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Congress Will Consider Proposal To Raise H-1B Minimum Wage To $100,000 (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: President-elect Donald Trump is just a week away from taking office. From the start of his campaign, he has promised big changes to the US immigration system. For both Trump's advisers and members of Congress, the H-1B visa program, which allows many foreign workers to fill technology jobs, is a particular focus. One major change to that system is already under discussion: making it harder for companies to use H-1B workers to replace Americans by simply giving the foreign workers a raise. The "Protect and Grow American Jobs Act," introduced last week by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. and Scott Peters, D-Calif., would significantly raise the wages of workers who get H-1B visas. If the bill becomes law, the minimum wage paid to H-1B workers would rise to at least $100,000 annually, and be adjusted it for inflation. Right now, the minimum is $60,000. The sponsors say that would go a long way toward fixing some of the abuses of the H-1B program, which critics say is currently used to simply replace American workers with cheaper, foreign workers. In 2013, the top nine companies acquiring H-1B visas were technology outsourcing firms, according to an analysis by a critic of the H-1B program. (The 10th is Microsoft.) The thinking goes that if minimum H-1B salaries are brought closer to what high-skilled tech employment really pays, the economic incentive to use it as a worker-replacement program will drop off. "We need to ensure we can retain the world's best and brightest talent," said Issa in a statement about the bill. "At the same time, we also need to make sure programs are not abused to allow companies to outsource and hire cheap foreign labor from abroad to replace American workers." The H-1B program offers 65,000 visas each fiscal year, with an additional 20,000 reserved for foreign workers who have advanced degrees from US colleges and universities. The visas are awarded by lottery each year. Last year, the government received more than 236,000 applications for those visas.
I'm not a big fan of Trump, but if he actually delivers on this campaign promise (even if it's just scrawling his signature on the bill and then taking all the credit in speeches) that will be a good thing for me and most employed people on slashdot.
Is there any way this is a bad thing? H1B was supposed to be for bringing in essential foreign talent. If a company isn't willing to pay $100k per year plus the various expenses, whoever they are bringing it must not have been all that talented.
The goal of the H1B program is supposedly to bring talent to this country that simply cannot be had otherwise. Talent like that should be rare and paid accordingly.
$100,000 is still too low. I'd say $300,000, but I'm open to an auction system too. The auction method would need a quota, and the other could safely be open ended.
See that "Preview" button?
My graduate program is chock full of unqualified "fresher" Indians looking to exploit the Masters degree loophole.
Best and the brightest? Don't make me laugh.
Also, give holders more flexibility in changing jobs without losing the visa, make the system a path to citizenship, and prevent new visas from being created if previous holders are unemployed. Essentially prevent jobs from using the visa to control workers while suppressing wages or constantly churning through new candidates.
We have a winner. Sorry Slashdot. Realistically you can't be all conservative and gong ho Libertarian like most all and so that is the market wage yada yada with other people's jobs including minimum wage hikes or automation stories with posts about increasing demands for robots ..... then cry WANNA UNFAIR.
I am not saying I agree with this. But rather I want to state economic reality. If you put in artificial caps the market will respond appropriately and negatively. Our version of robots taking over is to give Phreej a root account and have him do the work in Bangalore.
I think this will surely bring more jobs overseas than protect them. Limits on H1B1 visas sure but 100k is quite excessive as not all IT jobs are frankly worth 100k. Yes someone needs to administer a database or do Active Directory infrastructure support and work. These are solid middle class jobs that are not super specialized anymore.
http://saveie6.com/
To be so bad at your job that you're terrified of 80,000 non-native English speakers (out of a workforce of 160m) who generally tend to work in growth industries. If you can't beat out an Indian making 60k, maybe the problem isn't them, it's you.
The problem is all the big companies shit on the small and medium sized ones. Gee with the rampant corruption and unlimited campaign contributions just who do you think will get those lovely cheap workers?
Also many are Doctors and Engineering professionals and not just helpdesk sweatshops.
How the can smaller guy compete with the big houses then for projects at companies when they can offer the same service for 1/2 the price due to cheaper labor?
The solution is to charge 25% above the average market value by county which keeps statistics for job titles. Let's say that Sr Unix admin is worth $125,000 a year in San Jose? The H1B1 visa holder can do the job but by law has to pay $156,260. A Sr. Unix Admin in rural Texas is worth $70,000 a year? Hire an H1B1 Visa for $87,500.
The doctors can still come here with no limit. Since they are specialists mostly they already charge $250,000 a year so the extra cost won't prohibit hospitals from hiring these doctors which America desperately needs which I think most slashdotters agree is what the Visa program was originally for
http://saveie6.com/
These are solid middle class jobs that are not super specialized anymore.
If they're not super specialized it shouldn't be an issue to find someone locally to do it for less than $100k. The H1B program was supposed to be for filling those really difficult to fill jobs.
And if you truly can't find anyone to do it locally, then it should be worth $100k to you.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Easiest mistake to make is misunderstanding that offshoring is NOT a apples for apples replacement and it does require unique skills and new expense to make it work.
There are plenty of offshore firms who have successful relationships with US companies. Select one of these firms and try them out. If it fails, it's probably you.
Or your "corporate recruiter" screened out the Americans, folks over 40, etc......