Slashdot Mirror
H-1B Tech Workers May Be Severely Underpaid
DocBones sent a link to a provocative story in The Business Journal of San Jose about how foreign high-tech workers in the U.S. on H-1B visas often earn far less than they are worth, perhaps because the terms of their visas make switching jobs so hard that they can't bid out their services effectively. Industry spokespeople deny any wage differences. Trade groups keep on lobbying to raise the current 115,000/year cap on H-1B visas to 200,000/year. The whole issue is a mass of claims and counter-claims, each one "supported" by statistics and surveys. Is there a "right" side or a "wrong" side here? Does anyone with first-hand experience as an H-1B worker care to comment?
Well, I DID move from one of the richest countries (Switzerland) to the US, and I took a 30% pay cut.
:)
BUT: Prices being far lower here in San Diego, and a host of other things which we value highly as a family adding positive points to the tally, it made our own standard of living come out about equal. Plus, there's a far bigger job market locally in my field (biotech/biotech-related comouting) than anywhere in my country. And we haven factored in the climate yet.
All these comparisons and evaluations are going to be different for each person, but for us it was a no-brainer, pay cut or not.
There is no reason for the government to discriminate against foreign non-tech people, but the solution mentioned here is available today and not dependent on some fat-cat politicians in the pocket of big money corporations to maybe, one day, change the law.
Contractors' Resources and other umbrella companies are in business to serve people in the computer-related industry. One of their services is visa portability, but it certainly isn't the only thing they provide (401k, money-purchase retirement plan, medical insurance, billing, tax filing, liability insurance, disability insurance, and the ability to expense business related costs, all while remaining a W2 employee which really helps to keep you off the IRS's radar screens -- nobody likes an audit, even if you are squeeky clean).
If there were umbrella agencies for other professions, the exploited H1B's could use them as well and there may well be. But I don't know about them and can only recommend the companies that I have had real experience working with and after a year of working with CR, I recommend them highly.
The H1-B program should be shut down. Having indentured workers in the industry hurts workers, both H1-B and citizens. It would be better to just let them in, i.e. give them green cards. Then they can negotiate for a higher wage. The H1-B program is a good deal for companies because indentured workers are cheap workers.
Our immigration policy makes no sense. We make it too hard for productive people to come here from China and India, for example. But then, we let Castro dump his prisons and insane asylums on Florida. We allow people to immigrate who will mooch off "the system". The policy is bass-ackards. The H1-B visa was probably created as a workaround but it is being abused.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Perhaps because the person from America is less likely to move to Denmark and leave the project hanging?
That is the only legitimate reason I can think of for paying foreign workers who aren't yet citizens less. There IS a risk associated with it, though a small and flimsy one.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
West Roxbury is fairly nice. I live in the student slums of Allston/Brighton, and my rent is $550/m. I'd suggest Quincy - Altus used to live there, and it's on the Red Line and still very cheap.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Indians can be very class conscious, they can be really nice people, but if you work for them, you're dog meat. One of the best and one of the worst managers I've worked for were Indians (not the same person).
Generally speaking, most people I know are worthless past 60-hours/week. In short, this type of crap is only creating problems. Employers are expecting people to work 60-80 hours for a salary. This only hurts the US worker. Devalues US and H1-Bs. This type of thing needs to be more heavily regualted. I'm all of the law requiring salary can't work more than 60.
Does anyone know if having his own company and contracting through it would solve the problems of being exploited?
Are there any restrictions by law?
Make that a ditto...There is now way I'd put up with the INTRUSIvV European Governments again, I did contracts in both England and France....Boy they SUCK....If the H1-B have to go through anything like I did overseas then 60k is NOT nearly enough. BTW 60K is on the low side here in CA, though I don't know about elsewhere....
Silicon Valley is all about exploitation .
If you think the pay is low for progammers.
Take a long look at what Silicon Valley pays people who do other jobs like Assemblers,wave solder opperators.The conditiond suck and the pay is awful.Yes people who apply for visa's get screwed when they come to the valley,but it gets even worse for people who lack english skills .
The bottom line is most Silicon valley based companies are not to be trusted
If he's like 99% of the Indian programmers I know, it's an arranged marriage. This is an aside, but what's up with that? I can't every dream of marrying some stranger as my wife....but on the other hand, all the Indians I know seem to have pretty stable family lives; maybe it works.
Yes, buying a $200 plane ticket is resourceful. The vast majority of people in a less-developed country couldn't afford one. Or didn't you know that?
I've done a lot of remote work. There's no substitute for physical presence.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
This brings up another point - many of the indians I know here in Sunnyvale (borders Santa Clara) get married in arranged marriages to people back home (India), and then bring them over here. And these women usually try to get a job under the H1Bs - so you're effectively doubling the work population. In fact, the school I graduated from (San Jose State University), was known for having it's grad computer engineering department filled with indian spouses. Anyone have any comment on that?
At least I don't have to worry about companies pressuring me to become a full time employee with the corresponding pay slash.
You get out of the H1-B what you are willing to put in. If you don't put up with the contracting house garbage you can make as much as a non-visa worker. But if you let them get away with anything, they will exploit you. Make sure you ask all of your co-workers what pay range they are in. And be prepared to put your money where your mouth is and change jobs even if you then have to start your Green Card processing again.
Anyway I heard on the rumour mill that once they have finished the "Labour Certification" part then you don't have to start from the very beginning if you change jobs. Talk to an independent lawyer, and do the application yourself. This is the route I've taken and it's easier than you think.
I am sorry that one of your countrymen is so obnoxious to you simply because he got here a little bit before you did but that is the way of the world I guess. People are the same all over.
Marjo Wycam, Master of the Programming Arts
Folks:
There are some basic and rather fundamental things that are being missed in this discussion. Anecdotal evidence for abuse is easy to find, but the most important issues are being missed by focussing on individual cases.
That is, the companies primary motivation to bring on an H1B person is to lower their employment costs. Period. Moreover the apocryphal nonesense promolguated by many tech companies as to why they need more H1B's is absolutely insulting. The one and only reason they want H1Bs here is to lower their costs. That is to raise their profits.
While you may argue one way or another about how good this is, remember that a business is in business to make a profit for those that own the business. Period. The H1B mechanism allows them to lower costs (which count against profits).
What this creates unfortunately is a technological underclass of worker. That is, a person who is bound to a particular employer for a period of time via the H1B mechanism. The argument is that the H1B provides a method for the employer to pave the way for the H1B to enter the country as a contributing member supplying a badly needed skill.
The problem is that the skills are not all that badly needed. This is rather grossly misrepresented by our high tech lobbyists in DC. The H1B effect is not just to bind a set of workers more closely to an employer, but to also depress the market for wages for those not on the H1B, as they are competing for the same jobs as the H1B people.
So if you are starting to get the point I am trying to make, that employers are using this to help contain their costs, well, then you are on the right track of understanding what is going on here. I do not apologise for this policy, I abhor it. It is important to understand it regardless of how frustrating it is to deal with it.
I would prefer a free and open job market, but it doesn't exist. The high tech salaries are exploding far faster than profits and growth. This should be something that H1B people can take advantage of. Unfortunately with the program in place as it is now, they cannot. They are effectively excluded from this market. The market for H1B people is in fact an attempt to regulate and control the wages for the non-H1B types.
So we are left with a legal binding contract, placing a person into the bowels of an organization for a set period of time. Last I heard, we outlawed that practice in this country (US) 135 years ago.
Apparantly there are loopholes to be closed.
When I came to US (on an H1B visa), it *did* double my salary - I went from 30k UK pounds to $100k US. Just about exactly double.
However, my green card has taken 5 years to process so far - and will certainly take at least one more year.
The problem for me isn't the money (I'm earning almost exactly what I did 5 years ago) - it's that I'm a prisoner - a slave almost. The only way to get out of a job that I hate because it's changed beyond recognition is to sell my house, uproot my kid from school and return to UK.
That's ridiculous because US companies are trying to head-hunt me at a rate of one or two per week.
To those who would say "you wanted to come here - live with it", I'd point out that I was invited to come here to do a job that nobody else could do...that's a necessary precondition for the Green Card process. My job was advertised for several weeks - and not one person could meet the qualifications and work experience my employer required.
I don't have any experience with an H1-B, but my gf does. She's a staffing coordinator at a rather large company in Silicon Valley. She explained to me the common practise (not her practise, she just handles temps) a few days ago. According to her:
Indians are brought over in boatloads. They're granted H1-B's, and several are crammed into a tiny apartment. They're paid way below the current rate, so they can't afford to move, or do anything social, or afford "luxuries" like cable tv. This works out perfectly for the employer--since the employee doesn't have anything to do other than work, they spend ~10-14 hours a day working.
I replaced a guy at a job a few years back who was stuck like this. He had a ton more experience than I did, but he was getting paid roughly the same as I was, even though I was a newhire with almost no experience.
I don't advocate the expulsion of all workers with visas, by far they are very necessary as there is a strong desire for programmers, IT experts, etc. My mother constantly is bugging me to create a program to do this and that for her. However, my experience has shown me that companies first look overseas before searching for a possibly qualified american. If anyone is interested in seeing my resume or has any constructive suggestions, I would appreciate them greatly. I can be emailed at: evanals1@twcny.rr.com
"God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically." - Albert Einstein
Eric VanAlstine All comments posted are mine alone, not Intel's
Unless you are a pure-bred native american, then I guess we're all traitors, by your standards. My grandparents (all 4), emigrated from Russia during and shortly after the Russian revolution. While fighting against the Communists in the Tsar's army, my paternal grandparents escaped via Odessa. The morning after they boarded a commandeered riverboat, the Red Army stormed the docks in Odessa. All of the remaining Tsarist soldiers (and their families) were killed. Does that make my grandparents traitors too? Many people come to the United States from all over the world. They may come for the opportunity. They may come to find religious or political freedoms which can't be found in their native countries. And many of our ancestors did just the same. There was nothing wrong with it then and there's nothing wrong with it now.
NOTE : His boss was an *INdian*.
It is sad Indians are exploiting Indians.
This is my 3rd time over working as a temporary worker in the U.S. I had to wait 10-15 minutes at the border for the official to sign my VISA, but that's about it. I'm on a student J1 visa.
If you have a degree or relevant expereince as a Canadian, the TN-1 VISA works wonders.
Me thinks you just didn't go through the right channels. A year wait is wait too long - even an H1B only takes 4 months.
-Stu
Big-O doesn't necessarily have to do with execution time, though that's what it's typically used for. It's also frequently used for memory usage. ie: "this algorithm uses a O(n^2) buffer"
O(log n) isn't the nicest, O(1) is. O(1) is constant time. And yes, it does happen. ie: inserting at the head of a linked list is typically O(1), as opposed to inserting at the head of an array, which is O(n).
And saying "if it's O(n^2) or worse, dump the algorithm" is going too far. For sorting algorithms this may be true, but for other algorithms, O(n^2) might be very good. There are some things where there is no known efficient algorithm, where "efficient" is defined as polynomial time. So there are cases where you even have to deal with inefficient algorithms like O(n!) or O(2^n).
Also note that O-notation refers to "growth". Quicksort is O(n log n), and Linear insertion sort is O(n^2), so Quicksort wins for large datasets. Most linear insertion sort implementations will beat most quicksort implementations for very small datasets though. (and many implementations of 'qsort' will actually do something other than quicksort for very small datasets)
Oh, and there are also cases where variables other than n will come up. For instance, in text searching, one might say n is the length of the text, and m is the length of the substring. The typical brute-force string search is O(n*m). KMP (Knuth-Morris-Pratt) is O(n+m^2) I believe. If m is small, and n is very large (as is usually the case), then KMP wins. Also, the O(m*m) part can actually be done once for the substring. Each search in each body of text is then just O(n).
And to get almost back on topic, I'm working in the US on a TN Visa (that's "Temporary NAFTA"). I'm from Canada. TN's are also tied to employers, but since TN's are significantly easier to get compared to H1's, that probably isn't as much of an issue, but it is an issue.
I am wondering what the situation for foreign workers in Europe, and especially in France with the good ol' "Lois Pasqua".
Well, they say France has decided to shut down immigration officially in 1974, and on the other hand, french companies (highly supported by french officials) keep on arranging large numbers of interviews in third-world countries to recruit technical workers. (e.g. in Morocco this year).
Does anyone know the conditions and visas delivered to these people? I would not be surprised if it was some "tricky" french visa.
At least, here in the US, people do speak openly of these issues, which is far from being the case in France.
Fat Bastard
$200 is a piece of cake with anybody with the skills to legitamately get an H1-B; or didn't you know that? No substitute for physcial presence? Repealing H1-B doesn't mean *YOU* can't go see your workers overseas! So just what are you moaning about???
H-1B is a sham.
Most holders really want to work permanently
in the US when the original visa was really meant
for extended business trips.
H-1Bs then are exploited in immigration never-never-land.
So either give unlimited technical green cards
or no H-1Bs at all.
I think you said it your self. By using important talent, they can keep the bar down low. If they stopped this type of thing and limit the number of hours that people can work, might be a start.
How do you get a H-1B? What is it? I already have a visa, but it's nearly maxed. Does that matter?
A lot of what I read here is mis-informed at best, and offensive
at worst. However rather than join the flame war I'd like to
throw in a completely different perspective here.
I run the chip design group of a silicon valley company and
as such recruiting is one of my major responsibilities.
It so happens I've also worked on H1-B for the last 4+ years.
As a company we constantly have open jobs for software and
hardware engineers that we are unable to fill at ANY price.
Of the people we can find to interview, I would say that
90% should been shown the way to the exit after we've spent
the first 10 minutes with them. This labor pool is incredibly
drained of talent, and frustrating beyond belief, indeed
both the shortage of candidates and the costs of employing them
threaten the sustainability of the booming technology industries.
For the xenophobes amongst you I say this, don't worry about a
massive influx of under-paid foreign nationals, because there
are apparently not enough of them with superior technology
skills who want to work in the US judging by the many I reject.
And as for the so-called "American", whatever he/she is exactly,
spend your time encouraging children to be interested in science
and engineering because for reasons beyond my comprehension my
experience (and those of others I know) is that no "Americans",
college grads or experienced, apply for any technical vacancies
here, which is what everyone should realy start to worry about.
Just for the record the company I work for has no policy formal
or actual that differentiates between immigrant and citizen
employees financialy (or otherwise).
(Should I add that we have S/W and H/W vacancies working in
a predominantly Linux based development enviroment here!
and that they are open for ANYBODY if they can cut it)
According to the 7/22 Wall Street Journal editorial page, immigration is responsible for
restraining wage "inflation". It therefore
thinks both are absolutely fabulous. I presume
that encompasses the specific case of H-1B workers.
As has been noted, the major problem with H1B and other work visas is the unprecedented control that they give to the employer over the employee. The implicit, and often explicit threat of being fired and ulitmately deported if one shows any hint of self-interest is completely un-American.
As a contractor/consultant, I feel that any and all H1Bs and other immigrants should be allowed to come to America and work if they want to. But, they should not be kept in slave-like conditions, especially when their artificially under-paid salaries put a drag on the entire market. If cheap labor is available, it makes it that much harder for me to get paid well.
The solution is to let the H1Bs earn what they can in a free-market. There are a couple of companies that specialize in helping contractors, including H1Bs, maximize their earnings. These companies are called umbrella companies. They work sort of like body-shops except that you find your own work and they only take a minimal cut off the top (between 1.5%-6%) for handling paperwork and back-office functions. The benefit to H1Bs and other immigrants is that they offer you visa portability.
You can switch jobs in pursuit of a fair market rate without the worry that your employer is going to cancel your visa and deport you.
The largest of these umbrellas is Contractors's Resources, and I use their services myself, although I am a US citizen. Check them out at: Contractors' Resources
If you are one of the unlucky majority of exploited H1B and green-card seekers, these guys may be able to help you earn a lot more money, and help out us American citizens by removing the articifical downward pressure on wages in the technical market. It is a win-win situation for everyone.
I am not a citizen of the United States.
What is a H-1B worker?
My company has an office in the UK, and I see this too - it's friggin unbeleivable how you folks can get by. Gasoline is like 5 times what it costs in the states. Food, like double. Rent avg about the Bay area. Own a home? not bloody likely. And the pay is generally less.
Then when we were talking about stock options, the brits were saying, "screw stock options, just give us a raise now".
Personally, I've done VERY well with my stock options, and if I could trade my options for a 10% pay raise four years ago, I would NOT do it, even though, as a non-programmer, I don't make all that much.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
A desire to better one's life is fundamental to migration. Only a few probably ever immigrated to US for a change of weather.
In the Bay Area, $60k is not quite enough to live on, let alone raise a family.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
is THIS a common slashdot view????
One: Check your grammer, then blame others for their spellings.
4) Working in the US is great because the taxes are far less than in the "Socialist Republic of Canada"
HAHAHA Try living in California (silicon valley esp.) and see how much money you save over Canada. Linving in Menlo Park makes Rosedale look affordable.
