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Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

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Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#111

Post by UncleMeat »

YR372zm87 wrote: post #53
static_noise wrote: post #15

I don't see what makes workers born in America more important than workers born in any other country. Everybody should get the same chances.

As an American, workers born in the USA are more important to me. I care more about my neighbor's employment status, safety, and happiness than the family down the street. I care more about the guy down the street than the family across town... etc etc etc... I care more about some family in some US state that I'll never visit than a family over in India. The closer they are to me, the more their success and problems…

What makes the US border so much more meaningful than a state border? Why do you care about somebody living potentially 3000 miles away from you on the other coast more than somebody who lives much closer in Canada or Mexico? Why is immigration from places like Kansas to the valley seen as a positive sign but immigration from India to the valley is seen as stealing jobs?

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#112

Post by hiram112 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #94
salasrod wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are wrong, the H1B is a Dual intent visa, which means it can be used by non-immigrants as well as people trying to immigrate into the country.

Dual intent visas are non-immigrant visas for which it is not a violation of the visa terms for the applicant to intend to immigrate at the time they apply for and enter on the non-immigrant visa. (Non-dual-intent non-immigrant visas do not allow this, and immigration officials can and will exclude you from entry with such a visa if they believe you plan to become an immigrant.) They remain, however, non-immigrant vi…

You don't know what you're talking about. It's 85000 per year at 3 year visas x 2 renewals. Then they are able to apply for a green card.

The current estimate is that over a million H1bs (not counting those who've gotten green cards) working pridominantly in IT, nursing, and pharmacy.

This has destroyed wages and working conditions in these fields.

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#113

Post by legolas2412 »

jldugger wrote: post #105
kcorbitt wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and that financial firepower, and resulting ability to outbid everybody else, comes because they're using their workers more productively than anybody else. Successful companies should be able to command the best, most scarce resources -- that's just efficient asset allocation, and is the entire point of the free market.

Well, it's not entirely efficient allocation, if you take the daring leap to assume that rents in certain areas are not totally subject to free market forces. I know a number of people who suggest they take home more by working in the Midwest metros than they would in equivalent jobs in the West Coast hubs. It's possible that living in a high cost West Coast metro area is itself some sort of benefit, or at least bett…

Well, that solves the issue of worker exploitation.

But it won't address the America first arguments, neither the rampant abuse by service companies. If TCS sees attrition rates go from 1% to 40%. Wouldn't they just put 66% more applications (40% of 166 = 66). There is no disincentive to not flood the visas. Also, if candidates are underqualified, they aren't going to switch at all.

There is no reason to keep lottery system at all, maybe normalize by geographical location, years of experience and field of work. But it is absolutely insane to put it down to lottery and incentivize companies to flood applications.

As a personal example, I am a PhD student on a F1, but I'd prefer other countries than the uncertainty of H1B and then painful decades long GC application. Further, there aren't as many jobs for PhDs. If I was a bachelors degree holder though, I'd have a ton more candidate employers to make the risk palatable.

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#114

Post by democracy »

calvinbhai wrote: post #69

Those abusing H1b visas are companies that are usually brought in to replace aging workforce. H-1b visa holders have very limited job portability, which lets the employer abuse the system. If the H1b employee had full work authorization similar to a green card holder (give a 6 year full work auth to every H1b holder, and his/her spouse), then there wont be a question of enslaved H-1b employees trying to grab whatever…

>> give instant green cards to anyone who secures a job in US after graduating from a US university.

...opens up so many opportunities for abuse!

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#115

Post by democracy »

UncleMeat wrote: post #111
YR372zm87 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American, workers born in the USA are more important to me. I care more about my neighbor's employment status, safety, and happiness than the family down the street. I care more about the guy down the street than the family across town... etc etc etc... I care more about some family in some US state that I'll never visit than a family over in India. The closer they are to me, the more their success and problems…

What makes the US border so much more meaningful than a state border? Why do you care about somebody living potentially 3000 miles away from you on the other coast more than somebody who lives much closer in Canada or Mexico? Why is immigration from places like Kansas to the valley seen as a positive sign but immigration from India to the valley is seen as stealing jobs?

Immigration must be (1) strategically planned, (2) closely watched, (3) carefully governed. It is a lot of money, who (and why) is going to pay for it? There are no other problems left to solve?

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#116

Post by democracy »

an_cap wrote: post #87
YR372zm87 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with caring about your fellow taxpaying citizens who's vote might affect you more than someone that's possibly displacing them? If you really think everyone is so equal, then why is it okay to put your family first?

I don't think everyone is equal. I just think that everyone has certain negative rights that you must respect. For instance, you are not allowed to murder a stranger just because it accrues modest economic advantages to your family members.

