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New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

381–390 of 487 posts

Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. F1 students are not American citizens and are not entitled to an immigration pathway through employment. They are on a student visa with the right to study at an American university.

We do not need more entry level candidates. By allowing the importation of entry level workers you deny graduates the chance to receive training and obtain valuable experience. There's then little incentive for employers to train fresh grads.

Awww, poor dumb americans can't keep with the immigrants. I feel so sorry for them.

That's pretty much the argument you are making. No one is defending H-1B abusing companies like Tata and Infosys. People are saying google and others use the program to hire skilled people for reasonable salaries.

So if American grads can't get hired, maybe they should study more instead of whining about fucking immigrants.

Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for this! I've been on multiple H1B visas, at both large companies and startups. I've also sponsored H1B visas as an employer. I would support this bill. The headline is a classic example of sensational journalism by the Times of India. The $130k salary requirement applies only to "dependent employers", defined as employers with over 15% of their workforce on H1Bs. This is clearly aimed at reducing H1B misuse…

Although a startup might only marginally benefit because a single one would be a significant portion of their employees, right? So it would be over 15% right off the bat if they have fewer than 7 people

I think this 15% rule applies only to companies with more than 50 employees

Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scientists used to make a good living in the USA. Now the market is flooded with cheap foreigners and science is a road to poverty. Ending the employment of cheap foreigners, including as TAs and RAs, would go a long way to making science a respectable profession again. And it would open the field to American women. When math and science professors can't make a decent living to support a family until after their prim…

Foreign science grads are what is driving the US as a leader in R&D. Look at the post-docs at labs in MIT, look at the US Nobel prize winners - the majority of them are immigrants If companies are limited to domestic scientists then they'll quite happily move their R&D departments to countries with more relaxed immigration laws. Foreign universities will happily take the best researchers from around the world that ar…

The elephant no one seems to talk about is: Why are universities not accepting more "local" grad students? In my experience, it was the standardized tests. I was completing an undergrad in math while attempting to the GRE. Meanwhile I heard stories of students in other countries essentially focusing on the GRE as their undergrad equivalents weren't as time consuming/rigorous.

Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#384
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of larger companies will switch you to an H1-B at some point since they're trying to put you on a Green Card track (bc of long-run costs? not sure). While you technically can apply for a green card on TN status, since TN is intended for temporary workers, it's frowned upon by DHS and immigration departments at companies know that. Source: I'm a two-time Canadian > US TN-to-H1B and eventually bailed out of the p…

TN can be extended indefinitely, so if you're being pressured to change to a H1-B you might want to ask why until you get a direct and specific answer.

because it opens up the options to sponsor you for a green card.

Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies may have to do something unimaginable and invest in their employees who may not have the exact skill set they need and offer them training or give them time to ramp up....

Only works if you have enforceable non-compete contracts to prevent your workers from leaving after you trained them, since most employers will pay a premium to get workers who are already trained and the original employer will pretty much never give salary bumps that high year-over-year since it would quickly bankrupt them. Non-compete clauses are unenforceable in California exactly because it's desirable in a macro…

Only works if you have enforceable non-compete contracts to prevent your workers from leaving after you trained them, since most employers will pay a premium to get workers who are already trained and the original employer will pretty much never give salary bumps that high year-over-year since it would quickly bankrupt them.

If an employer won't pay an employee based on market rates, when that employee leaves, they are going to have to pay the next employee they get to replace them at least market rate anyway and on top of that probably 30% more for a recruiters fee, plus the loss productivity while they are looking for a replacement, plus they are losing a person with knowledge of the company.

I read something somewhere.

A software dev manager asked his manager for a training budget for his employees. His manager asked him, what if we spend the money on training and they leave? The software dev manager asked his manager, what if we don't train them and they stay?

Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#386
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There aren't a ton of job for PHds in chemistry, biology, chemist, math etc. They end up working at hedge funds or web developers or things not necessarily related to their PHd. Look at big pharama and see how much they spend on R&D or basic research. Its a very small percentage of revenues.

