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Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee

alaskasnewssource.com

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Re: Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee

#281

Post by aprilthird2021 »

zdragnar wrote: post #182
esalman wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What requirements did the role have and what’s the salary range? 4+ years in product development. Python/R + a low-level language. Terabyte-scale data stream and batch processing. HPC knowledge (vectorization, memory access, distributed computing) to build efficient algorithms. Degree in a quantitative field (Math, Stats, Physics, CS, or Engineering). Upper limit on compensation was 200k. > Although saying that I k…

There are a ton of jobs that pay as well or better with lower requirements, even outside the bay area. Anyone with that level of experience, Python and a low level language isn't going to take you up. I'm not normally in agreement with the "you're not paying enough, there's plenty of people" crowd, because I've been on the hiring side too and know what a crapshoot it can be... But you're definitely offering too littl…

I'm sorry you think $200k/yr to sling Python for a 26 year old is too low?

Come on man be real right now

Re: Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee

#282

Post by esalman »

hdgvhicv wrote: post #270
esalman wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason US is in this mess is because in the 50s and 60s there was a liberal arts education boom in the US, and STEM education boom in India/China.

Anyone educated in the 50s and 60s has retired And in China they were far more occupied with a cultural revolution than any form of advanced education. At best you could argue that they were teaching basic literacy to more people.

[flagged]

Re: Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee

#283

Post by esalman »

dpark wrote: post #247
esalman wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I responded to the point someone made- there's an excess of workers in America. Firstly, when there's an excess, wages are supposed to lower, even for Americans. Secondly, even if there is an excess, there was no evidence of that in my experience. In addition to the full time role we also interviewed interns in fall, and in my experience they were all either immigrant or children of immigrants.

You don’t see an excess of workers because the compensation was too low. Your requirements were such that you were realistically competing with Meta and Google offers for $400k+ and $200k was your max possible compensation.

I did not post the full job description word for word to not doxx myself. But the job description explicitly mentioned that anyone with the right aptitude should apply, don't have to qualify for every requirement. We hired a recent graduate with relevant research experience.

Re: Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee

#284

Post by bijowo1676 »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #218
SilverElfin wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dependence on H1B and other visa dependent workers leads to lower salaries It does not generally . H1B employees are more expensive usually. In most companies - like any notable tech company - they are paid exactly the same due to fixed compensation plans, but cost more to the company once you include legal fees, processing fees, and especially the time delays and risks. It’s not even close in terms of a cost compa…

They don't have to undercut their coworkers on an individual level. When a position that could otherwise reasonably be filled by an American is gated for any unnecessary reason, be it undesirable pay or excessively specific requirements or whatever else, that effectively removes that position from the domestic job market. When that is repeated many times the end result is the same number of domestic applicants compet…

tech salaries have only increased and never decreased. Not in 2000, not in 2008, not in 2020.

Your narrative runs against the facts on the ground.

Not only foreign workers were part of the reason US tech dominates the world, they also greatly contributed to every single major invention in tech, including the Attention paper which led to Transformer based LLMs.

All of these stupid anti-immigrant narratives are exploiting either ignorance (foreigners undercut wages, while wages have tripled and more) or motte-and-bailey tactics (WITCH bad and H1B fraud bad, lets abolish all immigration)

Re: Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee

#285

Post by bluegatty »

jojobas wrote: post #253
bluegatty wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's literally exactly the argument. If teachers were underpaid - it would be a poor argument. But if there's an acute shortage of 'key' workers in jobs that require education, for jobs where wages are materially above market pricing - then this is where you want H1B type programs. The idea is that it should not harm the local market for labour, and it's usually not reasonable to expect market wages to be a radical d…

Teachers are underpaid. No occupation paying under median wage in the area should be granted work visa.

'Teachers are underpaid' is a qualitative statement, separate from what is 'median wage'.

Teachers earn about the median wage in the US and slightly above the median wage in California and Alaska.

I think that pay structure is about right and given the way education is paid for and lack of willingness of people to move to rural areas, H1 seems about right for acute cases and specialized subjects.

If you can't get a physics teacher to move to 'Wherever Alaska' - you have a problem.

Re: Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee

#286

Post by fc417fc802 »

murderfs wrote: post #278
hdgvhicv wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depopulating rural Alaska, or America in general, is certainly a campaign strategy.

I mean, so's "Bumfuck, Alaska needs a handful of teachers, therefore we're going to import infinite Indians"

Who said anything about infinite? I don't see anything wrong with importing labor if it's of net benefit to our society. If there was genuinely no citizen that wanted the job for any reasonable price then what's the harm in bringing in an educated outsider who contributes positively? It improves several metrics simultaneously without harming anyone.

Re: Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee

#287

Post by rented_mule »

tastyfreeze wrote: post #174
randyrand wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are an excess of teachers in the USA already. It’s a big reason they aren’t paid that well. No good reason to import them except to pay them even less .

Rural Alaska is a special kind of rural that most people won't take to. Communities off the road where you fly in on a small plane, take a river boat, or snow machine in the winter to get there. Most are tribal and insular. Getting anyone to move there is a big ask. For a H1B teacher it is a foot in the door.

I think a lot of people don't understand how different it is to live in rural communities in general, and then to your point, how much more extreme rural Alaska is than "regular" rural areas.

