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H-1B Visa Use Soared Last Year At Major Tech Firms (phys.org)
"Even as the White House began cracking down on U.S. work visas, major Silicon Valley technology firms last year dramatically ramped up hiring of workers under the controversial H-1B visa program," reports the Mercury News.
Menlo Park-based Facebook in 2017 received 720 H-1B approvals, a 53 percent increase over 2016, according to the National Foundation for American Policy, which obtained federal government data. Mountain View's Google received 1,213 H-1B approvals, a 31 percent increase. The number of H-1B approvals at Intel in Santa Clara rose 19 percent and Cupertino-based Apple received 673, a 7 percent increase.... [E]xperts say the data doesn't show how many additional H-1B contractors tech companies may get from staffing agencies or outsourcing companies. In response to this news organization's inquiries, Facebook said it does not publicly discuss its use of H-1B workers or contractors. Google, Apple and Intel did not respond to requests for information about their use of H-1B workers or contractors....
Amazon chalked up the largest increase in H-1B approvals, with 2,515 in 2017, a 78 percent leap. Microsoft received 1,479 approvals, an increase of 29 percent. Neither company responded to a request for comment.
A distinguished fellow at Carnegie Mellon's School of Engineering at Silicon Valley believes that the threat of a U.S. crackdown on H-1B visas may simply have prompted companies to secure as many visas as possible while they could.
Amazon chalked up the largest increase in H-1B approvals, with 2,515 in 2017, a 78 percent leap. Microsoft received 1,479 approvals, an increase of 29 percent. Neither company responded to a request for comment.
A distinguished fellow at Carnegie Mellon's School of Engineering at Silicon Valley believes that the threat of a U.S. crackdown on H-1B visas may simply have prompted companies to secure as many visas as possible while they could.
Right???
Well duh.
Just like the insurance companies spiked their premiums when obama started taking about obomacare.
... what? I canâ(TM)t even tell who you guys are angry at anymore.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018/07/06/mar-lago-foreign-worker-visas/764053002/
Get 'um while they're still "cheap" and while you can!
This is a loop hole should have been tightened up long, long ago. It should be a tool used to encourage companies to invenst in their own employees, re-tooling them with the skills the company needs; not used as a reason to go looking to effectively off-shore work.
At best, it should be a stop-gap measure while you train up local talent to fill the position long-term.
This is a numbers game, currently, to corporations. If these numbers become less and less appealing, then they'll turn to other solutions that include increasing local skills and building local talen.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
Not surprising, You can bring in help from elsewhere cheaper then moving and paying a good salary to a home grown person usually.This is the cost, or cost avoidance of a global community. This is not a bad thing, as it keeps cost down, but it discourages citizens from studying for the jobs.
Because they are self entitled slobs who are often less qualified for the job than h1b applicants.
Truth hurts. BTW I interview developer candidates at a medium size company. I do the tech step of the interview process.
H1B use isn't up: there is an annual cap on H1B visas.
What's changed is that "Major tech firms" are getting the visas which must have reduced the number of H1B visas that were assigned to the outsourcing companies such as Tata, HCL, Infosys, etc..
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Are you seriously complaining about the lowest unemployment rate in decades?
It's always big corporations that are abusing them to get cheap labor. Often, these assholes abuse the migrants into servitude; they feel afraid to speak up not do as they are told because at any moment they can be fucked by the employer. Not to mention, these corporations abusing the visa's have deep pockets anyways. There is effectively no need for them to be using this kind of labor.
Now, what about the migrants that come over to do hard labor that most American's wont do? Then, they should pay up to make the job worth doing or invest in innovating and automating.
Of course, this could be spun as not allowing immigrants into the country. To be clear, I support taking in refugees and I support immigration in general. I just do not support corporations who have captured the government having absolute power over workers from a different part of the world.
especially if they hire the low-paid, low-quality, dog-eat-dog mentality substitutes for those uppity Democrat-voting athiest liebrul haters in Silicone Valley.
Google doesn't want to miss anymore China opportunities because of some shitty opinionated fucks in their offices.
And neither does Zuckerberg.
You should probably seek some help for your anger issues. This is not normal. You'll find life is really great when you stop believing the BS you've been shoveling.
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
Trump is going to hang for treason, not because he gave away massive tax breaks to the richest cunts in America... (But you're right, he should hang for both reasons, the obese treasonous faggot and his moronic traitor children also)
I guess.
I are angry at all of you, fucks. But most of all, I are angry at the Tesla shorts.
The issue of immigration as a political force is all about race and social class. White immigrants aren't a problem. Immigrants who live in middle class suburbs aren't a problem, There are some complaints about the H1B program, but politically that isn't going to drive many votes. Color, language, race will. Trump gets that.
