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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

#181

Post by AnAnonyCowherd »

zzleeper wrote: post #98

I went through the entire comment thread and feel like you guys are missing a lot of the H1B benefits by focusing just on tech and the effect of the Indian consultancies. Most PhDs, specially in STEM, math, stats, econ, etc. are not American. And almost all of them end up with a H1B visa at some point if they remain in the US. It might be lottery based if you go to work at any firm, or quota-free if it is in academia…

> Now, what happens if you kill the H1B?

Companies all start paying the premium for these most-sought-after and most-specialized technologists, as they should, which then causes more native-born people to pursue these jobs, knowing they won't be arbitrarily undercut by the lottery, and reaping the benefits of a top-dollar US-based education. To me, it's a national investment argument. Does a nation NOT want perfectly capable native citizens to get these lucrative types of jobs, and US-based academic institutions to get the tuition to educate them? No, it wouldn't happen overnight, but we don't have to cut it off all at once, either. The market can, and would, adjust.

My problem is that I see a lot of H1B's doing clerical jobs that don't require anything more than a 12th-grade education. Some even have MS degrees, but they're doing things that, at their most-technical, would take a trade school programming intern to do. I also know several under-employed people, who don't have college degrees, but who would be GREAT at those jobs, but can't get them because of the H1B system. None of this makes sense to me. You think only Ph.D.'s can deal with LIDAR systems? Fine. But dozens of H1B's working around me are doing their jobs without the need for even an Asscociates degree's worth of education. It seems like blatant abuse to get overqualified people on the cheap who can't leave.

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

#182

Post by jimmywanger »

inlinefordecade wrote: post #93
usernametbd wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is Microsoft villain? Does it provide its H1B employees below market salary? Genuinely asking as I've seen H1B employees at MS paid a huge salary, equal to their citizen counterparts, and also they've been freely jumping companies to get an even bigger pay raise.

Please see my response: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14144354

You still have not answered the question. What has their lobbying done to decrease living standard, and what are they lobbying for, specifically?

Your response is useless in the context of the current conversation.

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

#183

Post by [deleted] »

clairity wrote: post #136
dmitrygr wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing is, nobody wants that effect. We want the PhDs. What we do not want it companies that bring in cheap barely-qualified labour for cost-cutting. This hurts the people brought in (they are stuck in bad jobs with bad pay and no way out). This hurts the local workers who cost too much compared to this effectively-slave-labour. The hard part changing the rules such that PhDs and other productive uses of H1B do not su…

"This hurts the people brought in (they are stuck in bad jobs with bad pay and no way out)." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ i agree with everything you said except for this part. many of the indian workers are still better off economically than they might otherwise be, even if they are not as well off as their american counterparts. in any case, we should let every person seeking higher education in the US work indefinitely in this…

[deleted]

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

#184

Post by [deleted] »

clairity wrote: post #136
dmitrygr wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing is, nobody wants that effect. We want the PhDs. What we do not want it companies that bring in cheap barely-qualified labour for cost-cutting. This hurts the people brought in (they are stuck in bad jobs with bad pay and no way out). This hurts the local workers who cost too much compared to this effectively-slave-labour. The hard part changing the rules such that PhDs and other productive uses of H1B do not su…

"This hurts the people brought in (they are stuck in bad jobs with bad pay and no way out)." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ i agree with everything you said except for this part. many of the indian workers are still better off economically than they might otherwise be, even if they are not as well off as their american counterparts. in any case, we should let every person seeking higher education in the US work indefinitely in this…

[deleted]

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

#185

Post by alistproducer2 »

I work for a large company that used to outsource all of it's IT to a large contractor. Almost all of the applications and code I've worked with that was done by the outsourcing company was substandard crap. Obviously over complicated to support large (profitable) estimates.

From my experience working with a lot of tech immigrants, I can say that compared to the native population, they seem about the same in terms of competency. The only issue is the language thing. In tech (especially at large companies), so much of what you do is communicating with others and not having a good command of the English language can make an otherwise capable dev a lot less so.

If I were hiring, I would never consider a person that didn't have a good command of English unless they were really a rock star in something that didn't require much communication.

