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

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

mercurynews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 95 posts

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

#41

Post by brazzledazzle »

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…

The saddest part is that they largely suck. Various degrees of suck but it’s mind blowing what people some firms are willing to inflict on their clients and who some companies are willing to employ. People that are a net-drain on the company with no end in sight, You can’t help feeling bad for the situation they’re in. Totally lost and no one signed on to mentor someone who’s greener than a fresh intern but ostensibly was supposed to “hit the ground running”.

The other part of this insanity that I have much less sympathy for is cheating. When I heard about Amazon’s remote interview process that involved taking over your computer and requiring specific camera angles I thought it was outrageous however I started to see why they did that after a few interviews where the person that showed up wasn’t the person we interviewed. They were of course the same people but upon arrival they had a completely different mind and (much less) knowledge. It was eerie. The only theory I can come up is that they had others listening in and either typing or speaking answers to them. While I don’t approve of that the reality is that exploitive companies put up with it, something they’d never do with market rate employees.

There are some that know their shit but in my experience the ones that do don’t usually take a lower salary because they don’t need to. They’re not really part of this terrible equation.

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

#42

Post by im_cynical »

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.…

Ex employee of 5 years here. It was open secret that the system was being abused.

What they would do is post a notice of intent to hire an H1B by posting the job listing in break rooms along with requirements that were clearly senior level and included a salary range for the job drastically below market average. No self respecting local would even bother applying. That's how they got away with claiming they couldn't find good local talent. They have no interest in competing in the local market.

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

#43

Post by laurencerowe »

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…

> Even in academia, where the H1B - green card process is pretty much a railroad.

Academic H1Bs are not transferable to commercial employers, so you're even more trapped than you'd otherwise be. The department I worked for at Stanford had a blanket policy not to sponsor green cards for staff. Ironically this policy made me leave earlier than I would have otherwise as I did not want to be left in limbo as I approached the 5 year H1B limit.

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

#44

Post by User23 »

redahs wrote: post #40
User23 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 in…

The United States is not currently experiencing mass immigration. Its total annual population growth rate including immigration is lower than 1% and has not been this low since the Great Depression. The United States is a relatively lightly populated country per unit of total land area, and many cities in the interior of the country are declining in population despite immigration. Housing prices are inversely correla…

The US will be minority American in 25 years as virtually every news source will gleefully tell you. The foreign migration into the USA is massive and unprecedented in history, except for the original colonization.

What you say about housing costs is not wrong, but it’s also very incomplete. Many other factors drive housing inflation, just one example is that mortgages expand the total money supply, resulting in textbook inflation. Rent seeking behavior is definitely unfortunate for the non rentier classes though.

I’m generally inclined to agree about taxing income vs assets. However it’s just as important to not punish savers as it is to not punish labor.

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

#45

Post by outworlder »

supercanuck wrote: post #36
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.…

>and absolutely the thing to do when the foreign employees bring skills not available locally ... AT THAT PRICEPOiNT. You are arguing that those software engineers should be available at the average price. Cisco has a net revenue of 12.8 billion and is dependent on software engineers Allow the salaries to rise for godsake and then lets complain about “not finding good software engineers”

It's a well known fact that abiogenesis works if you raise salaries. Raise them enough and poof, one wild network engineer appears. All companies are able to fill their positions and there will be no shortage.

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

#46

Post by outworlder »

atomical wrote: post #27
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?

That's a good point. Make the process hard enough and they will do just that. Now, not only you have (potentially) lost a US position, but now the workers are not even there to pay taxes and consume local goods and services.

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

#47

Post by outworlder »

User23 wrote: post #35
romwell wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How is not wanting competition from aliens in the labor market irrational for native workers? Extreme example: Elon Musk was not born in the US. He was an immigrant. Even ignoring the whole nation-of-immigrants ideology, surely you agree that the country and its workers may benefit from immigration? The title makes it seem like hiring any foreign workers is bad a-priori .

Committing securities violations on Twitter is a job that Americans just won’t do. Tweets are rotting on the internets! Seriously though, Elon Musk has undoubtedly benefitted from immigrating to the United States, as most immigrants do. Presumably the native born employees of Tesla and his other ventures have directly benefitted as well. Of course it’s impossible to show one way or the other that a native born entrep…

> I don’t believe Americans benefit from a level of migration that makes them a political minority in their own homeland though

Non sequitur. Is anyone even arguing that this should be the case?

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

#48

Post by whack »

im_cynical wrote: post #42
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.…

Ex employee of 5 years here. It was open secret that the system was being abused. What they would do is post a notice of intent to hire an H1B by posting the job listing in break rooms along with requirements that were clearly senior level and included a salary range for the job drastically below market average. No self respecting local would even bother applying. That's how they got away with claiming they couldn't…

Almost every company uses tactics like these. And for good reason. Most factors that actually matters in hiring (GPA, college you got the degree from, caliber of your prior companies and work experience, interview performance, general intellectual & problem solving skills) are all banned from consideration when explaining why you didn't hire a local. And once you water down the job-requirements to exclude all of the above, if even one "qualified" person applies to that job, you're hosed. Dysfunctional laws invite creative workarounds.

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

#49

Post by throwmex »

im_cynical wrote: post #42
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.…

Ex employee of 5 years here. It was open secret that the system was being abused. What they would do is post a notice of intent to hire an H1B by posting the job listing in break rooms along with requirements that were clearly senior level and included a salary range for the job drastically below market average. No self respecting local would even bother applying. That's how they got away with claiming they couldn't…

Ex H1B who immigrated to Canada here. American Express does the same thing too in Phoenix,Arizona. Salary is posted as a range in a low traffic break room. The range is 65K to 110K. That's a broad range. So the actual salary given is plausible.

Phoenix location is like a sweat shop because it has a lot of H1B workers, while the non H1b New York location has good facilities. This shows that even the facilities provided are different. Although I don't agree with Trump in most of his policies, I do agree on his H1B policies and OPT changes.

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

#50

Post by jimmaswell »

whack wrote: post #48
im_cynical wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ex employee of 5 years here. It was open secret that the system was being abused. What they would do is post a notice of intent to hire an H1B by posting the job listing in break rooms along with requirements that were clearly senior level and included a salary range for the job drastically below market average. No self respecting local would even bother applying. That's how they got away with claiming they couldn't…

Almost every company uses tactics like these. And for good reason. Most factors that actually matters in hiring (GPA, college you got the degree from, caliber of your prior companies and work experience, interview performance, general intellectual & problem solving skills) are all banned from consideration when explaining why you didn't hire a local. And once you water down the job-requirements to exclude all of the…

Maybe they should have to make a reasonable effort to train someone before hiring from overseas.
Post reply on HN