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

Apple discriminated against US citizens in hiring, DOJ says

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 275 posts

Re: Apple discriminated against US citizens in hiring, DOJ says

#81

Post by JAlexoid »

supportengineer wrote: post #35
clumsysmurf wrote: post #26

I worked at a company owned by some large banks. When the immigration lawyer came for a meetings roughly once per year, the place got super quiet. Everyone I worked with did basic stuff ... docker, Spring Boot, and I didn't understand how such basic positions needed visas in such a large metro like Phoenix. Yet, the pay was comparable ... there must be some angle I don't understand.

"You will obey your manager or you will be deported" is very powerful.

Yeah.... Except that this is not true. There's not enough talent in US, so we have to seek elsewhere.

American graduates have these starry eyes and want to work mostly in two types of companies FAANG or early stage startups... Who's going to go to work at pharma companies, banks, electric companies?

Re: Apple discriminated against US citizens in hiring, DOJ says

#82

Post by closeparen »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #27

I suspect that this is more a "certain managers wanted certain types of employees," as opposed to a systemic, companywide decree from Up High (like IBM's ageism). Apple just makes too damn much money to worry overmuch about salaries. If anything, a lot of managers like H1Bs, because they can drive them like slaves. I've seen exactly that, in front of my own eyes. It's pretty disturbing, if you are a manager like me.

Apple seems to have an unusually long-term orientation with respect to employees and to value tenure and retention in a way that the rest of Silicon Valley does not.

Re: Apple discriminated against US citizens in hiring, DOJ says

#83

Post by standardUser »

tomohelix wrote: post #33

Reading into the press release, there is a distinction that probably escapes most native citizens here: they are talking about EB2 visa, not H1B. PERM certification is not the same labor certification done in H1B. PERM is a much more rigorous and demanding process and it costs a lot more money than anything related to H1B. The reason is because it leads to a green card, not just a work permit. Often, it requires an a…

> No such thing as wage depression or abuse at this point

You're saying that Apple can't find people from less-developed countries with these specific credentials and then offer them a starting salary that's $100k under what they would have needed to offer to someone from California?

> because they are for all legal purposes, an equal to any American once they have EB2.

Equal to an American in legal rights perhaps, but there is no right to competitive pay.

Re: Apple discriminated against US citizens in hiring, DOJ says

#84

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

bubblethink wrote: post #63
VinLucero wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the incentives at Play here? You seem to know the rules of the game.

Here's the lay of the land: 1) You can hire temp workers on visas relatively easily and in large numbers. This benefits employers, politicians, economy, etc. 2) These workers need permanent status. US immigration is uniquely regressive in that everything flows through the employer in most cases and visa holders have no agency. So the employer needs to petition for a "permanent" employee. 3) So although these people a…

And if this doesn't make it seem farcical enough: you would think that an employee who'd been working at your firm would have lots of unique skills and familiarity with corporate processes, technology etc. that are valuable, and that you could write a job description that required those.

But no - your immigration law firm will tell you that you absolutely can't do that, and that you have to pretend to hire into some kind of imaginary position that reflects the knowledge and skills of someone in the job market who would qualify but for the fact that they don't have skills that could only be acquired at your firm.

Re: Apple discriminated against US citizens in hiring, DOJ says

#85

Post by closeparen »

rexpop wrote: post #72
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. I am willing to stand corrected, but I've also seen what I've seen.

I think the third option is more plausible; neither executive decree nor individual managers' particular penchant drives these trends, but rather widespread cultural trends that individual managers act on subconsciously. We're likely talking about favoring H-1B visas; predominantly Indian, and predominantly male, with a median age of 34.[0] Do individual hiring managers have individual, personal biases? Yes, but what…

FAANG SWE and body-shop “IT” careers couldn’t be more different.

Re: Apple discriminated against US citizens in hiring, DOJ says

#86

Post by microtherion »

pavlov wrote: post #55
tomohelix wrote: post #33

Reading into the press release, there is a distinction that probably escapes most native citizens here: they are talking about EB2 visa, not H1B. PERM certification is not the same labor certification done in H1B. PERM is a much more rigorous and demanding process and it costs a lot more money than anything related to H1B. The reason is because it leads to a green card, not just a work permit. Often, it requires an a…

This. If the PERM process at Apple is anything like what I saw at Facebook a couple of years ago, then all these “applicants” are actually people already working at the company on non-immigrant visas whom the company wants to retain. There is no reason to assume that they’re being paid any less than others at Apple. They’re already in the country and have been doing the work for years. Why not give them a path to a g…

> If the PERM process at Apple is anything like what I saw at Facebook a couple of years ago, then all these “applicants” are actually people already working at the company on non-immigrant visas whom the company wants to retain.

