Slashdot Mirror
Study Questions H-1B Policies
An anonymous reader writes "One of the arguments for continuing and even expanding the H1-B visa program (pdf) is that it enables highly-skilled immigrants to work in the U.S. and grow the U.S. economy. Counterarguments state that the H1-B visa program does not bring in the 'best and brightest' and is used to drive down wages, particularly in the STEM fields. This Bloomberg article, discussing pending H1-B legislation, quotes some of the salaries of current workers in the U.S. on H1-B visas: $4,800/month and $5,500/month which work out to $57,600/year and $66,000/year; only slightly higher than the average entry-level salaries of newly-graduated engineering or computer science majors."
employers want to bring more people in. If we didn't, people in the STEM fields could demand more money. We should have H1B Visas for lawyers and politicians. It would be amazing how quickly the program would be shut down then.
No shit.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Solution: Issue H1-B visas only if there is a contract with a wage of at least 80kUSD/a. (the value of this limit is just politics...)
A discussion on salary isn't complete without also discussing the location of these immigrant workers.
Hint: They're always in major cities. National averages don't mean a damn thing when your local supermarket pays more for a meat department employee than your "average H1-B". Why do people see 50-something salary nowadays and think that is par? This is an engineering profession. Even the least skilled should be doing better than a teacher's or a cop's salary.
50k was good...25-30 years ago.
The real path to male liberation
I work at a major bank where they constantly have a choice between a high quality, albeit highly paid, US workers and low cost, low quality H1B workers. They always go H1B. And it becomes a real Indian ghetto at a lot of IT shops. Having multicultural abilities is part of being "best and brightest" yet many of the Indians are only comfortable working with other Indians. So the incumbent Indian employees end up only hiring Indian H1Bs, which is obviously a negative for the whole organization in the long run. But who every cares about the long run anyways.
It's nice to see the H-1B program questioned in at least some of the MSM (e.g. the NYT). It might have an effect on legislation if we had a representative form of government (by which I mean one that represents voters, as opposed to representing money).
The Bloomberg article is crocodile tears though:
While the legislation raises the annual H-1B cap to as much as 180,000 from 65,000, it increases visa costs five-fold for some companies to $10,000. It also bans larger employers with 15 percent or more of their U.S. workforce on such permits from sending H-1B staff to client’s sites.
It nearly triples the quota, but might cost as much as $10k to bring in someone on an H-1B. Good heavens, no! If $10k is too much, then there is no skills shortage and you could hire an American for the job.
Current draft House legislation also lacks the clause barring visa-dependent employers from client sites
Surprise, surprise, surprise! Wouldn't want any draconian restrictions on screwing Americans now, would we.
Last time there was a major backlash against H1Bs, it resulted in outsourcing. If the workers couldn't come to the US, then the job would go to the worker.
In the end, H1B or no-H1B, eliminating local competition doesn't mean salaries will blow through the roof.
I see your point, but that's not really practical.
Lawyers and the like need years of study for a certain field which the laws will almost certainly not translate to another country or even state.
Compared to science, where the Speed of light is constant, Water has two Hydrogen molecules, etc... no matter where you are in the world.
It is happening to some extent
India's legal system is also based on English Common Law - things like contracts and other legal subjects can be taken care of overseas. And unlike here, lawyers don't have the prestige; they're in cube farms like the rest of us and are paid much less than lawyers over here - even with the glut of JDs.
What I would like to know is: why is people from outside willing to take a low-paying job and people from within not willing? Or why does the employer believe that?
If the problem is local people not willing to settle for lower, then I can't really blame the employers for wanting to look for something cheaper (even if it means from the outside). They are, after all, looking for profit.
If the problem is the perception, why does such perception exist? What can potential, local employes do to change that perception?
I guess what I'm trying to ask is: why do they want H-1B workers instead of local? And so far I haven't seen this question answered, at least not outside the speculations of the comment section going "it's all about profit, that's what they care about" which is, well, a given. But why do they think that H-1B workers are a viable strategy for what they are looking for?
I don't care if I'm wrong. I only care about everyone obtaining something from the discussion.
Since given all the hoops you have to jump through to get in they apparently believe there is a huge doctor glut. (You know, a 30+ on the MCAT a 3.9+ on your premed coursework and loads of extracurricular activities.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
It's been suggested that rather than abolish the H1-B program that in order to sponsor one the company must pay 120% of the 90% percentile wage in the area where the person will work. If the 90% percentile for a cornfield in say Iowa (You hear that IBM?) is $100,000 then they have to pay the person $120,000 exclusive of any living costs and fees associated with the H1-B program. There has also been talk about surcharging H1-B sponsors for inspections by the Feds to ensure that the workers are getting paid correctly and are working with the sponsor. Right now it's an honor system and there's no honor at IBM, Wipro or Infosys.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
200 "furniture movers" were given H1-b visa's in 2001. Are there really not enough furniture movers in NYC that a company had to import 200 of them? Google "Urban Moving Systems".
