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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.
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
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.
The problem with these Laws is Location and cost of living is different across the country.
55K in a rural area. Is enough for a modest home, and a acre or two of land. Where you income can take care of a family of 4.
Or if you move to a different location, 55k you will be at poverty.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
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.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
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.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
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.
It should be at least a wage HIGHER than the local market wage. Because that's how the market is supposed to work. If you cannot draw people in at the current wage, then you pay more.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Are you going to be able to retire?
That's what the side business is for. Once it's generating significant cash flow, I can pay myself a salary, contribute 100% pre-tax to a qualified retirement plan, and, with corporate matching, put in $54K per year. That's a lot more than you can do with a 401K ($18K per year) and IRA ($5K per year).
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.
I make four times as much working for a Fortune 500,
Good for you!
[...] but I don't fix printers all day either.
Neither do I!
Face it, you are the IT equivalent of a janitor.
No, I'm a senior system admin with responsibility for 80K workstations. I create tickets for the local techs to work on.
[...] we don't mop the floors [...]
Neither do I!
Now go fix printer 2C-HPTreeDestroyer.
Call 1-800-IBM-HELP for assistance (you must be 21+ to call).
So that side hustle you have going on must involve reminding the kids to buckle their seat belts before the Super Himalaya starts moving. Nice...
Content creation. If I can sell it today, I can sell it for the next 30 yeas.
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
Then why haven't you already gotten a better one instead of reminding Slashdot daily about your low salary?
Because I'm on a five year mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.
(Let's see which pre-written excuse he uses this time.)
You didn't see that one coming.
Back when I was in IT support I made more while being responsible for a couple hundred machines at most.
The local site techs are responsible for ~1,500 systems each.
If anything you say is true not only are you seriously underpaid but you're also in serious denial about it.
This is my first job as a system administrator. All my fellow system administrators also make $50K+ (the national average for family of four). I just happened to live in a more expensive region.
You are officially the lowest paid senior system admin in the country. I'm calling Guinness.
Yes and no. "Senior" is in reference to my 20+ years technical career. I've been system admin for nearly three years. When I go for my next job, I expect recruiters and hiring managers to low ball me on salary.
Yes, you are a the embodiment of a karmic nut punch, creimer.
Been there, done that.
You are getting low-balled.
When you don't have a four-year degree, that's typically the case.
You are a junior/mid level sysadmin, who happens to be old.
I'm quite young. Most of my coworkers are in their 60's and 70's.
Why do I need to call IBM for help with my HP printer?
Call the number and find out.
I hope this is not the advice you give to your lusers.
When I worked the IBM Help Desk, we gave out that phone number to annoying users. They called back shocked — SHOCKED! — to find out that IBM operated a sex phone line (IBM stopped using the phone number in the 1980's). We would apologized and give them the current help desk number.
That's a mighty big "IF," friend. It also assumes that the market for it will remain for the next 30 years, which is another big "IF".
There's no "IF" about it. I make more money from ebook sales than I do from first serial right sales to anthologies. The virtual shelves have no expiration date. If I maintain this side business while working a regular job for 30 years , I'll have significant royalty income in retirement
Which piece of yours would you consider your best? Which are you proudest of?
On the fiction side, it would be "The Giggling Mongoose: Scarlet Hearts". My bestselling essay is, "Death At A Hell's Angels' Funeral: Driving Past The Memories "
The $0.99 price model is dead. I'm in the process of revamping my catalog by consolidating titles, getting new cover art commissioned, and raising the prices to $1.99. I'll be releasing new titles next year.
"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.
No wonder why you are making shit for pay with a level of professionalism like that.
I think you misunderstand the nature of IT Support. I'm not paid to be nice to the users. I'm paid to get the job done. If a user wants to make my job difficult, I can return the favor and suffer no consequences. Why? Because the user got in the way of getting the job done. At the end of the day, that's the only thing management cares about.
Then why not move to that rural area?
Because Silicon Valley offers perks that might make it worth living in poverty. Maybe it's the access to infrastructure, better job conditions, better health care, better career prospects, nicer weather, better beaches, etc.
I don't get all those things where I live (Alabama). I telework, so I could move to the bay area and nothing about my job would change. But my employer isn't going to provide a higher wage for the same work. No employer would, nor should they be forced to.
Everybody talks about cost-of-living. They never seem to talk about perks-of-living.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Sometimes getting what you are worth is simply a matter of ASKING for it.
If you'll note, I'm a contractor. Negotiation is a luxury. The choice is to take a job at the specified rate or find a job somewhere else. Since this is a five-year contract, I'm in a much better position to negotiate for a $100K+ per year job. But I do expect recruiters and hiring managers to low-ball since the last 30+ positions I had prior to the five-year contract were short-term contracts (i.e., four hours to one year).
Then why not move to that rural area?
I'm trying to negotiate moving to a low cost area but my employer is reluctant to let me go from Silicon Valley. They have an extremely hard time finding people to fill the positions here. They don't want to pay the average $108K per year salary because workers in New York City, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere will want a pay increase. I'm not moving anywhere unless I have a job to go to.
