Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 637 posts

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

#201

Post by jorblumesea »

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…

Nah, there are plenty of countries that operate fine without cheap imported labor. They just need to...you know...pay fair wages. Which apparently has everyone up in arms I guess?

It's really just about the bottom line. Exploiting people is cheap. Paying or treating people properly is expensive. That's it. Tim Cook or your California farmer don't give a flying fuck about these people.

It's just about the $$$. Immigrants work hard for cheap.

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

#202

Post by stevenwoo »

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.

Norm Matloff at UC Davis has blogged about this for a decade. A sampling of one paper has several references about the bias toward much younger and cheaper H1-B candidates in academia and professional workforce. He also argues diversity is better.

https://normsaysno.wordpress.com/2016/12/10/reforming-h-1b-a...

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

#203

Post by emiliobumachar »

pishpash wrote: post #192
femiagbabiaka wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software engineer salaries have been rising in a globalized market. Companies can already hire wherever they want. Many do. I have no doubt that if companies can pay workers less then they will. But that’s not what’s happening.

Rising compared to what? Junior engineers are doubling or tripling up to live near work in metropolitan areas or face crushing commutes. It's a sign that even in software engineering, capital is crushing labor.

Be aware that Silicon Valley is an extreme global outlier in real estate prices.

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

#204

Post by zjaffee »

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.

From an economics perspective, unless the hiring of more software engineers results in an increased demand for software engineers (i.e. there being a significant latent demand), H1B absolutely then lowers the earnings potential of engineers. Especially those earning more towards the middle and bottom of the market.

I'd also add that BLS data suggests that this induced demand isn't true. As the projected employment growth for engineers between 2016 and 2026 is 600,000 where there are around 60,000 people graduating with computer science bachelor's degrees every year in the US and even more getting masters or doing bootcamps.

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

#205

Post by devereaux »

maximente wrote: post #164
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…

i'm sorry but this comment reads like a puff piece. the red flag for me was when you simultaneously claimed that economics is complicated and then almost immediately... make an economic claim? look, i get that you want to signal positive sentiment towards immigrants. that's great. but it's not at all clear what you're saying is true - one would need to factor in inflation, minimum wage growth, purchasing power, and t…

Dude, just … no.

It's not about signaling or positive sentiments. All human beings are equal. Being born in one place doesn't make you special or entitles you to a job.

US citizen or whatever-country citizen, all that matters is what you can do. Meritocracy, you know.

If someone else can do the job better than you or me, they should be hired. Being born in the US or gender or anything else you can think about shouldn't play a role. Only raw performance should matter, because anything else is discriminatory.

Just saying, because that's how I see the world, and I hope more people will keep seeing the world that way instead of thinking they're special and worth some unique privilege because of circumstance of their birth.

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

#206

Post by untog »

jarjar12 wrote: post #185
tumidpandora wrote: post #128

As an immigrant myself, I welcome this move. Please note that this change impacts issuance of fresh H1Bs and does not relate to or assist/impact existing H1B holders in any way. Against common misconception, it's important to know that H1B also compete for an open job requisition like everyone else. Sadly, H1Bs are eligible to apply only for a small percentage of the open requisitions which often read - only W2 need…

They live in fear because most of them are garbage. They produce garbage and make others lives miserable. And the ones that actually worked hard can’t afford to even get a job because h1bs take such a low pay

There are bad developers.

There are bad developers on H1B visas.

There are good developers.

There are good developers on H1B visas.

If your company hired a shitty developer then you should be blaming you company's hiring practises, not the immigration status of the developer.

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

#207

Post by bg4 »

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.

It's modern day indentured servitude.

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

#208

Post by remarkEon »

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #186
remarkEon wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and can’t keep up with supply. yes... the very definition of a labor distortion that drives down wages .

I feel like we can’t be reading the same thing. You’re saying that a market where there is more demand than supply is one where prices are lower? Again, I’m going to need a citation for that.

where did I say that prices are lower? I’m expressioning skepticism that a whopping 24% increase in hiring is due only to demand increases, which you heavily implied is the case. How much more would wages rise here if we weren’t artificially increasing the supply like this? We could certainly find out, if we wanted. But that would require some policy changes that are not popular to employers who are, incidentally, not interested in letting wages rise.

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

#209

Post by zjaffee »

maximente wrote: post #164
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…

i'm sorry but this comment reads like a puff piece. the red flag for me was when you simultaneously claimed that economics is complicated and then almost immediately... make an economic claim? look, i get that you want to signal positive sentiment towards immigrants. that's great. but it's not at all clear what you're saying is true - one would need to factor in inflation, minimum wage growth, purchasing power, and t…

Except it's not true that the US education system isn't producing enough educated prospective software engineers, the deficiency is entirely people at the higher levels.

The predicted job growth by the BLS over the next ten years is very close if not equal to the number of people getting bachelor's degree in computer science. This doesn't include boot camp graduates or people who are returning to get a master's, nor does it count the many people in related fields who go on to become software developers. While certainly some of these graduates are immigrants themselves, it's rather unlikely that the 10s of thousands of H1Bs that come in every year are needed for anything but to reduce labor costs (although it's known that reducing labor costs does make American industry more competitive at large).

Post reply on HN