I was always paid the prevailing rate, and the other H-1Bs I've worked with get the same. Put it this way, they're able to get on the housing ladder in Silicon Valley. They're also really smart! Indian, German, Chinese, Canadian, British (like me), they've all been good colleagues. There may well be plenty of poor quality H-1Bs at outsourcing companies, but I've never worked anywhere that used them.
I've given enough job interviews in my time and have always recommended people by merit. If there were more qualified Americans applying for these jobs, they'd be getting hired. I recommended plenty of Americans and they usually worked out well. Sponsoring H-1Bs is expensive and a pain in the ass. Companies don't do that unless they have to. They also have to keep dealing with it because the time to get a green card has grown from about 3 years (when I did it 15 years ago) to over a decade in many cases.
And don't give me that ageism thing. I'm 45 and have no trouble getting hired, and neither did the older candidates I recommended. When you're growing fast you want all kinds of people, and the varied experience and attitudes they bring make everyone more productive.
Graham
Tesla sells shorts now? What type? straight cut booty shorts, super cheeky, Daisy Dukes, Daisy Ducks (Daisy Dukes made from white jeans)?
This space unintentionally left blank.
Regardless, H1B was used for CHEAP employees.
Economic 'we want cheap people' reason, all other reasons are secondary.
but you're still lowering market rates. Supply and demand dictate that. Your presence in the market increases supply, lowering demand. It also discourages training and investment in local talent.
In more left leaning states like Canada and Germany that's not so bad. Your contributions to the economy are spread around in the form of public infrastructure, education and single payer healthcare.
The trouble with us here in America is that very, very little of our tax dollars make it back to us. More than half of them is just wars and servicing the debt from those wars. We aren't gaurnteed health care or an education for ourselves or our children. What's more since employers can access well trained people like yourself without paying the taxes to maintain higher education systems we've been cutting public college funding for 2 decades now, resulting in massive debt burdens. But you don't have a choice but to take on that burden because if you don't have an advanced degree the companies can and will hire an H1-B instead so they don't have to train...
The problem with America is that every single aspect of our lives is predicated on the quality of our jobs. Anything that gets in the way of that is a disaster for us. No, it shouldn't be that way, but it is. So that for the average American bringing in foreign labor hurts us because none of what you bring make it down to us here in the trenches. There's folks who want to change that, but so far they're in the minority.
It's an irrational system, but if you're forced to live in an irrational system then you do what can only be called rational irrational things.
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H1-B is, at its core, a mechanism for re-distributing wealth from richer countries to poorer ones. Which doesn't sound like a bad thing, until I look more closely. Then I see the companies that are importing cheap labour, are simultaneously taking advantage of tax breaks, concessions, and taxation-funded infrastructure. So to a fairly large extent, the companies aren't re-distributing their own wealth - they're exporting money that taxpayers legitimately expect to be spent in their own jurisdictions and for their own interests.
There should be two classes of corporations. Those that oink away at the public tax trough, should be required to hire locally. Those who DON'T get tax breaks and other government subsidies, can hire whomever they want from wherever they want. I can't think of a single major corporation that falls into that second category - and I'm pretty sure that category would remain empty even if my 'two classes' idea was actually implemented and enforced. So why aren't we forcing corporations to hire locally? I guess it's because government isn't "by the people, and for the people". That needs to change.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
H1B and H2B is an excuse by big corporations to pass up/lay off American workers so they can hire cheaper foreign aliens and to flood the labor market with cheap foreign labor to drive down wages. There is no shortage of STEM workers in the USA. I know and there is plenty to back this up that there are huge numbers of people who are unable to find work in this country because foreign aliens are coming in to steal all of the jobs. The fact is the companies can hire Americans to do these jobs.
Just the other day Andrew Cuoma basically said the USA is a bad country because of how disadvantaged many americans are. What this makes clear when juxtapositioned on the H1B program is that as well Democrats in particular need to import lots of cheap foreign labor to keep americans out of work so they can increase the size of the welfare state (Major Democrat voting block) and then they lie right their teeth making the most outrageous comments about this country to people such as how the fact people cannot find work is because of rampant discrimination by the evil and corrupt american society. Its not American people that is the problem, its the government and these big corporations who have weaponised this foreign invasion against the American people.
People really need to wake up and demand that all Immigration be stopped immediately to force these companies to hire American citizens
You have football players taking the knee and disrespecting the *people* of this country, because of poverty problems in inner cities, then you have the government which helps foreign aliens steal jobs which could be going to inner city people, and you have ineffective and broken education systems and Hollywood which has encourages a reckless anti family gangster atmposphere in inner cities, then these very same hollywood/government who types who created the mess scapegoat the american people? anyone who oppose the theft of american jobs and actually wants to fix the schools ad the culture that has ruined inner cities and so on, is then demonized by our evil government and mass media complex. The lies have to stop.
