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

Executive order expected to suspend H-1B, other visas until end of year

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 684 posts

Re: Executive order expected to suspend H-1B, other visas until end of year

#71

Post by rantwasp »

jpollock wrote: post #34
tinyhouse wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My educated guess is that the majority of this year's H-1B are already in the US. I wonder what it would mean for them.

This year's H1-Bs don't start until October 1st, and they can't enter the US "early". https://redbus2us.com/h1b-visa-petition-filing-deadline-is-i... .

i don’t know how this suspension would work but the H1B is held in April. I would assume most people have had their visa processed by now but it’s possible i’m just if ignorant.

Regarding suspending H1Bs here is some not so breaking news: people on those visas are targeting jobs where no qualified people exist to fill them. Those people, by coming to the US create real value and increase the economic output of the US. They are also, in general, really smart people that fuel innovation. If you kill innovation the US is done.

Re: Executive order expected to suspend H-1B, other visas until end of year

#72

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

retortio wrote: post #59

H1-B was intended for highly skilled workers that the US had a real shortage of. But now it's just being abused to bring in captive workers that are willing to accept lower wages and worse working conditions than otherwise while crowding out US workers. What if, instead of bowing to corporate greed which cares not a bit for our country or our people, we actually invested in our own population and trained them to do t…

I was very surprised to learn 70% of Apple engineers are H1B hires - but i don’t know if this is the case currently.

Agree that domestic training should be invested.

Edit: sorry, clarified Apple not SV as a whole - and it was a Vice Or Vox article, so I should probably know better.

Re: Executive order expected to suspend H-1B, other visas until end of year

#73

Post by lern_too_spel »

retortio wrote: post #33
godzillabrennus wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Facebook/twitter/google wanted to play with fire they could use their platformS to basically vanquish the GOP. Those three companies control a significant amount of what people see online.

Hooray for a few corporations controlling almost everything we see online! It's ok because it's "my side" that has the power! Principles be damned, life is a power grab and I'm on the winning side, yippee! This will never turn out badly for me or anyone else in the future!

The "other side" has been playing these games with school board book standards and redistricting. It's naive to think that one side's restraint will be paid back with restraint from the other side. A better tactic might be to exploit as much as you can, so the other side also calls for reforms.

The same could be said for any loophole. If you don't exploit it, that does not mean that nobody else will exploit it. You should push for the loophole to be fixed while exploiting it to show why.

Re: Executive order expected to suspend H-1B, other visas until end of year

#74

Post by oneplane »

theonemind wrote: post #37
iamacyborg wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, we can expect restaurant staff to soon be working tech jobs.

The average H1B doesn't seem to have a PhD or get more than $100,000/yr (indicating that they can't do something that rare or valuable that you likely can't find in the American labor pool). It seems pretty clear to me that the program gets abused and Americans could fill most of those jobs. It does, of course, also fulfill its intended purpose of supplying skilled talent when/where Americans can't.

You don't need a Phd or a lot of money to have a skill that an American doesn't have. Assuming that those things are 'indicators' doesn't seem to be based on anything.

The difference here is that America has a large 'labour' pool, but the roles you need filled aren't as much just clocking in and out doing some random task, but have requirements that are harder to meet and apparently aren't met by the available Americans. Assuming malice isn't very constructive and to do something about it that actually helps anything needs some backing information.

The other way around: most people don't really want to work in the USA and will only go if the money is right. This also means that the company in the USA that is trying to find someone to fill a gap in their needs might have to spend twice as much getting their problem solved. At the same time, the amount of Americans asked to work outside of the USA is rather low as there aren't that many special skilled people that aren't already available. If you check out the sources listed at the WikiPedia page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_diaspora you'll find that a lot of emigration happens for other reasons, and only a small part is related to special skills needed in emerging markets (which are markets that need a lot of skilled people but are not very attractive to a lot of people due to cultural differences or stability worries).

Re: Executive order expected to suspend H-1B, other visas until end of year

#75

Post by noobermin »

Some of these make no real sense, like L1 and J1 visas, which are so few and uncommon and are often granted to individuals. J1's for example are for researchers coming abroad to collaborate with scientists here, there isn't a real argument that J1's are taking jobs from anyone else that I can tell. Not that anyone should be travelling at all this year but one would have to see if they get extended after covid dies down.

L1s also look like they're geared towards essentially overseas managers moving to the US, particularly in the case of a single international company moving their executives around physically.

Re: Executive order expected to suspend H-1B, other visas until end of year

#77

Post by x0x0 »

oneplane wrote: post #62
WillPostForFood wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

College graduate unemployment rate is over 8%, up from 2% a few months ago. There are a lot of skilled, educated, unemployed workers right now. I wouldn’t kick out H-1Bs, but no reason take in new ones right now. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CGRA2534

You do know that H-1B's are already only in because there was no American that could do it, right? Plenty of education and skill in the USA that doesn't have a fitting job (right now) to put that to use. Say there are 100000 MBA's but you need someone who knows how to run a kubernetes cluster with a custom syscall shim for a modified kernel and there is someone in Norway who knows how to do that. Even combining all t…

The number of recent layoffs make it clear that there are plenty of people perfectly capable of performing even your pretend scenario. See eg http://layoffs.fyi/ and also eng layoffs at Uber, Samsara, etc.

Re: Executive order expected to suspend H-1B, other visas until end of year

#78

Post by ckaygusu »

retortio wrote: post #59

H1-B was intended for highly skilled workers that the US had a real shortage of. But now it's just being abused to bring in captive workers that are willing to accept lower wages and worse working conditions than otherwise while crowding out US workers. What if, instead of bowing to corporate greed which cares not a bit for our country or our people, we actually invested in our own population and trained them to do t…

You can easily achieve this by raising wage requirements, instead of essentially having nothing changed and making the whole US a big open air prison for foreign skilled workers.

Re: Executive order expected to suspend H-1B, other visas until end of year

#79

Post by noncoml »

Xenophobia is a bitch. A few years ago I experienced an atrial fibrillation while exercising, so I called an ambulance, as I didn't know what was happening to me and thought that that was the end.

Once in the ambulance the paramedic started asking me where I am from and if I came in on one of "those visas".

I was afraid I was about to die, and this fucker was being xenophobic.

Re: Executive order expected to suspend H-1B, other visas until end of year

#80

Post by samfisher83 »

belltaco wrote: post #38

This is great news for Canada. Once the Covid situation resolves, if Trudeau doesn't give a lot of incentives for tech companies to build offices there Canada will miss out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Canada has already been benefiting from the recent restrictions on work visas and rejecting visas for no reason, for example by saying a forensic pathologist isn't a specialty occupation. https://www.npr.org/20…

People in Canada aren't making US salaries. Most people want to go to the US for the money.
Post reply on HN