12 ms·

Temporary Visas, Meant to Import Talent, Help Ship Jobs Abroad

94 points by hwstar 11y ago

falsestprophet 11y ago
"When Congress designed temporary work visa programs, the idea was to bring in foreigners with specialized, hard-to-find skills who would help American companies grow, creating jobs to expand the economy." This is a common misconception. The H1B visa laws are generally used to hire very low wage workers. (I doubt the authors of the legislation are surprised by this result.) Companies are required to pay a prevailing wage, but this wage can be one of four levels. And of course most H1B applications are for the lowest levels. Here are levels for software developers in Chicago [1]: Software Developers, Applications Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL Metropolitan Division Level 1 Wage:$24.45 hour - $50,856 year Level 2 Wage:$33.14 hour - $68,931 year Level 3 Wage:$41.84 hour - $87,027 year Level 4 Wage:$50.53 hour - $105,102 year For context the 25th percentile wage in Chicago is $68,670 and average is $88,630. Of course, more ambitious companies may file applications under job titles with even lower wage levels like "system analysts". You should also know that if a H1B worker is fired, he and his family are out of status that day and must leave the country unless a visitor visa is granted (which is not guaranteed). How would you like working here if you could be fired and your whole family could be sent packing at will? If you were an employer, do you think you could you hack this system to your advantage? I'm pretty sure I could. [1] http://www.flcdatacenter.com/ http://www.flcdatacenter.com/
- parennoob 11y ago
  As an H1B, I whole-heartedly agree with you. The H1B gives American employers disproportionate power over their foreign employees. The ideal solution which has been proposed by several people, but will probably never see the light of day in legislation due to entrenched lobbying interests is very simple – separate the visa from the employer. If an employer sponsors an H1B once, that person should be automatically be free to work for any company he/she pleases for six years. This will make H1Bs more of a realistic "high skill level" visa and less of a captive labor pool for the industry.
  - falsestprophet 11y ago
    We actually have this visa and employers don't want to have anything to do with it. EB2 visas for permanent residence are currently available [1] for employees with Ph.D., master's degree, or at least five years of progressive post-baccalaureate experience. [1] Excluding people born in India, Mainland China, Mexico and the Philippines because applicants from those countries have exceeded the per country maximum
    - mwnz 11y ago
      Yes, but that greencard processes like the EB2 take a very long time. It is difficult for an employer to sign up an employee, with the hope that they begin work 12 months later. This processing period can easily balloon out due to random audits. Granted, the H1B process is slow too.
      - NhanH 11y ago
        The H1B process is slow, but pretty much deterministic within a period of few months (every year). On the other hands, the EB1/2/3 and various O visa is very indeterministic (you won't know what happen, for how long), especially when those varies depends on the country of origin.
  - nnutter 11y ago
    Another thing to think about is how this affect families with one or more parents on H1B visas.
  - jordanb 11y ago
    I completely agree. My ideal H1-B reform would be as follows: 1) The visa holder has no obligation to the company whatsoever as soon as the visa is approved. If the only thing keeping an employee at the company is the threat of deportation then maybe the company shouldn't be employing people at all. 2) The company can not extract any fees whatsoever from the employee, not even for training or relocation. The employee is not obligated to pay anything to the employer under any circumstances, even if he immediately leaves the job. 3) The Visa program is a reverse auction on salary, down to, say, 150% of the median wage for the NAICS code. The auction ends when the cap or the salary limit is reached. 4) The company must hold the first year of salary in escrow and forfeit any unpaid salary to the government if the employee leaves early. This is to prevent hiring an employee and then firing and rehiring immediately after the visa is approved at a lower salary. Of course you're right that no real reform will happen, because as far as the Zuckerberg/fwd.us crowd is concerned, the only problem with the current system is that the cap is too low.
- scient 11y ago
  Thats the whole problem - the conditions of the visa should be followed. As a H1B myself, I cannot really complain at all. My salary on-par or at least above market average (I am a C level exec, not an engineer) and my company has never-ever shown any interest in exerting their power over me via the visa. In fact they are worried about the visa running out and are trying to sponsor a green-card for me. So I guess it depends, and I would say the scenario I am in is more in line with the intent of the law vs the cheap labor brought in from India and China.
