FWD.us Wants More H-1B Visas, But 50% Go To Offshore Firms

theodp writes: "On the day the U.S. began accepting H-1B visa applications for FY2015, Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us PAC stepped up its lobbying efforts for more tech visas even as ComputerWorld reported that the major share of H-1B visas go to offshore outsourcing firms that use visa holders to displace U.S. workers. 'The two largest H-1B users,' notes ComputerWorld, 'are Indian-based, Infosys, with 6,298 visas, and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), with 6,258.' ComputerWorld adds that food and agricultural company Cargill is outsourcing IT jobs to TCS, including 300 in Minnesota, the home of Sen. Amy Klobuchar, sponsor of the I-Squared Act of 2013, which would allow H-1B visa caps to rise to 300,000 annually."

Comments

Because

[MrKaos]

Management still doesn't understand why you pay for talent.

Re:Because

[Anonymous Coward]

Except when it applies to executive remuneration.

Re:Because

[Thanshin]

Wrong. When it applies to executive remuneration they REALLY don't understand why you pay for talent.

Otherwise, the problem would eventually solve itself.

Re:Because

[Anonymous Coward]

Management understands that with offshore workers, you still pay for *management*. Extra tiers of management, in fact, to handle the communications problems with offsite workers, and project reports ,and GANT charts. More managers and layers of management ensure *their* careers, by increasing their head count.

Re:Because

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh. they will soon. Management is not immune to outsourcing either.
The bankers, financiers, CXO crowd that hungered the most for oursourcing had the idea that call centres, mundane manufacturing tasks,simple programming (after specs by US designers of course) would make their companies moire efficient. In their ultimate dream, profit would soar, and what remained in US was just the most critical talent, the CXOs, and of course, US would be the bankers of the world while the rest of the world would do the grunt work.
Did they really think these countries didn't know or could how to handle larger projects?
And did they think the dollars made by chinese and indian companies woud ;NOT be used to acquire banks, manufacturing and tech companies.
Really, didn't they think China had bankers?
I find that the politicians and executives with the 2 year and 3 month view to the future are stupendously arrogant, and woefully unaware of what makes the world go roumd.

Re:Because

[ebno-10db]

They can start with the CEO's, who are the most globally uncompetitive. Typical American CEO of a large company makes about 400x the average compensation of employees. In the UK it's 45x, and in the rest of the developed world is 10x-20x. Forget about India - just go to Canada and get a CEO for about 5% the cost of a US one. Similar culture, short travel, little time zone difference ... what's not to like?

Re:Because

[sumdumass]

A good amount of management salary is based on performence/ percentage of profits and stock options. This is what drives long term incompetance and low salaries because the more profit, the more the bonuses as well as higher stock value.

There really isn't a good way to apply this to all employees ecept in mabufacturing were a piece count can be had. That introduces its own issues.

So no, talent in management will only perpetuate the problem not solve itself.

Re:Because

[sumdumass]

You say that like you don't believe it. Well it is true. Except you have to understand that your work has to creath value in order to accumulate wealth. Doing eveything twice because you screwed up the first time usually doesn't make you lots of money but you sure would be working hard. Now doing everything twice as fast and correctly will if your salary is not locked by a contract or union.

Sometimes you have to change jobs to see the money too. A whopper flopper is going to ve limited in tge amount of pay a lot more than an assembly worker at a factory that gets a base pay plus peice work . Eventually, you may even need to change jobs again when your potential is maxed out.

I'm not fox news but you can believe me. If you work hard and create value, you can make a lot of money

Re:Because

[NotDrWho]

Talent is only needed for some jobs. For most jobs, an indentured servant who does what he's told (or else!) is much preferable to some free citizen who asks questions and wants the occasional raise. Ideally, they want full-on slaves--who they don't have to pay at all and can beat at will. But those are still illegal (for now).

Re:Because

[sumdumass]

Then it is time to get another job.

I have made $14 an hour before rolling buritos fresh out of school. This was back in fhe 90s shortly after minimum wage went to $5.35 an hour. I was originally highed in at $5.00 an hour which was about 30 cents higher than the then minimum wage. You don't need to be promoted out of your job posistion, just get fair raises based on the extra work you do.

Of course that requires you to not have your salary locked by contract.

It used to be that people tried to better themselves. You did your best and either recieved raises or a promotion, or moved to a better paying job. In you teacher scenario, you were rewarded with more knowlege which is what you were actually paid in while going to school.

Re:Because

[nazsco]

The only job of a ceo is, besides getting rich, rally the troopsand use his/connections.

How well a Canadian can really American troops and how useful would be a foreigner's connections?

Re:Because

[blue9steel]

You misunderstand slavery, it's actually not a good thing for corporations. Slaves are capital goods rather than labor, you have to take care of them and they tend to depreciate. Workers who think they are free but are in actuality indentured servants are much cheaper since you can externalize most of the costs to others.

Re:Because

[jlowery]

"I'm not fox news but you can believe me. If you work hard and create value, you can make a lot of money"

Scientists work hard and create a lot of value and generally do not make a lot of money.

Many good teachers work hard and create a lot of value, but do not make a lot of money.

Many engineers work hard and create a lot of value, but do not make a lot of money.

Many paramedics work hard and create a lot of value, but do not make a lot of money

Many truck drivers work hard and create a lot of value, but do not make a lot of money

Many people who put family ahead of working hard create value and do not make a lot of money.

If you think a person's value to society is directly tied to the amount of money they make, then you need to go soak your head.

Re:Because

[mrchaotica]

Except you have to understand that your work has to creath value in order to accumulate wealth.

Nope. You can be the most both highly-paid and productive "worker" in the history of the world and you'll never become wealthy. The only way to become wealthy is to control the production of others in a scalable way, and skim profit off the top. In other words, you have to own a business or businesses or profit-generating property, either actively (as an entrepreneur or real-estate investor) or passively (as an investor).

Re:Because

[50000BTU_barbecue]

"incompetance"

Beautiful.

Re:Because

[sumdumass]

Jobs do grow on trees though. The longest i have been unintentionally unemployed was 2 weeks. I have yhe same recession you have to deal with except any number of my old employers would give me an excelent reference. Thats the thing, when you work hard and reach your limits at a company, they or a high level management will be happy to give you a reference even if they don't want you to leave. You hust have to approach them in a way that doesn't appear to be blaming them or the company outside of you outgrowing the job.

Besides, even if you are not a good employee, comming from an existing job give you an enourmous advantage. Even over good employees that have been out of work for a while. It is simply easier to find a job when you already have one. Already having a job also givess you the ability to pick the best job you can get.

And no, you can get raises at nost non union jobs and most non contract jobs quite easily. It doesn't rely on piece work either. It can rely on the value you create for the company.

I suspect you are the type who puts little effot into ut outside showing up and not getting fired. Perhaps you aee the type who when they get laid off, collects the unempliyment compensation until it stops comming in. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that, you just need to understand irs mostly in your hands.

. I suggest you try it my way for a year or two.

Isn't the upshot the same?

[harryjohnston]

I'm not at all sure I understand the purpose of tech visas, but if the problem they're supposed to solve is that there aren't enough tech workers to fill the available jobs, then surely the upshot is the same either way? The visas issued to Infosys may be used to displace existing US tech workers, but those displaced workers are then available for Facebook to hire.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[InfiniteLoopCounter]

I'm not at all sure I understand the purpose of tech visas, but if the problem they're supposed to solve is that there aren't enough tech workers to fill the available jobs, then surely the upshot is the same either way? The visas issued to Infosys may be used to displace existing US tech workers, but those displaced workers are then available for Facebook to hire.

Where are the opportunities for recent graduates then?

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[harryjohnston]

It still works out the same regardless of who the visas are issued to. If there are enough graduates to fill the available jobs, then you don't need any tech visas. That's an entirely different question.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not about headcount, it's about costs. US workers won't work for the low wages that the offshore outsourcing firms pay, unless they're very desperate.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[Sockatume]

There are plenty of STEM workers to fill the available jobs; I think the last figures put a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio of workers to roles. There just aren't enough available at the prices these companies want to pay. Hence offshoring: find a cheaper supply of labour elsewhere.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[harryjohnston]

... of course, it still makes sense to at least try to allocate the visas sensibly. I'd have thought the obvious approach was to give priority in any given period to the workers who are being offered the highest pay - that should favour the companies with a genuine need over those offering cut-rate replacements to existing workers.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[The Mayor]

This is exactly correct. Plus, H1B visa holders are tied to the company that issues the visa. If they leave the company, they must return to their home country. Tech companies like Facebook like to have such indentured servants.

H1B visas serve only to drive down wages for US employees. Additionally, they end up training foreign talent that are later kicked out of the country (after 3 or 6 years, depending upon whether the visa is renewed). They don't help the nation's interests, nor the public's interest. They serve only to increase the profit margins of the large firms.

Get rid of the H1B, and increase the green card slots available to foreign workers, especially the Indians. I've very pro-immigrant, but the H1B visa only provides for indentured servitude.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[harryjohnston]

I dunno, the salaries shown in the database linked to from the lobbying site don't look too shabby to me. Of course that might all be made up for all I know. Be that as it may, I still don't see the connection to the outsourcing companies. How does the fact that they're getting a large proportion of the allocated visas help prove that the visas aren't really needed?

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[Chrisq]

This is exactly correct. Plus, H1B visa holders are tied to the company that issues the visa. If they leave the company, they must return to their home country. Tech companies like Facebook like to have such indentured servants.

H1B visas serve only to drive down wages for US employees. Additionally, they end up training foreign talent that are later kicked out of the country (after 3 or 6 years, depending upon whether the visa is renewed). They don't help the nation's interests, nor the public's interest. They serve only to increase the profit margins of the large firms.

Get rid of the H1B, and increase the green card slots available to foreign workers, especially the Indians. I've very pro-immigrant, but the H1B visa only provides for indentured servitude.

I am seriously worried about the future of IT in the UK. A few years back we used to have half a dozen trainee graduate programmers a year. Now management outsources this work. The people who specify requirements, verify architecture, check for quality, etc are people who used to be trainee programmers a couple of decades ago. From what I have heard this is pretty typical for the industry. What will happen in a couple of decades time? Will we have to go to Indian companies for the whole system, specification, build, compliance, etc? They are the only ones with entry-level programmers gaining experience now, so it seems likely.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[L4t3r4lu5]

The people that make the decisions don't care what happens in 10 - 20 years; They'll be retired at 50 with £X,000,000 in the bank and a new Ferrari every three months.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[TheRaven64]

How do H1B visas drive down wages when it's vastly more expensive to hire an H1B than to hire a local? That's the part of the anti-H1B thing I just don't get.

There are some significant costs associated with hiring, however once they're hired you only have to pay them the prevailing wage for the industry. This sounds good, but 'the industry' can be interpreted very broadly, so when you're hiring someone to do realtime C programming they count as being in the same industry as a guy who dropped out of high school and writes PHP. They're also in a very weak position when it comes to bargaining, because if they lose their job they have a very short time to find another sponsor for their visa before they are deported.

If you want to avoid this, the solution is to offer a full work permit to anyone who has skills in one of the shortage industries, so they can go to the US and work at the real (i.e. defined by the market, not defined by some fixed spreadsheet) prevailing wage. Immigrants don't depress wages when they expect the same standard of living and have the same bargaining power as their native colleagues.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[Curunir_wolf]

How do H1B visas drive down wages when it's vastly more expensive to hire an H1B than to hire a local?

It's not - how on earth did you get that idea? The rules say it's supposed to cost the same, but in practice the H1B worker is much cheaper for the vast majority of companies that use them.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[asylumx]

I think the last figures put a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio of workers to roles.

What figures were those? Were they regional? All of the US? j/w

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[ebno-10db]

Good thing you don't generalize. Would you prefer Irish H-1B's to Indian ones? It makes no difference to me.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[ebno-10db]

The visas issued to Infosys may be used to displace existing US tech workers, but those displaced workers are then available for Facebook to hire.

