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DOJ Cautions Employers Seeking H-1B Visas Not to Discriminate Against US Workers

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11–20 of 123 posts

Re: DOJ Cautions Employers Seeking H-1B Visas Not to Discriminate Against US Workers

#11
post #7
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More demand for senior engineers will decrease their salaries?

More supply of senior engineers will decrease salaries. The visas used to be taken primarily by junior devs preventing (some) senior devs from getting one. Senior devs may no longer be blocked which increases supply. Demand is unchanged, at least in the short-term.

The economics aren't so black & white. The incentives to hire an H1B change when companies are paying senior engineer wages for the position.

Re: DOJ Cautions Employers Seeking H-1B Visas Not to Discriminate Against US Workers

#12
post #7
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More demand for senior engineers will decrease their salaries?

More supply of senior engineers will decrease salaries. The visas used to be taken primarily by junior devs preventing (some) senior devs from getting one. Senior devs may no longer be blocked which increases supply. Demand is unchanged, at least in the short-term.

In my experience of hiring engineers across several companies over the past decade, the pool of senior SDEs who are both not already in the US and willing to move to the US is so small that I'd be surprised if it even registered in the overall H1B flow. Virtually all the non-resident senior SDEs I saw getting hired in my orgs ended up being H1B transfers who got hired straight out of college into the US and grew into seniority while here.

Re: DOJ Cautions Employers Seeking H-1B Visas Not to Discriminate Against US Workers

#13
post #7
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More demand for senior engineers will decrease their salaries?

More supply of senior engineers will decrease salaries. The visas used to be taken primarily by junior devs preventing (some) senior devs from getting one. Senior devs may no longer be blocked which increases supply. Demand is unchanged, at least in the short-term.

I doubt it. The number H1Bs for people with the equivalent of a Masters degree or Phd is something like one percent of all H1B visas.

I seriously doubt that a shortage of H1B visas would be an issue for a company that decides to hire someone into a senior position. Senior positions are handled with more care then junior positions.

Re: DOJ Cautions Employers Seeking H-1B Visas Not to Discriminate Against US Workers

#14
post #3

H1b visas have primarily been used by consulting companies to bring in less expensive junior engineers ( [1] http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2017-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx

Median salary may go down for senior engineers, that's okay with me if more will have permanent jobs.

It's not fair to software engineers at the tail ends of their careers that they are so often relegated to contract positions. Many of them very competent (even if slightly dated in current practices).

Re: DOJ Cautions Employers Seeking H-1B Visas Not to Discriminate Against US Workers

#15
post #9

The consulting firms have been abusing the H-1B system for years. I've been documenting it for couple years here: http://www.jobsintech.io/immigration_companies#name=&city=&s... You can clearly see that the top companies using H-1B visas are consulting firms.

Why are green card and h1-b numbers all equal?

Re: DOJ Cautions Employers Seeking H-1B Visas Not to Discriminate Against US Workers

#16
Also, USCIS has announced plans to combat H-1B fraud [1]. They seem to provide two provisions with this:

1) An avenue [2] for members of the workforce to report H-1B abuse. People on H-1B are offered some protection against retaliation.

2) Targeted onsite visits at worksites of employers who have larger fraction of their employees on H-1Bs, and those who sent employees to other locations.

Together, this seems to be aimed at curbing H-1B abuse by staffing companies. Some Silicon Valley employers - like Apple, Cisco etc - who use these staffing companies extensively might also be affected. But overall, this should be good news for both H-1B employees and citizens/permanent residents.

[1]: https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-worker...

[2]: An email address really - ReportH1BAbuse@uscis.dhs.gov

Re: DOJ Cautions Employers Seeking H-1B Visas Not to Discriminate Against US Workers

#17
post #9

The consulting firms have been abusing the H-1B system for years. I've been documenting it for couple years here: http://www.jobsintech.io/immigration_companies#name=&city=&s... You can clearly see that the top companies using H-1B visas are consulting firms.

Why are green card and h1-b numbers all equal?

Good catch. Fixing it right now

Re: DOJ Cautions Employers Seeking H-1B Visas Not to Discriminate Against US Workers

#18
post #3

H1b visas have primarily been used by consulting companies to bring in less expensive junior engineers ( [1] http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2017-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx

You are right. For the 85K visas, there were ~240K applications. If 30% of them were for senior engineers, then with these new stricter directives all 85K visas go to them, thereby increasing the supply of senior engineers.

Otherwise there would have been 30K senior engineers and 55K junior engineers.

Re: DOJ Cautions Employers Seeking H-1B Visas Not to Discriminate Against US Workers

#19
No matter how you frame the issue, call it an abuse, or try to solve it, I don't think anything will change other than some minor adjustments. Jobs are not going to magically appear or wages rise.

India/China has a huge supply of engineers across the board (good, bad, senior, junior etc.,). And US companies always want to maximize their profits. So increasing the bar on H-1B visas will increase the quality of H-1B's making their way to US.(very competent, hard working, willing to work for lower wages in the initial years).

This is a huge benefit for technology companies who can directly recruit from these countries for US offices, which they were not doing before due to lottery uncertainties, and instead had to rely on L-1 route. (recruit for local office, then transfer)

As for the other US jobs that were being filled by low skilled H-1B's, they will simply move offshore/nearshore/remote or replaced by AI in few years. This is a big win for consulting firms as their offshore profitability per employee is 3 times higher than onsite. Given a choice, they would want all their employees offshore, and the only reason they had to bring in some % of H-1B's was on the US client companies request, which they may do away with now.

Bottomline: Protectionism did not work for manufacturing, and will not work for Tech either.

Re: DOJ Cautions Employers Seeking H-1B Visas Not to Discriminate Against US Workers

#20
post #3

H1b visas have primarily been used by consulting companies to bring in less expensive junior engineers ( [1] http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2017-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx

I am not sure about the salaries going down.

Senior engineers = a little older = probably have family = harder to make the move to another country

I've been on H1B since about the time I graduated and it was no brainer to start new life in US. Had I stayed and started my family and career in Canada, it would've been much harder move to US and it probably wouldn't be worth it because my wife wouldn't be able to work etc etc

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