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Updates to H-1B

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Re: Updates to H-1B

#371

Post by lastiteration »

jltsiren wrote: post #257
BurningFrog wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a market with free pricing there are , pretty much by definition, no shortages or surpluses. Instead prices go up or down until supply and demand meet. So talking about "shortages" in this context doesn't really make sense to me. Yet that's the terminology in this field, and the resulting confusion is unavoidable.

A shortage is a situation, where the market cannot bring high prices down by increasing the supply. For example, if software engineers earn more than equally demanding roles in other engineering fields and the situation persists long enough, there is a shortage of software engineers.

Who decides if the price is high or low? That should be the market. High salaries -> more people decide to pursue it as a career -> more competition -> lower salaries. They are trying to force salaries down quicker

Re: Updates to H-1B

#372

Post by buckle8017 »

snakeyjake wrote: post #342
HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #161

A supposed shortage of qualified US applicants for tech jobs, especially software developers, doesn't jibe with the huge numbers of US developers currently looking for work, including highly experienced older workers suffering from age discrimination. I'd be surprised if more than 5-10% of H-1B positions are ones where the hiring company has even looked for US applicants.

My employer cannot hire H-1Bs. You must be a US citizen to work for my company. No "US Persons" (visa holders) or foreigners allowed. You have to be eligible for a Secret security clearance. You don't have to get one if you don't want to as there is usually plenty of uncleared work to go around, but you have to be eligible in case that goes away and we need to put you in for a clearance. We cannot find qualified appl…

You might believe that you don't make weapons, but nobody else does.

You're building satellite components, which I'm quite certain are dual use.

Re: Updates to H-1B

#373

Post by [deleted] »

PessimalDecimal wrote: post #203
breadwinner wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US tech exports in 2018 was $338 billion. Tech is our biggest export by far. Think of the US tech industry as a siphon that sucks in wealth from foreign countries. Would you want to make that siphon bigger or smaller? If you want to make that siphon bigger — and more competitive — how would you do it? By limiting the people that can work in tech to whoever companies can hire locally, or by bringing in the smartest pe…

Does "The US" siphon that money off? Or Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc. siphon that money off? And where and to whom does it go from there? The major benefit of reducing or eliminating the H1B visa program is that those companies can continue to do well, and Americans can do well along with them.

[deleted]

Re: Updates to H-1B

#374

Post by aylmao »

TechDebtDevin wrote: post #242
rtpg wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A problem solved if visas are not associated to employers, because then an employer couldn’t hold onto the employee like this.

No. Because it still floods the job market with off short talent that is willing to work for 30% less. Construction workers arent tied to a single employer (usually) and that drops the price of labour across the board even in union dominated markets.

A lot of things "flood the job market". In 2021, >104k degrees CIS degrees were awarded by US colleges [1]. There's a flood of young people entering the market every year, and they're willing to work for >30% less than experienced engineers because it's their first proper job.

IMO as with all things money, it's all about negotiation. Of course a lot of negotiating power simply has to do with the market supply/demand, but a whole lot has to do with policy and rules. Giving more negotiating power to H1Bs would definitely put upwards pressure on salaries.

Re: construction workers. Same problem, worker's rights. A lot of construction workers are undocumented: an estimated 20 percent [2][3]. Undocumented immigrants have virtually no negotiating power. Allowing this solid 1/5th of the workforce to confront their employer without fear of deportation would go a long way increasing compensation for the industry as a whole.

[1]: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d22/tables/dt22_322.10.a...

[3]: https://limos.engin.umich.edu/deitabase/2024/05/28/undocumen...

Re: Updates to H-1B

#375

Post by dmayle »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #168
HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #161

A supposed shortage of qualified US applicants for tech jobs, especially software developers, doesn't jibe with the huge numbers of US developers currently looking for work, including highly experienced older workers suffering from age discrimination. I'd be surprised if more than 5-10% of H-1B positions are ones where the hiring company has even looked for US applicants.

There is a shortage of applicants willing to work at what companies want to pay. If it is taking more than 30-60 days for workers to find a role, there are enough workers domestically.

This is why H1-B visas should have a minimum salary requirement equal to 20% over whichever is greater, median salary for the role in the industry, or median salary for the role in the company (and whichever is greater, US-wide, or local pay scale).

This way, a company is always incentivized to find local talent, but when they are actually unable to, they have a path to find the expertise they need. The U.S. could relax restrictions on H1-B, lowering red tape, and removing a lot of churn that comes with the H1-B program

Re: Updates to H-1B

#376

Post by MisterTea »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #353
snakeyjake wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My employer cannot hire H-1Bs. You must be a US citizen to work for my company. No "US Persons" (visa holders) or foreigners allowed. You have to be eligible for a Secret security clearance. You don't have to get one if you don't want to as there is usually plenty of uncleared work to go around, but you have to be eligible in case that goes away and we need to put you in for a clearance. We cannot find qualified appl…

> No, you can't work remotely. You (even programmers!) have to touch the things we build in order to build them and nobody has an ISO certified clean room in their house. What part of the country are you in?

This. If you're not in or near a major urban center you're going to have to really be attractive to pull people in to work there.

Re: Updates to H-1B

#377

Post by nirav72 »

0x457 wrote: post #311
rbanffy wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the “highly skilled” there’s the O-1 visa.

Not really, O-1 is essentially a visa to bring a specific person to the US. While H1B is a wide net (yes, visa given to a specific person, not what I'm saying). o-1 is to bring Albert Einstein and h1b is to bring some physicist that matches criteria. As in, O-1 is person-focused, while H1B is role-focused.

>h1b is to bring some physicist that matches criteria.

those are exceptional cases. The majority of the 65K year h1b visas granted every year are for filling IT related positions. Mostly dev related positions.

Re: Updates to H-1B

#378

Post by pockmarked19 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #194
pockmarked19 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Why would you get downvoted for that? That’s the simple truth. They do that for all types of visas. My mother had to do it, until she finally (reluctantly) became a US citizen, and she lived here, most of her life. I think she had long-term visas, though. I only remember her doing it a couple of times. I think I went with her, on one of the trips.

It’s pretty easy to predict which way votes will go when peering into an echo chamber. Just watch.

Edit: and, it's flagged and gone. Voila.

Re: Updates to H-1B

#379

Post by throwaway48476 »

MisterTea wrote: post #376
UncleOxidant wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, you can't work remotely. You (even programmers!) have to touch the things we build in order to build them and nobody has an ISO certified clean room in their house. What part of the country are you in?

This. If you're not in or near a major urban center you're going to have to really be attractive to pull people in to work there.

And if you are near a major urban center pay needs to reflect the HCOL environment or the unpaid commute time.

Re: Updates to H-1B

#380

Post by nirav72 »

outworlder wrote: post #270
crmd wrote: post #68

It’s never been clear to me why this program exists in the first place, other than to put downward pressure on US STEM wages. What am I missing?

The program exists to brain drain other countries of talent. It's very successful at that.

Bringing over 10K java developers a year is going to brain drain other countries of java developers?
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