No, because Infosys uses the H-1B's not just to replace American workers, but to facilitate offshoring. The H-1B's already know how the company works in India, fewer problems from language and cultural differences, etc. Most importantly, the Infosys H-1B's know that if they do a good job on their tour of duty here, they'll be rewarded when they return to India. The Indian Commerce Minister has publicly called the H-1B the "outsourcing visa".

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[sumdumass]

I think the problem is that there actually is already enough workers, the shortage is mostly myth caused by either requiremenrs that are not needed or location. More foreign workers are happy to relocate for mediocre pay than US workers.

This also tips the employment numbers in so that the wages can remain lower due to more workers that jobs. Low unemployment usually raises wages as employers need to attract and keep worker from a short supply. With more VISAs, instead of raising wages, they can import more supplies of workers. This also happens to be why so many people who think immigragration is ok but cannot tolorate illegal immigration.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[Anonymous Coward]

How do H1B visas drive down wages when it's vastly more expensive to hire an H1B than to hire a local?

It's not - how on earth did you get that idea? The rules say it's supposed to cost the same, but in practice the H1B worker is much cheaper for the vast majority of companies that use them.

Every H1B I've known was getting paid hardly more than half of what I was getting paid at the time.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[hairyfeet]

Because the H1-Bs are indentured servants they can pay them Mickey D's wages and your US tech workers can't live on Mickey wages thanks to our degrees costing 10-20 times as much as theirs? Not to mention unlike before where a person could get an entry level and continue to get an education while getting real world experience thanks to the H1-Bs you have an arms race where you need more and more degrees (and deeper and deeper debt) just to get ANY job other than lackey?

Perhaps you should watch How NOT to hire an American which is a training video by a law firm that specializes in H1-Bs to show how rigged and fucked up the system TRULY is. At the end of the day you are crippling the country in return for short term gains, as India gets a large pool of tech workers and plenty of money coming in for infrastructure and new businesses, while in america the business districts look like ghost towns and the roads and bridges fall down around you.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

STEM != computer programmer

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[Chrisq]

Uh, the Irish are British..

Uh...No, they are not.

Some are ..

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[muhula]

+5 insightful? 2:1 or 3:1 ratio of workers to roles? While it would be fun to feed into the frenzy going on in this message board, that means for every job, there are 1 or 2 unemployed people... 50-66% unemployment And before you say that they're just underemployed, I've interviewed hundreds of candidates and the vast majority can't do simple aspects of the job (in my case, it was to write code). So, no, you're dead wrong and the people who modded you just have some sort of agenda or lack critical thinking

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[Anonymous Coward]

Suppose you have a guy leading your Java dev team under the title "Java lead engineer". He is paid $100k pa. You want to cut this cost.

Here's how H1B's work: You decide there is a new role, "Key Java developer", you declare this has all the same skills but it's a "new" role. You declare that people doing this role (which you just invented) get paid $60k pa. Weirdly, no-one applies for a $100k pa job that only pays $60k pa. Damn, there is now a "skills shortage". The imaginary "skills shortage" means you can hire under H1B and pay $60k as you wished. An immigrant is glad to be paid $60k to do the job, and their visa is now legally under your control, so if they displease you then they aren't merely fired, they are thrown out of the country.

And that's how you replace a $100k pa salaried citizen with a $60k pa indentured servant.

At its best it's a nasty cynical way to hold down wage costs. At it's worst it's basically a milder modern day slavery.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[whoever57]

Plus, H1B visa holders are tied to the company that issues the visa. If they leave the company, they must return to their home country. Tech companies like Facebook like to have such indentured servants.

Not true. H1B visa holders can change employers. Even if laid-off, H1B visa holders have some time to find a new job before they must return to their home country. The real lock-in occurs to those people who apply for green cards.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[Grishnakh]

Depends on what you mean by "British"; do you mean it as a political designator or a geographic one? Ireland (both the island and the country) is part of "the British Isles" (though not "Great Britain", the larger of the two main Isles), so anyone who lives in any of the British Isles, including Ireland, could be called "British" based on this. However, these days, "British" usually seems to refer to citizens (or is it "subjects"?) of the United Kingdom, which includes all of the British Isles except for Ireland the country (which is a subset of Ireland the island). I guess this sorta makes sense, since "UKer" isn't a very convenient term, so it's easier to just call them "British", just like "USian" sounds stupid and awkward, so those people are called "Americans" even though there's two continents with that name and the other inhabitants of those continents are not normally referred to by that demonym.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[jbo5112]

While Ireland is a British Isle, calling someone British specific means nationals or natives of, the United Kingdom, its territories, the Crown Dependencies; and their descendants.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[Natales]

H1B visas serve only to drive down wages for US employees. Additionally, they end up training foreign talent that are later kicked out of the country (after 3 or 6 years, depending upon whether the visa is renewed).

Not necessarily. They system may be corrupted now, but I doubt that's the only reason why we created this program. I came to Silicon Valley 14 years ago specifically because I had skill sets that were required by my company at the time and were simply not available (like speaking specific languages and understand local cultures in specific countries, in additional to specific technical skills), so for all intents and purposes, it was completely legit. I was also very naive at the time and I openly discussed salaries with my co-workers (something pretty common where I come from) so I realized I was NOT being paid less than them. In some cases I was being paid more.

I didn't consider I was being "trained" either. In fact, I was doing most of the training, and when the time came to look at other opportunities outside the company, almost every potential employer that contacted me already knew they'd have to renew my H1-B in order to get me, and that wasn't considered an issue, just an annoyance.

A while after I met my wife and I became a citizen through marriage, but at least my experience was very different from what other people is discussing in this thread.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[tompaulco]

Be that as it may, I still don't see the connection to the outsourcing companies. How does the fact that they're getting a large proportion of the allocated visas help prove that the visas aren't really needed?

Why is it, do you suppose, that the outsourcing companies are having so much trouble finding local talent that literally 100% of their consultants are H1bs? And then, why do you suppose it is that they are able to place a consultant at company B for less than that company B would pay a full time employee, and then the outsourcing company still manages to pay a competitive salary to their employee, plus profit? The answer? They don't.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[oh_my_080980980]

Less H1B Visas....you seem to be under the delusion that there aren't enough workers here.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[oh_my_080980980]

No they can't because the Visa is issued by the corporation sponsors that person. Once that ends they have to go back. Even if they found another job that company would have to issue a Visa.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[whoever57]

No they can't because the Visa is issued by the corporation sponsors that person. Once that ends they have to go back. Even if they found another job that company would have to issue a Visa.

Which orifice did you pull that one out of? The visa is issued by the US government. If a H1B visa holder loses his or her job, he/she has some time (30 days, perhaps) to get another job before he or she must leave the USA. Furthermore, visa holders have some period of grace when transferring to a new job, during which time they can work for a new employer while the application for a new visa is processed. See this page for an explanation.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[mk1004]

Great Britain is made up of England, Wales, and Scotland. The UK is made up of GB and Ireland. The British, therefore, would only be those people from GB.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[harryjohnston]

What makes you think the consultant is necessarily earning less for his company than the full time employee? We have consultants come in fairly often, even though we're charged substantially more than an extra employee would cost - the argument is that they have highly specialized skills that we lack, and/or that they'll only be here for part of each year so it's cheaper than adding extra full-time people. Or perhaps management just think we're incompetent, I've never been entirely sure.

It's not always entirely stupid. There are skills that are only needed occasionally by any particular business, it hardly makes sense to hire someone yourself and have him or her doing busywork the rest of the year. Better for the people with those skills to move around from company to company as needed.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[Grishnakh]

Mostly right, except that the UK is made up of GB and Northern Ireland, not Ireland.

Apparently, according to my Wikipedia research, GB is called "Great" to distinguish it from Lesser Britain, or Brittania Minor, which we now call "Brittany", a region in France.

So, the term "the British Isles" includes both GB and Ireland (the island), but Ireland (the island) is not part of "Britain", that's reserved for the larger island, some other nearby islands, and part of France.

What a mess.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[harryjohnston]

Because the H1-Bs are indentured servants they can pay them Mickey D's wages

But can they? Obviously I have no personal knowledge, but several of the comments on the FWD.us site say otherwise. I have no particular reason to believe that you know what you're talking about: do you have a reputable reference?

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[t0qer]

Oh it gets worse than that. Upon arrive.

Manager: Things aren't working out here, you can take a pay cut or quit.
H1b: I'll take a pay cut.

You now have an h1b working for $40k.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Also:

  - Give him a title that would go for $40k and actual job responsibilities that would go for $130k.

  - See what's on his resume and write a req that requires ALL of it and NOTHING ELSE, regardless of what the job actually entails.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[shutdown -p now]

It's not - how on earth did you get that idea? The rules say it's supposed to cost the same, but in practice the H1B worker is much cheaper for the vast majority of companies that use them.

This gets repeated again and again, but I never see evidence presented for it. Anecdotally speaking, as an H1B in Microsoft, I know that I do not get paid any less than my American coworkers. I also know plenty more H1Bs both here and in other tech companies that regularly poach from MS (Amazon, Google, Facebook etc), and none of them get underpaid.

All the real-world horror stories that I do hear, are from Tata and other sweatshops like that. But while they do account for a lot of green cards, they do not represent the "vast majority" of them.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[shutdown -p now]

Tech companies like Facebook like to have such indentured servants.

Since you're naming names here, can you cite one concrete example of an "indentured servant" H1B in Facebook.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[RussellTheMuscle]

But a simple solution to this is to make expenses associated with H1Bs non-deductable. I have no problem finding good help outside the country, but do not feel the need to undercut an American doing the job currently. I would also be in favor of stopping all H1Bs unless the U6 were under 6%! American businesses, hoping for American sales, should be looking to keep US$ inside the US.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[The Mayor]

But if they *quit* their job, they must get a new visa, which means leaving the US and re-entering. That's why they're indentured servants. They can't voluntarily leave their job without getting a new visa.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[whoever57]

But if they *quit* their job, they must get a new visa, which means leaving the US and re-entering.

I am 99% sure that you are wrong here. Yes, they must get approval for a new visa, but, until they leave the country, they don't need the new visa to be stamped in their passport, so they don't need to leave the country just because of the new visa.

The US has made H1B visas a PITA anyway. In the past, when you renewed a visa, you could send your passport off to the State Department to get the new visa stamp, then they stopped this and you had to leave the country and go to a embassy or consulate somwhere in the world (eg Canada) to get the stamp. Now you have to go to your home country to get the new visa stamped in your passport.

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[3.5 stripes]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

Re:Isn't the upshot the same?

[3.5 stripes]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

If you're going to screw...

[Rick in China]

The American workers out of jobs, at least support American companies in the process, no? I'm not even American, I'm Canadian, so while I don't have a vested interest, I can see and understand the hate. Essentially it makes sense to bring in tech talent with the purpose of filling vacancies that can not otherwise be filled with the domestic talent. It isn't being used for that in many cases, though - rather is used to cut cost and 'get 'er done'. If the gov't is going to enable this cost-cutting advantage, it should make sense to at least offer it to American companies rather than foreign - why would they want to both displace more expensive workers as well as displace them with the intention of supporting a foreign enterprise in the process?

Re:If you're going to screw...

[DarkOx]

If you are tiny country or have small population yes it makes sense to bring in talent. When you are the 21st century USA with a plenty big population to fill most roles and a University system that is still considered among the worlds best, no I don't think it makes much sense at all.

How do reconcile a pro-education social policy with labor and economic policies that are opposed to developing your own talent?

The idea the USA *needs* to import tech workers is pure farce. If anything USA needs to put much tighter controls around the use of foreign labor. We should treat labor like any other import, wages paid to foreign workers ought to be taxed heavily. So if a company really really does *need* to bring someone in they *can* but would be heavily discouraged from doing so in other cases. There should be payroll taxes on foreign workers working for US companies in foreign countries as well, although these should be a much lower rate.

