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Immigration is about talent, not costs

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Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#491

Post by anjc »

hnnewguy wrote: post #98
manticore_alpha wrote: post #86

Look HNers, let's be honest with each other. There's a lot of H1B's on here. You have friends overseas who you want to see succeed in the Bay Area. In my experience at many tech companies in the Bay Area, H1B Visas exist for one reason, and one reason only - to get skilled engineering/STEM labor -- and to exploit connections (primarily Indian/Pakistani) among these workers to continue to get cheap labor. It absolutel…

> There's absolutely no talent shortage in the Bay Area, provided you can pay But this is precisely what defines an economic shortage. There's no shortage of anything , if the price offered is right. I wonder if the discrepancy between supply and demand for labour in the Valley has to do with the fact that, unlike most other industries[1], so many companies aren't making money, and hence can't pay, but still demand m…

> It seems like labour shortages are built into the system.

It certainly was:

http://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-...

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#492

Post by x0x0 »

nostromo wrote: post #398
molmalo wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Alternatively, I would be okay with eliminating the lottery and giving visas out on the basis of the premium companies are willing to pay over the salary a domestic worker would be paid. If your company is willing to pay 2.0x foo for a position, then you will get the H1-B visa ahead of a company only willing to pay 1.5x foo. The floor would be set at something like 1.1x foo. That would only help the largest compani…

That's just life. Google will always have more money than your startup. But that doesn't mean all the best people work for Google. Compete asymmetrically.

Tons of the so-called engineering shortage complaints can be condensed to not paying as well as google/fb/linkedin/netflix, offering at best the same environment and working conditions (though often much worse), then bitching that skilled engineers aren't jumping at the chance to work for you.

When hiring managers are asked to consider some subset of {more money, more vacation, true flex time, remote work, 4 day work weeks} in lieu of the cash, benefits, and environment the top tier employers pay, they refuse. And continue the bitching.

Also, the stunning discovery that, post incorporating in sf, people from the peninsula and south bay are unfathomably not as excited about a 50-60+ minute one-way commute as you thought they'd be.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#493

Post by grr »

selmnoo wrote: post #25
lmg643 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. It's strange to read these kinds of articles. The author doesn't seem to realize that he is describing his own personal preferences, and not anything about society at large. All you need to do is look at the top recipients of visas and you will understand what the game is.

This brings up an interesting question. The reasoning for bringing talent over from abroad, does it make sense ethically? I'm greatly irked by the idea of a young and ambitious Indian/Nigerian/Chinese/Russian guy or girl coming here to... optimize ad targeting at Facebook, he/she should stay in India or Nigeria, because by golly Nigeria NEEDS that person much more than us. We can do fine with Facebook advertising alg…

Those underdeveloped countries need you too! You should move there and help them.

As someone who left one of those countries for greener pastures (Canada) your argument sounds very rude and insensitive. Why should I have to suffer for my entire life in a country that violates my rights, with a crappy economy, with poor life outcomes, with a bad educational system, with a crappy health system that will shorten my life, where my kids will grow up to have much worse lives? All because I happen to have been born there?

You got lucky and were born into privilege. It's all too easy to say that we should all just deal with our lots in life when you happen to be in the top 1% of all humans on the planet.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#494

Post by MagicWishMonkey »

dgregd wrote: post #229
manticore_alpha wrote: post #86

Look HNers, let's be honest with each other. There's a lot of H1B's on here. You have friends overseas who you want to see succeed in the Bay Area. In my experience at many tech companies in the Bay Area, H1B Visas exist for one reason, and one reason only - to get skilled engineering/STEM labor -- and to exploit connections (primarily Indian/Pakistani) among these workers to continue to get cheap labor. It absolutel…

In short term immigrants definitely have negative impact on wages. However, in long term brain drain helps Silicon Valley to maintain its software capital of the world status. Nokia mainly depended on local workforce. From Poland it is much closer to Finland than to US. But it was Google US which hired my brightest school mates.

Most of the large bay area tech companies have offices overseas with plenty of foreign employees. They are not 100% dependent on the local workforce.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#496

Post by dominotw »

anjc wrote: post #489
dominotw wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's standard, normalized ways immigrants have come to the US for a long time now. And what are those? If you are being honest why not just say "We don't want any more immigrants". Because H1B is the only way to immigrate to US. Its great that your parents got a shot a new life and now you want the door to closed. PS: I am a naturalized US citizen, if it matters.

His point is that H1B visas are exploited to get cheap labour, and, they are. Why conflate that with general immigration, which H1Bs are not for? Do you only want immigrants who have talents in a specialised area?

There is no such thing as "general immigration" to the US.

