Since H1B is supposed to bring in rare foreign talents to do the jobs not enough Americans are available to do, salary should reflect that. If only the highest paid people receive the visa, then the public would not complain as much about replacing American workers for wage reason.
(Even startups with limited budget often can afford $80,000 these outsourcing firms pay their top 25th percentile H1B employees. [1] For a technical co-founder role in a Bay area VC-backed startup, it should be higher still.)
Why has this obvious modification not been implemented? I suppose it does not need Congressional approval. Is it because the change would be against certain major corporate interests?
[1] Relevant infographics http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/06/us/outsourcing...
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Response to objections:
Objections below regarding salary differences between fields (scientists vs bankers) and costs of living in different areas can be addressed by considering average salary in each field and area. For example, how much higher, in percentage terms, the minimum salary of the proposed H1B is, compared to the average of comparable positions in the same area. (Details need to be worked out, but the same is true for other important systems.)
Assistance to startups can be given using a point system (like Canadian visa) that grants extra points to applications from smaller companies. This extra benefit would also help level the playing field in terms of overhead costs which is a much larger burden for these companies.
The H1B abusers all have the same business model:
Pretend like they can't find an American to do the job (when in reality they can but their client is willing to pay enough) and then fill it.
In the end, everyone loses, because you just get a non-exceptional immigrant in place of an exceptional immigrant.
I've got co-workers who are brilliant guys who have had to go back to their country, while Tata, Wipro, and all the other parasites land H1Bs so they can place a SQL Server admin who works for $45K a year and is afraid to take vacations.
Since the bidding is a solution to a problem caused by the cap on # of H1B visas, why not just do away with the cap?
BTW, I've heard some indian people submit multiple applications thru multiple companies. It looks like USCIS is not very good at catching it.
The solution is not to bid via salary or total comp package or other BS metrics (also gameable), but to place bids directly on the visa slots - ie, the government simply holds an auction for N visas in sector X and collects the market clearing price as income.
Visas will then flow to companies that can productively use them (ie, high delta between the cost of the visa + salary, and what they figure the employee produces in value. No bias towards high-salary, low-surplus occupations). A low price for visas in a field is also a handy sign that there is no actual "shortage".
Some people think that occupations should just earn a certain amount. But that's not how markets work.
If a mechanic has rare skill to fixing a rare machine. Than that guy is worth a lot. People have to accept that.
Instead people make their mind he's worth 60k, and refuse to pay above. Then claim theirs a skills shortage. That's not how markets and prices work. There's no predetermined price in occupations.
Startups that aren't on that growth curve shouldn't be hiring remotely, or hiring at all really.
I'm not certain that a COL adjustment is necessary either. The higher COL in the Bay Area and NYC reflects the higher productivity of workers in firms in those regions. If you want to allocate foreign specialists where they will generate the most economic value, it makes sense that they go to tech hubs with high average salaries and high costs of living. It also solves the "domestic worker displacement" problem, which seems to be more of an issue in Kansas City than in San Jose.
Also, such a change would be in the interests of major tech companies like Microsoft, Google, and Apple. They already pay their H1Bs close to market rate, significantly more than Wipro/Infosys/TCS pay theirs, and so they would win a lot more of the H1B visas under this system. Someone (any insiders here?) should let their public policy teams know; they may be useful allies.
What do you base this on?
Doctors, startup founders, software engineers, rocket scientists, professors, world-class musicians, and everyone you actually want to be importing foreign talent for, typically gets a modest, medium-range, middle-class salary in the US, at least when they start on any new project. Even Nobel laureates and Pulitzer prize winners usually get very mediocre salaries.
Having the H1B admission be based on salary would probably just fill up all the H1B quota from Wall Street, not serve as an effective talent filter.
Do not worry about CEO's and C-levels outsourcing themselves. Either the H1B will go unused or the salaries will be paid. Either way the market will find out what the 'natural' need for outside talent is. There are other approaches but a salary floor plus an open work permit would be a decent start.
You're acting like cost of living at work location couldn't easily be tied in, as well as incorporating average salaries at said locations.
Some small nit-picks as an example: H1-B's are not locked to a specific location, so it would be easy enough to bring in employees for the Kansas City office, then immediately relocate them to the Bay Area at the same salary. Changing this will be really hard since free travel across the country is a fundamental US right.
Except that minimum salary thresholds for H1B's are already set (for each region). We're talking about just increasing these thresholds (e.g. 55K --> 85K and so on...).
I think many of the "nightmare" issues are already present and already being managed just as well (or badly.) The marginal addition in complexity shouldn't be that high.
1. It makes H1B sweat-shops unfeasible
2. It motivates employers to train American workers whenever possible
3. It makes it significantly more likely that the visa will go to the most in-demand skills than the current lottery system does.
