Pakistani author out to discredit Indian cos. Thats all it is...
New Data Show How Firms Like Infosys and Tata Abuse the H-1B Program
61–70 of 95 posts
Re: New Data Show How Firms Like Infosys and Tata Abuse the H-1B Program
#62Can someone explain to me why H1Bs are problematic? They are an immigrant workforce just like the people who cross the border illegally. Yes, immigrants, by increasing supply do have a depressing effect on wages, but, in a global economy, don't we also believe in a global workforce? People seem to have a problem with H1Bs, but people are happy to enjoy the benefits of cheap fruit and vegetables possible with labor of…
The problem with H1B is that you are serf to your sponsor. If H1B was instead work visa that once you enter the US, you are free to work for 10 years the situation would have been different.
Re: New Data Show How Firms Like Infosys and Tata Abuse the H-1B Program
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Can someone explain to me why H1Bs are problematic? Did you read the article? Here are the subtitles from the article and the first line of the referenced article: - Lower wages - H-1B is not a bridge to permanent immigration - H-1B is not about skills or skills gap "Information technology workers at Southern California Edison (SCE) are being laid off and replaced by workers from India."
Yes, I understand that. But that can be said about any immigrant workforce. Immigrants increase the pool of locally available workers, but, it appears, people welcome the benefits of immigration till the benefits (cheaper products and services) take away (threaten income) from them. In other words, would we care if Bangladeshis or Siberian Russians displaced Walmart, or farm workers? Probably not. We'd say, yay, more…
They are not immigrants with the rights of immigrants. It is absurd that a winner of green card lottery has more rights on the labor market than a skilled person brought to US to fill a skill gap
Re: New Data Show How Firms Like Infosys and Tata Abuse the H-1B Program
#64Can someone explain to me why H1Bs are problematic? They are an immigrant workforce just like the people who cross the border illegally. Yes, immigrants, by increasing supply do have a depressing effect on wages, but, in a global economy, don't we also believe in a global workforce? People seem to have a problem with H1Bs, but people are happy to enjoy the benefits of cheap fruit and vegetables possible with labor of…
"don't we also believe in a global workforce?"
Evidently not, as foreign doctors aren't allowed to immigrate to the US and practice medicine without first going through a costly and onerous relicensing program. As it stands, all foreign doctors, even from first-world nations with statistically better health outcomes than the US like Germany or Japan are all deemed unqualified to practice medicine in the US: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/12/business/economy/long-slog...
The real question is why programmers should be singled out for this kind of treatment when US doctors are the highest paid in the world, price-per-procedure is the highest in the world, and medical bills remain the number one cause of bankruptcy.
Further, a global workforce is only one component of free trade. What about a global retail market? Did you know that there is presently a federal law barring the re-importation of prescription drugs from nations where they're sold for pennies on the dollar? That form of free trade is bad for the bottom line of big corporations, so it is illegal.
Re: New Data Show How Firms Like Infosys and Tata Abuse the H-1B Program
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, I understand that. But that can be said about any immigrant workforce. Immigrants increase the pool of locally available workers, but, it appears, people welcome the benefits of immigration till the benefits (cheaper products and services) take away (threaten income) from them. In other words, would we care if Bangladeshis or Siberian Russians displaced Walmart, or farm workers? Probably not. We'd say, yay, more…
Well, yes lots of Americans do care who comes into the country and from where and there is nothing wrong with that. Lots of people also don't buy the cheapest meat, cheapest coffee, cheapest clothing, etc.
Lots of people also don't buy the cheapest meat, cheapest coffee, cheapest clothing, etc.
