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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

#271

Post by emidln »

nwenzel wrote: post #158
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…

"The contracting companies pay likely about as much but take some 20% of their salary)." Having worked as a contractor, I've seen that number typically between 33% and 50%. Staff Augmentation is a horrible, horrible business. The firms also end up stuffing the hiring managers inbox with a bunch of resumes of unqualified candidates to box out other competing firms. No one wins except the abusers of what could be a pos…

My bill rate vs what I accepted from my firm in comp (salary+benefits) was roughly a 35% markup in Washington, DC between 2011 and 2013. I was working as a software dev in mostly Python and Javascript on web properties.

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

#272

Post by geebee »

steevenwee wrote: post #256
geebee wrote: post #243

The economist proposes getting rid of the rule that requires H1B workers remain within the company that sponsors them That sounds reasonable, but why then require that a company sponsor an immigrant in the first place? Why not let that immigrant choose where he or she will work? In fact, why not let the immigrant choose what to study, where to work, where to live, all in response to market signals? People have posted…

'I still maintain this - any immigrant system that allows corporations to decide who gets to come here is flawed.' Corporations ARE the workforce market, which should indicate what kind of workforce is needed. It can only go from employer to employee, not vice versa. You can also look at that from company's perspective: You not only paid for someone's visa but also went through all the paperwork and then the person l…

Wow, do I ever disagree with you. I'm not a market fundamentalist, but supply and demand are still relevant concepts here. The market would demand far more developers at $50,000 than the market would supply. It would be the opposite at $250,000 (maybe... there would still be a lot of demand at that level). If corporations can't hire on there terms and conditions they offer, they need to sweeten the pot. If I try to hire a top lawyer at 50k a year and a large open office, people will say "uh, you need to offer more money and a better office." They don't say "oh, there's a shortage of lawyers, so clearly you need to have the power to bestow US residency and worker rights, and remain in control of them, to coerce an immigrant into taking that job"!

As for the company's perspective, honestly, I couldn't care one whit. If you can't offer competitive wages and working conditions, that means the worker has found a higher value role somewhere else. Why on early would I, or anyone really, have any interest in helping a corporation force an individual to remain in a lower value job? It's a basic human rights issue as far as I'm concerned, but you know, there's a reason human freedom and generally free markets often go together. No, I'm not a market fundamentalist, but the freedom choose where and how you will work seems pretty basic to me.

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

#273

Post by emidln »

harichinnan wrote: post #186
bjornsing wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So isn't the obvious solution to move the allocation strategy from lottery to "auction" (highest payed employees get their visas first)?

That would essentially mean only silicon valley and NYC employers would get H1B employees. The entire South would face a skills shortage. The economist article actually provides a better solution. Visas shouldn't be tied to a particular employer. The employee should be able to transition to a new employer without a new visa application. There could be minimal paperwork to determine when a foreign worker is and whethe…

> The entire South would face a skills shortage.

Maybe the "entire South" should increase their rates if they want to compete on talent. I have no sympathy for a company that can't find talent because "we don't pay SV rates because we're not in SV".

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

#274

Post by FireBeyond »

rsuttongee wrote: post #241
freyr wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're comparing the average salary of all H-1B jobs (developer, accountant, analyst, etc.) to the salary of a developer. Instead, look at the average salaries for H-1B software engineers in 2016: Facebook @ Menlo Park: $152k Google @ Mountain View: $130k Apple @ Cupertino: $154k Amazon @ Seattle: $124k Microsoft @ Redmond: $120 So comparing base salary alone, these companies are definitely not underpaying their H-1B…

Also don't forget to add the ~$10-$20k in legal fees for sponsoring an H1b on top of that.

I guarantee all of the countries on this list, both the Valley tech firms, and the Indian IT firms, have in-house counsel specially versed in this, making the process largely boilerplate.

When I moved to the US (to work for one of the companies on that list of tech firms), their attitude was "Do you need a visa?" (I didn't, as it happened) "Just let us know, we'll get you a H-1B". There wasn't any shadow of a doubt in their mind that it was much more than a formality.

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

#275

Post by Curious42 »

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…

Why would you compare the salary of top 3 companies in the world to that of 3 consultancy firms? Of course the average salary of the top 3 companies is going to be significantly higher, and of course the hiring is going to be stricter. What were you expecting?

