Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation • Hacker News Board

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#311

Post by president » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 11:08 PM UTC

guyzero wrote: post #308

president wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question. Why does nobody consider the fate of US university graduates that are up to their neck in debt and unable to find a job because companies would rather hire an H1B worker with 10 years working experience for cheap? There are large swathes of American workers that have been plunged into homelessness, drugs, or cannot feed their families because they lost their jobs to labor arbitrage. I understand that…

https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cps_charts.pdf The unemployment rate for university graduates in the US is 7.4%, which is not great, but is considerably lower than the civilian unemployment rate of 13.3% in that same report. In past reports the unemployment rate in IT fields is even lower than that of university graduates. US university graduates have been hit the least in the covid economic downturn. Please explain h…

I'm not familiar with L1 but I was referring to H1B. Many intern/entry-level positions in tech are assumed by H1B workers. In every company I have worked at (large corporations + startups) in SV, the overwhelming majority of these entry-level type positions were assumed by H1B workers. Many US grads from CS programs are forced to take on low paid jobs irrelevant to their training.

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#312

Post by pylua » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 11:13 PM UTC

foota wrote: post #260

pylua wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the logic presented earlier , it would only be fair if Americans could compete for jobs in foreign countries the same way their workers compete for jobs in ours .

Sure, I think that would be reasonable. I have two points though. Someone else doesn't have to do the right thing for us to do it. While it would be better if other countries reciprocated, it doesn't have to stop us from doing the right thing. Secondly, from a practical point of view the demand for people to emmigrate from the US and work in a country with lower wages is not nearly as high as the demand the other way…

With the high number of jobs being offshored and outsourced I would not be surprised if many Americans would gladly leave to increase their job prospects. It may be the case that people in the United States can no longer sustain a living here due to the high cost of living. Perhaps we will reach that point.

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

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Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 11:28 PM UTC

georgeburdell wrote: post #163

gbronner wrote: post #5

H1B is terrible for the employees, and for those who work alongside them. Companies try to slow down green cards, and use H1Bs as virtual indentured servants. They also fake looking for Americans- in practice, many of the jobs are earmarked for a specific person, and you are wasting your time applying for it. Losing your job as an h1b requires you to leave almost immediately, which isn't great for anyone. Hopefully t…

When I was a new grad, I interviewed at Qualcomm for an embedded software job. I studied hardware, and was very up-front with the hiring manager in the phone screen, and he responded “not to worry about it”. I was flown out to do an on-site interview, and the first thing that struck me, sitting in the lobby for 20 minutes while my first interviewer arrived, was that 100% of the employees who walked through the front…

H1B engineers are the coal that powers Qualcomm's furnace, and they're treated like coal as well.

They're underpaid for their positions, tremendously overworked, and when they don't win the H1B lottery for their renewal, they're simply swapped out with people who did. Tying one's ability to legally reside in a country to their employment is cruel at best, and damaging to the broader economy at worst. This doesn't benefit ANY workers - if these workers had some basic rights, or an actual decent pathway to legal residency (not tied to their employer), they'd be better able to demand market wages, and wouldn't depress the wages of their American peers.

The only people benefiting from this nonsensical immigration scheme are the shareholders of the companies who exploit it.

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#314

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 11:31 PM UTC

fredfoobar wrote: post #252

noodlenotes wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dinged? The implication is that they brought him in for an interview even though he was unqualified so that they could say they tried, not that he didn't get the job because he wasn't Indian.

You don't have to bring anyone in if they're unqualified, that is not required by any law I'm aware of. This whole thing smells fishy, both the company and/or this incident.

To hire an H1B worker, you're required to prove that you've tried (and failed) to find a domestic worker to do the job.

I have a friends who work for Qualcomm, and it's widely acknowledged both inside and outside the company that they rely on a steady stream of underpaid H1B engineers.

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#315

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 11:53 PM UTC

evgen wrote: post #31

btilly wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "without chaining it to a specific company" is critical. When the employee is chained to a company, the company has every incentive to lie then treat the employee poorly. When the employee is not chained to the company, the company has incentives to tell the truth then treat the employee well.

Unfortunately the reality is that there is absolutely no one who is interested in pushing a visa scheme like this. Employers are not interested in going through effort and paperwork for an employee who can jump ship for a better offer down the street once they are in the country. Other employees are not interested in increasing the supply of similar labor that will drive down their market value. The only ones who are…

It would have to be pitched as a shift to a points based immigration system in order to get buy-in, probably by a McCain-esque Republican. You'd create a fast track green card program that prioritizes immigrants who were educated in U.S. universities, people with advanced degrees, and people who have been working legally via H1Bs in the U.S. for a few years. Then, to get support from the right, you'd have to pair it with some cutbacks in other types of immigration, or maybe crackdowns on employers who hire illegal immigrants, or deportations for immigrants (legal or otherwise) who run afoul of the law, etc.

