly regarded developers at google, apple, and Facebook and say "what would it take to get you to quit your job, this moment, and come work for my company?"
My guess is that the difference between the "market rate" the company is offering and the rate they'd pay if they were prepared to do what it takes to get that engineer to leave google is a lot greater than 15-20%. I wouldn't be surprised if they'd have to double the offer.
I would say, its more about obedience from the employee rather than saving money on salary.
The Indian employees at TCS and Infosys are ready to work long hours and obediently carry out orders without questioning anything, which sometimes helps.
"Find me any company that doesn't have a difficult time sourcing well-qualified Rails developers, or experienced JavaScript experts. There is huge demand, not enough supply"
My problems with this statement is that you didn't mention pay or working conditions. Are they hiring for general talent, offering 200k a year with a nice private office? Are they offering 100k, forcing people to work in a loud open office where everyone can see your screen, requiring that you live in SF where the median priced house is over a mil, and demanding immediate plug and play developer with a a very narrow specialty skill set? I mean, they say they can't hire, but doesn't that mean they can't hire at the price they think they should get to pay?
I do agree with you that one shouldn't conclude a person isn't high talented in software if he or she doesn't have a grad degree. Obviously there are ludicrously talented developers who don't have grad degree, or even any degree of that matter. Software is like that.
> Find me any company that doesn't have a difficult time sourcing well-qualified Rails developers, or experienced JavaScript experts. There is huge demand, not enough supply
If any of that were true, wages would be going up, wouldn't they? Is there any company that couldn't hire someone by paying higher wages? Why are developer wages absolutely flat?
I find that the supply of brain surgeons for $10,000/year is quite limited. There's huge demand for brain surgeons at $10K, and not enough supply of brain surgeons willing to work for that wage. We've had the job ad ("Brain Surgeon Wanted: $10K/year") posted on Monster for months. Whatever shall I do? If only there was some solution.
While I have no comment on the parent article, I have done a lot of market research over the past few years, as part of a potential product to help companies hire better people, faster.
In doing so, I've noticed that there are two primary ways that companies artificially limit themselves to a tiny pool of eligible people:
One: An interview process based on trivia and logic puzzles, not "can this person drive success". This eliminates people that have years of industry experience, but that can't quite remember the solution to Four Knights on the spot.
I have seen plenty of of "unqualified" people that work as consultants, and pull in large sums of money, solving business problems at companies where they could never get through the interview process. These people would have been great hires, but they were forced out due to bad process.
Two: Requiring that candidates permanently relocate, nominally to a city with a very high cost-of-living, without paying a correspondingly high salary. This eliminates people with families, people with elderly parents, and so on.
Money is rarely the problem if the company is otherwise flexible in terms of location. If you want, say, a parent with two kids to move to SF, you're going to need to pony up $160k+ a year. The same person in Boise would likely be happy at half that.
If you read the H1-B requirements, it's supposedly about bringing in talent that's unavailable at any price. Not just seat-warmers who can be billed out with a hefty margin by a "body shop."
People with advanced degrees and unique skills should by all means be welcomed. Sending people back to India after they get degrees at MIT or Stanford is idiotic. But the stated intent of H1-Bs and cheap body shops are not compatible at all.
This article is all about morale-sucking, wage-depressing, quality-destroying indentured servitude that actually takes away the ability of R&D-oriented firms from obtaining H1-Bs for vastly more deserving people.
"Find me any company that doesn't have a difficult time sourcing well-qualified Rails developers, or experienced JavaScript experts. There is huge demand, not enough supply, and very little correlation with the candidate's formal education. There aren't any Master's of AngularJS degree programs."
Any company offering remote work and a good salary.
>But the author here claims that "H-1B is not about skills or skills gap" and cites as evidence the fact that the vast majority of the approved applicants have only a Bachelor's degree. Perhaps he's not familiar with the current state of the software engineering market, where an advanced degree is in no way a prerequisite to become a top-rated engineer?
Sure, you can be a great developer with just a Bachelor degree or even no degree.
But between "they found all this top-rated engineers with mere Bachelors" and "they got some cheaper developers for their gruntwork by shopping abroad" my bet is very much on the second case.
It's what business owners do at every level, including manual labor where "top talent" doesn't matter much if at all...
BESIDES, and this makes your point moot, they pay them less. If they considered them "top talent" they'd pay them as they do American developers, regardless of if they have a degree or not.