To those of you complaining that this is pay-to-play: there is something unpleasant about it on the face of it. The way I look at it though is that we are using salary as the best proxy we have for scarcity of a given skillset.
Calling a $60k job in tech in the US a "sweat shop" really trivializes the term.
The H1B program sets salaries using a "central planning" model, and changing the rules for the central planners won't really fix the problem, because employers will learn how to game the new rules.
A better approach is to remove the "you can only work for one employer" restriction from the H1B, and let the employee take their H1B visa with them to any job they can get. This would give the employee the same negotiating power as other employees, which will allow them to get raises or take higher-paying work for another employer.
Using a market within the central planning of the visa program is still an incremental improvement in the efficiency of the policy and therefore a worthwhile reform to consider.
Honestly I'd favor an absolute minimum limit. Hiring someone through this kind of visa should be an extreme method you use to find talent you simply cannot find here at any price (not sidestep the American job market and devalue labor) since their visa is contingent upon them willing to work for you -- it's nearly indentured servitude. So you should have no problem paying them at least $200,000/year.
I worked at a law firm that specialized in immigration and that's exactly what happens. They deflate the title and experience and claim much less than they could/should. The employee doesn't protest because they are still coming out ahead from where they were. All the biggest tech companies are doing this too.
Which is part of the problem. Why can't a visa holder just say screw you to these companies and go out and get a new job without a huge amount of risk and stress.
Not true. The public will complain about how we are rewarding foreigners instead of locals. They will lament that about poor schools, and companies not wanting to train local talent. They will cry about how the "imported workers" are taking their high wages/dollars and sending it out of the country.
I will like to see every company that get's a H1B worker mandated that they must hire two paid interns. The idea behind this is that as they pay H1B workers, they also get to train younger workers who will not be hired for "lack of experience."
The (big) companies that aren't abusing the program (Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc...) already do this. They hire loads of interns and then give offers to anyone who is up to their standard. It's a win/win system.
So again, seems like we are back to the crappy outsourcing consultants.
http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-optimal-number...
Who starts a business without the person that makes it possible in the first place on staff? If you dont have a buisness without someone you cant afford to hire, you dont have a buisness to begin with.
If so, you could weight the H1-B salary auctions in the same way. Wouldn't solve the weighting toward high-salary fields, but should make weighting toward $3000/month for a closet areas like SF less of a problem.
Bureaucrats and politicians picking interest groups? That's why technology workers are exempt from overtime rules
This would solve that.
IMO, there is an advantage to importing world class talent, but subsiding companies that don't want to pay the going rate for a junior dev is a real issue.
All employers will be incentivized not to sponsor H1B visas because it will become a bidding war. It's not a 1-day event - most of the sponsored immigrants have been already working for the employer for months through temporary OPT or CPT.
The solution is to finally open up more H1B visa seats and do away with the lottery system. To be approved for the visa the immigrant already needs to be making the same or greater than the average U.S. citizen salary in the same area anyways.
Edit: The problem with a bidding war isn't the price as many of you are thinking, it's the volatility. Employers are setting these wages when they hire immigrants many months in advance, and they won't do it if there is a risk they will be outbid later.
That's the mark of a successful market system: negative feedback loops so that the more out of equilibrium the system gets, the more incentive there is to bring it back into equilibrium.
That's the ideal benefit. Skilled Americans should be employed when available and their salaries should be high and rising. The more incentives not to use H1-Bs, the better.
The ostensive goal of the program is to provide workers with skills that aren't available in the USA. If they really aren't available, a few disincentives aren't going to slow them down, but we know that a large majority of applications are fraudulent. They exist to replace American jobs with low paid indentured foreign labor. There's no good reason to promote that.
That's not how people are hired in exceptional circumstances, as is the stated intention of the H1-B law. That IS how people are hired for outsourcing body shops, which should not survive this change.
Exactly how its meant to work.
Which is the issue with your proposal. None of the individuals interviewed would be able to compete with the large corporations if a salary were taken in to account. Which I think is fine because none of them actually sounded like the jobs the foreigners were doing were all that special and the talent could definitely be found within the US borders as long as the right price is willing to be paid.
The law already has a provision to identify these abusive filers -- "H1B dependent employers". As the article notes, Congress let a special fee for such employers lapse. If it cared to, it could easily forbid such employers from filing further applications. Problem solved.
I would also point out that this requirement is not without precedent and the data is already there, because there is exactly such a requirement for O-1 visas (well not exactly a requirement, but you get extra consideration if you are).
Let's say an university want to bring in a Vietnamese teacher to teach about South-East Asian's studies. The university simply could not find someone with that kind of knowledge in the US, hence they want to bring in someone from a foreign country to take the role, and that person is very qualified for that role. Should their application just be dismissed because they can't offer wages that compete with big tech companies offering $200k salaries to foreign engineers?
