Gaming the H-1B system for good • Hacker News Board

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#71

Post by Apocryphon » Wed, Nov 18, 2015, 9:02 PM UTC

harichinnan wrote: post #66

sytelus wrote: post #59

Whole H1B system is essentially modern form of slavery. I've seen people becoming multi-millionaires exploiting this slavery system. Companies in India have amassed massive revenues exploiting the same. The way it works is you put advertise in newspaper for minimum expected wage for tech worker. Then you buy a genius 3rd world tech worker and sell him/her to clients for approximately twice that rate. Then you put sig…

Using the term slavery for describing a highly paid white collar job is doing disservice to the descendants of slaves. Let's not get too far with the terminology.

It's somewhat more accurate to liken it to indentured servitude.

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#72

Post by shas3 » Wed, Nov 18, 2015, 9:03 PM UTC

djb_hackernews wrote: post #70

shas3 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no tech labor shortage. "Tech labor shortage" is not a clear-cut black-and-white issue. The market is not fully elastic to easily use terms such as 'shortage', etc. Say, you need to build a team of 5 machine learning scientist with specific experience in image recognition, there may be 100 people in the country specializing in this field, and perhaps 10 of them are the job market, and 7 are international c…

why would only 10% of qualified individuals be on the market? Wouldn't all of them be? Unless you are counting retired, infirmed, and imprisoned? Generally skilled engineers are great for training programs.

I think it is reasonable to assume that only a percentage of the experts will be willing to quit their job and move to a new one. People have all sorts of reasons to stick to current jobs!

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#73

Post by tosseraccount » Wed, Nov 18, 2015, 9:03 PM UTC

djb_hackernews wrote: post #70

shas3 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no tech labor shortage. "Tech labor shortage" is not a clear-cut black-and-white issue. The market is not fully elastic to easily use terms such as 'shortage', etc. Say, you need to build a team of 5 machine learning scientist with specific experience in image recognition, there may be 100 people in the country specializing in this field, and perhaps 10 of them are the job market, and 7 are international c…

why would only 10% of qualified individuals be on the market? Wouldn't all of them be? Unless you are counting retired, infirmed, and imprisoned? Generally skilled engineers are great for training programs.

Raise labor prices and you'll get qualified candidates.

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#74

Post by djb_hackernews » Wed, Nov 18, 2015, 9:06 PM UTC

lsc wrote: post #64

djb_hackernews wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but 66k is market rate according to the government for an SF based Level 1 Computer Programmer...

Even if that was fair for a level 1 computer programmer, (which it isn't) - part of your negotiation process is slotting you in to the title that pays what you want; I currently have the label SysAdmin, but you could easily call me a programmer, a systems engineer or a devops engineer, because my job role includes all those things. (As an aside, sysadmin is the lowest-paid of all of those titles, which suggests that…

To be honest I haven't heard of H1-B candidates negotiating what the prevailing wage will be on their LCA and I'd be surprised if even a handful of employers negotiated on that. But you made my point for me. Your employer could have put you at the higher pay scale but didn't and in fact put you on the lowest of several options. This is the way the system was designed to work.

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#75

Post by ambrood » Wed, Nov 18, 2015, 9:07 PM UTC

shas3 wrote: post #46

harichinnan wrote: post #19

I was on H1B with a true blue American startup. They developed cold feet when it came closer to sponsoring Green Cards. To start with GC wage levels are much higher than H1B levels. Also close to 15K+ needs to be spent for processing+ years of patient follow up to USCIS queries/denials and surprise site inspections. The new fangled startups won't have the long term strategy/planning to get me a green card. I had much…

No country is allowed to get more than 7% of the green cards each year (roughly speaking). This GC-H1B lock-in problem is very unique to Indians (~10 year wait), and to a lesser extent, Chinese (~4 year wait). The 7% quota would be illegal were it applied to US citizenship, according to civil rights legislations of the 1960s (prior to which non-whites were discriminated against in naturalized-citizenships via quotas)…

> I think the notion that after working (and paying taxes) in the US for 6 years, a person has to wait another 10 years to reap the benefits of permanent residency simply because they were born in a particular country is morally indefensible.

I came here on a student visa at 17, went on get a CS Masters and now live in SF on a H1B almost 10 years later. America is pretty much the only country I know how to navigate as an adult. The fact that it is mathematically impossible for me to get a GC before 2025 as an Indian used to upset me quite a bit. H1B simply doesn't allow one to live with dignity or take chances. But over this year, I've made my peace with this. I'll continue to work here while I still love my job but eventually go back. Theres no way in hell I'll keep working the same job years on in hopes of a gc.

