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US Law Allows Low H-1B Wages; Just Look At Apple (networkworld.com)
An anonymous reader writes: If you work at Apple's One Infinite Loop headquarters in Cupertino as a computer programmer on an H-1B visa, you can can be paid as little as $52,229. That's peanuts in Silicon Valley. Average wages for a programmer in Santa Clara County are more than $93,000 a year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, the U.S. government will approve visa applications for Silicon Valley programmers at $52,229 -- and, in fact, did so for hundreds of potential visa holders at Apple alone. To be clear, this doesn't mean there are hundreds of programmers at Apple working for that paltry sum. Apple submitted a form to the U.S. saying it was planning on hiring 150 computer programmers beginning June 14 at this wage. But it's not doing that. Instead, this is a paperwork exercise by immigration attorneys to give an employer -- in this case, Apple -- maximum latitude with the H-1B laws. The forms-submittal process doesn't always reflect actual hiring goals or wage levels. Apple didn't want to comment for the story, but it did confirm some things. It says it hires on the basis on qualifications and that all employees -- visa holders and U.S. workers alike -- are paid equitably and it conducts internal studies to back this up. There are bonuses on top of base pay. Apple may not be paying low wages to H-1B workers, but it can pay low wages to visa workers if it wanted. This fact is at the heart of the H-1B battle.
Apple's next generation replacement for macOS, tvOS, and iOS will be written in PHP.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Don't let the government exercise control over immigration, then the whole problem will go away since all of the programmers will be fully able to exercise their rights, up to and including, shooting their boss when he or she tries to rape them.
Second Amendment, baby, it cures everything.
I made ~$55K last year with an extra month of pay as a Christmas bonus in IT Support. I'm not surprised. Fortune 500 companies don't want to pay top dollar for talent anymore.
Government benefits from importing cheap labor. Rich landowners (now corporations) benefit from cheap labor. History is replete with rich people trying to get richer by importing slaves and/or indentured servants.
It never works out well for society in the long run, but in the long run you're dead anyways, so might as well make some more money and bribe some more gov't officials while you're here, right?
Doesn't matter which political party is in power, doesn't matter whether a politician is a leftist or a rightist, they ALWAYS import more cheap labor... because they want to benefit the rich (and by extension, themselves). Trump ran a campaign saying he will put a stop to this, and now that he's in power he's already he's backpedaling. He's just turning into Clinton Lite. I'll bet you large sums that if Bernie was elected, right about now he will be finding excuses to import more cheap labor too.
The cost of living in the bay area is demonstrably bananas ( that's the technical term ). By offering depressed wages, they're simply trying to do their part to make the bay area more affordable to the common man. :D
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Luckily, all this H-1B abuse will be a thing of the past, once Trump "drains the swamp".
If only he could get all those press alligators off his back...
#meetthenewboss
I'd like to see a system where companies submit their bids to the government to hire people, and the government gives out visas to the high bids: the ones that will pay those employees the most. It should include a contract with guarantees, maybe a certain percentage paid up front as a signing bonus. The bonus is a bit of a risk, but the onus would be on the company to vet the candidate to manage that risk. The visa would come with a fast track to citizenship in order to avoid exploitation.
This would make the process more predictable since companies could buy their way to the visas they need, and pretty much ensure that nobody is using the system to get cheap employees. It would also do what a visa system should prioritize: attract the best people in the world to come and live here.
My main concern about this system would be that it would favor high-income, high-cost-of-living parts of the country (e.g. Silicon Valley) over places like the Midwest. Maybe decisions could be slanted somewhat to account for that. But maybe not: maybe we should just accept that top people go to top-paying regions.
Yea, we already know this. It would be better to report that the H1B program is either dismantled at most or at least fix it to where things like this no longer happen.
How about we just allow these H1B candidates to immigrate? Then they can be citizens and pay taxes on whatever salary they accept. They might even buy some foreclosed houses.
L visas let the employer pay the foreign employee's home town wage for up to a year while in the US. When I lived in China for a couple of years I interviewed with the local IBM office about database consulting. They wanted to fly me to the US on an L visa while paying the local wage of about $1K USD which would be OK there in town but not in L.A. The hiring manager assured me on the 3rd level interview that they did it all the time and it was no problem. Then I mentioned that as a US citizen I couldn't be sent on any kind of visa and I couldn't work in the US for sub-minimum wage. He hung up and I couldn't get him to answer when I called back. Since they wanted to hire and send me immediately but an L visa requires a prior year of employment, minimum, they were obviously quite handy at lying on the paperwork. Think about this the next time big blue sends in a consultant from another country.
there's training. An H1-B comes from a country where the cost of living is a fraction of mine. You could triple those wages and they'd still be a good value for the money.
