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Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

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Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#501

Post by ravila4 »

systemvoltage wrote: post #486
WillPostForFood wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

bias coming from bad experiences in the computer science field https://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2020-H1B-Visa-Category.as... It isn't bias, just look at the H1B distribution, it heavily biased to the CS/IT space. Like for every possible biologist you are imagining, there probably 100 IT/CS guys coming in. I'd love to have the biologists and chemists come in, but the big IT consultancies are massively abusing the sy…

Why? Are there more jobs for Biologists than Computer Scientists/Developers/Programmers? It looks like this is a response based on demand . Why in the world would you want more biologists when there isn't market demand for them? This is mostly wishful romanticization of particular "underdog" areas of studies. Makes no sense to me. Even more preposterous is the parent's profound claim: > I feel like this thread has a…

China has four times our population, and we are falling behind on many fields. We need all the manpower we can get. On another note, I'd like to raise the point that bringing talent to the country also creates demand. Many of the next generation of startups will be biology-based.

THe bias I speak of is in regard to the attitude towards H1B. I have my own different bias, for in my field most people are in favor of it.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#502

Post by aspaceman »

chunky1994 wrote: post #492
ravila4 wrote: post #434

I feel like this thread has a lot of bias coming from bad experiences in the computer science field. While I do understand the bad practices of many tech companies, I think the picture is very different when you look at careers in other STEM fields, such as biology, chemistry, and physics. H1B visas are very important for foreign students in these fields particularly those hoping to pursue careers in academia. H1B vi…

I fail to see the "problem" here. Most academia STEM jobs are incredibly competitive, postdocs less so than professorships but for fundamental science it is nearly indisputable that academia is flush with labour. If universities deem it too hard to raise postdoc wages across the board (or for specific foreign students) due to a lack of grant funding then they will still have ample choice of American students who go o…

It's a "problem" if you hear this and think, "Wow I want more of those people".

It's not a "problem" if you hear this and think, "Yeah, it should be hard for them".

Ultimately, people explicitly disagree with your initial position and framing.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#503

Post by blahblahblogger »

chrisseaton wrote: post #354
DenisM wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I vaguely recall that the "indentured" h1b workers (as oppose to the "proper" h1b like I had) owe money back to home, and that debt becomes instantly due if they bail out. If they were super-stars they would be able to cover it from the Amazon signup bonus (and become indentured to Amazon - your signup bonus is due back if you bail out early). However superstars rarely end up in those jobs. We're looking at people wi…

> We're looking at people with kinda average engineering skills, poor understanding of the American culture, no connections, and grim determination to grind their way out of their old life. I don't think these are the kind of people getting an H1B visa, though. It's usually the super-talented people they hire on H1B.

I work at a Bay Area tech company with a lot of H1Bs. I consider myself to be an average coder, no formal education, and yet it behooves me why I'm sitting next to Stanford and Harvard grads at work doing the same grunt-work coding that I'm doing.

Not anything original, not anything H1B worthy, just building front-end UIs and basic BE stuff. There's of course H1Bs working on the more complex things too like machine learning (complex to me) but I'm just astounded by the number of "brilliant" H1Bs that I have to stand shoulder to shoulder with when doing my average (at best?) coding.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#504

Post by akhosravian »

I haven’t read all the comments, but does anyone have a good explanation for why software engineers in the US (especially in the Bay Area, seattle and New York) make so much more than anywhere else in the world?

Even looking at relatively high cost of living / high services places like Northern Europe it is hard to make the comp work out. E.G. levels.FYI says an E5 at Facebook in London averages lower pay than an E4 in the US.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#505

Post by mensetmanusman »

jedberg wrote: post #74

I agree 100% with you. My view is even more extreme, I think we should allow anyone who passes a criminal background check to be able to get a work visa, with no quotas. But barring that pipe dream, this seems like a good interim step.

One interesting issue is that there are around 700,000,000 people interested in immigrating to the U.S.

Would be fun to build super cities at a rapid pace over the next decade though :)

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#506

Post by therealx »

mekoka wrote: post #402

Maybe there's something I'm missing about the appeal of H1B, but I don't understand why this announcement would be a big game changer in a post-Covid-19 world. Organizations are in the midst of more drastic adaptations and H1B appears as relevant as the DVD in a world of video streaming. My understanding is that it allowed organizations that were more comfortable doing things the "traditional way", show up to work ev…

It's used as a modern indentured servitude. I think you said it well, they love the "traditional way", which includes dangling someones life above their heads to get them to work in situations where other people wouldn't put up with it.