- mc32 11y ago
  I worked over seas in the East. It was pretty much the same. Company sponsored you, if you were let go, you had a week to leave town (or seek another sponsor). It's not that atypical. Also, I met quite a few foreigners who worked the same (not an expat working in an overseas office but working for a local company). They also seemed to hire lots of Thais and Philippine people for hard labor (who were also subject to deportation once the work dried up) And the police had powers to deport --double the fun (meaning you had to have papers) That said, I don't think progressives who propose easing immigration from poor countries would allow competition for "high-skilled" jobs like doctors, engineers, lawyers because it would suffer pressure from professional pushback.
manibatra 11y ago
Obviously it sucks for people losing their jobs. But if someone's job is such that another person can come, mimic what they do and take away their job, aren't they already at risk of losing their jobs to automation in the near future?
bko 11y ago
Jobs aren't what make people wealthy, its access to markets. Jobs are an expense, not an end in itself. Politicians and now even economists always talk about jobs as some thing to strive for. This article talks about outsourcing but freeing up human resources to pursue more meaningful work should be applauded. Eliminating menial work for people to perform (usually replaced by machines or in this case outsourcing to low cost countries) has led to furthering human achievement. That is of course only true if you believe people aren't mindless sheep.
- kiba 11y ago
  And what if meaningful works get eliminated by machines?
  - Kalium 11y ago
    What meaningful work has ever been eliminated by machines? Do you have examples?
    - yrro 11y ago
      To rephrase the question in terms you may agree with: what should happen when there is not enough meaningful work to keep everyone employed? (I believe we reached this point some time ago)
      - Kalium 11y ago
        The bounds of the human imagination, and its possible expressions, are functionally infinite. Then it is only a question of resources. I don't agree that we've reached this point. In a post-scarcity world, I don't think the problem of insufficient meaningful work is likely to occur. There will always be a kitten to be played with, art to be made, research to be performed, and more.
        nulltype 11y ago
        Where are all these purfessional kitten-playing-with jobs?
tenpoundhammer 11y ago
I think the New York Times and other publications need to put more scrutiny on the congress in stories like this, "When Congress designed temporary work visa programs, the idea was to bring in foreigners with specialized, hard-to-find skills who would help American companies grow, creating jobs to expand the economy. Now, though, some companies are bringing in workers on those visas to help move jobs out of the country." I think this quote represents what congress claimed to be doing, but instead were just obeying their corporate masters and knew full well that the program would be used to erode the us workforce and workers rights in order to enrich large corporations. I don't expect journalistic institutions to agree with me but I do expect them to call out politicians far more than they are, and to question their motives with poorly thought laws like this one.
- mwnz 11y ago
  Agreed. The abuse of the system is the symptom of a broken system. The real solution is to revise the policy. Policy regulates. The market seeks to circumvent regulation.
aianus 11y ago
I hate the racist and nationalistic undertones whenever this is brought up. Why should Americans make more money than Indians for the same work? What is so intrinsically great about Americans that I should pay more for an American to do my accounting than an Indian and why am I wrong if I don't do that? Edit: > The 36-year-old accountant said the young Indian assigned to shadow her appeared to have no extraordinary knowledge of accounting. His expertise was in observing and mapping what she did. > At the close of business, the recording was transmitted to India, where workers practiced mimicking his tasks. If this is possible you don't have a real job and the Indian will be shortly be replaced in turn by a piece of software.
- obrero 11y ago
  > racist and nationalistic undertones whenever this is brought up. Why should Americans make more money than Indians for the same work? Your idea that Indians (or perhaps Chinese) should be the only ones coming in sounds a bit racist to my ears actually. Why should it be Indians coming in, when so many Syrians are fleeing their homes, much due to the US invasion of Iraq (and undermining of Assad - so that now ISIS runs much of Syria). I don't see how India providing its citizens with free IIT educations, only to be brought to the US and work like coolies, chained to an H1-B visa, is some wonderful thing. We should be giving out citizenship, and that's it, the foreign worker programs are only used to screw over American workers. You have this racist attitude of wanting Indians, and excluding Syrians etc. You want them chained them chained as coolies to H1-B visas to exploit them. Then you accuse anyone opposed to your scheme to exploit people for a buck "racist" like you're some kind of humanitarian.
  - scintill76 11y ago
    Huh? Nowhere did the GP post say that Indians/Chinese are preferable over Syrians or anyone else. I assume Indians were only mentioned because they are mentioned in the article, and are the stereotypical target of outsourcing hate. I really don't get this response; the GP also expresses distaste, or at least skepticism, at treating Americans as entitled to higher pay (having "coolies").