Real Immigration on the other hand isn't a problem. If people want to come here, have families here, live here as residents and be citizens; great! Then they are our people, attracting good talent is an investment in our own country.

Its pretty rare that I advocate taxing anything, but imports are an exception, I think we should go back to funding the operation of government primarily through import tariffs and foreign labor should no exception.

Re:If you're going to screw...

[C0R1D4N]

People who hire illegal immigrants don't want immigration reform. If the illegals all of a sudden had a legal status and had to pay income taxes and be on the grid, etc they would not be able to work so cheaply.

Re:If you're going to screw...

[dbIII]

It isn't being used for that in many cases, though

Australia adopted the idea as well, just like many other stupid ideas from the USA and not many good ones. Initially is was to fill the shortfall of doctors after we'd cut the numbers of doctors we were training (a lobby group thought scarcity would be a good way to drive up doctors incomes). Now it's even being used to employ cleaners as "skilled workers" that are supposed to be unavailable in the country. The reality is that mining companies and similar are just importing cheaper employees via such a rort whether there are people available to do the job or not. There are certainly large numbers of unemployed people who could do such a job in the areas where cleaners and other nonskilled or semi-skilled staff are employed on indentured servitude visas.

Re:If you're going to screw...

[dbIII]

primarily through import tariffs

The unintended consequences of such a thing on Sugar and Steel completely fucked up both industries, manufacturing, and the health of your countries children. It's an axe to be wielded with care. Overprotection of an industry can lead to putting it on permanent life support, a slow decline, and malign effects on industries that depend upon them.
In case you haven't heard of these examples before, manufacturing moved to where steel was cheaper and expensive corn syrup ended up being cheaper that cane sugar.
There's other things that can go wrong with your suggested approach. Byzantium gave it a try up until 1204AD.

Re:If you're going to screw...

[ebno-10db]

a lobby group thought scarcity would be a good way to drive up doctors incomes

AMA = Australian Medical Association?

Note to non-Americans: the US AMA is the American Medical Association, which is a union with some peer review journals.

Re:If you're going to screw...

[ebno-10db]

it should make sense to at least offer it to American companies rather than foreign

Problem: there really is no such thing as an American company anymore. Also, why should I care whether IBM or Infosys executives and major stock holders get rich? Either way, I'm still out of a job.

Re:If you're going to screw...

[DarkOx]

You don't have to get overly specific. Today we have huge volumes of tarried schedules, rather than pick winners and loosers and try and prop up specific industries, I'd argue the tarried schedule should be limited to a few broad categories; commodities, hard goods, labor, and everything else. One tax rate for each category.

Never for specific products like sugar.

Re:If you're going to screw...

[dbIII]

So then you have a very large number of industries on life support. Not a good way to swing that axe. A more delicate approach is probably much better.
You also seem to have missed that those tariffs I mentioned ended up costing money.

Re:If you're going to screw...

[DarkOx]

How exactly are industries on life support. Under the current model certainly. Things like sugar get taxed specifically to create a market corn syrup.

On the other hand if you apply a single fixed rate to broad classes of things, like the four or five classes total than you are not favoring and specific product or industry. Yes you create some advantage for domestic producers against foreign produces selling to domestic consumers, but we want that. Sure abandoning the idea of free trade will cause other nations to do the same and they will tax imports reducing our exports; again not sure that is a problem if what you are seeking is to stop this race to the bottom.

Because that is what free trade among peers(nations) with different environmental laws, different social welfare requirements, different education levels, etc is. It becomes a quest to do it as cheaply as possible. Any society that elects to have higher standards in these areas usually does so at the cost of people having fewer material goods, that does not change but with free trade you also get this aggressive worker displacement; yes better education etc allows them to compete for a while be having greater productivity but that only goes so far.

Re:If you're going to screw...

[mrchaotica]

Why not just have a single tax rate (X%) for everything imported, on a per dollar of value basis? You want to import a quantity of steel that would cost $10,000 if bought in the US? Fine, pay $10,000 * X%. You want to import a car (made of steel) that would sell for $ 20,000 in the US? Fine, pay $20,000 * X%. You want to outsource foreign labor for a job you'd have to pay a US worker $60,000 to do? Fine, pay $60,000 * X%.

Re:If you're going to screw...

[dbIII]

How exactly are industries on life support

Industries protected by tarriffs no longer have a need to compete so no longer have a need to innovate etc and no longer have a need to be well managed so become sinecures - look at US steel companies for an example. Only the small specialist companies with niches the big players were not interested in have avoided decline.

with different environmental laws, different social welfare requirements, different education levels

It's a nice excuse until a German company comes alone with 50% higher costs per worker and kicks your arse because they are four times more productive (example from vehicle assembly).

Re:If you're going to screw...

[dbIII]

"Life Support" also implies the end is near

That's not what I meant. I meant what it says - withdrawing support means the end of the industry but government help via input at the cost of the taxpayer keeps it running. Sugar and Steel have been propped up for decades - hence fat kids and most manufacturing moving offshore.

The short story is that government assisted monopolies and cartels soon can not compete with the market in general and lead to unintended consequences since it drives up the price for dependant industries.

Re:If you're going to screw...

[cavebison]

Essentially it makes sense to bring in tech talent with the purpose of filling vacancies that can not otherwise be filled with the domestic talent

Does it? What's wrong with the "old ways", where a company would hire someone with lesser skills and allow them to grow into the role? Or perhaps *gasp* provide training and mentoring? Otherwise how do people get relevant experience on their resume? How do people even know what to study at university - what career to follow - if everything can be outsourced in the future?

Then there's the shameless hypocrisy of the "job creators" argument. In a capitalist society, companies are supposed to compete and innovate, thereby creating jobs and contributing to the economy. But, instead, importing workers does little for the domestic job market or economy (as does off-shoring their tax bills).

The idea of working visas to give some short-term flexibility to employers, where domestic applicants don't exist, is fine. But, as with most things in the U.S., a rational, considered idea has been taken to its extreme by vested interests and turned into a monster.

Manage Wage Inflation - Pure and simple

[Anonymous Coward]

As software continues to devour the world, every industry becomes dependent on tech workers to continue to operate. Allowing the active participation of software outsourcing firms in the US labour market via H1B's helps manage wage inflation within the sector.

Re:Manage Wage Inflation - Pure and simple

[Curunir_wolf]

As software continues to devour the world, every industry becomes dependent on tech workers to continue to operate. Allowing the active participation of software outsourcing firms in the US labour market via H1B's helps manage wage inflation within the sector.

Riiiight. Because wage inflation is such a huge problem in the US. Oh, wait, actually, the US has exactly the opposite problem.

Re:Manage Wage Inflation - Pure and simple

[lwriemen]

I think your CEO number is way off, which is why your specious argument fails. The myth of fair wages for CEOs is one of the problems with the conservative mantra. Free market ostriches stick their heads in the Fox News sand while the economy visibly deteriorates for the 99%.

Re:Manage Wage Inflation - Pure and simple

[blue9steel]

The word you're looking for is wage growth, rather than wage inflation. A subtle point to be sure, but an important one.

Re:Manage Wage Inflation - Pure and simple

[mrchaotica]

It's cheaper to give $100K to a CEO...

You only think so because your estimate is 2 or 3 orders of magnitude low.

Isn't this how Free Trade works!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

When foreign goods are sold locally cheaper because the foreign government subsidises their farmers, the local farmers are hit hard. The same with finished /consumer goods, local industries get hit. The US keeps pushing developing countries to open up their markets so that US made goods can be sold cheap.
So may be its always a give-take relationship. Not that I support hordes of H1B displacing US folks, but its almost analogous to what happens in other areas caused by US companies.

Re:Isn't this how Free Trade works!!!

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Yes, that's exactly how "Free Trade" works. It's a global race to the bottom. Companies everywhere lower their costs by leveraging modern communication and shipping to continually move jobs to the places where they can pay the lowest possible amount for labor. Multinational companies have no loyalty to the nations that spawned them. As short-sighted greedoids, they don't realize (or care, what the fuck, they're getting rich) that by impoverishing and reducing their workers, they're chipping away at their own customer base. It's just another case of corporations fouling the Commons, in this case, the global Labor Commons. So we get situations like Wal-Mart workers being paid such low wages that they qualify for food stamps. Remember kids, privatize profits, socialize losses.

Re:Isn't this how Free Trade works!!!

[ebno-10db]

Free trade is about identifying and exploiting the potential energy of the system, in the process the imbalance is reduced and profits are made

What a clever metaphor. Is it supposed to mean something, or is it just a pathetic way to make your argument seem more scientific? To anybody who is dumb enough to buy it, it also has the propaganda effect of making it seem as inevitable as entropy, when in reality it's just the opposite - a matter of policies conceived by politically powerful people.

deal with it

Why?

You are also totally ignoring the gains in the 3rd world

Another myth comforting to free traders. There is no reason that China, for example, can't grow on the basis of internal consumption, just as the US did. I also find it an astounding coincidence that policies which are supposed to benefit the 3rd world, just happen to do so in a way that benefits the already rich in the developed world. There are other approaches, but I assure you that one which doesn't enrich the wealthy will never be enacted.

Re:Isn't this how Free Trade works!!!

[meta-monkey]

There are other approaches, but I assure you that one which doesn't enrich the wealthy will never be enacted.

Exactly. It is class warfare, and the wealthy class is winning.

H1-Bs are tied to a particular company. The visa holders get deported after a few weeks if they lose their job or quit. Why is that? So the company has leverage over them if they get uppity. It's just a scam to drive down wages, and drive up the profits of the already most profitable corporations in the history of the world. The stock market is booming and unemployment is high? Perfect! They claim "free trade!" but it has nothing to do with free trade. It is not a free market. It is a fascist market wherein large corporations "partner" with government to enact laws to their benefit. That is literally the definition of a fascist economic system. To just roll over and let them do it is to lose the class war.

Fuck 'em. Put up some tariffs and force them to hire American workers, and make it more expensive to produce goods overseas and ship them here so they'll be forced to manufacture products in America and hire Americans. The price of products might go up, but so will wages. "But oh noes that's protectionism what about teh free marketz!?!?!" The alternative is poverty and slavery. There is no free market! It's just about whether the market is perverted to aid the wealthy or whether it's perverted to aid the masses. I vote masses.

Re:Isn't this how Free Trade works!!!

[mlts]

Here is how to do it. Remove caps on H-1B labor.

However, every H-1B coming in will require a payroll tax to be paid that is the difference between the H-1B's salary and either an average salary for a professional in that field or the median US income, whichever is higher. That way, if a place hired someone for $20,000.00/year, the company will have to pay a tax of $31,017.00 at the minimum ($51010/year was the median income in 2012.)

If a company needs specialized labor, they can get it and it won't cost them much relatively. However, this will put a stop to flooding a market with H-1Bs just to drive down wages, and the taxes obtained will help offset the spending power lost by US workers.

Re:Isn't this how Free Trade works!!!

[mk1004]

Because you can't compete with people who game the system?

Re:Isn't this how Free Trade works!!!

[fredklein]

In other words, paying significantly more than min wage, using local labor, and paying CEOs peanuts... DOESN'T WORK.

Thanks for confirming that.

Re:Isn't this how Free Trade works!!!

[mk1004]

That's why we have so many illegal immigrants. "If I don't hire them (for peanuts), my competitors will and I'll go out of business!" Democrats see illegal immigrants as future voters, Republicans see them as cheap labor. Same with H-1B visa workers. Eliminate or reduce the H-1B visas and eliminate illegal immigration and wages will go up. Your comment only applies when our Congressmen game the system, and not even then precisely. Employers pay the prevailing rate, which often would be higher than minimum wage if there was no gaming. The comment about CEO pay is a non-sequitur for this topic.

Ya know ...

[cascadingstylesheet]

... Klobuchar is a Democrat. And these tech CEOs are noted "progressives".

It seems that they think that paying low wages is a great idea ... for them.

Other businesses, mind you, we have to mandate that they pay their employees more. And claim that this will have no effect on the bottom line.