When comparing h1-b applications to fulfill jobs that are of similar position in similar markets, then comparing salaries make sense, but it doesn't make sense to compare wages across different markets and positions, as it gives a HUGE advantage to profession in more profitable markets like big tech/big pharma.
Most universities (maybe all) are not subjected to the cap. Non-profits in general are not subjected to the cap.
The proposed change should only be for the non-cap exempt jobs anyway (which tend to be at for profit places).
So the govt will have to go back and forth to get this right, the energy is better utilized in the big ticket job items that have costed america millions of jobs (not a few 10 thousands like in this one).... see my other comment on this topic.
Startups wouldn't be able to afford such high salaries (many rely on equity or even founding engineers).
Software engineers that work in startups are different from the corporate ones.
If employers bid for the permits themselves, there'd be a large fixed-cost component to employing an H1B, but then no incentive (indeed, an extra disincentive, since the company had to shell out to get them to the U.S.) to pay them well afterwards. And since H1Bs are sponsored by their employer, they have limited job mobility and can't just go work for a competitor, particularly since the competitor would then have to shell out even more money to win the auction for the visa. That'll put downward pressure on immigrant salaries, which in turn will put downward pressure on American salaries for workers who do the same job, as employers could substitute a one-time fixed cost to "lock in" an H1B rather than paying prevailing market wages.
There are two ways to game the H1B, the NYT article covered only one of them. The other is the 20,000 visas given to those who finished a Masters/PhD degree in USA. If they break out the numbers for these, they will find something that is an open secret known to all Indians: this 20K too is totally dominated by Indians.
Among my family and friends back in India, how to game the H1B's other 20K visas is also an open secret. These mediocre-to-hopeless students from India just apply to some university in the US for a Masters. Either it is a shit-degree from a mediocre university or a shit-degree from a shit-university (most of them seem to be in Texas). Doesn't matter. They get the admission, pay the fees, pass the course. Then they take internships to stay on after the degree, keep applying and taking interviews relentlessly until something works out. I believe they can stay on in the US for a few years by extending their visa in this way, until they get a H1B.
They fake their profiles with a many years of fake experience, fake internships and try to fake the background checks as well. These consulting companies take care of all the visa processing etc for these guys.
The major companies benefit from not having to take care of all the hiring processes, visa processes, employee benefits, holidays/vacations for the contractors. They also consider these employees expendable. When something unfortunate happens and these guys end up getting pink slips, the consultancies get them another job at another employer willing to take them.
Are we getting the 'best and the brightest' with the H1-B (which we all agree is a good thing), or the richest and wealthiest willing to pay whatever it takes to get a visa?
Maybe 10 years ago, the best and the brightest of Indians/Chinese, who studied at the top US schools would have got their H1B in this 20K advanced-degree quota. Not true today.
Though the average Indian/Chinese is poor, there are tens of millions of parents in India/China today who can afford the $50K "investment" for their non-so-bright child. I see this among my affluent relatives and friends in India.
There is an easy way to check this: plotting the applicants of this 20K advanced-degree quota against the US News/other university rankings of their university.
An easy but not perfect way to fix this would be to give the 20K slots to the applicants from the highest ranking universities.
And then after that they have to go through a period of intense slogging to clear their student loans they would have taken in India. Then comes the H1B struggle to stay in the US to make a living, then the struggle for green card and so on.
By any means of measure these are exceptionally hard working and bright people. And don't go by what the throwaway29 is saying. These are not idiots who landed by luck and are dragging by. And its not as simple as throwaway29 is making it look like, where a few idiots are stealing away the opportunity from Einstein level geniuses.
That means you do not want to come to the US enough in order to go through unpleasant work that employers are willing to sponsor you for.
Your choice.
Do you think you got a better deal in India in the end?
Firstly, mugging up pointless trivia and math theorems hasn't anything remotely to do with productivity. Which is the only thing that matters in workplaces today. You might be the biggest knowledge repository in your college, you might know everything there is to know if the books. But your knowledge is replaceable by a Google search, or worst anything that you can be learned by any guy in India with a smart phone and a internet connection(both very cheap and accessible today) without ever having to go to a college. In a world with such levels flattening, only thing that counts is ability to get things done with maximum levels of productivity.
>>Today almost all of my classmates are in the US: thanks to H1B.
You should be happy about it, rather than cribbing about it.
>>nor did I want to do the shit work that is offered in these consulting companies (TCS, Infosys).
