Immigration is about talent, not costs • Hacker News Board

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#451

Post by malandrew » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 11:06 PM UTC

rahij wrote: post #438

malandrew wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know the salaries of any of the H1-B visa holders at my company. Do you? Maybe we can make it a policy that companies make such information public when they employ more than N number of H1-B holders. With mean, median, standard deviation and error bars, you should be able to get an idea of whether or not this is happening. Besides these numbers for salary, it would also be interesting to see the same statisti…

It is public actually. Check out visadoor.com.

That data is extremely skimpy. Where is the comparative data? All I saw was one figure, "prevailing wage". What is the sample size? Is the sample based on workers operating in the same region (for example a company with multiple locations could very well cite a domestic salary relative to all locations (bringing the average down) or cite numbers from the cheapest region. etc. etc. etc. There are a many ways to lie with statistics and the number of ways you can lie with them is inversely proportional to the quantity of statistics released.

For example, the first petition I clicked on was very fishy: https://icert.doleta.gov/index.cfm?event=ehLCJRExternal.dspC...

$96k-116k offered for an engineering position that requires a master's degree and where the prevailing wage is quoted at $92k!?

I want to see real numbers her.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#452

Post by cylinder » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 11:07 PM UTC

guyzero wrote: post #425

cylinder wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the candidate is so supremely talented they can get an O-1 pretty easily. Kind of ends this "H1B is for talent" argument quickly.

An O-1 requires "extraordinary ability by sustained national or international acclaim and must be coming temporarily to the United States to continue work in the area of extraordinary ability." How many engineers have "international acclaim"?

The O-1 is not as stringent as people think.

>Extraordinary ability in the fields of science, education, business or athletics means a level of expertise indicating that the person is one of the small percentage who has risen to the very top of the field of endeavor.

I am confident I can get one for a truly talented hacker or computer scientist.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#453

Post by thedufer » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 11:07 PM UTC

thrwy10 wrote: post #397

thedufer wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that there's no value judgment being made here. Nor am I claiming that H1s are low paid. You're still arguing against the same strawman. To reword: if an H1 gets a job, a qualified citizen is not getting that job. Except in very exceptional circumstances, this hurts said citizen, and by extension the labor pool of people who could be substituted in for said citizen.

You didn't specify 'qualified' in the original post. If it was implied and I didn't get it, I'm sorry. I agree that if there is a qualified local, they should get these jobs before bringing in foreign labor. Although, my argument isn't a straw man.

I thought that "local labor market" implicitly only contained people who were local and could do the requisite labor, but that might not be the agreed-upon meaning. Sorry for the confusion.

Strawman-ness is contextual. You were arguing against an argument that is, in fact, used. However, you did so after quoting something that was not making that argument, but instead a weaker one, and one which your response didn't really respond to.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#454

Post by tohrwwaya » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 11:08 PM UTC

manticore_alpha wrote: post #86

Look HNers, let's be honest with each other. There's a lot of H1B's on here. You have friends overseas who you want to see succeed in the Bay Area. In my experience at many tech companies in the Bay Area, H1B Visas exist for one reason, and one reason only - to get skilled engineering/STEM labor -- and to exploit connections (primarily Indian/Pakistani) among these workers to continue to get cheap labor. It absolutel…

  > let's be honest
  > one reason only
  > absolutely, positively
  > without a doubt
  > simple reality
  > definitely, absolutely
  > all-the-fucking-time
  > absolutely no

Yikes.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#455

Post by snowwrestler » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 11:10 PM UTC

malandrew wrote: post #436

snowwrestler wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is already illegal to pay H1B visa holders less than "the actual or prevailing wage for your occupation, whichever is higher." http://www.uscis.gov/eir/visa-guide/h-1b-specialty-occupatio... Thus, when I hear people complain of companies who hire H1Bs only because they want to pay them less, I always want to ask, "why haven't you reported them?" Either they don't actually know that the companies are exclusively pa…

I don't know the salaries of any of the H1-B visa holders at my company. Do you? Maybe we can make it a policy that companies make such information public when they employ more than N number of H1-B holders. With mean, median, standard deviation and error bars, you should be able to get an idea of whether or not this is happening. Besides these numbers for salary, it would also be interesting to see the same statisti…

If a person doesn't know what the salaries are, how can they complain that the salaries are too low?

