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H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colleges over American grads

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Re: H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colleges over American grads

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They pay competitively for their location. Pay is determined by demand and supply. If you sort H1Bs by pay, the places with highest cost of living will get all of the H1Bs. Perhaps a better idea is to do the same thing, but on pay that is normalized against a cost of living index.

The salary is a proxy for how valuable a job is to the economy. So sorting by salary effectively awards the visas to arguably the most valuable jobs. Also, federal government maximizes it's tax revenue from the visa holders when the visas are awarded by salary.

not true. if company X has a satellite office in low COL area. each engineer produces the same value but gets paid less therefore the company has more profit. and govt gets more corporate tax.

Re: H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colleges over American grads

#182
post #14

Granted that H-1B visas should ostensibly be filled only for positions where it is difficult to find qualified American citizens or permanent residents, but in all honesty are the Department of Labor's allegations really that surprising? In the Bay Area, qualified job candidates are so scarce that it's quite common for citizens/permanent-residents to change jobs frequently. H1-B candidates are attractive for companie…

Seems like such a simple issue to fix: the only condition for getting a specialist visa should be to find an employer willing to pay a specialist salary, say above 150K. Doctors included, I see no reason to protect them from competition. Hop jobs at will but need to maintain within 85% of that level. If a company can't find workers, it should pay more up until a level that puts the competitiveness of the economy unde…

That's a very IT/bay area specific view. You can be well respected with a long career in many industries and not make 150k.

Re: H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colleges over American grads

#183
post #104

Granted that H-1B visas should ostensibly be filled only for positions where it is difficult to find qualified American citizens or permanent residents, but in all honesty are the Department of Labor's allegations really that surprising? In the Bay Area, qualified job candidates are so scarce that it's quite common for citizens/permanent-residents to change jobs frequently. H1-B candidates are attractive for companie…

Why is it not okay to discriminate on the basis of your skin color at birth but okay to discriminate on the basis of which side of a border you were born in? Surely, there would a lot of outrage in HN if someone said - "Granted that H1-Black visas should ostensibly be filled only for positions where it is difficult to find qualified whites"?

Let us know your experience with going on an Israeli forum and saying the same thing re Jewish immigration.

Then go to a Ghana forum and critique the right of return law for any black people who want to emigrate to Ghana.

Re: H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colleges over American grads

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Granted that H-1B visas should ostensibly be filled only for positions where it is difficult to find qualified American citizens or permanent residents Sorry the be the bearer of bad news but American developers, on the average, must suck. Developers, on average across the country, make around twice the local average yearly income, so there is clearly not a shortage for a lack of financial compensation. In my exper…

The best engineers I have ever worked with have been American.

They are probably not representative of the average.

Re: H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colleges over American grads

#186

Maybe it's my own sample bias. Aren't graduates in top CS schools largely international students?

You may be correct, but possibly for the wrong reasons that you are are inferring.

The University of California lost a lawsuit in which they were accused of preferring international students to in-state and out-of-state students because the international students could afford the higher tuitions. UC has several of the top CS schools in the nation.

It's possible that the we could could replace many of those accepted with US students, but it would take a major audit of the university systems to find out.

Re: H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colleges over American grads

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They pay competitively for their location. Pay is determined by demand and supply. If you sort H1Bs by pay, the places with highest cost of living will get all of the H1Bs. Perhaps a better idea is to do the same thing, but on pay that is normalized against a cost of living index.

I don't think CoL indeces are relevant because salaries are based on how much value a developer brings to the business. Suppose you have two jobs: $140k in NYC, and $100k in Dallas. If only one company can get an H1B, IMO it should clearly be the NYC company. The NYC job will yield higher personal income federal income taxes. Also the NYC job is delivering at least $40k more value to the business than the Dallas job.…

Salaries are not based on the value a company gets, but on supply and demand of workers. If the said developer brings in $200k of value to me, but I can hire the developer for $100k a year in Dallas, then I am going to hire them in Dallas. The reason I am willing to pay $140k and hire in NY is because the same developer cannot be found in Dallas. So it is possible that the Dallas employee is actually more valuable to the company ($100k profit vs $60k profit), but they still have to pay more just because people are not willing to move to Dallas from NY.

Indexing on CoL will help is better distributing wealth across the country - think of the impact of $100k going into Dallas economy vs $140k going into NY economy. So there are some long-term benefits to the economy in general.

Re: H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colleges over American grads

#188
post #162
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a one-sided point of view. Imagine that you're immigrating to a country, and after a few years you get fire, or you want to take a sabbatical, or you want to change industry for a lower paying job. Now under your rules you cannot do that. What do you do? You've created your life in the US, you have friends, perhaps a girlfriend, maybe even a house. Now you have to leave?

As an immigrant to another country, that's just how it is. It's a risk I accepted the day I decided to pack up and get on the plane. I'll definitely be upset if things don't work out in my current home, but I'm prepared for the possibility. If anyone out there expects their new country to bend over backwards for them and try to keep them from returning to their old country, they're either not fit for the difficulties…

US immigration laws aren’t just economical but also rooted on how the country was built, by immigrants (eg jus-solis and diversity ratios).

Particularly to the H1b, the discussion is about cost of transaction (I.e.: changing jobs). There is no bending over in the US labor market.

Re: H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colleges over American grads

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And have basically all H1Bs go to Silicon Valley/Seattle/NYC tech companies? (You really should think things through before suggesting them as solutions, especially when the problems are complex.)

Why can't companies in other locations pay competitively?

Supply & Demand. Profit driven economies always find & exploit loopholes.
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