Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens • Hacker News Board

Re: Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens

#301

Post by JumpCrisscross » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 1:31 AM UTC

lovich wrote: post #110

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> willing to walk before running. Have to start somewhere It doesn’t walk anywhere. It’s another handout to finance and law. The B2B carve-out and lack of border adjustments makes this a regressive tax on consumers and manufacturers to fund tech, law and finance. (The only jobs this would materially cover are those in call centres for consumers. Which in practice, means voice LLMs.) Like, I made money from tariffs. I…

>… I’m not sure how this playbook keeps working. Just toss 170 billion to one of your various police forces so you’ve got the manpower to tamp down any tantrums from the people. It’s a pretty well worn tactic

> toss 170 billion to one of your various police forces so you’ve got the manpower to tamp down any tantrums from the people

I am missing your argument.

Moreno’s bill pumps money out of the poor into the pockets of the wealthy. I am wealthy. I would benefit from his bill. My point is the exercise is a red herring. (I am not sure what yours is.)

Re: Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens

#302

Post by ambicapter » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 1:31 AM UTC

lumost wrote: post #269

1024core wrote: post #202

A lot of these problems could be solved if H1-B's were given out in order of salary (I think there's such a proposal going around recently). And by that I mean: something like a Dutch auction. Give H1-Bs to the top 85K paying jobs (maybe normalized to SoL in the region, I'm sure the BLS has some idea on how to do it). The lure of H1-Bs is the money savings, and the fact that if you're on an H1-B, you're practically a…

It’s interesting that the U.S. picked an employer-driven model, which effectively outsources immigration selection to firms. That’s efficient for demand-matching, but it concentrates bargaining power in ways that a points-based model avoids. The practical effect of an H1-B is to act as a non-compete, punitive termination clause, and a time bounded employment contract. These are very expensive terms to ask for in conv…

That's right. It is in fact advantageous in many ways for companies to prefer H-1B, they have far more control over those workers than they would over americans. They can even be worse than an american and you would prefer it if you were the type of employer who prioritizes control of their workforce over excellence.

Re: Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens

#303

Post by surgical_fire » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 1:33 AM UTC

tstrimple wrote: post #113

surgical_fire wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the wage suppression Do immigrants earn less than locals? My impression is that the salary is similar. I am not in the US, but I rejected job offers from across the pond in the past and the salary seemed to be on the level with what I know is paid in the US for that position. My guess is that what they like in H1B workers is that they are sort of stuck with that employer, as changing jobs under such a Visa can be t…

If you look at the total cost of an employee and not just an annual salary, then the fact that they have far less mobility makes them cheaper. Why hire the person who will bail when you mistreat them so you have to spend all that time and money finding someone new when you can have someone who risks deportation if they decide they are done with your bullshit. I could afford to spend the next six months out of work lo…

That does make a lot of sense, yes. It's partially the reason why I never wanted to move to the US - I value the labor protection I enjoy in Europe, the ability to switch jobs when I so desire, and a clear path to citizenship.

H1B always sounded to me like a shitty deal for the immigrant, and it also does seem to be detrimental to native workers.

Re: Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens

#304

Post by whatever1 » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 1:33 AM UTC

novia wrote: post #285

whatever1 wrote: post #231

For some visa types, companies are obligated to prove that they advertised the position to American citizens. Failed, hence they needed the foreigner. This is a huge dealbreaker for campus hires, and specifically masters/PhDs who are, well, by definition, specialized in their field and hence very rare. So you recruit at her graduation the girl who has done groundbreaking research in deep neural nets and is the key to…

> She happens to be non-American (because the majority of graduates are non-Americans) Is this not by itself a problem?

Americans don’t go to graduate school.

With a bachelors in an engineering field as an American you can be making close to 6 figures the day after you graduate.

With a huge student debt and the clock ticking, do you get a job or do you join a PhD program to get a stipend of 25k/year for at least 5 years?

Grad school becomes attractive to Americans only during recessions.

Re: Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens

#305

Post by lovich » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 1:34 AM UTC

pandaman wrote: post #293

lovich wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d be fine, as a citizen competing against migrants for jobs, if h1bs were structured so that they A: were the top end pay, so they pushed the pay scale up B: were uncoupled from employment. A company could pay the cost to let someone enter, but that person should be able to jump jobs day 0. I’m not suggesting the specific implementation but I feel like if those two guiding directives were kept, both society and the…

It's fine to have various aspiration for H-1B but the issue in the topical article is, ultimately, with businesses defrauding the United States and getting away with it. Meta got barred from filing PERM for several months and ended up paying $4.75M, which is probably less than it spends for catering per month. Nobody got disbarred, nobody went on trial, so it's just a tiny cost of doing business.

