Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 414 posts

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

#171

Post by calvinbhai »

camus2 wrote: post #73
calvinbhai wrote: post #67

Because citizens of countries other than india and china don't really need h1 visas to work in US. Many countries have treaty work visas (Canada / Mexico citizens can work on TB visa) And those who study in US, if their employer starts green card process they can get their EAD before OPT expires. Only Indians and Chinese have to rely on h1b.

> Because citizens of countries other than india and china don't really need h1 visas to work in US. A complete lie. We in Europe are bound by the exact same rules as the Indians or the Chinese when it comes to immigration to US.

read my reply to @raitom above. Europeans probably dont know how they can work in US without the shackles of H1b.

Ignorant people always think facts are lies. Open your eyes dear European :)

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

#172

Post by Bartweiss »

maxxxxx wrote: post #157
0xfeba wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. I've said it before[1][2] and people just kept replying "Oh but we hire them for their talent, therefore everyone does." I work at a run of the mill SaaS company. We have 60% H-1Bs devs here as contractors from a certain contracting company (more in QA). They live paycheck to paycheck. I get paid, literally, twice as much (I've seen the H-1B Labor Condition Applications for ones we hire directly--The contracting…

"I've been on interview calls with ones from the contracting companies, all their resumes are the same" That's starting to drive me nuts. We have to work with a limited set of contracting companies. Whenever we post a new job we get 20 of the same resumes. I usually immediately delete the ones that say "used try/catch statements" but other than that there is no way to distinguish between them.

It was a weird moment for me when I first tried searching a candidate's objective statement. I found ~10 other resumes indexed online with the same objective statement, followed by the job-tips site from which they had copied the sample word-for-word.

I know that's an extreme case, but it's pretty bizarre when you start seeing literally identical content on different resumes.

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

#173

Post by ma2rten »

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…

I work at Google on an H1-B. I can confirm that Google pays foreign workers exactly the same as American employees on the same level, which is above market.

I suspect that the number quoted is only base salary, includes lower cost locations in the US and professions other than Software Engineers.

Another thing is that this number is the salary when the person got hired, but any other number you can find will be current salary.

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

#174

Post by harichinnan »

fjdlwlv wrote: post #159
Eridrus wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before you get all indignant, note that you're comparing a median and average, and for income distributions like these the average will skew higher. Also, Google, etc, also hire non software people from overseas, you can see them in the H-1B salary data, making less than software engineers.

Anyone have a good summary chart that shows what roles are earning how much?

http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=Google+Inc&job=Software+Eng...

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

#175

Post by dvndvn »

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…

Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft are hugely profitable corporations they pay top dollar to any talent, whether its domestic or international. So the argument Indian outsourcing firms should pay similar salaries to every employee is like, asking every US company to pay on par with Google/Microsoft employees, I guess.

There is something to be done to the US working class for sure. But when US wants to be the world leader selling high value goods in every country, can it afford to isolate itself from the world's talent?

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

#176

Post by baby »

nottorp wrote: post #43

Isn't a H-1B a form of indentured servitude? As in, if you change jobs you lose your visa? If yes, you don't get the competent ones but the cheap ones who have no choice. The good ones work on their terms for whomever they please. Edit: combine that with kls's answer about incentives, and you see why this visa system isn't quite working.

> If yes, you don't get the competent ones but the cheap ones who have no choice. The good ones work on their terms for whomever they please.

I'd say that this is partly untrue. You can get get a O visa if you're an "alien of extraordinary ability". Usually this means that you have already published articles in your field .

Now, if you want to hire someone who is good, as in has a lot of potential, but doesn't have the credentials to prove it, the H1-B is the only way to get him/her quickly.

Since a lot of companies want to hire great fresh out of school candidates, the H1-B is the shining solution.

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

#178

Post by baby »

perseusprime11 wrote: post #113

This thing is the only thing that is keeping the salaries low. I can easily imagine a good software engineer getting paid at least 250-300K if we don't have H1-B visa system.

On the other end I can only imagine the non-growth the US would have known if companies could not have got better educated foreigners for less $$$.

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

#179

Post by fjdlwlv »

manarth wrote: post #57
kls wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the incentive system. I have never been known for my lack of directness and in given so, I used to work with an Indian developer who was very good at his job. So one day I just flat out asked him, I said Karthick why do a good portion of Indian developers suck, his response floored me. Without missing a beat he responded, look it's a misaligned incentive system. When I go back to India the first questi…

I think pay is also a factor. IT is listed as the third-best paying job in India [1]. In the USA, it's not even in the top 10 [2]. In the UK, it barely scrapes into the top 10, and that's for IT Directors [3]. In India, the pay is a great incentive for people who aren't necessarily interested in tech. [1] http://www.chakreview.com/Education/Top-10-highest-paying-jo... [2] http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/03/2…

You are misinterpreting the sources.[1] isn't sorted by Jon, it bundles many jobs in one sector into each section, vs [2] which ranks very detailed subcategories

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

#180

Post by omouse »

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.

Therefore all the talk about a tech talent shortage is complete and utter bullshit and coding bootcamps and H1B visas are another strategy to keep wages low and make it so companies don't have to pay for training, don't have to have signing bonuses.

Post reply on HN