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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

#371

Post by shuckles »

x87678r wrote: post #268

Reminder of the top H1B employers. Its not about high tech workers in SV. https://www.h1bdata.org/employers Employer Name Employees Hired (All Years) Infosys Limited 182,945 Tata Consultancy Services Limited 102,722 Deloitte Consulting Llp 65,976 Wipro Limited 63,354 Accenture Llp 51,360 Ibm India Private Limited 47,839 Capgemini America Inc 40,954 Microsoft Corporation 40,828 Ernst Young Us Llp 38,631 Cognizant Tech…

Your argument would be more convincing if Microsoft wasn't on the list. Even by the evidence you present, _both_ high tech employers are large H1-B consulting firms would be impacted.

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

#372

Post by tdrp »

codelord wrote: post #355
SomeoneFromCA wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very strange that people in this comment section shout "nationalism, BAD" when someone says that skilled people should stay in their own country and potentially help these countries to grow out of poverty, and statements like the one you just made - essentially rob these country of talented people and bring them into US - is somehow not nationalistic and good.

I left my country to escape a totalitarian regime. I think just because you are born in a place doesn't mean you have the responsibility to completely sacrifice your life. Humans collectively have an obligation to help lift poor countries out of poverty. The question is are you against immigration because you genuinely care about the poverty in my country?

For me it wasn't totalitarian but "corrupt beyond salvation" (think bottom 50 on corruption index). A friend of mine recently went back and lasted six months before he came back to the US - he opened a startup and had to deal with bribes, threats, blackmail and "forced partnerships". I myself would never go back there.

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

#373

Post by yibg »

codelord wrote: post #313

Disclaimer: I'm an immigrant. There are companies like Cognizant/InfoSys/Tata/... whose business model is based on abusing the H1B system, and that's obviously wrong and I'm quite surprised they get away with it. I'm not defending that. To those who broadly argue against skilled visas, consider this: Most H1B immigrants are between 20-30 age range. The prime age to join the workforce. Think how much investment you ha…

Also (if we leave aside the abusers like InfoSys etc), employers pay an additional cost for H1B visa workers (comparable salary + the cost of sponsoring the visa itself). Presumably this means there is a net benefit to the American company doing the hiring to be hiring these H1B workers. Seems like a win-win situation here all around.

If the concern is with abuse, then let's crack down on that.

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

#374

Post by noncoml »

greatwhitenorth wrote: post #274

In this thread, people who have no clue about how H1B works are making dumb comments (both for and against) with such confidence. Before some one asks me, I was a H1B visa holder and know how the system works. It makes me think how many such people are commenting in other threads that they've no clue about. Never ever follow any advice from a HN thread is a good rule to follow.

Maybe, but your comment doesn't help much either.

If you think someone made an erroneous comment, it would be good to correct them by replying to it, or just summarize the common misconceptions and share your expertise in a top level comment.

Saying that people are making dumb comments, I know how it works, but then not following up, is not in the spirit of HN

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

#375

Post by diegof79 »

koolba wrote: post #315
vishakh82 wrote: post #299

So many people here are celebrating this order due to its supposed abstract benefits but are somehow unaware of the its cruelty. So many visa holders in this country will be unable to leave and enter the country for the foreseeable future. If they have sick parents abroad they will not be able to visit them or, in the most tragic circumstances, say goodbye in person. It won't matter whether someone is a world-class r…

> So many people here are celebrating this order due to its supposed abstract benefits but are somehow unaware of the its cruelty. To be blunt, a nation's citizens and permanent residents' rights to economic prosperity outweigh any temporary worker's right to continued employment. Yes it may be viewed as cruel in the individual case, but the point of these visas are not to provide a vehicle for those workers to come…

I know this is a politically sensitive topic, so full disclaimer: I live outside the US but I work (and worked) for a company whose headquarters are in the US. So I know people in different visa situations.

I see this type of measure as something that has a xenophobic base. The economic problem can be approached by applying sanctions to companies that use visas for cheap labor, not to the immigrants. But that type of action will be seen from a part of the US society as anti-capitalist because it attacks companies and businesses. So a big chunk of the society prefers the xenophobic idea of blaming the immigrants because they "steal" the job positions, but very little is said about the companies that abuse from cheap labor to be competitive.

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

#376

Post by okapple »

codelord wrote: post #313

Disclaimer: I'm an immigrant. There are companies like Cognizant/InfoSys/Tata/... whose business model is based on abusing the H1B system, and that's obviously wrong and I'm quite surprised they get away with it. I'm not defending that. To those who broadly argue against skilled visas, consider this: Most H1B immigrants are between 20-30 age range. The prime age to join the workforce. Think how much investment you ha…

H1B Employee with 100k Salary contributes $12,400 to Social Security and $2,900 Medicare every year. (Total:$15,300 per year).