This is off the cuff game theory, so please feel encouraged to poke holes in it.

Would my point B not limit that fraudulent behavior as now the brought in migrant would be free to compete for a better position with higher pay and/or better benefits to the detriment of the company that paid an entry fee?

I would also expect this to result in massively less immigration for the same reasons companies are loathe to train entry level employees nowadays as they can jump ship as soon as they become valuable

Re: Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens

#306

Post by thephyber » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 1:35 AM UTC

Taek wrote: post #250

thephyber wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This conflates high education specialists with high earnings. It’s probably not completely uncorrelated, but only giving H1-Bs to the highest paying reqs which need them starves all of the other reqs of any possible candidates. I understand that H1-Bs are currently likely to create an abusive relationship with the visa-ed employee, but just because you have identified a valid diagnosis doesn’t mean your suggested pre…

That seems like a fair way for the free market to address things, no? If you need special carve outs, create a new type of Visa for those special cases. The immigrants are all going to be paying taxes on their earnings. If you can boost H1B salaries by an average of $20k/yr by doing a price auction, that brings govt revenue and maybe even gives opportunities to balance the budget by creating more H1B slots.

What do you mean “fair”? What happens in the years/decades between when this hypothetical system is enacted and when the US can train up sufficient workers to substitute the labor force we currently have with H1-B?

Your proposal will mean 99% of all of the H1-B allocation will go to hedge fund quants and 1% maybe go to an AI researcher, but all of the materials science (eg. Cutting edge battery tech), semiconductor fabrication, neuroscience, pharmaceutical research etc will have to go without the skilled workers they currently get from visas. This is a recipe for the Boeingization of the US economy.

Re: Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens

#307

Post by confidantlake » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 1:35 AM UTC

epolanski wrote: post #195

toomuchtodo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of H1Bs who received better grades, I don't think US workers should have to compete with 1 billion+ other global workers for their jobs. Citizens make the rules via governance, not corporations. You can hire someone good enough domestically vs the best globally to import. US corporations simply want the cheapest labor possible at the best possible price, which is where policy steps in. If it impairs your p…

> I don't think US workers should have to compete with 1 billion+ other global workers for their jobs Why not? Also friendly reminder 99.999% of US population is made of immigrants.

Wrong.

Re: Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens

#308

Post by lovich » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 1:37 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #301

lovich wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>… I’m not sure how this playbook keeps working. Just toss 170 billion to one of your various police forces so you’ve got the manpower to tamp down any tantrums from the people. It’s a pretty well worn tactic

> toss 170 billion to one of your various police forces so you’ve got the manpower to tamp down any tantrums from the people I am missing your argument. Moreno’s bill pumps money out of the poor into the pockets of the wealthy. I am wealthy. I would benefit from his bill. My point is the exercise is a red herring. (I am not sure what yours is.)

Sorry, I was making an oblique reference to the part of the OBBB that increased ICE’s budget to 170 billion.

My point was that I think the powers at be agree with you that this playbook is unstable and are preparing for that eventuality

Re: Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens

#309

Post by DaSHacka » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 1:37 AM UTC

gopher_space wrote: post #111

zdragnar wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DEI arose to public consciousness around the same time that "whiteness" was often used as a synonym for bigotry and privilege. So long as academic circles (and those who come from them, such as the people now in HR departments) believe that having white skin is a sin, DEI will never be D, E or I. The three words themselves are nice and generally good things to believe in, but the packaging philosophy it is wrapped up…

One of the knock-on benefits of DEI is that it allows second rate minds to self-identify. Empathy is massively important in this line of work, and you need to be curious instead of confused and upset when you run into Chesterton's Fence.

Exactly, those without empathy for their fellow countrymen being unfairly discriminated against based on the color of their skin and gender identity really need to learn a hard lesson about judging others based on the character of the person and not their immutable characteristics.

It's a really good litmus test for finding those with empathy and good intellect, AKA the best kind of co-workers.

Re: Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens

#310

Post by thephyber » Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 1:38 AM UTC

malfist wrote: post #270

tziki wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. Top 1% of artists earn about as much as the average software engineer. Ranking people purely based on salary is turning h1b into a visa for people in specific professions.

Does the US have such a shortage of artistic talent we have to hire abroad for it?

Why get hung out on the example profession and not the fact that some jobs pay drastically disproportionate rates?

Linus developed Linux, but we wouldn’t be able to hire the next version of him because hedge funds would dominate the high salary reqs in this hypothetical system.