Re:Ya know ...

[penix1]

So what's your point?

That a politician is beholden to the corporations? No news there thanks to the conservative Supreme Court's decision in Citizen's United.

That corporations do everything they can to decrease costs and increase shareholder value? They are required by law to do this. It is their sole purpose for existence.

That a corporation that pays substandard wages has to be forced to pay a wage that allows their employees to survive? I think it is sad that they have to be forced to do that. They scream they can't get talent when in truth what they mean is they can't get talent on the cheap. If they had their way, slavery and child labor would still be practiced.

Re:Ya know ...

[EmagGeek]

Using the Government as a weapon against their competitors is what progressives do. We are fast approaching the establishment of the progressive ruling class, where if you're among the progressive elite, your company gets favorable treatment from government, and a slanted playing field.

Re:Ya know ...

[Bruinwar]

The I-Squared Act of 2013 is not a progressive's bill. It was introduced by Orrin Hatch. Cosponsors are a mix, 14 dems, 11 repugs. Wanna know who is in charge? Follow the money.

Re:Ya know ...

[DarkOx]

That a politician is beholden to the corporations? No news there thanks to the conservative Supreme Court's decision in Citizen's United.

Want to quit harping about that already. The H1B program existed long before that decision was handed down and it IS A FREE SPEECH issue. I don't think anyone should be barred using their property to promote a cause. Why should some Union be allowed to basically steer unlimited monies to a politician but a corporation not? It makes no sense. As far as campaign finance goes requirements should be for real disclosure, something we don't have today. That would make difference.

Re:Ya know ...

[ebno-10db]

Follow the money.

I wish they'd at least make that harder to do. It's so easy to follow the money that it's insulting. Instead of a "let's try to hide it" approach it's a "fuck you, we don't care what you think".

Re:Ya know ...

[mk1004]

Except that Citizens United works like this: A rich guy and a poor guy both go talk to a politician about an issue. The rich guy stuffs money into the politician's pocket, the poor guy can't. Guess which way the politician votes? When all men were created equal, apparently that doesn't include influence in the laws that are passed.

Neither unions or corporations should be allowed to steer money to politicians. If corporations, unions, and individuals are limited as to the monetary influence that can make, that levels the playing field.

Re:Ya know ...

[cascadingstylesheet]

Cosponsors are a mix, 14 dems, 11 repugs

Ah. So clearly that makes it Republican's fault, and we should use childish modifications of their party name. Because that's so rational.

Re:Ya know ...

[airdweller]

Yeah, unlike the conservatives, right? #Clueless

Re:Ya know ...

[EmagGeek]

Did I say anything about conservatives? No, I said nothing, either way, about conservatives. I was only talking about Progressives.

Simple solution

[Ecuador]

Instead of increasing H1b's which are abused by offshore firms, make a new category for foreigners who hold a graduate degree from a top US school. The US has by far the best Universities in most areas, but the best foreign students often leave the US because of the very restrictive H1b Visa system (employment-tied, application only on April for October start, dependents not eligible for work etc). Why provide world-leading education and then let the best talent go?

Re:Simple solution

[Imbrondir]

You make it sound like the education is given away, only to lose the investment. US universities are a good business with their high prices. Besides that I agree with your point about a lost recruitment opportunity.

Re:Simple solution

[Ecuador]

In the US top students do not pay for graduate school, it is the other way around - tuition is waived and you even get a stipend depending what sort of TA/RA-ship etc you get (I am not referring to special cases of expensive studies like Law school, MBAs, medical school...). In fact, since many of the top schools are public their tuition is already low, but when I said about letting top talent go, I was referring to the students that would anyway not have paid for their Masters or PhD.

Re:Simple solution

[Ecuador]

Oh, and since a TA/RA is work, the cost to the US is not the missed tuition, but the opportunity cost. Someone who gets a place and is trained in a US University then gets to use that training abroad.

Re:Very bad...

[harryjohnston]

Have you seen http://www.h1bwage.com/ ?

Re:Really excellent !

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Thanks. Here, let me just click on your spam link. Fuckwit.

As someone who was on H1-B, it's a scam

[dwillyson]

As someone who worked on an H1-B visa about 10 years back in Silicon Valley, i can confirm that these visas are being misused by IT consulting companies. They take the majority of these visas and then use them as baits in india for IT professionals. Most indian IT companies are nothing but cheap labour shops. If there is a dearth of IT professionals, make H1-B non-employer specific. All it does is make you a bonded labourer for 4-6 years with your employer who promises to process your green card while paying you a low salary. This is a big scam and i hope enough people take notice so that something is done about it. Most people on H1-B won't speak about it cause they don't want to go back home or lose their job. This is what keeps it going.

Re:As someone who was on H1-B, it's a scam

[ebno-10db]

Thank you for being so honest about this. Seriously - absolutely no snark meant.

Re:As someone who was on H1-B, it's a scam

[dwillyson]

None taken. Cheers :)

Re:As someone who was on H1-B, it's a scam

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone that worked in SF until last year. It's totally a wage depression strategy.

I worked with about 300 H1b to 3 actual American Citizens.

Sounds really liberal to me. Fuck that state.

Re:As someone who was on H1-B, it's a scam

[sBox]

I am a US citizen (and native) who was employed by Tata for a F500 company (call them BigCo.) I had been with BigCo on a temporary project with another staffing group and BigCo's managers forced Tata to find and hire me for a basic support contract while BigCo's long time employees were slowly laid off. Two of us were citizens of the US on this contract, brought in by management, everyone else was either H1B or offshore. I can assure you that Tata let my contract expire and replaced me with an H1B worker already on their payroll who made significantly less all the while Tata charged BigCo the same rate. The mandatory HR training calls were hilarious. I've been outsourced, been an outsourcer, and an outsourced outsourcer. The H1B system totally abused in a way that non-foreign staffing companies only wished they could do.

Re:As someone who was on H1-B, it's a scam

[shutdown -p now]

As someone who is working on an H1B visa in Seattle, I didn't see anything like what you describe. I get paid as much as my American colleagues - more on average, in fact. My employer has sponsored my green card application, which I'm patiently waiting on (and why'd they do that if they just want an "indentured servant"?) No-one has ever directly threatened or even hinted at abusing their ability to complicate life for me as an H1B. I'm also not aware of anyone else being similarly abused.

Note, I'm not saying that I don't believe your story. I totally do, but the key part of it is:

Most indian IT companies are nothing but cheap labour shops.

So yes, if you worked for some place like Tata, my sincere condolences. But it's not like that for all of us.

I would also add that I do think that H1B is a deeply flawed program, and should be remade into something more sensible, and probably geared specifically towards fast(er)-track immigration rather than true temporary work (which is how most other countries handle this).

Re:As someone who was on H1-B, it's a scam

[shutdown -p now]

The fact that Tata is still issued any H1B quotas is, frankly, preposterous. They are the worst abusers by far, with a long track record of that.

Re:As someone who was on H1-B, it's a scam

[dwillyson]

You might be in the 1-5% then. Most H1-B visa holders work as contractors through their employers. They are paid below average wages while their employers charge their clients per-hour billing. It's rampant in companies like Infosys, Tata Consultancy, Wipro etc. If you read the news, it says these companies command most of the H1-B visas. So you denying that it doesn't happen or that it might be a one off case is really disingenuous. I speak from both personal experience and from accounts of my friends and people i know in the IT sector. Also, I never mentioned about any threats or abuse. I just said that green card is used as a carrot to keep you on low wages with your employer. If you quit while in the middle of the green card process, depending on which stage you are in, you might have to start the process all over again. That's the reason why i called it indentured labour. There are enough documents detailing this practise if you care to look. It's not exactly the same as working for McDonalds since even average pay in IT is quite high. So most people don't complain and eventually move to a company they are working as contractors for, as full time employees.

Re:As someone who was on H1-B, it's a scam

[shutdown -p now]

You might be in the 1-5% then. Most H1-B visa holders work as contractors through their employers. They are paid below average wages while their employers charge their clients per-hour billing. It's rampant in companies like Infosys, Tata Consultancy, Wipro etc.

I know full well about these - I even mentioned Tata in my reply! But somehow people don't usually talk about Tata. They talk about Facebook, Google, Microsoft etc - precisely the places where it doesn't happen.

I also seriously doubt that I'm in 1-5%. Between all of the companies I've listed above, I'm sure there's at least 10k of H1Bs working in them, probably more.

Also, I never mentioned about any threats or abuse. I just said that green card is used as a carrot to keep you on low wages with your employer. If you quit while in the middle of the green card process, depending on which stage you are in, you might have to start the process all over again. That's the reason why i called it indentured labour.

Threats or abuse do happen (in places like Tata). And yes, green card is a carrot in practice, but here at least it's not used to negotiate a lower wage. That's as it should be.

Basically, like I said, I agree that 1) the way H1B program is set up is rife for abuse, 2) it actually is abused by some companies, and 3) it therefore needs to be replaced by something much different that does not allow for such abuse. The point that I'm trying to get across is that many H1Bs do not work for sweatshops or get paid low wages.

Re:As someone who was on H1-B, it's a scam

[dwillyson]

I cannot comment on how Facebook, Google or Microsoft do their hiring. However, i have experience working with companies
like Netscape(both before and after being part of AOL), H.P, Oracle, Maxtor. The way these companies hired H1-Bs - they
would hire them as contractors through firms like TCS, Wipro, Infosys or smaller IT firms which basically had a small office with
an accountant and couple of clerks to do the billing and wages. I went through one of these smaller companies and so did a lot
of other people then (this is about 10 years back, things might be different now). If they like your work, they would offer you
employment (mostly at market rates - depending on how good they think you are and how badly they need your skills) and
process your H1-B visa. That's how i was hired as a full time employee by my eventual employer. That's the route most H1-Bs
used to take. I doubt Google or Facebook or even Microsoft go to India to hire 10k H1-Bs as you mention, but I wouldn't know.

Re:As someone who was on H1-B, it's a scam

[shutdown -p now]

Well, I'm a full-time salaried employee, not a contractor, and so are all the other guys that I know who got hired on H1B. I'm Russian, not Indian, but I know a few H1Bs from India, too, and it's the same story for them. But this is all anecdotal, of course.

Regarding the overall numbers, here is something from 2012. It's curious that neither Google nor Facebook nor MS are in the top 10. Looking at the table further, I see these hire counts:

MS - 2700
Amazon - 2200
Apple - 1200
Intel - 800
Google - 600

Not too shabby, but smaller than I expected, to be honest. However, where I was wrong is the total scale of operation. The top 3 - which all seem to be "contractor outsource" sweatshops just as you've described - between themselves, account for almost 70k hires. I don't recognize other names in top 10, but I assume that at least some of them are similar, especially all the companies with "consulting" in their names.

So yes, your "under 5%" is estimate is quite accurate. I apologize.

As a side note, Facebook is not on that list at all, so I assume that they do all of their H1B hiring through other companies. Now this doesn't necessarily translate to abuse, but when others don't do this kind of thing, it makes one wonder...

Re:As someone who was on H1-B, it's a scam

[Anonymous Coward]

From an Indian who decided to "stay back".

This is totally bullshit!!!

Obviously dwillyson used the "scam" to get to the Valley and get a green card or whatever. He's now denouncing the whole thing after having used it to protect his own ass.

First of all Indian companies are not cheap labor shops. Given the amount of competition here, the salaries are really good by Indian standards. Obviously they don't match US standards but when you live in India, your expenses are Indian, not American. You can save just as much - and I don't want to start off about the expenses of relocating to the US and how much one saves in the first couple of years...

Nothing stops you from starting off on your own and either picking up $ paying contracts in the US or doing a startup in India (think Little Eye labs as the latest; there are enough B$ startups around here) - that is if you are really good and want to make serious money.

Second, when an engineer is sent to the US by the Indian company, it is usually because either a footprint is needed or the customer specifically requests for the person to be sent. Having more people in US upsets the profitability of the IT companies AND the US contracting companies so sending engineers to the US (especially since there is so much competition for each contract and the $ rate has headed southwards over time) is done after thinking twice or thrice.