The very fact that you consider some work beneath you is speaking volumes about your attitude and work ethic. Or may be explains why people like you despite being intelligent are often beaten by every other guy who is ready to burn 20 hours a day to get work done and make a living doing whatever is possible, working and making the best of whatever opportunity comes there way. People in those companies you describe aren't doing 'shit work' as you describe, they do whatever software work everybody else is doing for a lesser salary. Because that is the only opportunity they get, and trust me even after that they don't crib. They remain thankful for the opportunity in a country where people are dying of hunger, they use that opportunity to learn, coming from small towns and lower middle class to poor families they work 20 hours a day, building their career brick by brick making the best of whatever comes their way. Only to be later face people like you who deride the hard work they do to get there.
>>I ended up getting a MS and PhD in a top non-US university that funded me and I'm still finding it difficult to join a US company, thanks to H1B being gamed.
You really must stop blaming the whole world from your problems.
>>These mediocre-to-hopeless students from India just apply to some university in the US for a Masters.
You really should be thinking very hard how all these people you think are below you are able to make a living, while you aren't.
>>Either it is a shit-degree from a mediocre university or a shit-degree from a shit-university (most of them seem to be in Texas). Doesn't matter.
True thing, because what matter is what you are ready to sacrifice as immigrant in foreign nation with a hefty student loan. How much you are ready to burn your self to get where you want to be. Its not about intelligence or grades, its more than that.
I am from a small town in India and my family was lower middle class. My parents burnt up all they had just to pay for my Bachelor degree. That is the reason I could not afford a Masters degree in the US. And there surely are many students from my background who worked hard to get to where they are.
That does not take away from what I see: Indians who have zero interest in computer science or even in their own work are grabbing the H1B of Indians (or Americans) who have that love and work hard.
Doing MS in USA is a money game (and not merit game at least at second and third tier colleges), most of the students who land up at these place are not from poor or lower middle class families. They come from families with enough means for them to buy tickets to USA, have enough funds to stay on their own at least for initial 6 months (which would be equivalent to life savings of many lower middle class families), demonstrate a big bank balance, show enough property etc. in their family name so that their student visa is not rejected at consulate… I could go on as to how one has to prove to consulate that a student is self sufficient, would not be depending on another source of funds (scholarships, loans etc.), has enough monetary and family reasons to come back after education to stand even a remote chance of getting a student visa.
OP did not have all of above, other less than mediocre students had those, and hence they scored.
Any body can have sex; doesn't mean everybody is getting it;)
But the general point stands; given the large population, there will be enough motivated people who will flatten it out eventually. I don't know if it is possible right this moment, or by everybody.
Hahahahahaahahaahahaahaha, if only.
I have a new intern offer in San Diego (I love this city) with a very good possibility of being hired after. Hope I will get my HB1 but if not I won't mind cheating like Indians.
Easiest way to get a green card is getting maried. As a french you should have used your French bonus of +5 attractiveness with girls :P
H1B game is fucked up for europeans anyway.
I'm glad this article shows legitimate uses of the H-1B like you.
I made the math, if you don't have an advanced degree from the US, then the chance to get the H-1B is around 30%. With the advanced degree it's around 70%...
Good luck to you!
I don't think this article can hurt your chances in any way but unless the system is revamped in order to remove these shitty outsourcing companies from it, we will have to get lucky next year..
Amazon and Google both have big offices in Ontario (Toronto and Waterloo, respectively) which are growing quickly. Easier time with immigration issues, a low Canadian dollar (cheaper salary costs), and very low health-care costs for the company. Why would they not?
Bias note: I work at Amazon Toronto. (We are hiring! my username@amazon)
US companies want to eat their cake and have it too. By importing H-1B workers, they can fire them for any reason whatsoever. So it is more a question of low cost labor, and the flexibility to fire for any reason which is driving H-1B demand.
I get paid more than most developers in Toronto, afaik. I get paid less than developers of the same level as me in the Seattle office. I moved back from Seattle, knowing that.
It always comes down to income vs cost of living ratios and differences. I've heard the best one within Amazon is the Bangalore office.
How common are 150-200K+ base salaries (even in Canadian dollars) among non-manager engineering staff?
Places like Toronto remind me many European places: low salaries, high cost of living (even in absolute numbers, compared to USA).
It is supposed to be a visa for exceptionally skilled foreigners (and not just in IT) that companies should go look for if and when they cannot find suitable American citizens/permanent residents for similar jobs.
Think about this. It is just so difficult to first prove this without really "gaming" it. So then starts the game.
The salary requirement or "prevailing wage" as they call it is again bullshit because it is very easy to meet that requirement.
Now the biggest issue which leads to severe exploitation specially by body shops: its ties to a specific employer and even though technically possible to switch jobs, it is almost impossible in practice.
