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Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

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Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#461

Post by jupp0r »

booleandilemma wrote: post #122
jzymbaluk wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is right. The answer that's best for the economy is to allow more immigration, not less (especially skilled immigration). This move will just make it more dificult for the average company to sponsor H1B workers

Serious question: wouldn’t that be leaving less jobs open for Americans? As an American myself, I want to see my fellow Americans getting good jobs over people from other countries.

> As an American myself, I want to see my fellow Americans getting good jobs over people from other countries

How many of your fellow citizens do you know who have the skills to get a good job and don't get one because of foreign competition? All I know is companies having trouble hiring really good people.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#462

Post by 8ytecoder »

tylerhou wrote: post #347
mikeyouse wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Body shops" like Infosys and Tata Consulting that import thousands of H1Bs under borderline fraudulent applications, and then underpay these employees. Just a random link, but the contours of the problem: https://www.epi.org/blog/new-data-infosys-tata-abuse-h-1b-pr...

Sure, there are low paid H1B workers, but why is that necessarily a problem? Your link shows no evidence that they depress the wages or employment of native-born workers. In fact, there are many proper economic analyses that show that native-born workers benefit from immigration: https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/3pi8vo/highsk...

H1B here myself but someone who moved here during one of the years that had surprisingly lax demand for H1B visas. I moved here for a startup as the first engineer with a pay much lower than what I could have gotten in the market. It was purely because there was no demand for H1B that year that I got in. Every year since then has been the top 3 Indian companies stuffing the applications. However, the current rule change would shift the balance from consultancies to big tech companies. Startups do need talent too and there are people like me who are willing to take a pay cut in exchange for a reasonable equity. The winners of this rule change would be big tech companies - not necessarily the US in general.

What the US needs is a point based system with automatic green card in x number of years. This would allow the government to prioritize "desirable qualities" (education, age, salary and whatever you want to optimize for) and balance them out (e.g, I could get points for my education instead of my salary and still qualify). The automatic green card option would then open up the employees to work anywhere they want instead of the company that sponsored them thereby preventing wage suppression.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#463

Post by lmg643 »

la6471 wrote: post #457
ummonk wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If their projects are that important we should be spending more on them so they meet the minimum pay requirements.

Did Covid not teach us anything? How long do you think it will take for your job to be offshored? Maybe few years? This will give incentive to increase offshoring to the companies. Mind you - offshoring is not equal to outsourcing. If you work for a Global company like Google or GE - good luck. Stopping immigration is like stopping oxygen ... this economy will slowly stagnate and be overtaken by other more efficient…

Great logic - give up citizen jobs at home because they'll be offshored otherwise.

Foolish logic for a country to operate under, and why should any citizens support that kind of policy? Lose either way.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#464

Post by ThrustVectoring »

DenisM wrote: post #281
nrmitchi wrote: post #33

I'll give you that, but it seems like a much simpler solution would have just been improving the flexibility for an H1B worker to be allowed to work at any employer for the term of their status. If an employer used an H1B in order to hire a foreign worker and then under pay them, the worker would just get another job that pays market rate, without the work status concern. Without the artificial control over the emplo…

I vaguely recall that the "indentured" h1b workers (as oppose to the "proper" h1b like I had) owe money back to home, and that debt becomes instantly due if they bail out. If they were super-stars they would be able to cover it from the Amazon signup bonus (and become indentured to Amazon - your signup bonus is due back if you bail out early). However superstars rarely end up in those jobs. We're looking at people wi…

Protection against exploitative debt collection practices extends to non-citizen residents with US bank accounts and employers. Granted, it's effective coercion if the visa-holders think it's effective, so there's definitely some cultural integration and teaching stuff there, but it can definitely be done.

Granted, if family in the mother country are effectively held hostage to the debt payments, that's a different story, but there can be enough protection for US law to protect h1b workers against exploitation by law-abiding employers and creditors.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#466

Post by TuringNYC »

addicted wrote: post #183
TuringNYC wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best thing to do would be to treat them like local workers -- increased pay AND increased flexibility. This will help retain the best overseas workers in the US. Even better would be a salary auction where US companies get to auction (higher and higher salaries for the best overseas workers.) The highest auction rates would fill the quota first. Overseas workers win bigtime. Companies seeking talent also win. Loc…

So you have an auction, and you're capping the number of people. A hybrid monster that takes the worst of both a private market (heavily benefiting the richest incumbents) and government regulations (broad and non targeted rules).

There is already a cap on the law, i'm not proposing that. The government regulations are also already there, i'm not proposing that either.

I'm just proposing we auction to increasingly higher salaries so all those people get nice high wages. The H1b system is to get the best and brightest for talent we cannot find locally, so paying these immigrants handsomely seems like the right thing to do. Its also good business, because high end R&D facilities should not be crossing their fingers for luck in hiring, they should be able to purchase talent by bidding for it.

I'm not sure how this benefits the richest incumbents -- the pool of workers continues to be the same. It benefits companies who desperately need the most talented workers by making them pay fairly for that top talent.

Frankly, if some company thinks they need the best-of-the-best and cant pay fairly for it, do they really need the best of the best?

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#467

Post by nrmitchi »

maxerickson wrote: post #429
nrmitchi wrote: post #33

I'll give you that, but it seems like a much simpler solution would have just been improving the flexibility for an H1B worker to be allowed to work at any employer for the term of their status. If an employer used an H1B in order to hire a foreign worker and then under pay them, the worker would just get another job that pays market rate, without the work status concern. Without the artificial control over the emplo…

Why such a mild change? If someone can get hired and hold a job paying, say, $25 an hour and keep it for a year, let them stay as long as they want. It would probably put some pressure on wages, but it would also increase economic activity (create demand).

Honestly, because mild changes are much easier to get consensus around.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#469

Post by ravila4 »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #460
ravila4 wrote: post #434

I feel like this thread has a lot of bias coming from bad experiences in the computer science field. While I do understand the bad practices of many tech companies, I think the picture is very different when you look at careers in other STEM fields, such as biology, chemistry, and physics. H1B visas are very important for foreign students in these fields particularly those hoping to pursue careers in academia. H1B vi…

bias coming from bad experiences in the computer science field https://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2020-H1B-Visa-Category.as... It isn't bias, just look at the H1B distribution, it heavily biased to the CS/IT space. Like for every possible biologist you are imagining, there probably 100 IT/CS guys coming in. I'd love to have the biologists and chemists come in, but the big IT consultancies are massively abusing the sy…

Absolutely. But perhaps it is precisely for this reason that we need a comprehensive and thoughtful reform that takes into account the value added. I am worried that blanket-raising the requirements solves one problem and creates another.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#470

Post by triceratops »

paxys wrote: post #34

While I'm in favor of the move, wages are just a band-aid fix. The core of the problem is that the premise of the H1B visa itself – extraordinary skill that cannot be found in the US – is complete bullshit. Everyone participating in the program (including the government) knows this, and yet they have to do the entire song and dance of years long approval processes, fake job listings, RFEs and whatnot. Fix the real pr…

> extraordinary skill that cannot be found in the US

You're thinking of the O-1. The H-1B is a specialty occupation visa, not an "extraordinary skill" visa.

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