Indeed. I really doubt Apple prefers foreigners in their hiring (it's a rather significant hassle to bring somebody in). If anything, citizens have some edge.

But once an immigrant has been hired, the PERM process essentially would require trying to hire for that position again, and employers (not just Apple) are anything but motivated to replace an experienced and qualified employee with several years' experience at the company with an untested new hire, so they treat this process as a Kabuki performance.

Re: Apple discriminated against US citizens in hiring, DOJ says

#87

Post by bubblethink »

jonathankoren wrote: post #79
bubblethink wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>PERM is a much more rigorous and demanding process It's not rigorous or demanding; it's a mostly pointless bureaucratic exercise in bogus paperwork where lawyers and the gov. make bank. From the article : It also required all PERM position applicants to mail paper applications, even though the company permitted electronic applications for other positions," the DOJ said. >Apple actually felt it was worth it Apple doe…

> it's a mostly pointless bureaucratic exercise in bogus paperwork where lawyers and the gov. make bank I love how people always think that The Government™ does things to make money, rather some congressman from the Bible Belt just engaging in straight up xenophobia.

I mean the outcome is that it's a lot of wasted time and money. The original motivation for these policies was a pro-labor/protectionist stance in hiring immigrants, but that is completely subverted because there are no restrictions in hiring temp. immigrant workers. This PERM thing only comes up if you want to keep them permanently. The process basically subverts everyone's expectations, disappoints everyone, and just hands gov. and lawyers money.

Re: Apple discriminated against US citizens in hiring, DOJ says

#88

Post by kemayo »

supportengineer wrote: post #35
clumsysmurf wrote: post #26

I worked at a company owned by some large banks. When the immigration lawyer came for a meetings roughly once per year, the place got super quiet. Everyone I worked with did basic stuff ... docker, Spring Boot, and I didn't understand how such basic positions needed visas in such a large metro like Phoenix. Yet, the pay was comparable ... there must be some angle I don't understand.

"You will obey your manager or you will be deported" is very powerful.

That's a factor, but I think the H1-B lock-in is more important. Assuming no mistreatment at all is occurring, an employee who you can be fairly confident won't quit still has extra value to you. The H1-B requiring that the employee either goes back to their original country or lines up another company to take over the visa means that they're much more likely to stick around.

Re: Apple discriminated against US citizens in hiring, DOJ says

#89

Post by jkaplowitz »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #40
jkaplowitz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those tricks definitely occur, but they are also not required in most cases: the relevant obligations only apply when (1) the employer falls under the regulatory definition of either an H-1B dependent employer or a willful violator , BUT NOT IF (2) the candidate is paid at least $60k per year or has a relevant master’s degree. In our industry it’s rare for condition 2 to be false, even when condition 1 is true. So us…

As the article describes, a competitive job search is always required for PERM certification. The employer needs to fill out a DOL form ( https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ETA/oflc/pdfs/9089for... ), in which section I(c) requires two print advertisements for the job opportunity, and section N requires certifying that the opportunity was "clearly open" to US workers but no US worker who qualified was found.

I was responding to someone who was discussing the H-1B process, which matches what I said, not the PERM process, which matches what you said.

Re: Apple discriminated against US citizens in hiring, DOJ says

#90

Post by ralferoo »

jboy55 wrote: post #74
shadowgovt wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still a bit hard to explain why Apple appeared to be hiding these jobs from qualified native candidates, refugees, and asylees.

These 'Jobs' are already filled. Someone on an H1B, who's working at the job, in some cases for years, asks for the company to get them their green card. The company now has to advertise that job, and take applicants on the job. Theoretically if they find a qualified candidate they have to fire the worker who asked for PERM, and hire the candidate. Since PERM applications are seen as a perk for good employees, and ha…

> Theoretically if they find a qualified candidate they have to fire the worker who asked for PERM, and hire the candidate.

This doesn't seem like the only option to me. They could hire the newly discovered qualified candidate AND keep the existing employee on the H1B visa and try again.

For companies that are continually recruiting and have an incredibly tough interview process, it doesn't sound like a disaster to unintentionally come across someone good.

Post reply on HN