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Big Tech Resumed Hiring Foreign Workers Just Weeks After Layoffs

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Re: Big Tech Resumed Hiring Foreign Workers Just Weeks After Layoffs

#221

Post by cjbgkagh »

rhaway84773 wrote: post #212
cjbgkagh wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t believe those numbers, economics is terrible at measuring ‘but for’ conditionals. Statistics will tell you whatever you need if you torture it enough. As a former immigrant employee to the US I felt the intended wage suppression first hand. But for the large numbers of immigrants would a wage shortage lead to more taxes paid by citizenry? As I’m now an employer and not an employee I get the benefit of the wag…

So because data can be used to mislead, we should ignore data, and go by assumptions and feelings. Hmmm. I guess if all you have to go by is your own personal anecdote, one can understand why you might feel immigration is a net negative for the country you’ve immigrated to.

I didn’t stay in the US, I’m not optimistic about the future of the US. I do work in statistics / machine learning, it’s mainly the work of economists that I have a problem with. I’m surprised that anyone still takes them seriously given how terrible they are at predictions which is a core part of their job. I’ve run my own numbers and have my own results but unlike many economists I don’t have time to argue my point, I’m too busy with work.

Re: Big Tech Resumed Hiring Foreign Workers Just Weeks After Layoffs

#222

Post by belltaco »

dang wrote: post #158
belltaco wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This includes putting essentially bogus ads in newspaper classifieds > Like many here, I've written a few H1-B role requisition documents - which are often designed to be so ludicrously specific that it would be almost impossible to find anyone to fill that role, save for the one person applying for the visa Both of these things have absolutely nothing to do with H1B visa requirements. You're just proving my point…

It would be better to spend less of your comments expressing frustration with people who don't understand, and more explaining what the difference actually is. I read both of your comments and while I have no reason to disagree with you, I can't tell what you're actually saying. If you respond to incorrect information with correct information and show us how it is correct, your comments will be more persuasive as wel…

Fair, I will do that. I had just become jaded over the years(almost 15 years now) spending time explaining the same point in tech forums and then later it's just even more and more comments from others confidently stating the same wrong things again on every tech immigration related story(a bunch on this story including the couple of parent comments in this thread I was replying to). This creates a feedback loop with others assuming the same.

For a while I did not engage with such stories because it feels like a losing battle swimming against the current even though tech forums are generally filled with smart folks.

As another sibling comment said, the requirements for placing ads etc. are for the first step of the green card process, aka PERM, and are not required for a H1B visa.

Maybe I should write a blog post or something explaining it and link it every time :)

Re: Big Tech Resumed Hiring Foreign Workers Just Weeks After Layoffs

#223

Post by hgs3 »

deelly wrote: post #213
hgs3 wrote: post #191

Work visa programs shouldn't exist. They undercut supply and demand. i.e. If there is a demand but a low supply, then the price should go up. Here there is a demand for workers and, according to Big Tech, an "insufficient supply" so they should be raising wages to compete for the available talent. Importing "talent" artificially increases supply and thus suppresses wages.

Maybe instead of killing "work visa programs" we can kill "low wages" for foreign workers?

Here is a better solution: the countries foreign workers are coming from should do a better job of retaining them. When countries lose their talent, they are brain-drained and this stunts the growth of their own tech-sectors. Ideally, foreign workers won't want to leave their own countries because they should have high-wages and good opportunities at home.

Re: Big Tech Resumed Hiring Foreign Workers Just Weeks After Layoffs

#224

Post by s1artibartfast »

UncleMeat wrote: post #218
s1artibartfast wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visas always are bad for citizen workers, full stop. They are always competition blunting the labor market. It is always good to be labor in a labor constrained market, and the lower supply, the better. I don't see how any liberalization could help local workers in the short term (I assume liberalization means expansion in this context).

Software jobs create software jobs. A huge reason why engineers in the US are paid so much better than in other countries is because people from all over the world come here to be educated in software and work in software. There was far lower supply of software engineers in the 1980s. But that market was much worse for software engineers in the US.

OK, by that logic we should vastly increase software visas to counteract recent layoffs and get people back to work

Re: Big Tech Resumed Hiring Foreign Workers Just Weeks After Layoffs

#225

Post by pylua »

foobiekr wrote: post #161
thatfrenchguy wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s a perfectly logical (if not humane given current immigration law) position to hold that companies should be required to lay off visa holders first and for there to be a “cooling off” period between layoffs and hiring of visa holders. This is really suboptimal though, what if you have a H1B worker that's a high performer in a key position that would make your company collapse if they left but say, they were bor…

It's such a scam to pretend that H1B workers are, on average, high performers in key positions. That isn't the reality, has not ever been the reality, and will not ever be the reality. H1B is about cost of labor, has always been about cost of labor, and will always be about cost of labor. disclosure: have worked for large h1b heavy shops my entire career, and while there has been the very occasional exception, the bu…

Is hiring h1b for cost reasons illegal ?

Re: Big Tech Resumed Hiring Foreign Workers Just Weeks After Layoffs

#226

Post by rayiner »

UncleMeat wrote: post #216
rayiner wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These folks should invest their talents in India instead. My mom was talking about how her siblings were selling their inherited property in Bangladesh (where land prices are skyrocketing) and buying property in the US, Canada, and Australia. And I’m like—you realize this is helping to keep Bangladesh is poor, right? All that capital flowing out to developed countries. (Not to mention the brain drain.) Meanwhile they…

One of my coworkers is gay. He is an Indian citizen and has been in the US for about two decades, roughly half of his life and basically all of his adult life. He is still waiting for a green card and will likely wait a lot longer. "Just invest your talents in India" is asking him to leave his friends, his long term partner, his job, his home, and everything he has known for most of his adult life. It is also asking…

> Just invest your talents in India" is asking him to leave his friends, his long term partner, his job, his home, and everything he has known for most of his adult life. It is also asking him to move to a place that is oppressive to his sexuality and denies him his deserved human rights. It is inhumane.

