IEEE-USA Criticizes Failure To Reform The H-!B Program (ieee.org)

Slashdot reader Tekla Perry writes: IEEE USA says H-1B visas are a tool used to avoid paying U.S. wages. "For every visa used by Google to hire a talented non-American for $126,000, ten Americans are replaced by outsourcing companies paying their H-1B workers $65,000," says the current IEEE USA president, writing with the past president and president-elect. The outsourcing companies, Infosys, Cognizant, Wipro, and Tata Consultancy in 2014 "used 21,695 visas, or more than 25 percent of all private-sector H-1B visas used that year. Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Uber, for comparison, used only 1,763 visas, or 2 percent," they say.
On Friday, IEEE-USA also issued a new criticism about the lack of progress in reforming the H-1B program, saying "At least 50,000 Americans will lose their jobs this year because the president has yet to fulfill the promise he made to millions who voted for him."

Comments

The Question

[drinkypoo]

HB, or H not B. That is the question

Locals preferred ?

[Kohath]

Genuine question here. Companies are supposed to hire local people if they are available and H1Bs only when there are no qualified locals. The question is:

Have any of you ever been hired instead of an H1B because you are local? Have you ever heard of a situation where a company wanted to hire an H1B but ended up having to hire a local person instead because of this requirement?

In my experience, the idea that H1Bs only get hired if there are no locals available is complete fiction. Has anyone ever seen this rule help a local person get a job instead of an H1B?

Re:Locals preferred ?

[Junta]

If they want to do it, they can do it.

So company A wants to downsize and replace with cheaper workers. If a company get H1Bs, then very shortly lays off people, then it's a flag.

So instead they outsource to company B. So far, they are playing by the rules. Company B has bid to provide the work cheaper than doing it in house.

Now company B says "I need some talent, I don't have enough staff', then *they* can claim there are no available local talent for what they need (for some *very* narrow definition, like 'software programmer ii' or something). They don't have layoffs to explain. When they are not your existing employees, it's easier to try to paint the labor market as somehow not applicable to the positions.

Re:Locals preferred ?

[Kohath]

That's why the requirement to hire locals first seems to be largely fictional. Companies hire who they want to hire, not who they don't.

Re:Locals preferred ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Example:
Feb 2016
“Hertz is reportedly bound to lay off more than 250 IT professionals as the U.S. car rental company is outsourcing its IT service to IBM. Hertz says the deal will help it cut costs, free up resources, and focus on its core business. ...
According to Computer World, IBM’s Indian subsidiary has filed paperwork for numerous H-1B workers for a property in Oklahoma City. The property belongs to Hertz Technologies Inc., a Hertz subsidiary, says the tech magazine while citing government records."

Re:Locals preferred ?

[Kohath]

Understood. Any real counter-examples though? Any examples of companies breaking the rules and facing enforcement actions? Is "hire locals first" 25% fictional, or 80% fictional, or 99.9% fictional?

The "hire locals first" rule keeps getting brought up to defend the H1B program. I'd like to know how phony that argument is: partly, mostly, or entirely phony.

Re:Locals preferred ?

[hawguy]

Genuine question here. Companies are supposed to hire local people if they are available and H1Bs only when there are no qualified locals. The question is:

Have any of you ever been hired instead of an H1B because you are local? Have you ever heard of a situation where a company wanted to hire an H1B but ended up having to hire a local person instead because of this requirement?

In my experience, the idea that H1Bs only get hired if there are no locals available is complete fiction. Has anyone ever seen this rule help a local person get a job instead of an H1B?

My company always searches for local candidates and candidates in this country before looking for H1-B's -- hiring an H1B worker is hard, you have to interview them, decide to hire them, *then* wait month(s) to see if you can actually get them a visa. We've lost some really good candidates that either weren't able to get an H1-B in the lottery, or they just got tired of waiting for it to come through and they took a job locally.

Used as it's meant, the H1-B program is very valuable to american businesses and workers -- it helps businesses succeed by giving them the talent they need to start grow. My company was started by a team of 5 - one was an H1-B holder, 3 others were green card holders who previously held H1-B's (those three have since become US citizens), we've now grown to around 250 people, I think around 20% of our engineering team is made up of H1-B workers (all PhD's from well known schools, with degrees in the domain my company specializes in). We have a strong college recruitment program, traveling to about a half dozen USA colleges a year, but we can't find the senior staff we need from American universities alone. Due to my work on our HR system, I can verify that they are paid comparably to our american workers (not even taking into account the higher hiring costs due to the cost to get the visa, relocation costs, etc)

Without the H1-B program, I doubt this company would have ever been founded, or if it was, it would have been based in Europe where most of the founders were from. In fact, we're scouting around for a European office due to the uncertainty in the H1-B program, so we may curtail hiring in the USA as we build up a European engineering team.

Re:Locals preferred ?

[sgt_doom]

The federal regulation is that there can be NO oversight on the visa program --- that's right, it is illegal for the federal gov't to monitor the work visa program (see either the federal regs, or read Michelle Malkin's book, Sold Out --- and yes, I realize she is or was a conservative, but this book is definitely not in that realm).