I live in rural California. During the pandemic, a lot of people moved here and didn't last six months before leaving (I can relate, there's a lot I miss about living in SF!). There are so many services people expect, and they expect them to be prompt. We have the opposite of economies of scale in our small town. We have zero options for meal delivery. The nearest full size grocery is a 20-30 minute drive. Costco and Trader Joe's are a 90 minute drive. There are so few auto mechanics around that many of us drive 90 minutes for car service if we don't do it ourselves. Power outages often last 3-10 days. Large snow storms (4+ feet) typically make our roads impassable for 3-7 days. When the power goes out, internet follows 90 minutes later. There's no cell coverage inside or out, even when the power is on.

All of that is worse in almost all of Alaska. My brother worked on Alaska's North Slope for a few years - if you've ever seen the TV show Ice Road Truckers, that was his job. They'd fly him up north for a 1-2 week long shift, then fly him back to the little town he lived in for a week-long break. You have to worry about crazy things like hoping the summer doesn't get too warm, because roads will melt and collapse into what was previously permafrost. Uh oh, someone left a loading bay door in the warehouse open and now there's a polar bear in there breaking expensive stuff. Then you go home and can't go inside because a moose decided to go to sleep right in front of your door - better drive 50 miles and fuel up because you might be sleeping in your vehicle tonight and you don't want to freeze to death if your fuel runs out. These are all things my brother experienced. The pay was great, but he finally gave up and moved to Anchorage to drive a truck locally there.

Re: Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee

#288

Post by fc417fc802 »

bijowo1676 wrote: post #284
fc417fc802 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have to undercut their coworkers on an individual level. When a position that could otherwise reasonably be filled by an American is gated for any unnecessary reason, be it undesirable pay or excessively specific requirements or whatever else, that effectively removes that position from the domestic job market. When that is repeated many times the end result is the same number of domestic applicants compet…

tech salaries have only increased and never decreased. Not in 2000, not in 2008, not in 2020. Your narrative runs against the facts on the ground. Not only foreign workers were part of the reason US tech dominates the world, they also greatly contributed to every single major invention in tech, including the Attention paper which led to Transformer based LLMs. All of these stupid anti-immigrant narratives are exploit…

That's highly deceptive. To start with, salaries have to increase just to tread water given inflation. Beyond that, there's nothing wrong with a position that produces a large amount of value being compensated in accordance. If a particular sector does well we should expect salaries to rise relative to the economy as a whole.

The question is simply whether a policy would depress wages relative to not having that policy, and it's merely one of many factors that should be carefully considered when weighing the costs and benefits.

> All of these stupid anti-immigrant narratives

You reveal your own biases. Personally I'm originally from academia. I'm accustomed to a workplace where citizens are only barely a majority and of those many are naturalized immigrants. I have no qualms with importing labor that's significantly more skilled than the average american in cases where doing so benefits our society on the whole. Neither do I have qualms with filling jobs that are legitimately unwanted or that we truly don't have sufficient local talent to support. However I'll note that the last one there is exceedingly rare.

Re: Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee

#289

Post by machomaster »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #222
throwaway85825 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people live in a pressurized bubble for a month for saturation diving. If the price is right you can get someone to do almost anything.

That is true but I think the salient observation here is that it's only realistic to pay so much for education. So either you can't have children in such a town, or you're forced to homeschool, or (I guess what's being suggested is) you import someone willing to work an undesirable job if it gets them into the country. I think there's an important difference between importing labor to undercut qualified americans in…

> the vast majority of qualified americans will have no interest in at any reasonable pay rate.

Herein lies the whole problem. It is the potential employees who determine what a reasonable pay rate is, not the employer - the cat decides what kind of milk it likes.

Re: Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee

#290

Post by bijowo1676 »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #288
bijowo1676 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tech salaries have only increased and never decreased. Not in 2000, not in 2008, not in 2020. Your narrative runs against the facts on the ground. Not only foreign workers were part of the reason US tech dominates the world, they also greatly contributed to every single major invention in tech, including the Attention paper which led to Transformer based LLMs. All of these stupid anti-immigrant narratives are exploit…

That's highly deceptive. To start with, salaries have to increase just to tread water given inflation. Beyond that, there's nothing wrong with a position that produces a large amount of value being compensated in accordance. If a particular sector does well we should expect salaries to rise relative to the economy as a whole. The question is simply whether a policy would depress wages relative to not having that poli…

you know what would depress wages even more?

not having H1B foreigners like Elon Musk or Satya Nadella create/grow companies that employed tens of thousands Americans and created trillions of value for investors.

Remember it was White American Steven Ballmer who almost ruined Microsoft (he took MSFT at $620 bln and left at $280 bln valuation), and it took a foreigner like Satya to bring it to $4 trillion.

not having foreigners who could discover Attention mechanism or Transformer based models that led to AI boom.

US would literally be indistiguishable from Europe's lackluster development and growth, would you want US look more like EU ?

All of the wignats who complain and bitch about immigration completely forget or take for granted all the tech progress made in the US by foreign workers, and all the non-tech jobs that get created thanks to tech work being done by foreigners.

Just visit any graduate program in the top tier US university lab, visit any leading scientific conference, or lookup nationalities of top cited research papers, and imagine USA without all those talented people with foreign sounding last names.

That will be proper comparison

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