There's an even larger issue driving this problem:
As Table 1 shows, Infosys and Tata pay very low wages to their H-1B workers. The average wage for an H-1B employee at Infosys in FY13 was $70,882 and for Tata it was $65,565. Compare this to the average wage of a Computer Systems Analyst in Rosemead, CA (where SCE is located), which is $91,990 (according to the U.S. Department of Labor). That means Infosys and Tata save well over $20,000 per worker per year, by hiring an H-1B instead of a local U.S. worker earning the average wage. But at SCE specifically, the wage savings are much greater.
When the H-1B worker isn't employed directly by the company seeking the "savings" (for example, Infosys or Tata), and instead is employed by a middleman outsourcing company, the worker is essentially a victim of double exploitation. In these situations, wages for the h1B workers become even more dismal. The outsourcing company takes a huge cut of the workers' earnings (which are usually hourly and without benefits) and then uses threatening tactics to essentially "scare" these workers into outputting more in less time, without overtime, etc.
(wile VivekW is not exactly an "Unbiased" commentator).
So as not to keep this ad-homoniem the data comparison is silly
Avg & Median wages On one side vs Specific SoCal wages on the other?
That said some of the criticisms are valid: TCS, Infosys, Wipro & Cognizant are terrible at taking care of their US employees. They very rarely get a chance at a greencard among other exploitative practices.
Unfortunately Ron is sabotaging his own argument by using flaky data & being a tool.
The bitter truth is, workers from TCS and Infosys are able to do the job more efficiently than their american counterparts with a lesser pay. This system as a whole is beneficial for the US economy, I don't think they will change it in near future.
People often conflate H-1B visas lowering wages, with H-1B holders earning less than market wages.
Actually it is possible (and probably) that H-1B holders earn the same wages as their equivalents. The presence of the H-1B workers increases the supply of labor, and lowers wages for everyone. But it happens simultaneously so that at no time are the H-1B holders earning less.
It's interesting to me that in order to deal with this inconsistency, people have basically invented the myth that it's hard to shift jobs while on an H-1B, and thus H-1B holders are like "indentured servants". The reality is for most H-1B holders the job market is no different, as long as they have the visa, which depends on the government, not their company.
It's strange how action which has apparently helped to lift tens of thousands of poor Indian workers out of poverty is portrayed as a "scandal". There's clearly a big labor pool willing to work for lower pay than Americans. Give them a chance at a better life! If Californians dislike foreign workers so much, why are they still allowing people from the midwest to work there? Shouldn't they be throttled too to keep wages high in silicon valley?
>It's strange how action which has apparently helped to lift tens of thousands of poor Indian workers out of poverty is portrayed as a "scandal".
Maybe because it was not intended to "lift tens of thousands of poor Indian workers out of poverty" but to "lower or keep the same american developer wages"?
As if those US business owners give a rats arse about getting "poor Indian workers out of poverty".
If those guys are so concerned about "poor Indians developers" how about paying them exactly the same as any American developer? It's not like they have a lower cost of living when they come to the US. So, do they consider them sub-human or something?
Or maybe they are more concerned for the "I can exploit their poorness relative to our domestic wage demands and screw me fellow country-men".
Oh, and it works both ways: next time some other country with cheaper wages than India developers a decent-ish IT education, those "poor Indian developers" would be dropped like dead weights in a race to the bottom...
>If Californians dislike foreign workers so much, why are they still allowing people from the midwest to work there? Shouldn't they be throttled too to keep wages high in silicon valley?
Perhaps because of this thing called patriotism, a.k.a. "do not piss where you live"...
Free market economics is often intentionally misunderstood because it doesn't fit into anyone's ideologies.
The left ignore the benefits of the free market, and pretend that there is a better system out there. They selfishly expect workers the developing world to respect the "right" of the Western middle class to high wages, as if magically other opportunities that don't involve competing with the Western middle class will arise.
The right want people to think that capitalism is magic, because they don't even want redistribution, which mainstream economists believe is something the market cannot do itself, and must be done by the government. The right want people to believe that all government intervention in the economy is equally bad, whether it is fixing the price of rent, providing medical services, or a negative income tax.
That said, I don't think H-1Bs are best used on average paid contractors. I know people earning a lot more money who missed out on the lottery. These people could have contributed a lot more to the economy.
EDIT: Added scare quotes around "right" in response to a comment.
[+] [-] boca|11 years ago|reply
I searched to see what Infosys (1) and TCS (2) actually pay a "Computer Systems Analyst" and found:
- For Infosys, there's only one result for Houston where the salary came out to be ~105K.
- For TCS, it's around 85K-87K for San Franscisco area. Didn't find anything for Los Angeles.
I can't vouch for the correctness of data but the site says they get it from the Department of Labor. Infosys and TCS would probably be using different job titles on their H1B petitions to try and get a lower wage determination.