Because Silicon Valley offers perks that might make it worth living in poverty.
I was born and raised here. My parents were born in the middle of the Great Depression, knew what poverty was, and lived a modest lifestyle (not that mother didn't try to spend every dime). I live a modest lifestyle in Silicon Valley, save 20% of my income, and I'm content with what I have. Just because I have no desire to own two Tesla cars at the same time doesn't mean I'm living in poverty.
You don't GROVEL for a job. Have some self-respect.
Were you out of work for two years because of the Great Recession?
Did you take a job with a moving company to work 20 hours per month for six months while hiring managers told you were overqualified for minimum wage jobs and recruiters told you were unemployable for everything else?
Did you file for Chapter Seven bankruptcy and end up with only $25 in your checking account?
Did you spend two years working seven days a week, taking whatever job that came along to support yourself?
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...
Dude, sometimes the hardest you work for the lowest pay, the more they push you down. If you lowball your prices all the time then clients will start to think you suck at your work and be even more derisive.
I've seen it happen.
I want my Government to control immigration and gun laws to keep nut jobs like you out of my country.
New Zealanders are well balanced with a chip on each shoulder. One represents Australia, the other the rest of the world
How do I get the phone sex? All I got offered was a Caribbean cruise. :(
May have changed in the last ten years. I've never personally tried it. Not my thing.
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.
I'm not moving anywhere unless I have a job to go to.
Right, this is what I meant by the perk of "better career prospects".
Just because I have no desire to own two Tesla cars at the same time doesn't mean I'm living in poverty.
Of course not. The talk about poverty was in response to the previous post, in no way asserting that everyone who lives in Silicon Valley is poor.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
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.
The talk about poverty was in response to the previous post, in no way asserting that everyone who lives in Silicon Valley is poor.
But this is Slashdot. If you can't afford x number of whatever, than you're a poor schmuck.
When the CEO has trouble, you never consider that at all.
Most Fortune 500 companies have a separate executive IT staff to service their needs. The only time I ever interact with executives is when they're praising me for getting the job done — and then letting me go because I completed the contract three months ahead of schedule.
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.
This place is for us [...]
Slashdot is an open forum. You should try Reddit. They may have a Beavis and Butthead forum that you and your friends can join, as it's obvious that none of you have graduated from high school to adulthood.
Sorry "brah" - nothing we here can relate to.
You need to get out more and meet people outside of your socioeconomic strata.
And all this while fielding 8 calls a day from 200 recruiters! While going to Stanford for your PhD in printer repair!
While banging your momma trying to get the VCR to stop flashing 12:00 all the time.
No wonder you get paid so bad when you got fired a lot.
The only job I've ever been fired from was when I worked in construction with my father and punched the boss's grandson in the mouth.
Do you walk up to random groups of people talking, join their conversation, and then don't leave when they tell you to fuck off?
A homeless person introduced himself to me at the bus stop. We shook hands, talked for a few minutes, and I gave him a few bucks to buy coffee at the 7-11 behind the bus stop.
this specific forum is limited to a specific socioeconomic strata and the iq range.
I represent the low end of IT and the high end of IQ. ;)
Replies that have zero to do with what he is replying to.
Just like your replies to my comments.
"Perl - never heard of it."
I don't understand this obsession with Perl.
Perl is common knowledge, even if you think it's a shitty, outdated programming language.
I don't have an opinion on Perl because I've never used Perl. Not personally, not professionally.
All your posts are either stupid or responding to people who make fun of you, why are you here?
This is only a problem for topics concerning politics, where an asshat falsely accused me of shooting him for six weeks, and IT, where a handful of asshats are drunk posting late at night. I don't have this problem in any other topic on Slashdot.
Exactly which job are you talking about? Typically, IT is a support function, there to support users in doing their jobs. Your user is almost certainly doing a job of more direct benefit to the company. When your user calls you, it's because said user is having difficulties doing his or her job, so it's your responsibility to assist the user, so the user's job gets done. Instead, you waste the user's time, which interferes with getting the job done, and likely offend the user or get the user in trouble, You are being a liability, not an asset.
What you described sounded like an internal help desk. If it's external, you're offending customers while wasting their time.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
We're very nice people.
Keep telling yourself that. Someday it might even become true.
LMFAO, you know you could work some extra hours with housekeeping to supplement your income. Janitors working for the Metro make about 5 times what you do once overtime is factored in. Sounds like you already have building keys so should be good to go! Sell it to your boss as a corporate money saving idea. At what you're being paid, the illegal alien janitor they have now probably costs more. Oh! Even better, by getting rid of Pedro, they decrease the risk of identity theft. He's probably been going through the bins looking for ways to get docs for his friends and family, after all.
Have you noticed that Creimer never seems to get mad? Even when you're bombarding him with non-stop insults. I wonder if he's a bot, responding deadpan with slightly relevant responses to key words in your monologue. ---Or, even better. AC is also Creimer talking to himself as some form of release?!?