Yes I agree. That company of which you speak will hire you for a Canadian branch office, pay you $38000 per year (Cdn and that's the low end of the IT pay spectrum in Canada). They then "loan" you to their American branch offices (Detroit, Denver, Boston etc) for and unlimited amount of time and still pay you your Canadian wages, as if you were living in Toronto!(BTW that comes out to $25080 USD per year as of this morning). Their lawyers will get you a TN-1 or BN-1 (for "training") which you will work under. They also try to say if you quit before 2 years you owe them the cost of your training (between $4000 and $9000 USD, depending on how long you were in training). Now, maybe I'm out of line, but doesn't that sound like wage slavery or indebtured servitude to you? Isn't this the same way Asian sex slaves are brought into North America?
They do this to Canadian citizens and others all the time.
Also, I'd like to remind many of you who have been posting why most HB-1 workers are coming to the US - because they are needed. There are thousands of unfilled IT positions out there, in both the US and Canada. HB-1 workers aren't taking your jobs, they are filling jobs that would otherwise go vacant. American companies have more IT positions than there are qualified people to fill them. Without HB-1 workers, the US economy would suffer.
Given that, whay should these needed people be exploited? I thought the US was the land of the Free? "Give me your tired, huddled masses yearning to be free"?!?.
Most HB-1 folks are very highly skilled professionals who will do good work. Unfortunately, in such a market, unscrupulous "Agencies" will recruit anyone under the HB-1, pay them crap or deliver inferior workers just to pocket the finders fee. These agencies always get their money but workers get screwed by the bad rep the HB-1 gets and companies loose out because they don't get the workers the so desparately need.
Remember, its the companies who want an increase in the HB-1 quotas, no the workers...
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
Maybe they still earn much, much more than they did in their home country?
On the other hand, they'd have to pay at least twice of what I earn here in Europe to make me move to the US. Kind of like an extra for hazardous duty...
The H1-B is supposed to provide America with tech workers. So doesn't it strike anyone as odd that you need higher education to get an H1-B?
IMHO most of the best tech workers are self-taught, whereas the graduates are generally clueless.
There are indeed plenty of organizations that do not ascribe to the principles that you've elaborated on. There are even more that do follow them for most of the development process, but run things differently at their most basic levels. (The very place where Brooks developed the OS/360 architecture is one of them.) In these places it's widely thought that the only necessary communication is I/O. Once the required input and the desired output are communicated across, a function is written by the programmer to do the work. The programmers in such places have no view into the overall project they are working on, and may not even know what the project is. The functions may be simple or elaborate, varied or homogeneous... to these organizations it does not matter as long as they are done. Such basics as code optimization and reliability are occasionally (some would argue more frequently) thrown out the window in favor of assembling a product fast enough to beat competitors to market.
An assembly line mentality it may be, but unfortunately (this is in my experience) that's how things are currently done in many large US companies. In such an environment, cheap(er) labor is preferred over communications skills, or even more skillful programming in some instances.
Of course, I still think 115K is a high enough ceiling, for this day and age, if one is going to be set. The arguments for or against having a ceiling at all are varied and I'm certain there are many good, reasonable places to stand on both sides of the issue. I currently haven't read enough (or been interested enough) to make a concrete decision about it. *shrug*
LouZiffer
I worked for a major company in the valley (which was listed yesterday in the benifits article). Most of the people in my group were Indian or from Pakistan. Several people in my group were working on their green cards. Those who got them left the company. I feel sorry for the one who had to stay at the company after 95% of the group was layed off. He now must work like a slave until he gets that green card (where I expect him to tell the company where to shove the job).
About half of the group were consultants from Wipro, an Indian contracting firm. Those who got the chance jumped ship to other companies who could sponsor them for a green card (i.e. Cisco, 3Com, etc.).
At my current company we had 3 Indian consultants who recently quit because of problems with the consulting company. Due to our contract with the contracting firm we could not hire them full-time. They were excellent engineers and were treated like full-time engineers. From what I have been told, a significant portion of an H-1 engineer's salary goes to the contracting house, which is associated with the Indian government. It is often just as expensive, or even more expensive, to hire an H-1 engineer than a full-time employee. Sometimes there's no choice. It depends on the company as to how the contractors are treated. Some are treated very well, others are not. As for the pay, it is negotiated between the company and the contracting house, and the contractor often has very little say.
Right now we are looking for full-time engineers with networking experience. Most of the candidates I have interviewed have been major disappointments. Most do not have basic C programming skills which are necessary in an embedded environment.
The Indians I have worked with have proven to be highly talented and very hard working (both those with H-1's and those who've gained their citizenship). I think part of the problem is that there ARE NOT enough American born engineers with the right skills. Large companies like Cisco seem to suck up a huge percentage of networking engineers, and our colleges are not spitting out enough qualified computer engineer/science graduates. I've interviewed some of the recent grads. Some don't know big-O notation or the difference between a linked list and a binary tree, which is pathetic.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
My situation is as follows: Im 27, an expert Internet networking pro, with many additional skills. A company is interested in hiring me, for what I believe is a nice salary (six figure). I made extensive market research before negotiating, so I had a good idea as to what I was supposed to be paid. They will issue an H1B, and in my contract it says that they will begin working with me on a GC application after one year. We have an understanding that we will do this earlier, as soon as my boss (who is extremely nice) feels I am committed to the company. In short, it all looks very good on the face of it.
However, I was not aware that the GC app process itself takes that long! Four years?! I browsed through some related sites, and had the impression that it takes a few months, a year at most. And what about salary increases? Promotion? Cant they do that without resubmitting for a new H1B? This is all very worrying... I plan to stay in that company for at least three years, probably more, but not if I cant get promoted or gain a salary increase! I mean, I do have some very very good offers in my country, including from some sexy startups, but I wanted to find out how it is to live and work in the US. Should I change my mind?
And please dont give me any of that hypocritical "you want to come here, your problem" attitude. My skillset is in very high demand, anywhere in the world, and I will contribute to the economy just as much as I would gain from it, wherever I go. Sure, I want to live in the US because the quality of life over there is among the best in the world, but if it means blocking my career path...
Comments?
H1-B visas are a classic trick of employers-- align one group of laborers against another. First, they find a legal (and by legal I mean through the legal system with no connotations of justice) way to reduce the wages of one group of laborers (in this case foreign tech), and replace the higher paid laborers with new cheaper. In the past, the workers have been too caught up with being angry at the new workers to attack the legal system through which this entire process is maintained.
So, Re: H1-B visas.
The issue isn't whether foreign workers are qualified to do the work. There are brilliant people everywhere. The only real difference is the language barrier, but everybody else in the world knows which country is taking all the money and therefor which language it would be useful to know (even if it's just cause you're stuck in some dumb tourism job).
The H1-B visas should be modified to increase the foreign workers fluidity between jobs. Limiting the number if visas is bad b/c it doesn't change the exploitave (sp?) conditions of the visa. Limiting numbers also prevents qualified foreign workers from being employed in their American-dominated field. The best solution is to give those workers as many options as thier American counter-parts.
And in the long run, we had better wake up. As computers become commodities, geeks will become more and more like every other employee. This means that we will see more and more labor tactics used against us. Remember the other articles about older programmers looking for work in Silicon Valley? It may be a meritocracy, but there is little doubt that employers are not going to stick to just those rules when it comes time to cut costs.
So wake up. Realize that we have to group together, not just to create a great OS or a great application, but to ensure that we can continue to be employed on our terms, not the employers.
And while we're at it, let's start looking at ways of helping all employees to be employed on their own terms, not that of the companies which profit off of what we build.
...unlike RMS, you can call me a Communist all you want. Not accurate, but not to far from the truth either.
When I was on an H1 (no B suffix, I think that's a new variation?), I was paid $26K/year. Not great for a an engineer with 5+ years experience. This was 1986-1989, so adjust for inflation if you wish. And it was in one of the highest cost-of-living parts of the US.
I also was constantly subjected to "visa blackmail", where my enployer could demand almost ANYTHING, under direct threat of firing me, knowing that I could not legally work in any other job and would be on the next plane out of the country.
However much some other posters minimize this problem, for me it was VERY real.
I just thought I'd point out that the 115,000 mentioned in the article is not a dollar amount; rather it's a number representing the quota for H1B visas issued annually...I don't believe there is a limit on an H1B salary.
We could use someone with your skill set and
fluent french is a plus.
Hit on www.8x8.com/company/employment.html
and see if you see a match.
I am currently working in the US on H1B visa and have been for 4 years with two different companies. When I moved to the valley from abroad my starting salary was probably $25K under what it should have been. Most of this was my own ignorance and what I was willing to accept. Yes, the employer took advantage of me, but it was not something they could expect to last. I was only here a few weeks before I clued in and let my boss know I knew I was being underpaid. I saw 30%+ increases each year until my salary was more market equitable.
When I applied at my second employer there was no question that I would be paid "going rate". I believe I am now paid the same as a American worker would be paid. Talking to many other H1-B workers I have found that most are paid going rate in their current jobs, though some have had to change jobs to get fair pay.
I think the whole issue of "cheap foreign labour" in the H1-B debate is a red herring. There really is high demand, employees very quickly after arriving learn what the going rate is for their skills and employers want to retain them -- net result, most H1-B workers are paid market rates.
The real bottom line is that silicon valley is, in part, successful because it is a concentration of skills and a "brain drain" on the entire world. Should the US government not support this and limit its growth by limiting the number of workers, those people will be working in places other than silicon valley. Eventually silicon valley won't matter as much.
-- "Most people prefer a popular myth to an unpopular truth"
I was wondering if fellow TN-holders might oblige my curiosity by posting the number of TN visas you've had, over the number of years. I'll start: 7 visas, 7 years.
I'm interested in whether TN visas are really being used for temporary purposes or not. I think not, but I also don't believe we're taking jobs away from Americans (c'mon folks, there are *plenty* of jobs out there, I could literally get three offers a week until Hell freezes over, and believe me, I'm not underpaid.)
Sure glad Slashdot is protecting my anonymity... I think the INS doesn't like us.
In the last five years I've hired two foreign nationals via the H-1B process. It was a natural outgrowth of increased internet usage. In 1993 we began usenet advertising to expand our engineer search beyond local papers and universities. We hired from around the US as a result. Soon it became obvious that the top-flight programmers that made themselves known (generally via some type of open-source work) we not always within our borders. Our most recent international hire was an Italian who did an amazing job overhauling the Mac port of a US university's compiler project (in his spare time). Our H-1B employees are paid as well as their US counterparts and see raises commensurate with their increasing value to the company. To do otherwise embitters the employee.
However, I must agree the potential for abuse is huge. I once interviewed a Chinese Ph.D. that was currently on an H-1B with another company. He was told to lie about his education and claim a BS so they could get away with paying him $35K.
Thank you for the advice. I went to a bunch of salary calculators on the web. The kind where you enter your knowledge and experience and it tells you how much you're worth. Almost all said that for NYC I'm slightly underpaid, but I like the people I work with and I'm getting good experience so I'm not worried anymore. It's just that reading about people coming to work in the US with little to no experience and making 60K kind of made me feel like I was getting shafted.
I'm at fault there... that part of my statement was based primarily on where I currently live (Research Triangle Park, North Carolina). I'd still argue that if you can't find a location within a decent commute range where $115k/year can support you and your family, you either have a VERY large family or it's time to look at your spending habits.
LouZiffer
Neuroprophet,
In Aug 1993, I graduated with an MS in CS from a very good US university and accepted an offer of $50K to work in midtown for a financial firm. The job consisted of C programming on SunOS.
They sponsered my H-1 and green card. Gave me an average 8% raise for 3 years. But I quit after 3 years (after I got the Green Card) as I thought I could get more.
Are you underpaid ? Well, from the above one could make a strong case that you are. Just as one could make a strong case that many H-1B employees are underpaid. There is always going to be some wage disparity, but as far as H1-B visas go, there are definite problems. Some of them have been hightlighted by the others on
For the bigots : I am an Indian programmer. My english skills rank in the top 5 percentile of US graduate students. I have never received anything due to charity - college scholarship, jobs, etc. I have/had something to sell and the university/employers/US govt. wanted to buy it. If you really understood how important I am to your continued well-being, you would be happy that you probably got a great deal.
I'm an Indian programmer working in a large networking company. I have a couple of viewpoints:
1) It depends on where you come from to your current job. Some of us (like me) came to the US to do a BS/MS/PhD, and have then taken a job. In this case, you are pretty well positioned to get a good job, and it's very unlikely that you will be taken advantage of. I had a number of highly-paying job offers to consider, all with bonuses/stock options. And I do work 60+ hours a week, but mostly because I really enjoy the work I am doing now. There's no compulsion from my boss.
However, I have many friends who didn't come to the US to study, but instead came through what is known as a "body shopper". He essentially runs a consulting company here, and sources his employees from outside (China, India etc.) In that case, you can be in for some harassment. I've heard good stories and bad stories. But then, I've also heard bad stories about employement practices in big, established companies (who sell products, as opposed to people); and I've heard bad stories about employment practices with Americans as well. Probably the average situation is much worse for H1-B guys in body shops; but then it is only temporary.
2) The fact that companies and bosses discriminate against foreign workers is a blot on their characters (and, of course, it is illegal). Don't forget that the H1-B visa application cannot be approved for any wage less than the American average. People can always perform illegal activities and exploit others. The solution is not to bar the exploited from entering this country, it is to prevent the exploiters from exploiting the weak. In Mafia-ridden Chicago earlier this century, would you (as the government) have accepted a solution wherein all those people who had to pay protection were thrown out of the city so that the Mafia wouldn't be able to extort money from them any more?
I think you need to find the real criminals here and punish them.
You are correct, if we deported all of the foreign workers, the US economy would collapse, not because there is a shortage of skilled workers, but because there is a shortage of CHEAP skilled workers. It's been a major force in keeping US inflation in check, by keeping the average wage down, ignoring the MARKET PRESSURE induced by DEMAND, to raise salaries to attract talent. People would rather be doctors or lawyers than engineers in this country, because you make much more money being a doctor or lawyer. So when the DEMAND for engineers goes up, and the salary doesn't, the supply gets tight, which SHOULD raise the salaries to attract more talent, but not if the company's would rather spend money lobbying congress for higher caps on H1-B visas, so they wouldn't have to pay engineers more, so the engineers could move into those exclusive subdivisions with all the doctors and lawyers, and really start cranking up inflation, which would raise interest rates, which would chill the stock market, which would hurt the corporate holdings. . .
Ah, NOW I see why!
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Where? Salaries within the US vary quite a bit. $50K is a ridiculously low amount for Silicon Valley. My rent for a tiny studio apt. in San Jose is $900/month.
Do you honestly expect anyone to feel sorry for someone because they're making $40-50 per hour???
I don't make that much -- probably because I'm not living on one of the coasts. (The cost of living there is insane.)
The dollar that gets exported often stays there, as the foreign stable currency of preference, all praise Greenspan.
If the worker is legal, then you can't "send 'em back to whereeverganistan."
We still have very high wages. Open immigration would raise our wages, because increased productivity is the only thing that does.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Last I checked, Europe was not part of the western hemisphere, though I suppose continental drift might have changed that since then.
-- $SIGNATURE
I live in Santa Clara and work for a company that hires H-1Bs (and has advocated that more should be allowed in).
I have nothing against your skin color. I do think that you should be getting paid what you are worth, and not be working under such terrible mental strain. As long as the US has this program, the law should force companies to pay employees as they would non-H-1Bs. I also don't like that the employees are serfs, indentured to the company. What is this, 12th century England?
Let's face it, these companies are making plenty of cash and they don't want to part with more than necessary. If they can hire cheaper workers, who work hard under threat of deportation, that's great for the company and sucks for the employee. To me, this smacks of modern-day slavery...excet that the deal is that the slaves have a built-in expiration date after which they are freed.
Besides this very objectionable aspect, I don't believe that the H-1B program is even needed. Unless there is nearly 100% employment of high-tech workers, there should be little demand for this immigration loophole. I have no objection to usual immigration, in which the immigrant is allowed to keep their human rights intact, and then find a job on their own terms.
My experience with the H-1 employees is that their English is better than mine (I am native born). Yes, they have an accent, but one gets used to it.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Most stock-option slaves are out-of-college twentysomethings. Most H-1B slaves are out-of-grad school thirtysomethings, a lot with wifes and kids. Unemployable wifes and kids, either because of language skills or legal limitations, or (often) both.
Stock-option slaves know the culture, society, the rules of the game. They choose to be in the game and stay in it. H-1Bs may choose to take the chance, but once in it, it's not that easy to leave. You built up credit debts (which are impossible to pay in USD if you move back to say, India, and make 1/10th the amount of money, even for the same level of quality of lige), some countries may look down on you (say, China, Iran, Syria) for migrating to the US in the first place, etc.
Stock-option slaves have rights; they can leave and return to the US at will. Not so with H-1Bs. You need a Multiple Reentry permit, which in itself isnt too hard to get, but it costs time and money.
Stock-option slaves pay Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and can expect to get coverage. Not so for H-1Bs, unless you invest the 5-10 yrs to get a Green Card and claim that coverage. Yet, the fees are still deducted from pay...
/.ers for one would realize that foreign tech workers increase the damn salaries, not decrease them. The fact that there are people willing to come to this country and work, even for 40-50% of the national average salary of their peers, keeps the industry in the US.