(1) http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=INFOSYS+LIMITED&job=COMPUTE...
(2) http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=TATA+CONSULTANCY+SERVICES+L...
[+] [-] visadoor|11 years ago|reply
This is a more complete list:
http://visadoor.com/h1bvisa-by-companies-2014-infosys-limite...
http://visadoor.com/h1bvisa-by-companies-2014-tata-consultan...
[+] [-] akshatpradhan|11 years ago|reply
Or how about this company paying $70k-$90k https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9128292
Or this one at $70-$100k https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9128067
InfoSys and Tata actually seem to be paying more than these US Companies.
[+] [-] mc32|11 years ago|reply
People seem to have a problem with H1Bs, but people are happy to enjoy the benefits of cheap fruit and vegetables possible with labor of (illegal) immigrants --farmers, even descendants of immigrants oppose amnesty because that would result in the help actually getting legal jobs which pay more. But here, in the case of H1Bs, people seem to have a strong dislike for them. They are just people looking for jobs like anyone else.
Is the implicit argument we should have a different system to allow a greater supply of tech immigrants but with a more flexible visa, maybe even grant residency status thus eliminating this kind of soft exploitation?
[+] [-] 307TempRedirect|11 years ago|reply
Evidently not, as foreign doctors aren't allowed to immigrate to the US and practice medicine without first going through a costly and onerous relicensing program. As it stands, all foreign doctors, even from first-world nations with statistically better health outcomes than the US like Germany or Japan are all deemed unqualified to practice medicine in the US: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/12/business/economy/long-slog...
The real question is why programmers should be singled out for this kind of treatment when US doctors are the highest paid in the world, price-per-procedure is the highest in the world, and medical bills remain the number one cause of bankruptcy.
Further, a global workforce is only one component of free trade. What about a global retail market? Did you know that there is presently a federal law barring the re-importation of prescription drugs from nations where they're sold for pennies on the dollar? That form of free trade is bad for the bottom line of big corporations, so it is illegal.
[+] [-] rayiner|11 years ago|reply
The last few years, I've lived and worked in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Wilmington. All are shadows of their former shells, hollowed out by deindustrialization. What little remains is threatened by automation. Proponents of technology, and of globalization in capital and labor tell me that it will lead to greater prosperity for everyone. New, better jobs will replace the ones that are lost. We're waiting.
[+] [-] glesica|11 years ago|reply
Tell that to the national governments that make it difficult for me, as an American, to move to their countries. We've got tons of treaties that require free movement of goods and capital but, very interestingly, I think, few that deal with the movement of people (labor) and almost none that make it an easy process (I realize there are zones where this is possible, such as in the EU, I'm speaking as an American).
> Is the implicit argument we should have a different system to allow a greater supply of tech immigrants but with a more flexible visa, maybe even grant residency status thus eliminating this kind of soft exploitation?
I, personally, would prefer a system of multi-lateral "free labor" agreements. If the US wants to let in workers from country A, then those workers should be 100% free to come to the US and work, no strings attached, no industry preferences, nothing. BUT, the same should also be true for US workers who wish to go to country A, otherwise, no deal.
This would create a truly more fluid workforce and, unlike with H1B, would benefit everyone instead of a few big companies and the handful of workers they bring in each year (while hurting everyone else).
[+] [-] codeonfire|11 years ago|reply
Did you read the article? Here are the subtitles from the article and the first line of the referenced article: - Lower wages - H-1B is not a bridge to permanent immigration - H-1B is not about skills or skills gap
"Information technology workers at Southern California Edison (SCE) are being laid off and replaced by workers from India."
[+] [-] venomsnake|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pastProlog|11 years ago|reply
So open the borders and let anyone who wants to come in come in and work any job they want - let them vote as well.
Until that happens, I have a problem with this.
[+] [-] UK-AL|11 years ago|reply
You either immigration for every profession or non at all. Not screwing one profession in particular.
[+] [-] supercanuck|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] martinald|11 years ago|reply
Even if there were no legal or immigration costs (which there definitely is), it seems to me they could easily do the same by getting someone from a less prosperous part of the US and moving them to, say, CA. I'm sure this happens all the time.
[+] [-] Zikes|11 years ago|reply
I would also imagine it's a lot easier to convince an employee to "go the extra mile" when you're dangling their ability to remain in the country over their head, especially if they're also applying for citizenship.