Majority H1B from India and China are stuck in green card backlog; with the current immigration system, they will never get the green card. Option for them is to stay in the USA on H1B in green card waiting queue or return home. (I do not think this is right or wrong people who are stuck in the queue, they chose to come to the USA and work here, it is up to that person to decide if they want to stay or go back or go to another country). After returning to home country from the USA, Social Security and Medicare deducted is a contribution to the USA (I am not saying this is right or wrong, just a fact).

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

#377

Post by on_and_off »

noobermin wrote: post #150
lukeschlather wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All H1B salaries are public: https://h1bdata.info/ It's possible (maybe even likely) that title deflation is happening, but based on my experience the salaries are definitely in line with the pay ranges for each job title (I worked at Amazon for 3 and a half years, so I have some first and second hand information on pay.) If nothing else it's a great resource to see the unfiltered payscale at SV companies.

Thanks for the data. I see comments across threads on HN that say that H1-B hires are common. What is the incentive to hire them then? Are professionals in the US really that ill-equipped? I guess there is a bit of cognitive dissonance with FAANG complaining about no qualified workers but then FAANG only hired people who went to Stanford or Harvard and such.

I can maybe help here.

Many SV companies are in constant need of more skilled engineers.

Since the H1B visa can be transferred, when I arrived in the USA, nothing would have prevented me from going door to door and find a better paying job. Especially in the SV where there are tons of companies hiring.

So companies have a good incentive to give you a fair salary.

This is not true for all visas. In particular there is one visa (sorry can't remember its name off the top of my head) that is an "international transfer visa" : you work for one year for the company in a foreign country and then you can move to the USA while continuing to work for that company. It is pretty easy to get that visa but it is also very hard to transfer it to another company afaik.

Hiring is also a bit broken in our industry. The thing is, it is often pretty hard to distinguish what makes a good or a bad engineer. This being said, there are just not enough skilled engineers in the USA.

It would absolutely be possible to hire more local engineers and train them on the job but that would cost a lot of time for uncertain results. Companies prefer to hire engineers that can already be pretty productive from day 1.

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

#378

Post by vkat »

vishakh82 wrote: post #299

So many people here are celebrating this order due to its supposed abstract benefits but are somehow unaware of the its cruelty. So many visa holders in this country will be unable to leave and enter the country for the foreseeable future. If they have sick parents abroad they will not be able to visit them or, in the most tragic circumstances, say goodbye in person. It won't matter whether someone is a world-class r…

> They will live in anxiety, fear and uncertainty.

This. All my adult life(15 years) I have worked and lived here and my parents are old and you never know what can happen with current pandemic. Being from India the green card wait is over 11 years and increasing so I keep waiting. There needs to be a distinction between legit employers and ones who abuse the system.

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

#379

Post by michaelmrose »

argomo wrote: post #297
gorbachev15 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think each nation[0] should be entitled to make decisions for themselves and have a right to run their state the way they see fit. I wouldn't presume to move to, say, Japan and then start telling them that they're doing things wrong. [0] https://www.etymonline.com/word/nation

Geopolitics is inevitable: everything's interlinked--trade, laws, defense, research--everything. If a nation wants to persist and prosper, it needs to play the game; being an aloof loner or a blatant bully won't get you far.

It wont get you very far seems to ignore centuries of aloofness and often very bad behavior being rewarded with great success.

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

#380

Post by addicted »

runawaybottle wrote: post #149
jgalt212 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, a friend offered to introduce me to a lawyer who would help me hire H-1Bs instead of similarly qualified residents. The gist was you have to figure out the unique qualities of the person you want to hire, and then construct interviews for the required X candidates such that these other candidates would not be as qualified across these trumped up unique qualifications / skills.

How much are companies expecting to save by going this route? Is it dramatic?

They don’t save.

The abuse happens through contractors.

Companies hiring full time H1B employees directly will not save money because there is no incentive to and they have to pay the government additional fees simply for the H1B visa, and they have to almost certainly have an immigration team, or at a bar minimum a lawyer on retainer to keep up with the immigration stuff.

My company applied for an employee I manager’s permanent residency (she is on an H1B visa which has a limit of 6 years unless you apply for a permanent residency). The application process costs the company 30k on a one time basis, including fees to the government, lawyer fees, and associated expenses.

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