Communication is dirt cheap. Meaning, communication with someone across the planet costs no more than having someone across the state.
Then why are these companies so eager to have lots of H-1B's? Why not just have them stay in their native countries and work via the Internet? Obviously there are lots that do, but there are also the H-1B's that don't. The H-1B's, no matter how much they drive down US salaries, cost much more than people working in their native countries. So why do companies want them?
I, Cringley Cringley had a very interesting post on how H1B fraud is accomplished, except in this case, the he got caught.
How many other scams like this, are being run to prevent American engineers from being hired?
This question is becoming increasingly interesting to ask. I see no clear answer. Society is not willing to pay for them, so they are not needed .. or there is sufficient supply. This is not a value judgement; Poets have much to offer, but society does not extract much direct benefit - so the wages are low.
I'd recommend the best and brightest do engineering as last resort, not a primary one. Engineering is a better hobby than a career these days.. in some ways, that is how it's always been.
You're far better off learning how to build a sucessful business, entering law (technical law is very lucurative), or going into medicine - medicine isn't all that difficult if you can get accepted, and protects itself very agressively.
Do what society values for money. Do what you love to be happy. Sometimes those things are the same, frequently they are not. I've been lucky as a EE but I started almost two decades ago, and much of my success has come not from engineering skill, but entreprenurial endeavours.
A profitable, but well managed career can set you up to be financially independent in 8-12 years - then you can go do whatever you like.
Want to increase STEM? Why?
..don't panic
I guess they brought in some immigrants to do that math on that one too.
"it enables highly-skilled immigrants to work in the U.S. and grow the U.S. economy"
No, it increases unemployment here in the US, drives down wages, and the works funnel money straight out of our economy and back to their families in their home country. That is complete and utter bullshit every way you look at it.
I've come to the US on a H-1B visa to work for a large tech company (everyone has heard of it) as a software engineer. I'm 21, just graduated from university with first class honours, and am earning a base salary of $100,000. Everyone who works for my employer earns a high wage. Is this out of the ordinary for H-1B visa holders?
The problem with H1B is they can send you home. What we need is an immigration policy that lets people come and work without sponsorship. The problem now is employers can essentially deport workers (by not sponsoring them) if they don't work long enough hours for little enough pay. Let everyone live and work without crony government interference.
It is always easier to work with someone in the same office.
But, if there aren't any H1B slots left, companies will give their work to another contracting company who then specializes in sending that work overseas. We are a capitalist country and cheap labor will find its way.
It is cheaper to send work overseas but then there is overhead to doing that.
I can't be replaced.
I'm the only shareholder.
The only objective evidence I have is that I have never met someone who is involved with hiring developers who has said how easy it is to find quality talent at market rates.
Then they aren't actually offering "market rates". The definition of market rate is "The term “market rate” refers to the level of compensation an organization must provide to enable it to effectively compete against other organizations in attracting and retaining qualified employees. "
http://www.da.ks.gov/newpayplans/whatmarket.pdf
(A board meeting, somewhere in the US. Probably Texas. 10:00am..)
CEO: We need to get our operating overhead under control! Look at all these hockey-sticks! (pointing to whiteboard)
CF0: We've already closed 500 stores, offshored 90% of our labor and manufacturing, layed off 15000 retail and customer service positions, and cut everyone else to part time so we don't have to pay benefits. There's not much more fat to trim except for...
CEO: What?
CFO: We get hold of some of those H1B visa workers. I hear they are happy to work for half of minimum wage.
CEO: How do we do that?
CF0: We cut lunchbreaks to 10 minutes, and make overtime mandatory. Also include rotating weekend shifts for everyone, including managers. We make it so miserable to work here, that people leave.
CEO: That doesn't sound like such a great plan. Who is going to run the stores?
CF0: We don't do it all at once. We do it regionally. Not everyone can afford to quit right away so there's a good chance there will be some stragglers. We promote them to managers for the time being and advertise to fill the empty positions, but advertise at half the wages the others were getting. Nobody in their right mind will take that job.
CEO: That sounds like a really dumb move. How are you going to fill those positions.
