Hopefully this helps stem the brain drain from developing countries
New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore
101–110 of 351 posts
Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore
#102Not surprising, H1B for my entire career was a cost cutting measure. Every time we had a layoff some portion would be replaced with H1B. Every H1B that shared their salary with me has been underpaid. I know its anecdotal but sharing to see if anyone has seen similar.
Not my experience in big tech and HFT. We spent a ton of time and effort trying to find anyone to our standards, never able to find enough. H1B (and other work visas) were generally better and more Sr compared to locals we found. They got paid as much or more than everyone else. When we had great people we could not get here we would instead build a team overseas, taking a bunch of other jobs with them.
Looks like there is need for 2 separate visa categories:
- One to bring top 0.1% talent from across the globe to the US
- Another to bring in temporary talent as needed
Current version of H1B had become a big basket to hold both, and abused too for just finding cheaper labor. It may be time to segment these out.
Also, given that US has ~400 million local citizens, there should be less need for either.
Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore
#103Nobody is willing to state this but it’s pretty clear if you look at the way officials behind the policy talk: they’re OK with this. They don’t mind economic harm. The purpose has nothing to do with protecting workers and everything to do with creating a more ethnically homogenous country.
People state this constantly. It's a very effective distraction (a distraction based on reality, to be clear - there are plenty of plain old racists out there, of course).
Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore
#104It's funny how quickly tech employees turn MAGA when it comes to qualified immigration. Bad zero-sum intuitions about work abound across all strata of society, it seems.
Its time to have a politics which puts the workers needs at its center. I can confidently say that the current system harms both workers and immigrants.
Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore
#105Canada is jumping on this opportunity to invite the US tech workers who are frustrated with US H1B visa restrictions and GC backlog by offering an express permanent residency in 10 days https://canadabychoice.com/services/move-to-canada/usa/occup... Canada also floating idea of alliance with Europe for travel and job opportunities https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-european-union-eu-me...
Canada historically is also one of the worst places to work in tech. Maybe it’s changed but I remember a decade ago tech jobs were paying a 1/4th of what they were in NYC/SF.
Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore
#106The point of the these visas is to hire outside talent which cannot be found in the US and qualifies as the "best and brightest" and specialized "talent" that is beyond outstanding. Everyone knows this has been heavily abused for years.
Now the word "talent" has lost its meaning or most commonly means "anyone" for cheap even though the employer knows that they are unqualified and hires them anyway for cheap labor to reduce their operating costs (expensive US employees).
You can't say "we are hiring the best and brightest" and then decide to then go for those who are unqualified. Now this $100K fee is pointless when AI agents, and data centers (homes for the AI agents) are getting hired over both US employees and off-shored employees.
One more thing. The big question is who would you rather trust to hire to not create a disaster like in [0][1] (Human or AI agent, hint one of them cannot be held accountable.)
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47061682
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-investigating-tata...
Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you determine the "correct" location of a job? My employer sells software internationally - are you claiming any international job should be subject to some sort of fine simply because the company is HQed in the US? I suppose we could try slicing revenue or profit by sales region and comparing against headcount expense per region? But with salaries abroad being a fraction of in the US, that math might still wo…
devil's advocate - if they are HQ'd in the US, is hiring US citizens that big of an ask? why do they need cheap overseas labor?
IME it’s not cheaper, it’s the only way to find enough qualified people
Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore
#108Nobody is willing to state this but it’s pretty clear if you look at the way officials behind the policy talk: they’re OK with this. They don’t mind economic harm. The purpose has nothing to do with protecting workers and everything to do with creating a more ethnically homogenous country.
The ship sailed on this one a long time ago. The US is going to be more and more ethnically diverse regardless.
Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore
#109Not surprising, H1B for my entire career was a cost cutting measure. Every time we had a layoff some portion would be replaced with H1B. Every H1B that shared their salary with me has been underpaid. I know its anecdotal but sharing to see if anyone has seen similar.
I have definitely seen job postings that were so detailed and narrow that they couldn't possibly find anyone "qualified". They were clearly making it so that it would be easier to claim that nobody in the country was qualified.
But I will say that the only people I have met that are here on H1-B have been uniquely qualified for their position. Such as, they invented a way to scale a given chemical manufacturing process, and they were developing it further.
But I got the impression that they were not particularly well paid like I would expect an American in the same position to be.
Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore
#110Canada is jumping on this opportunity to invite the US tech workers who are frustrated with US H1B visa restrictions and GC backlog by offering an express permanent residency in 10 days https://canadabychoice.com/services/move-to-canada/usa/occup... Canada also floating idea of alliance with Europe for travel and job opportunities https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-european-union-eu-me...
Does Canada not already have an issue with not enough jobs available?
Economics is generally not a zero sum game. At least according to what they taught me in Econ 101, on a macroeconomic scale skilled workers tend to increase job availability. They spend a larger portion of their income on services, which has a positive multiplier effect.