Finally, I though
Get your heads out of your cubes people: look at the automotive industry, consumer electronics, clothing, agriculture... If the US makes it harder for people to come here, they will stay at home. In the age of the Internet it doesnt matter much anyways... Can your SF-lifestyle-paying company compete with an outfit out of say the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Russia, India? These guys can charge $1,000 for a site license, kill the US-based competition and still live a life of luxury at home... Yeah, that's the way to keep your salaries, close the doors... And this from Open Sourcers...
Your Economic Theory is pretty unstable. I *guess* it's sort of naive liberal's view of the world.
.... geez ... Slavery was full employment ... it's quality of life. The American Goverment should protect American workers first.
A dollar exported in a dollar that eventually gets imported. Your first statement is irrelevant and wrong.
So I should be able to hire more foreigners to clean my car? I'll pay $1 an hour for a domestic servant who can't quit or complain or I'll send 'em back to whereeverganistan. It's not just employment
You may label me a nut or whatever; but I stand by that statment. We were the greatest country in the world back when we had the highest wages.
It depends on what you do, how good you are, and if you switch jobs.
At least in SV you'd probably start at a minimum of 50K/year.
I started at 38K/year 5 years ago. My salary rose very fast after I demonstrated that I had the skills. If all you do is hack together web sites you'll make one salary. If your skills are more valuable (i.e. know how to write computer networking code, embedded, device drivers, etc.) you will make a lot more.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
I'm not a programmer. What is big-O notation? (I think I know the difference between a linked list and a binary tree, but wouldn't object to an explanation.)
Right on the nose man. I'm one semester from getting my degree in Computer Science, and I know for a fact that we are underpayed. If the congress gets its way, then I don't expect to do much better. I mean what good is it to start out at 50,000 a year if it takes every penny just to scrape by.
Your getting screwed big time. I go to a small university in New Mexico. My friend just graduated with a 2.8 GPA in Computer Science and Sears just hired her for 52k to start with a 7500 dollar sign on bonus. With your kickass background and experience you should be making at least 70k or more especially living in that area of the country. (Costs more to live)
$60,000/year is a very mediocre salary. During the 1960s, my dad made $17,000/year, and he bought a brand new 4 bedroom house that was less than his annual salary for $14,000! (And he was under 30 years old too!) Just imagine if you got paid $450,000/year salary today; so that you could buy a new house with 4 bedrooms for $400,000 in a safe neighborhood! That is the average cost of a home in most major cities and high-tech regions today. And that's for an 30 year old house that is a far cry from being anywhere near 3,000 sq. ft. This just shows us how much the standard of living has declined! ...and don't forget, during the 60s most people bought a new car every 2 years...usually paying "cash" for the vehicle! Where's THAT OPPPORTUNITY TODAY!
I'm an American citizen, but I work for a Silicon Valley company where a significant portion of the workforce is on H1-B's. I've been in the position of having to hire in this company, and I can tell you that it is very difficult to find resumes from Americans here. At least 80% of the resumes that you get from going to a hiring fair like Westech are from recent immigrants. I can tell you that there is no discrimination or salary-gouging in the process when hiring at this company.
On the other hand, I also have friends who have come over to this country through contracting houses who basically seem to indenture the people they bring over. These companies seem to try to keep their employees in the dark about immigration laws to make them afraid of switching jobs all the while skimming a significant portion of their employees wages. The companies I know about are run by "entrepreneurs" (con artists?) from the countries from which they draw their workforce.
The fact is that given the shortage of skilled workers here, many American companies are willing to go through the H1-B visa transfer hassle and hire immigrants directly. If more of the people working for the "slave traders" knew this, I suspect they would find that they could relatively quickly (2-3 months) spring themselves free from their exploitative employment.
Absolutely, whatever you you get is fair. So if you don't get what the next guy does, or you have to go through hoops of fire to get here for a piece of the pie, don't whine. It's not my fault that you can't negotiate! You know this country is crowded enough as it is. You all wonder why cost of living is so high, why we all fight traffic day and night, and why the quality of life sucks so bad in big cities like the one I grew up in. Well, figure it out. We have seen the enemy and they is us! Now quit bitchin and get to work! Or go the hell home. And take your friends with you. I like that even better...
With H1B visas US is allowing foreigners to come here using frauds. It is hard to detect frauds, it is harder to detect frauds from a foreign country. They need some checks in allowing frauds. Fields like databases (oracle etc) are already saturated. They should allow new gyus in only true high tech areas - not simple stuff like databases. I do not think H1 are underpaid! 60K+ is a big money, which they are supposed to make if approved. If they are paid less then someone is cheating the system. I think this whoel H1 is a political agenda by politicians to please certain companies like microsoft. H1B frauds are almost 40-50%. ....
In Defense Of Software Contracting Companies
I have seen a lot of criticism about contracting companies from H-1B employees and US employees. Let me put those in perspective.
Contracting agencies help in making the US IT industry more fluid allowing access to the right IT professional at the right place at the right time. This ensures that IT projects do not face skill bottlenecks and exceed their budget and deadlines by large margins. This makes the US economy more flexible and productive (even Alan Greenspan admits that IT is changing the productivity of US Corporations).
Let us first recognize the plain truth. There are simply not enough good Information Technology (IT) workers in US as required by the current market. That market's need can be fulfilled in a few different ways. Train IT workers within companies for the skill of the day. Train non-IT workers to move into IT. Encourage technologically savvy US citizens and permanent residents to quit their career paths and move into IT. Shift some projects within or external to the company to other countries. Or get skilled professionals on temporary Visas such as H-1B and TN. The US IT market is responding to its need in all of the above ways.
Get skilled professionals on temporary visas: The driving force for this is too strong. One can motivate a third-world software professional to move to the US (15,000 miles) away more easily than you can motivate a US resident to double their daily commute. Let me now explain the role of contracting agencies that sponsor H-1B candidates. There are some good IT professionals in India (and a lot of bad ones). Finding a good candidate is like finding a needle in a haystack. And there is considerable enhancement of the resume, often bordering on fraud. The HR departments of large US corporations are not equipped to deal with the complications of hiring outside US. Therefore, many good software people who are in third-world companies would never get a chance to work in the United States (and fulfill the need of the US market). The companies that are willing to hire them on H-1 are primarily contracting companies. And good software professionals in India have standing offers from many contracting companies. A good H-1B candidate has negotiating power sitting in India and usually joins at a reasonable salary.
The contracting companies are making the following efforts and taking risks: (a) going overseas to recruit or setting up recruiting networks (substantial costs); b) assuming that the qualifications on resumes of candidates are true; c) spending a few thousand dollars on just the H-1 visa processing alone; (d) paying for air tickets and travel for IT employee and family (e) arranging for boarding and lodging for the H-1b employee (f) loaning a few thousand dollars initially (h) allowing the H-1b employee to visit India for vacation at least once a year typically for 3 weeks or more. Vacation frequencies, lengths, and reasons which large US corporations will not tolerate. (g) often helping the employees to learn about simple things like social security, insurance, doctors, landlords, shopping etc. and educate them about US culture and standards for professional behavior (h) driving H-1B employees to meetings and interviews either because they don't know to drive, do not have a vehicle, or do not have a driving license. Sometimes even teach them how to drive. (i) risking that the employee will not join after H-1b visa paper work is done (j) risking that the H-1b visa person will leave soon after coming to US (k) risking that the person you hired may be a dud or has a horrible attitude towards work (l) risking that the IT market has changed and the employees skills may not be valuable anymore (m) risking a law suit from the performance or behavior of an H-1b employee (n) H-1b employees expect a raise after every assignments sometimes as early as three months (o) H-1 employees assume that 20-30 percent a year wage increase is normal in the US (g) H-1b employees always know what everybody else is getting paid and want the higher salary whether they deserve it or not. H-1b employees will always believe that they are getting underpaid, and especially on their first job. (h) employees often hold more than one H-1 and are willing to make the move anytime.
Train IT workers: The needs of the IT consulting market are capricious. Companies have been adopting new packaged software and developing and maintaining in-house applications. Languages keep changing- e.g. C++ is replaced by Java. Software packages go through new versions SAP R/2 replaced by R/3. The IT departments are always under pressure to complete projects quickly. However, it takes about 3-6 months for a committed worker to learn the ropes on a new platform or language. And the trained worker can leave the job for another offer on a short notice.
Are a substantial number of US MIS workers ready to learn a new language or platform while working on existing projects? Will they move to another city within the same company to finish the software project? Probably not. They already have well paying jobs and may not be motivated enough. Anyway the motivated ones are starting their own dot com companies or joining hot start-ups. Some move up the ladder into the management role and lose touch with their programming skills.
The H-1B contractors are usually more willing to move work on mundane jobs in MIS depts. - doing the GUI screens, coding and testing, interfacing programs etc. They are willing to move to another city because they do not have any roots in US. Many of them are single and footloose. And an H-1B contractor may stay on the job probably as long as a permanent employee who can leave for a better offer at any time. Therefore, the willingness of IT managers to accept contractors. After all they want to do is to finish their projects. Believe me if they could do it with in-house resources they would.
Non-IT workers move to IT: This has been happening to some extent within US. However, a well-paid US mechanical engineer who has done complex programming in modeling heat transfer in jet-engines is not likely to move to a mundane job of printing out reports and invoices in the right format or making GUI screens. Maybe he/she would if the salary is way higher than their current jobs. However, other factors such as family issues, career advancement, pride in work, years of education and experience in the chosen profession counter any major career move.
On the other hand, a similarly qualified engineer in India is willing to change to writing Visual Basic code so that he/she can come to the US to get more money or be exposed to a "first world" country. US still holds a lot of fascination for residents of other countries. The point is that non-IT professionals are moving into IT all over the world but disproportionately so in the H-1B category allowing the US economy to benefit from their migration.
Shift projects to other countries: This has been going on for a decade. As a consequence many Indian software companies have been showing compound annual growths of about 100 percent for many years. In last two years some of the stocks have gone up about 2000 percent. Their valuations are running at 10-20 times sales as if they were Internet stocks. Infosys has even tapped the US market with an ADR issue and is valued at about 2 billion dollars on the NASDAQ. The Indians who work on these off-shore projects gain valuable experience which is often not available to many US programmers. This experience is valuable to the US market as the projects have been performed for brand-name international companies. In addition multi-national companies are setting up offices in India and staffing them with software programmers. The trend towards off-shore work will continue as communication links gets better and US companies get more comfortable with the idea. However, in terms of dollar volumes US outsourcing market dwarfs all the offshore market by a factor of probably 100:1.
This is true to a certain extent. The biggest problem being that the employee does not have a chance to complain to the INS about the company. If the employee complains to the INS, the company will be closed by the INS and the employees of the company will be sent back to their countries.
Simple, if demand is high, and supply is short, pay more.
Overbid Cisco, or 3com or whatever.
Pay them, and they will come, they will stay.
If you can't handle the bidding war, then you don't deserve the quality candidates. If your company can't afford it, then maybe you need to hire an accountant to spell it out for you. Or maybe your marketroids could stand a pay cut or two, or four.
That's the whole point of the capitalist system. People who are in demand expect higher pay.
Is this such a hard concept for you corporate slogs to understand?
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
You havn't done much interviewing lately have you? I work in SV at a networking company. Finding qualified people with the right skills is almost impossible. We have to compete with companies like Cisco, 3COM, Bay, Lucent, and so on for programmers with embedded or networking experience.
If you drop by and have the skills, you're hired. End of story. If you don't have the skills, turn around and walk back out that door.
I am quite disappointed that most of the candidates I interview can't pass a fairly simple programming test (which I borrowed from Cisco).
At my company, for example, an MFC programmer won't do since they probably don't have the necessary embedded and/or networking skills.
My company is hiring and we're having a hell of a time finding qualified candidates.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Buddy, I lived in India for 30 years. Then I chose to come to US. I am not a traitor. I saw your politicians for the last 8 years. I saw your multinational companies for the last 20 years (in my country too ) They keep begging indian govt for opening our market place so they can sell soaps to hightech stuff. This is world that is interdependent. You almost sound like Pat Buchanan. By the way there were moments when I liked him. But if you think little carefully it is not practical. Yes it is better if I can contribute to India and you to US. Not bad at all. Try tell that to your greedy bussiness entities and politicians and the WTO. Sad fact it if we have to buy something from you we have to sell you something. If nothing else we are selling our services and hoping we are helping you just you can help us build our country. remember those damn Britts looted us for 200 years. I am not crying exploitation ; but if you know any world history you will realize how relavent it is today. If you have read Adam Smith you will understand what capitalism is all about. We are expected to let people and capital to flow freely, not just capital. Developed countries are begging for investment opps all around the globe. The developing world can live without your investment too. We can all live in our houses. we are trying to see if we can do better. Despite all this I understand your point of view. Hope you understand mine too. Next time you vote..wear your thinking cap.
Lawmakers, Businesses, Requesting More H1-B visa immigrants. American Born Citizens, With The Proper Skills Will always do a better job in this country than a shipped over low paid immigrant. For Starters, We understand our society and culture better than the H1-B immigrants ever will, Our Families have contributed to business and government for decades, Our families have served this nation. We Better understand Business Ethics and practices In America, and take more pride in doing a quality job, we care. We posess an equivalent, if not superior, amount of skills and knowledge. We will always do a superior job to that of a shipped over, desperate immigrant worker in this country, Our Country "AMERICA". If there is a so-called "Shortage" to meet the demands in the technology area, then why don't we take care of it within the American business Realm, train the less skilled American born citizens to fill up the "Shortage".... Government, Subsidize programs for business to help with it, Educators, Promote higher learning in this area. This would be a good way to spend our American Families Tax dollars which have been collected for decades, We need to act like responsible Proud Americans, Promote From Within With Pride.. Sure, some employers, may increase there bottom line by employing, these wanna-be, third world rejects. But eventually, they will come to the point of re-engineering the applications that were developed by them due to a lack of quality and knowledge, otherwise they would have been successful in implementing and utilizing their knowledgebase in their own country... Remember, these immigrants are here to take for themselves, they do not care about American Society, or OUR Country, they will cut corners in lieu of quality and optimization, for their gain. Congress,Businesses, wake up, don't poison our country with lower quality standards, just for a little more profit.... Lawmakers, please figure out another way to better meet the Technological demands of our nation. Lets not sell it out to a lower standard of quality. Reward our Hard Working, American Born and Educated People. H1-B Immigrants, hurt our country, not help it. There should be a reduction of H1-B Immigrants.
I'm in the U.S. on H1-B visa. While I'm worth about $95K I am getting $65K.
I easily can find a higher-paying job. The problems with this are that:
I understand that many of the readers are making less than $40K, or whatever, and think to themselves: this guy is crazy. Let me make it clear: I'm not complaining. I'm just giving the comment original poster asked for. That's it. I'm happy with my job and my salary.
see, i pick up all the slang and colloquisms in english because i talk to most ppl in english and so i pick up and learn their incorrect grammer. but since the only french i'm exposed to is in the classroom, the only type of french i know is proper french (not quebecois, international french).
so, in general, ppl's second language is usually better than their first language. i think the only thing difficult about understanding foreigner's english may be the accent.
jacob
If your so great, then why don't you stay in your own country, and use your brilliance their for your own people...... We don't need you over here in the USA.
Why not just suggest "we have successfully reintroduced slavery". Just instead of importing lower quality"not quite people" from africa and asia you now import "lower quality" H1, J1 and other
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
You should be ashamed of your little weak... mentality. Go home... to your own country,, instead of leaching and milking it hear ... you slimy rat's ass.
I am a H1-B worker and I want to clarify a few facts for those that don't know anything about it and those that seem to be confused (which includes our Indian Anonymous Coward).
:)
:) The H1-B gives me the opportunity to work while the application is processed, as opposed to wait home or something.
An H1-B is a visa that your employer gets for you. The employee has nothing to do - except get the stamp from the ambassy, which is pretty much guaranteed since INS approved the H1-B. The employer can get you a visa that last 1 to 3 years at a time, and it can be renewed until you reach a maximum of 6 years. (in other words, you can get 2 three year visa in your life time, or 6 one year visa, or 3 two year visa, etc.). The visa is fairly easy to get as long as you are qualified for the job AND - as a requirement for the Labor Certification (from the Labor Department) - you are paid at least 95% of what they think you should be paid for what you do in your area. Assuming that there are visas available, it only takes a couple of months - if that.
SO - not only does the law prevents you from being grossly underpaid (you can't get the visa to begin with if you are), but from my experience, I am most definetely not underpaid considering that I make a little less that $70,000 and I graduated from college about 1 year ago. Also I live in the Pennsylvania, so it's not like housing is sky high like in NYC or Silicon Valley - just to put my salary in perspective.