The program needs to be shut down. It was created to solve a labor shortage that never existed. Companies just don't want to train. If you want to work in America you invest in America. If you don't like it you can leave. We've got plenty of everything anyone would want.
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Just like the rest of Silicon Valley.
Fundraisers for Crooked Hillary, pink slips for US workers.
The motto of the leaders of the Democratic Party: "Billions for me, welfare for thee (all the better to keep you voting for me!)."
If companies would be required to pay at least $120,000 as one bill in the House requires, all the H1b problems go away.
Tech companies don't want to do this.
Why don't we just bring back slavery? It would be more honest.
How many people in the US are staying at jobs they hate because they're terrified of losing health care coverage? ACA lessened that, so no wonder Republicans are desperate to scrap it. Can't have the plebes thinking they can just quit on bad employers, can we?
h1b visas are transferrable. if your skills are worth $2k/y more than you're paid (roughly cost of transfer, if that) you can find a better paying job within a couple of weeks.
I worked with a lady at a Fast Food restaurant when I was a kid who only stayed because her husband's Meds were paid by her health insurance. The owner caught wind and started working her 60+ hours a week on Salary. So yeah, our health care system gets abused for exactly that purpose.
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Do they expect you to find a second full time job or be supported by family? I could see that happening. Especially if it was being used as a road to immigration.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
This is sensationalist bullshit. Apple is not hiring software engineers in the valley for anywhere close to $52k. Infosys, Tata, et al. import bargain basement engineers. Apple is bringing in the top talent, and those people have no problem finding another employer to sponsor their H-1B if they want to job hop.
As a software engineer, I want H-1B engineers to come work at Apple in the valley. They start or strengthen companies here which then leads to more demand for engineers, and that's a huge plus to my mobility and pay. If they didn't, they would be starting companies back home which does me fuck all good.
If H-1B visas really are used to hire the best, brightest, and most rare talents - then a minimum wage of $150k/year should be no problem.
This would solve the problem instantly.
However, I suspect that instead of asking for larger H-1B visa caps, most H-1B visas would go unused.
but $120k isn't nearly enough. Training is expensive, and these people come pre-trained on the cheap thanks to the crazy low cost of living in their countries (supported by a massive underclass, no safety net and no environmental or employee protections).
These are suppose to be the best and brightest the world has to offer. Either that or employees that are so desperately needed that training isn't an option. Start at $300k/yr and adjust for double inflation (so they can't cheat there too). That's about what a PH D in a profitable field makes, right?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
"Apple didn't want to comment for the story, but it did confirm some things. It says it hires on the basis on qualifications and that all employees -- visa holders and U.S. workers alike -- are paid equitably and it conducts internal studies to back this up."
Apple and SV in general are so full of it, if it were a meritocracy then they would not need H1B maggots.
This is why Cisco, Apple, Microsoft look like they belong in a suburb of Mumbai.
Sounds more like US functionaries allow, despite the law.
You fuckers want free, unfettered immigration.. here you go. Perhaps these people are only doing the jobs Americans won't do. Or perhaps, they'll do the job for a lot cheaper than what American's are willing to work for. Sounds a lot like what has already happened to the farm jobs, landscaping jobs, and most of the construction and painting jobs here in the southwest. They pay so little now that you don't see a non-hispanic doing a damn one of them and most who are doing the jobs haven't bothered to even learn the language of the "customers" they are serving; except perhaps the foreman. Interesting that "so many" Americans want open borders and non-protectionist policies until they begin to nibble at your cheese. Well, which is it.. are we an open, international nation who accepts anyone with a "dream" and a desire (or a sob story) or do we at least serve to ensure that those who were born here or spent the time and effort to become citizens or permanent residents see some sort of benefit from being such?
The current method favors BIG companies that can buy a lot of ticket so the lottery. They want 150 people, they buy 300 tickets and they get a chunk of the visas.
A small company that wants 1 or 2 PHDs gets a couple tickets and it is blind luck if they get the visas. They may be willing to pay top dollar for the best person.
However the lottery favors those buying the most tickets.
If it was set up as an auction, the small company could bid up for the super skills they need. The big companies would be fighting over the remaining slots.
It would also help fight collusion. Small new players would be better able to get the talents that they are looking for.
These "Super skilled and specialized" people it is meant for, would be more likely to get the visa rather than some random winner for a bit contracting firm.
Low wages is the entire point of the H1B program.
Visas should only be allowed for positions posted with a salary of $250,000 or higher. There's plenty of qualified and/or trainable talent for jobs under that level.
Placement companies should get 1% of the annual take home pay for the candidate upon retention. One payment, one time.
By taking away the low cost incentive to the hiring companies and the huge profit from the consulting company the visa program will dwindle pretty quickly.
