Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 467 posts

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

#351

Post by user5994461 »

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.

Crash of the web server => read the log and find where you made a typo in the config file

crash of the kernel => google the last error lines (hope you have one)

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

#352

Post by user5994461 »

coygui wrote: post #338
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…

You are misleading people here. Top CS PHD or other PHDs won't go through H1B; they are most likely going through EB1 which is more efficient. You don't need to wait years to get a green card. Also, people from countries like Australia, Canada, Germany, don't need H1B. Only people from Iran, India, and China need H1B. The better solution, as I talked to variety people and many people suggests, is to raise the salary…

FYI: People from Germany, Austria, France, italy, Spain need a H1B.

It's preventing lots of extremely qualified European to join the USA.

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

#353

Post by dboreham »

xtreme wrote: post #333
MarkMc wrote: post #321

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…

Language barrier is a bigger deal that you might think. One "advantage" Indian nationals have is that they learn English as a second language from childhood, and many schools and most colleges use English for instructions and in textbooks. This is a big motivator for emigrating Indians to choose the US. Also, US has won the mindshare as the country to immigrate to. It is due to a combination of being the biggest econ…

Also: In-n-out Burger.

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

#354

Post by walshemj »

flukus wrote: post #223
neeleshs wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely curious to know what you are implying here. Indians in the US are making highest median income because of some kind of racism/cronyism favoring them? I always thought it's because a significant percentage (not all) who immigrate are at the top already

Or a combination of both. It is something I've noticed, companies with indians doing the hiring end up with a lot of indians, companies with chinese doing the hiring end up with a lot of chinese. It's rare to find indians in a chinese software shop and vise versa. White people don't have a monopoly on racism.

Looking at the distribution of h1b's from the Asian subcontinent it would be interesting to break it down by caste.

Maybe Caste needs to be added to the protected classes as we did in the UK I know one of the MP's that was involved in this

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

#355

Post by thewhitetulip »

arjie wrote: post #349
thewhitetulip wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

It's not going to get a case study because it's been extensively studied already. An easy to understand introduction is to look at the Stolper Samuelson theorem. This isn't a recent development. It precedes the existence of the United States as a nation. Textiles in the U.K., mill workers. It's been done before. Protectionism is often just a straight subsidy from whichever society is being protectionist to the member…

I did not understand a word you said, the western nations shoved down globalization by force or threats during the start of 2000 and the very same nations are now "banning visas", I guess now they know how it feels. Divine retribution, the circle would be complete if Scotland would breakway from UK.

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

#356

Post by [deleted] »

FooBarJmp wrote: post #260
wsxcde wrote: post #247

Although Infosys and the like apply for a lot of H1Bs, they make very very few (we're talking double-digit numbers) successful applications for green cards. This means most of these people on H1Bs for the consulting companies are actually going back home. Which means that Infosys, TCS and the like are contributing a rotating pool of about ~30k-40k "migrant" software labor consisting of individuals who live in the US…

Let's examine your math. So this year there were 86,000 visas for 2017 that last for 3 years. So that means by 2020, if the visa limit stays at 86,000, there will be 258,000 H1Bs, of course this assumes that H1Bs were created in 2017, we are ignoring all those that came before. Let's NOT ignore those and look at the below link - http://insights.dice.com/2013/05/14/how-nearly-800000-h-1b-w... Yes, in 2013, it was 775,…

[deleted]

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

#357

Post by taway_1212 »

jordanb wrote: post #291
aanm1988 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm starting to find the "indentured servitude" thing really pretty irritating. Comparing being a highly paid tech worker with some issues changing jobs to an illegal form of (essentially) slavery is ridiculous. I also don't really see how either act causes the problems you are describing.

Indentured Servitude is exactly the relationship that exists for many on H1-B. It's not even hyperbole. This is especially true for people trying to get a green card. The employer can use the green card process to ensure the worker has no career mobility. And this process can take many years. Interestingly it is NOT Tata/Infosys/WIPRO who are using the green card trick. They don't sponsor green cards. They just rotat…

> Indentured Servitude is exactly the relationship that exists for many on H1-B. It's not even hyperbole.

It's far from being exactly the same. A H1B is free to break his contract and leave USA at any point, while IS was forced (i.e. hunted down and brought back to the workplace) to fulfill it.

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

#358

Post by arjie »

tenpoundhammer wrote: post #153
diebir wrote: post #48

Of course they ought to just increase the number of H1-B visas... They have always been a drop in the bucket on the technology market, even in the worst times (2001 and 2009). These are the future immigrants that we want in the US, highly educated, driven, mobile upwards and ready to buy a house. If you can't find a job or compete with H1-Bs in this economy you probably should consider another occupation. I work for…

I've worked for 2 fortune 500 companies that have brought in multiple low payed H1-b visas instead of hiring at the standard US rate. As an engineer I was part of the hiring process. All of the candidates at both places ended up being far less qualified than Wipro claimed and did a terrible job. So it definitely happens, I'd say it happens a lot. There are also great H1-b hires like the one I'm working with right now…

You should tell your friend he can switch. An immigration lawyer can easily advise better but he's not 'stuck' since continuing employment is not subject to the lottery. I had a friend switch last year and it was painless.

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

#359

Post by arjie »

thewhitetulip wrote: post #355
arjie wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not going to get a case study because it's been extensively studied already. An easy to understand introduction is to look at the Stolper Samuelson theorem. This isn't a recent development. It precedes the existence of the United States as a nation. Textiles in the U.K., mill workers. It's been done before. Protectionism is often just a straight subsidy from whichever society is being protectionist to the member…

I did not understand a word you said, the western nations shoved down globalization by force or threats during the start of 2000 and the very same nations are now "banning visas", I guess now they know how it feels. Divine retribution, the circle would be complete if Scotland would breakway from UK.

I was over summarising because I didn't want to write a long comment. It looks like I did a poor job responding as a result and wrote the sort of comment I can't stand.

Anyway, my point was that protectionism and free trade have been fighting a war for centuries. It is not true that this won't be studied. It will and has been. Because it's nothing special and new. This is garden variety protectionism.

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

#360

Post by jpatokal »

coygui wrote: post #338
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…

You are misleading people here. Top CS PHD or other PHDs won't go through H1B; they are most likely going through EB1 which is more efficient. You don't need to wait years to get a green card. Also, people from countries like Australia, Canada, Germany, don't need H1B. Only people from Iran, India, and China need H1B. The better solution, as I talked to variety people and many people suggests, is to raise the salary…

Incorrect: people from most all countries do use H1-Bs to work in the US. (Australia is a rare exception, because there's a special visa just for them, thanks to some paid-in-blood Gulf War horse trading.). However, there's a per-country quota, which is why Chinese and Indians have a hard time getting them and most Europeans don't.
Post reply on HN