Cisco ‘secured visas for foreign workers instead of hiring US citizens’: report • Hacker News Board

Re: Cisco ‘secured visas for foreign workers instead of hiring US citizens’: report

#21

Post by redahs » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 12:09 AM UTC

User23 wrote: post #15

Karishmra1234 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are not enough Young Americans anymore. That sound weird but true. Also a college grad fresh out of college can not compete with the huge supply of experienced and better Indian/Chinese/Korean engineers.

I’ve worked with multiple American and Canadian interns who were far more technically proficient and productive than senior level foreign labor. Everyone knows that people subconsciously prefer to hire people who look like them. This affects Asians too. It’s self evident that organizations with Asian hiring managers prefer to hire their own people. I know this won’t sit well with some people here, but it’s observably…

The previous explanation of declining fertility rates is a real effect which should not be ignored. Since the 1970s, increases to payroll taxes and decreases to taxes on property and capital gains have increased the tax burden on younger working families relative to older families and inflated the cost of housing. This has prevented American families to afford having as many children as early in life, and caused native fertility rates to decline below the population replacement rate.

An expanding economy which is increasing in specialization requires additional workers to fill these specialized niches. If native fertility rates are declining, then immigrants are likely to fill these roles.

Re: Cisco ‘secured visas for foreign workers instead of hiring US citizens’: report

#22

Post by rule_follower » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 12:13 AM UTC

romwell wrote: post #6

Securing visas for (and hiring) foreign workers instead of citizens, in itself, is not criminal or wrong -- and absolutely the thing to do when the foreign employees bring skills not available locally. The problem is when this process is used to save on salaries, favoring foreigners over locals on the basis of being able to pay foreigners less only. The article alleges (without evidence!†) that this is what happened.…

>dey turk ur jerbs

This sniffling condescension toward those in our society who have and continue to lose out to corporate interests who have sold out the American worker is vile. When employment and income prospects of citizens are reduced and dimmed at all levels, be it farm workers or IT gods, because corporations are importing foreigners to replace them (whether directly or indirectly) and the government is either complicit in or utterly passive toward the situation, it is entirely reasonable to be angry and feel betrayed. Early labor organizers would have long ago (hell, as recently as the mid-90s) risen up in arms over this. That organized labor utters not a peep tells us very clearly that such movements are dead.

Re: Cisco ‘secured visas for foreign workers instead of hiring US citizens’: report

#23

Post by romwell » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 12:18 AM UTC

saas_sam wrote: post #13

romwell wrote: post #6

Securing visas for (and hiring) foreign workers instead of citizens, in itself, is not criminal or wrong -- and absolutely the thing to do when the foreign employees bring skills not available locally. The problem is when this process is used to save on salaries, favoring foreigners over locals on the basis of being able to pay foreigners less only. The article alleges (without evidence!†) that this is what happened.…

What software skills are "not available locally" in Silicon Valley that need to be imported from places like India? No, these are available locally, just not at the rate Cisco wanted to pay. I've worked at many tech cos and this is very common. Companies will post jobs and even sometimes send email blasts to "help find us an Android developer!" but it's all for show in case they get audited -- they have to prove they…

>HA! Not in Bay Area, not for a senior hire. That's a good salary for an engineer that's a few years out of college. Hardly competitive for anything beyond that.

I agree; but 1)it's an average figure, and 2)we don't know how many visa-holding employees are senior; perhaps many of them are a few years out of college.

As I said, we would need more data to argue either way -- unless you say that people a few years out of college may never possess unique skills. In which case I disagree; I've known US citizens with a PhD get this much.

>What software skills are "not available locally" in Silicon Valley that need to be imported from places like India?

I should also add that many (if not the majority) of the people who get a PhD in the US are not US citizens and need a visa.

Re: Cisco ‘secured visas for foreign workers instead of hiring US citizens’: report

#24

Post by throwaway6789 » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 12:19 AM UTC

romwell wrote: post #20

patricklynch wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> favoring foreigners over locals on the basis of being able to pay foreigners less only Hypothetically, if you were a Machiavellian hiring manager: You would also prefer a foreigner on a visa because they would have less freedom to leave the company than an equally paid employee who wasn't worried that quitting a job would risk being forced out of the country. Also this would make the foreigner more worried about th…

Quite unfortunately, your Machiavellian hiring manager is simply the hiring manager, from what I heard about companies like Infosys. It's hard to imagine this not being abused. Even in academia, where the H1B - green card process is pretty much a railroad. I've seen a department drag out the green card process over the span of years - out of fears that the professor in question might just jump ship and ditch the rat…

Not just Infosys. Here is one Indian h1b talking about his experience in Intel: https://youtu.be/ge9LQQfckUY?t=117

His words after joining Intel: "That was the first time I found out all these managers in US blatantly use h1b situation to make people work more than others".

Re: Cisco ‘secured visas for foreign workers instead of hiring US citizens’: report

#25

Post by AvocadoPanic » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 12:22 AM UTC

gnarcoregrizz wrote: post #17

Karishmra1234 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are not enough Young Americans anymore. That sound weird but true. Also a college grad fresh out of college can not compete with the huge supply of experienced and better Indian/Chinese/Korean engineers.