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

#186

Post by thesagan »

CriticalSection wrote: post #167
vmarsy wrote: post #5

Related, Trump's executive order from today which mentions H-1Bs : https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/04/18/presi... And a quote from the NYT article[1]: “This does nothing,” said Senator Charles Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader. “Like all the other executive orders, it’s just words — he’s calling for new studies. It’s not going to fix the problem. It’s not going to create a single job.” [1] h…

Noam Chomsky was interviewed the other day and he said something like "the only thing the Democrats seem to be complaining about with Trump is that he wants to ease tensions with Russia, which is probably the only sensible thing he is doing". Schumer is the Democratic leader, the leader of the party that 80 years ago was very well-connected to working Americans - even in the south. Trump is playing him and the Democr…

Oh man, being from MI everything he said hit home in a big way, and it got red hot the summer+fall of 2016. (And then Clinton skipped our state, to top it off, after we voted Sanders.)

Moore put into words the devastating alienation the Rust Belt feels from the rest of the country. How they laughed at midwesterner's baseball caps was a big one. And they aren't getting any better. Scary.

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

#187

Post by dbancajas »

gragas wrote: post #178
jeffjose wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Americans don't get PhDs because graduate schools are flooded with applications from those trying to gain entry to the US. Once in industry foreigners tend to hire only members of their own race further discouraging Americans from pursuing advanced degrees. That's not true. The American Universities don't choose to admit foreign students just because. The good schools always try to balance the mix of students admit…

>That's not true. The American Universities don't choose to admit foreign students just because. The good schools always try to balance the mix of students admitted into the program. Then why do Indians make up more than 30% of my school's CS program, despite them making up less than 1% of the US population?

because most americans don't like CS?they like arts, history etc.. most indians and foreigners go to CS because of $$ alone. the motivation for a US citizen is "i want to study what my interests are."

I assure you, most american-born students get a free pass in stanford/berkeley/CMU if you pit them against a foreign-born. the fact there are almost zero americans mean nobodywants to study it.

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

#188

Post by HashThis »

usernametbd wrote: post #90
inlinefordecade wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it appears TCS and Infosys are being made the fall guys to keep the existing system of Indentured servitude in place for another decade or more. [edit:] Real villain is Microsoft, which has the largest lobbyists machine among the software companies in D.C. to make sure they are able to keep their indenture servants for as many years as possible.

Why is Microsoft villain? Does it provide its H1B employees below market salary? Genuinely asking as I've seen H1B employees at MS paid a huge salary, equal to their citizen counterparts, and also they've been freely jumping companies to get an even bigger pay raise.

Microsoft US citizen employees lost their jobs but first were forced to train their H1B replacements. I know some of these workers that lost their jobs and had to replace their H1B replacements at Microsoft.

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

#189

Post by beagle3 »

rajathagasthya wrote: post #141
clairity wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This hurts the people brought in (they are stuck in bad jobs with bad pay and no way out)." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ i agree with everything you said except for this part. many of the indian workers are still better off economically than they might otherwise be, even if they are not as well off as their american counterparts. in any case, we should let every person seeking higher education in the US work indefinitely in this…

> in any case, we should let every person seeking higher education in the US work indefinitely in this country This is the discussion that's always missing whenever H1B is discussed anywhere. It always gets hijacked by Indian IT companies abusing the system. Does the administration have a plan on how to deal with students who get their degrees from US universities, who also seek H1Bs to work? If they don't make this…

There is a F1 and J1 visas for studying (which allows on the job training and some work, at least one year following end of formal study etc). These could easily be extended to answer this - and I believe it should be independent of the H1B itself.

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

#190

Post by mavelikara »

gragas wrote: post #178
jeffjose wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Americans don't get PhDs because graduate schools are flooded with applications from those trying to gain entry to the US. Once in industry foreigners tend to hire only members of their own race further discouraging Americans from pursuing advanced degrees. That's not true. The American Universities don't choose to admit foreign students just because. The good schools always try to balance the mix of students admit…

>That's not true. The American Universities don't choose to admit foreign students just because. The good schools always try to balance the mix of students admitted into the program. Then why do Indians make up more than 30% of my school's CS program, despite them making up less than 1% of the US population?

Did you mean American-Indians constitute only "1% of US population"? I am not following you.
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