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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.
The alternative is to set up software hubs in those other countries.
It will be just like hardware really, the design, testing, etc etc will be done in the USA, but the construction is done overseas.
Over all it will not see much change in the number of US citizens employed in the USA, it will mean that those H-1B jobs simply get filled overseas. The US government looses the income tax paid, and other countries benefit. Long term, the knowledge and skills that gets transferred to another country will improve the knowledge and skills available in that other country, success breeds success. It could see even MORE US jobs going.
Capitalism is a wonderfull thing, it means the USA can get their shoes cheaper, but it also means companies will seek lower wage economies.
There is no law to say USA wages must be higher. Competition is a double edged sword
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."
For Free? Just No. It's not like these companies aren't making money hand over fist providing indentured employees to US companies. With enough applicants, we could pay off the National Debt.
This isn't powerball.
I worked at ATT Wireless when number portability was released, and people could finally switch cell phone providers and keep their number. The VP of finance fired the entire department running the software/services and brought in Mindtree (i think) to replace the workers. He had a couple hundred H1B's working months in advance of the migration.
The Migration failed horribly. ATT Wireless missed the deadline, hundreds of people lost their jobs, and ATT wireless couldn't enact number portability quick enough and was fined millions of dollars a day.
My engineering department was moved into the same building as the H1B's, and it was a nightmare. I've worked with H1B's over the years, but never experienced the mess of the restrooms and building. Working at other companies with H1B's and Indian Nocs, and no issues, so no idea why ATT and Mindtree was so horrible. My experience with H1B's have been mixed, some cheap companies pushing Cisco certified engineers who didn't even know how to use SSH to talented skilled programmers who became citizens. So I do think some H1B's are being used as an excuse that no US workers can be found, theres always unemployeed looking for work, when I know some engineers who took 3-6 months, and a Storage engineer who took a year to find a storage architect job. YMMV.
Also up here in Seattle, there are entire blocks of apartment buildings around Microsoft that Indian consulting companies rent out, and put 3-5 H1B's to an apartment, they live dirt cheap, its rather depressing to see how they live. Its not like theres not enough engineers around this area, we have Amazon, Google, Facebook, ATT, TMobile, Verizon, Apple, Blackberry, Tableu, and a zillion other tech companies here. Lots of us citizens looking for work. Last time I needed a job, I just posted what I wanted on craigslist in internet jobs, and had a recruiter calling me with what I wanted. But I admit I'm lucky, I had telecom experience in a telecom town.
So is cleaning up H1B abuse good? Sure. Companies posting for database admins with 10+ years experience, programing, and paying 7 dollars an hour, so they can post "cant find any workers!" to hire H1B workers, is a scam. And that should be ended.
Also, I like the 20K for PHD/Masters H1B, those people will demand high wages, and should help boost up wages for everyone. (I hope)
Cheaper is the word you're looking for. You can't put "works harder" on the balance sheet.
All of them?
You should 100% staff with brahman, it's what you deserve. Enjoy them delegating their work back to you.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Don't hand out the visas in a "lottery". Sort the applications by salary. Start handing them out for the highest-paid workers, and work your way down.
If you really can't find these workers in the US, you'd be willing to pay more to import them.
If you're just looking for cheap bodies, well you're gonna end up towards the bottom of the list and not get any visas.
This is what I hate about corporate media. They're left on social issue but hard right on economics.
Companies get 65k H1-Bs every year. Those visas are good for 4-6 years. There's over 800,000 H1-B visa workers in this country. Most of them tech workers.
If Trump wants my attention he can start by reversing the Obama era executive order that let H1-B spouses work. That basically doubled the number of H1-Bs to 1.6 million overnight. That would also put upward pressure on H1-B wages since they'd have to pay for a stay at home spouse. He promised that during the campaign. It's been over 2 years and I'm still waiting. And no, the courts don't matter. It's an executive order. If anything the courts would side with reversing it. Obama overstepped his bounds signing the order.
This same Congress is getting ready to double the number of H2-Bs, by the way. With the help of the Clinton Democrats like Pelosi and Chuck Shumer, I might add. I'm not expecting anything here. Donald Trump's also staffed his admin with the same ex-Goldman Sach's people who've been running the country since Clinton.
