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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.
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.
Don't issue H1-B visas at all. If you want the best and the brightest, then give them indefinite leave to remain. And reintroduce the faster immigration system you used to have for PhD graduates: don't spend years ensuring that someone is familiar with the state of the art in their field and educated in the methods of research and then send them to another country. We've just imported this particular idiocy into the UK because our government wants to be tough on immigration, but can't legally crack down on immigration from the EU where most of our unskilled immigrants come from.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Very much this. The H1-B puts the foreign worker at the mercy of the company doing the hiring. The best and the brightest know they can get a better deal than that, or should be able to. Why become virtual indentured servants in a foreign country if they can do better? We should encourage the best and the brightest to come here, issue temporary visas not tied to any specific company, but if you show a history of near-continuous employment over that visa term, you get fast-tracked to permanent resident status and encouraged to become a citizen.
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"
Last time there was a major backlash against H1Bs, it resulted in outsourcing.
When was this alleged major backlash? The quota hasn't dropped below 65k/yr in what, at least 20 years?
Second, you're falling for the "if you don't let us have more H-1B's we'll just outsource more" threat. It's bull. No matter how little they pay H-1B's, they're still way more expensive than people working in the 3rd world. Hence, anything that can be outsourced already has been or will be. The H-1B's are for the jobs that they can't outsource.
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".
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?
NYC has one of the highest COL rates in the country. 100K may equate to say 50K in a suburb in Atlanta or 40K in a rural location in West Virginia. It is the they amount of the paycheck, it is the amount paid in relation to the regions COL.
I'm not certain the tone of your comment though it implies that perhaps teachers are over paid for their work. This view I've not understood (if that was the backhanded point). Educators serve an important and vital role in society. While there can be examples of "bad teaching" from a few, most teachers are there because they truly want children to learn. That is a noble effort. Waste, fraud, apathy; they can be found in most walks of life, but for some reason we pull a few bad apples in education and then cry out "see, we pay these loofers to much". We don't pay them enough.
If a child seeks a role model (outside the family) I'd rather it be an educator, not a sports star. In this country we've turned that 180 degrees though valuation of people based on dollars, not sense.
So before you complain about teachers getting to much time off, good benefits, and job security; walk in their shoes, carry their responsibility, live their life. Compare what you do as a teacher to that as a ball player, a banker, a Hedge Fund manager and ponder what is important.
Life is a great ride, the vehicle doesn't matter
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
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.
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