Honest discussion can only happen if people come right out and say lets stop all immigration( I am not saying this would be wrong, I am just saying that it would be honest and productive).

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#497

Post by logfromblammo »

dashboardfront wrote: post #381
logfromblammo wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want your comparison to be equally valid wherever you make it, you have to use the same basket of goods everywhere you go. Otherwise, I can't tell whether you are comparing apples to oranges or pears to grapefruit. When I look at the numbers for that basket of goods that I currently consume, and price it out for San Francisco, I find that it is completely unattainable for anything less than 3 times what I curr…

Yes, but using the same basket of goods is fundamentally flawed because people shift their consumption choices dependent on relative prices. People do not pick the same consumption bundles wherever they go. Your substitution to an inferior good (actually, just less consumption of a normal good, housing space) is compensated with a larger consumption of 'other goods', which have also rose in price but not nearly to th…

When you compare things, you have to limit the number of variables you change at one time.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#498

Post by vonsnowman »

x0x0 wrote: post #486
vonsnowman wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such anger. I don't recall claiming to make the world a better place. We've changed our focus since I joined and to be honest I was more excited about the original vision but I'll take corporate file sharing over online advertising any day. Then again, I'd take life as an itinerant purveyor of french toast and fine liquors over online advertising so I'm hardly representative of the average person in this "industry".

You're the one saying employees need to care about the product and team, and disparaging people who just want a paycheck. People going on about cultural fit and missions -- while, of course, having a problem hiring -- make me literally laugh out loud. I'd rather be an itinerant snow bum, personally.

I value coworkers whose company I enjoy and who genuinely care about making customers happy. There's a wide spectrum between detached paycheck collector and over-invested lifer that fails to notice anything outside of work. I have nothing against people on either end, it's just not the kind of work environment I'm looking for.

I don't think culture has been a major issue for us when hiring. I merely brought it up as a counterpoint to the "just raise the salary" argument which strikes me as disingenuous.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#499

Post by deeviant »

manticore_alpha wrote: post #86

Look HNers, let's be honest with each other. There's a lot of H1B's on here. You have friends overseas who you want to see succeed in the Bay Area. In my experience at many tech companies in the Bay Area, H1B Visas exist for one reason, and one reason only - to get skilled engineering/STEM labor -- and to exploit connections (primarily Indian/Pakistani) among these workers to continue to get cheap labor. It absolutel…

I agree with many points of your post, and I can absolutely say that the system does not work as it's advertised to: my wife is(was) an H1B for a prominent tech company, they pretty much insisted on her coming to the US and when they did it they advertised a position publicly (as is required by law) so specific as to completely rule anybody but her, and of would of course summary deny anybody that managed to get an interview(which they don't do any ways, they publicly post the position but than do not hold any interviews, and if they did for show they will never give a thumbs up). The decision to hire the non-U.S. candidate is made before the position is before the posted, which I do think is duplicitous and very much against the spirit of the law.

On the other hand, I just don't feel to strongly that US jobs are solely for US people. This is a global economy and bringing in (hopefully bright and talented) people into the states does increase our national economic prospects. I do feel strongly, however, that the laws governing the process should be enforced completely, not in just the letter but in spirit. There are also some very complicated factors involved such as the cost of education in the US versus many other countries that substantially subsidize it, the potential use of unskilled works simply being used to drive the labor market down.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#500

Post by jnbiche »

carsongross wrote: post #70

The Silicon Valley privilege bubble is on farcical display here. The immigration that bothers the vast majority of Americans (and, indeed, the native populations in all countries) is low-skilled immigration that swamps lower-income communities and drives down wages for the middle and lower classes. At this point I cannot help but think that the conflation of these two different types of immigration is intentional.

Yeah, try being a hard-working, competent, solidly middle class 45-year old software developer who has been laid off from his job at BigCorp in SmallCity, Midwest, probably because BigCorp is bringing in a wave of L1 employees who "understand the technology" better.

SmallCity sees an average of 1-2 software jobs posted on Monster a month, some of which aren't even real jobs.

His only options are to uproot his family, and take the risk of moving out to SV where he has no friends, family, or support system, and try to learn Javascript so he can fit in at some ping-pong playing start-up, or watch his family slowly descend into semi-poverty on his wife's 20,000/year secretary/policewoman/teacher salary (if the family is lucky enough to have a working mother).

I know it's hard to believe, but in much of the country, software engineering (and even "real" engineering) jobs are always not jobs that carry extravagant upper-middle class salaries. Outside of SV and large cities, most software developers, even very competent ones, are solidly middle class, making considerably less than doctors, lawyers, bankers, and other members of the "professional" upper middle classes.

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