  - 11y ago
maerF0x0 11y ago
It seems to me that its best for the free market for jobs to go where the value/cost tradeoff is maximized. Simply put, first worlder's are not providing the value that their salaries demand. And if we actually are, then the companies we work for will have an advantage and will eventually beat the competitors using cheap labor. As well local inflation + foreign deflation will change this, it will probably fix itself due to the crazy printing of money in the US. Eventually, a $100k a year employee will just be subsistence in terms of real goods.
- Swizec 11y ago
  > Eventually, a $100k a year employee will just be subsistence in terms of real goods. In a certain popular city in the US that starts with S, that is not far from truth right now.
  - mywittyname 11y ago
    This is such bullcrap. $6k a month after taxes goes a long way EVERYWHERE in the US. People that can't afford to live in SF on this salary are just bad with money. Even spending $3k/mo on rent leaves you with $3k to spend on everything else. $3k/mo after taxes is like a $50k/yr salary. If you can live in Nebraska on $50k/yr, then you can live BETTER in SF on $100k/yr. The SF tech crowd that can't get by on $100k need a lesson in managing money.
    - maerF0x0 11y ago
      Firstly, it goes fast in SF. $3500 a month for a 1 bedroom is more realistic, unless one wants a >45minute commute (just checked with padmapper). Food ($350/mo), fun money($160 per month), clothes($50 per month), haircuts($30 per month), utilities($150 per month), healthcare copays, transit and other random crap probably eats $1k. Someone saving for retirement should roughly put $1k a month away (makes about $80k a year retirement income). So now we have $500 a month left for things like saving for a house, ring, wedding, visiting family once a year, maybe buying a car or a trip somewhere. So yes, of course, its livable but certainly not as intense as you've put it. ("such bull crap"... "just bad with money") Secondly. The marginal price on a room is about $1000 so if you perchance want to have a family then you're looking at more like $4k- $4500 for your rent. Everything is more expensive in SF as well, not just your rent. My bias is that I do not consider it a healthy society if a couple couldnt have a family of 2 (roughly replacement) on 1-1.5 incomes (some blend of parents have some time off to raise the kids) . End result: $6k a month after taxes (roughly $110k before) is enough such that you still have to make sacrifices, either live far away (1 hr commute each way), live in a terrible place (tenderloin), have roommates or give up on a family.
srinivasan 11y ago
Google, Facebook et al should not be campaigning for more H-1B's; that would simply worsen the offshoring situation. They should instead campaign for an improved program that distinguishes employees from (effectively) contract workers.
- deleted 11y ago
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ecobiker 11y ago
NYTimes is identifying the wrong problem here. What if Toys R Us sends an employee to India to train the team there (that's not uncommon). I'm struggling to understand the key takeaway from the article.
- jzwinck 11y ago
  One could also complain about Americans who choose to live abroad. They often end up training foreigners either directly or indirectly. Companies understand that outsiders can be used to gain understanding more quickly in some areas, and they'll pay above the domestic market for it. America discourages this by taxing its citizens abroad; this would be even more punitive if not for the foreign earned income exclusion. True nationalists might consider its repeal.
- nsenifty 11y ago
  Or by video conferencing. I don't see how temporary work visas being the main problem here.
- tomohawk 11y ago
  With H1B, the government is providing assistance for the activity. In the case you mention, it's on the companies dime.
kevin_thibedeau 11y ago
Hopefully this coerced/forced training of your replacement will get captured at some point on a viral video incendiary enough to force Congress to do something out of national embarrassment. That's the only way to get the entrenched players to budge from the status quo.
deleted 11y ago
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cwilkes 11y ago
A Cengage spokeswoman, Susan M. Aspey, said the company needed to install higher-grade accounting systems. “To do this quickly and efficiently,” she said, Cengage sought support from Cognizant. Thanks, I needed a good laugh. Outsourcing is great when you have a repeatable process that isn't constantly changing. The worst possible thing is to take a project that: 1. is changing constantly 2. is new 3. you can't get your hard around Think it is hard managing a project when it is in the same building as you? Try doing that from thousands of miles away.
datashovel 11y ago
I think so many of today's "controversial" topics / issues are related. Capitalism, if it were generalized and mapped to a function, optimizes in the same way as the "least squares error" ML function does. The world is just getting too good at capitalism too quickly and it's causing too many people to lose out on the happy / comfortable lifestyle they would have were this not the case.