If we need to reform any skilled visa process including H1B, it must include :
1. No ties to a specific employer. Make it merit based. If I can get it with one employer, let me switch to another one without too much hassle
2. Min. salary requirement may still be in place but then don't make it the crap "prevailing wage". The prevailing wage for Computer System Analysts in NY is average of $65000. Does that make any sense ? What does that even mean ? Who is a Computer System Analyst ?
3. Don't make this a visa that is available when companies cannot find suitable americans for the same job. This is just not possible to prove without gaming. Instead, how about let anyone compete for the same job from across the world and let the employer decide who they want to hire.
4. Oh and last, have stricter standards for "Service based companies" or these third party contracting body shops. They should not be allowed.
That would be good for the american economy and short-term at least seen as bad by american employees. Guess why you are being down voted? :)
1. H1B involves a lot of paper work/legal work. There are not that many companies who are familiar with the process and are willing to spend time and energy to sponsor your H1B. This reduces the potential employer pool drastically. (Personal anecdote: I used to do contracting when I was on H1B and could not accept many potential job offers due to H1B)
2. While it's true that you are not subject to H1B quota, you are still subject to the process and can get your petition rejected. (Persona anecdote: My friend tried to switch companies on H1B and found that the LCA was rejected because company lawyer made a mistake)
I disagree. Legally, yes you are allowed to switch. But in practice, it brings in too many complications. H1B is a 6 Year visa. If you have spent more than half of that time period, try getting a job with a new employer. Very unlikely that they will be interested knowing that you only have 2 or less years to be allowed to stay in America.
Ok what about green card then ? Sure, you can file for a Permanent residency but if you are from a Country like India/China/Philippines, guess what ? You may take a decade to get that PR while you are technically stuck with the same employer. Can you still switch jobs ? Sure you can. Will you want to though ? Perhaps not knowing that you have to re-start the entire PR process again.
A tiny company of 10 can have 2.
A small company of 100 can have 11
A medium company of 1000 can have 101
Screw H1-B. Can't change jobs, can't buy a house, can't negotiate a raise.
We can argue if x = 50k, 75k, 100k. In principle it shouldn't be more difficult for a professional person to re-settle than it is for a corporation.
So just to be clear, you're genuinely suggesting a system where you restrict the movement of people based on their salary?
That seems highly problematic. As an ex-EU citizen you probably know the EU allows any citizen of a member country to travel and work in any other country regardless of income.
> Screw H1-B. Can't change jobs, can't buy a house, can't negotiate a raise.
You can buy a house on a H1-B, you just need a credit history which you may not have if you have not been living in the US for very long. I know of several people on H1-Bs who have bought property with a mortgage.
You can also change jobs. Yes, there is legal paperwork involved. In the tech industry this is not normally a problem due to the demand for talent. The fact you can change jobs also means you can negotiate a raise. Again, I know several people on H1-Bs who negotiated raises (myself included).
I am not saying H1-B is a great system - it's not, I should know as I'm on one. But all three of your points are factually incorrect.
I think they're suggesting opening things up so that if you make good money, you can move around with less hassle. That's less restrictive than what we have now.
> As an ex-EU citizen you probably know the EU allows any citizen of a member country to travel and work in any other country regardless of income
Within Europe. TTIP is a 'transatlantic' trade deal, so presumably they're referring to opening things up between the US and Europe, something which I fully support.
That's quite risky because if you get laid off or fired you have to leave the country immediately. H-1B is modern day slavery.
There is no way they cannot find people already in the USA to fill those positions, they just don't want to pay full wages/benefits.
From my point of view, the solutions described above are steps in the right direction.
- Limiting the number of visas per company - Prioritizing jobs according to different criteria like salary or how much the company needs the employee - Limiting the amount of visas that one country can claim (similar to the green card lottery)
How can anyone in their right mind justify per country caps that signify the racialist compromises of the Civil Rights Act.
I came to this country at 17 as an undergrad and have a US tax payer funded Masters degree from a top 5 university (not that I believe US news ranking is all that important. I've been here 9 years and can fairly say that I'm as an integrated immigrant as any, but i wont be getting a greencard anytime before 2025 because I'm an Indian. From my perch i could also find it maddening that a UX designer who happened to be born say in the EU gets their residency in a matter of months with far less investment or attachment to this country.
People don't come to this country as representatives of their government.
Are we trying to subsidize our commercial sector the same way that communist and socialist governments have in the past?
And then the same companies register as foreign companies anyway to avoid taxes?
If the US really has so many great ideas that do not happen because of a 'talent' shortage, why don't we just give free airfare for companies to fly their departments abroad and recruit local talent. We can keep track of who goes where and also make sure they pay their taxes.
For every H1B worker an employer must have at least one American working the same exact job making the same exact salary as the H1B worker.