India is his country. There’s nothing “inhumane” about ending a residency situation that is—according to the words on the paper, “temporary.”

I agree it’s enormously disruptive for Indians who think H1B is anything other than a temporary work visa. I agree it’s wrong that US employers and many politicians give people a false impression of the H1B program. That’s all the more reason for people to stay in India instead of dealing with this stupid system.

> I also have no idea how H1Bs are voting to turn American into Bangladesh. They aren't allowed to vote.

I’m talking about people who are naturalized citizens. There is a saying “I’d rather be governed by the first 100 people listed in the Boston food directory than the faculty of Harvard University.” This is a common sentiment among Americans. But it’s completely incomprehensible to people from the subcontinent. There is a deeply held belief in Credentialism and elite bureaucratic governance. When these people become citizens, they vote, according to these deeply, held cultural beliefs.

Re: Big Tech Resumed Hiring Foreign Workers Just Weeks After Layoffs

#227

Post by UncleMeat »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #224
UncleMeat wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software jobs create software jobs. A huge reason why engineers in the US are paid so much better than in other countries is because people from all over the world come here to be educated in software and work in software. There was far lower supply of software engineers in the 1980s. But that market was much worse for software engineers in the US.

OK, by that logic we should vastly increase software visas to counteract recent layoffs and get people back to work

In my opinion, that's true. We should be bringing even more skilled people to this country to work. Making sure that the US is the center of the software world is good for US software engineers.

Re: Big Tech Resumed Hiring Foreign Workers Just Weeks After Layoffs

#228

Post by UncleMeat »

rayiner wrote: post #226
UncleMeat wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my coworkers is gay. He is an Indian citizen and has been in the US for about two decades, roughly half of his life and basically all of his adult life. He is still waiting for a green card and will likely wait a lot longer. "Just invest your talents in India" is asking him to leave his friends, his long term partner, his job, his home, and everything he has known for most of his adult life. It is also asking…

> Just invest your talents in India" is asking him to leave his friends, his long term partner, his job, his home, and everything he has known for most of his adult life. It is also asking him to move to a place that is oppressive to his sexuality and denies him his deserved human rights. It is inhumane. India is his country. There’s nothing “inhumane” about ending a residency situation that is—according to the words…

You can't really talk both about H1Bs and naturalized citizens at the same time here. The topic of conversation is worker visas. And, conveniently for you, it takes fucking forever for an Indian citizen in the US on H1B to get naturalized.

But I'll ask you: do you think that naturalized citizens of south asian descent should leave the country? You and I disagree politically, why can't I demand that you expatriate?

Re: Big Tech Resumed Hiring Foreign Workers Just Weeks After Layoffs

#229

Post by skeeter2020 »

WeylandYutani wrote: post #205
sbierwagen wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a company requires Indian nationals to function, then it seems like the best place to incorporate it is in India.

The US requires foreign labour to function. Which is why neither the Repubs or Democrats have ever been even remotely serious about tackling migration.

>> The US requires foreign labour to function.

Maybe at the service/entry level but certainly not for tech jobs. Tech visas have nothing to do with filling the millions of service jobs; they're about filling the corporations' pockets with millions.

Re: Big Tech Resumed Hiring Foreign Workers Just Weeks After Layoffs

#230

Post by rayiner »

UncleMeat wrote: post #228
rayiner wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just invest your talents in India" is asking him to leave his friends, his long term partner, his job, his home, and everything he has known for most of his adult life. It is also asking him to move to a place that is oppressive to his sexuality and denies him his deserved human rights. It is inhumane. India is his country. There’s nothing “inhumane” about ending a residency situation that is—according to the words…

You can't really talk both about H1Bs and naturalized citizens at the same time here. The topic of conversation is worker visas. And, conveniently for you, it takes fucking forever for an Indian citizen in the US on H1B to get naturalized. But I'll ask you: do you think that naturalized citizens of south asian descent should leave the country? You and I disagree politically, why can't I demand that you expatriate?

> You can't really talk both about H1Bs and naturalized citizens at the same time here.

They are closely related. American law sees the H1B as a temporary worker visa, which in theory won’t lead to lots of new naturalized citizens changing the country and the workforce. Indians see the H1B as the first step to permanent immigration and naturalization. The ridiculousness of the H1B process arises from that fundamental conflict.

> But I'll ask you: do you think that naturalized citizens of south asian descent should leave the country?

No—citizenship is citizenship. But citizens get to decide immigration policy in their own self interest. That’s democracy. On a going forward basis, it’s entirely valid to ask how H1Bs are changing the country, and whether the American body politic believes those changes are good or bad. My family came to northern Virginia in an immigration wave that rendered the place unrecognizable. The place where I grew up doesn’t exist anymore. Had you polled Virginians back in 1989 and given them a glimpse of how importing a bunch of foreign elites would change their state, they quite reasonably could think those changes were for the worse.

By the way—this is not a Democrat versus Republican thing. Asians (who used to vote Republican until 2000) played a major role in reshaping the Democratic Party due to their concentrated populations in key states like Virginia. The immigrants who strive to send their kids to work on Wall Street and Silicon Valley are mostly not interested in solidarity with working class people.

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