To me, it's the legal version of having your passport stolen for ransom in a third world country.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#507

Post by mavelikara »

ycombonator wrote: post #453
victor106 wrote: post #46

I finally agree with something this administration is doing. This is a solid move. H1B has been/is being abused by all companies (big and small) for a number of years at the cost of not only American workers but also the visa holders. The only ones benefiting are the companies that sponsor H1B visas by suppressing wages for everyone. I just hope the new administration don't role back these changes. Typically when a n…

The new administration will absolutely roll back these changes to kowtow to pro immigration groups and wage sensitive Silicon Valley. Obama administration expanded the coverage of H1B to their spouses (H4 dependents) who previously were ineligible to work. https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary...

Obama administration allowed Employment Authorization for dependents of H-1B visa holders who applied and were chosen for permanent residency and were stuck in the backlogs. Many of these people - women, mostly - have been unable to participate meaningfully in the economy of many years. What is the problem with allowing them to work while they wait for their turn to be permanent residents?

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#508

Post by throw93 »

jupp0r wrote: post #461
booleandilemma wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: wouldn’t that be leaving less jobs open for Americans? As an American myself, I want to see my fellow Americans getting good jobs over people from other countries.

> As an American myself, I want to see my fellow Americans getting good jobs over people from other countries How many of your fellow citizens do you know who have the skills to get a good job and don't get one because of foreign competition? All I know is companies having trouble hiring really good people.

+1 I was never asked about my immigration status before me accepting the offer. I had interviewer training afterwards and there was no mention of immigration status in interviewer guidelines as well. This was 20000+ employee company. It doesn’t seem logical from company’s perspective to hire a direct employee who’s gonna be with them for many years, just on basis of their immigration status.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#509

Post by chunky1994 »

aspaceman wrote: post #502
chunky1994 wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see the "problem" here. Most academia STEM jobs are incredibly competitive, postdocs less so than professorships but for fundamental science it is nearly indisputable that academia is flush with labour. If universities deem it too hard to raise postdoc wages across the board (or for specific foreign students) due to a lack of grant funding then they will still have ample choice of American students who go o…

It's a "problem" if you hear this and think, "Wow I want more of those people". It's not a "problem" if you hear this and think, "Yeah, it should be hard for them". Ultimately, people explicitly disagree with your initial position and framing.

Did you mean to respond to GP?

If not, that is a rather disingenuous reading of what I wrote. No one is saying it "should" be hard for foreign students to get a job in academia, my point was academia has ample domestic labour, so even if H1B salaries are raised, the research attempted is unaffected.

Wanting more researchers is well and good, there just aren't enough jobs and funding for them in the current STEM academic market (which is completely separate from any H1B related issue), hence the rather large number of people who move to industry.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#510

Post by bialpio »

biztos wrote: post #424
glennpratt wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> H1B has been/is being abused by all companies (big and small) I don't see this exactly. I have worked with multiple, brilliant visa holders. Many of them have moved on to bigger and better things. Presumably paying a huge amount in taxes for the privilege. Most software developers I know are not making what I would deem suppressed wages, especially in the current conditions (and I don't have an SV job). Most firms…

I have worked with brilliant H1B holders and also with manifestly mediocre ones. And even a couple "net negative" employees. To the best of my knowledge all of them played the game diligently and got their green cards, and many of them got their citizenship. Good for them, and in many cases good for us. But I absolutely did not see any greater level of talent among the H1B's than any other cohort in SF/SV. While I'm…

The problem in the US, as I understood it, is that there is shortage of workers in IT [1]. To me, it sounds like turning off the stream of potential workers, without fixing the underlying issue. With the current rules (85k H-1Bs a year), it would take 10 years for immigrants to fill all the spots. There may be a lot of untapped talent left in the US (based on under-representation of women, that's a discussion for another time), but somehow, the vacancies are not getting filled - what gives?

In addition, it seems that even currently, H-1B program has rules to make sure the wages paid are fair [2] - if they are not, it sounds like a problem with enforcement, or with how prevailing wages are calculated. To me, based on [3], it does not look like calculating the prevailing wage is the problem.

[1] "In the past three months, U.S. employers had about 918,000 unfilled IT jobs, according to IT trade group CompTIA." - https://www.wsj.com/articles/americas-got-talent-just-not-en... [2] "Employers must attest to the Department of Labor that they will pay wages to the H-1B nonimmigrant workers that are at least equal to the actual wage paid by the employer to other workers with similar experience and qualifications for the job in question, or the prevailing wage for the occupation in the area of intended employment – whichever is greater." - https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/immigration/h1b [3] https://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesQuickResults.aspx?code=15-1...

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