CFO: We tell the government that there isn't any available labor pool for us to hire from. We show them how nobody has applied for the listings, so we need to bring in H1B visa workers to fill the vacancies.
CEO: Hmm...
CFO: As an added bonus, I'm sure we can find some taxpayer dollars to subsidize our H1B visa "program".
CEO: Great! I'll be out the rest of the day yacht shopping. Hold all my calls.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
I hate doing study questions.
First off we need less class room time and more hands on time.
CS it NOT IT.
IT jobs do need 4+ years pure class room.
Over seas they have lower degrees costs and more trades / apprenticeships like schooling systems.
what needs to happen comes from 2 different angles
1 H1B and fraud: a company posts massively exaggerated requirements (10 years experience in Windows 7 Server and 25 years in Java) and then after they can't hire a Local person they grab an H1B to do the job (but with far lower requirements)
2 Outsourcing: jobs get shipped to %cheapest country% just because its cheaper (with a lowering of quality)
So what needs to be done is
1 if you get an H1B it is required you be paid LOCAL MARKET WAGES for what your job is (and if what you do is different from what your title is then your tasks set your wage)
2 if you Fire an H1B then
A You Forfeit the "slot" for the next 8 years and you must allow the person to seek a replacement job
B you also must keep paying the person for say 6 months while a new job is being found
3 The Employ Local Tax credit: If you as a business employ 70% or greater local employees you get a credit on your payroll taxes (or a fine for having more than 30% of your employees "overseas")
please note i would allow FooCorp %Country% to be considered separate as long as there is a complete company present in %Country%
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
the body shops are the ones messing up the system with low payed workers / useing the same overseas low skilled people just now there on site in the same time zone vs the over seas time lag.
Sucks when cheap foreign labor floods in and crushes your wages doesn't it? I'd feel bad for you, but when blue collar Americans complain about cheap foreign labor, you just call them "redneck", xenophobe, racist...and ignore their issues.
If you find ways to quell the demand for STEM workers, then fewer people will study it in college. The number of CS grads has always closely tracked the demand for them.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
I often wonder of H1Bs aren't really about money savings. Too many people with direct experience using H1Bs complain about poor communication, more people to do the job, poor quality that needs re-doing to make it a complete apples-for-apples cost savings.
I wonder if sometimes what they really like is a more obedient and compliant workforce. Many H1Bs come from the third world where cultures are stratified and unquestioned deference to your "betters" is baked-in. India is a great example -- while a "democratic" country, India has centuries of being caste-based and deference to higher casts or acceptance of lesser treatment because of lower caste membership is the norm.
Traditionally IT has had a high wages and with those high wages come high expectations for participation in decision making, a lack of deference to management and pushback against issues of work-life balance (long hours, weekends, etc).
Add this into the fact that H1Bs are thousands of miles from home, and you have a workforce that takes what they're given and does what they're told without pushback -- the shitty hours, the crappy treatment, low(er) wages, they just don't care. And a lot of it isn't just because the alternative is some slum in Bangalore.
Management wants an IT workforce like its factory workforce -- low paid, low expectations and easily pushed around. H1Bs give them that and at least on paper they're cheaper, too.
In the past few decades, the change in norms removed a lot of cushions that were there:
1. There are fewer entry level jobs -- few companies are willing to train people.
The buzz from Jack Welch was to treat team members like pro athlete stars -- pay the alpha performers well and get rid of the beta performers. The problem is that almost all new comers will under perform for a while. Why hire them?
2. There is less loyalty towards an employer.
Again this hurts entry level jobs. The norm used to be that employers used to train people, and the people would stay with the employers for a few years, even if the pay was less. The loss in productivity and the training costs from an employers perspective would more than be made up by the long term savings. From an employees perspective, skipping from job to job made you appear unreliable and would hurt your job prospects. Then with the dot com boom, everything changed. People used to join a company that offered training and then immediately jump ship to get even a slightly higher pay. Jumping from company to company became the most reliable way to get a pay raise. Most companies saw their investment in training wasted and eliminated or severely reduced training.
3. There is no loyalty towards employees and long term planning is no longer considered.
IT is typically a cost center. The norm today is to look for saving by cutting payroll where ever possible. Strategically employers look for a cheaper alternative, even if the long term risk to the business increases. incentives for managers are based on short term performance, so even star employees are at risk of layoffs. Salaries are often cut, irrespective to the damage to the morale of the workforce, because by the time the effects are seen, the people responsible for the cut would have moved on.
4. The geographical mobility has decreased in the past 30 years.
The drag caused by having ever larger mortgages, and complexities of ensuring both the husband and wife have a job, often prevents people from moving to places where there are new jobs.
