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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

#31

Post by yummyfajitas »

throwawaydbfif wrote: post #24
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…

The endless talent shortage is a farce. Every tech company I've worked at rejects well over 90% of their applicants and has an interview process that would be considered insane in almost any other field. I would say the opposite is true based solely on hiring practices. Look at Google for example, who hire around 1/5000 people that apply. The shortage is artificially maintained because it works in companies favor. It…

Every tech company I've worked at rejects well over 90% of their applicants and has an interview process that would be considered insane in almost any other field.

Joel Spolsky explains why this does not imply what you think it implies.

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20070501/column-guest.html

tl;dr; Imagine 1 low quality developer who applies to 9 places and gets rejected. There's also 1 high quality developer who applies to 1 place and gets accepted. Look, 90% of applications have been rejected!

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

#32

Post by yummyfajitas »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #21
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 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. Mainly because we have over 7 million people unemployed. The controversy is why are we bringing in so many foreign workers when we have so many people out of work here? The argument basically comes down to what would we need to do to get…

Realistically, most of our 7 million unemployed are unemployed by choice. They are unwilling to do many jobs they perceive as being "below their station" and they are unwilling to move to places where the jobs are.

We need to import a better working class to pay for our leisure class since pushing our leisure class into work is considered socially unacceptable.

Here's a great first person account of this: http://www.vox.com/first-person/2016/12/19/13956666/unemploy... "There have been times where I’ve wondered if I should just get a temporary service or manual labor...I would be too humiliated...a neighbor or friend [might]...see me working the cash register or pumping gas. "

See also NPR's expose on disability fraud: http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/

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

#33

Post by jasonlotito »

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 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.

These two statements are not linked. One can agree that without foreign talent, SV would not have grown to what it is. On the flip side, this doesn't mean their is a shortage of talent.

Simply that their is a shortage of talent that is willing to sell that talent for lower wages and less perks. I can't see how raising the minimum salary will hurt.

If you are correct, and the value of this talent is amazing enough, even $130,000 is a paltry sum considering what they should be capable of doing. If raising the minimum salary on all of H1-B visas to $130,000 is too much, one could easily make the assertion that the talent is simply not there.

In the end, if there is a talent shortage, salaries should be rising, and they aren't.

> Younger people are more willing to move to another country.

And they are willing to work for less, too.

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

#34

Post by program_whiz »

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, xenophobia, etc, you'll see that in plain economic terms, Trump is right -- but it applies to every industry, not just SV. Imagine how if this is applicable to something requiring the skills of software development, how much more so it would be true of some low-skill job.

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

#35

Post by d--b »

Apocryphon wrote: post #2

The title is a bit overly-polarizing; Prof. Matloff has been an outspoken critic of H-1Bs for quite some time, and only mentions the president once in the article. The actual EO isn't even out yet.

I agree, this issue has been around for quite some time, but is just a matter of adjusting the application of a policy that has been abused.

This issue has nothing to do with joblessness in the Midwest (and is certainly not of the same scale), that is mostly due to the departure of big manufacturing companies to foreign countries. This is what Trump was talking about: blaming immigrants and corporations for the loss of low-skilled jobs. No one in America cares that overpaid software developers loose their jobs to H1B workers...

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

#36

Post by throwawaydbfif »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #31
throwawaydbfif wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The endless talent shortage is a farce. Every tech company I've worked at rejects well over 90% of their applicants and has an interview process that would be considered insane in almost any other field. I would say the opposite is true based solely on hiring practices. Look at Google for example, who hire around 1/5000 people that apply. The shortage is artificially maintained because it works in companies favor. It…

Every tech company I've worked at rejects well over 90% of their applicants and has an interview process that would be considered insane in almost any other field. Joel Spolsky explains why this does not imply what you think it implies. http://www.inc.com/magazine/20070501/column-guest.html tl;dr; Imagine 1 low quality developer who applies to 9 places and gets rejected. There's also 1 high quality developer who appl…

Inc.com is a really bad source for such information... As if they would be expected to be neutral in such a situation.

If this was true you would see it across professions and at every level of position, yet it's something fairly unique to software development.

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

#37

Post by gadders »

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 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.

I think the key thing is that there is a shortage of talent at a price they are willing to pay.

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

#38

Post by t1o5 »

untog wrote: post #19
at-fates-hands wrote: post #14

Having worked in a ton of different large corporations that have large H1-B employee populations, I can say this is completely true from my experience. In the last three places (including my current employer) there were huge swaths of H1-B's from India. After some long lunches and happy hours, I found out that a) they're being paid significantly less than I was and b) two of the three companies wouldn't sponsor them…

Just as a counter-point (not saying your experience is incorrect at all), I've worked in the US on an H1B and was compensated very well, as were my co-workers. The system allows abuse, but doesn't guarantee it. I do wonder if the employees you mention know that an H1B is transferrable between employers. It's a time consuming process, but I'd love to see more people take advantage of those who abuse the visa by gettin…

> H1B is transferable between employers

Its not easy as it sounds. Being a single that time, I have transferred my H1B myself and it was a nightmare. I had sleepless nights and uncertainty. My GreenCard process was reset. Any H1Bs who knows about the system really well will not risk transferring because of the risks to their green card process.

There is no honest company which pays a fair salary for H1Bs. If you see the data from here:

https://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/performancedata.cfm

I have a huge circle of friends in many companies. We discuss our salaries and issues openly. Not one of them says that they are paid equal to their American colleagues. Moroever the promotions and salary raises goes to American colleagues, while the H1Bs bears it all to support the family with the income where his/her spouse is not allowed to work (H4 visa)

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

#39

Post by garyfirestorm »

t1o5 wrote: 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…

That is amazing! However I would like to point out, H1B is not only for Silicon Valley. There are many automotive companies which require foreign talent in specialized fields. Very smart people with multi-disciplinary knowledge are nowhere to be found in auto sector. Signal Processing and vibrations and programming and control systems understanding etc. is required to deal with things like active noise control which is now a need in auto sector. The Canadian Automotive R&D is not as good as in US. Also, there's no way we can work remotely. So our fates are still determined by 'lottery based skilled visa' allotments.

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

#40

Post by gcb0 »

trump is rigth and wrong.

the visas are abused. seen it first hand.

but it can also be fixed by removing the artificial wait for some nationalities. doesn't he want to repel tons lof laws. here's an opportunity to solve both at the same time.

creating yet more legislation and rules will make the problem worse.

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