Pair programming is a thing you know :)
A 1-to-1 ratio would solve the "prevailing wage" scams as well as the "we can't find any qualified workers" nonsense because even if a company couldn't find a "qualified worker" they would have to hire a US citizen and train them in that job (or I guess they could just pay them to sit but that'd be very wasteful).
What quicker way to end the "skills gap" than to force these supposed, "uniquely high skilled" foreigners to train their local American counterparts?
Who exactly is getting scammed in prevailing wage scams?
That's the scam: If those workers were Americans doing the same job they'd be paid a lot more than that. Probably double or more in many markets!
The system is being abused. Disney wants to lower IT costs but it can't just replace their workers with H1Bs because that's A) illegal and B) they'll never get enough. Tata to the rescue! By replacing those American IT workers with Tata H1Bs they completely get around all the safeguards built into the law to prevent that precise situation.
... getting cheaper services due to cheaper labor cost in other industries. They also getting better employment opportunities, because companies grow faster with better selection of labor.
In addition to that immigrants are more likely to hire in the future, so it also improves opportunities for American workers.
> US government
... wins, because there are more employees to tax and corporations have higher profits.
> The system is being abused.
... by politicians, restricting access to jobs to some categories of workers.
Almost nobody voices the interest of foreigners who struggle to get better paying jobs in their countries (just keep these foreigners out of here, so we can squeeze an extra dime from our fat employers).
No, that doesn't follow. In many models of "the state", the existence of outsiders is essentially a failure mode; the state seeks to be all-encompassing.
Now, if instead of the "the concept of the state", you mean "the concept of the status quo system of multiple coexisting sovereign nation-states", you'd have a point.
But I don't think anyone thinks that system is a moral ideal to strive for.
May be no special restrictions at all (people are supposed to be equal, right?).
But we can start with reducing existing restrictions.
For example we can keep these restrictions:
- Background check (no criminal past)
- Revoke Welfare benefits for 5 years.
- $1K Green card processing fee.
- 1 month Green card processing time.
?
Don't you think that these restrictions are significant enough?
Do you need more restrictions in order to get ahead of foreign workers?
Edit: To clarify, I'm talking about immigration policy in general, not just H1Bs. The reason to limit public benefits would be to, in the absence of restrictions on immigration, ensure that people are coming to work, not to live off the state. Public benefits in the US pay better than most jobs in a lot of countries. We shouldn't stick our heads in the sand and pretend that such incentives don't matter.
The reality is that local grads (Joe Smith in Columbus Ohio) is not willing to live 2hrs away and dorm with four other guys in a H1b exurb hostel...while some guy from India is...and this is why they are hired, not because there is a lack of local talent but because few local grads are willing to work for so little that they are essentially reduced to exurb hosteling.
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H1-B cannot be repaired, it has to be replaced.
Mostly short-sighted people from the US who think that they're entitled to higher wages because they were born in the USA, and who do not realize that large companies can and will go abroad to seek talent, and that if things get bad enough, countries that are more open and willing to accept newcomers are where the best startup ecosystems will eventually form.
Why do people get H1B visas? It's rarely because they want to work in the US for a few years: It's because they want to stay. I know I did. But how can a prospective immigrant move to the US? By getting sponsored, and waiting for the requisite number of years for the Green Card to come back (it varies, but 5+ year waits happen). The best way to do that is to get an H1B, and then, when the company you work for realizes you are actually good at your job, start the permanent immigration process.
The trick is that you have to look for an employer that will take you, and you expect will still be there in 5+ years, and hoping that no layoffs hit you, because layoffs complicate, if not just completely restart, an immigration process.
So what do people do? They go with an outsourcer. The outsources will never lay you off: They just ship you to another client. It's an extra layer of insurance if things go bad. So ultimately, the way the system is set up, getting an H1B through one of those big consulting/outsourcing firms is also in the best interest of the people wanting to move to the US.
While I do not think there's much agreement on how to solve the problem, regardless of whose interests we have in mind, it 's pretty clear that the system is broken, as it has all kinds of perverse incentives, forcing good, honest people into situations nobody likes. But to fix this, we need a major overhaul of how the US employment-based immigration works.
Now, the problem there is of the very diverse interests, which we can see on any tech website: Some people just want us immigrants out of here, thinking that will help them. Others want to increase immigration, thinking that the most qualified people are in the US, the better for the US tech industry. But if there's no sensible compromise, what we get is what we have: A system that doesn't serve anyone very well, much less the people like me who went through it. In my case, I was fortunate enough to come in back when any company could get an H1B if they showed they needed a programmer, and coming from a country with extremely high unemployment, the risks outweighed the rewards. But it was very frustrating to be economically tied to an employer (for about 6 years in my case), and knowing that a job switch in the middle of the green card process, or a layoff, could mean having to go back home.