I am very happy with my job so I have not tried, but switching companies is not a big deal. Well, everything is relative I suppose - your new employer does have to file another petition with INS but considering the pretty short processing time (at least at the Vermont service center) it is not the end of the world, and you won't "waste" any of the 6 year limit. Yuo can also have 2 jobs at the same time I believe, but once again I am busy enough with one - I didn't look into that
Why do I want or need an H1-B? Like myself, a lot of foreign students get one year of "Practical Training" at the end of their studies. If you get an internship and they like you enough to keep you, they may get you an H1-B which will buy them time to get you a Green Card. The H1-B is fairly easy to get (although companies will still use immigration lawyers to get them - just to be safe) while the Green Card is a little bit more complicated but also takes A LOT more time. In my case, I am on the "fast track" for the Green Card and that will still take a little less than 3 years
If I quit my job would my company cancel me green card application? Probably. In fact I am pretty sure, so yes I suppose if I want that Green Card badly enough I am tied to the company I am with for 3 years. But that's not to say that another company wouldn't willing to apply for the Green Card either... Besides, since I work for a consultant firm I can work pretty much for anyone and STILL be technically employed by the same person, so who care!
You came here from miserable undeveloper countries. You are lucky that you have high education and necessary skills to come to US. You have no future at home. You still are better off in US. Stop whining. These 2-3-4 years will pass, you get your green card and then you kiss your slavemaster goodbye and get your high salary.
It's that simple. If you whine and stir the pot they (US Government) will close this hole too. Now it's next to impossible to immigrate to US as it is, you got your chance - don't spoil it for others.
yep, quite lucky
I'm on H-1B with Apple and I'm quite happy with the way they treat me. Am I earning as much as my American co-workers. I suspect so, but even if not, so what? I'm earning far more than I would in New Zealand which is where I'd otherwise be living, I get to live in the most interesting place in the world, I have a great job.
If Americans can't get employed in this sort of way, maybe they ought to spend a little more time considering how crappy their educational system is rather than blaming the rest of the world. Perhaps if American kids did real homework, read books rather than watching TV and playing video games, and got tested via real tests that damn well flunk you if you don't know the material, they might be capable of logical thought and high-tech careers.
...OH! I get it! People from Denmark aren't the problem because people from Denmark are White/European! The "problem" are all those mud-coloured people companies bring in (since you can look around and "see" the problem). Forget about the fact that places like India (or China), despite being 3rd world economically, have educational systems on par with Canada/Britain and the US, have English as a second language and thus can create workers who are just as technically educated and savy as those born in North America. Too bad they are so dark and smell like curry and talk funny. I guess guys from Denmark would talk funny too, but they are of a more desireable hue and texture.
Now that the sarcasm is over my little klansmen, I think people like YOU are "the problem".
Obviously, you find something wrong with foreign workers. They can't speak English that well? True, but next time you get pissed at that, ask your self how you would feel if the person having trouble speaking or understanding English were a tall blond, guy from Denmark, or Germany or France instead of being from India, China, Thailand etc.
I'm willing to bet you wouldn't feel the same...
How can a Country which produced Martin Luther King, Jr. produce morons like you two?
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
When I arrived in California I was fairly desparate for work and would have taken pretty much any job. Thankfully I got an offer from an employer who actually did more for me than I asked for.
My salary did go up substantially when they got me a green card after a couple of years. But I'd say that was more down to my girlfriend who taught me how to negotiate American style.
I'm still with the same employer in Silicon Valley after 4 years, and that should say something.
Alexium - open source software and articles for web publishers
Frankly, I'd rather have immigrants coming to the U.S. who can get and hold well paying technology jobs than immigrants who cannot. I'd also rather have technology companies bring workers to America than send the work overseas to someplace like Bangalore which has a lot of acumen and people who are willing to work for even less money than in the U.S.
If an immigrant comes here and stays here, they contribute to the economy in work productivity as well as trickle down to the grocery store where they shop, the apartment they rent and the telephone calls they make back to Mom and Dad where ever they might be. Plus, the U.S. can collect tax revenues which are hardly insignificant.
As for taking work from Americans, it isn't exactly like there's a job shortage for skilled technology workers with any number of skills.
ahhh, poor baby, your'e getting screwed man. go home.... fix up your own country. use your head over there,,,, you can think of your next program while you are riding your bike to work.
go home you leach..... it's not so bad.... what a bunch of crap. of course not. go engineer something in your beautiful homeland.
I suspect that most H1B holders like myself got their degrees in the US, so your company is probably the exception rather than the rule. Either way as the first reply to your post was: it seems like your company needs to review its policies regarding its overseas division :)
Yes, but who wants to wear a suit everyday and work in the city of london? Crappy commute and all that.
I'm quite happy on my H1 in the valley having changed jobs twice with it (once to wall street, suits suck). And I earn way more than the 60k I can get at banks in england, there's a more relaxed work ethic, and stock options too.
Although there are all those people here that work for companies like taos mountain and get paid peanuts on H1s.....
Although I'm not wild about the tone of this post, I think the poster has a point.
No-one is FORCED to come work in the US, and the "exploitation" that's occurring is pretty mild in the grand scheme of ways people exploit each other. Maybe one does land up tied to a given employer for 5 years earning less than one's colleagues. So what? At the end of the day, their is a grand payoff for those 5 years of pain---the right to live in America and do the job you want. Many people think this is a pretty damn cool right---certainly I do---and I'm willing to put up with the 5 years of pain to get there.
How is this different from say 5 years of pain in grad school, again working hard, being paid nothing, for some reward at the end of the day?
(Oh right, I forgot, most Americans are unable to put up with that sort of delayed gratification in the first place---which is why they now have to hire foreigners to do all their thinking for them.)
Even if there are many things about the US that are less than ideal (like the ignorance of so many Americans) there are also things that make the place far more desirable to live in than most of the rest of the world. American politicans may be venal and the system corrupt, but compared to India or China or South Africa it's paradise. Is it worth 5 years of hassle to live here? I reckon so.
Good Idea. Not that simple.
My sister has worked in the US as a nurse for over 5 years. She has been married to an American citizen for 2 1/2 years and the have a 2 year-old boy (Don't ask). Now, this is not a marriage of convenience - they are genuinely in love with each other and in fact are pregnant with baby #2. But my sister has been waiting 2 years to get a green card so she doesn't have to keep coming to Canada to renew her visa (she doesn't want to become a citizen). She is especially worried with all the INS horror stories she has heard. She's afraid to come back for a visit before her GC is issued in case they don't let her back in (entirely possible, despite being married to a US citizen having one of his children and bearing the other). Therefore I have never met my nephew and my parents have never seen their grandchild.
My sister is still waiting with no end in sight.
Doesn't seem so easy now, does it?
Aren't we supposed to be your fiends and biggest trading partner? Doesn't that "world longest unguarded border" we share mean anything?
Maybe my sister should become a mexican serial killer...they seem to have no problems at the border.
(I know, I know. I keep bring this up , but its just so damned ironic).
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
Surely this is a parody.
Stephen Molitor steve_molitor@yahoo.com
*ROTFL*
Oh please, please stop!
*howl*
Oh have mercy!
This has to be one of the stupidest posts I have read on the subject.
Listen, dude, we are not talking factories and massive amounts of plant here. You think America is so perfect it is the only place on earth that can write software?
Yes there plenty of advantages to geographic location (hence people put up with the hassle of crowded expensive Silicon Valley) but these advantages are not limitless.
What do you think the effects of your laws to double the wages of US programmers will be? Lots of US programmers living well? How about Microsoft, Apple, Oracle etc saying "screw this" and moving pretty much their entire operations offshore?
I'm a foreign worker on a H1-B, and while my salary is plenty high enough compared to my peers (no complaints there), other circumstances make it less than a sunny experience.
The H1-B visa is indentured servitude, pure and simple. And the high tech companies are taking advantage of it. Due to the high turn-over in the valley, companies don't want to lose their best people as soon as something better comes along.
If they hire a US citizen or a Green Card holder, then they are taking the risk that they'll lose the person just as things get going. But if they hire a H1-B, then they have that person on the hook for 5 years or more, and can guarantee the person's availability.
The main problem with the H1-B is that there is no incentive for a company to sponsor a Green Card until the last possible minute. Because they know that the second the person has their freedom, they are going to take it.
At my company, the project that I was working on was cancelled, and none of the other projects appeal to me in the slightest. I'd be happy to wish them the best of luck and move on to other things: this gives them money to hire someone else for a cheaper salary, and gives me the chance to do something I'd enjoy. That way, both the company and I win.
But guess what - I can't do that because I'm so far into my H1-B that restarting the Green Card at another company will mean that it won't arrive before the H1-B expires. So, my only choice is to stay here working on projects I loathe, in the hope that I might get my freedom sometime near the end of next year. If I do anything to piss off my employer, then I could be fired and miss out entirely.
The law really needs to change. The Green Card process needs to be divorced from the H1-B process. It shouldn't be easy to get a Green Card. Heck, it should be as hard as possible to keep things fair for the US citizens. But when the Green Card process relies upon a company for sponsorship, who has a vested interest in not sponsoring it, then the process is little more than exploitation.
If a worker is truly valuable to the US, then they should be able to get it on their own merits, without relying upon someone else to sponsor them. Keep the sponsorship for H1-B, but get rid of it for the Green Card.
I am an American citizen. My beef is that the exploitability of the H1-B visas lowers my salary and reduces my access to company paid training.
A free market doesn't include wage competition with slave labor.
I graduated from a state unversity in 92 after attending part-time for 9 years. I worked for the same university for 8 years both while attending and after graduating. I then worked for a small staffing company for 2 yrs and then a big 5 firm for 2 yrs before returning to a large consulting firm 6 months ago. My skill set includes Web development (HTML, Java, Java script, VB Script, WebObjects), NT admin, Notes development and admin, Networking (WAN/LAN), and UNIX admin.
I live in a suburb of Cleveland and work in another. My commute is 20 mins. I literally work from 9am to 5pm. I leave no later than 5:15pm and am never on call. My wife and I are expecting our first child in November. We just bought our first house for 165,000 that would easily cost twice that in the larger markets. The suburb is one of the best; rated 5th overall in a recent survey (6th schools, 1st crime, 4 services, etc.) The house is 2000 sq. ft. with 4bdrms and 2.5 baths on 1 acre lot, 30 yrs old.
On our combined income we enjoy many extras including season tickets to the Indians, concerts 2-3 times a month (every major and minor tour goes through Cleveland), and eat in a restaurant 2-3 times a week. We drive a 95 Explorer and a 96 Altima both of which are nearly paid for.
My salary is 85K a year plus my wife makes 20k working at a day care center where we will get free daycare once our child is born; she will still get her full pay. BTW, I just recieved my 2nd bonus check for 1K.
Am I underpaid when compared to other markets? Probably. Do I care? No. I do not travel. My wife and I enjoy a high quality life with very little to want for. When I read about others feeling that 60-100k is underpaid and that they struggle on their salary, I feel very fortunate to be in the position I am in.
What's to stop them doing that anyway? You think by not raising objections to industry's sweatshop, exploitative practices, you'll save your job? Think again. If tech workers (immigrants, H1B, citizens, all tech workers) do not organize for their own interests, industry will continue to practice this behavior, and yes, eventually move everything offshore.
America is not uneducated and lazy; we are the smartest, hardest working people on earth. An American masters degree is worth a PhD. anywhere else. So what if we don't educate only the top 10% of our people; we strive to educate all our citizens.
In the essence, you want to keep the simplicity (or complexity, for that matter) level about the same at any given level of abstraction, and the result is a perfectly understandable arbitrarily complex project design and implementation.
Yes, this is a communication problem between us and them, but it's not exactly clear what is primary - the thinking skills or the English skills.
I heard a good joke recently: "never excuse for your poor English, make others feel handicapped because all they know is just one language"...
On the other hand, you have a perfectly valid point - yes, the communication _is_ vital, and I personally know some people who don't even care to fix their pronunciation after being here in US for 10 years and more. I take this attitude as a direct offense (and English is not my first language either, in case you haven't noticed).
OK, kids, now get away from appliances, we're gonna reboot the house
Whatever you can get is a fair price. Whatever!!
I'm always on the lookout to beef up my crew -- therez always more work than we can deal with -- and the word in the singles-barz-of-the-techjob-scene iz definitely that the H1B guyz are cheaper and willing and able to do the coding sweat shop scene. Yessir, this ain't no myth.
... and no it wasn't MY design ...)
Now the exact causez/rationalez/reasonz/theoriez for WHY thatz true are not self-evident. No doubt each such hypothesis bringz its own element of truth and relevance.
The problem with these guyz from my perspective is that, on an elite dev team, communication between team memberz is vital vital vital. Did I say vital?? And lotz of these guyz, their Eengleesh, eetz not zo gud.
Devt vets know that on bigger projects, inter-team relationz r just as important as raw size of ur technical schlong. Just look at the data from DeMarco, McConnell, Constantine, DeGrace, Pressman, etc etc etc for those who know how 2 read.
So thatz why I've held off bringing any on board here, although I've interviewed a couple of them.
While I'm on the subject, this may be naughtynaughty and feel free to spank my ass if so, but let me just say that there are always slotz open on my elite core team for web devheads that rocknroll. And I mean u dream in SQL or whatever. (Remind me to tell u about the nightmare I had a few dayz ago about triple indirected pointers
>>Waxon dudes
SlicedBread 2.0 -- the greatest thing since SlicedBread!
I'll ignore the generalizations right now, but the reason people are complaining about the foreigners being underpaid is because it's cheaper for companies to hire "underpaid" foreign labor than "overpaid" domestic labor. The solution for people who feel threatened by skilled foreign labor is to advocate comparable wages.
I'm a Canadian in the US on an H1B. I make more than 60k and I'm quite happy with my job. The down side was the four months it took to get my H1B, and the 2 to 4 years I'm going to wait to get my green card. As far as I can see, the delay for the green card is 99% backlog and 1% processing.
If the green card turnaround was reduced to a few weeks or months, companies wouldn't have the leverage to keep H1B wages low.
I wrote this last sentence as an argument for shortening the green card process - but looking at it the other way around - Companies wouldn't have the leverage to keep H1B wages low if the green card turnaround was reduced to a few months - I get a queasy feeling - is there any hope this will happen soon? Who would lobby for the INS to get more staff when this would reduce the leverage of American companies to underpay H1 workers?
I agree, foreigners are bad news. We also had some foreigners working with us for a while and they were useless. Of course, in my case, the foreigners were Americans.
Don't fight it son. Confess quickly! If you hold out too long you could jeopardise your credit rating.
Sheesh. Do your homework.
And as someone who's a dual citizen, you have no idea how restrictive the Canadian government is about US workers. Or used to be, I hope.
Will in Seattle
Beaaaaaaaaaaaaaark...
Your post smells racism.
Listen, you stupid little tyrant: If your government hadn't spent fifty years fucking up its economy by trying to follow the soviet example, there wouldn't be any *need* for Indian engineers to seek work elsewhere.
If any employer of mine went off on a tear about "loyalty", and how changing jobs was "treason", I'd tell him that we ended slavery in this country in the 1860's.
If you want to keep an engineer in your country, or in your company, then pay what you have to pay, motherfucker. It's the free market: Deal with it.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
..I would guess that's true only for the part WEST of the Greenwich meridian (large part of England, Spain and Portugal).
Brush up your geography, mercan..
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
Ah yes, the days of my Analysis of Algorithms course in 19xx. I was fortunate in that our course was taught at the graduate level while still part of the under-grad program (the next year, I started my Masters' program. Published my thesis and finished in 'xx+2). Man, was that a tough course -- each weekly assignment had at least one problem (out of four or five) that was (at the time) unsolved. Loved it.
If you want a top-notch S/W Engineer with 20 years experience (the bulk of which is in C++/C/Assembly, embedded (yes, I can use a logic analyzer as easily as a debugger, and a soldering iron to boot when necessary) telecom & networking), and are willing to do an H1 to H1 xfer and consider GC sponsership, I'm listening. How do I contact thee? My resume is online but I am reluctant to post a URL here.
just out of curiosity - whats your company and what do they do ? i usually find most companies claiming not to get tech workers often have boring jobs with no real prospectives. since im looking for an embedded job id be interested...
.
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
I know this is offtopic, but could we keep posts in English please? Since you colonials nicked the language you may as well use it.
Microsoft and IBM are big advertizers in the WSJ, of course they support their advertizers political agenda? What's new?
Both my brother-in-law were is an H-1B workers. He could probably be making twice what he is now ($50k for C++ work) but cannot leave the job because it would invalidate his green card application, which has taken a year and is still going with no end in sight. The project would be screwed if he left, but they all know that he can't go anywhere (He knows because they say things like, "It's a good thing you can't go anywhere.")
It may not be like this at every company, but of course some companies will take advantage of employees in this situation and underpay/overwork them. Just like some people (non-H1B, of course) have taken advantage of the job market to ask for ridiculous prices for simple work.
Wow! You sound like an entirely different person. Are you sure you're the same 'd00dz' that wrote the previous post?
Anyway, I agree a bit with your opinion that communication is the most vital in a project. We've had our fair share of problems caused by miscommunication with the Japanese Engineers we work with here.
rob
I'm 30 years old. Apparently I got my CS degree at the wrong time (right in the middle of the recession). I agree that recent grads are severely lacking in the skills/knowledge department, BUT...
You wrote "I've interviewed some of the recent grads", well maybe you could consider interviewing slightly OLDER people? No offense guy, but you seem to be exhibiting age discrimination. Whether you realize it or not. And this attitude is pretty common.
