The H-1B Swindle

An anonymous reader writes "A new study shows that companies hire foreign workers for cheap labor, not skill." From the article:"When you look at computer job titles by state, California has one of the biggest differentials between OES salaries and H-1B salaries. The average salary for a programmer in California is $73,960, according to the OES. The average salary paid to an H-1B visa worker for the same job is $53,387; a difference of $20,573 ... H-1B visa workers were also concentrated at the bottom end of the wage scale, with the majority of H-1B visa workers in the 10-24 percentile range. 'That means the largest concentration of H-1B workers make less than [the] highest 75 percent of the U.S. wage earners,' the report notes. "

Comments

This is news?

[Bob McCown]

Anyone who has been in the computer industry for more than a few months knows this. Its prevalent everywhere. Don't let them say "there aren't enough engineers to go around", thats pure horse hockey. HIB workers arre cheaper, plain and simple.

Re:This is news?

[vsprintf]

Moreover, INS (now USCIS) has a prevalent wage requirement for H-1B workers. I believe that wage is about $75K for software engineers currently. Thus, any employer offering a salary below this rate to a software engineers should/would be denied the H-1B visa.

There is a big difference between should and would. First, there is no active enforcement of H-1B program regulations. That has never been funded by Clinton or Bush, so the DOL simply doesn't do it - they don't have the people. The only way to get enforcement of the regulations is via lawsuit against a company. Second, any company hiring H-1Bs is allowed to use its own method to determine prevailing wage if they want, and the last time I checked, nearly 70% did so. They are also allowed to set the worker's title of course, so it's easy to hire an experienced programmer as an associate. The government's own study (as well as independent ones) have shown H-1Bs are paid 15% to 30% less than resident workers for the same job. (And I gave links to all this stuff the last time this subject came up, so it's pointless to do it again - it doesn't do any good.) Just because your company doesn't abuse the program doesn't mean that other companies are as ethical.

Re:This is common

[timeOday]

Why should IT bear the brunt? Let's just open our borders completely and see how much cops, nurses, and mailmen make after we open up their position to everybody on earth.

Do you really think Americans should receive no preference in getting American jobs? If your vision is realized, then countries are just meta-corporations with no alleigence to their own citizens. In that case, do you think anybody will be dumb enough to join the military in their defense?