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Apple discriminated against US citizens in hiring, DOJ says

arstechnica.com

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Re: Apple discriminated against US citizens in hiring, DOJ says

#191

Post by jltsiren »

sangnoir wrote: post #172
bubblethink wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no such thing as correct class. Broadly speaking, there are temporary workers who can eventually become permanent residents. And almost everyone needs to go through the same process which involves this PERM business. And everyone needs to participate in this charade of hiring someone once, then pretending that they don't have the employee, and then emerging victorious by putting out an ad that only that pers…

> Broadly speaking, there are temporary workers who can eventually become permanent residents. The laws governing immigration are very specific about the distinctions between visa classes and the requirements for each class- and the devil is in the details. > The competition and interviews already happened when the person was first hired. Perhaps, but that is your and Apple's (tacit) opinions. The government of the U…

There is no green card category for being irreplaceable. PERM is for situations where it's difficult to find equally good US workers, with "equally good" left intentionally vague. The idea is that the employer is expected to argue convincingly that the foreign applicant is clearly the best person for the job. That's inherently subjective, but most things in immigration and the job market are.

Sometimes there is a shortage of domestic candidates with sufficient qualifications and experience in the general field. Sometimes the job is highly specialized, and nobody outside of a handful of internal candidates can possibly do it without extensive training. Sometimes the candidate was selected according to the established standards of a profession, and the job only exists for that particular person. And so on.

A fake application process is dishonest, regardless of whether it looks like a real job opportunity or is intentionally kept hidden. But if the process is open and you know in advance that no other candidate can possibly qualify, you are being not only dishonest but also impolite. Unrelated people may apply thinking it's a real job opportunity, wasting their time.

Re: Apple discriminated against US citizens in hiring, DOJ says

#192

Post by injb »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #176
jrockway wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really believe it. The companies would just offshore to a country with more preferential immigration treatment. Remember that plan for a boat in international waters where programmers who can't get visas would work for companies in San Francisco with the same time zone? That's what limiting immigration would accomplish. Immigration has maybe one effect, increasing the tax base.

If it's so easy to offshore these jobs, why hasn't Apple done it yet and quit fooling around with this whole onerous visa process? Out of the good of their heart?

It's a good question. There's just something about being in the same country. It's hard to explain why though.

I work for a fully remote company. Most of us are based in the US but the company also hires people from some other countries through some kind of agency. Even though many, probably a majority of the US-based people are immigrants (myself included), and many don't speak English any better than the agency people, there's still somehow a clear divide. The agency people are great - talented, skilled, no issues. But somehow they understand the business less. Their contributions are purely technical. It's clear that the company could not just can us all and hire the same number of agency guys, but it's hard to explain why.

My previous employer once tried to outsource some stuff to India and sent a guy over there to oversee it. It didn't go well. But we had lots of Indian people before and since in the company, and they were great. They had the same background, same education. But they were local to the company.

I often think of the first iPhone as an extreme example of what I'm trying to say. It was built in China using parts sourced from China. But it was invented in California, and it had to be. From the inventors and the builders there's a sort of spectrum, a range of people, like the developers who conceived and wrote the first killer apps - and the closer you are to the inventing side of things, the closer you need to be to the heart of the company.

If I had to put sum it up in a word, I'd say it's "ambiguity". Knowing what to do when you don't have exact instructions requires you to be steeped in the same culture as the CEO and the main market. This isn't a fixed thing: I'm sure there's a market for luxury devices in China now that Americans find it hard to understand. But in general the countries that are the most developed have already experienced what other countries are going through, and thus they are uniquely positioned to dictate what the next big thing is.

So companies will always have to do some hiring locally, and the harder the job, the more important it is to be local.

Re: Apple discriminated against US citizens in hiring, DOJ says

#194

Post by [deleted] »

theGnuMe wrote: post #158
ericye16 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that immigration law should be changed so companies don't have to jump through hoops like this.

They are not supposed to jump through hoops. They created these positions, did not advertise them externally like other jobs the solicit for nor accept electronic submissions. You know those job notices in some random “break room” stapled to the notification board? That’s what this is and why they got nailed.