If anyone wants to vote the bums out you'll get your chance in 2011. Show up at your primary. Also, and I know this isn't popular to say, but don't vote GOP. The Dems have Clinton Democrats, and those bastards need to be primaried, but the Dems have a _few_ pro worker folks like Bernie and Liz Warren. Yeah, they won't gut immigration, but birth rates are down, do you really want it gutted? What's gonna happen to your 401k if we're short workers. No, what you want is for some of that money the immigrants are earning to make it to you and your community. The GOP has been pushing trickle down economics again. The Tax Cut Trump did proved that. And it's not working, like always. GOP is out of ideas, Clinton Democrats are out of ideas. Time to give the Berniecrats a go.
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That you find Trump jailbait is kinda odd. Are you perhaps used to sexually abusing the membership of an old folks home?
meant 2020. Stupid /. not letting me edit comments.
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This is a great way to drive education cost for US students by admitting more foreign students. Expect two mortgages if you want MS degree. If you cared about US workforce you would make sure they can afford education!
And to the 96% of the worlds population that are NOT US citizens, they consider US labour foreign, should all US exports also get a tariff on them ?
Can be as simple as "Every H-1B must get paid at least double the average American salary." Such a rule could work in perpetuity, too.
You'll notice it's an _additional_ 20k. They'll use diploma mills to get the workers they want. Meanwhile your wages and mine will drop.
Also, it's not 20k _total_. It's 20k this year, 20k more the next. The work visas are good for 4-6 years at least. There's already over 800k H1-Bs in this country. Why do you think it is you can't turn your head in STEM without seeing them or that they're having to cram them 5 to an apartment?
I don't think any abuses are going to be curtailed. It's going to get worse, but since Trump ran on cutting these abuses he'll have his media engine push that narrative to us tech workers. As always, watch carefully what they _do_, not what they say. I keep repeating this, but Trump still hasn't made good on his promise to revoke Obama's executive order allowing Spouses to work...
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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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jailbait
I think we found the person who's responsible for Lemonparty...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
For very variable definitions of "better". Do they work longer? Sure. Do they work harder? Quite so.
Both means jack shit. What I care about is "do they produce better products". Which they ain't.
In other words, I prefer a worker that works for 3 hours and slacks off for 3 before going home early and gets the job done to one that slaves away for 16 hours and THEN I have to put the other worker down for his 3 hours tomorrow to fix that rubbish.
I need results. Not hours.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Not today. Please come back tomorrow, we might have it fixed by then.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yeah, didn't think so.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
He doesn't get credit for recognizing an OBVIOUS problem. And once again, all he is doing is telling people what they want to hear.
The real problem isn't even bringing people HERE to work. It's companies laying off U.S employees only to replace them with workers in places like India and now Africa.
I mean, just how stupid is this trump guy? And worse, just how stupid are the morons who follow him?
we have immigration enforcement for a reason. Deport both when the spouse is caught.
And it doesn't make me a dime. That money doesn't get to me. Whatever they pay in taxes I lose in tax cuts to the wealthy. Until we get politicians who stop pushing Trickle Down economics and that Job Creator Bullshit lie then it really doesn't matter to me. I don't care about the economy at large. I care about _my_ economy. The working man's economy.
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Now make it an auction instead of a lottery...
How are all the ORANGE MAN BAD!!!! idjits going to respond to this?
I'm grabbing popcorn!
Great idea. Personally, I have a Masters in Pomposity and Self-Righteousness, plus a Doctorate in Grandiosity and Self-Aggrandizement, all by mail, all from Trump University, and all signed by The New Messiah, our Great Leader, The Donald Himsef.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Twice the hard, half the quality. Now please do the needful!
This is only true for certain types of work. If there is a substantial stream of work that can be transferred offshore_in its entirety_ including the subject matter expertise, then all that work can be performed remotely. For anything else, a local presence is required. Either to accept the iterative knowledge transfer from the local SMEs, or so that the work can be performed locally under supervision. If this isn't done, then delays, misunderstanding, and other screwups will contribute to a greatly increased failure rate.
There is no such thing as luck. Luck is nothing but an absence of bad luck.
And it would be quite accurate as well. The government already knows what we all make. They don't have to depend on the sweat shops to come up with the numbers.
They would not be able to compete with the googles and microsofts of the world in price. But, Should we care about them or about the actual industry that is being gutted by the influx of cheap labor? I say no.
How are all the ORANGE MAN BAD!!!! idjits going to respond to this?
I'm grabbing popcorn!