With constant layoffs a new fact of life, the risks of moving, particularly to smaller markets and single company towns has risen. In a larger metro like NYC, folks can look for new jobs more easily if they feel their job is at risk, and even go to interviews in their lunch breaks. In a small town, this becomes much harder.
5. The move towards orienting IT personal to a project at all times creates a need for an ability to hire and lay off people at all times. As the projects becomes larger, at times there is a glut and times there is such a shortage that the project is moved offshore.
6. The need to restrict liabilities, reduce fixed costs and deflect responsibility is leading to more outsourcing. (Outsourcing != off shoring.) This in turn leads to a need for a more mobile workforce. Just pouring money into these issues will not make it go away, and often the cost could be too high. The solutions for these problems -- rethinking at will employment, tort reform, rethinking home ownership as a primary method to build equity, rewarding long term performance over short term performance are complex, difficult to implement, and will require a ton of time, and right now these problems are not even on the public radar. In the mean time business must go on.
H1Bs offer a quick fix to many of these problems by creating a more mobile, more employer dependent workforce. They are a crutch, and do not solve the long term issues, and they do have a downward pressure on wages. But they also buy time for US society and business to get its act together. Whether this time is used properly, I have no idea.
H1B workers can be paid the going rates; but the thing that NEEDS MENTION:
H1B workers are deported if fired == indentured servants.
H1B workers are anti-free market. They dilute the market's demand (biz types are only for whatever helps them.)
Driving down wages is only a long term goal; suppressing increased costs is enough to lay the political groundwork. Voter's can't see anything 1 step removed.. and it's already too easy to sneak bye obvious stuff.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
As someone who is involved with hiring developers, I agree there is a shortage of qualified developers currently looking for work.
And are these "qualifications" listed in the parent's post?
Nope. Probably because we'd all see how unreasonable the required qualifications are.
Back in the day (before 2000 or so), requirements went something like this: "Required: C/C++ Unix; Desired: SQL, Perl".
Everything else would be picked up on the job because every company has their own esoteric mix of technology and no one is a perfect fit.
In the early 00s, we started to see those laundry list of skills: "C#, Java, JavaScript, PL/SQL, Oracle, .NET, Perl, HTML, Agile development, Visual Studio 20XX, etc ..."
And then there are the folks who want all those skills AND industry experience.
I mean really, even if you lived every waking moment of your life - and then some - on this shit, no human being could possibly have all those skills and be current. Maybe moved from a Unix Java shop to an MS later on - but at the same time?! Get real!
Most likely you'll get someone who was in a MS shop and has the C# .NET - and that's it.
The shops I worked at, you had the UI/app devs who did the C# .NET and a dedicated SQL/DBA developer. Which I might add, gives you the best results. Those guys who study the RDMSes and all of their quirks can write code that is MUCH more efficient and faster than anything an gui dev could ever do.
So, in short, the parent can't find any "qualified" people because his qualifications are unreasonable and too specific.
tl;dr: I want a 5' 8" 24 year old blonde who has an MD and paid for med school as a lingerie model.
We need more trades / community college stuff. Not all jobs need BS / BA and in some HS + an trades / tech school is better then getting an 4+ year BS / BA.
We are sending to many people to college and that leads to some dumbing down and as well not really being setup to tech skills that the trades / community college teach.
Why not have an badges system that is not big year+ long blocks that collgle is now days?
badges for non degree classes as well and they can help people who even have degrees as well.
Let's say you got an degree back when server 2000 was new why can't you take classes non degree for 2012 and get an badge for that class? and why can't badges add up to stuff as well?
Also need to cut down the filler and fluff classes.
At some places what used to be 4 years can be pushed out to 5-6 years now days.
1) Charge a payroll tax on non-permanent-resident foreign workers based on the HIGHER of actual salary or market salary. The tax should be high enough to deter hiring foreigners unless there is a specific person you want to hire or there is a genuine labor shortage, but not so high as to make it impossible to deal with labor shortages or hire a specifically recruited individual. Say, 20-40% unless there are good reasons why it should be higher or lower.
2) Apply this to all wage levels, from minimum wage jobs on up. Cap the tax at some level, say, the level paid on a $100,000 salary (in today's dollars). This would make the tax pretty meaningless for highly-paid executives, entertainers, professional athletes, etc. but frankly, Americans with those kinds of skills don't need much protection from foreign competition.