Re: New Data Show How Firms Like Infosys and Tata Abuse the H-1B Program
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
A good analogy is the so-called "pilot shortage" among US-based airlines. There are plenty of pilots around; there just aren't enough pilots anymore who are willing to work for the wages and conditions that exist at the entry level of those airlines. A common figure I've seen quoted is that the education, training and certification required to become an airline pilot comes in around $250,000 total, while the starting…
Not just pilots. The wages in Hong Kong that you can get (source: headhunters approaching me) are literally multiples of US or EU rates. Amongst others I was offered USD 350k + bonus to head a data science team - and all I have is an unrelated engineering degree and three years' experience. This kind of package would be hard to get for a freshly minted Harvard MBA at a major bulge bracket bank... In finance, I've see…
Very interesting. I grew up in Hong Kong and most of my friends are still earning I wonder what company you are working for. As far as I know the demand for tech workers is pretty low over there.
Re: New Data Show How Firms Like Infosys and Tata Abuse the H-1B Program
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not just pilots. The wages in Hong Kong that you can get (source: headhunters approaching me) are literally multiples of US or EU rates. Amongst others I was offered USD 350k + bonus to head a data science team - and all I have is an unrelated engineering degree and three years' experience. This kind of package would be hard to get for a freshly minted Harvard MBA at a major bulge bracket bank... In finance, I've see…
Very interesting. I grew up in Hong Kong and most of my friends are still earning I wonder what company you are working for. As far as I know the demand for tech workers is pretty low over there.
Well, depends what you define as tech. I might get some flak for this but in my experience, the AVERAGE quality of developers in Europe and especially in the US is much higher than in Asia. For example, a majority of the data science candidates I interviewed in Singapore, outside the Haskell community would fit all of the data I provided them with and call that their model (the concept of validation never entering their mind). Similarly, most didn't know what the relational model was and just wanted to use NoSQL methods without justification (mostly because it's hot and would look good on their CV). The exceptions usually already worked in the US, and wanted to come home to their family, so I'm guessing there's a fair bit of brain drain going on. Some specialties which are "harder" to acquire, like dev ops, also help fetch higher levels - I can think of one of our dev ops candidate who was getting 280k USD in Hong Kong managing 100 servers.
I'd say those offers are mostly in the financial industry (obviously) or in big corp (think F500 companies, pharma, etc.) and involved a bit of leadership or specialised experience, not being yet another RoR developer. But keeping up with friends in the US, I find the rates are substantially higher if you can differentiate yourself. YMMV.
Re: New Data Show How Firms Like Infosys and Tata Abuse the H-1B Program
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately most companies/managers don't want to try it. I'm structuring my own company never to have a physical presence beyond the Hong Kong legal offices, but we are a big exception. Judging by your other comments you're a fan of Thailand so maybe try Lazada, they are hiring a ridiculous number of engineers at the moment, salaries are very high for Bangkok, but the codebase (and politics, just from the size) mi…
These are some very interesting insights that you are sharing. I'd love to hear more about this -- southeast Asia seems like an exceptionally lucrative place to work if you are "playing it right." Do you have an e-mail address that I can write a few (short) questions to?
hn.crdb at the Mountain View company.
Re: New Data Show How Firms Like Infosys and Tata Abuse the H-1B Program
#69I find it difficult to understand why these companies would go to such lengths to save at absolute most 15-20% on salary. Even if there were no legal or immigration costs (which there definitely is), it seems to me they could easily do the same by getting someone from a less prosperous part of the US and moving them to, say, CA. I'm sure this happens all the time.
It's not about 15-20% for the N workers sponsored.
It drives down wages across the industry by increasing unemployed labor supply. It's a lever to put downward pressure on wages in a macroeconomic sense.
Re: New Data Show How Firms Like Infosys and Tata Abuse the H-1B Program
#70Can someone explain to me why H1Bs are problematic? They are an immigrant workforce just like the people who cross the border illegally. Yes, immigrants, by increasing supply do have a depressing effect on wages, but, in a global economy, don't we also believe in a global workforce? People seem to have a problem with H1Bs, but people are happy to enjoy the benefits of cheap fruit and vegetables possible with labor of…
There's nothing wrong in hiring immigrants. There is however something wrong where virtually every other profession has protection, but programmers don't. So wages will be lower compared to other professions, making it a job where skilled people might want to avoid even though they enjoy it.
You either immigration for every profession or non at all. Not screwing one profession in particular.