There is NO labor bonding. Nothing stops the person in US to resign his/her job and take up the new job - whether in the Valley or elsewhere. The conditions of the H1-B says (and these are rules put by the US govt.) that the person has to come back to India and then apply for a fresh H1-B for the new job in India. If the hiring company thinks the person is so valuable, they would file for a new H1-B and that happens depending on how valuable the person's skills are.

Incidentally, put any conditions during hiring and I mean ANY conditions and you lose your best guys faster than an ice cube in the Sahara in summer. The word spreads very fast.

No Indian professional can be "baited". We have a choice between hundreds of companies in India (from Google to Cisco to Infosys/Wipro to (ugh) IBM) and we negotiate our salaries and have at least a couple of alternative job offers when we go job hunting. Of course there are companies that pay peanuts here but they are the ones that get the simian types.

Disclosure: I'm an Indian Engineer who worked in global companies and decided it wasn't worth the fight of migrating, getting a green card and all that jazz.

Re:As someone who was on H1-B, it's a scam

[chipgirl]

Some years back the large global corporation I worked for wanted to give me six H1-Bs to work along side my six U.S. employees. The company was going to pay them less than half of what my U.S. employees were making. On top of that some of my U.S. folks received overtime for their work. I was told to steer all OT to the H1-Bs as they were salaried. I found this unfair to my U.S. employees and unfair to the H1-Bs and not something I wanted to manage. My response was a suggestion to fire all the U.S. folks, punt on the H1-Bs and simply take a step van and back it up to the U.S. border with Mexico. In my own company I respected all my employees and never paid myself 100 times plus what they made.

Re:Really excellent !

[3.5 stripes]

I wonder if this guy would qualify for an H1-B?

Prove its about talent

[QuantumRiff]

If the claim is that there is a shortage of talent, then simply add a fee to the process, that is roughly equivalent to a years worth of college education in the state where the job is located, for every year the H1B worker works, into a scholarship program for that industry/disipline. Facebook should jump at the chance to make college more affordable for CS majors, since they seem to need so many of them. And hey, if the student can graduate without "mortgage level" loans, they can actually afford to work for less money.

Re:Really excellent !

[TheRaven64]

Thank Slashdot for putting the little white bird on a blue background icon next to spammers...

Simple

[dbIII]

It's a bargaining chip in wage negotiations. "Don't ask for too much or we'll replace you with someone from overseas" is the implied argument.

If it was really about shortage then it would have gone away when layoffs added large numbers of experienced and skilled people to the pool of available employees.

You've got it all wrong.

[Required Snark]

This isn't selling out resident workers, both green card holders and citizens. It's capitalism in action.

The US government is for sale, and the highest bidders get what they pay for. You buy enough legislation (and legislators) and you can make anything legal.

Want to make more money in the short run by gutting STEM employment and destroying US based intellectual capitial? No problem! (Just look at IBM).

Want to pay no US taxes while you plaster US flags on your equipment? You don't even have to make the flags in the US! (Caterpillar, a proud US giant.)

It really is equal opportunity at work. You don't even have to be a US company to buy what you want.

Stop whining, it's unpatriotic. You obviously don't love the US if you can't afford to buy you own slice of the American Dream. Tata Consultancy Services is clearly a much more important American Enterprise then any of the mere citizens who do useless things like live, vote and pay taxes in the US.

It's not like there is a "Government of the People, by the People and For the People" or any other nonsense like that.

Facebook

[ThatsNotPudding]

This is exactly why Zuck and his coven are such scum. It also proves that being filthy rich makes you more of an addict than a heroin user; you can *never* get enough money, and you'll fuck over your own fellow citizens to gain more.

Re:Facebook

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

a real heroin addict can "never" get enough heroin either, but then they die from it. Unfortunately, I don't think Zucky will die from too much money, at least until the Revolution and his head rolls into the guillotine basket.

Re:Facebook

[ebno-10db]

Screw guillotines - I think the rich who feel they're so entitled should be made to live on a minimum wage income for the rest of their lives. It's less messy, and far more poetic justice.

Re:Very bad...

[Curunir_wolf]

Have you seen http://www.h1bwage.com/ ?

According to the site - "h1bwage.com is the online wage library for h1b prevailing wage determinations, and the disclosure databases for other programs."

So it's referencing the standard salaries for positions, and/or the H1B application statements of companies applying for the visas. It in no way reflects what the hired workers actually earn, and is not intended to. Salaries are always "negotiable".

I suspect that some of those figures are what the consulting firm is charging to place one of those working in another company - so the company is paying that amount for the person, but the consulting firm is taking a good portion of it off the top before they actually pay the worker.

At least outsourcing to India you benefit India

[fmoliveira]

Traditional outsourcing at least help India's economy. H1B is bad for americans with far less benefit for India. The solution is for poor countries to develop. Americans are crying while their bellies are full.

Most "executives" are morons

[Taco Cowboy]

I am an American, but I was not born inside America. I am a naturalized American - so I think I might have something to add to this H1-B debate.

First of all, the entire H1-B scheme is ludicrous but it was a necessity, because the immigration system for America is totally fucked up.

What America needs (and what the world needs) are talents, *REAL* talents, but the American immigration laws have been fucked up, thanks to the liberals.

Now, as I have already mentioned, I am a *NATURALIZED* American citizen - which means, I also went through the official immigration channel to obtain my American citizenship. The only difference is that I got it some 30-odd years ago.

At that time, migrating to America wasn't easy - especially for non-Whites. One can say that it was "biased against the non-Whites" (if you prefer to look it that way) but what I see (and I have been through this) is that the process in that time, yes, *VERY TOUGH* for Asians, but that had a very strange side effect --- *MOST OF THE ASIANS ACCEPTED AS CITIZENS BACK IN THOSE TIMES WERE REAL TALENTS*.

And after those Asians (me included) got their citizenships, they re-invest in the American society, starting businesses or invent new stuffs - and in the process, most of the Asians who obtained citizenship created *MORE JOBS FOR THE AMERICANS* after they have become citizens.

But as I said - the immigration system has been TOTALLY FUCKED UP - and it is so bad now that if one Tom, Dick, or Harry gets his citizenship he can legally *IMPORT* an entire *CLAN* into America.

Now I am not going to talk about other races who got into America - I am a Chinese, and I will only talk about Chinese.

Last time, most Chinese I know lived in Chinatown. Most of them worked very very hard, earned enough money and they put their second / third generations through college.

Today, most of the Chinese from back then, who still stay in America are professionals. They are bankers, doctors, engineers, lawyers, business persons, and so on.

Those Chinese are in contrast with the *NEW CROP* of Chinese who are coming into America.

Most of the new crop of Chinese who are going to America are *REJECTS* from China - in a way, I was a "reject from China" too, back then, but I digress - what I am saying is this --- these Chinese coming into America are not the typical hard working type, not those who can use their body as well as they use their mind.

I have seen with my own eyes how some of the new crops of Chinese immigrants into America are doing - they are abusing the welfare system.

Last time when I first came to America, the Chinese, even the very poor ones, refused to apply for any welfare aid, because to them, "welfare" means "beggars", and those Chinese preferred to work their ass off, day after day, struggling through lives with meager wages, and *STILL* refuse to apply for any kind of welfare aid.

The new crops of the Chinese immigrants to America ? Huh !

As soon as they are eligible for *any* kind of welfare aid, they make sure they get it, because, to them, if everybody is abusing the system, and if they don't, that would be *STUPID*.

No more dignity, everything comes down to "what I can get from the system", not "what I can contribute to the system".

Do *NOT* get me wrong, though.

As bad as the *NEW CROP OF CHINESE IMMIGRANTS INTO AMERICA*, they are still rated *AMONG THE MOST EFFECTIVE IMMIGRANTS*.

Which means, no matter how much these new crops of Chinese immigrants abusing the welfare system, they still end up contributing to the system *FAR MORE* than what they got from it.

As for other groups of immigrants, I have seen worse !

I have seen Muslims who came from Morocco or Egypt or Turkey or India or one of those "stan" countries have as many as 10 children.

Yes, TEN FUCKING CHILDREN !

And they have no work.

They do not need to.

The American welfare system *PAYS THEM WELL*. With their 10 children, they got all the money they get, p

Re:Most "executives" are morons

[WindBourne]

However, he is correct that the system is fucked up. We desperately need to change our immigration laws back to allowing only talented ppl (i.e. skills that we need), their immediate family (spouse and kids), and kill off the H1-Bs.

Re:Most "executives" are morons

[Megane]

because the immigration system for America is totally fucked up.

Would you mind elaborating in which ways you think it's fucked up? Seriously, you didn't make it clear and I would like to know your opinion on this.

Re:Most "executives" are morons

[Grishnakh]

He wasn't totally clear about it, but he pointed to several big problems:
1) the policy that one immigrant can bring in his entire extended family
2) policies that allow immigrants to come in and then get welfare benefits instead of contributing to the system
3) policies which don't seem to favor immigrants with talent whatsoever

Re:Most "executives" are morons

[tompaulco]

Ah, a political bigot. Thanks for putting that up front and saving me the effort of reading any more. Next you'll be telling us how Obama caused your erectile dysfunction.

Which is a shame, because his post was spot on. We used to import the best and brightest, and now we import whoever has a pulse and is willing to do the job for 20% less money.
The people that we used to import had PhDs, and had knowledge that was rare in the workforce. Now, we import people who do grunt work for which any number of unemployed Americans have the skill and knowledge to do.

Re:Most "executives" are morons

[WindBourne]

Well, the problem is that a family can bring a LOT more than just their immediate family. They are actually able to get the parents who can then sponsor THEIR kids (i.e. brothers/sisters of the original person). In addition, the original spouse, who may not have a job, is able to bring his/her parents, which leads to other motions.
And none of those ppl are required to speak english or have marketable skills.

Instead, we need to limit it to the immediate family of the person that is working. In addition, the kids can only come if they are below say age 16. After that age, they should be able to apply for themselves, etc (takes longer than 2 years to get here).
If you want to bring a brother/sister here, then find them a company that is in need of their skills and there are no Americans able to take the job at the prevailing wage rate (i.e. no using this to gut the wages).

Re:Most "executives" are morons

[Taco Cowboy]

Would you mind elaborating in which ways you think it's fucked up? Seriously, you didn't make it clear and I would like to know your opinion on this.

I am no lawyer. I am obviously *NOT* an immigration expert.

But I did leave some points in my previous comment ---

1. The current system allows *ONE* person who has a greencard (not even have to be a citizen) to import his parents.

And then his parents, when they got their greencards, can start importing their other children (the original person's siblings).

And that opens up the floodgate - those siblings (plural) can import their wives, their children, and their wives importing their own parents, and so on, and so forth, until *THE WHOLE CLAN* ended up on the American soil.

2. There is *NO* strict requirement for eligibility - be it IQ level or education or whatever.

Right now, the immigration laws allow people to get greencard *AS LONG AS THEY HAVE STAYED INSIDE AMERICA FOR X-NUMBER OF YEARS LEGALLY* and that *THEY HAVE A SPONSOR*.

Plus, with the Obama administration's tricks - we will be looking at a whooping 12 Million illegal migrants suddenly all become legal !

I am not against people who risked their lives travelling to America (most of them do) but I do have a problem with the government allowing a whooping 8-figure people (more than 10 million) to suddenly become legal.

3. America is running a *VERY SILLY* and *VERY DANGEROUS* "refugee program" --- and ending up importing *DANGEROUS REFUGEES* from Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen (you get my point).

Those people might be "refugees" but the *BELIEVE SYSTEM" they subscribe to --- that the *INFIDELS MUST CONVERT TO ISLAM OR DIE* --- clash violently with what America stands for (I am not talking about Islam vs Christianity - I am talking about FORCED CONVERSION UNDER THEOCRACY vs a SECULAR DEMOCRACY, which America supposed to be).