I'm certainly a hell of a lot more qualified than those recent grads, but software employers won't give me the time of day. Because I'm "old" at age 30, and my degree is from the dawn of history, back when we didn't have computers, we had to compute by striking rocks together (1991).
Look for inexperienced people, and that's what you'll get.
I'm currently earning less than $50,000 per year in a not-very-challenging 'programming' job in the middle of nowhere (i.e. no job market), and looking for a change of scene. If you think you can handle someone who's ten times more qualified than a wet-behind-the-ears CS grad, just send a note to jtr109@hotmail.com.
There's plenty of smart college kids who can figure out how to do networking. Just pay 'em enough and train them and you'll solve your current problems and sources to solove your future problems!
I work in Philadlephia, where there are more jobs than qualified candidates (and if you knew some of the people in "tech" jobs here, you would be amazed...). I work for a medium sized consulting firm that has an overseas recruiting division. Now, some of the employees we've gotten from overseas are truly excellent coders, but they are by far the minority. There are a huge number of them who were brought over to work, apparently with nobody checking to see if they had ANY knowledge at all, let alone English language skills. So, there's a bunch of them, on the bench, for the most part unemployable because they can't code and they don't know enough English to be able to learn. So, we wait for their visa's to expire and give them a ride to the airport, paying them all the while...
Bottom line: if people hired under H1B's have the knowledge, skill, experience, and mastery of the English language that they need to do the job, great. Otherwise, don't let them in the country. Maybe there should be a basic test (along the lines of the test required to become a naturalized citizen) that visa applicants must pass before the visa is granted?
I'm on my second H1B. I'm sure there are these Indian sweat shops around, but far from all H1B holders live under those conditions. I know I get paid as well as any other engineer. And the only problem with getting a new job is that it takes 2-3 months to switch instead of 2 weeks. That is a handicap when looking for a job, but not a real major one. The lawyer fees are $2-3k, which is peanuts in technical recruiting.
The real problem for people may well be that they are inexperienced and from an alien culture. For a senior engineer like me who understands the US system fairly well, things work pretty OK.
Now the INS may well be the worst working organization in the civilized world. But that's an other vent...
Out of curiosity, how does the United States' immigration policy compare to other country's? Is it relatively restrictive or wide open? If I wanted to go work in the UK, France (well maybe not France), Australia, or India or wherever, is it more or less difficult to get the equivalent of the H1-B?
CP
If there is going to be immigration; it should be limited and visas should be portable. It should also not be limited to just tech workers; lawyers and doctors and teachers should face the same foreign competition, not just programmers.
This brave Coward has hit the real heart of the matter. We have (arguably un-constitutionally) created a complex system of protectionism that is not sustainable.
Remember the inscription on the Statue of Liberty? It doesn't apply any more. We have to close our borders because we can't afford (un-constitutional) social programs for immigrants. This causes all kinds of weird "tests" that must be passed to join our elite club. It's a horrendous mess, and this is just one of the injustices that can never be remedied within our current system which is based on fear and bigotry.
It makes ESR's Libertarianism sound pretty good.
hehe, couldn't help but snigger at this one ;)
Moderate this one up!
I am a H-1B worker and I happen to be one of the highest paid employees at the department.
But then maybe I just got lucky.
And yet another in Halifax!
Quite a lot of the so called foreigners speek better english than the human material you dig up from some "english speaking" suburbs.
;-)
And they definitely do not have the habit to spell guyz with Z and for you as "4 U"
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Buy an album by Lenard Cohen called "The Future". There is a very good song the called "Democracy". Listen to it and reconsider your statement.
If you are too lazy or do not want to waste a couple of bucks ask yourself the following question:
Since when did the SLAVES have any f... rights?
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
While the cap of 115,000 workers being reached in June maybe be shocking most of those are bad claims. 55% of all H1-Bs can not be verified and 21% are fraudulent.
The high tech industry claims there is a shortage, but there really isn't one. Several companies which have been barred from using H1-Bs and other visa applicants have been able to hire enough people to meet their needs. The problem is that everyone wants to maximize profits and are willing to sacrifice U.S. employees to do it.
Interesting not the H1-B program was introduced in 1990, shortly after that thousands of employees found themselves without jobs and the economy went into a recission. History has been know to repeat itself.
Ok folks we hear plenty of stories here, I might as well throw mines out to you folks here. :)
I am a H1-B. I came from neither India, China nor EU countries. My family has no problem supporting me and my country isn't as poor as China or India. I speak and write very fluent English with little accent. I have an internship with a company in chicago. I have a girlfriend from the Midwest. I came to the US as an undergrad. I got OK GPA, and I like the US a lot, so after getting my BA in Math, I went to a top grad school (luckily) in the Midwest to get my CS degree. Guess what? I don't feel my company exploits me at all. Now I am working in a large company's IT dept. in Kansas City. I don't earn a whole lot, 40k+annual bonus, (most entry level though in the midwest earn about 36k), but H1-B and GC are all free as long as I stay there. They do not work me very hard, daily 8 hours with plenty of time off. As a matter of fact, my position don't even require me to write code. I am just writing test script and test plans. But they still sponsor me as a Software Engineer. There's not a whole lot of H1-Bs here, I am the only one in my team. Recently they even give me some time to research the feasibility to use Enterprise Java Bean in their company. The job is easy for me, so I have plenty of time hacking Linux
I am the lucky ones who doesn't have to struggle all that crazy employers' threatening. Many of my friends from China is still finding a job and sponsor. Hell it's hard! Right before I graduate, I already snapped 3 offers from
some of the biggest companies in the Midwest. I first ask for $35,000, a large telecommunication company (starts with a "M" and just recently merge with another company starts with a "W") send me an offer the next day after the interview. Then a national credit report company (start with "E") based in Chicago offered me a job for $42,000+ annual bonus + stock option. Because they don't pay for my H1-B and GC, I turned down their offer. Then I have an offer from a large ERP company in California (HR software, starts with "P") gave me a stingy $48,000+one time signing bonus)
But do you know how hard to get these offers from these big companies? Guess what, big companies don't like to sponsor H1-Bs because they think H1-Bs are just pain in the ass. (try to talk to a recruiter from IBM or AT&T or USWest or Ameritech then you will know what I mean). Anyway,I think if those guys from India can jump the boat to a bigger company, their destiny can certainly be changed. I mean, big companies can wait 4 months, if you are that good. I am not even that good, but it's just because I am luckily, this company in Kansas City waited for me over 3 months and now I am all set.
So far, most of the comments on this thread have been from younger workers. One effect of bringing in foreign workers to solve a "shortage" is that programmers and systems people over 40 are let go. Part of it is that older American workers often have families and responsibilities outside the workplace. Part of it is that if an older worker has been at the same company, he (or she) may have a higher salary than a foreign (and younger) worker would demand.
I'm 56 years old and grew up with computers and electronics; I have every license and endorsement the FCC can issue. I passed the commercial FCC test at age 17 when applicants had to draw schematics in front of the Regional Engineer. My first operating system was RT-11 and I migrated to Unix early. I've worked with boxes that had to be hand-programmed. I've adminned BSD, Solaris, Linux and NT machines. I was an electronics engineer for a company that made discrete control systems, worked in the field installing and reparing them, and wrote the technical manuals for them. I can even spell without a spell-checker and write reasonably coherant paragraphs.
Yet I am not employable! No company wants anyone they consider "over the hill"
Thanks to some lucky investments back in the 80's, I could move to a rural area of the USA where I rent our land to local farmers to make my home self-supporting. I started the first ISP in my area and sold it 2 years later. I designed the network for the local school district and I keep my hand in by doing their more exacting 'puter jobs (routers, etc).
Nevertheless... no company would hire me. When we lived in the Seattle area I bombarded the companies there (including MS) with resumes when I knew they had openings that fit me exactly. I never even got one interview!
Think of what this means to you as a young systems engineer or programmer. Not only do *you* face exactly the same problem (you can escape it only if you die young), but you also are denied the opportunity to work with people who lived through the history of your industry. People who can explain why certain things were done in certain ways and give you a breadth of knowledge not available from other sources.
American firms are displacing their older workers, workers who are reliable and knowledgable, with cheap foreign workers. It's as though General Motors built a compound and imported cheap labor from third-world countries in order to fire all their American workers. If this happened, there would be an uproar. But they do it to us under the guise of a "technical shortage".
I don't blame the foreign workers. They are only taking advantage of a situation that can help them grow. And certainly their contributions to US culture are worthwhile. But look around your company... how many people over 50 are there? Or over 40? My guess is that maybe 1 out of 5 at best; simple demographics say that there should be more than this.
I think you guys are all great... don't get me wrong. But there should be room for those of us who built the foundations you are helping to expand.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Our H1B's bill out at something in the $50's/hr. Compared to the outrageously overinflated prices that others are commanding these days, yeah it's underpaid. But that's still a good price, I mean come on! Does it cover cost of living in this country? I don't know. But I don't think the guy I'm thinking of wants to stay here. I think he wants to rake in some money, which will be plenty in his home country, then go home in a year or so. And that's fine. Good for him. If he stays in this country too long the greed and laziness might rub off.
Or at least, I used to be.
I graduated in Computer Engineering at an American college in 1994. I was actually an illegal at the time: out of status because my lawyer screwed up my papers.
In my senior year, I got a job at Zenith Electronics as long as I could get myself an H-1B Visa (they'd "sponsor" me, but I'd have to do all the leg-work). The salary they were offering was around the median the CE class of '94: $34,500 p.a.
So I went to Mexico, confessed to the INS that I'd been out of status (a gamble, but the right thing to do), but that I had sponsorship for an H-1B VISA. They gave me the Visa with no qualms and I worked for Zenith for 6 months.
It was stultifying work, so I got itchy soon and looked for a company that would hire me and help me switch my H-1B Visa. I didn't have much problem finding such a company and joined DCI as a consultant earning $42,000 p.a.
I got excellent reviews and excellent raises throughout my time at DCI (3 years), and in the meanwhile I married an American and got a green card through marriage (DCI was also sponsoring me for a green card through work and it was just a matter of which one came up for interview first).
So I'm an (African) immigrant, former H-1B holder who has always been well-paid and treated, and I didn't have a problem switching jobs when I wanted to. I credit all this to being a very good computer engineer, no more, no less. America is still largely a meritocracy regardless of whether you're a native or an immigrant, and I don't have much sympathy for people whining about "imported H-1B slave labor".
--Uche
"What thou lovest well remains, the rest is dross" -- E.P.
See subj and fire your overseas division!!!
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
All stories I have heard here are from indians and asians. Don't europeans have problems working at the USA?
salu2,
The person never said which country he/she worked in - could of been the working in the Antarctic talking about people from the Arctic.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, many of our ancestors arrived here as indentured servants. They could not pay for the trip, so they made a deal with some one who would pay for their boat ride in exchange for 5-7 years of work. After which, they would be free to do whatever.
Basically, what a H1-B means is that you're indentured to your employer for about five years. The usual procedure (and the way it worked for me and my friends) is that you get here through a contracting firm. The contracting firm makes heaps of money using you as a hired gun (taking about %25 of your salary, in most cases). You, on the other hand, want to get a job with a big company (not a startup, because if it goes belly up where will you be), where you can stay for a while, and which will apply for a green card for you. This is what happened in my case, I joined a major firm here in the valley. (BTW, you usually get less than your white counterparts because Indians, and most Asian cultures, are not initially used to hard-nosed negotiating/confrontation).
You pretty much as bonded to the employer after this. In my case, I hate my current job, and my current boss. But what can I do? I had better shut up and play the game if I want to get the green card in a few years, so I'll play the game.
Otherwise my H1-B will run out after three years, and I have to go back to India, and wait for some time before I can get another H1-B. And I recently got married, so I'm not about to make waves.
This formula is varied in a few cases (you can get your green card quicker if you're a Ph.D, etc.), but basically, I'll agree with the premise that we're (Indians, Chinese, etc.) are making far less and are bonded to our employers until we get our green cards. In my specific case, my boss, who is Indian (and who has his green card), has made an explicit threat in many cases to Indian workers who are working under him that he will slow down their green card process, etc, if they don't meet his expectations. Management knows of this, but why should they care? If he's caught on this, they can just say they didn't know.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more the situation is screwed up. My boss, for instance, only hires H1-B workers on his team (4/5 people are H1-Bs). There's supposed to be some requirement that he is supposed to search for American workers, but what he does is find an Indian, find some experience that the Indian has that is uncommon, and make that a requirement of the hiring process. That way, he can make a cursory search of the job listings, and say that there isn't a qualifed American worker.
And this works for him. We're all running scared, we'll do whatever he wants, and work like dogs. If someone finds a better job (which happened to a colleague of mine), all my boss has to do is fire him immediately. That way, that person has to get his H1-B transferred to his new company, and with the time the INS takes to do that, the visa might have expired, and you might have to go back. In fact, this is what happened to my colleague, he is in Delhi right now, and my boss uses him as an example to us all the time.
So, OK, it'll be three years for my green card, and then I can get away from this.
So, to conclude my post, I agree that America is getting cheapers, more compliant workers as H1-Bs. And, in all honesty, we are taking jobs from American workers here. But look on the other side. None of my American colleagues work 80 hour weeks - they don't have the reason to. And I know whatever success my company has had is due to a great amount to people like me - so when I see people complaining about H1-Bs on one hand, and crowing about their stock gains on the other, I think it's hypocritical.
And a final note to all the xenophones here - judge me on skills as a technologist, not my country of origin or my skin color. Slashdot (and Americans as a whole), are tolerent, wonderful people, but it's the bigots who stand out. Before you tell me to "Go back to my own country", ask yourself this - why do you think I came to yours? True, I came here to support my family, and myself, but I also truly came here searching for a better way of life. I truly believe that I have something to contribute to America - and remember, and one time or another, your parents or grandparents came here with the same belief! So give us a chance............goodbye...
I am an immigrant worker in the high tech industry, I'm not on an H1 visa but I am on an L1 (company transfer). The cost of employing someone like myself to a U.S. company can be considerable. There are recruitment costs, legal fees applying for a temporary Visa status, relocation costs and perhaps ongoing legal fees associated with permanent residency applications. All of this adds up to a heck of a bill for my employer, and the initial visa is typically term limited to 3 years or maybe 5 with extension.
I am not looking for another position but I have no doubt I could obtain one within a few days and I am frequently contacted by head hunters like everyone else around here. The only real guarantee my employer has against my leaving is my continued satisfaction and loyalty after a significant initial outlay.
The bottom line is that there are checks up the wazoo before immigrant workers can work here and then significant restrictions are applied. On top of that there significant barriers to this type of recruitment because of the additional costs involved. It is NOT less expensive for a company to hire from overseas, and to do so they must demonstrate that the position cannot be filled by a resident who has the skills.
IMO your posts over the past few days were beginning to get better until this little gem came along.
I agree that English/communication skills don't matter very much when it comes to development IF you're dealing with low-level coding on large projects (churning out function after function); However, I don't think that's what's being discussed here.
120K isn't exactly "sweat shop" money, nor is half that number. Personally, I think that any tech worth more than that could find somewhere else to work quite easily. The US is not the only place in the world that has good tech jobs.
LouZiffer
Yes, 5-7 years of work may seem short but you forget that it can feel extremely long if you're forced to toil endlessly. During the 19th and 20th centuries, the amount of work expected from indentured servants rose to the level of slavery via the slave trade or working in sweat shops, both often shortening the lifespans of laborers. Also, the workers would be lucky if they lived long enough (or have a boss who respects the "agreement") to gain their freedom.
Do you think the Silly-Con Valley companies got this passed through congress so that they could turn foreigners into slacker millionaires?
All they want is cheap labor. visa workers, recent college grads and monkeys all will work twenty hours a day, seven days a week if you let them (well... except for that monkey from that commercial who did all the drugs, but maybe that's because he didn't eat or sleep).
Maybe you're willing to do so, but you seem to forget that the lower wages prevents these people from finding housing (if any) of conditions similar to that of their co-workers. Also, the food prices, as well as other living expenses, where they work are probably obscene due to the higher wages of their co-workers. You're comparison of this to going to college is missing the fact that you still have the liberty to transfer to another, something that's denied to H-1B workers. In the end, you don't really seem to understand the level of "suffering" that H-1B workers really have to endure.
I'm in the US on an H1B visa from Canada. From what I've seen I'm not underpayed. It's fairly easy to figure out during performance reviews what your position in the grand scheme of pay scales is. It's pointed to you on a bar graph. I also live in the midwest, not the left coast or the right coast. With the existing salary cap I would and have refused to work in California.
I'm sure there are unscrupulous companies or managers who do lure foreigners (ok, I'm not really a foreigner, I had a pretty good clue as to what prevailing wages were) with promises of peace, prosperity and good old American apple pie if you only indenture yourself to us for say five years.
This exists in any business. Most people only see the typical designer clothes sweatshops because 20/20 runs an editorial or expose on them. There are also the equivalent to sweat shops in the technical field, adult entertainment, farming and so on. Raising the maximum amount on the H1B won't stop these sweat shops as they're obviously already shelling out well under the maximum H1B amount. Raising the H1B amount will however allow companies to get more talented people which is really what the country and industry should want.
