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Immigration is about talent, not costs

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Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#571

Post by WWKong »

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…

Your experience seems rather limited. Because H1Bs by no stretch are cheap. You got to be kidding yourself if you think Indians buying up all those million+ dollar homes in Bay Area are earning low wages.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#572

Post by shmooth »

jtbigwoo wrote: post #325
refurb wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You linked to an article that references a study. Care to share the original data? The Department of Labor has wage floors for H1-Bs (prevailing wage). Company's can't legally pay below that.

>> The Department of Labor has wage floors for H1-Bs (prevailing wage). Company's can legally pay below that. Companies play games with the experience levels and titles to force wages lower. An "architect" or "developer" gets replaced with an "analyst" or "engineer" making 2/3rds as much.

and H1-B body shops force their workers to work umpteen hours of overtime, bill the clients for it, and H1-B workers get no compensation for all the overtime.

and H1-B body shops do shady things like delay payments, take 'fees' out of payments, pay in rupees, etc.

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_26778017/tech-company...

as go the unions, so go the workers...

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#573

Post by eli_gottlieb »

jahmaiosullivan wrote: post #520
exelius wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say that professional services firms really create the most value - far from it actually. They're just able to pay more because there's relatively little risk involved for them.

Well said! You'll never outbid a body shop. They'll essentially spend whatever it takes to get the workers here and bill them out for 3x whatever they paid. If you as the product company don't like it tough luck. This is because the people is the product for these companies, product companies have other things to concentrate on.

If they're charging 3x whatever they paid, that pushes up prices for the companies hiring the body shops, which incentivizes finding cheaper competitors to body shops in the labor market -- like hiring domestic workers, for example. The pricing mechanisms of the market will optimize out a balance.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#574

Post by eli_gottlieb »

IndianAstronaut wrote: post #504
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. No, the system just needs to be reformed. And I've seen the right reform proposal often enough to be circulating it myself: * The government can give out N visas in an auction. Firms bid via legally-binding salary offers. The N highest salaries bid…

>Of course, it's worth noting that some degree of so-called "nativism" is just part of the social contract. It's the price we pay for having a society that enforces cooperative coordination among citizens instead of letting everything be run by uncoordinated, law-of-the-jungle free-for-alls. You realize that skilled immigrants are going to be the most likely to assimilate into American culture. They will not form ghe…

Well yes, of course. This is why the proposal is designed to make absolutely sure we bring in skilled, high-value immigrants. It's a filter, not a fence.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#575

Post by btbuilder »

I have interviewed & screened a lot of developers both H1B (looking to transfer), greencard holders and US citizens. I can't say that I noticed any correlation between immigration status and mediocrity. I suppose if H1B was organized in a way to prefer highly skilled individuals then I should have seen a higher percentage of skilled H1B applicants.

I often wonder whether H1B should be restricted to full time employee relationships rather than also allowing sub-contracts (with provided evidence of a pending contract). If someone is top talent it should be in the interest of final party to offer a full time position.

Either way I firmly believe it is important that if the US is to maintain its lead in tech that there should be as few barriers as possible to getting top talent into the country. The problem is that it is hard to introduce a bureaucratic process that is free of fraud and yet filters out those who aren't "highly skilled". I find educational requirements for visas fairly meaningless (I hired one top developer who skipped college entirely), I find academic requirements for things like Extraordinary Ability category (e.g. published in journals, named on a patent etc) as uncommon in software.

Frankly software companies themselves make mistakes during hiring so I don't know how we can expect the government to do better; It's comparable to the patent office.

I'm surprised to hear that some software engineers working in the Bay Area think that wages are depressed. Look at the mean salary of households in the bay area compared with the rest of the state.

side note: unless green card process is started H1B is only renewable once for a total stay of 6 years.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#576

Post by eli_gottlieb »

barrkel wrote: post #272
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…

I got a H-1B visa. I was living in Ireland at the time. But, as it turned out, I never moved to the US. It was for a compiler position at Borland. I ended up working remotely for the next 6 years or so, first for a year as a contractor at a 6 figure Euro rate, then later as a salaried employee after I moved to London. They flew me over two to four times a year to keep up to date with the team. I collectively lived ov…

>The opportunities to leverage tech talent are, however, larger in northern CA than most other places.

Ok, so why not move some of those opportunities to where the talent is?

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#578

Post by raverbashing »

cylinder wrote: post #452
guyzero wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What would be needed exactly?

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#579

Post by dang »

x0x0 wrote: post #343
pm90 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yuri is wrong. h1b is absolutely about costs -- unless they claim (a somewhat fantastical claim) there is nobody in the US at all who could fit their needs. A claim which is trivially untrue. Those people exist and could be hired. Why isn't Yuri hiring them? Because of the price they demand. Excuse me, he is just a guy with a company, not some demi-God who has access to a list of all qualified people out there. When…

Weird, it's almost like yuri was the one peddling errant bullshit that h1bs were not about cost. So I see you saying that they are, well, exactly about cost. Glad we cleared that up. Whining that he can't operate profitably at market wages reinforces my point: h1bs are entirely about cost. So perhaps he needs to offer a million dollars, if that's what it takes to get his perfect unicorn (minimum job requirements: 23…

> yuri was the one peddling errant bullshit ... Whining ... his perfect unicorn ... Cue whining ... All he wants is to sidestep US immigration law

Whoa, this is not ok.

Most of your 15+ comments in this thread have combined grand unsubstantiated claims with lashing out at those you disagree with. That's bad enough, but here you've crossed into personal attack. Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News.

The level of discourse you're practicing here makes me ashamed of this site: lacking in either civility or substance and whipping up indignant froth. In the future, please optimize for quality rather than quantity. One high-quality comment is a greater contribution than a dozen rude ones.

People legitimately have divergent views of this complex matter: companies use the immigration process for different reasons, there are different levels of talent being sought, employers and employees have different vantage points, and so on. Turning it into a polarized nastiness match, as you and a few others have done, destroys the capacity of this site for exploratory conversation.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#580

Post by x0x0 »

dang wrote: post #579
x0x0 wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird, it's almost like yuri was the one peddling errant bullshit that h1bs were not about cost. So I see you saying that they are, well, exactly about cost. Glad we cleared that up. Whining that he can't operate profitably at market wages reinforces my point: h1bs are entirely about cost. So perhaps he needs to offer a million dollars, if that's what it takes to get his perfect unicorn (minimum job requirements: 23…

> yuri was the one peddling errant bullshit ... Whining ... his perfect unicorn ... Cue whining ... All he wants is to sidestep US immigration law Whoa, this is not ok. Most of your 15+ comments in this thread have combined grand unsubstantiated claims with lashing out at those you disagree with. That's bad enough, but here you've crossed into personal attack. Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News. The leve…

Hmm. I apologize -- I was rude.
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