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Facebook Settles with U.S. Gov over Improperly Reserving Jobs for Immigrants

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Re: Facebook Settles with U.S. Gov over Improperly Reserving Jobs for Immigrants

#61

Post by a-and »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #57
davidw wrote: post #22

The elephant in the room: make it too hard to employ talented foreigners, and sooner or later companies will just open up offices there, rather than here. Remote work has only made this easier. I want smart, hard working, talented people coming to the US, myself.

I want American businesses to look towards cultivating local talent first. I don't disagree with the desire to have "smart, hard working, talented people coming to the US" but from my experience big companies use H1B's as a means of getting cheaper labor and having more power/leverage over the individual.

What is your experience? I will admit I don't have much insight into WITCH.

I've worked at and interviewed people at FAANGs for the past 5 years and the bar for hiring is the same.

Re: Facebook Settles with U.S. Gov over Improperly Reserving Jobs for Immigrants

#62

Post by kfprt »

davidw wrote: post #59
kfprt wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what I'm saying. If a company hires a foreigner instead of an American then that American doesn't have a job. If they don't have a job they are unemployed. If they are unemployed then they are a net cost to me the taxpayer. If we reduce unemployment we reduce the tax burden.

This is zero sum thinking, and it's been pretty thoroughly debunked. We have more people in the US than in 1960, and far more programming jobs.

More people and fewer of them are in the labor force than in living memory. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART

I should also note this isn't the 1960s when women were stay at home moms keeping the participation rate down. No, now it's just the nasty kind of unemployment where people are barely scraping by because single income with kids isn't middle class anymore.

Re: Facebook Settles with U.S. Gov over Improperly Reserving Jobs for Immigrants

#63

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #24
jmwilson wrote: post #20

An earlier article has a bit more description of the complaint: https://archive.md/67DiB For those curious about how this works, the company has to show it tried and couldn't hire a US resident, but they don't have to try very hard... so the company posts a brief job opening in a local newspaper. When nobody responds, because it's the newspaper, tada! Proof there was no American-based talent capable of filling the jo…

Is this a requirement in the US just for the initial hire, or do you also need to do the same when turning temporary position into a permanent one so your employee has a reason to apply for permanent residence, too?

The LC (Labor Certification) process that's being described is a requirement to sponsor an employment-based immigrant visa; what most people call a Green Card. It is not, generally, a requirement for non-immigrant visas like the H-1B.

For most people coming from abroad, they're either being hired initially on an H-1B and then - usually after their time on that visa is up - their employer might sponsor them for the immigrant visa.

Others come via the intracompany transferee visa, the L-1. In certain categories, e.g. L-1A, for executives/managers, that visa allows an application for an immigrant visa without the LC process.

Re: Facebook Settles with U.S. Gov over Improperly Reserving Jobs for Immigrants

#64

Post by mdorazio »

Factorium wrote: post #56
davidw wrote: post #22

The elephant in the room: make it too hard to employ talented foreigners, and sooner or later companies will just open up offices there, rather than here. Remote work has only made this easier. I want smart, hard working, talented people coming to the US, myself.

Immigrants are brought into the US to fill existing positions under poorer conditions than US workers, and to generally boost aggregate GDP (mostly to the benefit of capital/land owners). Canada and Australia have extremely generous immigration systems, but are backwaters for software development compared to the USA, and IT salaries are worse. Additionally, there is no diversity or equality in the US H1B intake: Indi…

Or alternatively, make the H1B process an auction instead of a lottery to guarantee the visas actually go to positions at companies that need them enough to pay top dollar.

Re: Facebook Settles with U.S. Gov over Improperly Reserving Jobs for Immigrants

#65

Post by outworlder »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #54
outworlder wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My understanding is its only before you can sponsor a visa. H1 transfers do not require such efforts. What do you mean H1 transfers? You need to prove that there are no US citizens able to fill the role before you sponsor a H1 visa. You also need to do the same thing again (only much more detailed, including prevailing wage determination yada yada) before you can sponsor for permanent residency. L1 (intra-company t…

> You need to prove that there are no US citizens able to fill the role before you sponsor a H1 visa. Pretty sure that's wrong; the requirement for an H1 is a LCA (Labor Condition Application) which is primarily a prevailing-wages thing along with some other labor condition items (e.g. there's not a strike ongoing at the location where you're trying to hire). Only companies flagged as H1 dependent or 'willful violato…

> Only companies flagged as H1 dependent or 'willful violators' need to certify that they've attempted to hire locally.

