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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

#351

Post by 0xfeba »

reloop wrote: post #236
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 dislike poor working and visa condition as much as, if not more than, anyone else. But other than that I don't really see the problem. You're saying that the people you're hiring aren't particularly talented and get payed less. Not everyone can go to the right school, learn the right languages and get accepted to companies that pay $100k with perks. It sound like, other than fixing some of the things with H-1B, wha…

> You're saying that the people you're hiring aren't particularly talented and get payed less.

No I'm saying a citizen fresh grad dev starts at 60-80k at my company, but a H1-B via a contracting company with "5 years experience" (which is a crapshoot but they usually have some experience) gets paid 40-50k. They do the same work.

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

#352

Post by refurb »

arcticbull wrote: post #308
FireBeyond wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

It still about $6000 in filing fees and premium processing fees on top of the legal fees and meeting any other requirements the business has to meet to be in a place to sponsor them in the first place.

My experience with a large multi-national was that they outsourced all of the immigration work to outside legal firms. This firm hired a lot of immigrants, but I don't think it makes sense to hire full time legal immigration experts.

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

#353

Post by baby »

donald123 wrote: post #228
baby wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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) Good luck finding such an employer when you're fresh out of school. Also, a greencard takes ages to process.

A greencard takes ages to process only for Indians and Mainland Chinese. Not for other countries.

I'm from France and currently in the greencard process, I can tell you that it's the same for us.

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

#354

Post by trhway »

ep103 wrote: post #350
trhway wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That just confirms the OPs first point, that TCS, Wipro and Infosys, with their 30,000 Visas avg. ~$70k, are massively abusing the system. >Its about time these companies were prosecuted for lying to the government: while they obviously abuse the system, i doubt they do it in immediately clear criminal ways - instead i suppose they use various loopholes like bringing people into some cattle grazing mid-states where…

Accenture literally buses people over national and state borders, so yes, its possible. Somehow I don't think that's much more legal though.

lets say a person sent to work on a 3-4 month project in CA, another such project in WA, and another such in NY while officially living with the other 30 like him in a little house on the prairie. What government can do here? Specifically how it can be clearly identified as illegal? It is like with various other technical loopholes (like say taxes of many rich people, like that one American President who was able to show a loss of $1B once and write it down for many years after that - interesting that his opponents had practically mental breakdown over that absolutely legal write-off while missing the point of how one can show such a big loss, i mean actually losing $1B is obviously the least preferable way of doing it (especially considering the hard requirement that one has to be at least $1B wealthy to do it that way) while various technically interesting plays with valuations and transfers of various classes of assets can possibly get you there too :)

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

#355

Post by Bartweiss »

mattfrommars wrote: post #303
Bartweiss wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So these contracting companies themselves send out resume to job post a companies makes? For example, received 20 CV for a job posted and all of them could have been sent from the same contracting company?

That does happen, but I don't think it was the case here. I think this was just about people cribbing off the same tips sites and one another's resumes because they came through similar spheres.

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

#356

Post by dlp211 »

geebee wrote: post #328
vkou wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also work at Google on an H1-B (Formerly TN-1). I can also confirm that Google pays foreign workers exactly the same (Salary, stock, bonus, vacation, benefits) as Americans.

I'm not sure how this works at google, but often, when a company replaces positions with H1B visa workers, they often contract out the work. As a result, the H1B who is doing work for google wouldn't be considered a google employee. It's a fairly common practice, though again, not sure if it happens this way at google.

Correct, this is how H1Bs are abused. But companies like Amafaceooglesoft are hiring H1Bs directly and pay wages, bonuses, and benefits that are equal to their US counterparts, thus, using the system as intended. They are also far more likely to sponsor their H1Bs for Green Card status. I personally work on a team at one of Amafaceooglesoft. On that team are 7 people where 2 are former H1Bs and are now Green Card holders and 1 current H1B who is going through the Green Card process.

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

#357

Post by ConanRus »

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 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.

I'm surprised by the level of expertise, demonstrated by the economist, given the fact that current H1B system already works EXACTLY THAT WAY. H1B visa holder can transfer to a new employer any time, if new employer is willing to fill in the papers, even without notifying the current employer.

L1B visa is tied to a particular employer (because it just intracompany transfer), not H1B.

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

#358

Post by dlp211 »

the_commentary wrote: post #138
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…

> What if the H1B program was taking in a huge amount of new grads right now and not as many senior positions? Then the program in turn wouldn't be abiding by the idea of the H1B program in the first place, which is to bring in people who have skills that can't be found in the US. You can hire new grads from the US just as easily as abroad, just maybe not at the artificially low prices that you want to pay them.

Except, in this context, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, and others aren't underpaying anyone.

Also being a new grad != employable at one of these companies, and no, training isn't going to help them either.

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

#359

Post by RandomOpinion »

emidln wrote: post #273
harichinnan wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

> 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".

Then the "entire South" is going to start charging you and me SV rates for their products and services. Probably not what you had in mind.

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

#360

Post by dlp211 »

emidln wrote: post #273
harichinnan wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

That's not the real issue. The real issue is that tech workers are not the only one's coming here on H1B, and those professions don't pay nearly what an SDE gets paid.
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