Do you guys know that *MANY* of the 2nd and 3rd generations of those "refugees" ended going back to Somalia / Yeman / North Africa / Pakistan-Afghanistan and *JOIN THE ISLAMIC TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS* ??

And that is *NOT* the worst thing --- those people have *THE RIGHT TO COME BACK TO AMERICA* as they were BORN in America - now, those are BATTLE-HARDENED ISLAMIC TERRORISTS we are talking about, and the LAWS can NOT prevent them from coming home, to America.

All these are the result of the TOTALLY FUCKED UP IMMIGRATION SYSTEM that the current America has.

Of course, there are many more equally important issues - but I will stop here so that this message won't go on for too long.

As for why I blame the Liberals for the fucked up ?

It was the Liberals who, being "bleeding hearts", decided that the immigrants have the right to "IMPORT THEIR FAMILIES" and that the refugees, *NO MATTER HOW FUCKING DANGEROUS THEY ARE*, are welcome to stay inside America.

Re:Most "executives" are morons

[bugs2squash]

H1B is not citizenship and I don't think one can naturalize under an H1B alone. I see the H1B as a good way to spread US influence among talented people and bring talented people into our workforce (there are never enough good people). As I see it, the system's biggest flaw is that it ties the employee to a single company. If someone qualifies for an H1B then the US has an interest in letting them move from company to company, it might curb some companies' abuse of the system.

Re:Most "executives" are morons

[Grishnakh]

It's worse. We have an immigration system that on one hand, brings in talented people in a way to exploit and discard them, yet on the other hand welcomes untalented people and their entire extended families and lets them live as moochers. We should be bringing in the best and brightest from other places and making it easy for them to stay here and contribute to our economy, and we should be trying to keep the worst and stupidest out.

Re:Most "executives" are morons

[oh_my_080980980]

You can't. A visa a temporary.

Re:Most "executives" are morons

[oh_my_080980980]

"Now, we import people who do grunt work for which any number of unemployed Americans have the skill and knowledge to do"

So people with H1B Visas do grunt work...wow....RTFA.

Re:Most "executives" are morons

[GoodNicksAreTaken]

This was modded flamebait but the parent was not? WTF! Parent complains about "whites" racism against Chinese with gross abuse of Caps Lock and then goes on a tirade against Muslims. It's okay to hate liberals and Muslims and use gross generalizations along with the epithet "stans" but simply stating that a person stopped reading when the parent started their irrelevant blaming is now flaimbait? As a decade plus lurker I'm well aware Slashdot hasn't been a serious news site in a long time but when did Slashdot get hijacked by idealogues? I thought we were all a little more open minded than that.

Re:Most "executives" are morons

[oh_my_080980980]

You might want to amend that, to say "...and depress wages." To say there is a shortage of qualified American is a lie. There are plenty of qualified Americans, it's just cheaper to higher temporary worker.

Re:Most "executives" are morons

[oh_my_080980980]

The bullshit coming from you is amazing. No Republican is talking about expanding green cards. They'll gladly hand out H1B Visas, because those are just temporary workers.

There are already illegal or undocumented workers living and working here. So the point is there are already part of our community. Making them legal residents changes nothing. But depriving Americans of jobs, e.g., engineering jobs, by importing H1B Visa workers causes unemployment, and is detrimental to our economy.

Re:Most "executives" are morons

[harrkev]

What is even better, there is a current push to welcome the immigrants who come here illegally. I can broadly classify people who want to come to the US into two categories:

1) people who go to the US embassy in their own country, fill out the forms, and wait patiently to get into the US. They try to do things the legal way.

2) People who do not care about the law or the system, and just smuggle themselves here, making their first act in America breaking the law.

Now, guess which one FWD.us believes should become citizens?

If I had my way, for every person in category 2 above that got deported, I would approve somebody from category 1 to enter the country. The net amount of immigrants stays the same, but we get the ones who actually respect the law.

Re:Most "executives" are morons

[AlphaWolf_HK]

What? That doesn't sound right at all. The H1-Bs are the skilled ones. I don't get why so many out there are opposed to H1-B but they think we need to blindly grant citizenship to the illegals who hop across the border. FWIW I support H1-B but am very much opposed to anchors that drop from the womb.

Re:Most "executives" are morons

[shutdown -p now]

We used to import the best and brightest, and now we import whoever has a pulse

It's the other way around, actually. Historically speaking, for most of US history, immigration to it was free for all. No visas, and getting citizenship was pretty much automatic after residing in the country and paying taxes for some time (like 1-2 years).

It gradually evolved into the present system from there, and on most stages of that process it was driven by xenophobia. First they restricted Chinese immigration - you know, the "yellow peril" who are stealing good men's jobs. Then racism raised its ugly head up high, and for a while only people of "Caucasian" descent could get citizenship at all (there was one known case of an educated Indian guy who successfully argued in court that, because he belongs to brahmin caste, that makes him "Aryan", which is basically Caucasian - but a few years down the line that decision was reversed, and they actually stripped his citizenship).

Re:Most "executives" are morons

[shutdown -p now]

The irony is actually that the present H1B system results in more lock-in if people try to immigrate. Let me explain.

If I'm an H1B with no intent of obtaining green card / citizenship, then my only obstacle to switching employees is finding another company that is willing to sponsor my H1B application. And even if I get laid off, I have some time (IIRC, it was about a month - not exactly much, but there's some wiggle room here) to find a new employer. So I can shop around for better wages etc.

On the other hand, if I'm H1B, and the company that hired me sponsors my green card application (which is the usual skilled immigration track for US), then, should I switch my employees, my green card filing is no longer valid. Basically, I have to start from scratch with the new employer sponsoring it. Given that a green card application queue today is literally several years long, and you basically get pushed back to the end of the queue if you have to re-file, this can be a major setback - the later in the game it happens, the bigger it is.

Re:Most "executives" are morons

[WindBourne]

H1B is a total disaster for America. The reason is that it is being used to bring down wages and simply outsource jobs.
Far better to offer visas for those with the needed skills, but require that they be paid at prevailing wages.

Re:Most "executives" are morons

[m00sh]

these Chinese coming into America are not the typical hard working type, not those who can use their body as well as they use their mind.

My Chinese friend says that there is no other person a Chinese hates than another Chinese, especially in the older generation.

They have nurtured an unconscious belief that white people are better than Chinese people. So, when a Chinese person sees another Chinese person, it is like looking into the mirror.

Re:Most "executives" are morons

[airdweller]

"Do you guys know that *MANY* of the 2nd and 3rd generations of those "refugees" ended going back to Somalia / Yeman / North Africa / Pakistan-Afghanistan and *JOIN THE ISLAMIC TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS* ??"
How many? 10? 20? 100? Out of how many millions?

Re:Most "executives" are morons

[airdweller]

I don't think he'll get it. If he could have, he would have by now.

Re:I don't *want* US workers

[Curunir_wolf]

I donate a LOT of money to FWD.us to try to get the H1-B limits increased. Why? Because while my company does do business in the US, I despise US workers - who are generally a bunch of self-important, entitled brats who think they are God's gift to development. The worst part? They are simply lazy. My God are Americans lazy. Show up at 8:45... leave at 4:15... hour and half lunch.. sitting around surfing the Internet all day while finding a few minutes here and there to do some work in between facebook posts.

And yet their output is still just as high in quantity and orders of magnitude higher in quality than anything that comes out of your 14-hour-day Bangalore sweatshop. I have to use 5 of those guys to do the work of 1 American developer, and it's still not a deal, because it has to be sent back 5 or 6 times for fixes just to reach the level of "barely acceptable".

You're still doing business in the US because there are still idiots that thing they're getting a deal. Boeing sure learned their lesson after their Dreamliner got grounded when the steaming pile of crap that HCL delivered was so bad they had to hire a whole new set of American developers to fix it. And yet, incredibly, after multiple failed projects like that which required total re-write to fix, HCL is somehow still getting work.

quality in outsourcing

[Anonymous Coward]

People frequently claim in slashdot that there is no quality in 3rd world software development. The problem I see as someone living in Brazil is that outsourcing firms limit their search for people that speaks english with fluency. And there are very few people that speaks english here.

The big picture

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole concept of "they stole our jobs!" is so short sighted and stupid.

As long as skilled workers enter the country the country as a whole benefits. It does not matter if they replace local workers or not. The skilled local workers will find employment elsewhere.
Jobs are also not static, it's not like there are 100 jobs and if 12 are taken by foreigners then there are only 88 left. Thinking in these categories is just ridiculous.
Jobs are dynamic and (with a time delay) are created by supply and demand. If 12 skilled people immigrate then these 12 people will spend their wages and increase demand for other jobs. They will productively add to the economy and the country as a whole benefits.
Getting as many skilled people as possible into the country while at the same time getting rid of as many unskilled people as possible should be the goal of employment politics. Which jobs they replace and whether locals could do these or not should not at all be a factor.

That being said there are pretty good arguments against H1B, mainly the "be a slave to the company that hired you" parts of it.
The ideal solution would be a work permit for anyone with a higher income than [factor bigger than 1 times average national income], no matter where they are from. In case of job loss they have one year to find a different job which still places them high enough above the average income or they have to leave the country.

Not a nice system, but efficient and it maximises benefits to the national economy. With the added benefit of not discriminating against anyone.

It's going to get much worse

[walterbyrd]

There are still good jobs for American tech workers, in America.

Just wait until we hit the next economic bump.

When wages really get depressed, Americans will stop studying for tech. Then US employers will point to the declining enrollment and scream that Americans are too stupid, and lazy, to study tech subject. The only answer will be to import more visa workers.

The more visa workers the US lets in, the more US workers will feel out of place in their own work environments. Then it will get easier to offshore tech jobs for even bigger savings. Then, due to technology transfer, foreign companies will take over - this is already happening in China.

If you think things are bad now, just wait for about ten years.
 

Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

A good amount of management salary is based on performence/ percentage of profits and stock options

That has been blatently untrue for years as boards practice "repricing" and back-dating of these ostensible stock options http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2007/1007/perspectives/p6.htm

Those practices of making stock options into can't-lose forms of compensation haved moved them squarely out of the category of "pay for performance".

Workers don't want to move where jobs are!

[Anonymous Coward]

Shortages of skilled labor happen because people don't want to move to states or locations where jobs are. When company has closed it's office in Illinois and offered jobs in Kentucky not one engineer signed up to move. Some went to CA some to FL and most took a pay-cut and stayed in Illinois.

Everyone will have different reason why they didn't want to live in Kentucky but for few of my friends with kids it was school system. Businesses settle where taxes are low or where they they get most tax incentives which means states that, to keep taxes low and spend little for social services (like education, medical). And, other states are too religious for people with science degree.

Re:Workers don't want to move where jobs are!

[mikael]

Every discussion about the best places to work has always brought up the following: the size of homes, property taxes, quality of education, gang crime, homeless levels, commute times as well as political and religious beliefs.

Businesses will also locate to where there are the most qualified workers at the lowest rate.

Not them actually

[dbIII]

It was driven by groups representing medical specialists lobbying the Liberal Party and was actually against the wishes of the AMA. The person who made the decision to cut training numbers was the Minister of Health, Dr Michael Wooldridge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Wooldridge). A bit of a "character". He got into a little bit of trouble when he redirected the funding for rural specialists into funding for a building that was to be his new workplace after he left politics and the Prime Minister (John Howard) had to step in to reverse the situation, so in the end there was nothing for him to do jail time for. He's been in up to his neck in dodgy investment schemes, may soon be banned from managing companies (the penalty hearing will begin early next year (http://www.asic.gov.au/asic/asic.nsf/byheadline/13-339MR+Prime+Trust+directors+found+to+have+breached+duties?openDocument)) and recently sold his services to the anti-windmill lobby.
Successive health ministers did not revert the training numbers back up to the earlier level until a change of government so Australia was left with a shortage of doctors that will take years to make up.

