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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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
How do you get a H-1B? What is it? I already have a visa, but it's nearly maxed. Does that matter?
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.
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????
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...
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.
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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.
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
But if the workers work overseas, then they spend their money overseas, so "the common folk" don't get the benefit of their US employment. Everyone has two hands to work, but one mouth to feed as well, so every new person working in the high-tech field increases the employment of everyone who's already here.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
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.
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
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.
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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...
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.
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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.
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.
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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
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/
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.
Big-O (order) notation is a way of representing the speed of an algorithm. For example O(n) says that the speed of execution is directly proportional to the amount of data (n) being processed. O(n^2) says that it's proportional to the square of the amount of data, so that if you double the data, you're actually quadrupling the processing time. The first thing to do when evaluating any algorithm is to evalaute the order. If it's O(n^2) or worse, dump the algorithm. O(n log n) is nice, O(n) is nicer, and O(log n) is nicest.
...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.
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 :)
I said it before and I'll say it again.
If you and your industry want to attract talent, then pay your existing workers MORE, and offer prospective employees more.
I think your statement about "at any price" is complete bullshit. What is the highest amount you've offered someone? Maybe you need to go higher still.
Supply and Demand.
Now, after this "investment", in 5-10 years, it will pay off, because people going into college NOW will see how lucrative it is in the computer industry, and go into CS. Skill shortage problem solved.
If you can't afford it, then maybe:
A: Lower your marketing budget.
B: Cut your CEO's salary in half (aw, poor baby has to get FACTORY sound on his Lexus)
C: Stop wasting money on immigration lawyers
D: Raise your product prices
"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 should NOT be happy with your job and your salary.
Your skills are in high demand, you deserve to be paid more, and everyone else in this industry deserves YOU to be paid more.
Can't you people understand that this is hurting EVERYONE in the high tech industry - over the long run?
"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.
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!
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
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 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
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)>_<^>
.
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
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.
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
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 ;)
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.
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!
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/
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
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.
>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.
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.
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.
If your brother-in-law has his green card application pending, then he should have received a work card enabling him to work for any company he chooses.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
As for your second argument, again it doesn't hold. Yes, many people live under better conditions in the US, but certainly not all. Many want to work in the US for a while for lots of other reasons, including a desire to see other parts of the world.
But anyway, that people may get more paid in the US than at home is irellevant. The point is that if you allow immigration under rules that makes it easy for employers to give them bad conditions and low wages, it will mean that employers will prefer to import workers than employing people who already live in the US, or anywhere else.
I support immigration, but not immigration that comes because they are cheap, easily exploitable labour.
It would be easy to fix this with regard to H1B: Let the foreign workers switch jobs freely while in the US. In that case, they would have the same opportunities as US workers to stay away from bad employers, and both they, and US workers win because it will mean that it will be real need, not greed and a wish to force wages downward, that make companies look for potential H1B workers.
It's not "simple". The INS has a pretty long backlog for citizenship applications, and it's not exactly like getting a driver's license once you do get through the backlog. Even getting a green card isn't exactly trivial.
I'm not sure what any of the USs dual citizenship policies are with foreign countries.Use the Web, Luke. The US Dual Citizenship FAQ is out there.
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 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
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'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.
$ 33,000 is pretty low for your level of experience. I say $ 50,000 should be your pay.
However, consider the fact that ISPs don't have the money to pay this much, compared to "normal" enterprise companies.
I suspect that your experience differs ... a 4 bedroom house with 2.5
from that of a log of people because of
where you live. Here in (sub)urban California,
a two-bedroom condo can easily sell for
$280,000
baths on a 1 acre lot would either have
to be an hour commute or more away from work
or would cost an easy half a million. *sigh*
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/