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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."
Management still doesn't understand why you pay for talent.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
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.
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?
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.
... 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.
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?
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Have you seen http://www.h1bwage.com/ ?
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.
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.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
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.
Why is Snark Required?
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.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
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
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
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.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
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.
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".
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...
- I live the greatest adventure anyone could possibly desire. - Tosk the Hunted
Americans looking for work remain unemployed.
I've always said English was my second language. Had Romeo and Juliet been written in C, I might have understood it.
Corporate greed is what is behind this; nothing more.
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.
... 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.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
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
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.
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.