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

271–280 of 359 posts

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

#271

Post by BeetleB »

dominotw wrote: post #268
BeetleB wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Its an example right? now you are shifting goalposts to be easily available to everyone or something.

I guess I wasn't being clear. The original comment I was responding to was:

> What I do care about is the fact that H-1B locks immigrants to a company and tie their residence in the us to their employment.

I am merely pointing out that most countries lock employment visas to the employer. It's fine not to like it, but I'm highlighting that this is pretty normal - the US is not an outlier.

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

#272

Post by embedding-shape »

infecto wrote: post #261
embedding-shape wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Sure. My point was historically Canada was pretty bad from a QOL perspective. Low salary and high cost of living. Not sure what you are trying to argue but have at it!

Trying to help you understand that Canada does not have "low salary" just because it's lower than NYC/SV, since apparently your software engineer buddies live an upper middle class life on software salaries, how "low" can it be then, especially if the cost of living is so high? Something doesn't make sense here.

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

#273

Post by thayne »

cogman10 wrote: post #169
thayne wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think raising the fee fixes the abuse problems. Unless maybe most of the fee goes into eacrow and is paid back to the employee if the employer terminates employment (maybe without a good, documented cause?). But that could produce its own misaligned incentives. I think the best way to solve it is to remove or reduce the restrictions on staying in the country after they have worked here for some number of year…

> I don't think raising the fee fixes the abuse problems. It doesn't totally fix them, but it does make it so the applicant is more fairly compensated for accepting a more abusive work environment. It also stops companies from using H1-Bs as a mechanism to reduce overhead. > I think the best way to solve it is to remove or reduce the restrictions on staying in the country after they have worked here for some number o…

> but it does make it so the applicant is more fairly compensated for accepting a more abusive work environment

How so? It increases the cost to the employer to hire an H1B employee, so they might hire less of them. But it could also mean they pay the employee less to compensate for the higher cost of bringing them in to the country.

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

#274

Post by dominotw »

BeetleB wrote: post #271
dominotw wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its an example right? now you are shifting goalposts to be easily available to everyone or something.

I guess I wasn't being clear. The original comment I was responding to was: > What I do care about is the fact that H-1B locks immigrants to a company and tie their residence in the us to their employment. I am merely pointing out that most countries lock employment visas to the employer. It's fine not to like it, but I'm highlighting that this is pretty normal - the US is not an outlier.

thats fine but what was your intention behind asking this

> Do you know counterexamples?

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

#275

Post by rfgplk »

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…

H1B visas are only given to US local workers (remote workers don't need them), most of whom will end up working in tech centers (aka high cost of living places).

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

#276

Post by lokar »

sokoloff wrote: post #135
lokar wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found that once you are paying mid to high 6 figures the company is not trying to save by hiring a foreigner.

How many H1-B or non-H1-B jobs are “high 6 figures”? That’s a tiny, tiny minority of the tech employment market and one which would readily shrug off a one-time $100K expense. (That would be less than 2 months’ salary for a high-6-figure position.)

Most of my friends and colleagues ended up in that range (or higher).

It’s more common then people think

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

#277

Post by rfgplk »

r_lee wrote: post #33
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.

> who think a $90k salary is something extravagant I guess Europe is then part of these "developing countries"

Yes, but H1B visas apply only for those working IN the US, not remotely.

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

#278

Post by lokar »

jvanderbot wrote: post #195
lokar wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely a ton of abuse. It actually hurts efforts to get the best people. They end up getting put in overseas offices.

I'm absolutely sure there is. Any poorly specified constraint will be abused.

And it’s a hard problem to fully specify. A lot of people here seem to think that CS style analytical thinking can solve every real world problem precisely. That’s just not true.

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

#279

Post by bijowo1676 »

adrr wrote: post #262
bijowo1676 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the problem is H1B is not only tech, there are nurses, some medical professionals, non-tech specialized workers. Stack rank would just give all the visas to big tech and starve US hospitals and every other industry

Medical field is under a green program. But following your point. If nursing paid more and had better conditions, it would encourage more domestic talent. H1B should be used for to get the worlds top talent otherwise it will be used by businesses to save money and depress wages.

top talent is different visa (O-1). H1B is merely specialized worker, not top tier global talent.

Nursing does pay a lot and conditions havent changed much over the years. Certified anesthesiology nurses get paid like $132/hr, and still there is shortage.

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

#280

Post by josefritzishere »

repeekad wrote: post #90
orangedog wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Canada not already have an issue with not enough jobs available?

The US says they don't want them, the point of the article is the new visa requirements (surprise) aren't converting into hiring US citizens but instead pushing the roles offshore.

[dead]
Post reply on HN