3) Grant liberal employment visas to anyone who has a sponsoring employer who will post a bond guaranteeing 30 days of living expenses beyond the termination of the job, a salary that is at least the local "living wage" for one person, and guaranteeing a return plane or bus ticket home. Family-in-tow visas would be granted only if the living and return-ticket expenses for the family members were covered in some way, with the "last" 30 days of living expenses and the return ticket being covered by a bond or other guarantee. Once here, allow the person to change jobs providing the new employer will assume sponsorship obligations. Yes, this means no more "HB-1 captivity" in the job market.
What this would mean:
On the low end, minimum wage jobs would cost employers another $1.45-$2.90/hour for everyone they hired on a temporary work permit.
On the medium end, a job with a market salary of $60K would cost employers at least another $12K-$24K/year for every temporary-worker they hired. The worker COULD agree to work for that much less, but wages wouldn't be driven down due to foreign workers being willing to take less unless they were willing to take a LOT less, and on a large scale.
On the higher end, for jobs over $100K, employers would face a $20K-$40K tax on temporary workers.
Political bonus points if the taxes were directed towards post-secondary education rather than general revenue, but ONLY if the weren't offset by reductions elsewhere (no political points for shell games!).
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
you're assuming folks want to immigrate. what about those dodging US taxes by *not* becoming US citizens?
<fucking-face-palm/>
What sort of ignoramus demon propelled you to ask such a bestially stupid question? Anyone that works legally in this country, be them citizens, green-card holders, refugees and H-1B visa holders pay the same f* taxes rates as per the same f* tax schedules. People have to be obscenely ignorant of their own laws if they think *not being a citizen* provides a tax advantage to the legal immigrant that qualifies for nationalization.
Detroit fell because their opposition became too powerful and you can't get enough humans to unite - there are limits to how many peasants can work together effectively, the ruler only needs to maintain enough power to counter that ... and enough propaganda to divide the peasants among themselves as well as screw up the inner workings of social organizing required for large groups.
A city is too small, a state is too small. A federal government is too weak and if it functioned properly (despite some tampering) even then it might not be strong enough unless you have a self sufficient country powerful enough to oppose multinational economic forces... at which point you have to focus heavily on military threats.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
....discussion, the debate should have been ended among sane and rational people long ago, with every job offshored, so goes a piece of the GDP, and that is not a debatable point. Step one in the jobs offshoring process is the importation of foreign visa scab workers, many of whom are returned to their country of origin to be the managers, project managers, etc., for those jobs then offshored there.
With the increasing offshoring of R&D (once the chief province of colleges and academia in general), and the importation of R&D people from offshore, the reasons are obvious to anyone with the minimum amount of neurons!
1 Access to capital 2 Large market 3 Relatively less corrupt 4 Strong property rights 5 Weak employment laws
As long as the cost of living disparity exists as dramatically as it does now, you'll never see salary parity between overseas labor and local labor. That has nothing to do with shortages of qualified workers
Not sure if you were intending it this way, but the root of all our current problems are the insane housing prices and market rents in places like the Silicon Valley. I've had rockstar analysts pass up a major promotion because they'd have to move back to HQ in an area where equivalent housing is 3x what they're currently paying.
What's causing all this insane housing pricing, well some of it is crazy housing codes and another part is areas developers aren't allowed to develop for (mostly environmental regs), but the majority is the industry built up around housing: the FIRE economy. Like in healthcare costs, the only way it's going is up, because all the industry players involved benefit from higher prices (in the short term), until it's saturated, then a precipitous drop occurs. Sprinkle in some liberal foreign investment, massive corruption (ie, regulatory capture) and you have a market that completely prices out a large portion of actual residents.
When this occurs, cost of talent has to go up to match. And that also adds to the cycle of price increases. The only ones who win are the money changers.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
From a myoptic point of view, the business arguments for H1B visas, and off-shoring in general are flawless. Myopia is a disease. Businesses have amply demonstrated that they can come and go as they please. Businesses are openly smug that they are not a part of the community. Their impact of coming and going as they please has the same impact of any Pestilence. These businesses have become a combination of Carcinogenic Myopia.
You should be concerned about the creeping Caste system in USA due to H1Bs from India.
Caste system is worse than racism/apartheid/terrorism. It's a slow poison that will destroy your middle class.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/opinion/sunday/caste-is-not-past.html
http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2013/01/16/why-honor-killings-happen/
http://www.firstpost.com/world/painting-india-red-why-the-global-racism-map-is-wrong-789019.html
http://dsnuk.org/2013/04/25/the-uk-parliament-outlaws-caste-based-discrimination/
Casteism
http://www.rediff.com/business/report/hope-dims-for-h-1b-visa-holders-spouses/20130517.htm
Casteism