Most of these outsourcing firms are Indian, and in those cases it's actually worse than that. The latest visa bulletin shows an eleven year wait for Indians applying for green cards (the delay between the application being filed and processed). This compares with a three month wait for an EU citizen.
The sheer difference in time scales should give you some idea of the vast numbers of Indian H1-B holders.
Many pseudo-libertarians want to use central-planning to determine wages(!) of foreigners while criticizing the minimum wage.
Just establishing a cap on the number of visas per company as a percentage of the workforce will solve this issue. This will work well for everyone (large tech companies, startups, small businesses) except the sweatshops. If i had to take a guess (not hard to verify), 95+% of employees of the consulting companies will be underpaid visa workers. The prevailing wage is a joke ($70k in the bay area for someone with 5 years experience) and enforcing salary based bidding isn't really a practical solution. It can easily be gamed or it will only be beneficial for a certain group of employers.
I wrote an essay two and half years back on how to fix this and it is sad that all those are still true http://ramanuj.me/fixing-the-high-skilled-immigration-proble...
This can be gamed too. Large employers could start operating bodyshops.
Say the H1B limit was only 5% of a company's workforce. Then Walmart could sponsor 110,000 workers. Yum!Brands could sponsor 22,000 workers.
This probably wouldn't even put Infosys or Tata out of business in the US they would provide the same recruitment and management services they do now, but other companies (in this example Walmart and Yum) would be the sponsors of record.
H1-B doesn't need to be reformed, or improved with half measures like changes to the visas being awarded based on salary, etc.
H1-B needs to be abolished. Those employers that need extraordinary talent can use the O1 visa and the rest of the employers and employees can let supply meet demand. As it is now the H1-B/F1 OPT corporate loophole is skewing the education system (American universities share some of the blame) so bad that american students aren't able to get seats at American universities, and the "talent shortage" (which there isn't) becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
If I were a smart, aware 18 year old person trying to decide what field of study I was interested in with a focus on career longevity and life time earnings, I sure as heck would not pick computer science, and I don't blame them.
There are also two well know tweaks that can take the perverse incentives out of the H1-B system:
1) Allow the H1-B to be a work permit with free movement between like jobs at other companies - this will reduce underpayment and remove the virtual slave-labor conditions of an H1-B holder
2)Reform the Labor Certification process (the precursor allowing you file) so that it actually ensures that no Americans can be found - the current state of the LC system is a joke.
Other than a very few cases, I guarantee you that there is not a single job where you can't find an American to do the job if you are willing to pay the price.
> Federal officials allow only one application for each foreign worker.
That isn't the case. An individual may have multiple H-1B petitions filed, provided they're for different, unrelated employers. And indeed, it seems some people do pursue that route, accepting multiple offers, in order to boost their chances in an increasingly uncertain lottery. (In 2014, about half of the applications were selected; this year, about a third) And even if you're lucky in the lottery, you face months of waiting and uncertainty - filing takes place on April 1, with lottery notifications going out in June and July, whereupon processing commences. (If you're lucky enough to find a particularly good employer, they'll add $1,225 to the already substantial fees and lawyer costs, for "premium processing", guaranteeing a decision within 15 calendar days, though you still can't start until Oct 1) Decisions then tend to come through in August and September - but, that's not the end of it yet, as around a third to a half of all applications will hit the "Request for Evidence" status, which may query the company's finances or legitimacy, the candidate's education or experience, and so forth. That can take weeks more to file and then be acknowledged, whereupon processing resumes, for a decision in perhaps October or November.
Bear in mind, this is all for a process that likely started with interviews in January or February, to give enough time for the employer to gather the documentation required for filing.
Right now if you lose a job on h1b, you have to live the country IMMEDIATELY. Can you imagine the kind of fear of losing your job that instills in a person who has been here even more than a few years? You'll accept any injustice just if it guarantees you being able to stay and eventually get a green card.
The program has to be fixed/updated.
H1Bs are used to distort the costs for engineering, not for hiring skilled workers that we cannot find. The engineers are then treated like slaves (Infosys), and at below market rates, to further distort the market value of these workers.
So we know that the companies are just simply lying when they say, "We can't find US workers." It's always, "We can't find US workers for what we want to pay." We know how they game it, and we know how it can be fixed, but the politicians simply won't step up. It's political suicide.
I'm glad that some people are poking at this problem, but the corporations are the ones with the deep pockets and we know who wins out there.
We can only rant and rave, send letters to deaf congressmen and yet, it seems like it's just completely moot and we're just plain ignored.
Sad state of affairs with easy fixes, but no political will. That's the state of the US these days it seems: Corporation ruled.
Somehow raising the H1B cap from 65K to say 100K would take away American jobs and drive down wages but legalizing few million illegal immigrants (many of whom are barely educated) is a humanitarian gesture ?
