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Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

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Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#111

Post by _ymw0 »

I do believe H1-Bs were used to pay lower wages (more so because of being tied to the employer for long periods of time in the Green Card Process).

However, in my observations and experiences, the last few years (i.e. the years when H1-Bs were allocated by lottery), due to the scarcity of H1-B visas, employers started paying a premium for employees who already had an H1-B visa and the skills necessary, because they could switch jobs immediately (as opposed to having wait 1+ year to hire someone from abroad and wait/hope for them to get through the lottery).

What made it even better was that thanks to legislation by the Obama administration, your spot in the Green Card line was now portable, i.e. even if you switch employers, as long as the new employer files a green card application, you still retained your position in the line.

As you can see, the theme has been giving more leverage to H1-B employees as opposed to the employers - and that is what the American immigration system desperately needs. In the end it's only going to protect American workers.

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#112

Post by ryanmarsh »

The thing that kills me about this whole debate is the flyover states are full of smart hard working people who had the misfortune of ... I shouldn't have to explain this.

These people could be trained too. Every enterprise client I've had for the past 5 years has H1B's doing minimal coding tasks on enterprise COTS software like PEGA or Informatica. Those skills don't take 4 years to train people for and they pay a liveable wage.

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#114

Post by drabiega »

thecardcheat wrote: post #23

> The industry lobbyists’ ace-in-the-hole argument is that if they can’t hire more H-1Bs, they’ll ship the work overseas. But for projects on which H-1Bs are hired in the U.S., face-to-face interaction (between themselves and their American coworkers) is crucial. That is why employers bring H-1Bs to the U.S. in the first place rather than sending the work abroad, where the wages are even cheaper. Considering the grow…

I suspect that instead of shipping work overseas, you'd simply see a relaxation of attitudes on remote work. The US already has a large base of engineering talent that is willing to work for less but either won't or can't relocate to a tech hub. (Often because if they relocate to you they're going to want more money because of cost of living differences.)

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#115

Post by projectramo »

program_whiz wrote: post #34

Ok what's the suprise here? If you give companies a chance to get cheaper "mostly the same" labor without a downside, or maybe with the upside they can't leave, they're going to take it. That's why I do believe globalization and the availability of huge amounts of cheap unregulated labor does hurt American jobs and industry. Its not xenophobia, its just common sense. I think if you look past any ideas of racism, xeno…

There have been many studies on this.

Conservatives usually use the phrase "at best, the impact is nil"

Liberals usually use the phrase "at worst, the impact is nil"

Because the study shows there is negligible impact. Every laborer is also a spender. If the person saves, then every laborer is also an investor.

If you believe in the mainstream economic theory, more jobs are produced for the ones that are "taken."

You might ask where are those jobs, and then people will say they are in new fields and require training etc.

The debate goes on: why aren't tech jobs in short supply? A: They are. Q: I don't see that, where? A: there isn't one "tech", there are many different fields and they are in short supply in the important ones etc.

It is not as straightforward as you make it out to be.

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#116

Post by middle334 »

zzleeper wrote: post #12

> Their lobbyists claim there is a “talent shortage” among Americans and thus that the industry needs more of such work visas. This is patently false There is no way SV would have grown to what it is now without foreign talent. So the shortage has been real for the last 30+ years. Not sure why this point is still controversial. > most Silicon Valley firms sponsor their H-1B workers, who hold a temporary visa, for U.S…

There is a big difference between foreign workers who are great and add value, and foreign workers who are brought over, are subsequently exploited, and who are also used to depress the income of the local workforce. Seen it happen.

Then there are the "Indian Mafias" in places like Microsoft, where over 50% of an organization is Indian because they got into a cultural hiring spiral. And the products from those groups are generally pretty awful, because everyone seems to want to be a manager or see how high the next re-org will take them, and not do good designs or write good code.

H1Bs shouldn't be used for job shops, and they shouldn't be used to bring in cheap labor, but that's largely what they're used for now.

A lot of really good Indian engineers are going to get hurt, and that will suck.

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#117

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

> overestimation of Russia's danger on the US and EU

Depends what you mean by “EU”. Western Europe? Sure, Russia maybe isn't a big deal for them. But the Baltic states, which are EU and NATO member states, understandably consider their next-door neighbour a huge threat.

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#118

Post by jcadam »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #61
jarsin wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Total BS. I have seen this first hand both as a hiring manager and as an applicant. I have been rejected from jobs based on totally insane interview questions that have nothing to do with the job. In one case I interviewed at 2 competitors. One gave me nothing but trick whiteboard questions, the other emphasized my experience and gave me a real world interview. I was rejected by the whiteboard company and hired by th…

You bring up another reason why 90% of applications might be rejected: false negatives. Consider a hiring filter which rejects 90% of good applicants and 99% of bad applicants. In such a world, consider a population of 10 good applicants. These 10 applicants will go on 100 interviews, be rejected on 90 of them and each will find a job. So in this world where every applicant finds a job , you still get 9/10 applicatio…

I've come to accept that I'm no good at whiteboard interviews. The only way I can get hired nowadays is either via a personal referral and/or an employer so desperate (or serious enough about hiring someone in a reasonable time-frame) that they short-circuit their interview process and skip the whole whiteboard hazing process.

For my current job, I had a total of 2 phone conversations (first with a recruiter, second with the hiring manager) over the course of a week when they all of a sudden dropped an offer on me. I was a bit surprised by it -- "What? An offer already? Uh, I was expecting some sort of interview first?"

I actually nearly walked away at that point, but was... talked into accepting after a little back-and-forth on the salary.

But anyway, I just ignore cold-call/emails from recruiters anymore, because I know it will just end in wasted time (like getting rejected after 4 rounds of hazing and a weekend-stealing homework project) and stress/frustration I don't need. Most companies are obviously being overwhelmed with large numbers of high quality applicants for every open position ;)

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#120

Post by program_whiz »

program_whiz wrote: post #34

Ok what's the suprise here? If you give companies a chance to get cheaper "mostly the same" labor without a downside, or maybe with the upside they can't leave, they're going to take it. That's why I do believe globalization and the availability of huge amounts of cheap unregulated labor does hurt American jobs and industry. Its not xenophobia, its just common sense. I think if you look past any ideas of racism, xeno…

My point here is that its not surprising that a company takes a better cheaper option that can't just leave, and often costs less and has fewer regulations. That means that its worse for the average American worker, because they either have to lower standards and wages to compete, or just lose the potential job.
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