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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

#321

Post by MarkMc »

Why doesn't Germany have the same problem with their 'blue card' which is even more generous than the H1B visa?

For an IT graduate, a German blue card only requires a minimum salary of €39,624. Workers can switch jobs easily and there is no lottery - if you have a degree and a job you are pretty much guaranteed a blue card.

There is a language barrier, but my guess is that's not a big problem. There should be plenty of Indian graduates willing to learn German for a year if it leads to a 500% increase in salary.

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

#322

Post by hudibras »

an_cap wrote: post #268
ikeyany wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you seriously asking why it's ethical to encourage American companies to hire Americans?

Yes. And I am looking for an answer that couldn't then be used to argue that it's also ethical to encourage White companies to hire Whites. And I'm not even asking that you don't "encourage" American companies to hire Americans. I'm simply asking that you don't ban (or make it extremely difficult) American companies who do want to hire non-Americans from doing so.

I'm just trying to wrap my head around the fact that you don't understand the concept of incorporation. In exchange for certain benefits bestowed by the government (limited liability, corporate tax rates, implied protection of physical assets by police, firefighters, armed forces, etc.), a company must follow some policies and laws, one of which could certainly be "hire Americans."

As to your "White company" question, I'm just going to guess that you haven't heard of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution...

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

#323

Post by demarq »

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…

> playing my own devil's advocate

That shows a great sense of self awareness, and objective reasoning. I wish more people did that. :)

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

#324

Post by candiodari »

hamstergene wrote: post #310
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…

> 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. Isn't that exactly the main criticism of current H1B system: driving down salaries and standard of living away from U.S. standards down towards India's? However better off they are economically they would be even better if companies couldn't exploit their status…

> Isn't that exactly the main criticism of current H1B system: driving down salaries and standard of living away from U.S. standards down towards India's?

The issue, of course, is that you can have only one of these 2 things :

1) a global market, easy international travel/living

2) Americans making significantly more than the global average (which I might add is $200/month in actual dollars, $1480 in PPP dollars) (this essentially means you can buy $1480 worth of (cheap) food with it, but only $200 worth of iPads)

Which is going to win here ? There can only be one answer, sadly.

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

#325

Post by axoltl »

txmx2000 wrote: post #140

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. I think it's disgusting that you say you're contributing to my country as though, without you, these positions would go unfilled because Americans aren't intellig…

I came to the US on an H1-B to fill a position that was open for 2 years. They simply could not find a qualified candidate. I don't have a PhD, and I wasn't educated in the United States.

I was hired because of all the extra-curricular projects I pursued in electrical engineering, embedded systems, and most notably, security. There is nothing _at all_ preventing an American from doing what I do, but my field is dominated by Europeans. It could be laws, it could be culture. Whatever it is, American companies need these skills and they can't find them in the US.

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

#326

Post by thewhitetulip »

l3m0ndr0p wrote: post #6

Regardless of where these jobs are going, H1-Bs are used for the cheap labor, not the best skills. This system has been abused especially by the financial services corporations. First hand experience: If you have an open request to hire, you are required to first look to one of the few outsourcing firms we have a contract with. You cannot post the job for external until you have searched for the "best" person within…

Steve Jobs's dad was a Syrian immigrant.

Edit: Changed country.

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

#327

Post by tonyedgecombe »

burfog wrote: post #288
flukus wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"a crash of the web server or kernel"

That rules out 99% of people who are successfully doing the work right now.

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

#328

Post by thewhitetulip »

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #271
an_cap wrote: post #258

Suppose we lived in an America in which if a black person wanted to work in the tech industry they had to get a special license from the federal government called the H-1Black license. Nobody here on HN would then be discussing if companies were abusing the H-1Black system or whether H-1Black workers were being paid less than the going market rate. A minimally decent person would notice that the obviously correct thi…

People expect their government to protect them from people of other nations in matters of physical and economic security. h1-B workers at Tata etc drive down wages. Globally, labor isn't scarce. If there were a true global labor pool, wages in USA would be further depressed. People have no intrinsic right to immigrate into the country of their choice (they do have a right to leave their country if another will take t…

This is funny/ridiculous, after all US and the West was busy shoving Globalization down everyone else's throats just few decades ago and now every wants to reverse Globalization. This should be a case study, which I know won't ever happen!

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

#329

Post by literallycancer »

txmx2000 wrote: post #140

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. I think it's disgusting that you say you're contributing to my country as though, without you, these positions would go unfilled because Americans aren't intellig…

If a foreigner with a fraction of your assets and no network can replace you, it's your own fault.

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

#330

Post by burfog »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #327
burfog wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"a crash of the web server or kernel" That rules out 99% of people who are successfully doing the work right now.

It rules out 99% of the people successfully doing something which they claim to be "full stack". They might be great at their jobs, but I don't consider them "full stack". Low-level stuff is always part of the stack.

I guess there has been a sort of grade inflation on "full stack". When I go looking in the "Who wants to be hired?" threads for people, my reaction to seeing "full stack" is that the person is almost certainly exaggerating to an extreme. Real "full stack" is super uncommon, but it sounds impressive I guess. It's just not very believable.

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