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US govt ups minimum H-1B tech salaries to $208,000 a year

theregister.com

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Re: US govt ups minimum H-1B tech salaries to $208,000 a year

#11

Post by knaq »

tracer4201 wrote: post #7
ycombonator wrote: post #3

Basically the administration turned the tables on Big Tech. They primarily import H1Bs to dilute the employment pool to let the market take care of wage depression. There is plenty of tech talent pipeline inside the country. Just look at the eager undergrads looking for employment and other US citizens looking to step into tech field via boot camps. Increasing the threshold for the wages to paid for “specialty occupa…

Is there data or research to suggest H1B actively dilutes the talent pool? There’s no doubt the system is abused — not too long ago, I was at an oil and gas company who contracted out to a company that brought in H1Bs. Many of the guys spoke zero English and couldn’t write code at all. Yes - that kind of indefensible abusive. But how rampant is this stuff?

Basic economics would predict that H1B visas drive wages down. Anything different would be surprising, and would require extraordinary evidence.

Re: US govt ups minimum H-1B tech salaries to $208,000 a year

#13

Post by stone-monkey »

tracer4201 wrote: post #7
ycombonator wrote: post #3

Basically the administration turned the tables on Big Tech. They primarily import H1Bs to dilute the employment pool to let the market take care of wage depression. There is plenty of tech talent pipeline inside the country. Just look at the eager undergrads looking for employment and other US citizens looking to step into tech field via boot camps. Increasing the threshold for the wages to paid for “specialty occupa…

Is there data or research to suggest H1B actively dilutes the talent pool? There’s no doubt the system is abused — not too long ago, I was at an oil and gas company who contracted out to a company that brought in H1Bs. Many of the guys spoke zero English and couldn’t write code at all. Yes - that kind of indefensible abusive. But how rampant is this stuff?

yeah - you could see in prior years how most h1bs were allocated to WITCH companies.

https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-studies/h-1b-employe...

Since h1b is a lottery system, these companies flooding the system with their applicants at lower salaries was directly impacting the chances of employees at other companies. I anecdotally knew a coworker at a FAANG who failed to get his h1b consecutively for two years in a row, with his OPT expiring the next. Looking at the data from the latest year though, it seemed as if they had already started addressing the problem.

Re: US govt ups minimum H-1B tech salaries to $208,000 a year

#15

Post by Karishma1234 »

ycombonator wrote: post #3

Basically the administration turned the tables on Big Tech. They primarily import H1Bs to dilute the employment pool to let the market take care of wage depression. There is plenty of tech talent pipeline inside the country. Just look at the eager undergrads looking for employment and other US citizens looking to step into tech field via boot camps. Increasing the threshold for the wages to paid for “specialty occupa…

Lump of labor fallacy is at least 100 years old and yet Americans and administration quotes it as if it is a gospel. Americans have a full right to control their borders but citing "wage depression" is pure nonsense. There is no such evidence. ZILCH.

Re: US govt ups minimum H-1B tech salaries to $208,000 a year

#16

Post by tracer4201 »

knaq wrote: post #11
tracer4201 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there data or research to suggest H1B actively dilutes the talent pool? There’s no doubt the system is abused — not too long ago, I was at an oil and gas company who contracted out to a company that brought in H1Bs. Many of the guys spoke zero English and couldn’t write code at all. Yes - that kind of indefensible abusive. But how rampant is this stuff?

Basic economics would predict that H1B visas drive wages down. Anything different would be surprising, and would require extraordinary evidence.

I don’t doubt that H1Bs drive wages down, but I disagree anything different is surprising or that it’s easily explained by “basic economics”. If H1Bs are being awarded to a handful of exploitative firms, then it makes sense that wages face a downward pressure. On the other hand, if H1Bs are being awarded to truly exceptional workers, then that’s a brain drain for their home country and a benefit for the host country. In the latter case, if the H1B applicant is the right employee for a job since a local candidate doesn’t meet or exceed the bar, then there isn’t much of an increase in the labor pool to drive down wages.

