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Laid Off, Now What?

bharathpbhat.github.io

81–90 of 376 posts

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#81
Make preparations to return to your home country and try to find a new job where you are. Leave before your H1B expires so you can qualify for another, if you want that. If you don't want that, then you've just been given what you want.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#82
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not offended and you have been polite, so please don't remove your posts. Renting vs buying is fine. We can choose to rent all our lives and frankly in the Bay Area buying isn't even that slam dunk of a decision anyway. My point was a bit more general. It's very common for people to argue 'technically' about how others should live their lives while missing their ground reality. For instance, it's easy to say "We…

As a guest worker you are not supposed to put down deep roots here. If you want to immigrate you should follow the law and get an immigrant visa. This isn't hard at all. It's just like being a guest anywhere else, you have to follow the host's rules even if you don't like them.

Immigrant visa? What is that? I think the conversation is focused on the US. I'm a native-born US citizen, but my impression is that for those who get an H1B, they can apply for a green card and eventually citizenship. However, the path for many is fairly long. Perhaps you are confusing the H1-b and the J-1?

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#83

H1B rules are quite ridiculous (or more accurately, cruel). Do people here know that even this 60-day grace window was only put into place relatively recently by the Obama administration? Before that, you technically had to leave the country the day you were laid off. Never mind that you might have a house a family and might have been living here for more than a decade. You would officially be staying illegally if yo…

Work / study visas are (in my opinion anyway) a significant reason why the majority of post-graduate students are foreign.

Working as a grad student is really a quite poor economic trade off unless you have the unspoken side benefit of qualifying for a visa.

It's basically a form of academic wage suppression.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#85

H1B rules are quite ridiculous (or more accurately, cruel). Do people here know that even this 60-day grace window was only put into place relatively recently by the Obama administration? Before that, you technically had to leave the country the day you were laid off. Never mind that you might have a house a family and might have been living here for more than a decade. You would officially be staying illegally if yo…

Other than the fact that Democrats have voted for bills solving this issue in both houses of Congress by vast majorities, and the last Democratic President took many executive actions (including the one you mention as well as others that were rolled back by Republicans) there is no evidence that Democrats really care.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#86
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The study is unconvincing. They mention that fields with more h1bs have lower unemployment. Well no kidding, in demand fields attract more h1bs, it isn't the h1bs making it more attractive. Another problem with the study. "...the program enables employers to hire foreign workers when they cannot hire U.S. workers" This is such a lie. My brother has looking for around a year and cannot get his first position. Past few…

You've highlighted the problem with public discourse in the country. "I'm going to choose to ignore all scientific evidence because my brother can't get a job and it feels like H-1B is the cause" - sadly applicable to any policy topic where politicians & media are taking advantage of people's emotions.

I think an equally big problem is that a lot of "scientific evidence" like this doesn't pass sanity checks, and definitions of "net economic benefit" can vary and might not preclude strongly negative impacts to the average US citizen.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#87
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not offended and you have been polite, so please don't remove your posts. Renting vs buying is fine. We can choose to rent all our lives and frankly in the Bay Area buying isn't even that slam dunk of a decision anyway. My point was a bit more general. It's very common for people to argue 'technically' about how others should live their lives while missing their ground reality. For instance, it's easy to say "We…

As a guest worker you are not supposed to put down deep roots here. If you want to immigrate you should follow the law and get an immigrant visa. This isn't hard at all. It's just like being a guest anywhere else, you have to follow the host's rules even if you don't like them.

Many people who are in the guest visa apply for and are approved for permanent residency (which is what, I think, you meant by “immigrant visa”). They are simply waiting for years - decades even - for their turn. Life happens while they wait - marriage, kids, house etc - as mentioned by GP.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#88

H1B rules are quite ridiculous (or more accurately, cruel). Do people here know that even this 60-day grace window was only put into place relatively recently by the Obama administration? Before that, you technically had to leave the country the day you were laid off. Never mind that you might have a house a family and might have been living here for more than a decade. You would officially be staying illegally if yo…

> Do people here know that even this 60-day grace window was only put into place relatively recently by the Obama administration? My worst situation dealing with this was a TN status rather than an H1B, where I was told at a border that I could be ineligible for admission to the US because I had no left the day that I was laid off from a previous position. I had to tell the CBP officer that there was a 60 day grace p…

Granted, someone working at the US/CA border should know the TN rules, but in general there's so many visa classes and different rules that it's a UX failure if they have to go ask someone about these things. If they put in your passport and type in TN, it should display the relevant rules right on their screen.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#89
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not offended and you have been polite, so please don't remove your posts. Renting vs buying is fine. We can choose to rent all our lives and frankly in the Bay Area buying isn't even that slam dunk of a decision anyway. My point was a bit more general. It's very common for people to argue 'technically' about how others should live their lives while missing their ground reality. For instance, it's easy to say "We…

As a guest worker you are not supposed to put down deep roots here. If you want to immigrate you should follow the law and get an immigrant visa. This isn't hard at all. It's just like being a guest anywhere else, you have to follow the host's rules even if you don't like them.

What immigrant visa, exactly? H1b is the pathway to immigrant visa for tech workers in the US. For H1b holders born in certain countries, they have to be on H1b visa to be on the 5-10 year long queue to get the green card.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#90
post #7

The current state of job interviews is terrible. Just the fact that studying for a few weeks affects their outcome should raise eyebrows everywhere. And don't get me started on lack of job-related questions, false negatives and having to guess what interviewers want to hear

It seems to be a mostly US-centric thing. I live in Scandinavia, and I have yet to encounter the levels of rigor I see in the US (tech) interviewing process - which is kind of weird, as we have much, much more stringent workers rights/laws, making it more difficult to get rid of a bad hire. Sure, US companies, especially in tech hubs, operate on a completely different scale than companies over here - at least in term…

The US pays a lot and there's a lot of competition for positions. The H1B system doesn't help that competition. When you have 50 well qualified applicants (ie: could pass most interviews) per position then you need some way to weed out 49 of them. Resumes can be exaggerated and downright lied on so once there's enough competition using them just means you're selecting the best liars/sociopaths.
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