Re:Locals preferred ?

[Kohath]

And no, statements about "searches" aren't really what I'm looking for. Designing a "search" with the objective to find zero "qualified" candidates is trivially easy.

Re:Locals preferred ?

[clay_buster]

When there are multiple applications for a job, we only interview H1Bs if there is no local US person applying who seem qualified.

I've never worked at a place where that was true. Generally a company creates an opening. Then they filter folks for some short period of time to meet the requirements. Then we spend the next 6 months interviewing only H1-Bs.

Re:Locals preferred ?

[sodul]

It is starting to happen ... I've seen recruiters in India reaching out to me for local Silicon Valley jobs. Considering 80% of the local recruiters reaching out to me don't even seem to have read my Resume/Profile, I cannot imagine how someone in a different continent can understand the roles. If the hiring company is too cheap to use recruiters in the US, how much do you think they will be willing to pay, and then how long before they send your job offshore? No, thank you.

Re:Locals preferred ?

[GlennC]

In my experience, it's 99.999% fictional.

The H-1B program is almost always used to replace local workers with lower-paid imported contractors. The next step is for the work to be sent offshore.

Re:Locals preferred ?

[Kohath]

The companies that I have worked for haven't used them that way. But there's no way a local could ever be hired for a position instead of an H1B if they'd already decided to hire the H1B. They decide on the person they want and then go through an exercise of pretending the job is open to locals. After keeping up the pretense for a while, they hire the H1B.

Re:Locals preferred ?

[hawguy]

And no, statements about "searches" aren't really what I'm looking for. Designing a "search" with the objective to find zero "qualified" candidates is trivially easy.

I don't know if you've ever done recruiting, but it's very time consuming, we don't search for a candidate if we're not looking for one.

When I say we search for a local candidate, we do a legitimate search, bring candidates in for interviews (flying them in if they are from out of area), and then if we don't find someone locally, we'll start interviewing potential H1-B's. If there's a qualified American candidate, there's no reason to take an H1-B over him (or her) -- it's not like we're saving any money with H1-B's -- the highly qualified individuals we hire know the market and won't let us undercut them on salary.

Re:Locals preferred ?

[sodul]

I never heard such nonsense. The definition of resident for tax purposes is different, than for immigration purposes, and an H1-B is not exempt from paying federal taxes. A long time ago, when I was on the J-1 program, I was exempted from social security withholdings and my taxes were rather very low since I was only an intern. As soon as I 'upgraded' to the H1-B status I had to pay full taxes like everyone else. I'm not even sure that a former H1-B is entitled to receive money from Social Security at retirement age if he left the country. Now ... if the H1-B left the country before he stayed 6 months during the given tax year ... then yeah I guess you could say that he could save on taxes, is there a spike of H1-Bs leaving in the weeks/days before July 1st each year? In any case if you leave the country after 6 months to avoid paying taxes, it is not trivial to come back.

Re:Locals preferred ?

[rtb61]

I do not understand the gullibility of US workers, seriously WTF? The rule should be hire locals first than if none are available THAN YOU FUCKING TRAIN THEM!!! Seriously what the fuck is the matter with you guys, not guts, no genitals, please sir may I have another, what the fuckity fuck fucking fuck. No one available, then pay to train them, user pays, what is wrong with you people. As the corporations demand from you, so you demand from the fucking corporations.

That's cute

[quonset]

At least 50,000 Americans will lose their jobs this year because the president has yet to fulfill the promise he made to millions who voted for him.

You thought Trump would fulfill his "promises"? Remember when he said he'd put Hillary in jail? How about when he said he wouldn't have time to go golfing because he'd be too busy working? Mexico paying for the wall? Draining the swamp?

Like so many others who voted for Trump, you've been conned.

Re:That's cute

[ccguy]

At least 50,000 Americans will lose their jobs this year because the president has yet to fulfill the promise he made to millions who voted for him.

You thought Trump would fulfill his "promises"?

I don't think he's going to deliver, but let's be serious, it's been less than 2 months.
Someone else was in office 8 years and didn't close Guantanamo.

But in general, I think anyone that promises "jobs" these days is just a liar or clueless.

Re:That's cute

[Anonymous Coward]

Job numbers are the same as previous years for February. All that's different is the spin.

> He can just use a Pen and a Phone to completely change everything.
So he needs the Congressional Republicans to sign off on not golfing 30% of the time? I've got to reread the Constitution it seems. Trump also has preposterously expensive travel habits. Remember how much money Obama "wasted" traveling? Add a zero.

Re:That's cute

[fluffernutter]

I recently read an article about his (every) weekend trip to West Palm Beach. He flies on Air Force One, after criticizing Obama for his use of it. Also he is costing taxpayers millions of dollars for makeshift security because of the crowds that gather, and the airport needs to close down for the entire weekend. He has cost something like 30 million dollars in additional police already.

Okay......

