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H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

economist.com

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Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#161

Post by fjdlwlv »

conanbatt wrote: post #125
loph wrote: post #103

This one sentence says it all: "The Economist found that between 2012 and 2015 the three biggest Indian outsourcing firms—TCS, Wipro and Infosys—submitted over 150,000 visa applications for positions that paid a median salary of $69,500. In contrast, America’s five biggest tech firms—Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft—submitted just 31,000 applications, and proposed to pay their workers a median salary of…

Honestly, tying the qualification of H1B to salary only works as some sort of state-sponsored unionization. Not to mention the salaries of H1B employees are public, and that they are bound to a company meaning they have less bargaining power. And that the sampling is completely different, one is more of an homogeneous american citizen and the other is basically every country in the world, with varying degrees of know…

"Union" is exactly the point of the United States of America

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#162

Post by calvinbhai »

raitom wrote: post #119
raverbashing wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only Indians and Chinese have to rely on h1b. Really?! You're excluding all of Europe, Russia, Australia/NZ, Latin America, Africa Yes, those people have developers, yes some of them are talented enough to want to apply for an H1B. But they have to stand in line because Tata needs another 1000 people to be exploited for cheap

Exactly! I'm french and it will be the second time this year that I apply for an H1B. Without Tata and Infosys I'd have it for a while now.

Not sure if this is well known, but here's what you can do if you are not Indian or Chinese. Yes Mr. or Ms. French, you too.

-Do a MS in CS or some STEM field from an accredited school.

-Get a job with an employer willing to start green card process immediately (many will be willing since it means no uncertainity of H1b lottery)

-Before your 3 yr OPT expires, you'll get your EAD (after doing PERM and I-140 on premium).

-Saves your employer a lot of headache and $$$. You get ahead of the rat race

EAD means no need to file for H1b. You are out of the rat race meant to keep Indians and Chinese out of USA.

I dont know what non Indian / non Chinese are complaining about.

H1b issue, the way it is projected in the American MSM, is purely to trash Indians and blame Indians for all the problems USA has. There are thousands of people getting EADs the way I have mentioned, but its all kosher for people who want to point fingers at Indians.

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#163

Post by harichinnan »

loph wrote: post #103

This one sentence says it all: "The Economist found that between 2012 and 2015 the three biggest Indian outsourcing firms—TCS, Wipro and Infosys—submitted over 150,000 visa applications for positions that paid a median salary of $69,500. In contrast, America’s five biggest tech firms—Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft—submitted just 31,000 applications, and proposed to pay their workers a median salary of…

The bare minimum salary requirement for a position comes from the labor department. The first step on an H1B process is to determine prevaling wages in the city for that kind of position. For programmers, there are a multitude of titles available irrespective of what the actual job description is. So there could be an easy fix by investigating how prevailing wages are set and by bringing in industry experts to consolidate the list of titles and salaries required. Also companies list the bare minimum salary they would pay on a visa application instead of the actual salaries they would pay. This is especially true for consulting companies that share profit with their employees. Smaller consulting companies often don't pay the full salary when employees have a downtime in between projects. Also vacation time(extended month long) usually goes unpaid or less paid. The lower bid on the visa applications helps them stay in status in such situations.

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#164

Post by virmundi »

nottorp wrote: post #106
blunte wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same applies for Americans working in Europe as highly skilled migrants. A company sponsors your visa, and when that job ends (like the company shuts down, for example), you must go find another company willing to sponsor you. Or if you're fortunate, as with Americans in Netherlands, you can start your own business easily and get a freelance visa. But the point is the same - you work at the place that sponsored y…

Well, for some reason nobody's complaining about Western Europe immigrants taking US jobs...

It appears to be a difference between immigrant (with permanency) vs transient skills. There was a time when society needed itinerant skilled workers. Now we have the infrastructure to train, en masse, our workers. While skipping the training step is nice, hence the permanent workers, H1-Bs appear to bring mostly unskilled, or low skilled workers into the country under the banner of master masons, so to speak.

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#165

Post by bradleyjg »

ones_and_zeros wrote: post #145
Panini_Jones wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> None of those salaries listed are competitive with what a non-H1B (read citizen or permanent resident) would earn. As a new grad interviewing for software engineering positions at FB, Google, Etc., I make exactly the same amount as my U.S. peers who have also received offers. Moreover, how do you know that the SE level of the H1B hires is exactly that of the pool from which Indeed.com calculates their averages? Wha…

This gets to the crux of the issue with the H1B system as it relates to age discrimination. Why are we hiring fresh grads on a "best and brightest" visa? If the college degree from a US institution made them the best and brightest, why wasn't a citizen in that classroom seat? If they are truly geniuses why are they paid at entry level wages?