> Also a college grad fresh out of college can not compete with the huge supply of experienced and better Indian/Chinese/Korean engineers. Yes, my skills are diluted when competing against billions of people, rather than millions.

Come to the dark side / defense industry. It's only citizens in my office.

Re: Cisco ‘secured visas for foreign workers instead of hiring US citizens’: report

#26

Post by romwell » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 12:25 AM UTC

rule_follower wrote: post #22

romwell wrote: post #6

Securing visas for (and hiring) foreign workers instead of citizens, in itself, is not criminal or wrong -- and absolutely the thing to do when the foreign employees bring skills not available locally. The problem is when this process is used to save on salaries, favoring foreigners over locals on the basis of being able to pay foreigners less only. The article alleges (without evidence!†) that this is what happened.…

>dey turk ur jerbs This sniffling condescension toward those in our society who have and continue to lose out to corporate interests who have sold out the American worker is vile. When employment and income prospects of citizens are reduced and dimmed at all levels, be it farm workers or IT gods, because corporations are importing foreigners to replace them (whether directly or indirectly) and the government is eithe…

The sniffling condescension is towards the sentiment, not the people or the general idea of protecting the job market.

Unionizing and making sure visa workers don't get paid less and exploited? Hell yes. Making the process of obtaining visa and immigrating here a living hell for the people that, by all logic, deserve to be and are needed here? "dey turk ur jerbs".

Also, "imported workers" should not be conflated with "people who don't hold a US green card". The latter category includes people who gave 5-7 years to this country while getting a PhD here, for example.

Re: Cisco ‘secured visas for foreign workers instead of hiring US citizens’: report

#27

Post by atomical » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 12:26 AM UTC

cmurf wrote: post #4

I think quite a lot of companies are visa reliant. Amazon's H-1B issuance is up 78%. https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/08/13/h-1b-use-skyrocketed-... Meanwhile there are a bunch of northeast restaurants and crab houses who can't get H-2B seasonal workers at all, and very much need them - they're not getting Americans to do that work. http://www.wboc.com/story/38923157/empty-crab-houses-look-to... Seems like a dispropo…

Why does Amazon need to use H1-B when it can open offices overseas and pay workers low wages?

Re: Cisco ‘secured visas for foreign workers instead of hiring US citizens’: report

#28

Post by romwell » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 12:27 AM UTC

donmcronald wrote: post #18

romwell wrote: post #6

Securing visas for (and hiring) foreign workers instead of citizens, in itself, is not criminal or wrong -- and absolutely the thing to do when the foreign employees bring skills not available locally. The problem is when this process is used to save on salaries, favoring foreigners over locals on the basis of being able to pay foreigners less only. The article alleges (without evidence!†) that this is what happened.…

Allowing the exploitation of foreign workers like that is bad for your country too. I'm Canadian, but some of our big companies use a similar strategy. Imagine being the foreign worker. You know you're being taken advantage of, many locals dislike you, the benefit is temporary, and it's endorsed by the government. It's a smart deal in terms of personal gain, but you're not stupid so you know you're being taken advant…

>Every time you see an article like this, make sure people understand that foreigners aren't taking our jobs. We're all being mistreated and exploited by the same greedy companies.

That's exactly what I was trying to do with the comment. I agree with what you wrote fully.

Re: Cisco ‘secured visas for foreign workers instead of hiring US citizens’: report

#29

Post by donmcronald » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 12:28 AM UTC

romwell wrote: post #6

Securing visas for (and hiring) foreign workers instead of citizens, in itself, is not criminal or wrong -- and absolutely the thing to do when the foreign employees bring skills not available locally. The problem is when this process is used to save on salaries, favoring foreigners over locals on the basis of being able to pay foreigners less only. The article alleges (without evidence!†) that this is what happened.…

They should have to pay more than the average salary. Assuming they have equal abilities, a local worker should be preferred over a foreign worker. That kind of social contract encourages locals to invest in education because they know they won't have to compete against a global workforce. IMO it's not a good idea to increase dependence on foreign workers and, in turn, foreign education systems.

Re: Cisco ‘secured visas for foreign workers instead of hiring US citizens’: report

#30

Post by User23 » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 12:30 AM UTC

redahs wrote: post #21

User23 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve worked with multiple American and Canadian interns who were far more technically proficient and productive than senior level foreign labor. Everyone knows that people subconsciously prefer to hire people who look like them. This affects Asians too. It’s self evident that organizations with Asian hiring managers prefer to hire their own people. I know this won’t sit well with some people here, but it’s observably…

The previous explanation of declining fertility rates is a real effect which should not be ignored. Since the 1970s, increases to payroll taxes and decreases to taxes on property and capital gains have increased the tax burden on younger working families relative to older families and inflated the cost of housing. This has prevented American families to afford having as many children as early in life, and caused nati…

Maybe that’s true. Or maybe the arrow of causality runs the other way and increased labor supply and housing demand due to mass immigration of foreign labor drives down wages and drives up housing costs, thereby reducing native fertility rates.

Edit: I wonder to what extent the US current account deficit is funding west coast real estate valuations. I know Chinese cash buyers were a big part of the Vancouver price increases.