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Updates to H-1B

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Re: Updates to H-1B

#251

Post by throwaway7783 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #191
thatfrenchguy wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

I mean, If I have an India or LATAM presence, why would I hire in the US at all, even H1Bs? Unemployment rates mean nothing if its a skills job. Eng #1 is not the same as Eng #2. You can see this plainly in interviews. Our hit rate for engineering is roughly 1 in 20 - purely based on the skill match. So 6-7% unemployment might as well mean they are not good enough?

Re: Updates to H-1B

#252

Post by bradlys »

BeetleB wrote: post #219
bradlys wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it well known that the main reason that most foreigners have advanced degrees is because that's how they get into the country legally in the first place? I don't see many people getting employed straight out of undergrad from India or China and moving to the US directly. They get their advanced degree here first to get into the country then they get employed...

> Isn't it well known that the main reason that most foreigners have advanced degrees is because that's how they get into the country legally in the first place? Yes, and ...? I mean, if it were a requirement to start a business and employ 10 Americans gainfully, would you go and say "Yeah, but the reason so many foreign born people do that is so they can get in legally." So? As long as they have higher level trainin…

You're assuming people are really learning anything in those programs that they wouldn't have had in their undergrad. I've never met an American with an undergrad who is underperforming compared to their foreign MS counterparts. The MS is merely a cheaper tool to get into the country than other investment visas plus you get credentialed. I think it's also a bit of a validation tool that the person actually has studied at the same level as US counterparts. I have met some people from India who were surprised at how difficult college was when they came to the US compared to back in India.

Re: Updates to H-1B

#253

Post by pnw »

strongpigeon wrote: post #205
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.

Good news: the USCIS makes this data available! [0] Google, Microsoft and Meta definitely look for (and hire!) US applicants. One can reasonably have a gripe with the consulting companies on there (Infosys, Tata, Cognizant, etc.) but they don't represent 90-95% of H-1B issued. [0] https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-studies/h-1b-employe...

One might have more than just a gripe with Infosys given they recently admitted to defrauding the visa system over decades and paid a record $34m fine. How many Americans lost out on jobs as a result? We'll never know.

https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/indian-corporation-pays-re...

Re: Updates to H-1B

#254

Post by focom »

aylmao wrote: post #236
BJones12 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The per-country caps also seem like a throwback to the early 1900's era immigration exclusion policies. Canada does not have that and it is going very poorly. Lots of people are calling for the implementation of the same policy.

How is not having a per-country cap going poorly in Canada?

Have you heard of Brampton?

Re: Updates to H-1B

#255

Post by pnw »

semiquaver wrote: post #241
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'd be surprised if more than 5-10% of H-1B positions are ones where the hiring company has even looked for US applicants. But H1B employers are required to certify that they took good faith steps to recruit U.S. workers for these positions and were unable to find qualified candidates to hire. You really think a business would do that? Just go to the government and tell lies?

Yes, some of them have been doing it for decades.

https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/indian-corporation-pays-re...

Re: Updates to H-1B

#256

Post by warkdarrior »

aylmao wrote: post #229
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 wonder if this shortage has to do with the recent strong swing back to in-office work

Well, what is a company supposed to do if local candidates do not want RTO? It seems logical to hire workers who are OK with RTO, especially if they are outside of the country and clearly willing to relocate for RTO.

Re: Updates to H-1B

#257

Post by jltsiren »

BurningFrog wrote: post #223
Spivak wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

On a market with free pricing there are , pretty much by definition, no shortages or surpluses. Instead prices go up or down until supply and demand meet. So talking about "shortages" in this context doesn't really make sense to me. Yet that's the terminology in this field, and the resulting confusion is unavoidable.

A shortage is a situation, where the market cannot bring high prices down by increasing the supply. For example, if software engineers earn more than equally demanding roles in other engineering fields and the situation persists long enough, there is a shortage of software engineers.

Re: Updates to H-1B

#258

Post by lukeramsden »

addicted wrote: post #27
blahblahgov wrote: post #13

Yup, as expected. Not dealing with the effects of clustering. Great job GOV. https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1fyx9hp/cognizant...

Looks like that’s going through the legal system so is already illegal? You can’t make a rule that says “hey don’t break the rules”. That seems logically fallacious.

Can't read the full article due to paywall but ostensibly it's due to bias rules on race and not visa rules? Sounds like visas being abused and then backstopped by unrelated rules does not mean the visa rules shouldn't be fixed.

Re: Updates to H-1B

#259

Post by aspenmayer »

pavlov wrote: post #196
pockmarked19 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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.

This doesn’t sound remotely legal, but I’m not a lawyer. How were you expecting to comply with reasonable requests for your family’s passports and visas by the US while they were in transit? What if they were lost in transit or stolen? If your intent was to circumvent the process, that could constitute mail fraud and other violations that could result in loss of residency or in extreme cases loss of citizenship. Why would you or anyone ever do this?

Re: Updates to H-1B

#260

Post by breadwinner »

PessimalDecimal wrote: post #203
breadwinner wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US tech exports in 2018 was $338 billion. Tech is our biggest export by far. Think of the US tech industry as a siphon that sucks in wealth from foreign countries. Would you want to make that siphon bigger or smaller? If you want to make that siphon bigger — and more competitive — how would you do it? By limiting the people that can work in tech to whoever companies can hire locally, or by bringing in the smartest pe…

Does "The US" siphon that money off? Or Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc. siphon that money off? And where and to whom does it go from there? The major benefit of reducing or eliminating the H1B visa program is that those companies can continue to do well, and Americans can do well along with them.

The money this siphon brings in is benefiting not just tech workers and tech shareholders. When the money is spent it turns the wheels of our economy, which leads to prosperity for all Americans, not just the 8% or so that work in tech.

The tech industry vacuums up money from foreign countries and pumps it into the economy of our country. The beneficiaries include all Americans, including those who work in restaurants, retail, healthcare, insurance, education, housing, transportation, entertainment and so on.

Limiting tech industry to whoever companies can hire locally will hurt its global competitiveness. Such a move will not just hurt the few would-be tech immigrants that are prevented from immigrating, but American prosperity in general.

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