[deleted]

Re: Apple discriminated against US citizens in hiring, DOJ says

#195

Post by throwaway12355 »

iaseiadit wrote: post #180
microtherion wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the PERM process at Apple is anything like what I saw at Facebook a couple of years ago, then all these “applicants” are actually people already working at the company on non-immigrant visas whom the company wants to retain. Indeed. I really doubt Apple prefers foreigners in their hiring (it's a rather significant hassle to bring somebody in). If anything, citizens have some edge. But once an immigrant has been…

I highly doubt it’s a top-down decision to prefer foreign applicants at Apple. But that said, it’s common in FAANG to find scenarios where a manager is of a certain background, and 90% of the people under just happen to be of the same background, and nobody says anything.

That's very common with one or two specific demographic, but not all that common with most others. I'll refrain from naming them, but it's widely known i suppose.

Re: Apple discriminated against US citizens in hiring, DOJ says

#196

Post by jrockway »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #176
jrockway wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really believe it. The companies would just offshore to a country with more preferential immigration treatment. Remember that plan for a boat in international waters where programmers who can't get visas would work for companies in San Francisco with the same time zone? That's what limiting immigration would accomplish. Immigration has maybe one effect, increasing the tax base.

If it's so easy to offshore these jobs, why hasn't Apple done it yet and quit fooling around with this whole onerous visa process? Out of the good of their heart?

Because the prospective employees want to live in the US and the current legal climate allows that. Since you can't up and move to the US (from most countries) without a sponsor, the employment is the arrangement that allows this.

Because people are not automatons, there are often situations where a company has offices in, say, New York and Zurich, and some employees in the New York office moved from Zurich and some employees in the Zurich office moved from New York.

Re: Apple discriminated against US citizens in hiring, DOJ says

#197

Post by kepler1 »

Regardless of the issue here, I just want to say that I'm glad we put up such high standards for allowing people with skills into this country.

Because if we didn't, we'd have random people just crossing the border at will and living in the country with no repercussions whatsoever.

Oh wait, huh. So, why do we make skilled people prove with mountains of paperwork and credentials that they should be allowed to enter the country?

Re: Apple discriminated against US citizens in hiring, DOJ says

#198

Post by davidw »

koolba wrote: post #115
davidw wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's thinking of it like some kind of optimal number though, which really isn't the case anyway. There is no fixed sized pie. How many big tech companies were founded or run by immigrants or their children?

There’s absolutely an optimal number. It’s whatever number the citizen’s as a whole decide that number to be. That’s the de facto optimal number. The auction system to maximize the fees collected would apply regardless of the number of visas.

That's not really how these kinds of things are decided in the US.

Re: Apple discriminated against US citizens in hiring, DOJ says

#199

Post by anonymouskimmer »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #109
JAlexoid wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should someone making 700k be any different than an 80k employee? Nurses make way less than 700k and should probably be the absolute top of the list.

Why do you get to pick which occupations are most worthy?

> Why do you get to pick which occupations are most worthy?

Citizens of Republics are given the inherent right to debate matters of public policy concern.

Re: Apple discriminated against US citizens in hiring, DOJ says

#200

Post by pandaman »

tomohelix wrote: post #33

Reading into the press release, there is a distinction that probably escapes most native citizens here: they are talking about EB2 visa, not H1B. PERM certification is not the same labor certification done in H1B. PERM is a much more rigorous and demanding process and it costs a lot more money than anything related to H1B. The reason is because it leads to a green card, not just a work permit. Often, it requires an a…

EB2 requirements: BS or equivalent + 5 years of progressive experience. Or, alternatively, a very light version of EB-1 "exceptional ability" checklist. The fees are couple grand and the major expense is in interviewing and rejecting enough candidates to justify the need. You seem to be confusing it with EB-1.

While it's true these people already work there etc. etc. EB2, just like EB3, requires the DOL certification that "there are not sufficient U.S. workers able, willing, qualified and available to accept the job opportunity in the area of intended employment". [1]

This sucks for firms like Apple because there are quite enough U.S. workers able, willing, qualified and available to take a whole bunch of jobs that are being held by a BS with 5 years of experience... Imagine you are an officer of the U.S. government and a lawyer from Apple sends you an application for a, for example, front end developer. Will you honestly believe that there are literally no U.S. workers able, willing, qualified and available to take such a job? At Apple no less. It's not "some folks won't take a job at Apple/FB/Google/etc for political reasons, so there!". It's literally a claim that there are no US citizens or LPRs who could do that job. How credible you'd think such a claim is?

1. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/foreign-labor/programs/perm...

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