U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers • Hacker News Board

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

#481

Post by lotsofpulp » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 2:41 PM UTC

geggam wrote: post #410

rjf72 wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's been another major shift as well. This [1] graph is critical. There were more self employed workers in the US in 1948 than there are today. The population since then has increased by more than 220%. And the trend increases the further back you go. I mention 1948 only because that's as far back as FRED's data goes! The US used to be a land largely driven by self employment. We had large numbers of mostly indep…

Regulation has killed small business.

Efficiencies of scale killed small business. People had the choice of patronizing small business or large business, and they chose the latter.

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

#482

Post by mdorazio » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 2:46 PM UTC

mpweiher wrote: post #390

mdorazio wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you're in IT consulting like me instead of a software engineer, you absolutely should not cheer every immigrant. Many people wrongly assume that most H1B visas go to truly high-skilled individuals working at large tech companies. This is not the case. Take a look at the numbers in [1]. The top 5 companies bringing H1B workers are doing so specifically to outsource IT functions at lower cost than US workers. Th…

> The top 5 companies bringing H1B workers are doing so specifically to outsource IT functions at lower cost And this is the part I don't quite understand. According to the rules, this shouldn't be possible. So either (a) the rules are broken, and need to be fixed or (b) the rules are not being enforced. And since we have the numbers, and the companies, it shouldn't be that hard to see how they are getting past eithe…

Here's how it works. A company like Cognizant gets as many H1Bs as it can via an army of applicants and subsidiaries in India to game the lottery system. Meanwhile, companies in the US that want to pay less for IT functions create job descriptions that are tailored specifically to H1B applicants (if you've ever wondered why there are mandatory requirements for a very specific set of systems experience and education, this is often why), then post those jobs only where they are unlikely to be found and tell American applicants who do manage to find them that the position only pays [20% below real market rate]. Now you've got a US company that can legally say they just can't find any qualified domestic applicants, an H1B-focused staffing company that has tons of people it can bring in and rotate through regularly, and wages that are depressed. Net result: IT departments at large companies that are 40%+ staffed by H1B contractors.

I've seen this happen repeatedly at clients you've definitely heard of and it creates a situation where there are plenty of Americans who would work these jobs, but the salary/benefits being offered just aren't competitive.

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

#483

Post by foldr » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 2:55 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #428

AYBABTME wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, there's cities all over the world with conditions that lead to crazy high real estate/housing costs. Most every metropolis ends up with a similar situation. Slightly different settings that all sum up to "high demand low supplies". NYC, London, Vancouver, Hong Kong, Tokyo, ...

SF is an outlier compared to London. From expatistan.com: Monthly rent for 85 m2 (900 Sqft) furnished accommodation in NORMAL area: SF: $3,663 (£2,789) London: £1,766 Difference: 58%

Worth noting that the difference there is exaggerated somewhat by the unusually low value of the pound at the moment.

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

#484

Post by mywittyname » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 3:03 PM UTC

mbrumlow wrote: post #475

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…

It's much harder to get an H1-B anymore. The people who manage to get one are mostly top-tier talent that are either battle-tested (rose through the ranks at a consulting firm) or are very good, domain experts.

It's like saying, not every former Google developer is awesome. It might be true, but the bar to get a job there is so high that the person is very likely to be awesome.

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

#485

Post by LMYahooTFY » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 3:04 PM UTC

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 must ardently oppose this, it is completely wrong.

"If you are, like me, a software engineer, you should cheer every immigrant. They aren't competitors, they are complements and create more jobs. Economics is complicated and sometimes counterintuitive, but just because "immigrants lower wages" is "common knowledge" doesn't make it true. [1]"

Whether you realize it or not, the absolute position you're taking is exploitative and false. It's the equivalent of asking if one supports a soldier on the battlefield in order to pressure their position on the war i.e."support the troops".

Furthermore, your source doesn't say what you cherry picked out of it. It says immigrants can be complements OR substitutes, and proceeds to lend some supporting data while remaining inconclusive, which is typical of fed publications. Your conclusion is your own.

"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."

As someone else pointed out, this very simply false.

If you think that immigrants are a net-job +, by all means, do that math, but what the St. Louis FED has done is far from conclusive.