Re:Not them actually

[mikael]

MP's in Scotland did the same with dentistry. They closed the Edinburgh dental school because in the MP's words "it looked a bit tatty". Over time this led to a shortage of NHS dentists because they all moved into private sector because of the opportunity to earn more money.

Get used to it

[smchris]

Everybody I hang with in Minnesota loves Klobuchar. She has that nerd girl with glasses look and does photo ops out bicycling with the family. Probably eats granola. Always AWOL on any serious issue where anybody might have a different view so she'd have to defend herself on a reelection, she's always present for the photo op when she brings some tax money back for a women's shelter or something. In other words, the definitional example of a pork barrel populist. My point being that people in Minnesota who consider themselves Democrats and "progressive" seem happy with her _image_, so don't expect any blow back on this _issue_. And it highlights the embarrassing point that Democrats aren't much deeper than FOX Republicans.

Re:Get used to it

[HBI]

Democrats aren't any deeper than FOX Republicans.

FTFY. Half a lifetime in New Jersey was enough education on that score.

Depressingly, the government is actually better in red states - polite junkyard personnel, DMVs that don't suck, simpler tax forms, etc. Entirely counter-intuitive but also entirely true.

Re:Get used to it

[the eric conspiracy]

The DMV in New Jersey was fine before Christie was elected. Since election he put through a series of budget cuts that have de-staffed the DMV to the point where you can count on long lines and excruciating service.

There is an interesting map regarding economic class mobility by state that I think is the ultimate reason why you don't want a Republican state government.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...

The big lie is that Republicans want to encourage class mobility. The truth is that wherever they are in power the opposite happens.

Re:Get used to it

[HBI]

I moved out before Christie was elected, so I can't comment, except to indicate that Florio's DMV of the early 90s was the worst I experienced there. I know that the circa 2007 NJ DMV was worse than Georgia's or Texas' or Minnesota's. But it's better than the MD DMV is. Ugh.

Re:Get used to it

[the eric conspiracy]

The worst period for the NJ DMV was after Whitman outsourced it in 1994.

It was so bad you had to line up before opening to get served before 4PM when they shut down. They didn't care if there were people who had been there 8 hours - at 4 they just walked away. I actually know people who had to wait all day multiple times to finally get served.

Christie wanted to go back to outsourcing but fortunately the legislature refused to agree because the previous time outsourcing was tried it was a complete disaster.

Replace Congress with H-1Bs

[kcdoodle]

Lets issue another 535 H-1B visas, take the first 535 people off of the streets in New Delhi and replace congress with them.

I bet they would come to every session, special investigation, ad-hoc committee and all have perfect attendance. They would probably do a MUCH BETTER job, since there would be little in-fighting, and they would not be indebted to some controlling political group.

Just a thought...

Re:Replace Congress with H-1Bs

[the eric conspiracy]

I guess you have no knowledge of the Indian Parliament.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-...

Re:I don't *want* US workers

[Anonymous Coward]

Your nationalistic outrage is as predictable as it is steeped in false premise. Saying that the quality of work out of Asia is generally poor is a complete myth.

I work in the finance department....

[GoodBuddy]

.... and we have lots of H1-B workers. I've never understood why there is a critical shortage of accounting personnel.

meanwhile...

[tatman]

Americans looking for work remain unemployed.

Re:3rd world wages in a country with 1st world pri

[EmagGeek]

Median earnings of lawyers in the US: $113,530
Median earnings of engineering MBAs in the US: $124,870

Why wouldn't we want a country packed with people earning 6-figure incomes?

How about third-world salaries for management?

[Squidlips]

Corporate greed is what is behind this; nothing more.

Re:I don't *want* US workers

[Curunir_wolf]

Your nationalistic outrage is as predictable as it is steeped in false premise. Saying that the quality of work out of Asia is generally poor is a complete myth.

1 - Bangalore is not in Asia.

2 - Saying US workers are lazy goes far beyond myth into the realm of demonstrably blatant falsehood.

3 - "nationalistic outrage" has nothing to do with it. But dealing with cheap labor sold as talented but demonstrating below acceptable levels of competence, spending time fixing all this crap because management won't pay what actual skilled developers demand, while depressing my salary to the point that I'm taking on side jobs and working 12 hours a day to keep up with increasing costs and then being told I'm lazy - yea, that generates a bit of outrage.

agreed - Social Network Movie too soft

[peter303]

The movie made AMrk look like a better person than he is.

My experience with the H1b

[Anonymous Coward]

Anecdotally I can say there are definitely legitimate vacancies US tech companies have that can't be filled by US workers.

My girlfriend being American, I looked for jobs with US companies likely to sponsor visas. I was lucky enough to get interviews and offers from two large cloud providers. I have a linux HPC sysadmin background and these were similar devops roles. Unfortunately after my immigration petitions were looked at by the firms immigration attorneys, they found I would not qualify for the visa as my education was considered vocational and my experience did not make up the difference.

In my view, the visa is a pain in the ass for a regular company and they would only go ahead if there was a real need. They need to fly me in for site interviews, pay up to $10,000 for the law firm to put together a visa, then research and pay me above the prevailing wage. And after this there is a good chance I will miss out on the lottery. All going well I wouldn't be able to start until Oct 1 anyway. Frankly, I'm surprised they bother.

Instead I may just be working from London, in the same role, where I can easily get a visa. This has the same outcome of "taking an american job", without the whole, living there, paying taxes, buying stuff.

Wrong question

[goodmanj]

Ask not, "why are the lion's share of visa quotas going to offshore companies?" Ask, "why are there visa quotas?"

America's rise to become a great nation was driven by unlimited immigration. Let everybody in. Everybody.

Re:Wrong question

[the eric conspiracy]

We don't have hundreds of millions of square miles of fertile undeveloped land any more. There just isn't a need for indiscriminate immigration any more.

The first immigration laws were passed in the 1870's, long before America achieved her current status as a superpower.

And it affects non-americans too

[Shados]

The argument about local workers being displaced aside...its a slap in the face for foreign workers who can't get an H1B and are actually the original target audience for those visas.

I have friends who Canada with credentials up the wazoo, who have been working on TN1 visas for a bit, and want something more permanent. Those are 150-300k/year jobs (lead software engineers and architects) that aren't easy to fill outside of California.

And they have to hit the lottery like anyone else, and more likely than not they won't get their H1B...and so they have to stick with TN or looking for an american to marry =P

Not cool.

A modest proposal

[RogueWarrior65]

Why doesn't Zuckerberg take what amounts to beer money for him and give out a few hundred full four-year scholarships for STEM programs to native-born Americans? He could take the interest alone (at 1%) for one year on his net worth and foot the bill for probably a thousand students.

Re:A modest proposal

[PPH]

Because that amounts to Zuck training his replacement,

Not in the sense you suggest. Zuckerberg is secure in his job, as are the other higher-ups in any company. The problem with funding the education of Americans is that they won't go back home with their OTJ training like H-1B employees do. And provide your company with the offshore resource to relocate your business.

Zuckerberg wants more H-1B visas so he can move his operations offshore. He's not so much training your replacement on an individual basis as working towards moving the whole code monkey department.

At last, an expert!

[Primate Pete]

1 - Bangalore is not in Asia.

Well okay, but I'm only listening to your other two points because you clearly know the details of your subject.

What does FWD.us stand for?

[GameboyRMH]

Facebook's Wealth Demands Unlimited Slaves

How can this be "RACIST" ?

[Taco Cowboy]

I see how this is insightful, but rather racist

I just do not understand you guys anymore.

Why are you guys looking at things at the *RACE* level instead of the level of what the American society REALLY NEEDS ?

As I have told you guys I am a Chinese, I used the experiences of the Chinese community in America as an example.

Is that "racist" to you ?

Furthermore, when I talk about the danger American society will face in the future because of the infiltration of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of those who subscribe to the "Infidel must convert or die" ideology - I am *NOT* talking about any *ONE RACE*.

Geeesh, guys/gals ! Please gimme a very BIG fucking break !!

Re:How can this be "RACIST" ?

[oh_my_080980980]

No, you're not racist....*eye roll* you are hardly looking at what America needs. If you did you would know that there are qualified people looking for work that companies aren't hiring. It's easier to get a H1B Visa as opposed to hire an American. There people people who could be trained easily enough but no one wants to do it. You know the guy who's an Oracle DBA but the company runs SQL Server. Lots of unemployed programmers and engineers looking for work but corporation would rather hire temp people from India....nice.

A talent with an entire *CLAN* tagging on ...

[Taco Cowboy]

... is no talent at all.

We *MUST* look at this matter at the level of *WHAT AMERICA NEEDS* and not what kind of talents that we might lose if we do not allow them to import the entire clan with him/her...

Even a primary school child can tell you that if you have to sacrifice so much for ONE thing that ONE thing must be more valuable than all the sacrifice you have put forth.

By importing an entire of his clan into America - that "talent" better be 100 times more smarter than Einstein, and if he/she is not, then, we can do with that that individual.

That is all to it.

Re:A talent with an entire *CLAN* tagging on ...

[oh_my_080980980]

Because you can't find that here...wow.....move along Bessie...

Re:A talent with an entire *CLAN* tagging on ...

[WindBourne]

Spot on taco. Spot on. Besides, they get to bring their family. Their immediate family. The problem comes when it is extended and they have no skills.

Care to compare USA vs India innovations?

[walterbyrd]

Take a look at the history of technology over the last 150 years.

It is absolutely no contest what-so-ever. USA absolutely slams India, and easily holds it's own against anybody else.

Funny how such stupid, lazy, people can do that - especially in computer technology. When it comes to computer technology, practically every major innovation has come from the west, with the USA way out-innovating everybody else. Look at the major tech companies: Apple, Microsoft, Cisco, HP, IBM, Intel, and so on down the list, how many were started in India?

So-called "technology companies" in India are just staffing companies. Any actual technology they have, they bought.

I am not saying that people in other countries are not smart, or hard working. But mountains of evidence clearly show that Americans are no slouches either.

Two kinds of H1-Bs

[poached]

Why do people consistently forget that there are two kinds of H1-Bs and mix them up in the same context all the time.

You have the 65,000 for the foreign workers.
And there is the 20,000 for U.S. educated graduate students.

Facebook, MSFT, Google, etc want the U.S. educated foreigners. They are usually better and are better to work with because they have had 1.5 to 5 years of acclimatization. The 65,000? Run hard if it's one in the 65,000 who also got a U.S. MBA, which just reinforces their "I deserve this" attitude, plundering jobs from the U.S. while hiring more H1-Bs.

We can do without the 65,000.

And even 20,000 might be too much. That's the number of student enrolled in 8 elite Ivy league schools, combined, each year. source

Not from what I have seen, or read

[walterbyrd]

> My God are Americans lazy. Show up at 8:45... leave at 4:15... hour and half lunch

Funny about the articles claiming that programmers are being forced to work 80 to 110 hours a week - and for no overtime pay. I guess all those articles are outright lies, right?

Funny that Sillie Vally execs got a law passed stating that tech workers - just tech workers - do not get OT pay ever. Why lobbie for such a law, when US developers are only working six hour days?

BTW: I have worked in IT for over 30 years, I have worked for over a dozen companies, as well as the federal government. I have never seen the type of situation that you describe. Never - not once.

Donate to NumbersUSA

[walterbyrd]

I wish there was a better organization to fight against the visa worker scam, but I don't think there is.

NumbersUSA is about 90% dedicated to fighting illegal immigration from Mexico, and about 10% dedicated to fighting against the visa worker scam. But, they do more than any other organization that I am aware of.

In DC: money talks and BS walks. Techies need to organize, and raise enough money to lobbie congress. Like it, or not, that is how things get done in the USA.

1) Temporary visa workers are not immigrants

[walterbyrd]

2) India alone has 4X the US population, and China has 5X times the US population, and the US already has an unsustainable number of immigrants from Mexico. Clearly, we cannot let in everybody in the world who wants to live here.