I don't think the ORANGE MAN is bad, I do, however, think he is dumber than a bag of hammers.
+ cost of living so about 300k+ starting in bay area
Actually sense the Trump administration has been in office many H1B visas are being denied. I believe this aided myself into getting the new position I received in my company and my company is looking to hire more local talent as well. I've seen a lot in the news and Indian news about how H1Bs are becoming harder or getting rejected due to companies not paying enough or the skill isn't really that much of a specialty. This is one of the things I can say I'm happy the Trump Admin is enforcing.
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.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
in my post. Are you stalking me? Cool, I got my first stalker!
Anyway, I'm not opposed to killing ICE. Like I said above, We already have immigration enforcement. ICE was created _post_ 9/11. And like the patriot act that freaks me out. I can't help but wonder why we didn't just put more money into existing structures. To be blunt, it makes me wonder if ICE is going to turn into the American Version of the SS.
Here's a crazy thought about The Wall: What makes you think it's there to keep people out? Germany had one. They used it to keep people _in_.
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Having worked with H1Bs and overseas I have never met people who put in more hours, worked longer hours, were better educated, and more dedicated than workers in the US. Europeans are probably second, then the Chinese I interacted with, and dian the bottom of the barrel. Though the Indian women I met were often pretty sharp.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Which is H1Bs are fundamentally indentured servitude. An H1B cannot pursue better paying jobs. Even if they pay their own shipping costs. This is a way of destroying free market forces and creating a captured labor market.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
you can measure the hours they work and how many lines of code their write. I know /.ers like to bang on about code quality, and yes that matters in some places. But in a lot of place it doesn't. The phrase "Code Monkey" exists for a reason.
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it costs a ton to bring an H1-B here. On top of that it's much, much cheaper to pay them in their home country. If businesses could offshore these jobs they would. Sometimes you just need people on site to collaborate. Yahoo, for example, learned that the hard way.
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living and working conditions. India has a massive number of people with food insecurity. This results in much cheaper labor because they're literally fighting for their lives. You can't compete when there's that much inequality.
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You do understand that 60% of the worlds population lives in Asia, not the USA (only 4%)
There is also Europe to consider.
You do understand that delays TO the USA are just as long as the delays FROM the USA.
Sorry, but the USA is NOT the centre of the universe. And more and more US corporations are earning more from the rest of the world than the USA, the US has become a secondary market. The real consumer growth is is Asia, not the USA.
But keep believing what you believe, it will then come as a rude shock when software goes the same way as manufacturing.
Most American students leave university with 10,000 to 80,000 worth of student loans. While many H1-B workers total university cost is $8,000. A $1000 per month tax would put H1-B workers that same economic parity as American workers with student loans. And maintain a higher wages engineers have work hard for. If companies really want good talent then they should pay for it. The employer should pay some and the H1-B worker should pay some.
Right now America is "out sourcing" education. It is cheaper to hire a H1-B than to provide a good education to Americans at an affordable cost. Corporation out sources manufacturing overseas starting in the 1980s and look how that turned out. Just think of the problems in 10 years if education is out sourced today.
You are trying to gaslight us all...
In 2018 (and 2017) all H1B Visas were fully filled just like any other year for the last 16 years.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/s...
What has changed is that the number H2B Visas where expanded by 20K positions between 2017 and 2018... gotta have low paid grounds keepers... you know at private Golf Clubs and such.
https://www.newsweek.com/trump...
You are welcome on my lawn.
Sorry, but the USA is NOT the centre of the universe.
So what? The rest of the world is welcome to try to develop and sell its own high tech, just like we did.
Meanwhile, the USA is where *I* live and work now. So foreign-worker laws, their interpretation and enforcement, along with management and investor fads, all matter to *MY* bottom line. Especially when I have founding stock options in a startup but not enough clout with the C-suite to keep them from committing corporate suicide.
For non-founders, though, the H1B system, as currently practiced, is the hi-tek white-collar version of the blue-collars' "undocumented laborer" problem, where imported workers with shaky legal status that keeps them from demanding legally-mandated working conditions (and other issues) results in not just depressing the wages of the citizen-worker competion, but drives things SO low that, without government enforcement, employers have the choice of hiring illegals or becoming so uncompetitive that they go out of business.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
We will work remotely.