I'm not sure how to fight sweat shops unless you made it illegal to underpay somebody, but who's to define underpayed? An electrical engineer with a MASc and 8 years of experience shall not be payed less than this: XXX. If that engineer is in California then the amount shall be 2*XXX.
Eventually you've got to rely on the integrity of companies and the pride of workers unfortunately.
OK, from what I learned from taking Microeconomics in college, the reason why you apparently was offered a higher salary is that your employer(s) didn't have all the facts about how much H-1B workers earn. Because of this lack of info., you were "overpaid", which is quite good so you should consider yourself lucky.
If they can find better pay elsewhere, then by all means let them go take it. In a free market, wages and prices are set by what the market is willing to pay. They are being payed fairly and if they don't like it, they can leave. Simple. When I go shopping for a car, if I don't like the price, I don't buy the car. I don't try to get a law passed making car prices more attractive to me. That's not how the free market works.
>It is possible to transfer a visa to another employer, but this can sometimes take up to
>2-3 months, and the person in question is not legally allowed to work during this time.
It does take 2-3 months, but you can continue working at your old job while you get the new visa. In fact, you can have 2 or more jobs, and have a separate H1B for each one of them.
Capitalism doesn't get any better than this..? no, obviously, the 1000 points of light are hard at work looking for additional ways to make the almighty buck..
and the converse is also true: if they didn't have it better here, they wouldnt come.
Alas, another fine Commie Whine is shown to be vinegar.
I was just hired on an H1B by a large software company. I talked to some friends (US citizens) in the area with comparable skills about what salary to expect, and the first offer I got was significantly higher. This company spent quite a lot of time interviewing and checking my skills, so they never put themselves in the position of that consulting company that pays people to "sit on the bench".
I have no idea if my experience is unique or the common case, and I'm sure that smaller companies with less of a reputation can try to get away with sweat-shop coders.
I love it when it costs me $40k to get an education and the school won't place me for a temp job cause I have to claim my parents income, but the students from outside the country get all the creamy $7 an hour jobs with 50% cuts in tuition if they work more than 20 hours a week.
What does this mean? It means that I got fucked and someone from another country was fucking me. The school systems shift the money from me to another person to pay for their education. Is it far? No. But then, that's what all these restrictive laws are for. To protect those of us who spent 5 years in an engineering degree so that some retard who doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground with a 4.00 GPA gets a job and I can't? That is stupid. Books != smarts. I'm sorry. I work harder and smarter than anyone I know, but I didn't get the 4.00 or even the 3.00 that most the companies want. What does it mean. We reward those who want to memorize something for a test instead of wanting to LEARN! Isn't that what college is for, Learning? It may have took me longer to learn it, but I will retain it longer and it makes me a more productive worker. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
I think if Feds want to see if there is really
200K shortage, they should let H-1B switch job
as easily as it is for residents/citizens.
I think both sides have a point. Yes, there is
a huge shortage and yes, H-1Bs are indentured
slaves.
see subj:
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
The immigrants now can always just hop the next jet home, if they should desire...
Give me a break. If it were really comparable to slavery, they'd go home. But, actually, they're 1) lucky to be able to come to the US in the first place and 2) making enough money to live quite well by world standards.
Hardly slavery.
Are there a lot of unemployed American programmers? And if so, is it because of incompetence or because they were simply replaced by cheaper labor?
I'm a college student and as an American student, I can work where ever I want. My friend is an international student from Thailand, she has a lot of rules about where she can or cannot work because she's on a student visa. She's a lot better at electrical engineering than anyone I know, but the only jobs she can get are through the school's internship program. This means a lot because whereas I can work part time during the semester, at any job that will hire me, she has to follow the rules set down by the school as to the number of hours she can work during the semester, and she can only get work that's approved by the school.
I don't know if work visas are similar, but I imagine that they are more restrictive than what a citizen can do.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
OK,
I've read a few of the first posts here and I disgree with alot of what people say (surprise!).
I'm from Canada and it took me over a year to get a visa. A !@#^ year! I was born in the country who is sharing the worlds larger free trade agreement with the US, I'm a university student in Systems and Computer Engineering in CarletonU (Ottawa), my dad and step mom live here in Boston (visa sponsors) so I should have the easiest time.
EASY?!. If what I had to go though was easy, I would hate to imagine what someone from China would have to go though! I had to have my finger prints taken, a Canadien and US criminal background search (RCMP/FBI), and full physical to see if I'm fit. Not to see is I'm fit ehough to be part of the supream race called 'Americans', no the doctor told me all they care about is that you will not cost them any money. She was telling me - in the middle of a turn-your-head-and-cough test no less - that a man with less than 2 years left to live was let in because he was worth over $5M. Then I had to go to the US consolate's office in Montreal (the ONLY ONE IN CANADA <-- dumb and have an interview. Once I was there I found out that the whole process changed and some last minute fixing had to be done.
Once I crossed over for the first time after the 'approval' in Montreal, the border guard was saposed to take my finger prints again and send the paper work to the visa center and I would get my Green Card in 6 months, mean while I was given a peice of paper with my IM# and my name which would be good enough until I got the real deal.
But the border guard !@#$ed up and now, nearing the end of my work term and 2 weeks from going back home to my friends and school, I still don't have my green card.
So back to the issue.
My pay? It's alright. I'm a temp who gets alright $$$ I guess. But other people comming in, many of them are given out by man power agencies who exploit them. Many companies will not hire from those groups because they charge like $90/hour and the workers only get $40/hour for work that is unparalled in the company. So may companies actually have set up offices in New Deli and pay to have their workers there, pay just as much and feel much better about not comprimising their morals.
Final note: The US pays WAY WAY too much for tech people...even those who don't know what they're going. Which is really sad. Brilliant people come from all over the world be generally the work force is under qualified. And the US knows this. So they abuse this knowledge and put in the Immegration Glass Ceilings and make it next to impossible to get in. And once you are (believe me) they'll take the pot shot at some random worker and try to export them to see if they really want to stay in.
The ramblings of an immegernt temp.
You are only identured if the you feel that you need a green card at any cost. I worked in the bay area for 6 years, switched jobs twice. Except for the fact that it took me upto 4 months to switch jobs, I did not have any problems. /Silicon Valley after a couple of years, but havent decided on that yet. I do know that my manager expects me to be back .
My last employer did not want to lose me when my 6 years were up, so I was relocated outside the US, working at an overseas branch. I may go back to the US
Dont forget - if they think you will do anything for a green card , you will be exploited. Tell them that you may go back and you dont care too much , and then they will then speed up the GC process etc. at least to keep you for sometime.
And if you do go back to India , with your US experience, you can earn $1000 - $2000 per month in Bangalore, which has the buying power of 250,000 in Silicon Valley.
Quite a lot of them came because they believed in the american dream. And they found themselves in a SLAVE position.
Saying this is the same as saying that the people fished out of the African forest in the 18th century were not forced to come.
Just the force is different. In the 18th century it was the force of the gun point, now it is the force of the blues screen.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
But why should person A get paid more than person B just because person A is American and person B is from Denmark?? And this is based on the assumption that the two have equal skill levels.
It's a form of discrimination, plain and simple.
------
The H1-B is the modern-day strikebreaker; the poor men supporting families trucked (now flown) in at a lower wage, because the locals refuse to work 80 hour weeks for less than $75k or whatever a year.
The point of the visas was to bring in highly skilled people to fill hard-to-fill positions. But, other posters have pointed out that the companies circumvent that by writing the job description to fit the recruits found, down to speaking some random (typically Asian) language.
Thus, they write the description so that the otherwise-qualified Americans don't get the job.
If the jobs are then exported; then that's the way it goes. Somehow I think that if company X can find people who work for a whole lot less, in a country with a whole lot less overhead, then the talent pool will be thinner, and the quality of the product will be lower. Then, a startup American company, with higher quality, will mop them up.
But, in the 80s the doomsayers said that America was dead in the auto-manufacturing world... yet European and Japanese car companies are building factories here all the time. I, for one, am sick of hearing of the "Decline and Fall of America", when the evidence time and again shows that America still has some juice left.
End H1-B visas, or limit them severely. Bang! End of sweatshops, because they won't be able to import enough labor to survive. Bang! End of the masses of people bound to a bad job, whining all the way, because the few that are brought in will have to be the best; the kind of people you Want to treat well, pay well, keep around, and help to get a green card. Bang! More incentive for a shift in the technology workplace, toward a 40 hour work week and better benefits.
What's wrong with ``racism''? Did your kindergarten teacher say there was something wrong with racism? We all know that some races are superior to others. When we walk down the street, we know who is a likely suspect to assault, rob, or kill us. When we have a business dealing, we know the shylock who is likely to cheat us. Racism is good thing. It is Nature's defense mechanism that protects us from exploitation by those who wish to rob, cheat, or kill us.
See subj: translated - in the stone age.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
I think it would be interesting if, for instance, the Indian government made it a requirement for technical workers exported to the U.S. that they receive equal pay.
--
So you propose that foreign governments be granted the power to regulate US businesses?
Seriously, if the immigrants don't like their jobs, they don't have to TAKE them... or they can always return to their home country, where they'll have job flexibility again.
Oh, wait. The US economy's the only strong one around these days you say? Single digit unemployment's tough to find you say? Well, there's no such thing as a free lunch. You can't say that the US is the worst game in town, then say that it's the best.
Attach it to the next H1-B ceiling increase. If Silicon Valley businesses don't much care, then they're sincere about needing more tech workers. If they whine, then they've been lying, and all current H1-Bs should be converted to unrestricted long-term visas with an option of citizenship. It's that simple.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
As a Canadian, not only do we have the option of the HB-1, but we also have the TN-1, available under the NAFTA agreement. Niether is really very good. I have close friends who make way less than their American counterparts (but still slightly more than in Canada) and can't flex their muscle - they'll get deported. I've had friends with Visas in their hands, given to them by their legal departments of the US companies they work for, told that they can't enter the US now or ever becasue they :
a) Told them they were "programmers" instead of "computer systems analysts"
b) had "Made in China" or "Made in Cuba" labels on the clothes they were bringing across.
I even know a woman who lived and worked in Boston for 3 years who dutifully returned to Canada every 6 months to have her Visa renewed. Never had a problem until 1 year ago when, for no reason (none that they told her) they refused to renew here Visa and she was immediately deported (she had to arrange for friends to send her stuff back to Toronto).
Now we work for a very large consulting firm with 42 offices accross North America (starts with a k and rhymes with 'cleane') and this kind of thing happens all the time. I find it ironic that Mexican serial killers seem to have an easier time at the US border than highly skilled Canadian workers, who are being actively recruited. At a time when American companies are screaming for qualified workers, the INS seems just as determined to keep us out.
And its not like we need to learn English, or any new concepts in programming. Hell we are often mistaken for Americans anyway (fortunately or unfortunately). We read all the same trade journals.
In addition to the problems at the border, some companies take advantage in very kiniving ways. For instance, my company will hire you for the Toronto branch at $38000 Cdn (low even for Canadian IT) then "loan" you to Detroit or Dallas or Santa Clara and still pay pay the same salary in Canadian funds! Now tha's exploitation if I've ever heard of it.
PS For all you racist pin heads out there, the best skilled IT workers are from India, BTW.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
1) Open immigration, while a great boon for people around the world, would only be harmful to the US as a whole, because of the sudden, large increase in population that would result. The time-bomb's already ticking, ticking until the population density's too high to be livable, so we needn't hasten it. In the shorter term, it'd also drive wages way down.
2) Free trade, while a nifty thing for American corporations, isn't supposed to be a great thing for everyone. While arguments of economic efficiency may sound nice, maximizing productivity is no ticket to prosperity for all. (ask every Asian country facing massive over-production) Free trade has caused the loss of some jobs in the US... exchanged for money earned by those still holding jobs. Open immigration would do the same thing, only to a greater degree.
You are so narrow minded that you don't even realize that the country's economy would be in trouble if there weren't foreign workers to provide expertise the US is laking of. We are looking at probably to available positions for one available worker by 2001 in the IT industry. So deport all the foreign worker and the US' economy will just sink.
By the way, how many scientists are US citizens?
The US are a country of freedom where people can have a chance to succeed. As long as these immigrant contribute to the wellness of the country.
Your comments just are just a proof that you are racist.
While I agree there may need to be some provisions for students stuck over here while they go for a degree...I hate to say it, but if you don't like the rules of the foreign work agreements then either 1) become a US ciziten, or 2) return to your home country. Its that simple. I do agree that if you are "on the track" trying to obtain your US citizenship then by all means the rules can be bent or changed because of your future citizenship. I'm not sure what any of the USs dual citizenship policies are with foreign countries.
-Xen
It's amazing this kind of BS gets through Congress (wait, I guess knowing Congress, it's not). H1-B is simply a way for companies to avoid paying higher wages to technology workers. God forbid they should start making money akin to the marketing morons who spend 90% of their time in meetings, figuring out a way to increase their 90% share of the pie. If technology jobs are so important that we have to import people to get the work done, why don't we raise the salary bar for these jobs? I thought that's the way that supply and demand was supposed to work.
Not only does importing guest workers allow them to suppress wages, the more insidious damage it does is to keep companies from moving more Americans up the salary ladder into high-demand jobs via training or education incentives. This is the same argument that low-income groups make about 'regular' immigration (both legal and illegal) -- increasing the labor pool suppreses wages, which of course helps profitability and the stock options of marketing types. Of course this doesn't bother Upper Management at all, since it makes it cheaper to have their house cleaned, the pool cleaned, and the yard maintained.
The restrictions on H1-B visas should be tightened dramatically to prevent Corporate America from getting what amounts to yet another free ride from government at the expense of Americans. It's capitalism for the rest of us, socialism and subsidies for them. They managed to export a lot of traditionally blue-collar factory jobs, why should we let them continue to export white-collar, skilled job opportunities?
There's nothing "free market" about closed borders and the somewhat arbitrary criteria on who can cross them.
Yes the TN-1 is a pain in the ass, but it was never meant to be anything more than a temporary visa - that's the "T" folks. Yes the job definitions are narrow - so what, read the fine print and deal with it, it isn't rocket science.
As for the H1-B, yes, you're basically an indentured laborer. Yes, it takes a long time to get a green card and they can throw you out at any time...BUT, you're not an American citizen, and they don't need to extend any courtesies to you.
Frankly, if you don't like it, leave. You came to the US knowing what the terms were. You realized you gave up voting and job mobility - deal with it. The US doesn't owe you a thing. Most of you are making WAY more than you would at home. You are not an American cicitzen. The rules for coming over are very clearly stated. I really don't see what your beef is.
After reading all this, I feel underpaid. I'm was born in the US and work in NYC for a brokerage firm. I write programs for Solaris using C and Motif (this is company standard). I also maintain an intranet web site which contains a suite of reporting applications I wrote in Java. I graduated from a well known university with a Comp. Sci. degree and good GPA. I now have just over one year of experience and I make just under 50K a year. How underpaid am I?
When I first starting working in the US as a DBA/Programmer in 1994 (in New Jersey, no less), I was getting $27/hr from my consulting company. This, they claimed, was the industry average. When I finally resigned about 4 mths ago, I was up to $37/hr. I got my Green card (finally) and left for a job that paid almost twice as much.
I think that the INS imposes some guidelines on salary. Renumeration has to be comparable to the industry average. Of course, there is a lot of leeway when it comes to calculating said average. However, it has been my experience that most companies will stick to the rules, because the very last thing they want is an INS investigation.
I had a guy i work with at my last gig that is in
this same boat. He working for a consulting
company thats basically screwing him over good.
He is getting paid squat but he is worth quite
a bit more. Unfortunatly he cant switch companies
because supposedly it will set back his green card
application to the beginning. Kinda crappy for him
although I am also happy that the market isn't
flooded by low cost imported labor. I like my
comfy high american salary:)
Yes, I'm underpaid (about 20%-25%), but it's not because I'm on a visa that restricts my freedom. The problem is that my 7 years of overseas experience mean nothing here. I can switch my visaholder any time I want (and no, I'm not going to, because they can make EBGC through RIR for me - another couple of acronyms for you to wonder about), but any time I'm interviewed, I get this question "How many years of US experience do you have?", I answer "8 months" and that's the end of the hope for a higher salary. As for the quality of H1B workers in general, beware of Indian sweatshops. I came here through one of the better ones, even though I'm not from India, and I saw the people they bring. I wouldn't trust them with writing a Pacman game. If you ever think of hiring an H1B worker, try people from the countries where English is not so widespread, because in this case good English (which is easily tested) typically means good education, good brains, motivation etc.
What usually happens (in my experience at least) is that H1-Bs are usually recruited out of grad school or, less often, over the Net (as I was). Now, most, if not all H-1Bs, either have no experience of life in the US (including cost of living, job market, work ethic) or very little --usually what you get in grad school; but most science and technology grad schools these days have, in the majority, foreigners anyway, meaning there aren't that many Americans around to pass on cultural/social/financial experience to us foreigners (what about a post about the F-1/GRA slaveshops run by most big research schools?)
