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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

#431

Post by s73ver »

qaq wrote: post #279

I am always confused by all the it hurts job market for local candidates thing as it relates to tech jobs. There is huge amount of unfilled positions. The company I am at has many hundreds of open positions that they can not fill with qualified people regardless of their visa/citizenship and I am pretty sure this is not a unique situation. The pay rate is also same regardless of visa status to the best of my knowledg…

But what's your pay rate relative to other tech companies?

I have to ask, every time someone says they have lots of open positions and says they can't find qualified people: Why would someone want to come work at your company? I do not ask this to be snarky or mean, I sincerely ask. Because you need to know the answer to that question, and know it in the context of there being other companies around that probably also provide the things that you're going to say.

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

#432

Post by selimthegrim »

clairity wrote: post #428
rayiner wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in any case, we should let every person seeking higher education in the US work indefinitely in this country, not just PhDs. in fact, anyone who wants to work hard should be allowed in. all such workers will accrue a net economic benefit, as the new workers will generate more value than they consume. A country is more than just an economy of value-producing workers.

yes, absolutely. the kinds of folks that uproot themselves to move to a new country and culture to make a better life also tend to be interesting and add cultural richness as well. =)

I don't think that's the ax rayiner is grinding here.

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

#433

Post by int_19h »

humanrebar wrote: post #379
FooBarJmp wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a manager in MSFT. I can assure you that salaries aren't any different for H1B versus Citizens. I myself had a hard time find great native talents that I ended up hiring quite a few Canadians.

This thread has many comments that either ignore or are unaware of the basic economics of the situation. The contention isn't that H1Bs are paid differently. The argument is that a market with 50k more H1B engineers will result in a lower salary for a U.S. resident with that skill set. In other words, if people with that skill set were more scarce, compensation would be higher and eventually more U.S. residents would…

> The contention isn't that H1Bs are paid differently.

Actually, that is exactly the contention for many. Even if you look at other comments on this story, there are numerous claims that H1Bs are paid less.

Which is true - most H1Bs (the ones employed by "consulting" shops) are indeed paid significantly under the market, because of the leverage their employers have over them making it hard for them to negotiate for better salaries.

Your point is valid, but it's neither the most significant effect of the H1B program, nor the one that's most obviously unfair. More people competing on equal terms is a very different proposition.

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

#434

Post by shripadk »

gragas wrote: post #377
shripadk wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You make me laugh. Indians are nowhere close to Jews. Sure, Indians make up 1% of the US population, but they also make up almost one fifth of Earth's population as a whole. There are more than one billion Indians on Earth. The problem really is that you are comparing a geographic (Indian) to followers of a religion (Jews). Indians can be Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Atheists, Christians or even Jews.…

>The problem really is that you are comparing a geographic (Indian) to followers of a religion (Jews). Wrong. Keep telling yourself what you want to hear. I'm talking about Jewish ancestry (i.e., genetics), not Jewish faith. Essentially all of the genius Ashkenazi Jews were non-practicing: - John Von Neumann - Albert Einstein - Bobby Fischer - Richard Feynman - Sigmund Freud - Hans Bethe - Eugene Wigner - Milton Frie…

> I'm talking about Jewish ancestry (i.e., genetics), not Jewish faith

This has nothing to do with genetics. If genetics was at play, you would have had Jews inventing and discovering prior to 20th century too. That is not the case (at least not comparable to amount of discoveries/inventions that happened in the 20th/21st century). This was because the Jews had a level playing field. The section of Wikipedia you quote also confirms the same: "In those societies where they have been free to enter any profession, they have a record of high occupational achievement, entering professions and fields of commerce where higher education is required". The important part is "free to enter any profession". Were Indians "free to enter any profession" during the 19th-20th century?

The Jews have been migrating to the West for centuries (since at least the 17th century). Indians have been doing so only for the past 40-50 years. Those Indians who were lucky enough to get to travel to the West for education opted to become Barristers to fight the British Colonial rule legally (studying Science/Technology was the last priority for most Indians during that time). Formal education was also denied to majority of Indians during the British Raj (which wasn't the case for Jews in the West). It wasn't as easy for Indians to migrate to the West as it was for the Jews (as wealth, language barrier and travel risks played a huge role). Getting access to quality education was pretty much impossible for Indians until we gained Independence from the British Raj in 1947. I can actually turn around and say that it is quite astonishing that Indians have been so successful considering we gained freedom only 70 years ago.