You are clearly outside of the field. There are tons of jobs in the biotech industry for qualified graduates. The issue is finding people with appropriate scientific and industry backgrounds. This is why h1bs are hired. I don't care what color you are and where you come from. If you know your stuff I will hire you.

If this was true, salary increases would follow suit. Biotech is not a well-paid industry, especially considering the level of education required. Ergo, we have way more people than we need in this industry already (yes, business owners probably disagree).

Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#387
post #46

Here is the summary straight from the horses mouth: https://lofgren.house.gov/uploadedfiles/high_skilled_bill_sx... A few points: - This does not raise the salary requirement to $130k/yr. This only applies to employers that do not want to do the extra paper work for "attestations regarding recruitment and non-displacement of U.S. workers" - It takes a "market based" allocation strategy which allows "cash bonuses and…

> - Startups and small businesses will get 20% of the visas. It'll be interesting to see how this is gamed Probably the old fashioned way: Tata Startup Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Consulting Services.

While everyone seems to be focussing on TCS, Infosys etc, the worst abuse of H-1B comes from small staffing firms in US. I foresee them using the 20% set aside for startups.

Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree that 60k is too low. But 130k is too high. Consider someone who has just finished their PhD in a relevant area. You want to employ them in your startup in e.g. Orlando, where the cost of living is much lower than SF. Maybe 80k is reasonable. But you'll have to pay a 50k premium. Or you could set up an office in Montreal. And then your tech team will come to Florida for a 3 month code camp every December anyway.…

I have a friend that use to live in Orlando, the cost of living is about the same where I live (a major metropolitan city that's not on the west coast). If I were to join a startup as an software architect - the person whose decisions were going to make or break the company - I would be asking more than 130K. My skills aren't really that "specialized" in the grand scheme of things. If my expertise was going to make o…

This is an example of where $130k is too low. It should be $200k for that role in high cost competitive markets, and you would find yourself competing with more skilled applicants who only want $130k. Fixed minimums are just dumb.

Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Samsung US. They pay H1B's absolute crap. This would be a good thing for them.

http://www.h1bdata.info/index.php?em=samsung&job=&city=&year... Just a glance, doesn't seem that bad.

You're including Austin, TX (Semiconductor) in that search. Their CA engineer salaries are much lower. Also, I wonder about that data. I've seen bigger CA databases that have more records and lower salaries. Also, look at what AirBNB pays their H1B's.

http://www.h1bdata.info/index.php?em=SAMSUNG+RESEARCH+AMERIC...

Edit: Sorry, going to retract this. My data is a few years old. It seems like they have started paying market rates.

http://h1bpay.com/salaries?company=samsung+&city=mountain+vi...

Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#390
post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Likely there should be some path for immigrant students to stay, but H-1B shouldn't be that path. Perhaps they should create an exception that allows immigrant student to work for entry-level market wages for a few years after they graduate. I mean, immigrants students will need some kind of visa that lets them work to stay here after school. It could be the H-1B, or something else. But the only way they can stay i…

There is a huge range of salary's for recent grads from minimum wage to 200+k/year. So, a minimum salary of say 75k would allow many students to stay but not all students to stay. PS: I suspect if there where a direct path from student to staying in the US then people would just game that process. Which would reduce the number of 'real' students and cause a political backlash.

> if there where a direct path from student to staying in the US then people would just game that process

If someone manages to get accepted at a genuine accredited U.S. high-education institution, and completes their studies, and graduates, why not let them stay? I understand there will be a lot more demand to study in the U.S. if such a pathway existed; so you would want to make sure that there are no diploma mills, and that only people graduating from accredited colleges are allowed to stay. Perhaps capping the number of international students at a college to something like 20% would go further in mitigating your concern. The flow of student immigrants would then be naturally regulated by the admissions process, and by the number of available seats for international students in U.S. universities and institutions.

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