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

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#131

Post by snotrockets » Wed, Nov 18, 2015, 11:28 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.

Currently, there is almost no delay for the rest of the world outside India, Mainland China and The Philippines – by the time the PERM request is approved (which in itself takes at least six months,) there should be a green card visa number ready.

Assuming no complications, the full process from LCA to a status change could take as little as a year (but 18-24 months would be a more realistic estimate).

http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/law-and-policy/bull...

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#132

Post by sytelus » Wed, Nov 18, 2015, 11:30 PM UTC

elbigbad wrote: post #88

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…

So, if I understand this correctly, they're essentially casting the H1Bs as commodities? "Purchasing" them for X salary, and then "selling" them for x + y salary? If this characterization is correct, isn't this essentially what a typical staffing company does? That is, put a worker in a position at a third party company as a temp paying them x salary, then collecting from the client third party company x + y salary.…

The major difference is

(1) The laws are designed to eliminate choice and freedom to pursue other jobs for the people being placed.

(2) "Staffer" company is able to take their 50% or more cut from their salary for entire decade or more every single month.

Imagine if you were running staffer company with this business model where law says that workers can't leave the job you placed them and you get to pocket major part of their income for decade or more.

Technically sure they can leave your employment but practically they can't because they still get paid bit better than their home country although much less than prevalent wages in US even after staffer takes his 50% cut.

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#133

Post by lgleason » Wed, Nov 18, 2015, 11:30 PM UTC

Startups have already been in a position of being able to do this. Basically another way to reduce the cost of engineers. After all, it's not a sustainable business unless your MBA's and management are making many multiples of the rank and file employees.....dripping sarcasm.

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#134

Post by snotrockets » Wed, Nov 18, 2015, 11:32 PM UTC

negrit wrote: post #40

Harj wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why we think there's an opportunity for us (Triplebyte). Smaller companies have to focus their recruiting on pools with a high expected ROI (top technology companies/schools/etc). We're specializing in identifying talent without using any of the the usual signals (we do our technical interviews without looking at resumes). We can focus on pools of talent that other companies might not consider because they ex…

It also assume they won't terminate the H-1B when the employee is leaving.

IANAL, but you can apply for a transfer without the original employer knowledge, and once that transfer is approved, then the previous employer can do nothing about that.

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#135

Post by sytelus » Wed, Nov 18, 2015, 11:35 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.

Sure, may be it's not as bad as slave trade of 17th century. But imagine this for a bit: You need employment to pay your bill. What if the law allows you to work for only one certain company and you have no ability to negotiate your salary or get another job or ask for promotion for most of your productive years of your life. What would you call that?

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#136

Post by balls187 » Wed, Nov 18, 2015, 11:40 PM UTC

finance-geek wrote: post #129

refurb wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying H1-B workers can't leave? That's not true.

Are you saying they can leave with the same ease that citizens can leave? That's not true.

Define leave.

Easily switch jobs in the US? No. Move back to their "home" countries? Yes.

H1B is/can be used as a form of leverage to limit the mobility of workers, and potential other forms of employer abuse. That is unfortunate, and it's clear the H1B system is broken.

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#137

Post by stickydink » Wed, Nov 18, 2015, 11:41 PM UTC

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #102

ojbyrne wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've transferred several times, and I've never been asked for more than 2 check stubs (i.e. 4 weeks). Also companies have to advertise your salary publicly (at least around the office) for H1B.

> Also companies have to advertise your salary publicly (at least around the office) for H1B. What, really? Sorry I don't really know anything about H1B but when you say advertise does this mean it needs to be on like a bulletin board or something? Or does this mean it simply needs to be available for anyone who asks? Also, why does it need to be public?

This is true but, fwiw, they do not necessarily keep up-to-date. I'm 4 years into a H-1B, and the amount showing on the database-scraping sites (see sibling comment), is the amount I was offered on day 1.

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#138

Post by 1024core » Wed, Nov 18, 2015, 11:48 PM UTC

I think it was mentioned before by someone else, but I'll just repeat it because it bears repeating: H-1B visas should not go by lottery, but by descending order of salary. At a high enough price, it's cheaper to hire an American... ;-)

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#139

Post by balls187 » Wed, Nov 18, 2015, 11:51 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)…

> 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

When phrased that way, sure it feels that way.

But it's not because you are born in a specific country, it's because your country of origin has a lot of people who are attempting to immigrate to the US, and each country is capped.

Imagine if they lifted that policy, then countries like Mexico, India, China would lock out pretty much any other country from immigrating to the US. Add in the Amnesty program for undocumented workers, and you could imagine that nearest neighbors to the US would lock everyone else out.

So instead of penalizing Indians (in this case), you've now penalized everyone else.

What system, given a fixed number of applicants, would not apply some sort of penalty by proxy?

Contrast that to pre-1960's where laws SPECIFICALLY targeted blacks american citizens.

The US has no moral requirement to treat non-us citizens 100% the same as it does it's citizens. Yes they have perhaps lived in the US for 6 years, and paid US Taxes. They have also enjoyed a certain level of comfort afforded them, that they presumably would not have had in their native country.

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#140

Post by samfisher83 » Wed, Nov 18, 2015, 11:59 PM UTC

kgp7 wrote: post #15

This assumes that the H1B's filed by the outsourcing companies are engineers your startup would want to hire. Unfortunately thats not true, most good quality engineers are almost never employed by these outsourcing firms. The general nature of their work also is mostly maintenance based , and it tends to attract bottom of the barrel 'engineers' who often couldn't find any other job. I am skeptical whether any of thes…

In India the jobs represents a pretty good way to get out so you will end up with good people.