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Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens

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

#391
post #387
post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But it's not like if the employee gets nothing out of this bargain. The company in exchange sponsors the visa. It's not unreasonable that they get a minimum number of years of work from the employee in exchange.

It's the government that controls the immigration law that gives the company the authority to sponsor a visa. Of course the H1-B is mutually beneficial to both the company and the employee, that is why the program is so popular.

If H1-Bs are being abused (by hiding job openings to US citizens), or seen as unfair competition for American labor, then the government has the authority to modify or terminate the program. This thread has been primarily about exploring other paradigms for enabling immigration.

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

#392
Freedom of movement of labour is the principal reason unions and the British labour party had significant brexit support: the view was that EU labour migration was designed to reduce bargaining power.

I can't say if that's true or not, but it does suggest that the best path out for tech workers in the US might be to unionise. Because hateful though it is, and I remain a steadfast "remainer" .. brexit happened.

If you don't like H1B rules, organise. But bear in mind who you will be associating with promoting a closed labour market.

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

#393

So grateful to see this being picked up by mainstream news outlets. Anecdotally I know quite a few engineers with experience ranging from small startup to long FAANG tenures that cannot even get an interview. It makes no sense to source outside of the US when qualified American workers cannot get jobs. At some point that became a radical stance and I'm sure I'll be flamed for it here.

Outsourcing needs to be eliminated. If the company is doing 20% of their business in Ohio, 20% of their workforce needs to be in Ohio. 12% in NY State, 12% of the workers need to be in NY State etc. To your point, the sense is that diploma mills exist and the corporations mostly want bodies to work 20 hours a day and indentured servitude is what they want most. That 25% tax on international workers is nothing. It wil…

Of course. Suppose one month NY had a surge in sales and Ohio had a slump. The company should therefore fire several Ohionian workers and hire several New York. So on every month.

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

#395
post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't post in this inflammatory style on HN. You've set off a whole flamewar – nearly 100 comments so far – with many of the comments debating the definition of racism. This is the last thing we need here. The overall topic is important, which is why it needs to be discussed with comments that are thoughtful and substantive, which the guidelines clearly ask us to do: Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiousl…

[flagged]

The guidelines apply equally to everyone. It makes all the difference whether a comment is worded in a way that promotes curious conversation vs rage.

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

#396

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…

Yeah, a salary-based allocation would cut through a lot of the noise. If a company really needs top-tier talent and is willing to pay for it, fine... That’s very different from using H-1Bs as a way to fill mid-level roles at below-market rates while locking people into visa dependency

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

#397

Old news. This has been going on for decades. If you even look badly on youtube you will find corporate videos from "HR Consultants" teaching companies how to bury job listings so noone will be likely to find them. Your country sold you down the river 30 years ago.

The frustrating part is that this isn't some loophole getting accidentally exploited, it's baked into the system

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

#398
post #392

Freedom of movement of labour is the principal reason unions and the British labour party had significant brexit support: the view was that EU labour migration was designed to reduce bargaining power. I can't say if that's true or not, but it does suggest that the best path out for tech workers in the US might be to unionise. Because hateful though it is, and I remain a steadfast "remainer" .. brexit happened. If you…

That tension between protecting labor rights and promoting open markets is real

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

#399

So I was at a company that did this a lot - it was much less nefarious than on the surface. It was usually related to them recruiting a certain specialist or acquiring a team at another company. But the only way to get these people visas was to post the jobs publicly and hide them as much as possible. They did this by the hundreds, and it wasn't really a cost saving measure - if you are trying to get anybody in parti…

The process forces everyone to act like they are

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

#400

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…

H1B visas don't require employers to post jobs; this PERM process comes later when someone seeks an employment sponsored green card.

Visas could be allocated in some kind of priority order, but salary alone would probably concentrate visas to just the relatively high-paying tech sector, leaving other professions out entirely.

I'm not sure that's good; the US also needs people with expertise in science, industrial and agricultural control systems, clean power, and more. But these professions tend to earn a fraction of what a software developer makes. Other countries have gone with points systems that try to balance for this.

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