Maybe use stats of companies that are about as good as these consultancy firms, and located in similar areas. That will put things into perspective. I'm not saying Indians aren't paid lower, but your comment is an exaggeration of the issue Americans complain about.

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

#276

Post by curun1r »

anjc wrote: post #115
mberning wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that a US citizen could rack up tremendous debt on a 4 year STEM degree only to be passed over in favor of a cheaper H1B "indentured servant" that received a degree from a low cost diploma mill is vile indeed.

It isn't just the US too. It's the same all over Western Europe. What sticks in my craw even more is that, to legitimise the process of issuing more visas, companies and governments have to continually say "there aren't enough STEM and IT grads! Do STEM and IT everyone!" knowing full well that there wont be jobs for these kids at the end of it.

Both "there aren't enough STEM and IT grads!" and "I can't find a STEM job" can be true if candidates aren't willing to relocate to where those jobs are. Despite being one of the most remote-friendly jobs possible, tech is still frustratingly regional. It's amazing how many people will opine on how expensive San Francisco is and how they'd never want to live there and then complain about how scarce tech jobs are without seeing their own hypocrisy.

This doesn't condone what the body shops do, but I don't see a problem H1-Bs being used to address regional shortages in the labor market. But the program absolutely needs to have a regional component given that the scarcity of talent really is regional. We should not be issuing H1-B visas to work in cities where US workers can't find jobs. And H1-B priority should be given to companies that employ the lowest percentage of H1-Bs. With a few other provisions to ensure similar pay, this would destroy the companies that rely almost solely on H1-Bs without hurting tech companies that legitimately need H1-Bs to address the difficulty in finding talent.

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

#277

Post by lostboys67 »

Clubber wrote: post #221
lostboys67 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that is how the free market works your not one of those gosh darned socialists are you :-) And I suspect that for a "brown" skinned persons the south is not exactly a welcoming environment.

>And I suspect that for a "brown" skinned persons the south is not exactly a welcoming environment. That's very ignorant.

That's not what my co-worker who is from the south and biracial said and its perception that counts.

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

#278

Post by lostboys67 »

harichinnan wrote: post #215
lostboys67 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that is how the free market works your not one of those gosh darned socialists are you :-) And I suspect that for a "brown" skinned persons the south is not exactly a welcoming environment.

Big cities in the South are liberal oases. Houston, TX had a lesbian mayor till last year, who got married legally while in office.

But do you want to live in a Gheto

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

#279

Post by FireBeyond »

Declanomous wrote: post #135
sjg007 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep.... if you are a US citizen, for the money, go to med school, everything else is overrated.

A medical degree costs a lot more than the degree necessary to work in IT. I don't have the report off the top of my head, but doctors don't reach salary parity with their peers who got bachelors degrees until their mid-40s. Edit: I'm talking about lifetime earnings parity, not yearly parity. If you are marking $85k in IT as a 27 year old, you are way ahead of someone who starts making $175k at the age of 35 and has…

Lifetime earning parity...

Let's make three assumptions:

* person in IT has zero education debt (per your example). Not likely, but okay * retirement at 65 * no promotion, pay raises * education debt is at zero per cent (but since we're saying the IT worker has none, it balances a little)

IT worker has 38 years of useful career at $85K. Earnings: $3.23M

Physician has 30 years of useful career at $175K. Earnings: $5.25M. Minus $250K in debt and we have $5M.

I'm not sure how the IT worker at $3.23M is "way ahead" of the physician at $5M...?

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

#280

Post by FireBeyond »

briandear wrote: post #63
mac01021 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering things from the point of view of the immigrant, the current h1b system seems to me like the only route to immigration for a person who is not exceptionally skilled or wealthy or connected. So there are definitely people who would like to immigrate who would lose out if it became an auction. I'm not saying those people should necessarily be a major consideration, but you did say "everyone besides companies…

H1 is a non immigrant visa; using for that purpose is fraudulent. Under the law, H1s should have no right to permenant residency unless they return on a proper immigrant visa -- otherwise, its vastly unfair to those that go through the legitimate process.

Apropos of anything else, a lot of the definitions are weird.

I came here on a K-1 Fiancee visa. Which was, ostensibly, a "non-immigrant" visa. Though it allowed the ability to live, work. And to remove conditions on permanent residency by submission of a form.

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