USA being obscenely richer than all other countries was an anomaly due to WW2 destroying all other major economies while growing the US economy. As other economies have rebuilt and others have thrown off the shackles of colonialism and unleashed there potential a reversion to mean is occurring. there is nothing inherently special about America or Americans. Just because someone wins a lottery and becomes a billionaire doesnt mean their children will continue to be always richer than their neighbors. The neighbors will catch up eventually.
**Life is too short to be serious**
Many US students are able to study for free because the foreigners are paying a full tuition (they sell their houses and ancestral properties to pay for an US education) Kick the foreign students out and you will see fewer scholarships for American students. It might not be so bad. Fewer college educated Americans would mean more Americans to do farm labor and we might not need workers from Central America to pick the fruit. The foreigners can just as well spend their tuition money in Europe.
**Life is too short to be serious**
Democrats aren't liberals, never were
Depends which definition of "liberal" you use: they're definitely not liberal in the [classic; European] sense. However, ever since the debate over Federalism, the term liberal has nearly the opposite meaning: someone who espouses a "liberal interpretation of the powers granted to the Federal Government by the Constitution" (as opposed to a "conservative" interpretation).
(The only fuckers on that side were the Connecticut and Rhode banking families that had been allied with the king (Tories) and wanted to subvert this experiment that was so thoughtful to the elite.)
"thoughtful?" I meant "threatening"
USCIS is using frivolous reasons to reject H1Bs. e.g. For a person who has been working a particular job for 5 years, has a Green card approved and getting yearly extensions waiting for a priority date, USCIS is suddenly saying please prove that you are qualified for the job and denying n extension. The guy moves back to Inida and starts working from the offshore office of the client. Over a period of 3-6 months, hiring in that project all moves to offshore and pretty much the project runs from offshore. Since Trump has become president I have seen this happen to 4 projects. About 5 Americans lost their jobs and had to move to other projects within the company.
So thanks Trump.
**Life is too short to be serious**
Under Trump most transfer petitions are getting rejected so employees cannot move. Trump has been the best thing for Infosys, Wipro and TCS. Every visa rejection means the guy moves offshore and the job moes offshore too. On every offshore position they make 60% margin while an onsite position only makes them 20%. They only staff onsite because the client insists but if a guy has to move offshore the client has no choice. They dont want to hire and train a new guy when the guy moving offshore already has years of knowledge of the project.
I wonder how much the Indian bodyshoppers paid to Trump's campaign.
**Life is too short to be serious**
But does it provide Mein Kampf quotes like the Boghossian's "study" did? Or make complex conclusions about human homosexuality based on dogs fucking in parks?
You can spam the religious nonsense that is modern grievance studies all you want. All that makes you is that one God freak in the room of atheists.
Nope. Guess again.
Yes, I too suffer from the urge to start every response with an adhom. :)
Anyway, I'm not opposed to killing ICE. Like I said above, We already have immigration enforcement.
Name it, then. The reason ICE was organized after 9/11 was because it falls under the Homeland Security umbrella. They deal with what slips by Customs and Border Protection. Are you suggesting this role be left to the states, which they have no constitutional mandate for, and some actively oppose?
Here's a crazy thought about The Wall: What makes you think it's there to keep people out? Germany had one. They used it to keep people _in_.
So did the Chinese. For some reason our rich and elite also prefer to live in gated communities. Also noone is proposing building a wall on our northern border. Why is that?
Wouldn't know / don't care / voted Libertarian. I guess that opens me up to even more a/c derision. Yippie-kai-yea.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
I'm not so worried about the number however the "auction" method is horrible. It artificially reduces deflates salaries in the US.
It needs to be an auction method where companies have to pay more to reserve one of these spots. Additionally, they need to be required to pay 1.25x or so more than the national average in pay.
Instead these H1B lottery people are brought in at bargain basement prices and screwed over by contracting companies. They're typically low level college graduates and severely affect US salaries in the IT industry
Such an awesome idea! I first thought of it a few years ago, and I imagine others too,
I didn't originate it. (Maybe you did. B-) )
But (like "sealing the dry cell in a steel can to keep it from wrecking the flashlight when the caustic eats through the zinc electrode"), it's "Of COURSE!" once somebody thinks of it and tells others.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
H1Bs are used not just by software engineers. They are also used by fashion models and fashion models are paid a pittance. If you rank it by salary Melania Trump would never have been able to come to the US.
**Life is too short to be serious**