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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

#51

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

arcticbull wrote: post #10

It's pretty amazing to me how anti-immigrant America is, for a country built on immigration, but I suppose it's always been that way. Benjamin Franklin hated the Germans in the 1750s [1]. For perspective, Canada, a country 1/10th the size of the US, brings in 30,000 refugees each year. The US brings in 18,000. This means Canada brings in 25X the number of refugees per capita than the US does. Canada, a country 1/10th…

> Blanket requiring additional pay for H-1Bs seems fine, but leaves startups in a difficult spot where they're unable to bring in the same level of foreign talent that bigger companies are, as, of course these rules do not take into account equity based compensation.

That's fine by me. For the vast majority of startups, the equity compensation should be considered worthless anyways.

> As it stands, 4 out of 5 H-1B holders make more than average Americans.

The average American doesn't work in a job for which an H-1B would even be permitted, so I'm not sure what this point means? I'd expect everyone in an H-1B position to be making more than the average American.

> The process of bringing in H-1Bs is already so expensive, arduous and wasteful that companies aren't going to be bringing in huge quantities of "US replacement" labor. I certainly wouldn't if I were in charge of hiring.

It's expensive, yes, but it's still a very small amount compared to their overall compensation and benefits. If your entire staff is on visas maybe you'd have a bad time, sure, but otherwise it's usually a drop in the bucket.

The real joke is that H-1B is still a lottery, and in the time it takes people to get theirs, they might reconsider living somewhere else, like Canada.

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

#52

Post by swyx »

airstrike wrote: post #4

Link to DHS press release: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2020/10/06/department-homeland-secu... Probably a better link than the WSJ submission – even though I'm a subscriber, I want the facts, and the facts seem to be hard to find As a matter of fact, I still haven't found the actual "interim final rule" (an oxymoron if I've ever seen one), so if anyone has a link, I'd be immensely grateful EDIT: Here's the unpublished ru…

how much higher wages are we talking? skimmed the ruling and didnt see anything.

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

#53

Post by nrmitchi »

berryjerry wrote: post #28
arcticbull wrote: post #10

It's pretty amazing to me how anti-immigrant America is, for a country built on immigration, but I suppose it's always been that way. Benjamin Franklin hated the Germans in the 1750s [1]. For perspective, Canada, a country 1/10th the size of the US, brings in 30,000 refugees each year. The US brings in 18,000. This means Canada brings in 25X the number of refugees per capita than the US does. Canada, a country 1/10th…

The thing to remember about US immigration is that most immigrants simply over stay their visa. The US may bring less immigrants over but there is a reason you can press 2 for Spanish on nearly every single companies help line.

> there is a reason you can press 2 for Spanish on nearly every single companies help line

1. If you're trying to imply that the majority of people who speak spanish in the US are illegal immigrants from Mexico, I suspect that you're highly wrong on that.

2. I'm sure there are many people on tourist visa's who over stay. I'm sure there are many less people who came over on H1B's who overstay. H1B has a path forward (no matter how bad that path is), which allows you to still work at your career. You can't group every type of visa together to make broad claims like that.

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

#54

Post by arcticbull »

908B64B197 wrote: post #41
arcticbull wrote: post #10

It's pretty amazing to me how anti-immigrant America is, for a country built on immigration, but I suppose it's always been that way. Benjamin Franklin hated the Germans in the 1750s [1]. For perspective, Canada, a country 1/10th the size of the US, brings in 30,000 refugees each year. The US brings in 18,000. This means Canada brings in 25X the number of refugees per capita than the US does. Canada, a country 1/10th…

The immigration quotas in Canada are simply out of control. Almost every week on this forum I see Canadians whining about low wages in Software.... in a market that's more or less flooded with cheap labor!

Immigration quotas have remained constant at about 1% of the population per year since 1992.

Low wages in software compared to the US for sure, but that's in part because Canada has very low income and wealth inequality compared to the US. Most people make a living wage, and there's not a huge spread.