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#456

Post by thedufer » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 11:10 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #315

thedufer wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the point you take issue with is really debatable. The only way it could not be true if there is actually no one in the local labor market who can do the job, and that's a very difficult argument to make. Outside of that, every H1 is a job a citizen isn't getting. You didn't touch on this at all, so I'm not really sure what your point is. I think you're debating a strawman.

By this logic, we should not allow people to have more than two children, or else the surplus children will grow up and take the jobs. Because there are only a fixed number of jobs to go around, right? I read last week that the bureau of labor statistics determined the number: 309,219,419.

I don't know what logic you're using, but it didn't come from my post. As I pointed out elsewhere, I didn't make any value judgments. I claimed, essentially, that someone taking a job hurts others who may have competed for that job. I did not claim that there's any need to protect them, with legislation or otherwise.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#457

Post by saalweachter » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 11:12 PM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #247

halflings wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "H1B Visas exist for one reason, and one reason only" ; "it's simple reality" ; "Without a doubt" ; "It happens all-the-fucking-time" ; "There's absolutely no talent shortage in the Bay Area" Presenting something as a fact doesn't make it one. You're basically saying that American tech companies should only hire Americans. That the facebook, Google, Mozilla, ... shouldn't hire smart people from other countries. As…

Your remarks about "divisive ethic-neuveau-ghettos" with "communities insulating themselves rather than assimilating" just makes it worst. Part of the "social contract" when you immigrate to the US is to at least make an effort to join your new country. We aren't the Borg, but we would like to see you learn at least a little English, accept your new country, and generally participate. You are already most of the way…

Since when?

The first three generations of my family in America spoke German. My home town was basically a group of people from a German town who up and moved to start a new town in the Midwest and went on living there as if nothing changed. Hundreds of Midwest towns and cities started the exact same way.

Why is it different now?

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#458

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 11:15 PM UTC

dasil003 wrote: post #421

sliverstorm wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good lord, I'm not generalizing anything. I was explaining further the specific phenomenon (which does occur sometimes) that manticore_alpha was talking about. I didn't apply this phenomenon to anyone, nor make any statements about policy nor how it ought to impact policy... Or does the simple description of a phenomenon which sometimes happens, now mean I'm a jingoistic, nationalistic, racist dirtbag? I am in comple…

The reason is because it's typically ignorant xenophobic racists who complain the loudest about x or y group not assimilating. Now I don't think this is you, but that's just the way the argument smells. Let's step back a minute: what is the big deal with people attempting to preserve their culture when they come to the US? Isn't it a free country? And materially I don't see how it harms anything because the American…

[deleted]

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#459

Post by mooreds » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 11:16 PM UTC

spydum wrote: post #201

mooreds wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Took some digging, but here's a list of top companies with H1B visas for the FY 2013: http://www.computerworld.com/article/2489146/technology-law-... Top 5: * INFOSYS * TATA * COGNIZANT * ACCENTURE * WIPRO

if that took digging, you have not worked in the big corporate enterprisey space. These are the go-to bodyshop guys all the major players outsource to. These bodyshops hire talented H1Bs (from their own network) to get folks on-shore to handle knowledge acquisition, then "knowledge transfer" to the offshore folks for peanuts.

Heh. I meant getting a reputable link for a recent year took some digging.

But, thankfully, my experience in the "big corporate enterprisey space" is minimal.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#460

Post by fargolime » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 11:20 PM UTC

throwaway989834 wrote: post #414

fargolime wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increasing the size of the economy isn't the best choice, though. We have too many people in the US as it is. More people, more money, more stuff isn't always better. (Using a throwaway since it seems most people think more people and skyscrapers and traffic and higher taxes to compensate for the dwindling resources is wonderful.) No, we don't have unlimited room, unless you're planning to not feed or provide water t…

> (Using a throwaway since it seems most people think more people and skyscrapers and traffic and higher taxes to compensate for the dwindling resources is wonderful.) Are you sure that's a throwaway? Take a look at my username. That's a throwaway!

Ha! Yes, this account is for going against the hive mind. Maybe I'd get less downvotes if I had "throwaway" in the name? Hmmm.