I usually lean hard left, and I know I'd personally support a proposal that cut back on granting 1 unskilled visa per year, in exchange for fast-tracking 3 skilled visa-holders to getting their green card, and I have conservative-leaning friends who would support such a deal as well.

What's the right ratio, though? They've been trying to strike a major immigration reform deal since the 90s, but neither side has been willing to make concessions, so we've just been just stuck with a broken system and its ill effects.

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#316

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 12:06 AM UTC

btilly wrote: post #287

throwawaygh wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who defines acceptable local candidate?... sysadmin... java I think your question already demonstrates the deviation of the H1B from its original intent. Bringing in a generic sys admin or generic java programmers on an H1B is visa abuse. Sorry, but neither of those is a special skill and neither of those jobs is an appropriate use of the H1B. There are more than enough sys admin and java programmer candidates in t…

Have you ever seen the difference between a top notch sysadmin and the average one? There are lots of sysadmins who are interchangeable cogs, just as there are lots of developers who are just warm bodies. But there are some that..aren't. That said, the person that you describe sounds like a better fit for an E2 visa than an H1B. See https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrat... for a description. Ha…

[deleted]

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

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Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 12:11 AM UTC

roystonvassey wrote: post #91

Amidst this debate, I think it’s worth looking at the EU Blue Card scheme [1]. A few key differences versus the H1B (correct me if I’m wrong - my understanding of H1B features are basis discussions I have seen here): 1. Not tied to a specific employer. At least theoretically this is the case though your residence permit clearly specifies your employer. 2. Family-friendly options where your family can join you with th…

These differences all look like net-positives, but I've always wondered how well "integration courses" would be received in America. In conversations with Europeans, I've found that many people are pro-immigration "so long as they integrate," but I think this same statement might be perceived as (rightly?) kind of racist or culturally insensitive in America.

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#318

Post by CRASCH » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 12:15 AM UTC

I would like to see them enforce equivalent salaries on H1B visas. There should not be a financial incentive for companies to do this.

The original purpose was to bring in talent where it could not be found in the US.

I believe this would be great for H1B visa employees and regular employees.

If companies want to offshore they still can and they still do. Companies that currently abuse the system would hate it.

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#319

Post by foota » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 12:16 AM UTC

pylua wrote: post #312

foota wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I think that would be reasonable. I have two points though. Someone else doesn't have to do the right thing for us to do it. While it would be better if other countries reciprocated, it doesn't have to stop us from doing the right thing. Secondly, from a practical point of view the demand for people to emmigrate from the US and work in a country with lower wages is not nearly as high as the demand the other way…

With the high number of jobs being offshored and outsourced I would not be surprised if many Americans would gladly leave to increase their job prospects. It may be the case that people in the United States can no longer sustain a living here due to the high cost of living. Perhaps we will reach that point.

The United States had a very high employment rate leading up to the covid crisis. Lower than it had been during the 90s, but that was an anonymously propserous decade: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employment-rate#:.... It stood at roughly 62%.

According to the same website India's current employment rate is ~50% (part of this likely due to gender imbalances) and you can bet that wages are much lower. The relevant metric is purchasing power parity adjusted household median income. It's roughly 50 times higher in the United States than in say India (less so for China and Russia).

I don't understand how you can see countries like China or India as presenting more opportunity with local wages. There are of course cultural reasons to want to move there, but I don't think there's any reasonable case that there's more economic opportunity. Some things will be cheaper for sure (rent and labor, namely) but consumer goods, food, electricity, and the like, will not be commensurately cheaper wrt the drop in income.

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#320

Post by 1MachineElf » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 12:21 AM UTC

theflyinghorse wrote: post #192

1MachineElf wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that work without your favorite hole-in-the-wall restraunt closing down because almost no one wants to pay $50 more for a bowl of ramen noodles every week?

I'm sorry, I'd rather not contribute to someones near poverty living so that I could enjoy ramen for $20 cheaper. The argument seems cruel if I understand it correctly - "Cheap, exploitable labour and suffering that goes with it is good because it lowers prices for ME". If that's the argument than I cannot get behind it.

No, I'm not saying I want people to be exploited so that I can enjoy cheap ramen. It's supposed to serve as an example to illustrate the fact that many goods and services we take for granted on a daily basis are available through businesses that have extremely thin profit margins.

You are already contributing to someone's near poverty living if you pay taxes. See social security and unemployment insurance as examples.

For places like these, it's the market's demand for cheap ramen (or whatever) that means the difference between someone living at poverty level and having no livleyhood at all.