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Updates to H-1B

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Re: Updates to H-1B

#191

Post by toomuchtodo »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #187
toomuchtodo wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a shortage of applicants willing to work at what companies want to pay. If it is taking more than 30-60 days for workers to find a role, there are enough workers domestically.

There's a shortage of applicants with the skills that companies need. Engineers, like most qualified workforce, aren't interchangeable.

This is not what the data shows [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. Also, the efforts of many US firms recently to grow their India and LATAM presence [6] demonstrates this is for cost reasons, not a lack of qualified workforce. Companies will hire contractors from IT outsourcers and similar to launder the labor cost cramdown operation. IT unemployment is ~6% [7], why are we issuing any H1Bs beyond exceptional, highly compensated talent (~$300k-$500k/year and up)?

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-cognizant-h1b-visas-... | https://archive.today/jaXNo

[2] https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-widespread-wage...

[3] https://cis.org/North/Unlikely-Sources-Confirm-Wage-Suppress...

[4] http://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2015/05/economists-h-1b-vi...

[5] https://gspp.berkeley.edu/assets/uploads/research/pdf/h1b.pd...

[6] https://stig.net/latam-outsourcing-destination-us-companies/

[7] https://www.wsj.com/articles/it-unemployment-hits-6-amid-ove...

Re: Updates to H-1B

#192

Post by binarymax »

throwaway48476 wrote: post #25

I expect a lot of H1B applicants creating shell corporations.

From what I understand you also need to be able to pay yourself a $60,000 salary minimum, from that LLC. If people can do that, then power to them and let them stay!

If you're worried about people shortcutting a line to get a visa by injecting money into the US economy, again by somehow getting 60K into the LLC to pay the salary of the recipient, this is also a win.

So what is the problem here exactly?

Re: Updates to H-1B

#193

Post by thatfrenchguy »

ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #11
toast0 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people get upset that someone on a 'non-immigrant' 'temporary employment' visa can apply for permanent residency, although that is allowed by the H1-B program. Otherwise, one could immigrate through a different visa; there are some employment visas that are explicitly intended for those with intent to immigrate. Or like a family or lottery visa, I guess. I think it's possible to have a permanent residency applic…

It takes around 20+ years to go from H1b to permanent visa/green card. In the meantime your kids born in US have grown up, graduated, you have a house and everything could be yanked at the border when you are travelling. Meanwhile vast majority of them pay into taxes and social security and leave the US and never see a dime of that money. Immigrants are the easiest group to exploit by everyone because they have no vo…

20 years only if you're born in India married to someone born in India. Not great either way though, but it's really affecting the Indian community because of their particular norms.

Re: Updates to H-1B

#194

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

pockmarked19 wrote: post #163
kqgnkqgn wrote: post #120

Seem like sensible changes, though more is still needed. Requiring H1B holders to leave the country to renew paperwork is an insane anachronism. The per-country caps also seem like a throwback to the early 1900's era immigration exclusion policies. Re: the concerns over "immigrants taking our jobs!". As a native-born American working in a large tech company today - the threat is very clearly not from H1B's and other…

[flagged]

Why would you get downvoted for that?

That’s the simple truth. They do that for all types of visas. My mother had to do it, until she finally (reluctantly) became a US citizen, and she lived here, most of her life.

I think she had long-term visas, though. I only remember her doing it a couple of times. I think I went with her, on one of the trips.

Re: Updates to H-1B

#195

Post by pacoWebConsult »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #67
observationist wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, the desperate need for talent is the reason these programs are used so heavily. It's not discounted salary and cost savings in benefits, insurance, and other areas for non-permanent employees, or having leverage over immigrant employees in negotiations. Corporations only ever use these programs to get the absolute best of the best and they absolutely aren't abused to bypass the stricter regulations and require…

I didn’t believe it until I saw it, but look at the classified section of the San Francisco newspaper where big tech companies post job listing knowing that Americans won’t see them so they can say they tried to get domestic talent. My neighbor is on a visa from mumbai working at Chase who was brought in as the lead frontend engineer (def can’t find Javascript devs in the US). Even he admitted it’s weird that his who…

And once a team reaches that point, less citizens will want to work on a team where they're the outsider anyways.

Re: Updates to H-1B

#196

Post by pavlov »

pockmarked19 wrote: post #163
kqgnkqgn wrote: post #120

Seem like sensible changes, though more is still needed. Requiring H1B holders to leave the country to renew paperwork is an insane anachronism. The per-country caps also seem like a throwback to the early 1900's era immigration exclusion policies. Re: the concerns over "immigrants taking our jobs!". As a native-born American working in a large tech company today - the threat is very clearly not from H1B's and other…

[flagged]

When I was in the US with visas for my four-person family, we FedExed our passports to Finland where my parents put them in a different envelope and mailed them to the US embassy. Ten days later the embassy mailed back the passports with the new visas attached, and my parents FedExed them back to us in New York.

Yeah, seems like this re-approval concept makes a ton of sense. FedEx at least got some business.

Re: Updates to H-1B

#197

Post by creer »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #170
creer wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't attaching green cards - or at least temporary work permits - to US university degrees be a positive change compared to employment agencies / contractor firms trying to sneak in piles of people without such degrees and screening? That would be a good response to the issue of training (ideally) highly qualified smart people and then kicking them out.

Except he was president for four years and did the opposite - remarkable that people want to forget 2017-2021

There is that. And the idea of trying to retain new grads would already have worked 30 years ago and yet here we are.

Re: Updates to H-1B

#198

Post by sunshowers »

Spivak wrote: post #189
HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #161

A supposed shortage of qualified US applicants for tech jobs, especially software developers, doesn't jibe with the huge numbers of US developers currently looking for work, including highly experienced older workers suffering from age discrimination. I'd be surprised if more than 5-10% of H-1B positions are ones where the hiring company has even looked for US applicants.

I feel like this whole issue could be solved short order if we agreed that not being able to find qualified applicants at a given fixed price does not a shortage make. It's the same with the "fast food shortage," I bet the shortage would dry up real fast at $50/hr so all we're really doing is haggling over price. If in order to hire a H1-B at a salary of x you had to offer US workers 2x with say a $100k floor on x th…

[flagged]

Re: Updates to H-1B

#199

Post by akira2501 »

kelnos wrote: post #165
akira2501 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to leave the country to renew paperwork is an insane anachronism. I always took it as a means of proving they still could return somewhere if necessary. Which is a reasonable thing to assure on a visa.

That's pointless. They need to prove they have somewhere to return to while regretting their visa that lets them... not return there? Dumb. Ultimately it just wasted time and money, and causes lots of stress, for no useful purpose.

It's a visa. The whole point is that it's not permanent and you are ultimately expected to return home permanently. You may also be asked to leave at any time. It's reasonable for the host nation to want to ensure that outcome is still available and that someone hasn't actually fully emigrated here with no options for return.

Ultimately it's known to anyone who applies for a visa that this will be the requirement, and so, if they don't want the economic opportunity of working in the US, they're free to avoid the stress and just stay in their home nation.

Re: Updates to H-1B

#200

Post by sunshowers »

crmd wrote: post #68

It’s never been clear to me why this program exists in the first place, other than to put downward pressure on US STEM wages. What am I missing?

Education. Learning. Expertise.

As Asimov pointed out, "[t]here is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been." American culture is profoundly anti-intellectual. Every Dunning-Kruger rando thinks they have something valuable to contribute to every discussion.

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