Ok, maybe I'm wrong – I understand the initial process for L1B a bit better than H1B.

Blanket L1 app, there was an _absolutely enormous_ document stack with all sorts of things(for a blanket L1). Including all the skills, and how many people satisfied those skills in the US. Also information how the company would be able to afford the wages (Fortune 100).

How much of this was absolutely required and how much was the law firm anticipating requests I do not know. The information about skill availability in the US headquarters was absolutely mandatory though.

Re: Facebook Settles with U.S. Gov over Improperly Reserving Jobs for Immigrants

#66

Post by commandlinefan »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #40
jmwilson wrote: post #20

An earlier article has a bit more description of the complaint: https://archive.md/67DiB For those curious about how this works, the company has to show it tried and couldn't hire a US resident, but they don't have to try very hard... so the company posts a brief job opening in a local newspaper. When nobody responds, because it's the newspaper, tada! Proof there was no American-based talent capable of filling the jo…

They should be expected to try hard. Been a recruiter. It's comical what companies list in order to hire the cheap H1 they wanted all along. Absolutely no way anybody has the experience they claim they want most of the time.

Was out of work a few years back and responded to a job posting from LinkedIn. The posting had a LONG laundry list of requirements - maybe 15 or so (Java, JavaScript, Spring, Hibernate, Angular, JAXB, SQL, etc.) and another long list of "nice to haves" (MySQL, shell scripting, AWS, etc.) and I had years of hands-on experience with all of them. Every single one. I still didn't get the job.

Re: Facebook Settles with U.S. Gov over Improperly Reserving Jobs for Immigrants

#67

Post by tharne »

mdorazio wrote: post #64
Factorium wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immigrants are brought into the US to fill existing positions under poorer conditions than US workers, and to generally boost aggregate GDP (mostly to the benefit of capital/land owners). Canada and Australia have extremely generous immigration systems, but are backwaters for software development compared to the USA, and IT salaries are worse. Additionally, there is no diversity or equality in the US H1B intake: Indi…

Or alternatively, make the H1B process an auction instead of a lottery to guarantee the visas actually go to positions at companies that need them enough to pay top dollar.

Or we could just have an education system that results in a highly-skilled U.S. labor force. Imagine that.

Re: Facebook Settles with U.S. Gov over Improperly Reserving Jobs for Immigrants

#68

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

bryan0 wrote: post #11
boglurker wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought another reason H1Bs are preferred by tech companies is because it limits the opportunities that your high skilled employee have access to, as far as I'm aware it's harder and riskier to switch jobs without getting deported if you're on a H1B visa which means the employees will put up with worse treatment and worse wages compared to native colleagues, though I'm fuzzy on the specifics

I can't speak for FB, but in my experience, you don't seek H1B holders out. Instead you recruit the best talent, and if the person you want to hire requires an H1B, then you jump through the legal hoops necessary to bring them onboard.

This. My company (Fortune 100) tells me not to discuss immigration status during the interview process. Oftentimes, the first time I discover that I'm hiring a candidate that's on an H-1B is when I find out they're going to be in the onboarding pipeline for longer due to immigration-related paperwork.

It certainly doesn't figure into hiring decisions or compensation.

Re: Facebook Settles with U.S. Gov over Improperly Reserving Jobs for Immigrants

#69

Post by kfprt »

darth_avocado wrote: post #43

It’s a relic of a broken process. If you want to keep a foreign worker beyond 6 years, you can’t do that without applying for a greencard which in turn requires you to prove you don’t have a US citizen vying for the job, which should make sense. However the problem here is that the government instead of keeping a track of the country’s labor needs, outsourced this responsibility to the companies and that’s where the…

Couldn't companies also use the 6 years that they employ a foreigner to train an American worker to fill the position? A bachelors program is only 4 years and the company could sponsor it if they were in such desperate need.

Re: Facebook Settles with U.S. Gov over Improperly Reserving Jobs for Immigrants

#70

Post by reaperducer »

kfprt wrote: post #45
Jensson wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High skill immigrants are net pay tax payers, they help reduce the need to tax you.

That's not what I'm saying. If a company hires a foreigner instead of an American then that American doesn't have a job. If they don't have a job they are unemployed. If they are unemployed then they are a net cost to me the taxpayer. If we reduce unemployment we reduce the tax burden.

If they are unemployed then they are a net cost to me the taxpayer.

Unemployment benefits are not paid for by you the taxpayer. They are paid by the employee during employment and by his former employer both during and after the employment period.

At least that's how it was in the three states where I've opened companies.

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