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#76

Post by lettergram » Wed, Nov 18, 2015, 9:07 PM UTC

shas3 wrote: post #46

harichinnan wrote: post #19

I was on H1B with a true blue American startup. They developed cold feet when it came closer to sponsoring Green Cards. To start with GC wage levels are much higher than H1B levels. Also close to 15K+ needs to be spent for processing+ years of patient follow up to USCIS queries/denials and surprise site inspections. The new fangled startups won't have the long term strategy/planning to get me a green card. I had much…

No country is allowed to get more than 7% of the green cards each year (roughly speaking). This GC-H1B lock-in problem is very unique to Indians (~10 year wait), and to a lesser extent, Chinese (~4 year wait). The 7% quota would be illegal were it applied to US citizenship, according to civil rights legislations of the 1960s (prior to which non-whites were discriminated against in naturalized-citizenships via quotas)…

> However, unlike pre-civil rights citizenship quotas, the green card quota seems ok to everyone.

One is denying the right of people born in the U.S. with parents that are citizens.

The other, is limiting the number of people not born in the U.S. and without parents that are citizens. In other words, its a choice to come here.

Not saying it is morally right or wrong, but you may consider distinguishing between the two.

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#77

Post by harichinnan » Wed, Nov 18, 2015, 9:07 PM UTC

ulobabacan wrote: post #65

shas3 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No country is allowed to get more than 7% of the green cards each year (roughly speaking). This GC-H1B lock-in problem is very unique to Indians (~10 year wait), and to a lesser extent, Chinese (~4 year wait). The 7% quota would be illegal were it applied to US citizenship, according to civil rights legislations of the 1960s (prior to which non-whites were discriminated against in naturalized-citizenships via quotas)…

I'm curious, how long is the lock-in for people from "rest of the world" category for H1B to green card process? It looks like there's almost no backlog these days.

From December visa bulletin. For India EB3- The priority date for applying for the final phase of Green card is 22APR04. So only people with a date prior to this would be eligible to apply. For EB2 India - 01JUN07 For China, EB3 - 15APR12 EB2 - 01FEB12.

Interestingly enough EB1 is current for all countries and is the most abused Employment based visa category. HR /Manager types with an MBA and experience from India eligible to apply for EB1(C) and they get visas in 3 months.

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#78

Post by djb_hackernews » Wed, Nov 18, 2015, 9:09 PM UTC

shas3 wrote: post #72

djb_hackernews wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why would only 10% of qualified individuals be on the market? Wouldn't all of them be? Unless you are counting retired, infirmed, and imprisoned? Generally skilled engineers are great for training programs.

I think it is reasonable to assume that only a percentage of the experts will be willing to quit their job and move to a new one. People have all sorts of reasons to stick to current jobs!

Everyone has a price... If there are experts out there that fit your need but you can't attract them because you aren't paying enough then you should increase your offer. Supply will meet demand.

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#79

Post by hebdo » Wed, Nov 18, 2015, 9:10 PM UTC

sytelus wrote: post #59

Whole H1B system is essentially modern form of slavery. I've seen people becoming multi-millionaires exploiting this slavery system. Companies in India have amassed massive revenues exploiting the same. The way it works is you put advertise in newspaper for minimum expected wage for tech worker. Then you buy a genius 3rd world tech worker and sell him/her to clients for approximately twice that rate. Then you put sig…

I've applied for H1B in the past, knowing everything one should know about it beforehand. Either my choice was idiotic, or being a slave in the US is better than being free in my home country (Poland).

While I agree that H1B is a stupid system, for everybody, I also think you should be more careful with your choice of words. Saying H1B is slavery is like comparing US police brutality cases to Nazism.

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#80

Post by dangrossman » Wed, Nov 18, 2015, 9:14 PM UTC

djb_hackernews wrote: post #78

shas3 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is reasonable to assume that only a percentage of the experts will be willing to quit their job and move to a new one. People have all sorts of reasons to stick to current jobs!

Everyone has a price... If there are experts out there that fit your need but you can't attract them because you aren't paying enough then you should increase your offer. Supply will meet demand.

Businesses don't have infinite resources to hire workers, and most workers old enough to truly be experts are not going to relocate easily. 1x, 2x, even 3x market wages won't be enough to move someone that's already earning a comfortable wage, likes their job, and has roots (a home, a spouse that likes their job, children in school, family nearby) in their current community. No single digit multiple of market wages would get me to move to Silicon Valley, let alone the middle of West Virginia.