Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

spectrum.ieee.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 357 posts

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

#231

Post by mc32 »

petcat wrote: post #159
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...

The economics don’t make any more sense for Canada or the EU than they do for the US. The the new $100k H1B fee was imposed because companies have a huge financial incentive to import semi-skilled workers from lower-wage markets rather than hire domestically. Canada and the EU face the same problem. In tech, it's about the kinds of work inexperienced/cheap developers are often doing: assembly line, JIRA-ticket-taker…

Ironically, if it's true that the jobs are being off-shored, rather than on-shored and filled by locals, this would be beneficial for the countries who currently find themselves in a brain-drain spiral (be it India, Ukraine, etc.). It would result in a more tech and economically balanced world rather than having two lobes (USA and China). People would say that it's a detriment to the US's future --but those are often the most critical of US hegemony.

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

#232

Post by BeetleB »

cogman10 wrote: post #208
BeetleB wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I do care about is the fact that H1-B locks immigrants to a company They're free to change companies if the new company sponsors them. It may reset the timeline for applying for a green card, depending on the location and job type of the new job. Generally, if it's the same type of job in the same city, it doesn't reset. People (including Indians) do it all the time. Going to a country for employment and havin…

> They're free to change companies if the new company sponsors them. That's a much smaller pool of companies. The company already has to be participating in the H1-B program in order to sponsor someone. > Do you know counterexamples? Most of them happen under the likes of the EU where citizens of member nations have the freedom to migrate. But even in the US, we have the green card (as you note) which you can get wit…

> Most of them happen under the likes of the EU where citizens of member nations have the freedom to migrate.

Yes, but this isn't the same. As a US citizen, I don't have that freedom in the EU, correct?

> But even in the US, we have the green card (as you note) which you can get without doing H1-B. Getting a green card means your legal status isn't tied to employment.

True, but we're talking about employment visas. What the US has is likely standard in most countries when you don't have permanent residence.

Not to mention that many (most?) countries have a much more difficult path obtaining permanent residency compared to the US. You want to live there? Get an employment visa and stay on that visa forever.

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

#233

Post by BeetleB »

dominotw wrote: post #197
BeetleB wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I do care about is the fact that H1-B locks immigrants to a company They're free to change companies if the new company sponsors them. It may reset the timeline for applying for a green card, depending on the location and job type of the new job. Generally, if it's the same type of job in the same city, it doesn't reset. People (including Indians) do it all the time. Going to a country for employment and havin…

> Going to a country for employment and having your legal status tied to a company is pretty standard across the world. Do you know counterexamples? TN visa

By counterexamples, I meant other countries where you get in via an employment visa and don't have your presence tied to the employer.

TN visa is much more restrictive than H1B. Only for citizens of two countries, and only for certain professions. I know Canadians who have no hope of getting a TN visa (wrong profession), but have come on H1B.

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

#234

Post by cmiles8 »

mc32 wrote: post #231
petcat wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economics don’t make any more sense for Canada or the EU than they do for the US. The the new $100k H1B fee was imposed because companies have a huge financial incentive to import semi-skilled workers from lower-wage markets rather than hire domestically. Canada and the EU face the same problem. In tech, it's about the kinds of work inexperienced/cheap developers are often doing: assembly line, JIRA-ticket-taker…

Ironically, if it's true that the jobs are being off-shored, rather than on-shored and filled by locals, this would be beneficial for the countries who currently find themselves in a brain-drain spiral (be it India, Ukraine, etc.). It would result in a more tech and economically balanced world rather than having two lobes (USA and China). People would say that it's a detriment to the US's future --but those are often…

The Indian offshore firms are scrambling because of the opposite happening. If all this work was just flooding to India then the panic that’s happening there over the industry imploding wouldn’t be occurring.

The sort of work traditionally handled by cheap offshore labor is now the sort of work most ripe for replacement by AI. So it’s burning the candle from both ends. The low value stuff is getting replaced by AI and not sent there and the high value stuff struggles to get delivered by cheap labor because the play was always cost of and not the quality of the talent.

