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New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore

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Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore

#111

Post by azinman2 »

jvanderbot wrote: post #77
unified101 wrote: post #5

I think this will go hand in hand with tech compensation and jobs falling off a cliff. In the AI world too, we can't have our cake and eat it.

Yeah, fine. Honestly I think most of us have been overpaid our entire career. But I'm not sure I see it necessarily. Take these stats, which can cut either way on this topic: In USA there are more software engineers than all other engineers combined. There are 10x more software engineers than the next highest engineering discipline. If you could subdivide s/w engs into 10 equal categories ("I'm not just a run of the…

Are there not 10x the need of software engineers compared to other engineers, particularly in the US?

Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore

#112

Post by DragonStrength »

lokar wrote: post #30
bearjaws wrote: post #2

Not 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.

Comparing getting an American to uproot themselves from their entire community to move to the Bay Area for a job vs. someone on the other side of the world who is looking to get into America just aren't the same. Ultimately, H1Bs are used to lower the working standards of Americans and enrich tiny pockets of existing regional capital holders.

Regional wealth inequality in America has not gotten better as Silicon Valley has gotten richer and brought in more foreign labor. At some point, the people making money hand over fist need to show how they're improving the situation for Americans instead of just saying "trust us, bro."

The AI discussion hasn't helped Silicon Valley seem more in touch with "flyover" states either. It's pretty clear there's a lot of disdain and hostility from Silicon Valley towards the "average" American.

Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore

#113

Post by dayyan »

bijowo1676 wrote: post #65

Canada 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...

[flagged]

Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore

#114

Post by emodendroket »

cogman10 wrote: post #60
Sol- wrote: post #29

It'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.

This isn't a MAGA thing. H1-B is a bad program. I have no problem with someone getting a green card, citizenship, TPS, etc in the US. I think there should be a lot faster routes for that. Let the software devs come in and become citizens or permanent residents, I don't care about that. What I do care about is the fact that H1-B locks immigrants to a company and tie their residence in the us to their employment. That…

If you look at it in a vacuum sure. When the same administration is actually floating the idea of making the program more coercive by making it so you can be deported immediately after losing your job I think it’s pretty reasonable to recognize the coercive nature of the program isn’t their concern.

Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore

#115

Post by bluGill »

adrr wrote: post #10
bearjaws wrote: post #2

Not 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.

H1B should have never been a lottery. It should be a stack rank by salary to deal with the over subscription.

I have a couple problems with that idea that I've never been able to figure out even though the idea is good.

First, how do we ensure it doesn't become a slave program: that is you get hired for X, and they are paying you that, but you want to find a new job because you don't like your boss. Or perhaps they hire you for X, and you are doing Y (again, nothing illegal)

Second, you hire someone to do a job, and they realize you have to pay them and so they decide to do nothing (or get a second job that they are working instead).

I can find answers to all of the above, but they all fail to: somebody is aware of your solution - how are they going to abuse it. I haven't solved this secondary abuse issue.

Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore

#116

Post by r_lee »

happytoexplain wrote: post #84
tekla wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is pretty interesting to watch. "I'm pro immigration EXCEPT specifically the kind that directly affects me"

This is the fallacy of inventing a hypocrite by combining individual opinions from multiple people. Not one single tech person I know in person has ever been "pro immigration" or "anti immigration". They all want reasonable immigration , and part of that has always meant not harming the livelihoods of existing citizens. That's the subjective part. Edit: This is also a good example of the problem where we assume a per…

I've seen the whole "nobody is illegal" be quite a popular sentiment in recent years and that (when talking about the US) that as long as they're ok people, they should be let in, seemingly oblivious to the incredibly strict US visa requirements for people from Europe etc.

I'm sure this is at least partly a case of the loud minority, but it's hard to tell sometimes

Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore

#117

Post by bickfordb »

shagie wrote: post #64
adrr wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

H1B should have never been a lottery. It should be a stack rank by salary to deal with the over subscription.

H1B also includes things like high school foreign language teachers. https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=french+language+immer... A stack rank by salary would mean "H1B is big tech employees" rather than "these are professionals who have skills."

The H1B was intended for highly specialized skills that where there is no local talent available.

Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore

#118

Post by vehemenz »

ben_w wrote: post #40
rfgplk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Taking advantage of desperate people from developing countries who think a $90k salary is something extravagant.

Everywhere else but the USA (and possibly Luxembourg), $90k will buy you a fantastic quality of life. If you really want to make $90k seem as bad to the rest of us as it feels to you, you need to get the exchange rates changed, have USD devalued compared to other currencies until they're at purchasing power parity. Of course, doing this would mean forcing yourselves to accept that China's got the biggest economy and…

$90k gets you a good quality of life in most of the US, too.

Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore

#119

Post by sunshowers »

fillskills wrote: post #102
lokar wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You understand that people get better at things over time?

Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore

#120

Post by ok123456 »

shagie wrote: post #64
adrr wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

H1B should have never been a lottery. It should be a stack rank by salary to deal with the over subscription.

H1B also includes things like high school foreign language teachers. https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=french+language+immer... A stack rank by salary would mean "H1B is big tech employees" rather than "these are professionals who have skills."

Then you will have unscrupulous contracting firms miscategorize employees to take advantage of those different quotas.
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