Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay • Hacker News Board

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

#981

Post by kamaal » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 2:04 AM UTC

908B64B197 wrote: post #971

kamaal wrote: post #929

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are answering your own question. If you had a job that could be done by both types of people you describe, why would you pay 4x extra for the former? Why should the guy who can write operating systems spend their time doing work that's below their skill and training experience? And if this person is ready to do this, why is the latter person held responsible for this? >>They'll both be listed as "computer related…

> Yes, because they are being hired to do the same job. Is it? One could do both jobs (Advanced ML & QA) but I'm not sure the other could. Question is: Should the job of guard at ToysRUs be considered a specialty occupation?

Are you even a serious programmer? Throughout my whole career I've never a had phase where I've done fixed set of things. Nor has my academic training proved to be enough to provide me for all the skill sets I needed to do those jobs.

Continuous learning is how our field works. Its not just ML or any thing, tomorrow if some thing new comes up, we need to learn and work on that as well.

We don't exactly toss out our workforce and re hire kids every time Kubernetes makes a release.

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

#982

Post by spicyramen » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:30 AM UTC

ascar wrote: post #857

spicyramen wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 on this. I have a CS masters degree from top UK university and was hired as Software Engineer, but company registered me as a Computer technician. When my H1b required renewal, DoL found out that I was a Software Engineer and company was forced to give a 20k yearly increase, not retroactive. This was Cisco. This is a.great move for people like me that I had no idea about salary ranges and US laws

I fail to see how your points are correlated to the changes. (As far as I grasped them, because wsj is paywalled...) If a company lowered your wages by wrongfully registering you for a lower paid position, they could still do so, because the crux is comparing the salary to a different demographic. The problem wasn't with the law, but with them screwing you and you not carefully reviewing the visa laws of the country…

Well, let me explain you that when you migrate to a new country, apart from dealing with your work Visa you need to deal with driving license, SSN registration, bank accounts, rental, car, new language, new work culture, new life...so yeah I should have known back in 2007 when there was no glassdoor, blind that I was underpaid by that much and company registering me as X when my company title was different.

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

#983

Post by thu2111 » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 8:10 AM UTC

tomcat27 wrote: post #931

Most of the work these companies are hired to produce is done in India. People on H1B are few and hired to delegate across time zones. It's hard without someone in the US connecting the bridge. This pandemic made it clear. It's a possibility that this new policy has very little implication on the overall budget of projects.. unless the companies are financially strong enough to hire local employees at a high salary.…

That's called election hacking

No it's not. This term has already been widely abused and I doubt many people take such claims seriously anymore, but widening it still further to mean "making pledges designed to appeal to voters" will just render the term utterly hopeless. Then we won't be able to talk about actual electronic compromise of vote counting systems.

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

#984

Post by ascar » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 11:33 AM UTC

spicyramen wrote: post #982

ascar wrote: post #857

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see how your points are correlated to the changes. (As far as I grasped them, because wsj is paywalled...) If a company lowered your wages by wrongfully registering you for a lower paid position, they could still do so, because the crux is comparing the salary to a different demographic. The problem wasn't with the law, but with them screwing you and you not carefully reviewing the visa laws of the country…

Well, let me explain you that when you migrate to a new country, apart from dealing with your work Visa you need to deal with driving license, SSN registration, bank accounts, rental, car, new language, new work culture, new life...so yeah I should have known back in 2007 when there was no glassdoor, blind that I was underpaid by that much and company registering me as X when my company title was different.

I'm very well aware of what you have to do as I immigrated to two countries myself.

My point was not that it's not understandable that you were not aware of that, but that this change in law has nothing todo with being unaware of the law.

Your underpayment happened in violation of the previous law and with the new regulation you might not have gotten the job to begin with.

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

#985

Post by villgax » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 12:06 PM UTC

Traster wrote: post #782

switch11 wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a former H1B holder who walked away from a Green Card because being a bonded laborer for 10+ years to a large tech company wasn't my cup of tea I agree 1000% with you on this -> 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…

Let me provide the counter (A) The fact that silicon valley gets access to global talent which make sthe companies much more successful and massively increases the number of jobs available providing far more jobs for US citizens than if the visa program didn't exist (B) The H1B visa holders are earning far more than they would get by remaining in their home country, and whilst they're bonded labour in the US they can…

Point C is like a slap in the face of entrepreneurship by making it seem that only after X years of 'bonded labour' will these people be worthy of starting up.

All companies started off by students who came for an MS/PhD & happened to be successful were borderline of the grey-area w.r.t. laws.

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

#986

Post by sickmartian » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 12:16 PM UTC

Traster wrote: post #782

switch11 wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a former H1B holder who walked away from a Green Card because being a bonded laborer for 10+ years to a large tech company wasn't my cup of tea I agree 1000% with you on this -> 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…

Let me provide the counter (A) The fact that silicon valley gets access to global talent which make sthe companies much more successful and massively increases the number of jobs available providing far more jobs for US citizens than if the visa program didn't exist (B) The H1B visa holders are earning far more than they would get by remaining in their home country, and whilst they're bonded labour in the US they can…

Point b, "if you don't like it go back to your country"... they might be earning more, but the cost of living is WAY more than in their home country, I agree that they might be able to save some to no go back empty handed or to send back to their family, but why should they suffer in the meantime?

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

#987

Post by JanisL » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 1:26 PM UTC

tootahe45 wrote: post #757

epicureanideal wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pay level still isn’t high enough. Minimum pay of about 170k in San Jose for a software engineer? That’s not a specialist, that’s average for a small startup.

As a New Zealander, this level of pay just baffles me. Is the US the only place where SWE's get paid well compared to other professions?

Cost of living is radically different in some places. That and software engineers are significantly underpaid in NZ (and Australia) relative to their economic output.

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

#988

Post by diebeforei485 » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 2:28 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #522

not_a_moth wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, you didn't agree with the ME work that got 3 nobel peace prize nominations?

I don't think we disagree with it, it just isn't very significant. A couple of city states agreeing to recognize Israel? Ok, a nice step forward, but it doesn't seem very substantial or that a real solution is in the works.

For context the UAE's population and GDP are both larger than Israel (though not by much, they are very comparable).

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

#989

Post by abc_lisper » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 3:04 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #9

Credit where credit is due, this is a good move. The H1B program has been abused for a long time. It sounds like these changes should help make it too expensive for the fraudulent abuse to continue.

True for the most part. But there are unexpected consequences for this. Startups will be ill afforded to hire foreign talent now. All the immigrants will look for jobs at BigCo. because they are the ones who can pay those high salaries.

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

#990

Post by tellarin » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

wegs wrote: post #820

xwolfi wrote: post #814

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I emigrated to Hong Kong from France and I love the system here. It mandated a "high" salary of 2000USD that is low enough to allow noobs like me to join and try while high enough not to bring people who would just try to survive no better than at home. They also mandate a master degree and low effort from the company, which can be negociated if really strong guy (bachelor with some effory, expert reputation with hig…

Thousands of people have made it down the path to nationality in Honk Kong. Acquiring Chinese nationality -- whether mainland or not -- is possible. It's just that the standards are very, very, very exclusive.

Can you offer any links? As far as I know, becoming a citizen is next to impossible. Also, one would have to renounce any other citizenship.