Even if those thousands are Chinese and Indians are willing to work for lower wages and aren't technically special, they are indeed far more productive than illegal immigrants, have significantly lower crime rates and probably lowest reliance on welfare. Not to mention, higher you go up the skill level more people does not mean driving down wages on the contrary it means increase overall output of that industry.
Two engineers can invent a bike 5 can invent a car. On other other hand 1 gardener is useful 2 gardeners drive down wages of each other.
H1B and overall immigration policy of USA does not seem to be based on sound economic arguments but rhetoric. No wonder results are a disaster.
Once they secure the H1B, the person is more than willing to resign from the current employer and work for these "job consultancies" temporarily. And since H1B transfer is not that complicated, they jump ship to any other company later.
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For me H1B has always been the standard option to get a work permit in US. If you have a college degree, skills and someone is willing to give you job, it's a visa to work in US few of years or longer. For many people it's pretty much the only option. In this time of global mobility, it's crazy how hard and how limited the visa options are for this purpose.
Sometimes I see people talking here about moving to Europe. In Europe, there is a similar system for foreigners to work there. You apply for a work permit, and if the company and you meet the sanity check, it usually gets granted. That's it. There is no artificial annual schedules, caps or lotteries.
Salaries Myth. Excluding those outsourcing companies, I've never saw or known anyone get hired in a startup with much less salary just because they are a non-resident alien (sample size ~100) (Obviously foreigners don't always have as good market information about costs and salaries as locals.). Also I never heard any founder say that lets hire bunch of foreigners because it's so cheap and easy. Usually the hires end up costing more since you have to pay to relocate, pay the lawyers, and a hr person to create and manage process for the employees.
I understand that lot of people want to come to US, so there needs to be some limits, but it's crazy how hard or complicated this system currently is.
What struck me is that there is a very, very large public outcry that US students need to get into STEM fields, and that "the US is falling behind in reserach science!" is a genuine problem. Well, I do think that's true, but in practice, I see a push toward a corporate business model treating cheap labor as preferable to sustainable business practices.
As in, I'm not delusional that research science in the US is a glamorous, higly-paid industry for which people are clamoring to get in due to greed. To my understanding, most people understand following their academic dreams isn't a path to becoming wealthy. However, it does appear that US research institutions are very comfortable with claiming more students are needed in research science, more graduates are needed...and then they drive the standard of living down by seeking out H1Bs to fill everyday positions, such as Research Associates.
I wish I had the skills and or time to put such a theory to the test using various data sources (H1B data, graduation statistics, BLS information as available, etc), but for now it's simply one of those suspicions that I've developed due to personal observation; it may be overly skeptical of the system, but that's kind of the point. I like context.
So why is this not talked about? The reason being: unlike H1B visas they are not easily quantified in terms of number of "human jobs" even though they are a factor of magnitude larger I would reckon. However, they can be measured by trade deficit that America builds up( because the money goes to that country) and you are right about which country America has the highest trade deficit with US (worth millions of jobs in USA).
So H1B visa is really a small fry, but delicious fry and easy catch and an easy problem to describe and easy to vilify.
Also, if the H1B visas were completely eliminated, its not like those jobs may stay in the US forever, companies may find alternate strategies to get less " important " work done by foreigners.
All of the foreign nationals I worked with could not negotiate a higher salary by changing jobs. Their employer owns their visa, so they can't just get a better job.
Big companies game the system. We should change the law. The individual should be able to take their H1B elsewhere like a green card.
Note also how some of these companies spend millions of dollars in lobbying each year: https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00000078...
The bigger the shortage, the bigger the spread of salary between americans and foreigners salaries. So, if a company doesn't get the visa it will pay the spread, or worse, it will produce less.
Minimizing the total loss of the companies under a constraint of total number of visas is a very simple problem mathematically speaking: by selling H1B visas to the highest bidders.
Plus, it means that these companies are compensating society for bringing more job competition.
Step 1: Randomize the list of employers with applicants.
Step 2: Give one visa to each employer in a round-robin fashion until they are exhausted or they have no more applicants. The company then decides which of its applicants gets the visa.
Assuming that there are fewer than 65k employers petitioning each year, each employer could count on at least 1 petition succeeding.
And eradicate consultancies for the love of God. The relationship should not be Employee-to-Employer's payroll. Instead it should be Employee-to-Employer's product.
Let's make America great again, for all people!
Only in la la land does massively increasing the supply of labor maintain the wage rates.
Sand Hill Road : 7
Garage Startup : 0
Wow, you are one BART bus away from being gone. I can see making a statement like this in your request to have someone come and in their application to be a citizen. But if your entire business model depends on one person you should get another smart person to shadow them to have some kind of backup plan. I'd be scared to death to be an employee where my future depended on them being alive and healthy.
