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

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

#201

Post by KingTen »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #189
KingTen wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh you’re one of those open borders people. It’s idealistic but unfeasible now. Countries need to take care of their own people first and foremost.

Oh you're one of those closed borders people. I don't think we should discriminate against people because of something they were born with. Just as we don't discriminate against people because of their skin color, I don't think we should discriminate because of their ancestry or place of birth either.

There’s plenty of people living in poverty in America, along with the multitude of other major problems right now. I’m not a closed border person, we need immigrants. But we don’t have the resources to help every single person who wants to come here. It’s not discrimination, that’s a terrible argument. It’s a government helping its people.

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

#203

Post by runawaybottle »

vsskanth wrote: post #172
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…

Reposting my response from a different thread: Every time you file an H1B Visa, you pay something called a ACWIA Fee (“American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act of 1998”). For employers who have between 1-25 full-time workers, the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act fee is $750. For employers with 26 or more full-time employees, the fee is $1,500. [1] This fee was established to fund t…

Free college I guess.

Oh wait...

That’s a very interesting thing, I had no idea. So a sensible thing to do would be to increase that fee substantially and have it go straight to subsidizing degree programs that aren’t creating enough home grown talent.

In other words, the company should expect to pay close to market rate per H1B plus the fee.

We remove the incentives to abuse the program for cost reduction, and straight up use the fees to fund college.

That brings me to some weird job posts that I keep seeing for some large bank. The role was for ‘Specialist’ developer, and I wonder if it really is some specialist role that they can’t fill in a major city (seemed like typical web developer stuff).

Shrugs, say it ain’t so, would hate to know that’s how it’s being gamed.

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

#204

Post by m0zg »

fredfoobar wrote: post #100
m0zg wrote: post #46

As a former H1-B: makes sense. H1-B is abused a lot, and importing new entry-level workers when unemployment is at record highs after COVID makes zero sense. Although I'm sure Hawaiian judge will disagree.

Are you telling me that the 85000 jobs this saves will go to the millions of unemployed (low skilled) workers who will learn learn to code and manage the codebase at some company? Huh, I hadn't thought of that. Maybe they'll hire 3 or 4 of the unemployed folks to replace each h1b so that they can "group code", it might work. Also, LOVE your logical reasoning that went from "H1-B is abused a lot" => "Ban it".

> Ban it

It's not "banned", the proposal is to temporarily suspend it. When it is resumed, however, I would ask that they put a lower bound on the wages paid. Say, $100K for programmers - the "real" middle class living wage where I live. That will reduce abuse significantly. To reduce it even further, switch to the auction system, where a fixed size quota is allocated, and employers "bid" salaries for workers. I do have skin in this game: I'm paid a lot, and this will create more competition for me, but it will improve the ridiculous situation where people get into debt to get degrees and then can't find jobs. Why anyone in the US be against this is a mystery to me.

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

#205

Post by conanbatt »

hcurtiss wrote: post #180
pmoriarty wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 the jobs H1-B workers currently do." Who's this "our people" you're talking about? As a US citizen, I consider every person in the world as part of my people, and I don't begrudge any individual coming and working or training in the US. The more people,…

All else being equal, I think most people prioritize their own country and countrymen over others', and would not sacrifice their own countrymen to benefit others'. You may not share this view, but I think most people do. Most people consider themselves a part of a national team, and they feel some loyalty to their teammates.

That doesn't explain having imports of any kind.

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

#206

Post by GhostVII »

noobermin wrote: post #75

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 do…

J1 visas are what all the tech companies use for interns from Canada. Technically you aren't allowed to work under a J1 visa, but everyone seems to be doing that anyways - tech companies will always say that you are going to be treated just like a full-time employee during the interview, and then say you are only in the US for training when applying for the visa.

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

#208

Post by noobermin »

roskilli wrote: post #144
noobermin wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If some of your best friends are H1-B workers wouldn't the right answer be changing the regulations such that companies must pay market rate (as in for the US labor market, not internationally) for H1-B employees here?

In the companies I've worked at, H1-B workers get compensated in software engineering roles just as well as their peers, I've also seen outliers where it's significantly higher (depending on when they joined, how much in demand they were with competing offers, etc).

I getting seemingly contradictory comments here but one could weave a coherent story out of all of them:

1) H1B's get salaries that are comparable to US engineer salaries.

2) A middleman takes a big bite out of that, the engineer thus takes home less.

3) H1B's are essentially like most immigrants, indentured servants who have no freedom to leave their employers, thus have little leverage asking for promotions or even autonomy as an employee.

4) Companies probably are most aware of 3) but it seems like at least for FAANG the biggest factor is they don't want to invest in training people and rather want people who already are skilled and such. It's probably true if you draw your net very tightly yes anyone can find that there aren't enough qualified workers out there who won't demand I guess near half a mill salaries.

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

#209

Post by pstrateman »

vsskanth wrote: post #172
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…

Reposting my response from a different thread: Every time you file an H1B Visa, you pay something called a ACWIA Fee (“American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act of 1998”). For employers who have between 1-25 full-time workers, the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act fee is $750. For employers with 26 or more full-time employees, the fee is $1,500. [1] This fee was established to fund t…

That's 1-2 USD per person in the US.

The couch cushions maybe?

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

#210

Post by goostavos »

jaaron wrote: post #161
noobermin wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this true? The argument I've seen is that H1B's are liked by SV because they can be paid less.

My anecdotal experience as a hiring manager in tech firms for over a decade: it’s not about money, it’s about quickly finding qualified employees. Unemployment has been (until recently) low. There wasn’t some large supply of unemployed, qualified engineers sitting around. Nearly everyone I hired already had a job. Expanding the search globally just gave me a better chance of finding someone.

>Expanding the search globally just gave me a better chance of finding someone

At the price point you wanted. A pool of eager H1Bs reduces the need for companies on the same block to be competitive on wages.

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