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Google, Meta, Amazon hiring low-paid H1B workers after US layoffs

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Re: Google, Meta, Amazon hiring low-paid H1B workers after US layoffs

#412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This is such a tone deaf rosy eyed out of touch with reality comment. Modern slavery exists. See things like Uyghur camps, people sold to work until death on Thai boats or exit visas in Saudi Arabia. Having a choice to work for money or (gasp) return home is not even remotely the same? To put them under the same label is to discount the actually bad stuff.

I wonder how Singapore never gets into this list with their maids and helpers and builders living in dormitories.

Re: Google, Meta, Amazon hiring low-paid H1B workers after US layoffs

#413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want to work with people from my town Nobody forces you to work with people from across the world, quit your job and find one that only hires people from your town

What’s the point of a country? To protect and empower its people or to use them to empower a rich few at the top? As it is, the H1B system only benefits H1Bs in a limited manner at the cost of American citizens. All so that rich investors can make more money.

The latter. To think otherwise is to ignore thousands of years of human history that has consistently proved it through many different forms of government. Whatever the initial idea of any new system of government might be, after a few generations it degenerates into serving the elites first and foremost. The problem is human nature.

Re: Google, Meta, Amazon hiring low-paid H1B workers after US layoffs

#414
post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not really free to leave if you have to leave the country if you don't have a job lined up immediately.

You can secure another job before leaving the old one.

That's like saying that I have a visa because I can just make sure my next job has a visa.

Re: Google, Meta, Amazon hiring low-paid H1B workers after US layoffs

#415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contracting != consulting.

I don't really understand what you're on about anymore. Fwiw, I am a consultant and do know the field. Edit: Maybe you're unaware of the term https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/sole-contractor , I was talking about a single person consulting, not a contract developer or whatever

You say you’re a consultant and yet link to a definition of a sole contractor.

Again, I’m talking about consulting, not contracting. Those are different. If you don’t know the difference then here’s a definition of a consultant https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/consultant

Now, to a layman, these may look identical. To a consultant, these are vastly different things.

You are not paid on output, you are paid on outcome.

Example: I can spend 10 days consulting a startup board on how to do something and make $50,000.

I can spend 10 days coding for client X and make $5,000 tops as a contractor.

Re: Google, Meta, Amazon hiring low-paid H1B workers after US layoffs

#416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand what you're on about anymore. Fwiw, I am a consultant and do know the field. Edit: Maybe you're unaware of the term https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/sole-contractor , I was talking about a single person consulting, not a contract developer or whatever

You say you’re a consultant and yet link to a definition of a sole contractor. Again, I’m talking about consulting, not contracting. Those are different. If you don’t know the difference then here’s a definition of a consultant https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/consultant Now, to a layman, these may look identical. To a consultant, these are vastly different things. You are not paid on output, you are paid on out…

You're misunderstanding me. I'm saying it is extremely rare for a consultant to earn multiple millions a year. On the cases it is possible, they are going to be very niche individuals not going into a company via Deloitte etc but as themselves.

Re: Google, Meta, Amazon hiring low-paid H1B workers after US layoffs

#417

Non-unionized tech workers finally facing the music… The smart ones know what to do, hopefully they will be a majority against the ones indoctrinated into right wing market fundamentalism. In any case, the unionization issue will sort itself out eventually, when the spoiled assholes are no longer in the industry, but damn it’s probably gonna be painful for a while.

This is almost laughable. A massive chunk of big tech exists to put others out of business, and by extension, out of jobs. Simplest case: how many companies used to employ a team to administer their MS email solution? Outlook was once very dominant. I know my university did. Then places started jumping to Gmail because it saved money and was more reliable. You didn’t have to just trust your small onsite team. Those j…

Yes, tech eliminates other jobs, and like what the OG luddites had a problem with, the issue is not the technology or even the eliminated jobs, it’s the effect on the labor population. In the situation we are actually discussing in this thread, normal employees where terminated, and then replaced by employees on H1B visas, people in a vastly more precarious position, allowing the companies far more control over its employees. If you’re an employee, I’m curious how you feel this is valuable to you? Especially in the longer run.

Are you claiming people are not employed to maintain MS Exchange? That’s just a fairly simple issue of ignorance; get out of the SV tech bubble. Those jobs are not gone, albeit somewhat reduced in numbers by competitors providing better service like you say.

Unfortunately this also brings along the concept of outsourcing these jobs to countries with lower salaries because these “feelings-based” overpaid CEOs lack any other substantial ideas for reducing costs. A union that opposed this kind of globalization arbitrage, would have forced these overpaid CEOs to provide policies that actually increased profits, instead of simply exploit desperate employees in other countries. Ergo, weak unionization creates inefficiencies, who would have thought??

See also amazon drivers unionization efforts. A union would have very simply blocked the idea that drivers should be obliged to piss in bottles and shit in bags while on delivery.

I think we can safely conclude that most people enjoy deliveries NOT contaminated by feces, YMMV.

I mean, unless you are the rare tech employee who enjoys doing your toilet needs in a garbage can in the middle of your hot desked, open office. I’ll leave it as an open exercise for others to determine what’s more laughable.

Re: Google, Meta, Amazon hiring low-paid H1B workers after US layoffs

#418

Generally not supposed to say this out loud, but being the only American on an all H1B team at these companies can be absolutely brutal. Very alienating, always missing out on back channel communications, no sympathy for missteps

I'm a manager of a team that's mostly H1Bs at Google. It's mostly fine but a few of them just refuse improve their English, and it's frustrating spending hours every day just being an English teacher to an engineer who writes at a 5th grade level. The problem with hiring too many H1Bs is they speak to each other in Chinese and thus take forever to become proficient at communicating with the rest of the company. Also,…

Finally! These H1Bs in India are living the 100% remote future that 99% of HN wants!

Re: Google, Meta, Amazon hiring low-paid H1B workers after US layoffs

#419
post #3

For H1B don't they have to show that they are paying at least market rate? And isn't it a factor in awarding the visa?

Here's how it works in practice: You create a job posting that's buried on your careers page and has so many very specific requirements for an underleveled role (because it's custom-made for the H1B person you want to hire) that no local worker can possibly meet them all. Then you half-heartedly phone screen a few people to check the box before throwing up your hands and saying, "We tried and weren't able to find any…

One of my friends saw a job the other day. It was a non academic, non R&D, run of the mill marketing position that required… a PhD???. The pay was also pretty pathetic with the start of the range probably not much more than a PhD stipend. I was wondering at first if credential inflation had reached its peak, but someone else suggested it was H1B bait.

Re: Google, Meta, Amazon hiring low-paid H1B workers after US layoffs

#420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a manager of a team that's mostly H1Bs at Google. It's mostly fine but a few of them just refuse improve their English, and it's frustrating spending hours every day just being an English teacher to an engineer who writes at a 5th grade level. The problem with hiring too many H1Bs is they speak to each other in Chinese and thus take forever to become proficient at communicating with the rest of the company. Also,…

Finally! These H1Bs in India are living the 100% remote future that 99% of HN wants!

If only we could have predicted that: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/26/remote-wo...
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