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Trump Admin Takes First Steps To Overhaul H-1B Visa That Tech Companies Use To Hire Internationally (geekwire.com)
President Donald Trump's immigration authorities are moving to enact broad changes to a visa that allows American companies to bring international workers to the country. From a report: On Friday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Department of Homeland Security released a proposed rule that takes the first steps toward overhauling the H-1B visa. The new rule would prioritize applications for workers with advanced degrees from American universities. The policy would also change the application process companies go through when they want to secure H-1B visas for foreign talent. Instead of completing a petition for the new employee, companies would register for free online to enter what's been described as the "H-1B lottery." Immigration law caps the number of regular H-1B visas that can be awarded each year at 65,000. An additional 20,000 may be awarded to workers with master's degrees and PhDs. Under the new system, USCIS would review all applications, including those for workers with advanced degrees, during a registration period before the actual petitions are filed.
Cheaper is the word you're looking for. You can't put "works harder" on the balance sheet.
That already exists, and is called "offshoring". It tends to not work all that well in practice.
Average American makes $51k/yr. And that's the Average, it's much higher than the median Even at $102k/yr you're getting a steal. H1-Bs are already trained, are trained on a specific tech, are completely disposable and work 60-80/hr/week without complaint.
Make it 4 times the Average and you might have something, but then we'll have to fight to keep them from redefining "Average".
It's like Wargames, the only winning move it not to play. End the program. If we need them here they can immigrate, just like everybody else. No more temp workers.
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Until the project rockets past the deadline and the cost overruns start piling up. Then they call it "re-shoring" and bring it back to the US.
(Then 5 years down the line, management has been replaced due to turnover, and the new management has the brilliant idea of offshoring the work again)
The lottery is a horrible idea in general, it encourages "consulting" companies to try bring in as many as possible interchangeable people but then if you need a specifically skilled person, well good luck, your'e now competing with 10k applications from those body shops, where they don't care which specific ones do get through.
The alternative is to set up software hubs in those other countries.
Then watch your cutting-edge company dull and rot, as the 10-minute turnaround time for Q-A turns into one day due to the near-half-day time offset.
(It's especially a scream to watch management try to use Agile techniques across a 12-hour offset and a giant culture gap, too.)
And that's assuming you find exceptionally competent help. (Hint: There ARE really competent engineers in, say, India. But they're pretty much all employed, and paid substantially more than the bulk of the body-shop fodder which are most of what you get now.)
One way to solve the time gap issue is to move the whole operation, including architecture, design, and admin, offshore. But then your IP is over there and NOT over here. If they're not competent you're left with restarting from scratch or an older snapshot when you realize they've blown it (and you're now months or years behind in the race to the window). If they ARE competent, watch for them to quit and start their own company (with your IP, under their IP laws and (non-)enforcement), leaving you in the same position but with a new competitor.
Even with engineers of ordinary competence and the project split across the pond, offshoring can be of negative value: Your designer spends a bunch of time breaking off a chunk to be done overseas, then ends up doing the work himself anyhow, when the module doesn't arrive in time. So the added worker cost both his own pay plus a bunch of the time of the local guy on the critical path without any benefit from his work product.
The invisible hand will get around to swatting the company - perhaps into the dustbin of history. But that takes some time.
= = =
But, speaking of the invisible hand: I'd like to see if we can get its input.
A company "needs" a foreign talent? It's not just using H1Bs to get cheap labor? OK. Then the talent is worth a lot of money, and should be paid it, right?
So lets try this:
- A cap on the number of H1Bs, some number N.
- And each year they go to the N candidates (or as renewals for those already here) being paid the highest salaries (with preference to those already employed in case of ties.)
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Throw in language, cultural, and quality of education differences and the savings are illusory.
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