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

#486

Post by bluGill » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 3:04 PM UTC

harimau777 wrote: post #433

emiliobumachar wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be aware that Silicon Valley is an extreme global outlier in real estate prices.

Is this true when you are comparing similar conditions? Something along the lines of: Large cities with significant multiculturalism, high tech jobs, significant culture (arts, media, entertainment, museums, etc.), public transportation, and openness to various ways of life

Yes. Try moving to Minneapolis, which has plenty of everything you ask for and housing prices are not out of control. If you don't need a large city, Des Moines does well too on the rest of your qualifications.

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

#487

Post by mywittyname » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 3:08 PM UTC

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…

> Economics is complicated and sometimes counterintuitive,

In our case, it's pretty intuitive: more software in the world increases the demand for software engineers. You need people to maintain software; profitable software packages spurs reinvestment into new features; the improved efficiency of companies will drive competitors to also invest in software.

The downside is that easy-to-use software displaces low-end engineers. So demand may continue to grow, but so too will the educational requirements. When I started, I rarely used math beyond arithmetic in my job, but today, I'm often doing calculus.

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

#488

Post by winter_blue » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 3:09 PM UTC

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…

Thank you for your comment , joshe, and for being a small light in the darkness. There's so much hatred in here. I'm on an H-1B, and I've never worked for a low-paying or shitty company, and I've been very well-paid. At my last company, I was the highest paid person in my team. And, I've on one occasion made over $200,000 in a single year. I've never met one of underpaid immigrant engineers. Every immigrant I've known in NYC makes over $140,000. Of course, the facts don't matter--as we live in a "post-truth" age.

Reading the comments here, makes one feel hated, and like a Jew in Nazi Germany. Of course, the immigrant-haters in here have zero respect or regard for the truth. Like the antisemitic canard[1], they try to draw this picture of people like me being "slaves" and being underpaid. A picture that is totally alien to me. It's useless to engage with the people here--the only thing they understand is hatred for immigrants. Sometimes, I wish their ancestors would have never been allowed to immigrate (they certainly would not have succeeded in moving here, under the law today).

Not acknowledging this country has among the worst and least-welcoming laws for skilled workers in the whole world: https://www.vox.com/2015/6/23/8823349/immigration-system-bro... The dedicated haters on this thread want to eliminate the tiny trickle of skilled immigrants that this 330+ million country lets in. To be precise, that's about 0.02% of the population[2]. It's a joke (the quota).

I've lived here since mid-2007, have all my friends and relationships and community here, but the majority of people on this HN thread would love to see my life destroyed. They would love to see my forced out of the country by ICE at gunpoint. They're filled with nothing but vile hatred and darkness. A hatred whose consequence is real violence.

And to be clear, Americans are generally warm, welcoming, and friendly people, but the ones in this thread are among the worst specimens. They remind me of the bunch of angry men with Tiki torches at Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. The people here are screaming to destroy my life. Who knew many in Silicon Valley and Hacker News would hold the most repugnant alt-right views when it came to immigrants and of protecting their basic human dignity? It's a disgrace.

This whole thread is disgusting.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitic_canard

[2] About 65k principal EB-1, EB-2, and EB-3 green cards are granted annually. (Principal here means non-derivative, ie. not spouses or children.) That's about 5% of the 1.2 million total green cards issued. The remaining 95% of greencards are granted on the basis of a family relationship or on a humanitarian claim.

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

#489

Post by howard941 » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 3:14 PM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #400

thaumasiotes wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> American's used to be able to support large families of 4+ kids with only 1 working parent. Now you have households with both working and they can't afford to have kids. I'm broadly sympathetic to your viewpoint, but this isn't accurate. Children are fundamentally not expensive. The problem is that couples believe they can't afford to have kids, not that they actually can't afford them.

My health insurance costs alone would almost quadruple if I had a wife+kid

Mine (through work) quadrupled when I got the wife even though we're childfree. The work benefit I was offered provided for either me alone or for my family with unlimited dependents.

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

#490

Post by clarkevans » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 3:16 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #481

geggam wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulation has killed small business.

Efficiencies of scale killed small business. People had the choice of patronizing small business or large business, and they chose the latter.

Lack of capital investment killed small businesses. Everyone now has to pay a tax penalty to take your earned capital and invest it into local main-street businesses. This capital instead, though 401k, goes into trans-national firms.