A scheme to lower engineers’ wages • Hacker News Board

Re: A scheme to lower engineers’ wages

#71

Post by therealwill » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 6:52 PM UTC

geebee wrote: post #41

therealwill wrote: post #19

Sponsoring an H1-B employee, in theory, is always more expensive than an hiring a local because not only do you have to pay an H1-B visa employee the same wage as a local you also have to pay the lawyer and visa fees. Often times employers will also have to provide an employment contract guaranteeing x number of years of employment in order to increase chances of visa approval. In practice, this is not the case. H1-b…

Also, that's assuming that the company couldn't have hired by going substantially above the market rate. If there's a talented person you could hire who insists on 150K a year, when "market rate" is 100K a year, sure, you save a bundle by sponsoring an H1B.

They would have to post a job and allow citizens to apply to the 100k job. If the job posting is requesting requisites that would be expected for a 150k job, then this would be fraud. If the company is lying about the job requisites in order to be at the 100k market rate, this would also be fraud. Proving it, is difficult which is why everyone abuses the system.

Re: A scheme to lower engineers’ wages

#72

Post by therealwill » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 6:58 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #12

fsk wrote: post #4

The worst part of importing workers via H1-b is the indentured servant aspect. That makes the H1-b employee more attractive than a comparably-qualified American earning the same salary.

So would you support an effort to make it easier for foreign engineers, sw developers and physicians to come in to get a legal job in the us? Foreign knowledge workers seem to not enjoy the same sympathy low wage immigrants enjoy, perhaps due to the more immediate threat of job stability foreign knowledge workers pose to domestic knowledge workers, even when this fear hasn't been substantiated.

I think the easiest solution would be just to allow H1-B visa holders change jobs or quit easily. Currently if you want to quit you only have 1 month to find a job which is nearly impossible because you have to transfer the H1-B visa which is the same as applying for a NEW H1-B (only difference is that it does not count towards the yearly cap.)

Re: A scheme to lower engineers’ wages

#73

Post by therealwill » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 7:04 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #52

robotkilla wrote: post #22

We need a tech union to help prevent this sort of thing. It would be nice if it could also help prevent bad practices in the industry (like building backdoors into code for the nsa).

Traditional unions only work when they're negotiating with monopolistic industries, because the company then has to hire the majority of the available labor pool itself and has no substitute workers to replace them if the union makes significant demands. Any kind of operation that only needs a dozen developers is never going to need union workers. As soon as the union makes some nontrivial demand the employer can jus…

Good thing the largest tech companies don't collude to lower wages... /s http://www.wsj.com/articles/judge-rejects-settlement-in-sili...

Re: A scheme to lower engineers’ wages

#74

Post by davidw » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 8:16 PM UTC

nikroux wrote: post #65

davidw wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I just don't see the economics of this It goes beyond basic economics, so it's worth reading and learning about. > adding hundreds of thousands of people "Unfortunately", those people already exist and have skills, just in other places, where they happened to have been born. If you create bad enough policies, companies can and will go where the workers are. Also, this is not a zero sum game. There are more peop…

> Why are those people more important than those that happen to be born elsewhere? I can answer that one for you. Why should he as an American care about and for the future of youth in other countries? It is natural for us as humans to first take care of our own family/neighbours/country men. As mean as it sounds you cannot build a better future for your children if instead of taking care of things that will help the…

> And for Americans the future of American youth is ABSOLUTELY unquestionably more important the future of the youth elsewhere in the world

Unquestionably? That's pretty strong. I live in Italy, and frankly, I'm more inclined to care about my friends' kids here than about some kid in, say, Alabama, although of course I wish all of them the best.

50 years ago, there were people who unquestionably thought the future of kids they shared a "race" with trumped that of other children.

> Different times.

So your relatives got what they wanted, and fuck everyone after them? Can you point to a year and month when 'things changed' and after which immigrants should keep out?

> Americans pay taxes in America

Uh, the other people in the US pay taxes too, and don't even get to vote.

Re: A scheme to lower engineers’ wages

#75

Post by davidw » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 8:26 PM UTC

joelwilliamson wrote: post #44

It seems auctioning H1-Bs to companies would let the companies that can't find enough talent to hire at market price, and force companies that just want cheap talent to pay for Americans. Solicit bids from every company stating how many visas they want and how much they will pay for each one. If Google wants 5000 visas and is willing to give the government $200K for each visa, while Infosys is only willing to pay $40…

Auctions are a good way of allocating scarce resources.

However, visas are arbitrarily scarce: you still have to pick a random number out of the air for "how many visas should there be".

What is the optimal number of immigrants? http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.it/2014/06/the-optimal-number-...