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I know that we mere mortals can't edit our posts (O The Horror) but for fuck's sake, can't the editors even correct a typo?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the word "editor" is based on the word "edit". That implies the ability to ummm, edit.

Is the ability to alter a post outside the lofty control of the Powers That Be?

Re:IEEE, your grandpa's club

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Everyone is 50+ with extremely outdated skillsets.

Having experience is a bad thing? Since when?

Also, understanding how things work is a skillset that will never go out of style. These guys knows things that you'll never, ever comprehend.

Now go back to guzzling Red Bull and coding your newest Tinder clone, dumbfuck.

People expect Trump to honor his promises?

[gweihir]

Whenever I think people cannot get any dumber, something like this is in the news. Expecting a pathological liar to keep promises is hard to top, but I am sure the idiots will find a way to do even dumber things.

Re:IEEE, your grandpa's club

[thinkwaitfast]

It's always a good idea to have a deep understanding of how hardware works when writing low level software. Like why you get an interrupt even when they are turned off or why your branches are doing what they're supposed to. Trying to debug faulty hardware, is a lot of fun, especially at the hardware level. Data spanning page boundaries are a lot of fun. And not every system in the world runs Intel. Quite the opposite is true.

Re:Why do you think that?

[gweihir]

After all, this is the guy who said, "Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated". Nobody knew? Really?

And yet, most of Europe just manages. Probably we are living in "alternate facts" here...

I can tell you about my experience. ..

[OneSmartFellow]

... training my replacement,  after I gave notice.

I am always looking for a new job,  anyone who isn't is a fool.

So, I was/am happily employed by a medium sized ,very high tech , company.  I'm a sys-integration guy, which means I used to be an very good developer, then got more interesting in the bigger picture.  Since I was never satisfied with my knowledge in any aspect of computing,  I became very good with OS fundamentals, networking,  file systems,  and all the other peripheral stuff associated with software development  (revision control,  ticketing, testing,  deployment, you name it,  I know about it )    So Integration came easy.

I  recently found a significantly better paying,  more interesting job, so gave notice.   My company hired an H1B to replace me.

He is useless.   After 3 weeks of fairly intensive OJT, he is still unable to even start to resolve the few minor problems that come up.

I have very,  very little faith that he will be able to take over for me.

I know for a fact that he is being paid less than half of what I am earning.  I  also know that totally qualified locals are available,  for about 85% of my rate.

So, I  have told him,  he shouldn't even have the job, he is taking a decent paying position from a properly qualified local,  and that he should be happy I'm not his boss, cause I'd fire his ass immediately.  I have a pretty good suspicion that he was hired because the project manager' wife (indian) has a H1B recruiting company in India.   She's a bitch and a half too.

Needless to say we're not really on speaking terms.

Fuck the H1B program.   It's just a way to abuse the labor market.  There's no skills shortage,  there's a corporate greed problem.

Re: IEEE, your grandpa's club

[Anonymous Coward]

I have hired a lot of EE's. My interviews with Americans almost always end with the hiring team thinking that they are fantastic candidates, and then management says that they cannot afford them, and submits an H1-B application. There are a lot of qualified American EE's, there are not a lot of qualified management professionals willing to pay for them.

He won't

[rsilvergun]

because he'll push through it or quickly get replaced. H1-Bs work 60, 70,90 hours a week. Whatever it takes. If they don't it's back to their home country and well, there's a reason they came here.

The H1-Bs we're mad about aren't the rocket scientists, cryptography experts and geniuses. They're rank and file programmers taking jobs us /.ers used to have. This stuff isn't hard. It's mostly database driven apps and entry level engineering. 4 years college..hell 2 years of self training and you're good to go. That's what makes us replaceable and it's why we need laws to protect our standard of living. There's nothing wrong with that. There's no good reason to engage in a race to the bottom with countries that don't have food security let alone the basic freedoms we enjoy.

Interesting

[Trailer Trash]

So, we're criticizing Trump because he hasn't gotten around to this in his first 50 days. At least he acknowledged that there's a problem and has proposed a very good solution.

I have to wonder what all the Trump bashers would be saying now had Hillary won, because her handlers had her dancing to the tune of "we're going to expand the H-1B program". I don't know if the IEEE leans left, but was this ever an issue for them before Trump became President?

Re: Typo in the title

[Tulsa_Time]

What are they teaching school kids in Oklahoma these days?

1. In Oklahoma, most people are literally so ignorant that they believe the word "ignorant" actually means "belligerent"

2. Most Oklahomans ("Okies") think cinder blocks are called center blocks (of course, if they could read the label at Lowe's or Home Depot, this might not be a problem)

3. When someone would say "heighth," I'd be tempted to ask "You mean like "weighth?"

4. Had to enroll one of the gf's kids in a new elementary school during the middle of the year; imagine our surprise when the teacher sent home a flyer on Feb 13st... announcing Valentime's Day- "What time is it?" "Valentime's."

And I am the ignorant hateful person ?

All I said is it is a racist statement to accuse our president of using the H1b program to acquire more foreign wives...