But they do it in the business world all the time and everyone seems to be ok with it. Startup world's dream is to become a monopoly which means some miserable people out there.

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#117

Post by knucklesandwich »

davidw wrote: post #80

These threads always have a great mix of: * Subtle racism. * Zero-sum thinking. * Specifically, the lump of labor fallacy. * People not realizing that code is about the easiest thing in the world to ship back and forth between different countries: if a company is hell-bent on being cheap, they'll outsource rather than bring someone in. * A stunning lack of perspective on the benefits that immigrants bring to the econ…

It's incredibly weird when I find myself agreeing with someone on the right. This article is filled with lots of bullshit "its just econ 101" neoliberal cliches (and uses the beloved tactic of the right that "everything I dislike is soviet central planning and a perversion of this clearly natural and non-synthetic notion of a totally free market"). None of that is necessary to what is fundamentally an argument that should rest on moral principles. I prefer this version of the argument: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/03/the-case-for-open-borders...

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#118

Post by YR372zm87 »

invalid-access wrote: post #110
YR372zm87 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with caring about your fellow taxpaying citizens who's vote might affect you more than someone that's possibly displacing them? If you really think everyone is so equal, then why is it okay to put your family first?

"What's wrong with caring about your fellow taxpaying citizens who's vote might affect you more than someone that's possibly displacing them?" ? H1B holders pay as much tax as citizens do (more, in fact, given they cannot benefit off Social Security, but still have to contribute to it). AND they don't get to vote. What's the argument in this case?

They (and their families) haven't been paying taxes into the community their entire working lives like the natives have. The argument is that the people who have been contributing to the society more and for longer should get to see some benefits from the system before someone who has contributed literally nothing to your community shows up. That's why out of state students pay way more for tuition than in-state students at public universities.

Even if you have some wacky reason for disagreeing with this logic, then take the taxes out of it. What's wrong with caring about your fellow citizens who's vote might affect your more than someone that's possibly displacing them?

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#119

Post by dragonwriter »

hiram112 wrote: post #112
dragonwriter wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dual intent visas are non-immigrant visas for which it is not a violation of the visa terms for the applicant to intend to immigrate at the time they apply for and enter on the non-immigrant visa. (Non-dual-intent non-immigrant visas do not allow this, and immigration officials can and will exclude you from entry with such a visa if they believe you plan to become an immigrant.) They remain, however, non-immigrant vi…

You don't know what you're talking about. It's 85000 per year at 3 year visas x 2 renewals. Then they are able to apply for a green card. The current estimate is that over a million H1bs (not counting those who've gotten green cards) working pridominantly in IT, nursing, and pharmacy. This has destroyed wages and working conditions in these fields.

> You don't know what you're talking about.

Yes, I do.

> It's 85000 per year at 3 year visas x 2 renewals.

Yes, but that's not immigration, it's a temporary, guest worker status on a non-immigrant visa.

And actually it's more than 85,000/year, since campus H-1Bs are uncapped. The highest recent year I find records for is 162,000 in 2014.

> Then they are able to apply for a green card.

Actually, they can apply at any time, but they have to meet the requirements for the immigrant Visa category under which they apply and fit within it's quota. H-1B, therefore, adds nothing to immigration limits since anyone who immigrates after an H-1B does so within the quota for the visa under which they immigrate. (For post H-1B employment-based immigration, that's usually EB-1, EB-2 or EB-3.)

> The current estimate is that over a million H1bs (not counting those who've gotten green cards) working pridominantly in IT, nursing, and pharmacy.

Given the 6-year limit and the number issued each year, it's mathematically impossible for there to be over a million H-1B workers in the country. Those estimates, therefore, are wrong.

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#120

Post by YR372zm87 »

UncleMeat wrote: post #111
YR372zm87 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American, workers born in the USA are more important to me. I care more about my neighbor's employment status, safety, and happiness than the family down the street. I care more about the guy down the street than the family across town... etc etc etc... I care more about some family in some US state that I'll never visit than a family over in India. The closer they are to me, the more their success and problems…

What makes the US border so much more meaningful than a state border? Why do you care about somebody living potentially 3000 miles away from you on the other coast more than somebody who lives much closer in Canada or Mexico? Why is immigration from places like Kansas to the valley seen as a positive sign but immigration from India to the valley is seen as stealing jobs?

I care more about the Americans because they're Americans and we're on the same team and that's what teammates do. Also, how they feel affects how they vote and how they vote affects me. We have to look out for each other because the Canadians, Mexicans, and Indians sure aren't going to look our for our best interests ahead of their own. Why would they?

I don't understand why this is such a strange concept to so many people.

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