Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Big Tech Resumed Hiring Foreign Workers Just Weeks After Layoffs

leefang.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 254 posts

Re: Big Tech Resumed Hiring Foreign Workers Just Weeks After Layoffs

#81

Post by makeitdouble »

bitL wrote: post #44
makeitdouble wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you on principle. To my knowledge, the main barriers are managing the payroll: how do you deal with each countries' laws and obligations for each of your remote employees ? The traditional way to do that at scale is to go through a local proxy company that abstracts the complexity and is the legal entity responsible for the workers in that country. Except you have to pay that middle-men, maintain an ongoing…

You don't have to. Your foreign workers can be independent consultants receiving money from you, paying their own taxes. You just need their W-8BEN every year.

That still means you negociate and maintain individual contracts with each of them, and have to deal with what happens when conflicts arise (let's say one of them disappears with a client's confidential info in the middle of a critical project. Your only reasonable action is to cut the losses, short of trying to go sue them in Zimbabwe's court)

Or more interestingly, I'd assume an independant consulting contract could be void in many legislations if it happens that their work should be reclassified as employment under some specific rules (e.g. you dictate their working hours etc.)

Basically, is the contract valid under the worker's country laws is a question you won't be able to ignore I guess ?

Re: Big Tech Resumed Hiring Foreign Workers Just Weeks After Layoffs

#82

Post by kasey_junk »

darth_avocado wrote: post #17

There are multiple missing things for this: 1. Layoffs happened regardless of visa status, so visa workers were part of the layoffs. 2. The visa applications for H1B could be for workers already working in the company under a different visa like TN or F1 3. The positions affected by layoffs and positions filing for H1B could be different. For example, a front end position may be affected by layoffs, but the visa appl…

I don’t necessarily believe this position but not a single one of your points argues against the theory that H1b visas are bad for green card/citizen holders during times of layoffs.

It’s a perfectly logical (if not humane given current immigration law) position to hold that companies should be required to lay off visa holders first and for there to be a “cooling off” period between layoffs and hiring of visa holders.

My personal opinion is that liberalization of the visa process does more to protect local workers than our current system, but it’s perfectly reasonable to conclude big tech is currently using the visa system to blunt the tech labor market.

Re: Big Tech Resumed Hiring Foreign Workers Just Weeks After Layoffs

#85

Post by arcticbull »

Daishiman wrote: post #60
whaleofatw2022 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Many of the Google visas are for new employees, with some starting as soon as August 17th. Refutes at least two points you made if not three..

The application process takes in general no less than a year.

Nah that's not true. New applications are due in late April usually, and valid assuming you win the lottery, you can start at the beginning of the new USICS fiscal year in October. You can prep the paperwork in a week or two if you want. 6-7 months should suffice, and thats assuming you are selected. With premium processing you should know within what 2 weeks of submission? Not sure how premium processing works with the lottery.

Re: Big Tech Resumed Hiring Foreign Workers Just Weeks After Layoffs

#88

Post by arcticbull »

kazamaloo wrote: post #64
whaleofatw2022 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Many of the Google visas are for new employees, with some starting as soon as August 17th. Refutes at least two points you made if not three..

Not sure how the article knows "new" employees, but something doesn't click for me. H1B visas kick in on October 1st of each year. August 17th can only be for H1B transfers. Might still be a new employee, but definitely not someone coming from overseas.

Correct, in which case, it seems like a manufactured outrage. These folks are already in the US and authorized to work here for up to 6 years - basically indefinitely if applying for a green card.

Re: Big Tech Resumed Hiring Foreign Workers Just Weeks After Layoffs

#89

Post by SoftTalker »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #63
bitL wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to. Your foreign workers can be independent consultants receiving money from you, paying their own taxes. You just need their W-8BEN every year.

In my experience, there is nothing an employer hates more than the idea of letting employees become contractors.

They love having contractors, what they hate is having contractors and the IRS later telling them "no, they are employees, and you owe payroll taxes and penalties for the last 5 years"

Re: Big Tech Resumed Hiring Foreign Workers Just Weeks After Layoffs

#90

Post by rhaway84773 »

The dumbest thing Americans have decided to complain about is the H1B visa. This is a visa that requires employees to be paid as much or more than equivalent American workers in the region. In addition the company is required to pay the significant legal fees involved in getting and maintaining this visa. It is obviously about workers living and working in the US paying taxes in the US. And it’s primarily used for an industry where working remotely is super easy. And the number of visas are capped so there’s only so many that can be hired.

So if these people aren’t hired in the US, the same company could hire them outside the US in their home countries where they can pay them far less and yet get the same people working for them.

Literally dangling the prospect of American citizenship is all it takes to get tens of billions of dollars in taxes and hundreds of billions of dollars in company development to stay within the U.S. as opposed to being dispersed to other countries.

If you really want to fight something fight companies that send jobs and dollars to the same people who don’t live in the US.

It’s also ironic that the H1B visa gets so much attention when over the past 2 decades the kinds of jobs that H1B visas work in have increased employee pay far more than nearly every other industry in the US, completely undermining the idea that the H1B visa reduces pay.

You know what did reduce pay? Apple and Google colluding to reduce pay. And yet that gets a fraction of the vitriol the H1B visa which has been an obvious good for America does.

If there’s anything to complain about the H1B visa it’s that it prevents the workers from unleashing their entrepreneurial talents within the US even more. So maybe Americans should push for improving the visa to allow the H1B workers more freedom as a opposed to trying to send them and their jobs abroad with them.

Post reply on HN