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U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

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Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#471

Post by mberning »

tossaccount123 wrote: post #147
joshe wrote: post #94

I've worked with a few H1-B holders in Silicon Valley and they're awesome. A great improvement would be to allow H1B holders to change jobs easily (maybe after a year). It's too easy for them to get stuck in not great situations. It would be great for everyone if they could move to better fitting jobs, especially for startups who have trouble running H1-B programs. If you are, like me, a software engineer, you should…

>To prime your intuition a bit, consider how woman and minorities more than doubled the work force from the 1960s to 1990s with no loss in jobs or lowering of wages. You do realize there hasn't been a raise in real wages since the 70s when you account for inflation right? Coincidentally during that same time period the income gap exploded because the wealthy had plentiful cheap labor and were able to pocket the produ…

It is hard believe so many people still don’t “get it”. You cannot inflate the supply of labor, regardless of the means, and get a good result for the average working stiff.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#472

Post by tonmoy »

t1o5 wrote: post #468
luckydata wrote: post #13

Honestly this is a good thing. Right now the H1B is a bullshit immigration program for cheap engineers from India and China designed to depress wages in silicon valley. A change is sorely needed, this is not big enough but it's definitely a step.

Are you sure ? Increasing the masters quota for H1B will worsen things. Here is why. A majority of Masters degree holders in the US are those students who couldn't crack the basic campus recruitment in India for software companies during their Bachelors. So they take a stab at it once more by investing in a masters degree in US which increases their H1B lottery chances. I am not generalizing all the masters degree ho…

Do you have any data to back this claim up?

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#473

Post by arcseco »

ben_w wrote: post #431
hnaccy wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Wage trends over the past half-century suggest that a 10 percent increase in the number of workers with a particular set of skills probably lowers the wage of that group by at least 3 percent. Even after the economy has fully adjusted, those skill groups that received the most immigrants will still offer lower pay relative to those that received fewer immigrants. >Immigration redistributes wealth from those who comp…

Either the work is done in your country, where you: * control minimum wage laws etc., * collect the taxes, * benefit from most of the money being spent locally, or it’s done abroad, where a foreign government collects all the benefits. Import duties don’t do much to fix that. And if you have most or all of the workforce, then you get to lobby against other nations’ import duties.

You don't really get to control min-wage laws, working standards or environmental regulations over the long term in a tariff free world. US trade deficits are growing and will inevitably have to be normalized. When that happens the US will have to become a lot more competitive with nations that don't have these standards in place. Stagnated wages are just the beginning and are borrowing time before labour standards and environmental standards are forced to equalize with the East.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#474

Post by winter_blue »

doingmyting wrote: post #115
darkestloud wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The process is a nightmare. I've changed 3 jobs under H1B.

Not to mention if you are applying for a green card you get bumped to the back of the line with every job change unless your i-485 approved

No, you get to keep your priority date. The priority date is whenever the labor certification ("PERM") was filed.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#475

Post by mbrumlow »

joshe wrote: post #94

I've worked with a few H1-B holders in Silicon Valley and they're awesome. A great improvement would be to allow H1B holders to change jobs easily (maybe after a year). It's too easy for them to get stuck in not great situations. It would be great for everyone if they could move to better fitting jobs, especially for startups who have trouble running H1-B programs. If you are, like me, a software engineer, you should…

> I've worked with a few H1-B holders in Silicon Valley and they're awesome.

I see your point, but you can't group all H1-B holders in the same boat. The ones you worked were awesome, but I am sure many have worked with ones that were not awesome. I will note, I have worked with a few awesome H1-B holders too, but I won't fall for ALL being the same.

> If you are, like me, a software engineer, you should cheer every immigrant. They aren't competitors, they are complements and create more jobs.

It's hard for me to read this without thinking you are just virtue signalling. This is because across the board you can hear about skilled US engineers not getting the job, but yet find the companies that opted not to hire a US engineer has a ton of H1-B visas. You can't have a tech shortage, and at the same time have skilled workers in the same country struggling to get a good paying job in tech. This is also coupled with huge swaths of tech jobs being shipped overseas to the same places we are getting flooded with H1-B holders.

You could say -- well maybe the H1-B holders were more skilled? Maybe... But even if they were it is still a disservice to the US employees as they will not be given the opportunity to improve and hone their skills.

I also feel that people overlook the extra value a company has for hiring a H1-B over a citizen, even if they have the same skill and are paid the same. They get stickiness. There is a lot of uncertainty and a lot of stress moving from job to job. So often H1-B holders stay longer at companies when working conditions change for the worse.

> And if you are in SV consider that more than half of public tech companies were created by 1st and 2nd generation immigrants. 1st generation founders include Sergey Brin, Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Pierre Omidyar, Stewart Butterfield, Sebastion Thrun, and Patrick and John Collison.

I don't think it is a good idea to conflate immigrants to H1-B holders. While many of them do stay and become permanent residence, many of them also go back to the country they hailed from. I don't have the time right this second, but I do wonder how many of the immigrants on your list were in H1-B programs vs other routes of immigration.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#476

Post by milquetoastaf »

mberning wrote: post #471
tossaccount123 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>To prime your intuition a bit, consider how woman and minorities more than doubled the work force from the 1960s to 1990s with no loss in jobs or lowering of wages. You do realize there hasn't been a raise in real wages since the 70s when you account for inflation right? Coincidentally during that same time period the income gap exploded because the wealthy had plentiful cheap labor and were able to pocket the produ…

It is hard believe so many people still don’t “get it”. You cannot inflate the supply of labor, regardless of the means, and get a good result for the average working stiff.

You can if the profits are redistributed to the workforce and not just captured by the leadership / elite. There's more people working than ever. Profits are higher than ever. Yet, wages are stagnating. Where did the money go?

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#478

Post by vilifiedtwin »

blocked_again wrote: post #293

I opened the article with so many expectations. Then realized it changes nothing. How does having enough money to get a masters from US make one high skilled developer? The only people who are going to benefit from this are the American Universities.

Exactly that. I know so many people with masters degree that cannot code at all. They only learned how to pass exams but have no ability to solve problems on their own. I would argue that talented people would rather avoid a place where they cannot learn anything useful and universities more and more become just that. My view is that the US shoots themselves in a foot and that is good for other countries.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#479

Post by winter_blue »

The sheer and staggering amount of hatred for immigrants in here is appalling. If people had the same hatred for immigrants a 100 years, most of the ancestors of the balls of hatred on this thread would have been excluded. The skilled immigrant limit is a joke -- approximately 0.02% of the population. Also, incredibly hard: https://www.vox.com/2015/6/23/8823349/immigration-system-bro...

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#480

Post by seanmcdirmid »

scarejunba wrote: post #330
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They terminate in a GC or you go home. Only one renewal, not like the work visa I had in China that could be renewed indefinitely with no path to permanent residency.

This is false. Once you're past a certain point in the GC process, you will renew your status each year.

But at that point you are approved for a GC and are just waiting for the country quota.
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