5 ms·

My friend on H1B makes $80/hr, so not all of them are "cheap".

by olegk 17y ago

btilly 17y ago
No, not all are cheap. The more interesting question is what a comparable skillset in an American would cost. For a random web developer, $80/hr seems high. It would be low for an experienced DBA. Furthermore the fact that companies have incentives to abuse the system doesn't mean that companies do abuse the system. Your friend may be a fairly treated example. But his existence doesn't change the fact that many cases exist where the system is abused.
lhuang 17y ago
True but most foreigners view the H1B as the first step to getting a green card - something highly highly desirable among the scores of white collar foreigners working in the US. From my experiences, I know quite a few who after getting their H1B feel "locked" down with the company that hired them. This in turn allows the company to abuse the shit out of them because they know that the only option for most of these people, especially in the current economic climate, is to stfu and keep on taking the abuse lest they want to return back to sweatshop call centers with 1/10th the pay. Then these guys get further screwed when it comes to the annual review & promotion process when their american counterparts (i.e. white males w/o fobby accents) get bumped ahead of them. A blanket statement for sure; I realize there are more nuances to this but Ive seen it happen ALL-THE-TIME.
hga 17y ago
Plenty of them are. Here's a datapoint I can contribute: Lucent in 2001 (yes, a very bad time). I'm 40 (although I look like I'm in my early 20s), making $80K. My best coworker is a brilliant native of a Caribbean island; he got a EE from a respectable US university and was getting his Masters at night (showed me his MOSIS chip at one point). For the job we're doing, in his own areas he's as competent and productive as I am. Immigration law requires the company to post his salary; he's making $45K. If he was just getting paid what I was at my second job, the first one at a market rate, he'd be getting $63K (that's adjusted for inflation, but you should subtract some for higher health care costs (they've risen faster than CPI inflation)) and he'd be worth every penny. He knew he was being exploited and wasn't happy about it, but it was useful experience and a good path to a Green Card, at least when he signed on (Lucent of course continued its decline and canceled the project we were working on, which was important enough that it canceled their future as well). The near indentured servitude aspect of the H1-B system is reason enough to seriously reform it ... but as noted, the necessary docility of those who have one is too attractive to too many companies.

My friend on H1B makes $80/hr, so not all of them are "cheap".

by olegk 17y ago

My friend on H1B makes $80/hr, so not all of them are "cheap".

No, not all are cheap. The more interesting question is what a comparable skillset in an American would cost. For a random web developer, $80/hr seems high. It would be low for an experienced DBA. Furthermore the fact that companies have incentives to abuse the system doesn't mean that companies do abuse the system. Your friend may be a fairly treated example. But his existence doesn't change the fact that many cases exist where the system is abused.

lhuang 17y ago

True but most foreigners view the H1B as the first step to getting a green card - something highly highly desirable among the scores of white collar foreigners working in the US. From my experiences, I know quite a few who after getting their H1B feel "locked" down with the company that hired them. This in turn allows the company to abuse the shit out of them because they know that the only option for most of these people, especially in the current economic climate, is to stfu and keep on taking the abuse lest they want to return back to sweatshop call centers with 1/10th the pay. Then these guys get further screwed when it comes to the annual review & promotion process when their american counterparts (i.e. white males w/o fobby accents) get bumped ahead of them. A blanket statement for sure; I realize there are more nuances to this but Ive seen it happen ALL-THE-TIME.

hga 17y ago

Plenty of them are. Here's a datapoint I can contribute: Lucent in 2001 (yes, a very bad time). I'm 40 (although I look like I'm in my early 20s), making $80K. My best coworker is a brilliant native of a Caribbean island; he got a EE from a respectable US university and was getting his Masters at night (showed me his MOSIS chip at one point). For the job we're doing, in his own areas he's as competent and productive as I am. Immigration law requires the company to post his salary; he's making $45K. If he was just getting paid what I was at my second job, the first one at a market rate, he'd be getting $63K (that's adjusted for inflation, but you should subtract some for higher health care costs (they've risen faster than CPI inflation)) and he'd be worth every penny. He knew he was being exploited and wasn't happy about it, but it was useful experience and a good path to a Green Card, at least when he signed on (Lucent of course continued its decline and canceled the project we were working on, which was important enough that it canceled their future as well). The near indentured servitude aspect of the H1-B system is reason enough to seriously reform it ... but as noted, the necessary docility of those who have one is too attractive to too many companies.