Now, another factor that that the article left out: most companies don't want to go through the H-1B sponsorship routine, unless the candidate is a really good fit: immigration lawyers cost real money (and you're gonna need one) and most importantly it takes a long time. In my case it took 4 months after accepting the job offer; for some colleagues it took up to 6.
This is because what no H-1B article anywhere has mentioned: INS is forced to deal with double or triple the number of H-1Bs with NO increase in personnel or change in regulations. The usual time to get an H-1B (4-6 weeks) has effectively doubled and tripled after the quota changes and INS was NEVER that good in keeping up with the paperwork anyway. Now the delays have become so long that most big companies shy away from H-1Bs, unless, as I said, it's a really good fit.
Enter, the "slaveshops": contracting or consulting firms that need a lot of good, educated people, and work on slim profit margins anyway. You have all those F-1/J-1 (college students and exchange visitors or researchers for those not-in-the-know) graduates who see the burgeoning economy and most of the time get the door slammed to their faces. With all this opportunity around and the dearth of opportunity back home, sure, why not take a job that pays 30-40% lower than the national average, especially if you don't know that you're worth more? In one company I know there are still US-educated engineering PhDs (from big-name schools no less) on H-1Bs that make less than $45k/yr...
So, why don't they jump ship and switch jobs? For one thing, the H-1B "transfer" process is long and tricky --again, most companies don't wanna wait 2 months to get someone on board unless it's a good fit. Secondly, and IMHO more importantly, most H-1Bs don't have a grasp of the job market or the practices here in the US. In a lot of cultures, you just don't leave your employer after a few months or a year; most just wait until the first 3 yrs to apply for a Green Card or look for another H-1B (you can only get two 3-yr terms) which really doesn't change the situation.
I was more lucky than most, I came here as an undergrad, I understand the culture and all that, but I still had to win the damn Green Card Lottery to get out of the H-1B rut... Most people don't win the lottery, and actually most aren't even eligible to apply (e.g. Indians, Chinese, Koreans). And believe me, did my job options change when I put "Permanent Resident" (i.e. Green Card holder) on my resume... I am leaving my position for a job that pays about 50% more than what I am making now and I could probably have done better than that if I didn't want to stay here much longer.
My proposal for changing the situation: do with the quotas as you (the US Congress, the industry, American people) think you should, but:
Make the H-1B easier to get for qualified, educated workers (no more that inane "have to look for an American that can do the same job" bullshit --most shops will post an ad that precisely fits their fav candidate, down to "has to speak and write Chinese/Indian/whatever"). It makes a lot more sense to set some standards of education/work experience that can be changed according to the needs of the job market, rather than enslave the visa holder to one employer,
Make it easier to transfer between employers --if you aren't here because you fit a specific job but because you're good enough, it should be much easier for you to change sponsors,
Actually have the visa holder pay for the cost of the H-1B process (lawyers and crap) from his salary. Most "sweatshops" use these costs as an excuse for lower salaries anyways, and most big companies shy away from H-1B because of these costs. I, for one, would much rather have $4-5k deducted out of my salary than make $15-30k less than what I am worth.
/. is actually shining the light on this phenomenon...
And please, consider something else: for most of us, cost of living is actually higher than for Americans: most F-1/J-1/H-1Bs don't know the tricks and shortcuts and workarounds to lower costs (unless they stick with a community from their homecountry), most have spouses that have even a worse time finding a job, most have expenses that even for Americans are luxuries (plane tickets to halfway around the world, phone bills that run in the hundreds of dollars).
Something must be done... unfortunately, H-1Bs don't have money to spare to form PACs or vote for anyone to give a shit...
I apologize for the huge post... And thanks that
I also have an H1-B visa and wanted a new job,
so I just started interviewing, and started the
visa transferral process _without_ my previuos
emplyers knowledge! You do not have to notify
the current emplyoer that you want to transfer
the visa, just do it. When the visa transferral
is approved, you just resign and start at your
new company. By that time (with your new visa
approved) they can't do anything.
Learn the facts before you spew out such BS.
The salary has to match what the government deems the "prevailing wage" in the industry.
You can raise the salary bar as much as you want. Maybe a couple more Americans would go and get an education, but this is going to take a couple years. I do not think that the industry has time to wait for that.
BTW, I have an H1-B, and I am one of the highest-paid people in the company.
If anything, there should be more H1 issued to overcome the shortage.
Your argument in your last sentence doesn't make sense at all. Skilled jobs ARE already exported, to countries with cheaper labor, basically because of the H1-B restrictions in this country.
Are foreign guest workers underpaid? Of course. They don't have the same labor mobility as American workers. American workers are not sponsored by companies; can quit anytime they want to and don't have to pay a "fine" to their employer and won't get sent home.
Supporters of H1-B workers often claim that anti-H1B folks are racist; as you can see in previous posts. Well, then why are the biggest opponents of the "bracero" program (the only other major guest worker program, which is aimed at "temporarily" importing cheap migrant farm labor from Mexico) Mexican American groups?
Most people opposed to H1-Bs are not motivated by racism. It is fair to say that they are not anti-immigrant; but anti unfair immigration. Why should new workers be restricted in their working rights? Should America have multiple classes of workers? I say no.
Good teachers are important to the American Economy. So are good journalists and policemen. Why aren't there major programs dedicated to bringing in temporary workers for those professions? Why are programmers and farm workers the only Americans to face severe competition from guest workers?
Besides, H1-B supporters tend to be the wealthiest members of our society. Look who sponsors this legislation. I'd ask you to check out the sponsors of the ITAA, the big supporters of this legislation in Washington at www.itaa.org but they are to embarassed to leave up their "sponsors" page (hint: Microsoft).
There has always been tension between captial and labor in the United States over importing cheap foreign labor. The American coal miners didn't like it when big coal brought in cheap European labor. Now, American programmers don't like it when big software brings in cheap Asian labor.
Ok, how much should you get paid if you are 25 and have a masters in cs and work as a programmer??? Both us and not.
http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.rea l.html
Here's the quick summary:
There is no desperate software labor shortage. This can be
seen in the low hiring rates and mild rates of increase in wages
in the industry.
The only ``shortage'' is one of cheap labor, especially in the
form of foreign nationals, who in their first few years in the U.S. make
on average 15-30% less than comparable natives.
Age discrimination is rampant in the industry. Younger
programmers with 3-7 years of experience who have the latest software
skills, may find themselves in high demand, but programmers in their
40s, most of whom lack those latest skills, have great difficulty
finding programming work.
The skills issue is central. Insincere employers use the skills
issue as a pretext for not hiring older programmers. Sincere employers
genuinely believe they need to hire a programmer with specific skills,
but they are misinformed, because any competent veteran programmer can
become productive in a new programming language in a couple of weeks on
the job.
Since software technology will continue to change extremely rapidly,
and since employers are not willing to hire a veteran programmer who
learns a new software skill via coursework, employers have set up a
system which guarantees that the claimed/perceived labor ``shortage''
will be permanent.
There is no shortage of computer science majors in U.S.
universities; on the contrary, enrollment has been skyrocketing.
The H-1B program for importing foreign-national programmers
is demonstrably broken. The number of visas granted has been rising
10 times faster than the growth rate in jobs.
Contrary to claims made by lobbyists, the vast majority of
H-1B computer professionals are ordinary people doing ordinary jobs,
not the ``best and the brightest.'' Typical H-1B salaries are in the
$40,000-50,000 range, hardly what one would expect ``geniuses'' to be paid.
I am posting this as an AC becuase I could probably lose my job for this post. I'm in charge of the HR database, so I ran a query on Research Staff Members with H1B visas vs American Citizens. I did not include managers or other employees to make it a fair comparison.
I found out that the average salary for those with H1B is about $1k lower than citizens. That's about 1.2% of the mean salary, insignificant.
The max salary on H1B is about $5k lower, and the min is the same (to the dollar) as the min citizen.
I'm fairly confident that other divisions of the company have similar numbers. I'm not saying my company is typical, I have no idea how people elsewhere get paid, but we're one of the 3 best known companies in our (computer-related) field.
So while I'm sure there are horror stories of exploited non-citizen workers, it's not always that case. Even if it is true some places, it doesn't have to be true, and if someone really wants to come work in America, they can find a higher paying job elsewhere from the beginning.
There are lots of well-financed lobbyists advocating the free international movement of capital, but hardly anyone speaks up for the free movement of labor -- even though, from an orthodox economist's perspective, the case for free trade applies equally to capital and labor. Gosh, I wonder why.
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
I think it would be interesting if, for instance, the Indian government made it a requirement for technical workers exported to the U.S. that they receive equal pay. Naturally, enforcement could be tricky. And it could be argued that the effect would be a stifling of workplace diversity, as American companies turn away prospective employees who are foreigners. But it might also make companies take more seriously both Indian employees and the training of Americans who would like technical jobs but can't get the skills. Not to mention the fact that India could thereby slow the outflow of talented technical people.
Does anyone out there know what various non-U.S. governments have done on this issue?
I've seen a number of cases where managers didn't even *try* to hire people locally because they had the notion that either no local talent was available, or that the local talent was just too pricey and the managers weren't willing to pay that much.
To me, this just seems wrong. If someone's skills are worth US$150K-200K per year, then that's what they're worth. If the manager only makes $60K, well, that's too bad. Maybe he should be taking C programming courses at night.
It also seems wrong to perpetuate the idea that there is a vast, unlimited supply of star programmers just waiting to save your company's day -- and they'll work for cheap. India, Ireland, Russia, and Israel all have growing IT markets in their own countries, and their salaries are going up. So, skilled workers *can* get good pay in their own countries.
Is everybody in India a skilled progammer? Does a CS degree and being from India qualify one to work in Silicon Valley? How come you see so many H1B visa workers carrying around "XXX Unleashed", "XXX for power users", "XXX in 21 days" books?
Now, I've worked with a number of *FANTASTIC* developers from all over the world. I'm not playing favorites. Smart people like smart people, but.. I've also met a number of H1B visa workers that made me wonder how in the heck they managed to get in the front door.
The real key today is getting capable, intelligent staff, training them, and retaining them. It's not about what country they come from.
C'mon, you are calling people names.
Im a US citizen, but I was wondering my status in my field. I live approx 50 miles north of philadelphia, and work for a mid-large sized ISP. I am a sys admin. I earn $33,000. Am I severely underpaid. I dont have a college degree. I am great at my job. Does anyone think that I could move down to the philly area and nearly double my salary???
I have about 2 years experience. BSDI / Linux/ NT
I have worked with a number of H1 people, and the abuse is company specific. If you work for a company that starts with Ke and ends with ane, go find another company. They underpay everyone, but underpay H1 workers even more. What's worse is that they add a leaving penalty to make you pay for the H1 processing fee if you leave. You can, however, find a company that will pay the K. H1 leaving penalty as a signing bonus.
At other places I've seen, the difference is mostly due to the fact that H1 workers are not as aggressive in negotiating.
As far as letting foreign workers in is concerned, I'm all for it. If someone from another country is capable of getting a technical education (not very easy in many other countries), and getting a job here in the US, we should just perform some background check and give them a citizenship for free if they want it, because that is the type of people you want populating your country. Smart and ambitious. While we're at it, we should work out some exchange program where for each tech worker we get, we revoke the citizenship and export a moron.
All we 'cush Yanks' ask is that the law be observed and enforced, not abused. Market forces will take care of the rest. There is no shortage of IT labor in the US, there is a shortage of cheap IT labor. For years bodyshops and silicon (valley) sweatshops have attempted to control costs by running in H-1B's. The reason they continuously try to up the cap is that as soon as the competent guest workers get their visa they leave to up their comp to fair market value. If the law were enforced, there would be very few H-1B's eligible to come in. Corporate types value social skills (butt-kissing, golfing and the like) far more than technical skills; the idea that they can get someone for half my rate appeals to their egos more than their pocketbooks - for they often end up paying more than twice as much to fix the problems cheap foreign labor causes and get a poor impression of the consulting profession to boot.
IEEE-USA/HARRIS POLL: U.S. PUBLIC OVERWHELMINGLY
OPPOSED TO H-1B VISA EXPANSION
WASHINGTON, September 16, 1998 -- More than four out of five Americans oppose substantially increasing H-1B visa limits, according to a survey released today by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers - USA (IEEE-USA) and conducted by Louis Harris & Associates Inc. The U.S. House of Representatives will vote tomorrow on H.R. 3736, a bill that would raise by 190,000 the number of temporary foreign high-tech guest-workers allowed into the United States over the next four years.
According to the IEEE-USA/Harris Poll, 82 percent of a national cross-section of 1,000 adults opposed Congress "allowing U.S. companies to sponsor 190,000 additional foreign technical workers, as temporary employees for up to six years." Only 16 percent were in favor, while 2 percent were unsure.
Respondents, asked their level of agreement with several assertions made by proponents and opponents of H-1B expansion, overwhelmingly agreed with concerns expressed by H.R. 3736 opponents -- including IEEE-USA -- about the effects of substantially increasing visa levels. The statement, "lower wages paid to temporary foreign workers harm U.S. professional wages," was strongly or mostly agreed to by 75 percent of those polled, while only 23 percent disagreed. In addition, 77 percent versus 22 percent agreed that "allowing companies to hire additional temporary foreign professionals reduces employment opportunities for U.S. technical workers." And a whopping 86 percent -- with just 13 percent in disagreement -- concurred that "U.S. companies should train U.S. workers to perform jobs in some technical fields, even if it is faster and less expensive to fill the jobs with the foreign professionals."
Respondents were not swayed by most of the proponents' assertions. A majority -- 66 percent versus 31 percent -- disagreed that "without adding additional temporary foreign workers the United States might be forced to transfer work overseas." Furthermore, 61 percent disagreed with the statement that "without adding additional temporary foreign workers U.S. companies might fall behind international competitors," while only 36 percent agreed. Only one argument -- that "there is a shortage of technical professionals in the United States" -- achieved a plurality of agreement, with 51 percent of respondents saying they "strongly agree" or "mostly agree" and 41 percent indicating they strongly or mostly disagree.
The poll also revealed a broad public lack of awareness of H-1B legislation. Only 14 percent were "very familiar" or "somewhat familiar" with the pending bill, while 86 percent were "not very familiar" or "not at all familiar."
According to IEEE-USA President John R. Reinert, "Special-interest groups have been trying to push this bill through using legions of lobbyists and big campaign contributions. But now it's clear that the American public is adamantly against a vast expansion of the high-tech guest-worker program. Members of Congress might want to keep this in mind as voters prepare to head to the polls in several short weeks."
IEEE-USA promotes the careers and public-policy interests of the 220,000 U.S. members of The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., the world's largest technical professional society.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.--United States of America
1828 L Street, N.W., Suite 1202
Washington, DC 20036-5104
Phone: 202-785-0017, Fax: 202-785-0835.
Your post makes me think that you didn't bother looking at the zillions of leaflets that the US prints up for their US consolate. =)
I recall one while working out my dual citizenship which detailed at least 3-4 consolate offices in canada last I checked [3 months ago].
The one in Toronto is located about a block north from queen and university.
I think you missed the point. The H1-Bs are not free to change jobs. They will be deported because they will lose their sponsorship.
You mention that you "don't try to get a law passed making car prices more attractive
This ain't a simple matter of free market supply and demand. The presence of these indentured workers distorts the relationship between supply and demand.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Although I am inclined to agree that some characteristics can be attributed to 'race', the generalisation you propose is ludicrous. People from different parts of the world, have, due to their environment in which they grow up, different views of life, but to assume that it is shared by everyone from those places doesn't hold water. Criminality for example is not one those characteristics... taking life a bit easier might be (in some cases) and even then cannot be attributed to all!
basically i can say there are two types of workers that have significant difference - the ones that have graduated from american college and therefore have an understanding of rules and culture and english and together with their computer skills are a great choice for any it-related company.
the other type are the ones that came from the foreign country and have a limited knowledge of english and working practices. those people might be an excellent coders but there is still a human factor that cannot be overlooked. you cannot succeed on the job without communication.
the latter ones are the ones that most often get underpaid. and the first and the most significant reason is the lack of information. the inability to communicate and the common disbelief in lawyers prevents those people from learning the laws and what they can and cannot do. based on my personal experience and experience of my friends and relatives i can say that if you know the laws and know what the environment is like and know what the industry average pay rate is then you have a much higher chance of getting a good-paid job.
information is the key to everything. but it takes time to gather it and the worker that comes straight from the foreign country doesn't have this time. and (obviously) this gets abused and those people get underpaid.
once you get H1B you generally have to work a lot more and you are a lot more restricted in your choices. and most of the foreign workers i know _do_ work a lot more and generally they are better coders. i guess it all comes down to america being the nation that delivers pizza and india and china will have the best programmers that will do all the work (hehe). after all the trend is clearly seen.
i was lucky enough to complete my education in US and i had time and ability to find a good company. after all you really want to work for a big company (although it might be not nearly as exciting) because they help you out with your visa, have free lawyers and do not really try to fuck you over like small companies do.
after coming to america we know why we are here and we understand that immigration laws are necessary and certain discrimination will happen no matter what, but foreign workers need to be protected more against the abuse and they have to have more freedom in switching employers. and usual ignorance of american public that simply doesn't know about the situation and the workers themselves that cannot (or are not willing to) speak up, contributes to the problem.
