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

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

#51

Post by eyeareque »

My feeling is that these jobs should be given to US college grads first. Let them grow into the roles. Why are we letting foreigners get hired into these roles instead? Let the college grad learn on the job, instead of the external candidate.

I have noticed that they pay less for h1b workers, and this is not only at Cisco, basically everywhere I have worked.

I’ve also seen the companies write job descriptions that only fit the h1b worker so they can help them get a green card. It’s sad.

Finally, I believe that companies have too much power over a h1b worker. If they fire them, they only have a month to find a new job and then they have to fly home. It’s bad on all sides.

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

#52

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#53

Post by dmode »

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…

Do you really fear that native born citizens are being overwhelmed by immigration ? I believe US admits 0.3% of the population as immigrants every year. A fraction of that is employment based. Your fear seems to be a little bit irrational and nativist.

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

#54

Post by runesoerensen »

I'm curious how this is possible considering a certified Labor Condition Application is a requirement of, and must be submitted with, an H-1B petition. An employer essentially attests to various posting requirements, and that the wage (ranges) at least matches the average for the same job title and seniority in a specific area, among other things. The wages listed in the LCA have to be backed by wage data from for instance http://www.flcdatacenter.com.

Seems like the company would have to either misrepresent the job requirements/responsibilities/wage level (seniority).. Or perhaps they'd fake a survey of local wages rather than using the "official" statistics?

Otherwise I don't think the Department of Labor would/should certify an LCA with a wage way below market for the position. If they do, though, perhaps that's where the issue can and should be fixed?

In practice this also means that employers need to file an amended H-1B petition with a newly certified LCA when an H-1B employee moves to a new area code. For instance, if you move a H-1B software engineer from Denver to San Francisco you'll likely have to pay the employee more.

The article does point out that the issue was discovered by the Labor Department (rather than for instance the USCIS, who's responsible for processing the H-1B petition itself), so perhaps that indicates a failure to comply with LCA requirements?

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

#55

Post by dmode »

gnarcoregrizz wrote: post #8

5 out of the 6 people who interviewed me at Amazon had foreign accents. Do Americans just not go into tech anymore? Are there not enough? Do they ask for too much money? Are they too lazy? Are they not smart enough? I don't understand it. I heard they'd been hiring like crazy - I'm a pretty good software engineer but I didn't get the job. Maybe I told them I want too much money. No kids, no land, half of my wages go…

The reason is fairly simple. America has a workforce of roughly 120 million people. A fraction of those are white collar workers. A fraction of those are software engineers. A fraction of those are willing to live in coastal cities. But America has the 5 largest tech companies in the world, and significant presence of foreign companies with development centers. These companies hire millions of workers every year and would prefer to maintain most of their workers near their HQs. Thus they need a huge supply of foreign talent to complement their American workforce. After all the world has 7 billion people. If let's say visas were extremely difficult to acquire, these companies would open massive development operations where it is easier to hire global talent

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

#56

Post by supercanuck »

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?

Because then they would have to hire Indian management and that would reduce the benefit

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

#57

Post by dmode »

runesoerensen wrote: post #54

I'm curious how this is possible considering a certified Labor Condition Application is a requirement of, and must be submitted with, an H-1B petition. An employer essentially attests to various posting requirements, and that the wage (ranges) at least matches the average for the same job title and seniority in a specific area, among other things. The wages listed in the LCA have to be backed by wage data from for in…

Because Cisco is "underpaying" H1 workers is a myth that a lot of HN posters like to believe. Here's the data

https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=Cisco+Systems+Inc&job=Soft...

Cisco median pay in San Jose is $122k. This is before bonus and RSU as DOL doesn't accept those as salary. So basically median pay is around $150K

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

#58

Post by runesoerensen »

dmode wrote: post #57
runesoerensen wrote: post #54

I'm curious how this is possible considering a certified Labor Condition Application is a requirement of, and must be submitted with, an H-1B petition. An employer essentially attests to various posting requirements, and that the wage (ranges) at least matches the average for the same job title and seniority in a specific area, among other things. The wages listed in the LCA have to be backed by wage data from for in…

Because Cisco is "underpaying" H1 workers is a myth that a lot of HN posters like to believe. Here's the data https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=Cisco+Systems+Inc&job=Soft... Cisco median pay in San Jose is $122k. This is before bonus and RSU as DOL doesn't accept those as salary. So basically median pay is around $150K

> Cisco median pay in San Jose is $122k.

Yes that seems to be pretty close to the mean wage in San Jose for a likely "Software Engineer" job code: http://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesQuickResults.aspx?area=41940... Cisco's (posted) wages span the different levels of that job description pretty well as far as I can tell.

However it's probably important to note that LCA data (e.g. the data on h1bdata.info) doesn't actually say anything about how much Cisco's paying. Those are just the wages Cisco has submitted in LCAs, but I don't think there's any way to verify that an LCA is connected to and used for an approved H-1B petition and actual employment of a foreign worker.

> Because Cisco is "underpaying" H1 workers is a myth that a lot of HN posters like to believe

Not sure about HN reader bias (*see edit below), but in this case the Labor Department clearly found some wrongdoing on Cisco's part. Would be interesting to know what that is? Perhaps Cisco is filing all these LCAs to signal that's they're employing workers in all wage levels, but only use the certified LCAs with the lower wages when submitting H-1B petitions?

Edit: OK, I'll admit that I do actually know about HN bias a few years back. That was abundantly clear from the shitshow that was the HN discussion about pg's "Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8799572

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

#59

Post by dmode »

runesoerensen wrote: post #58
dmode wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Cisco is "underpaying" H1 workers is a myth that a lot of HN posters like to believe. Here's the data https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=Cisco+Systems+Inc&job=Soft... Cisco median pay in San Jose is $122k. This is before bonus and RSU as DOL doesn't accept those as salary. So basically median pay is around $150K

> Cisco median pay in San Jose is $122k. Yes that seems to be pretty close to the mean wage in San Jose for a likely "Software Engineer" job code: http://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesQuickResults.aspx?area=41940... Cisco's (posted) wages span the different levels of that job description pretty well as far as I can tell. However it's probably important to note that LCA data (e.g. the data on h1bdata.info) doesn't actually…

You could potentially argue that if Cisco and others didn't hire H1 workers, maybe the median wage in San Jose would be $200k. But that sounds like a little bit of a stretch. I also think about roles like HR and Marketing that do not have much competition from immigrants, but are still very low paying. I bet the median wage of HR role in San Jose will be much lower

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

#60

Post by somethingwitty1 »

supercanuck wrote: post #56
atomical wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Because then they would have to hire Indian management and that would reduce the benefit

But Amazon does have offices in India...many of them: https://www.amazon.jobs/locations/?&continent=asia_pacific&c...
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