The outrageous lies continue about Trump and the Republicans. The fact is the Republicans would be thrilled if all blacks are as successful as everyone else. The whole idea that a Republican would rather people be on welfare and thus be a democrat asset rather than to have well paying jobs goes against the very core of the conservative philosophy of small government. Its Democrats that want them in poverty and keep them there. The democrats then have to falsely accuse Republicans of being racists or bigots and to blame for black employment statistics being worse when Democrats actually are the ones creating these problems, the democratic infrastructure controls everything in these inner cities, the schools and their teacher unions, the hollywood and mass media imagery and culture that they force onto them, and they support the mass illegal immigration and these job stealing visa programs. The only thing that is keeping blacks in poverty is the democratic party itself who needs victims. The Democrats recoil at the idea of charter schools, if union controlled public schoolls are so great than why are they such a failure, with the liberal controlled cities having the most expensive and poorly performing schools in the country. Liberals love to attack republicans for traditional family values, if your liberal permissive values of out of wedlock sex, cultural breakdown, single mothers, gangs, drug use, etc etc are so enlightened and wonderful then why is what they have produced is absolute decay, chaos, misery, crime, poor education results from this culture they have created in inner cities.
I thought Trump was going to fix this. It was his one redeeming quality for me.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Funny how it is that conservatards find it so easy to believe that the lowest unemployment rate (who was already plumetting during the Obama years btw) is because of Trump, but so hard to believe that climate change is caused mainly by human activity, or is even real.
If you crackdown on the bogus H1B companies, that leaves a lot more for the legitimate (high-paying) companies that really are trying to bring in the best of the rest of the world.
Youre such fucking plebs.
Dear person from insignificant country,
I know it sucks living in a insignificant, pissant country. No one takes you seriously. You either never mattered or like most of Europe, your best days are behind you and you have lost your way.
As of this time, the only reason you are typing anything, have enough to eat, or even feel secure enough to bitch is that the US is paying for your security and subsidizing your life in some way. If the US falls, kiss all that niceness goodbye. You probably do not grow enough food. You can't protect yourself from China or Russia, who will gladly show you what REAl imperialism is. So, you better pray your fantasy does not come true.
Oh, unless of course you are Russian or Chinese. In that case, your goal is to shit on others. Part of thinks we should let you do it. Spoiled children do need punished from time to time.
but most of what I see are code monkeys. Those are trainable skills. There was a time when a 3-6 month stint in a community college could net you a decent salary writing code. There was a time when a company would give you on the job training to do the same. The guys I know who remember that time are in their 50s and 60s. Now you need a college degree to reboot windows PCs and occasionally troubleshoot a TCP/IP issue.
As a worker I don't really care if my country falls behind because my country's success doesn't belong to me. The companies use offshore tax havens to hide any of the benefits and monopolize the profits. We gave up on any sort of social contact here in America went all in on "supply side" economics, aka trickle down.
Again, the issue here is that the interests of the American ruling and working classes are no completely at odds with each other. This is less true in Europe & Canada where the ruling class is still held to some standard of a social contract. Here it's every man for himself. Your presence in my economy benefits the upper class, but it actively hurts the working class. Baring a huge shift in my countries politics that's not going to change. I'm well aware that's a completely messed up situation, but I have no idea how to change it. At least not on a time scale that matters to me and my family.
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Trump lifted the cap on H-2B worker visas. Then his businesses asked for 76 of them.
H1Bs should not be allowed to be contracted out, or to work on contracts. Basically, it should be for a company to do the work local, and later, if the work is sent back to said contractors home, then the company should be denied future H1Bs or any form of immigration work. If we are going to keep H1B, It is time for us to enforce the laws on this.
Note that this means that if a company like tata wants to hire H1Bs here, then it can only be for their own local work, not for work brought in-house. The same for IBM, etc.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Do not crack down on tata, wipro, etc. Simply enforce the rules with denying companies future immigrants if they do not obey them. In addition, we need to add rules such as saying that if a company brings over an H1B and then sends the work back with the person (disney comes to mind), they will also be denied anymore immigrants of any kind.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
those kids aren't starting families (they can't afford to). That means fewer kids and more need for immigrants to keep the economy going. And don't think they haven't noticed. They're angry. Real angry. A few are demanding a new social contract with guarantees for food, shelter, healthcare, etc. But the bulk aren't. There's centuries of puritanical culture that make that a bitter pill for Americans to swallow (e.g. "If you don't work you don't eat").
If this keeps up they're going to find themselves a dictator and start wars. That's what happens when you've got a ton of angry men with no wives and no future. It's going to get real ugly...
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How will that make any difference? Just train them in India and send the job over directly. At least the way it is now, the local gets to keep his job a little longer while he trains up his replacement. All the other businesses have 2 people to sell to, he needs someplace to stay etc. Really is much better for everyone.