Re: US govt ups minimum H-1B tech salaries to $208,000 a year

#17

Post by aviraldg »

Please forgive me for my lacking knowledge of the US immigration system, but does this mean that folks on H-1B currently waiting for a green card must withdraw their applications the next time their H-1B expires unless their salaries are greater than this threshold? Are there any publicly available numbers on how much of the insane GC backlog (greater than a 100 years for Indian nationals) this might affect?

Re: US govt ups minimum H-1B tech salaries to $208,000 a year

#18

Post by vaidhy »

knaq wrote: post #11
tracer4201 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there data or research to suggest H1B actively dilutes the talent pool? There’s no doubt the system is abused — not too long ago, I was at an oil and gas company who contracted out to a company that brought in H1Bs. Many of the guys spoke zero English and couldn’t write code at all. Yes - that kind of indefensible abusive. But how rampant is this stuff?

Basic economics would predict that H1B visas drive wages down. Anything different would be surprising, and would require extraordinary evidence.

It is not so simple. We do not act in a world with perfect information to predict the supply and demand curve. There are only 65,000 H1B in a year of which 20,000 are prioritized for people with a masters degree in US. Given the economy of size of US and the kind of roles being filled by H1B, it is doubtful that they have any meaningful impact on wages. There are bad actors who take advantage of H1B to get people to work for lower pay, but that lower pay is not at minimum wages.

It has just become a talking point to take a few instances and beat a dead horse. The big stink from the Disney instance that employees were asked to train their replacement. It is a insensitive move by Disney and the contractors and they deserve to be called out. But if a job requires minimal skill and there are substitutes available, isn't it just what capitalism is all about?

I do not see the same talk about H2 (agricultural workers) coming in to work in US and people arguing that they are making the farm wages depressed. How about TN1? At the end of the day, it is the kind of job that defines the value and pay for the job, not the visa.

Just to note, outsourcing does play a big role in bringing a substitute product and hence making jobs redundant, but that is a different argument.

Edit - spelling mistake

Re: US govt ups minimum H-1B tech salaries to $208,000 a year

#19

Post by [deleted] »

knaq wrote: post #11
tracer4201 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there data or research to suggest H1B actively dilutes the talent pool? There’s no doubt the system is abused — not too long ago, I was at an oil and gas company who contracted out to a company that brought in H1Bs. Many of the guys spoke zero English and couldn’t write code at all. Yes - that kind of indefensible abusive. But how rampant is this stuff?

Basic economics would predict that H1B visas drive wages down. Anything different would be surprising, and would require extraordinary evidence.

[deleted]

Re: US govt ups minimum H-1B tech salaries to $208,000 a year

#20

Post by rurban »

stone-monkey wrote: post #13
tracer4201 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there data or research to suggest H1B actively dilutes the talent pool? There’s no doubt the system is abused — not too long ago, I was at an oil and gas company who contracted out to a company that brought in H1Bs. Many of the guys spoke zero English and couldn’t write code at all. Yes - that kind of indefensible abusive. But how rampant is this stuff?

yeah - you could see in prior years how most h1bs were allocated to WITCH companies. https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-studies/h-1b-employe... Since h1b is a lottery system, these companies flooding the system with their applicants at lower salaries was directly impacting the chances of employees at other companies. I anecdotally knew a coworker at a FAANG who failed to get his h1b consecutively for two years i…

You are mixing that up with the Greencard, which is a lottery system. H1B must not be a lottery system, and it must not be a way to offload expensive domestic labor to cheap imported labor. Which the well-known Indian H1B cheating companies did. The minimal wage is mandatory to exclude those abusers of the H1B system, so they it is not overloaded anymore. But 200k is definitely too high for the rest of the US, which needs highly qualified workers also. It should be dependent on the region.

Agree with your post totally.

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