3) US students, and workers, are going to eventually ask: "why bother studying tech, or working in tech, when there is no way to compete with 3rd world wages." When that happens, the US loses it's technology edge, and that will lead to an economic nose dive.

4) Other countries will learn our technologies, and use that knowledge to create their own companies. When they have the trained workers, and they have the technology, then who needs the USA? This is already happening in China.

5) The overwhelming number of immigrants are not great scientists, or engineers. In fact, a huge number of welfare recipients. During earlier immigration waves, we were not a welfare state. Now about 47% of the population get some kind of government assistance.

6) The techie visa workers, are usually no great scientists, or engineers either. They are just the grunts of the tech world. We already have the O-1 visa for the truly gifted.

Re:1) Temporary visa workers are not immigrants

[shutdown -p now]

While H1B is a "non-immigrant visa" in theory, it's dual intent - meaning that you can apply for green card while on it (which is much easier when your employer sponsors you for that), and not get immediately booted out of the country. So for a lot of people, H1B is, indeed, their immigration track.

Maybe all us in demand programmers will leave the

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm looking to leave the USA, it's too fucked-up here. Seems everyone want programmers and they are starting to make it easier for us to immigrate.

Problem is with Cargill, not with US workers

[walterbyrd]

If Cargill does not hire correctly, or manage correctly, that should be their problem. It is not fair to blame their bad management on all US tech workers.

I have worked in IT for over 30 years. I can tell you that there are plenty of competent, and hard working, US techies.

There are already plenty of US STEM workers

[walterbyrd]

That has been proved over, and over again.

Even if there were not enough US workers, all you would have to do is create good jobs, and you could be 100% certain that US workers would train for those jobs. No shortage of US students competing for med school.

Re:There are already plenty of US STEM workers

[RogueWarrior65]

So then why does Zuckerberg desperately want to hire foreign workers? If he really needs workers and can't find the skills he needs with US workers, then they aren't being trained in currently marketable skills (I believe that based on personal experience) and he should fund training for the skills he needs which would take less money and time than a four-year college program. If he needs workers but doesn't want to pay what Americans are willing to work for then he's no different than every other company that outsources to China or wherever and any claims of altruism are total B.S.

Re:Bullshit, squared

[ebusinessmedia1]

In addition, what we have seen is the wholesale undermining of one facet of production - i.e. labor. When labor becomes a unit of focus for reduction, it reduces the size of the consuming public. ..."That is the nature of a system. Unintended consequences result from too narrow a focus on a single subsystem. In this case wages, taken in isolation. Context in systems matter. Reducing wages has local and systemic impacts. Balance matters. Don’t undermine the social safety net at the same time you lower wages unless you want to create a larger underclass. Many people today never thought that they would fall into that underclass. Maybe, eventually, even you." (this quote taken from a comment in a forum on the impact of robots, from the website Naked Capitalism - it's apropos, because importing more H1-Bs is just one more step to eliminating labor as an equation, in production. http://www.nakedcapitalism.com...

What's galling is that Mark Zuckerberg continues to be a focus of accolades, but his FWD.us PAC represents Zuckerberg, yet again, as the sleaze that he shamelessly continues to prove he has always been. I know it's untoward to attribute unflattering adjectives to someone whom one disagrees with, but Zuckerberg continues to show how two-faced, lying, and hypocritical he really is. I wonder where he sits on a sociopathy scale. How is it that this guy and the groups that support his FWD.us shenanigans (re: the H1-B issue) are considered honorable, given their blatant distortions around the issue of (i.e. their outright lies about) the non-existant shortage of STEM workers in America.

Sure, this may have helped some H1-Bs improve their lot, but it has also helped to decimate the lives of many individuals that get aced out of work by H1-B workers who are not as qualified to do the work. Go ask anyone who has worked with H1-Bs in quantity. By and large, the quality isn't there; the curiosity isn't there; the talent isn't there; and, oddly, the so-called "education" isn't there, because H1-Bs regularly distort their qualifications.

In fact, the Indian government helps in this distortion game because it's too corrupt to find genuine ways to expand opportunity in India. The whole thing stinks, from corrupt Indian politicians, the Zuckerberg's lying, smiling persona, to the corrupt corporate executives and American legislators that continue to game the American worker, and American middle class.

Moving to "all work is grunt work"

[Rob Y.]

Judging from the outsourcing job that's been done on my company, the motivating philosophy behind it is that, with enough formalization of the 'process', all work is grunt work. This is horribly untrue. The Indian outsourcers that got all our software dev jobs are pretty good at process. The problem is they're really bad at actually programming. And the turnover is horrendous. Apparently they think that training developers to work on a large, complex system is also just a 'process'. Problem is, they're not very good at that one.

Re:I don't *want* US workers

[turgid]

Boeing sure learned their lesson after their Dreamliner got grounded when the steaming pile of crap that HCL delivered was so bad they had to hire a whole new set of American developers to fix it.

HCL also managed to completely derail the development of Xerox's next-generation A3 "multifunction devices" (copiers). A few months later, Wim Appelo, the genius who masterminded it all, mysteriously resigned from Xerox...

What astounds me is that these outsourcing deals are still being made despite the total lack of success of any of them in the last 20 years. Just ask anyone who's been involved below VP level. It always ends in tears.

Re:I don't *want* US workers

[turgid]

Why? Because while my company does do business in the US, I despise US workers - who are generally a bunch of self-important, entitled brats who think they are God's gift to development. The worst part? They are simply lazy. My God are Americans lazy. Show up at 8:45... leave at 4:15... hour and half lunch.. sitting around surfing the Internet all day while finding a few minutes here and there to do some work in between facebook posts.

Is that you, Vineet Nayar? Racial prejudice against Westerners is OK, is it?

You go around telling the executives of big businesses that their staff are lazy, spoilt, expensive and unproductive and that you have a magic silver bullet to cure the problem: hoards of young, enthusiastic (naieve and exploitable hungry and poor) Indians with fantastic educations willing to do the work for a fifth of the cost of the Western staff! And it's all under the world's most modern management! They're empowered!

How could it possibly fail?

Because it's only half true. They may be young, hungry and ambitious, dazzled by Western corporate brands and desperate to make an impression but they are straight out of college, have no experience, are learning everything from scratch, posted to a foreign country on meager living expenses away from their families for months at a time. They are expected to acquire institutional and professional knowledge from large teams of mature professional engineers in a handful of weeks and to be productive straight away.

Every corner is cut. Design? No. Testing? No. Compiling code? No (you really have to experience this to believe it). Unit tests? Why bother, we are super-Indians and never make mistakes like you stupid fat, lazy westerners... And that would take time.... Documentation? No. Listening to instructions? No (just smile and nod and ignore).

And the company has no interest in delivering more "value" than the bare minimum to maximise its profit and future income stream.

And we're starting work on a similar project for one of your major competitors. No, of course none of the knowledge we gained from your project will be used in your competitor's project...We promise. We are professional and world-class.

With CEOs you're paying for connections, not work.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

They can start with the CEO's, who are the most globally uncompetitive. ... go to Canada and get a CEO for about 5% the cost of a US one.

With US CDOs you're not paying for work. You're paying for being politically connected. This is mainly connections to financing sources - the closer to the FED, the more financing you can get and the less you pay for it. But it's also about being able to influence governnent policy and lawmaking. There's also being able to recruit people for other executive suite positions. Then there's managing news coverage: Setting stock market expectations so you can continually exceed them, not getting smeared, getting publicity that encoruages people to buy the product rather than trash the company, and so on.

Actually running the company comes in maybe fourth or lower.

Re:Very bad...

[shutdown -p now]

Sure, so why not ask the actual H1Bs?

I, for one, can tell you that, looking at GlassDoor, I earn more than the average in my area for my position, for 5 years now.

Re:Immigration not H1B

[shutdown -p now]

We should only allow people to work in the U.S. if they are ready to renounce citizenship to their home country and become a citizen of the U.S.

As an H1B, I'd sign up for that in a heartbeat, but it's simply not an available option. One can apply for a green card while on H1B (and I did), but this takes years. Then there's the diversity lottery (and I participate in that, too), but that one is, well, a lottery.

FWIW, and this is purely anecdotal, but every single H1B that I know, myself included, has applied for a green card as soon as they could. Granted, all of H1Bs that I know are in major tech companies like MS, Google and Amazon.

When is Enough, Enough?

[LifesABeach]

How much more? When will the House stop these Billionare Entitlements that Zuckerberg, and Tata throw in our faces?

Re:Immigration not H1B

[poached]

I wish it is a law for H1B employers to disclose the percentage of their company who are on H1B visas. I don't have a problem with foreigners, per se, but I don't trust that the reverse is not true - that those H1Bs are not going to bring their old world rivalries and discrimination against me. Especially with most of the H1Bs coming from the same country, India, there is a strong monoculture forming in these places that I would rather avoid. Interviews don't really tell the whole story because they can always select who they want you to meet during the brief time you have there.

Re:Immigration not H1B

[shutdown -p now]

H1B applications (both granted and denied) are public record, actually. Here is one source for the most recent numbers - you can drill into any specific company for more details.

(There's probably some govt run website somewhere that has all that info, too. Haven't really looked.)

Blunt instrument

[dbIII]

That means any exports that have an imported component are at a disadvantage in comparison with other places. Protectionism is a blunt instrument that hurts while it is trying to help.
Are you guys starting to get the point that successful governments tend to feed across a wide range of an economy instead of hitting one area hard and killing the golden goose?

Re:Blunt instrument

[mrchaotica]

That means any exports that have an imported component are at a disadvantage in comparison with other places.

Ok, so give a tax rebate for exporting then.

Re:Blunt instrument

[dbIII]

See now? Simplistic tax systems suck for those that are stuck paying for everyone else so things get more complex than "pay for a huge military and everything else by making importers pay for the lot".

Re:Immigration not H1B

[poached]

It doesn't look like country of origin is a required disclosure and I don't think companies voluntarily discloses information that it doesn't need to.

http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/co...

Re:Very bad...

[airdweller]

"don't pay U.S. Federal income tax"
Are you sure? I thought everyone living in the US and earning money was supposed to pay the income tax.

Re:I don't *want* US workers

[airdweller]

Why not just move your whole business to Bangalore? You wouldn't have to bring in all that talent into the US and it'd obviously be even cheaper for you.

Re:Immigration not H1B

[shutdown -p now]

I suspect that country of origin would fall under the various anti-discrimination laws.

Not generally a Scam - but a fair trade

[big1rich]

Not a scam. There are bad eggs everywhere, and no doubt there are companies that abuse the system. HOWEVER, accepting an H1-B position at a lower salary than US Person (citizen or permanent resident) peers is more than reasonable. After all, you are trading some salary for the privilege of a path to Permanent Residency and eventually citizenship. US Persons hire on with bad companies all the time. If you're being abused by your hiring company, sue the bums; the bigger the company, the higher the odds of getting a firm to take on your case with payment out of damages. But don't whine about lower salary. It's part of the deal with most companies - and it's a deal in which zillions of your peers back home would LOVE to replace you.

Re:Not generally a Scam - but a fair trade

[Quixoticah]

But, that's illegal. And I don't at all agree that it's fair to displace equally (and often higher) skilled people in their home country. I myself was displaced from a 7 year position this week as a result of a contract from an Indian company that simply dumped cheap, unskilled foreign IT labor into a US-based Fortune 500 company. They were in no way qualified to take over my role and I had to train my replacement from square one. (A large and recent example of H1-B abuse: http://www.justice.gov/usao/tx...)

Well it could be a fair trade.

[mtthwbrnd]

So these guys work for 6 years and then get a green card. Do all of the people working for their green card feel scammed? Or are they happy when they fnally get their green card? The real solution to the problem is to not use foreign labour at all but instead to invest in our own people to do these jobs and then start exporting the output of the industry to other countries. But hey, that would be too simple, so let's exploit Indian's and fail to invest in our own citizens. Let's see where it gets us 20 years from now when the only expertise we have left is in lining up at the benefits office.