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H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

economist.com

281–290 of 467 posts

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

#281

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…

I also do not understand why Indian consultancies need to be demonized so much. Their practices might be a bit shady but then as the complexity of law grows the value of pushing the limits of law also goes up. 1. Indian consultancies have provided valuable labor in large quantity to US firms. 2. This has helped US firms remain competitive in the world. From ATT or Bank of America to Toyota and Sears everyone has supe…

I disagree with this post. I am originally from India and used to be on H1. I have worked at companies like LinkedIn and Dropbox - so also know this from the point of view of supposedly highly qualified H1 candidates. I also was in leadership role at a Fortune 15 where we had a big team of low quality contractor on H1 and L1. So kind of have an experience on both the extremes.

The consulting company used to send really low quality candidate. The kind who might not clear high school maths and have some worthless degree from a remote college in India. Then I asked them to get their best people. Their best people were pretty bad. I mean the kind who would get rejected on telephonic screen within 10 minutes. Eventually the model that worked is that I would find great candidates and then this company would bring them on contract (some people prefer working on contract vs full time).

The amount of money waste on such consultancy projects was unbelievable. Companies prefer this because of some tax savings of CapEx vs OpEx. There would be a huge team of people doing near clerical work. I am confident that there are other citizens available who can do that job, at probably an higher cost.

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

#282

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…

They're not really stuck by Visa rules though, once they have an H1 they can transfer it without worrying about the cap any time they like to any company in a position to sponsor an H1B. It's definitely not ideal. If there are terms binding them to their employers that should really be addressed. What sucks is they can't go off and found on their own.

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

#283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I should've put out a disclaimer in my previous comment, I was an F1 student now working in SV as an H1B. So I've to state my bias. Why do you think it should be independent? F1 students pay a lot of money to study here and I think there should be a fairly easy path to work for a considerable amount of time here. I believe it's mutually beneficial. But I'd love to know alternative views.

I believe his implication was that the F-1 should allow for a post-study work-residence period without the individual having to acquire an H1B or other residency visa. This would constitute an overall relaxation of immigration restrictions, particularly in your case.

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

#284
post #10

"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." That's completely ignoring the fact that if you have cheaper workers, you end up being underpaid and/or doing a job you'd rather not be doing. Unemployment rate alone don't tell the whole story, and failing to acknowledge that sounds like poor/partial journalism to m…

>That's completely ignoring the fact that if you have cheaper workers, you end up being underpaid and/or doing a job you'd rather not be doing.

It's exactly why I think the H-1B limits might be a bad idea, but equal market pay for the migrant workers is more sensible regulation. (I'm ignoring the obvious cheat, companies can do, i.e: lower the job grade/title and then ask the hire to do the higher work too, but assuming that'll eventually get evened out with cultural assimilation and the hired workers getting upto speed about market rates vs roles vs responsibilities.)

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

#285
post #272
post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, if you assume away the legitimacy of national borders and nations' right to determine admittance and membership, than any immigration restriction whatsoever looks pretty atrocious (including H1Bs). FWIW, the same assumption would eliminate your ability to object when a foreign army wants to peacefully enter on the pretense of just wanting a better life. And if you assume away the legitimacy of property rights,…

I don't give away my right to object when a black army moves into my neighborhood on the pretense of just wanting a better life. And yet I do demand strong evidence that this is a likely scenario before essentially banning black people from my neighborhood. The correct analogy is not that you're being forced to accept a homeless person into your property. Its that if I want to accept a homeless person into my propert…

>I don't give away my right to object when a black army moves into my neighborhood on the pretense of just wanting a better life. And yet I do demand strong evidence that this is a likely scenario before essentially banning black people from my neighborhood.

People moving into your neighborhood to conduct a violent overthrow is not a risk because the national borders have already filtered out people who could draw in a bottomless resources from a foreign power. And you can in fact form neighborhood orgs that restrict who can move there. If anything, you have fewer rights to filter it by race than in an ancap world.

>The correct analogy is not that you're being forced to accept a homeless person into your property. Its that if I want to accept a homeless person into my property, you shouldn't be allowed to prevent me from doing so. Unless you make a convincing case that they're going to invade you. Which I don't think you have.

Sure, admittance to your neighborhood is not admittance to any one person's house. But it is admittance to the public part of it and whoever lets them in. Allowing a foreign army to fill up your country without impediment until their first overt acts is still pretty questionable. But then, once you see why an "immigration policy" against that attack vector is justified, you have to accept the whole regime necessary for trivial permutations of that plan, like rate throttling, a requirement to assimilate, etc.

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

#286
post #10

"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." That's completely ignoring the fact that if you have cheaper workers, you end up being underpaid and/or doing a job you'd rather not be doing. Unemployment rate alone don't tell the whole story, and failing to acknowledge that sounds like poor/partial journalism to m…

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.

I disagree with this. Infosys and TCS are the real culprits here. They are bringing extremely bad quality people on low wages to displace American workers. They are the ones abusing the system.

Did you know that any employee at these companies can claim to be a Multi national manager and get a Green Card within six months. That person might not have the qualification to pass high school.

They knowingly bring people with fake degrees. They knowingly break the laws. They claim that people are working at their site while they are really working at the client site. The list goes on and on.

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

#287
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't give away my right to object when a black army moves into my neighborhood on the pretense of just wanting a better life. And yet I do demand strong evidence that this is a likely scenario before essentially banning black people from my neighborhood. The correct analogy is not that you're being forced to accept a homeless person into your property. Its that if I want to accept a homeless person into my propert…

Other people you live with don't want to accept a homeless person into the home. And, you are part of a social contract between these other people you live with (e.g. your countrymen) where you can't just override them. If you had your own country where nobody else lived, where you had no social contract with anyone, it would be fine for you to let anyone in (of course, you wouldn't have a country for long).

Other white people in my neighborhood don't want to accept a black person into the neighborhood. And, I am part of a social contract between these other people I live with (e.g. by fellow neighbors) where I can't just override them.

If you respond by saying that the social contract of the country (which bans discrimination based on race) supercedes the social contract of my neighborhood then I'll say that the social contract of the world supercedes even that.

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

#288
post #173
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> doing full stack web Is there really an abundance of really qualified full stack web developers? I met a lot of incompetent US citizens claiming to be full stack devs.

What's your definition of full stack? Anyone that knows a back end language, sql, html and a bit of css and javascript is a full stack web developer.

I think you need to be able to debug a crash of the web server or kernel. This means C and at least a bit of a clue about assembly.

I suppose it's OK to not be able to debug a hypervisor.

On the other side of things, probably you also ought to be a competent artist and writer.

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

#289
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

H-1Bs are law-abiding people and therefore the easiest immigrant group to attack, unlike illegals they will leave when told so.

H-1B visa holders are not immigrants as the H-1B is not an immigrant visa.

It's a dual-intent visa. Which means H1B holders are allowed to apply for a green card (permanent residence) and continue to hold the H1B. This is unlike non-immigrant visas like F1, which you will lose the moment you apply for a green card.

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

#290

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.

I disagree with this. Infosys and TCS are the real culprits here. They are bringing extremely bad quality people on low wages to displace American workers. They are the ones abusing the system. Did you know that any employee at these companies can claim to be a Multi national manager and get a Green Card within six months. That person might not have the qualification to pass high school. They knowingly bring people w…

Deal with both of these shitshows on a regular basis. They are exactly this bad. It's almost never worth it in the long run when they come in as opportunities to resell software.
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