I'm sure our future generations (2-3 centuries from now) would be studying about Indians in the same way as we are studying about Ashkenazi Jews today. I'm hoping they wouldn't label it as genetics and instead simply attribute it to access to quality education, wealth, prosperity, freedom and liberty.

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

#435

Post by rayiner »

clairity wrote: post #428
rayiner wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in any case, we should let every person seeking higher education in the US work indefinitely in this country, not just PhDs. in fact, anyone who wants to work hard should be allowed in. all such workers will accrue a net economic benefit, as the new workers will generate more value than they consume. A country is more than just an economy of value-producing workers.

yes, absolutely. the kinds of folks that uproot themselves to move to a new country and culture to make a better life also tend to be interesting and add cultural richness as well. =)

I'm an immigrant from Bangladesh. My parents moved here when I was about 5 years old (my dad on an H1-B). I think folks like me, my parents, and other immigrants I know contribute a lot to America. At the same time, America has given us far more than we have given it. It has Americanized us, acculturated us into views and values that are better than what we would have been acculturated into had we stayed in Bangladesh.

Working hard and being smart isn't what makes America great. Bangladeshis are smart and they work incredibly hard, but Bangladesh isn't great. It is the virtue of ordinary American people that makes our society function so well. It's the supermarket employee who goes to work the day after her preferred candidate loses an election instead of participating in a violent strike, or the telephone company worker who doesn't demand a bribe to install your phone line. You threaten to lose that if you allow "anyone who wants to work hard" to move here with no other considerations.

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

#436

Post by wcummings »

johnnyb9 wrote: post #414
wcummings wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Foreign students pay full tuition, domestic students rarely do. Simple as that. This applies to public and private schools. Universities deliberately recruit international students for this reason. I think parent is right, no international students likely means higher tuition for everyone else. If you're in doubt, ask someone who works in admissions, I expect they'll tell you the same thing.

My point is that international students may "subsidize" the university, but in practice this should have very little to do with what the university would charge its students (they are not "subsidizing" the domestic students). Implicit in your assumption is that tuition uses cost-based pricing which I find hard to believe. Admittedly this is all conjecture on my part but I don't find that line of reasoning persuasive.

Students that pay full freight absolutely subsidize those who don't, and a lot of the people who can afford full tuition are foreign.

http://blogs.wgbh.org/on-campus/2014/6/17/international-enro...

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

#437

Post by bingomad123 »

s73ver wrote: post #423
bingomad123 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's completely ignoring the fact that if you have cheaper workers Cheaper labor is good just like cheaper raw material. Trump wants American companies to buy expensive American steel instead of cheaper Japanese or Chinese steel of same quality. This is a net loss for American economy and a state sponsored coercive benefit for the American Steel industry. Personally it is both productive and economically benefici…

"Cheaper labor is good" Not for the vast majority of Americans who's only source of income is selling their labor (physical, creative, intellectual, etc).

Lookup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy

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

#438

Post by bingomad123 »

timewarrior wrote: post #281
bingomad123 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 real…

> Companies prefer this because of some tax savings of CapEx vs OpEx.

May be that is where the value of these candidates lies. But hey they are valuable in that sense else no one would have hired them in first place.

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

#439

Post by Rumudiez »

walshemj wrote: post #345
Rumudiez wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The going expectation for professional résumés is about honesty and modesty. What you say on that piece of paper should reflect what you would be able to come in the next day and be productive doing. I interviewed over 15 applicants for just front end development last week and not a single one of all the 6-page résumés from candidates who all apparently have their masters was honest: only 5 even knew what JSON is.

I would have thought JSON was more a back end

That's "JavaScript Object Notation," as in, how to use objects in JS.

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

#440

Post by s73ver »

mi100hael wrote: post #425
s73ver wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You can't completely blame the actors taking advantage of it." Why not? Are they not run by adults? Are those adults not capable of taking responsibility for their own actions?

Technically they are legally (and arguably morally) obligated to act in the best interests of the business on behalf of the shareholders who own it. It's up to the govt. and the market to define what falls under "best interests."

I would fail to see how that duty would mean they'd have to do dishonest or immoral things.
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