H1B is not the best and brightest visa. That's O for temporary visas and EB1 for permanent visas.

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#166

Post by bischofs »

Citing the low unemployment rate of STEM graduates to indicate that native workers have nothing to worry about is silly. Basic economics says that wages do not increase until full employment is reached. I may have a job but my wage would be higher if I wasn't competing with 100,000 H1-Bs

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#167

Post by dragonwriter »

koolba wrote: post #155
ones_and_zeros wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The points I've seen and agree with for an argument against an auction is: - It is a tacit acceptance of the falsehood that there is a skills shortage. - It ultimately relies on scarcity of visas. There will be a number of visas to auction off and this number will become a political football that is tweaked and tweaked until it is meaningless. What is the point of an auction if there are a million visas being auction…

> It is a tacit acceptance of the falsehood that there is a skills shortage. The entire premise of the H1-B program is that there is a skills shortage. It's not specific to IT, it can be used for any field where you cannot find local talent. > It ultimately relies on scarcity of visas. There will be a number of visas to auction off and this number will become a political football that is tweaked and tweaked until it…

> The entire premise of the H1-B program is that there is a skills shortage

And it's a bad program even if that was true, since at best it's a band aid that papers over short-term symptoms without addressing underlying problems, and since it is perennially used in the same industries for the same types of jobs, it's clear that if it is addressing a skills shortage, it's not a transitory, short-term problem for which a short-term patch to cover up symptoms is the appropriate response.

Either no one involved in making policy has noticed this, or "skills shortage" isn't the actual reason for the policy.

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#168

Post by soldarnal »

ones_and_zeros wrote: post #145
Panini_Jones wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> None of those salaries listed are competitive with what a non-H1B (read citizen or permanent resident) would earn. As a new grad interviewing for software engineering positions at FB, Google, Etc., I make exactly the same amount as my U.S. peers who have also received offers. Moreover, how do you know that the SE level of the H1B hires is exactly that of the pool from which Indeed.com calculates their averages? Wha…

This gets to the crux of the issue with the H1B system as it relates to age discrimination. Why are we hiring fresh grads on a "best and brightest" visa? If the college degree from a US institution made them the best and brightest, why wasn't a citizen in that classroom seat? If they are truly geniuses why are they paid at entry level wages?

The "best and brightest" visa is the O-1. The H-1B visa is a "specialty occupation" visa, defined roughly as an occupation that requires a Bachelor's degree in a particular field of study.

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#169

Post by untog »

loph wrote: post #103

This one sentence says it all: "The Economist found that between 2012 and 2015 the three biggest Indian outsourcing firms—TCS, Wipro and Infosys—submitted over 150,000 visa applications for positions that paid a median salary of $69,500. In contrast, America’s five biggest tech firms—Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft—submitted just 31,000 applications, and proposed to pay their workers a median salary of…

> None of those salaries listed are competitive with what a non-H1B (read citizen or permanent resident) would earn. Indeed.com quotes the average SD salary in Seattle (think Amazon and Microsoft) as 126,000 and San Francisco at 134,000.

I'm not sure that comparison works fully. I don't think the ages of the average H1B applicant are made public, but a great many are college graduates - IIRC, a foreign citizen who graduates from a US university is given a one year visa, but has to find their own way after that. So H1Bs represent a lot of people at the start of their careers, wheras the average you've found represents all developers.

One clear improvement would be to allow university graduates to stay in the US much more easily. We've just spent an awful lot of time educating them to a US standard after all - why not keep them?

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#170

Post by Kurtz79 »

anjc wrote: post #97

>Although it is true that foreign workers at the Indian consultancies receive more visas than higher-skilled workers at better-known firms, a simple solution exists. Congress could raise the number of visas issued. Given that the unemployment rate for college graduates sits at 2.5%, it is fair to say that most native workers displaced by H-1Bs land on their feet. Absolute scum. Native workers displaced by H1Bs is ok…

"A significant proportion of IT and STEM graduate are unable to get work in their chosen industry, and proceed to waste years of education by going into other areas out of necessity."

Not contesting this statement, but is there some research or data supporting it ?

My very anecdotal experience is that the number of people that I know with a CS or STEM degree that have been unable to find work for more than a few weeks/months is basically zero.

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