The US ranks near the bottom of the world in income inequality [1]. Canada's GINI coefficient was 33.8 in 2018 vs the US of 43.4. This puts America at 51st in the world (lower being worse) vs Canada's 107th.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/09/ma...

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

#55

Post by jzymbaluk »

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…

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

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

#56

Post by grumple »

arcticbull wrote: post #10

It's pretty amazing to me how anti-immigrant America is, for a country built on immigration, but I suppose it's always been that way. Benjamin Franklin hated the Germans in the 1750s [1]. For perspective, Canada, a country 1/10th the size of the US, brings in 30,000 refugees each year. The US brings in 18,000. This means Canada brings in 25X the number of refugees per capita than the US does. Canada, a country 1/10th…

Refugees != immigrants. The US admits over 1M immigrants per year. [1] We have the largest immigrant population of any nation in the world and it isn't even close (our immigrant population is larger than the total population of most countries) at over 50 million immigrants (current population not born in the US). [2]

The rest of your comment is incorrect because of this misunderstanding, so I'll give you a break. And I'll also give you a break for accepting current Trump policies as standard American policies.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_Stat...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d...

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

#57

Post by koluna »

908B64B197 wrote: post #41
arcticbull wrote: post #10

It's pretty amazing to me how anti-immigrant America is, for a country built on immigration, but I suppose it's always been that way. Benjamin Franklin hated the Germans in the 1750s [1]. For perspective, Canada, a country 1/10th the size of the US, brings in 30,000 refugees each year. The US brings in 18,000. This means Canada brings in 25X the number of refugees per capita than the US does. Canada, a country 1/10th…

The immigration quotas in Canada are simply out of control. Almost every week on this forum I see Canadians whining about low wages in Software.... in a market that's more or less flooded with cheap labor!

Mind sharing some numbers? This is a patently false statement. Wages in Canada might be lower, but that is because they get a number of other social benefits, such as healthcare, that gets paid through taxes taken from said wages.

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

#58

Post by guitarbill »

victor106 wrote: post #46

I finally agree with something this administration is doing. This is a solid move. H1B has been/is being abused by all companies (big and small) for a number of years at the cost of not only American workers but also the visa holders. The only ones benefiting are the companies that sponsor H1B visas by suppressing wages for everyone. I just hope the new administration don't role back these changes. Typically when a n…

exactly. although there's more than one way to fix this. one controversial idea, but in line with capitalism is to just give (highly) skilled immigrants permanent residency (other countries do this already, and the H-1B process is also pretty rigorous). why? because right now with e.g. the H-1B, your employer has to petition for a green card. as you've said, it costs a lot of money to sponsor an H-1B. a reason some bad-faith companies do this is because they know the H-1B employee is tied to them (although an H-1B transfer is not too difficult). imagine if it was easier for visa holders to switch employees? i'm not holding my breath though.

in any case, having H-1B be a lottery was always weird. i just hope this doesn't impact any existing H-1B holders :(

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

#59

Post by mc32 »

jzymbaluk wrote: post #55
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…

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

Why not make companies sponsor underprivileged kids who need the opportunity just as much but don’t get as much consideration?

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

#60

Post by frequentnapper »

arcticbull wrote: post #18
frequentnapper wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a canadian immigrant, I'm actually against the ramping up of so much immigration because we do not have the infrastructure to support it. I liked the slow and steady pace of quality over quantity before liberals came into power.

It wasn't much lower in the past -- the number's been hovering around the high 2xx,000 to low 3xx,000 per year since 1992, and immigration per year as a percentage of the population has remained around 1% that entire time, according to IRCC and statcan. [1] The real issue is that Canada's birth rate is 1.4 children per woman on average. This means within a generation the population would be reduced to 2/3. With a poi…

Right, in the long term it would be beneficial, but the infrastructure takes time to build up. Most immigrants understandably crowd in either Vancouver, Toronto or a couple of other big cities because that's where the opportunities are. Not sure where you live, but the food and rent have gone up dramatically in these cities. Forget about being able to afford buying a house or an apartment even if you've been responsibly saving up. The commute before covid was killer. I don't understand this off-hand dismissal of concerns because I don't have citations.
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