[+] [-] codeonfire|11 years ago|reply
It's also not just about saving money. Modern day corporations (and probably old fashioned ones) are basically extortion pyramids. The entire livelihood of everybody with employees at a corporation depends on having complete control over their subordinates. Why would you hire someone that can quit when you piss them off. Corps hire people for management jobs on visa as well. Its all about control. The thought is you're nothing if you don't have people under control. It's sad that corporations work that way, but that doesn't change the fact that they do.
[+] [-] conistonwater|11 years ago|reply
This logic seems wrong: if a person moves from somewhere to CA, they should now be paid a CA-level salary. Consider that at any point they can quit, and to every other employer they will look like a regular CA job market participant, so the other employers would offer them a CA-level salary. So you can't, in fact, hire someone from outside CA and have them work in CA at a low salary: they would just quickly move to a similar but higher-paid job.
This logic breaks down with visas that restrict your choice of employers. If your freedom to pick your employer is taken away, then your logic is correct: it would be possible to hire someone in CA at a low salary, without them immediately switching jobs, because they are forbidden from doing that.
The 20% premium that the company collects on the salary is (at least partially) a consequence of this lack of employee's freedom in the labour market. Without this restriction you would expect skill-adjusted salaries to be equal for visa and non-visa employees. It's not even anything to do with immigration per se, just this type of visa.
[+] [-] logn|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] technoir|11 years ago|reply
It drives down wages across the industry by increasing unemployed labor supply. It's a lever to put downward pressure on wages in a macroeconomic sense.
[+] [-] geebee|11 years ago|reply
They're probably saving a lot more than 15-20%.
I understand this argument is often used to claim that it isn't about wages, it's about availability of someone, anyone to hire. But at what rate?
Suppose you say that you can't hire a developer with a particular in demand skill set. You've posted at what you've determined to be "market rate" for the position, or maybe a bit higher You pick up the phone and call various highly regarded developers at google, apple, and Facebook and say "what would it take to get you to quit your job, this moment, and come work for my company?"
My guess is that the difference between the "market rate" the company is offering and the rate they'd pay if they were prepared to do what it takes to get that engineer to leave google is a lot greater than 15-20%. I wouldn't be surprised if they'd have to double the offer.
[+] [-] catchmrbharath|11 years ago|reply
The Indian employees at TCS and Infosys are ready to work long hours and obediently carry out orders without questioning anything, which sometimes helps.
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] geebee|11 years ago|reply
My problems with this statement is that you didn't mention pay or working conditions. Are they hiring for general talent, offering 200k a year with a nice private office? Are they offering 100k, forcing people to work in a loud open office where everyone can see your screen, requiring that you live in SF where the median priced house is over a mil, and demanding immediate plug and play developer with a a very narrow specialty skill set? I mean, they say they can't hire, but doesn't that mean they can't hire at the price they think they should get to pay?
I do agree with you that one shouldn't conclude a person isn't high talented in software if he or she doesn't have a grad degree. Obviously there are ludicrously talented developers who don't have grad degree, or even any degree of that matter. Software is like that.
[+] [-] jellicle|11 years ago|reply
If any of that were true, wages would be going up, wouldn't they? Is there any company that couldn't hire someone by paying higher wages? Why are developer wages absolutely flat?
I find that the supply of brain surgeons for $10,000/year is quite limited. There's huge demand for brain surgeons at $10K, and not enough supply of brain surgeons willing to work for that wage. We've had the job ad ("Brain Surgeon Wanted: $10K/year") posted on Monster for months. Whatever shall I do? If only there was some solution.
[+] [-] donw|11 years ago|reply
In doing so, I've noticed that there are two primary ways that companies artificially limit themselves to a tiny pool of eligible people:
One: An interview process based on trivia and logic puzzles, not "can this person drive success". This eliminates people that have years of industry experience, but that can't quite remember the solution to Four Knights on the spot.
I have seen plenty of of "unqualified" people that work as consultants, and pull in large sums of money, solving business problems at companies where they could never get through the interview process. These people would have been great hires, but they were forced out due to bad process.
Two: Requiring that candidates permanently relocate, nominally to a city with a very high cost-of-living, without paying a correspondingly high salary. This eliminates people with families, people with elderly parents, and so on.
Money is rarely the problem if the company is otherwise flexible in terms of location. If you want, say, a parent with two kids to move to SF, you're going to need to pony up $160k+ a year. The same person in Boise would likely be happy at half that.
[+] [-] Zigurd|11 years ago|reply
People with advanced degrees and unique skills should by all means be welcomed. Sending people back to India after they get degrees at MIT or Stanford is idiotic. But the stated intent of H1-Bs and cheap body shops are not compatible at all.