This wage assumes the worker is located in Silicon Valley but what if that is not the case? Say they are hiring H1B visa holders who are working out of some remote location? That wage would be quite suitable in say, Omaha. The danger in all this H1B visa dust up is that many of these companies could simply choose to have these people work in their home nations flying them in for meetings only when needed. Thus pulling the rug out from under the Silicon Valley real estate market.
How many people in the US are staying at jobs they hate because they're terrified of losing health care coverage? ACA lessened that
The ACA took away the option for catastrophic insurance the poor could get, for a fairly low premium.
Now trough ACA you get the same $8k deductible for a policy but for a monthly payment that is 10x (or 100x) as much as what you use to pay for the same deductible...
How is that "lessened"? Now there is even more fear to losing insurance. I feel that personally, before I didn't really care but now losing my current insurance arrangement wold be disaster financially speaking.
The Republicans are not "desperate" to scrap anything. They are dragging feet because lots of them feel like the whole thing will die on its own (which is true). However that would cause a lot of suffering and death, so the Republicans are trying to push through SOME fixes which Democrats are blocking (seemingly preferring pain and death as long as it happens under a Republican president).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I've been on a work visa before (Australians-only non-immigrant E-3) and what the employer has to do is file a form called a Labor Condition Application (LCA) to get approval for you to apply for a work visa. You need the approval number of the LCA to be able to submit a visa application.
When you fill out the LCA, you need to look up something called the "prevailing wage" in the location of employment for the occupation as listed in a Department of Labor database and use that figure in the application. The prevailing wage figures are significantly less than what you are paid for some reason.
It's on the visa application itself that you enter what you're actually going to be paid, which in my case was more than $50,000 over the prevailing wage. (Not inclusive of bonuses, options and other benefits)
"but it can pay low wages to visa workers if it wanted. This fact is at the heart of the H-1B battle."
No. This battle is not just about the wages paid the H-1B workers, it is allowing allowing there to be any H-1B workers if there are US workers who could perform the task at any price or do so with reasonable training (in high tech environments new employees generally need up to 12 months to get up to full speed).
H1B workers should not be allowed in to keep current wage levels, to reduce leverage skilled employees have in the local free market, and certainly not to replace/displace local workers. H1B workers are for when local talent does not exist. Period. The same is also true of the back door using accelerated degrees from foreign nations to get student student visas for US grad schools. US schools might be willing to sell out since these students pay max tuition and US companies having programs which then pay for/reimburse the education costs might make this feasible but it isn't in the overall interest of the United States.
Why iTunes is a has become a piece of hot garbage.
I am in Santa Clara on a TN visa. I work for a company in Mexico but perform the actual software engineering work in the US.
I make 49k a year, granted, the company pays for my rent and utility bills, but I am liable for taxes in both Mexico and the US.
There are worse visas than the H1B and there are worse companies than Apple or the big tech companies. Focus the hate on the companies that operate like a human trafficking mafia instead...
Level I prevailing wages are only for entry-level applications. They are not that popular with H1B sponsorships because you usually don't go through the trouble to sponsor a visa for someone unproven. And, after one or two years you'll have to pay Level II, so using Level I benchmark is misleading. Overall, Level II and III are much more popular with sponsorships.
Sunnyvale: Level 1 / 2 / 3 / 4: $52,229 / $73,091 / $93,933 / $114,795
SF: Level 1 / 2 / 3 / 4: $67,974 / $88,026 / $108,077 / $128,128
Are these below market? Most likely. But if we're comparing to the "average" of $93k / year, they are not far off.
If H1-B program is for super genius then they should be paid super genius money. There are a lot of American kids with 100K College loans that can't get a job because of H1-B visa people.
Yeah, it's better to bring foreigners to the USA rather than hire them in their native country.
And it's clear there aren't enough CS/SE graduates in the USA, they're all stupid anyway.
Discussing the H-1b visa program with a visa holder at my workplace yielded some odd data; he was near the bottom of his class at Central University of Gujarat, he was hired not knowing what he was being asked to do when he arrived, his 'BS degree' in IT took 2 years and he makes less than $50k per year. Likely a good deal for him, but I doubt his employer is getting even what they paid for and his co-workers are pretty dubious as well.
Timmy and the other Toner Heads at Apple Ink like Male-to-Male intercourse. The 150 are just "sex slaves" for the Board Members and Timmy and Executives to "play" with.
If Timmy and the Board have taken to a liking of "Human Flesh" then a sub-set of the 150 will be slaughtered and renders for ... consumption.
Jajajajajajajajaja
The program was a good solution to the problem of not having enough home-grown talent for the rapidly growing tech sector. But we are now graduating tons of tech talent, and this program has devolved into a form of indentured servitude, so these big companies don't have to pay market-driven wages to American citizens.