=anton=
It's stupid to restrict immigration. The only people who emigrate are those who are resourceful enough to do so. We want those kind of people in our country.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Just be glad you don't want to live in central London (UK)!!!
I am in the same position (I am regular here, but am posting anon (with IE, no less ugh!)): TN-1 to H1B.
Yes, the rules are clear. That said, if one is being abused, and there are better positions available, by all means, switch. Trouble is, you'll probably find that there are few better positions that are willing to do an H1 to H1 transfer.
I recently had to turn down a $200k signing bonus because the employer wouldn't do an H1 to H1 transfer and sponser for a GC. Of course, that alone set off warning bells in my head: I would have taken half that signing bonus along with a commitment to sponsor AND pay my own legal fees and made this clear (since immigration really IS a hassle for an employer, everly little form has to go through the corporate laywers and that costs $$$, even if legal council isn't necessary it is usually policy).
In my case, I'm paid quite well for my job description, but find that I spend 15% of my time doing it (at a better than average quantity AND quality of work), and 85% cleaning up after everyone else's mistakes. Frankly, I'm getting ticked off that I'm not compensated for that 85%. But, until something better comes along, I have to stay put. (My position frustrates headhunters to no end, knowing that they could place an American with my skills in about a day at close to double my salary).
My friend was working on an H1, and he got a green card. The company gave him a 50% pay rise on the spot to encourage him not to leave.
OTOH I think he's lucky to get to live in America first place. There is no way my non-tech friends could live and work there.
I'm on a J-1 from the UK, and in a 'training' position. I get paid crap for the skills I have, I'm the most technical person in the company, I'm the only one who really knows how to run the servers (the company hosts web sites). I'm a bloody good programmer even if I say so myself, in perl, Java, PHP and a Linux/Solaris expert, 3 years of exp and a really good degree. My training consists of finding something new and cool and learning it by myself because I don't want to bill more than 20% of my time as I'm not about to get a raise. I get $30k, in Washington DC.
Anyway, I've been trying to get a new job, I've interviewed at big and small companies and most of them seemed really interested in hiring me, but then said they couldn't because of visas. Ok the H-1 cap was a problem, but when that wasn't an issue the most common excuse was that they couldn't wait 2 months, which is bollocks because afaik none of them employed anyone else. The next one was they didn't want to pay all the money for lawyers and fees.
I'm really not seeing this so-called mass shortage of high techies. Ok so there are bunches of cruddy jobs for VB, ASP and NT point and click people, but I find it incredibly difficult to find a decent unixy-programmy-webby job, in DC/Virginia which will sponsor my H-1.
Paul.
I think this IT worker pay issue is merely the tip of the iceberg regarding abuses of this law. The company (owned by a european company) I used to work for recently has been laying off senior technical, management and R&D people in order to make room for expatriate workers from the homeland enabled by H1-B visas. Their main reason for doing this is that in the homeland the costs of laying off workers, due to more socialistic policies is much higher than it is in the US. They are also under considerable political pressure from their government not to layoff anyone because of a very high unemployment rate. The way this H1-B system is currently implemented it enables foriegn countries to export their unemployment problems to the US at the expense of American workers in fields other than the high tech industries.
In addition I think that while the hiring of foriegn high-tech workers may be a good thing short term for these US companies, the longer term impact is not good - this labor pool now available to US companies inevitably depresses the wages paid to high tech workers - supply and demand is a fundamental economic principle. This reduced wage is less attractive to US workers, and thus fewer persue the rigorous training needed. Without this desire to get these high tech jobs we will never achieve the educational infrastructure needed to fill our needs with domestic workers. Eventually this will result in lost economic advantage for the US.
Newsweek discusses evidence that "Europeans" preceeded the "Indians" http://newsweek.com/nw-srv/issue/23_99a/printed/in t/socu/so0117_1.htm. So much for that old, racist argument.
I am another Canadian in the US on a TN visa. I have lived in the US for over 5 years, first as a student on an F1 visa, then on TNs at 2 different companies.
The F1 restricted me to working only for the school I went to, or to approved internship programs (usually there is not much choice). The TN restricts me to working only for the company that sponsored the visa--no contract work, no consulting, no part time job to supplement my income, and if I work under the table, I risk losing my visa entirely. If I lost my job, I'd have to return to Canada within 10 days (doesn't matter that I have no place to go once I cross the border).
On a TN, I am not an immigrant. I have no rights that an immigrant would have. If I express an interest in immigrating, I risk losing my TN. Fortunately, my employer will be sponsoring me for an H1-B visa when the quotas open up in September. But then it will be an addition 3-4 years before I can get through the greencard process! In that time, I cannot get promoted, change jobs internally, or do anything that would change the description of the job that I have. It is very frustrating to be held back like that.
This is just not a fun experience all around. I am often mistaken for an American (I've totally gotten rid of my "Canadian Accent", which was the only indication I was not from the US). I am of American heritage, parts of my family have been in America since the 1700s, even my Grandmother is a US citizen. Yet because of the geographic location of where I was born, I am not allowed to have much freedom in my career. Sure, I could go back to Canada, but I would have to leave all my friends behind, pay 60% of my wages to the Gov't, and live some place I don't want to live.
I know and have worked with many people from China, India, Pakistan, and other places around the world, and the situation is far worse for them, far more discrimitory. I honestly don't know why it has to be like this. If the US is the land of opportunity and freedom, it sure is a pretty exclusive type of opportunity and freedom. And also not a very good role model for the rest of the world as a beacon of democracy.
Hi,
I work for a tiny consulting company in Columbus, OH and I make good $$$ (55k + straight pay overtime + bonus which should be 10k - if I ever see it).
I have been with the company for 2 years, 6 months of which I was an intern. When we applied for my H1-B visa, my lawyer recommended that we keep my salary low (35k) so that the department of labor (State of Ohio would approve it). I could then get a raise; no problem.
So the way I see it, is that the problem is not always the employers, but that a lot of the salary surveys are out of date, giving the employers the chance to exploit the H1-B'ers. I was lucky and after a few months got my raise. My employer was under no obligation to do that, he just wanted to make sure he wouldn't lose me.
All the other H1-B employees I know (3 of them) are not underpaid, and in fact appear to be getting paid well for their skills/jobs.
None the less, I do feel there is discrimnation against us, but it is no different than discrimination against women in the field who seem to get paid less than men.
Additinally, making it so difficult to get the green card can't possibly be good for the US economy in the long run. Why have an IT expert work in the US for 6 years, and then not be able to keep them because they couldn't get their green card, because of no fault of their own, but the lengthy procedure?! In fact some of my H1-B'er friends are applying for Canadian immigration, just in case their green card process falls apart, as is sometimes the case!!!
I came to New Jersey a year back only to be exploited by a greedy body shopper. Its real pity to see myself and others in a pathetic situation. The contracting companies or body shoppers, as they are commonly known, have seen gold in high-tech job market. They bring candidates from India, China etc... and exploit them to the fullest extent they can. This is how it works. A candidate is interviewed in his/her home country. The competition there is fierce. You have to be one of the best in the game to pass the tests and reach here. Although a bunch of under qualified do reach here, but thats a different story altogether. Since the candidates know little about the prevailing wages, they are brought at the lowest possible pay. Can you believe a graduate engineer being paid $34,000 a year when the bare minimum by law is $45,000 a year. Well, that happens with these bodyshoppers. Once you are here, you are kept on bench till you get project and also between the projects. This bench period may go upto 3 months or more, there is no limit to it. What are you paid during this period ? A mere $20 a DAY. Yes, I was paid that much and its the truth. When you get the project you are paid as per the contract with you. So it can be around $15/hr to make up $34,000 a year. The client company may be paying anywhere between $80-150/hr for you but what you get is the tip of the iceberg. You are made to sign a contract which says you cannot leave the company or pay the penalties which is again illegal by law but who cares, laws are meant to be broken by these slave traders. If you do leave the job, like I did, you are threatened for life, harassed, sent notices through lawyer, filed law suits against you in false charges, not paid your last pay etc...(do you want to hear more ?). This is what happens....high class workers, low class life.
There is more to it. If your Green Card is processed by the company then you are stuck with them. You cannot leave the company till you get Green Card and it will take 3-5 years. The exploitation reaches at its peak during this period. You get no increases, no bonuses, no usual benefits that you are entitled to get. All this because they know you cannot leave them. Another BUSINESS of these bodyshoppers....transfer visas of those who came to USA on visitor or business visas and want to stay back or those who are already illegal in USA. They can get H1 visas for a heavy SERVICE CHARGE. Applications, papers ?...no problem, they know how to make it work.
Last weekend I met a friend of my friend who is in real bad situation in New York City. All the candidates brought by his company are as good ( or bad ) as trapped in prison. They are not allowed to meet or contact anyone, not even friends or relatives. When asked about them at company you get standard answer...the person is not here and don't know where he/she is. The home address is also not given and they don't have phone at home. We had hard time finding them out. Its hard to belive but its true. I have seen it, experienced it. The candidates here don't know what to do. They are scared by the company to hell. They don't know where to complain. Even if they did, they will be in bad condition if they don't find job soon, cause they will have to leave the country. Not what they came for...good work, better opportunity, better life.
The situation is really bad, bad, bad and everyone does the same, almost all contracting companies except for those American ones who do believe in ethics and treat candidates like employees and not slaves. But they hardly touch exploited candidates even if they are good. They know that previous employer might try to put the employee in some kind of trouble that may affect candidate's work. They just don't want to get into unnecessary trouble.
Can you help in any way to improve the situation ? Probably, you don't care, do you ?
Buying a $200 plane ticket is resourceful?
There is another reason to oppose the H1-B legislation. This country no longer has a "frontier" in the old sense of the word. The ecological damage we perpetrate is getting worse; more people won't solve the problem. The new "frotier" is cyberspace and you don't have to reside in America to pioneer it.
The high tech industry's wanting to import guest workers is not just bad for the indentured workers. It hurts the American economy. College Kids make rational decisions on what career to go into. If doctors are getting paid a lot, they go into medicine. If lawyers are getting paid a lot, they go into law. If engineers are getting paid well, then they'll take up engineering. If high tech labor cost are artificially suppressed via special laws targeting American Engineers, then American College kids will make a rational career choice: don't go into high tech because you'll get underbid by temporary foreign workers.
I'm having a difficult time feeling any sympathy at all for the foreign workers in the U.S. Here's the way I look at it: working "chained" to a company for 5 years in order to get your green card, is not very different from plenty of folks who work "chained" to a company for 5 or so years to get their stock options vested. There is a certain period of time that you BY CHOICE have limited your options, in order to get the payoff at the end of that period.
Yes, I've heard the "horror stories" of companies that work the poor worker bees to death because they "can't" go anywhere else. Of course, I've heard this story in regards to both immigrants and those whose stock options are going to be worth so much that they "can't" afford to leave in the meantime, and can therefore be abused. To people in both situations I say: yes, you CAN leave. To the immigrants, you CAN go home. To the option holders, you CAN get another job. You just don't want to pay the price of getting out of a situation you don't like. Well, pay the price or stick it out, but quit whining because you're the one who put yourself there, and you can get out at any time that you like. Or, you can stick it out and get that payoff. Choice is always, always yours.
This whole post seems to think that "it's not fair" that some workers get paid less based on their status. Yes, it isn't fair. WHO CARES? (Oh, this will start the flames a-burning...) Look, the deal is this: come over and be like onto a slave for 5 years, and you'll get to stay and be a citizen of the US (or permenant resident or whatever). That's the deal. YOU DON'T HAVE TO TAKE THE DEAL. Is the citizenship/residency worth it to you? That's for you to decide.
Yes, the rules are insane. But the US at least does let some people in. As an American who has (gods forfend!) looked into emmigrating OUT of the US, I've learned that plenty of other countries make it a damn sight harder to get into their countries than the US does.
For my own self-interest, I wish they'd make it harder to bring people in, so at least my salary would tend to go up. Yes, I admit that I care more about myself than all those other people. So? How many (insert name of non-US nationality here) think to themselves "oh, I won't go to the US because I'll be driving down the poor US-ian's salaries"? None, I'd bet. They're out for themselves, we're out for ourselves. Let's admit it, eh?
Foreign (H1b) workers are underpaid? Hello-o people, that's a _fact_! How do you think we market ourselves? How do you think we sell ourselves and this visa crap to companies? There's a shortage of skilled workers, sure, but it's not like if _consultants_ were impossible to find -- only problem, consultants charge $$$ and are very volatile. So companies look at foreign employment.
To back this up, I'll just tell my own story (posted as AC, sorry).
I came to the States in '96 for an internship, on a J1 visa (real easy to get, not like H1-b). Stayed for 6 months, completed the internship, and went back to France. Well, didn't like it so much there after all, it seemed kind of dull and boring, so I came back here and looked for a job.
Ah! I naively thought my good credentials and previous experience in the US would open me all the doors, not quite. Most companies don't know anything about this H1-b thing, and look suspiciously at anyone who doesn't have a well-known, good old US degree. French engineering school? What the hell is that? (hey, I don't blame them, it's like that everywhere). And what is this H1-b thing? Legal trouble, no thanks!
Anyways, to make a long story short, it took me three months to find a job, AND I GOT ONE ONLY BECAUSE I PLAYED NICE. Let me explain: getting this damn visa thing takes on average 4 months. Now, when Silicon Valley companies hire, they don't want somebody in 4 months -- they need someone NOW. This visa crap and the delay associated are just a pain in the ass for them. Besides, they have to pay a lawyer, there's some paperwork to do, etc.
Oh, BTW, people who say that it takes special qualifications, etc. to apply for H1-b should get out of their little study room. That might be the written law, but the facts are that, in order to get an H1-b for someone, you just have to give a hefty sum of money to an immigration lawyer, and that's it. Don't tell me about special requirements or qualifications, this is legal bullshit. If a company wants you, they'll pay, and if their lawyer is half-decent, he'll do whatever it takes to get it, and he will.
So anyways, I went to these companies and gave them my little pitch: I would start working for them right away, and they would pay me back whenever the visa would come in (as a hiring bonus). They would deduce from that the visa fee, the amount of money they paid the lawyer. Of course this is illegal, but all the trouble is on me, not them. Thank God my English was good enough to work this out!
OK, so that made me much more attractive already. But then, I knew what others in the field were being paid, I knew how much I was worth. Well guys, I was beginning to run out of money, had been living at friends' houses for too long already (you might know about the housing situation in San Francisco), and I decided to take a little pay cut, because I knew that then I was finally gonna land this damn job.
So I did. I'm currently working at about 20% less that what I'm worth "for real", but I have this damn visa and I live where I wanted to. The company that hired me was really desperate for someone with my skills and the paycut + visa deal made me irresistible. They considered outsourcing the work, but in the end it's much better for them to have someone in the office all the time.
Sure, I'm still making 1.5 times what I'd make in France, it's true. That's true for every foreign worker, you gotta realize that, and that's why they don't mind so much the underpaying. And that plays against the native US workers...
Unfortunately my job sucks now, and I'm off to find a new one... Same pain all over again! The H1-b visa is linked to the company you work for, and getting a new job means having to get a new visa. I'm not looking forward to it, I can tell you that much. It was really hard to make the decision to quit my current job because the visa is still good for another year and a half. Like others have said, the visa is also a good way to handcuff people in the position where you hired them.
This time I'm gonna try real hard to get paid a full salary, and stand of myself, but it's hard when you're a foreigner and need a job, really hard. People don't really realize how hard it is until they've done it for themselves.
People have to realize that being a foreigner is a hard position to be in, especially you have to negociate! There's a little bit of a slave mentality to it, you feel just tolerated, you don't want to make any waves, just want to get your damn paperwork in order so that they won't kick you out any minute...
Yes, a lot of H1B's are underpaid. I know of SAP consultants who get paid $40-$50/hr. (Norm for their skills would be about $100) for work because a contractor holds their visa. This, a lot of times, gets to indentured-servitude-type levels. And, this problem doesn't discriminate as far as language/skin color. I know of plenty of people from the U.K. or Australia who have problems. Unfortunately, since Green Cards usually take about three years to process, applicants are stuck where they are if they've started the process. It is possible to transfer a visa to another employer, but this can sometimes take up to 2-3 months, and the person in question is not legally allowed to work during this time. I know of companies that will put them to work anyway and pay under the table, but I wouldn't recommend this to anyone.
How do we get around this problem, though? Have minimum wages for contractors? I can't see how this would work. I suppose you could set caps for hours worked, and you could monitor working conditions, but this would be quite complicated, given all the small sweat shops around.
"Stupid Patty and stupid Selma!"
Open immigration is not a solution. US has generated for itslef an absolutely invalid flare of being the best place in the world. The people who queue at the consulates have no bloody idea how looks Quins or Bronx at 3am (most americans have no idea as well).
As long as the b... propaganda machine continues to work there can be no talk about open immigration (unless the round trip ticket is 100% obligatory and enforced).
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Well UK salaries are usually higher than what you quote (unless it is a UKERNA salary or you are dumb as a brick).
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/