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

241–250 of 637 posts

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

#241

Post by joshgachnang »

joshe wrote: post #215
tossaccount123 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>To prime your intuition a bit, consider how woman and minorities more than doubled the work force from the 1960s to 1990s with no loss in jobs or lowering of wages. You do realize there hasn't been a raise in real wages since the 70s when you account for inflation right? Coincidentally during that same time period the income gap exploded because the wealthy had plentiful cheap labor and were able to pocket the produ…

That's super interesting, I didn't know that about hourly wages. I tend to think of income gaining from 1950 to 1990 and flattening from the mid 1990s to now. Though it does look like total compensation (adding in benefits) did actually increase recently, they don't have anything for back to 1960. So maybe the story is that wages stayed flat, but benefits accounted for most of the income increase. Not an economist so…

I generally agree with what you say, but the median family income growing seems like it would be due to most households moving from one to two workers. Looking at it that way, it makes wages look even flatter over the time period.

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

#242

Post by refurb »

tossaccount123 wrote: post #147
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…

>To prime your intuition a bit, consider how woman and minorities more than doubled the work force from the 1960s to 1990s with no loss in jobs or lowering of wages. You do realize there hasn't been a raise in real wages since the 70s when you account for inflation right? Coincidentally during that same time period the income gap exploded because the wealthy had plentiful cheap labor and were able to pocket the produ…

You do realize there hasn't been a raise in real wages since the 70s when you account for inflation right?

That's true if you only look at wages. If you look at total compensation, it's grown quite a lot even adjusted for inflation - doubling between 1970 and 2006.[1]

[1]https://www.nber.org/digest/oct08/w13953.html

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

#243

Post by xtreme »

GreaterFool wrote: post #122
abhayb wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roughly three parts to this. First off, these folks are already "here" . Busy learning to America. Paying tuition to their schools and taxes from their internships/OPTs. Contributing and being contributed to so that there's already a relationship between them, the country, and the country's citizens. This is also what a lot of other countries do so it's consistent with "the way things are done". Finally, it seems pol…

> This is also what a lot of other countries do As an expat for the bigger part of my life I can't think of a country that would prioritize their own institutions when applying for a visa. Generally there's simply a category for advanced degree holders.

Canada's Express Entry system for skilled immigrants gives you more points if you attended college in Canada. Giving priority to people who have already integrated into the society makes perfect sense to me.

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

#244

Post by refurb »

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.

I don't think any of those people came to the US on an H1B visa

H1-B is one of the main ways people get a green card and citizenship since you can have immigrant intent on H1-B, something you can't on a lot of other visas.

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

#245

Post by villgax »

jarjar12 wrote: post #181

Haha. So silly. Now all these folks have to do is bribe colleges in India to give them fake transcripts and diplomas. Half of the h1bs from India already have fake masters or at best masters from low graded crap colleges. The Indian consulting firms throw so many shitty developers at us and it sucks because we drown in resumes and no choice because my company won’t go higher on rates so we can’t afford good developer…

The preference IMO is for Advanced degrees granted by US institutions & is the same basis as was before, instead now just the priority for filling up the pool is for masters degree holders first.

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

#246

Post by refurb »

peferron wrote: post #199
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

H1B's are immigrant visas, they terminate in greencards after one renewal. The only problem is that a few countries have long lines (India, China, Philippines) on how many greencards can be granted this way per year. That should be done away with.

> H1B's are immigrant visas No, H-1B visas are explicitly nonimmigrant visas for temporary workers. [1] > They terminate in greencards after one renewal No, they don't. You can apply for a GC, but there's nothing automatic about the process, and the GC is not guaranteed to be approved either. [1] https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-worker...

H1-B are non-immigrant visas in the sense they are temporary. However, they are dual-intent which means you can pursue permanent residency while in H1-B status.

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

#247

Post by femiagbabiaka »

wycs wrote: post #226
tossaccount123 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was hyperbole to show the effect of supply and demand More and more I notice how similar software engineers are beginning to sound like the "Made in America" factory workers who said China could never do their job. Never take the present comfy situation for granted

Anyone who thinks China is not full of extremely talented software engineers does not know anything about China.

so true -- they're even kicking our ass in many fields of CS research.

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

#248

Post by OurBoysGirls1st »

aeontech wrote: post #137
ajxs wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However anecdotal this claim may be, it seems fairly intuitive given the basic economic model of supply and demand. Can you explain how greatly increasing the supply of developers by importing them from overseas will not affect the demand, and therefore negatively affect the cost of labour?

Qualified supply is nowhere close to matching demand. Ask anyone that has to do recruiting for their teams. Source: personal experience

>> Qualified supply is nowhere close to matching demand.

This is wrong on so many levels.

1. "Qualified" supply means experience. That means you arent hiring 22yos working at subsistence salaries shacking up with three buddies in a double-bunk apartment. It means you have to pay a "qualified person salary." I'm a qualified person, I have 18yrs experience at top firms. But guess what...175k/yr in SF/SV doesnt cut it, it gets you a 1br apt. You cant raise 2 kids in a 1br apartment. Where would the kids sleep? in the bathroom? on the dining table? Also, option compensation doesnt count, as I cant pay rent with options.

2. If you want "qualified talent" perhaps SF/SV would not age discriminate. But they do. They want young people willing to earn so little they are forced into having 3 roommates.

3. There are tons of qualified workers. Most of us dont want to move to SF/SV because the prevailing wage is too low. Pay the right wage (i.e., perhaps something that one can raise a family on) and your "shortage will magically disappear.

>> Qualified supply is nowhere close to matching demand.

I think what this typically means is: we're looking for talented developers willing to earn so littler they are forced to bunk with multiple roommates and/or live in roach infested apartments, something only desperate overseas workers are willing to do.

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

#249

Post by stale2002 »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #88
stale2002 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Implication that students with US masters degree are high skilled is pretty lame because majority of these students are from fly by night universities that do not even need GRE for admission Are you arguing that people with less education are on average more valuable? If you don't believe that it matters, then why do you care? It would be a purely neutral move. I don't see anything wrong with that. If you think tha…

What is fundamentally wrong, if anything, with people with less education being more valuable? Would you rather have three engineers with an undergrad degree or one with a master's? Where do you draw the line? In my experience advanced degrees do not equate expertise -- if anything, professionally, it's the opposite.

> Would you rather have three engineers with an undergrad degree or one with a master's? Where do you draw the line?

We are comparing 1 to 1, not 3 to 1.

In the context of this conversation, we are taking about whether it is a bad thing for someone with more education to receive priority access to the H1B visa.

And my opinion is that this is at worst a neutral thing.

The person I was responding to thinks that giving masters students priority is somehow negative.

In order for it to be negative, he would have to prove that these masters students are somehow worse, on average, than the non-masters students.

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

#250

Post by SomewhatLikely »

tossaccount123 wrote: post #147
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…

>To prime your intuition a bit, consider how woman and minorities more than doubled the work force from the 1960s to 1990s with no loss in jobs or lowering of wages. You do realize there hasn't been a raise in real wages since the 70s when you account for inflation right? Coincidentally during that same time period the income gap exploded because the wealthy had plentiful cheap labor and were able to pocket the produ…

You do realize that in the post war period we were the only large economy that was relatively unscathed helping out domestic producer margins?
Post reply on HN