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U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

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Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#101

Post by mc32 »

skybrian wrote: post #93
justinhj wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re putting the cart before the horse. Why is there a shortage of low skilled workers in a country of 400m? Because you have illegal workers who’ve driven the price of that work below what the market legally supports. If the law was effectively enforced those low skilled jobs would pay enough for Americans

Vegetable and dairy farmers would go out of business, if prices can't be raised due to competition from imports. You'd need tariffs as well, and people would need to put up with significant price increases at the grocery store. There are not many Americans who want their kids to grow up to be farmhands or migrant workers. If you can speak English, you're better off in retail. For immigrants, there is a valuable benef…

Lots of countries contend with this: Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Britain, etc. People adapt. Perhaps we grow to appreciate our food and throw out less waste.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#102

Post by darkestloud »

thesausageking wrote: post #99
joshe wrote: post #94

I've worked with a few H1-B holders in Silicon Valley and they're awesome. A great improvement would be to allow H1B holders to change jobs easily (maybe after a year). It's too easy for them to get stuck in not great situations. It would be great for everyone if they could move to better fitting jobs, especially for startups who have trouble running H1-B programs. If you are, like me, a software engineer, you should…

H1-B holders can change jobs. The employer you're going to has to sponsor you and then you can just do an H1-B transfer.

The process is a nightmare. I've changed 3 jobs under H1B.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#103

Post by darkestloud »

luckydata wrote: post #13

Honestly this is a good thing. Right now the H1B is a bullshit immigration program for cheap engineers from India and China designed to depress wages in silicon valley. A change is sorely needed, this is not big enough but it's definitely a step.

Umm.. I'm on H1b and I make a lot.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#104

Post by 1024core »

I don't think this will have that much of an impact (of course, it'll impact a good number of people).

The highest impact would be if they allowed easy H1B transfer to other companies with similar jobs. Right now, H1B is pretty much like indentured servitude (it has become better in the past few years, and it was waaay worse at one time).

The other change would be to give priority based on salary. That will encourage H1B employers to pay more; thus, attracting more USCs.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#105

Post by skybrian »

mc32 wrote: post #42
rangibaby wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We need foreign low skilled workers and they want to work, but we need to regulate that workforce so they don't undercut our native low-skills workforce by being unregulated and overwhelming the workforce with cheap unregulated labor. That ship sailed some time ago to China or anywhere there is a sweatshop.

Farm work, restaurant work, construction work, warehouse work cannot be "shipped off to China", yet we have our own population which has been undercut by unregulated cheap labor. We do need a number of foreign workers, but we need to regulate it so as to not flood our labor market and undercut our workers and have it where two grown adults working full time jobs can't afford to live a lower middle class lifestyle (as…

Farm work could be shipped off by importing food instead of growing it in the U.S. (Farmers going out of business if the cost of labor goes up too much.)

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#106

Post by briandear »

joshe wrote: post #94

I've worked with a few H1-B holders in Silicon Valley and they're awesome. A great improvement would be to allow H1B holders to change jobs easily (maybe after a year). It's too easy for them to get stuck in not great situations. It would be great for everyone if they could move to better fitting jobs, especially for startups who have trouble running H1-B programs. If you are, like me, a software engineer, you should…

When H1s are used to displace American workers at a lower cost, I am not sure “cheering all immigrants” is warranted. Some, but definitely not all. The Disney firings happened. And it has happened in many other places that aren’t as famous. When Disney has H1s displacing Americans who were already doing the job, that isn’t a “shortage,” which is the single purpose for which H1B was created.

I am not disputing the value of some H1Bs, but “cheering” for all of them? No way.

Also Sergey and Elon were not H1Bs. Including them in a discussion of H1Bs is intellectually dishonest, neither one was an H1B but instead entered the US via other programs — programs that aren’t under serious debate.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#107

Post by joshe »

ones_and_zeros wrote: post #98
joshe wrote: post #94

I've worked with a few H1-B holders in Silicon Valley and they're awesome. A great improvement would be to allow H1B holders to change jobs easily (maybe after a year). It's too easy for them to get stuck in not great situations. It would be great for everyone if they could move to better fitting jobs, especially for startups who have trouble running H1-B programs. If you are, like me, a software engineer, you should…

A great improvement would be to give them citizenship if they want it. The economic impact of immigrants is not under debate, however your examples are poor choices as I don't think any of those people came to the US on an H1B visa. If anything it's an argument against H1B.

Yep, totally where I was going with that. One H1-B guy I worked with did in fact become a founder of a small successful firm, but that was after he got a green card.

I think we've lost out on a few billion dollar startups and awesome inventions by locking people to the H1-B job they got hired for.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#108

Post by briandear »

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #70
luckydata wrote: post #13

Honestly this is a good thing. Right now the H1B is a bullshit immigration program for cheap engineers from India and China designed to depress wages in silicon valley. A change is sorely needed, this is not big enough but it's definitely a step.

The idea that those on H1B visas are bringing wages down for software engineers is a popular one. Is it supported by data? If it isn’t, this is just thinly veiled xenophobia. Personally, I think the more diverse groups have an opportunity to come to America legally, the better.

Any data they aren’t? We have at least one, highly publicized case at Disney that suggests that’s exactly what happens. Otherwise, why fire experienced workers and force them to train people who didn’t know the job? That makes no sense unless cost was the motivator. It certainly wasn’t about higher skill levels.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#109

Post by sct202 »

raz32dust wrote: post #58

It would have been a positive change if they did not have the restriction that the Masters must be from a US university. What's wrong with non-US universities? I don't see why degree even matters. Like someone suggested in a previous similar thread, just sorting by pay and giving higher wages more priority (perhaps with some sort of normalization to compensate for cost of living and the field of work) is much better.

It's a gamble to come to America to get educated (cost, cultural adjustment, visa issues), and I think that we should show preference to those students who have made that extra effort to live and study in America over other people.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#110

Post by fxfan »

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #70
luckydata wrote: post #13

Honestly this is a good thing. Right now the H1B is a bullshit immigration program for cheap engineers from India and China designed to depress wages in silicon valley. A change is sorely needed, this is not big enough but it's definitely a step.

The idea that those on H1B visas are bringing wages down for software engineers is a popular one. Is it supported by data? If it isn’t, this is just thinly veiled xenophobia. Personally, I think the more diverse groups have an opportunity to come to America legally, the better.

> Personally, I think the more diverse groups have an opportunity to come to America legally, the better.

Is this supported by data?

If it isn't, this is just thinly veiled parroting of propaganda.

I'm not against any color but blindly saying a star trek bar is better than a more homogeneous bar is just parroting

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