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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

#291
post #29

ex H1B here. Yes Trump is right.(though I do not like him personally, he is right in this matter) Most of the corporate America is exploiting H1B workers. I have worked in one of those firms and I have friends in many other firms. These are not Indian body shops, these are American companies. Everyone's topic of discussion when we hangout is how our H1B visas were being exploited and there is nothing we could do abou…

Did you do the immigration paperwork before looking for a job in Canada? What I'd like to know is if its better to have this paperwork sorted out before applying for jobs in Canada.

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

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 60% of poor adults choose not to work. I'm sorry you consider reality to be "disgusting". Which is not evidence of them being lazy. They could be acting in their own economic best interest by being in a welfare trap. Not sure what your point is here, other than some welfare programs are poorly structured.

My point is that contra ajnc, there are hordes of people who "choose poverty because of an unwillingness to work".

Whatever you say Mrs Rand.

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

#293

Cheap labor isn't the only issue here. Wage theft in the form of capping competition is the big issue. Assume the rate of salary change dS(t)/dt is propotional-to/a-function-of (average_labor_demand - average_labor_supply) Now, if you keep topping up supply from overseas, salary never increases as much as it might, as such it is limited - as such, salary rate increase is also capped; and it's not employees can have a…

Just to play devils advocate, wouldn't it eventually even out then because high demand and lower wages here would mean that other countries with a tech sector would have high wages and would then be more appealing, which would encourage H1B visa seekers to consider going elsewhere or would even lure more talent from the US overseas.

Granted, like many market-based arguments I make a lot of assumptions about how easily people can move around. Immigrating is hard and once you've immigrated successfully you may not be willing to take the risk of ending up back in the repressive regime you came from (hence, a lot of the issues we have right now) and people in the US may not be nearly as willing to leave the US and go elsewhere. But theoretically (if not in reality) more mobility and access to labor is a good thing.

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

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of my H!B hires had unduplicatable skills and created about 20 high paid jobs in our company Can you give details so it can be judged if this is true, and if so how common/relevant it is?

He was a japanese physicist, lost his job when Supercollider project canceled. Instead of going back to Japan, I was able to hire him as lead graphics engineer on a Macintosh imaging product, he was super creative in developing unique graphics effects and his product became our biggest and most profitable. The company grew to 140 employees, his team was 20, but it's reasonable to think about a quarter of the workforc…

Was he making as much as an American? Also did he get huge bonus for the excellent work he did?

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

#295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Is this a fact or a feeling? Economics allows us to directly measure these things and the price of labor hasn't gone up in the last 30 years at rates indicating a shortage with executive pay and corporate profits at all time highs. > Then…

Economics allows us to directly measure these things and the price of labor hasn't gone up in the last 30 years... Real compensation per hour (for workers as a whole) has gone up 40% since 1987. This number is adjusted for inflation. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/COMPRNFB Pay in software has been rising more rapidly than pay for the country as a whole. Is this even remotely in doubt? http://insights.dice.com/201…

So, 1.1% annualized? Do you have numbers for productivity?

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

#296
post #29

ex H1B here. Yes Trump is right.(though I do not like him personally, he is right in this matter) Most of the corporate America is exploiting H1B workers. I have worked in one of those firms and I have friends in many other firms. These are not Indian body shops, these are American companies. Everyone's topic of discussion when we hangout is how our H1B visas were being exploited and there is nothing we could do abou…

Of all of the political candidates, only Trump and Sanders spoke out against H1-B visa abuse used to depress wages. (Former) Presidential Candidate Senator Marco Rubio of Florida wanted to triple the number of H1-B visas to 250,000 from 85,000 and accepted $2 million donation from Disney. Disney of Florida had recently replaced 250 US IT workers with foreigners on H1-B. Trump especially spoke out against this move. C…

As someone who is solidly for this move, it is a bit silly to point out Clinton accepting money from Goldman for 3 talks when Trump literally puts wall street and others in his cabinet.

Broken clock is right twice a day...

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

#297
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like you're agreeing with the line you quoted? That there isn't a talent shortage? Anyway having said that, good studies check for shortages and overproductions in more complicated ways than just totting up numbers blindly.

I don't think I'm agreeing with that? There are a bunch of negations in the quote, so: I think there is a talent shortage in some domains. My point was that the major sources of the "no shortage" or particularly "surplus" claims are doing shoddy math that over-represents the labor pool and under-represents demand. Also, more importantly, they're conflating all types of programming. There are certainly skillsets/inter…

You're probably right there. And there's presumably shortages and surpluses in different regions of the US. A telling statistic is the amount of people who graduate with IT or STEM degrees, have intentions of working in their respective industries, but have to leave due to an inability to get work, or...unemployment rates for graduates with certain degrees.

It was about 7-12% a couple of years ago for grads from CS, Engineering, and IS, at a time when the national level was lower.

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/the-my...

I'm not sure if we're on the same page, but my contention is that western governments are encouraging kids to pursue STEM, knowing that there's already an oversupply of workers due to visas issued to emerging economies, and that the issue is compounding year on year.

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

#298
post #29

ex H1B here. Yes Trump is right.(though I do not like him personally, he is right in this matter) Most of the corporate America is exploiting H1B workers. I have worked in one of those firms and I have friends in many other firms. These are not Indian body shops, these are American companies. Everyone's topic of discussion when we hangout is how our H1B visas were being exploited and there is nothing we could do abou…

Of all of the political candidates, only Trump and Sanders spoke out against H1-B visa abuse used to depress wages. (Former) Presidential Candidate Senator Marco Rubio of Florida wanted to triple the number of H1-B visas to 250,000 from 85,000 and accepted $2 million donation from Disney. Disney of Florida had recently replaced 250 US IT workers with foreigners on H1-B. Trump especially spoke out against this move. C…

> Clinton accepted $675,000 from Goldman for 3 talks

Okay, I get it, Clinton bad etc. But Trump has appointed tons of people from Goldman to his administration[1] and filed an executive order against financial industry regulations[2] - you know the regulations put in place after the last Wall Street crash, to prevent a similar crash?

Can we stop pretending that Trump isn't bought off by Goldman now?

[1] http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-adds-goldman-...

[2] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/02/03/presi... https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/02/03/presi...

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

#299
H1B employees being exploited works in Murica's favor. It means American companies are more competitive at the expense of some Rajesh from Chennai. This is something Trump should love.

Even if American companies are paying lower wages I don't see the problem. It helps American companies make more profit and lower prices for American consumers. Something that we all must cheer.

Some people argue that it lowers the wages of neo-native people. It is good too. We all would love a cheaper electrician, cheaper plumber, cheaper burger flipper, cheaper doctor what is so wrong with cheaper coder ? It benefits the entire society.

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

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point was that the impact of using non-American labor was essentially nil in every study ever done. My point was that replacing a $25 / hr union factory worker who has healthcare and PTO, with a $2/hr factory worker in a "suicide sweatshop" is not nil. You said that in general, the replacement workers are just economic spenders too, and I provided a counter example (don't seem like these Chinese workers are like…

Okay, I now see what you are saying. So let's take apart those two points. You might be asking how could replacing a $25 worker with a $2 worker -- foreign, domestic, etc doesn't matter -- have no economic impact on jobs and wages? So one might argue the following: The company paying the $25 to the first worker, now has $23 in profit/savings. What happens to that money? They might reinvest it, they might pay it out a…

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