This article is all about morale-sucking, wage-depressing, quality-destroying indentured servitude that actually takes away the ability of R&D-oriented firms from obtaining H1-Bs for vastly more deserving people.
[+] [-] joesmo|11 years ago|reply
Any company offering remote work and a good salary.
[+] [-] coldtea|11 years ago|reply
Sure, you can be a great developer with just a Bachelor degree or even no degree.
But between "they found all this top-rated engineers with mere Bachelors" and "they got some cheaper developers for their gruntwork by shopping abroad" my bet is very much on the second case.
It's what business owners do at every level, including manual labor where "top talent" doesn't matter much if at all...
BESIDES, and this makes your point moot, they pay them less. If they considered them "top talent" they'd pay them as they do American developers, regardless of if they have a degree or not.
[+] [-] shawnee_|11 years ago|reply
As Table 1 shows, Infosys and Tata pay very low wages to their H-1B workers. The average wage for an H-1B employee at Infosys in FY13 was $70,882 and for Tata it was $65,565. Compare this to the average wage of a Computer Systems Analyst in Rosemead, CA (where SCE is located), which is $91,990 (according to the U.S. Department of Labor). That means Infosys and Tata save well over $20,000 per worker per year, by hiring an H-1B instead of a local U.S. worker earning the average wage. But at SCE specifically, the wage savings are much greater.
When the H-1B worker isn't employed directly by the company seeking the "savings" (for example, Infosys or Tata), and instead is employed by a middleman outsourcing company, the worker is essentially a victim of double exploitation. In these situations, wages for the h1B workers become even more dismal. The outsourcing company takes a huge cut of the workers' earnings (which are usually hourly and without benefits) and then uses threatening tactics to essentially "scare" these workers into outputting more in less time, without overtime, etc.
See also: http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/04/03/176134...
[+] [-] suprgeek|11 years ago|reply
(wile VivekW is not exactly an "Unbiased" commentator).
So as not to keep this ad-homoniem the data comparison is silly
Avg & Median wages On one side vs Specific SoCal wages on the other?
That said some of the criticisms are valid: TCS, Infosys, Wipro & Cognizant are terrible at taking care of their US employees. They very rarely get a chance at a greencard among other exploitative practices.
Unfortunately Ron is sabotaging his own argument by using flaky data & being a tool.
[+] [-] arcticf0x|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] devish|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nnd|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dominotw|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] panini_tech|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swatow|11 years ago|reply
Actually it is possible (and probably) that H-1B holders earn the same wages as their equivalents. The presence of the H-1B workers increases the supply of labor, and lowers wages for everyone. But it happens simultaneously so that at no time are the H-1B holders earning less.
It's interesting to me that in order to deal with this inconsistency, people have basically invented the myth that it's hard to shift jobs while on an H-1B, and thus H-1B holders are like "indentured servants". The reality is for most H-1B holders the job market is no different, as long as they have the visa, which depends on the government, not their company.
[+] [-] Potando|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coldtea|11 years ago|reply
Maybe because it was not intended to "lift tens of thousands of poor Indian workers out of poverty" but to "lower or keep the same american developer wages"?
As if those US business owners give a rats arse about getting "poor Indian workers out of poverty".
If those guys are so concerned about "poor Indians developers" how about paying them exactly the same as any American developer? It's not like they have a lower cost of living when they come to the US. So, do they consider them sub-human or something?
Or maybe they are more concerned for the "I can exploit their poorness relative to our domestic wage demands and screw me fellow country-men".
Oh, and it works both ways: next time some other country with cheaper wages than India developers a decent-ish IT education, those "poor Indian developers" would be dropped like dead weights in a race to the bottom...
>If Californians dislike foreign workers so much, why are they still allowing people from the midwest to work there? Shouldn't they be throttled too to keep wages high in silicon valley?
Perhaps because of this thing called patriotism, a.k.a. "do not piss where you live"...
[+] [-] swatow|11 years ago|reply
The left ignore the benefits of the free market, and pretend that there is a better system out there. They selfishly expect workers the developing world to respect the "right" of the Western middle class to high wages, as if magically other opportunities that don't involve competing with the Western middle class will arise.
The right want people to think that capitalism is magic, because they don't even want redistribution, which mainstream economists believe is something the market cannot do itself, and must be done by the government. The right want people to believe that all government intervention in the economy is equally bad, whether it is fixing the price of rent, providing medical services, or a negative income tax.
That said, I don't think H-1Bs are best used on average paid contractors. I know people earning a lot more money who missed out on the lottery. These people could have contributed a lot more to the economy.
EDIT: Added scare quotes around "right" in response to a comment.