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

#235

Post by embedding-shape »

bpt3 wrote: post #166
embedding-shape wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If pay and money is the only thing you care about then yeah. But for the rest of us, none of the places are "the worst place to work in tech" as long as you're in the northern hemisphere. Take a look at what the pay is in Chile if it's so scary to you.

Pay and money are why people work, so yeah they're pretty important.

Money is just a tool to get what you actually want, the goal itself shouldn't be "more money", unless you want to miserable, because that hole you feel never gets filled by shoveling more money down it.

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

#236

Post by bijowo1676 »

mc32 wrote: post #231
petcat wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economics don’t make any more sense for Canada or the EU than they do for the US. The the new $100k H1B fee was imposed because companies have a huge financial incentive to import semi-skilled workers from lower-wage markets rather than hire domestically. Canada and the EU face the same problem. In tech, it's about the kinds of work inexperienced/cheap developers are often doing: assembly line, JIRA-ticket-taker…

Ironically, if it's true that the jobs are being off-shored, rather than on-shored and filled by locals, this would be beneficial for the countries who currently find themselves in a brain-drain spiral (be it India, Ukraine, etc.). It would result in a more tech and economically balanced world rather than having two lobes (USA and China). People would say that it's a detriment to the US's future --but those are often…

US has shipped all manufacturing jobs to Asia, including China and got the Rust Belt in exchange (and huge corporate profits). and China is now a manufacturing powerhouse.

Partly that push was created by the labor unions, who pushed the cost of doing manufacturing business far above what was profitable and feasible.

When the environment becomes hostile to conducting business, then jobs will leave and local industries atrophy.

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

#237

Post by juuroh »

gosub100 wrote: post #127
fillskills wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is no need for "temporary talent" from foreign countries. US is graduating plenty of CS grads from our schools. There is a need for wage suppression and exploitation (for anyone not aware, if you get fired from your H1B job you have 2 weeks to leave the county). That's why they have a reputation for being "better", another word for it is indentured servitude.

[dead]

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

#238

Post by ben_w »

vehemenz wrote: post #118
ben_w wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Would you say merely "good", or is this agreement on "fantastic"?

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

#239

Post by embedding-shape »

infecto wrote: post #179
embedding-shape wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If pay and money is the only thing you care about then yeah. But for the rest of us, none of the places are "the worst place to work in tech" as long as you're in the northern hemisphere. Take a look at what the pay is in Chile if it's so scary to you.

Nope, cost of living is what matters and at least at the time major Canadian metros were as if not more expensive than SF/NYC and got you a 1/4th of the pay. I am sure that’s attractive to some but sounds pretty miserable. Chile I imagine has pretty good cost of living economics. Anecdotally most of my friends in Latin and South America live upper middle class on software salaries.

> Anecdotally most of my friends in Latin and South America live upper middle class on software salaries

And your North American friends do not? Please.

The commonality is that software engineers all across the globe live pretty great, compared to their local peers. But of course, compare them to inflated NYC/SV salaries and everything looks like peanuts.

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

#240

Post by zimzam »

wegwerper wrote: post #160
filoleg wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that both you and the grandparent comment are correct at the same time. It feels like there is a strong dichotomy between how H1B visa is treated across different realms of tech. I have been working in big tech for a decade, and have a few friends working in the more technical financial firms (think more TwoSigma/HRT/Citadel, not JPM/GS), and my experience matches yours. Every H1B I knew at the companies I wo…

> In fact, they actually ended up costing more to the employer than a local would, due to having to deal with immigration lawyers/filing fees/etc. (all while being paid the same as everyone else). I mean, you were actually underpaying the local workers if this was the case? If you offered the fully loaded salary to the local workers they might have accepted. Or the local going rate for qualified personel were higher…

Workers on an H1B are more abusable though - if they lose the job they have something like 30 days to find another one or they have to leave the country entirely.

So you talk a good game about work life balance and then after you hire an H1B worker and bring them to the country you can spring 60 hour weeks doing tedius things and many won't be in a position to say no.

The salary might also seem higher to somebody who doesn't understand the cost of living in the US (and how many things are not paid for via taxes like healthcare).

Post reply on HN