- mdpopescu 11y ago
  Very good point about optimization, I will remember the analogy.
theshadowmonkey 11y ago
Why does H1B visas directly relate to Indian consulting companies? I agree those companies are the ones applying for the largest number of visas. But, I as an Indian working in the United States on H1B visa and earning more than a lot of Americans feel offended. I got my advanced STEM degree here from a reputed university and work for a US company. So, should I not be given the opportunity to stay and work in this country when I am contributing to the economy on par or more than many Americans? I work on temporary visas and wait for ~12 years to get a permanent residency even if I have bigger dreams and want to start a company. On my visa status, its very hard to do anything risky. Create a new visa class then for students and entrepreneurs who come here and get their advanced degrees. Universities and talent out of those universities is what builds this great nation. edit: I personally hate consulting companies from India because they get employees with a lot of experience and pay them peanuts. Even a new college graduate would not accept a job offer for their salary.
- sul4bh 11y ago
  I like your point. The government should provide a new visa category for students who get an advanced STEM degree from US college. Its absurd that students who got their advanced STEM degree from a college in US has to complete in the same visa category as the people applying from consulting companies.
lanewinfield 11y ago
Oh, the irony of "Tata" Consultancy Services.
dirkdk 11y ago
It sounds like most of this abuse goes with employees that are here for a much shorter period than the visa is valid for (2 periods of 3 years for H1B). That is a clear indicator that they were here for only training purposes
pm90 11y ago
I think the article has got one major fact wrong. The Visa program that is most abused is the L1. I don't think those employees here for a few days/months were on a H1B, they were surely on a L1, because they had to leave soon after. An L1 has no cap, and all companies have to do is to have someone on their payroll for 2 years in another country. In fact, if an employee does get an H1B, they will frequently try to keep them in the US as long as possible, since there is a shortage of professionals with an H1B.
lifesucks1 11y ago
You will all be shocked if you realize the number of H1B's in the federal government. Forget about private business your jobs are guaranteed to be outsourced sooner or later. Just move to management and skip being skilled labor of any sorts. STEM education is a joke. As a tax payer/citizen there are no jobs in the federal sector either. There are a tonne of folks on H1B at the government agencies itself. I am not making this up....
powera 11y ago
The idea that we can Save American Jobs by preventing foreigners from coming into the country is pure insanity. I'm 100% sure that India could find some way to do accounting without sending people to the US for 4 weeks to learn. This is pure fear-mongering by the New York Times, probably just because of the political winds against immigration.
kopter 11y ago
The real problem is that the same Visa quota is being used for both highly-skilled workers who _don't_ displace American workers (e.g. Silicon Valley or high-tech manufacturing), and "body-shopped" workers who are _intended_ to displace American workers (the example in this article, and the previous example of Disney).

94 points by hwstar 11y ago

"When Congress designed temporary work visa programs, the idea was to bring in foreigners with specialized, hard-to-find skills who would help American companies grow, creating jobs to expand the economy." This is a common misconception. The H1B visa laws are generally used to hire very low wage workers. (I doubt the authors of the legislation are surprised by this result.) Companies are required to pay a prevailing wage, but this wage can be one of four levels. And of course most H1B applications are for the lowest levels. Here are levels for software developers in Chicago [1]: Software Developers, Applications Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL Metropolitan Division Level 1 Wage:$24.45 hour - $50,856 year Level 2 Wage:$33.14 hour - $68,931 year Level 3 Wage:$41.84 hour - $87,027 year Level 4 Wage:$50.53 hour - $105,102 year For context the 25th percentile wage in Chicago is $68,670 and average is $88,630. Of course, more ambitious companies may file applications under job titles with even lower wage levels like "system analysts". You should also know that if a H1B worker is fired, he and his family are out of status that day and must leave the country unless a visitor visa is granted (which is not guaranteed). How would you like working here if you could be fired and your whole family could be sent packing at will? If you were an employer, do you think you could you hack this system to your advantage? I'm pretty sure I could. [1] http://www.flcdatacenter.com/ http://www.flcdatacenter.com/

parennoob 11y ago
As an H1B, I whole-heartedly agree with you. The H1B gives American employers disproportionate power over their foreign employees. The ideal solution which has been proposed by several people, but will probably never see the light of day in legislation due to entrenched lobbying interests is very simple – separate the visa from the employer. If an employer sponsors an H1B once, that person should be automatically be free to work for any company he/she pleases for six years. This will make H1Bs more of a realistic "high skill level" visa and less of a captive labor pool for the industry.
- falsestprophet 11y ago
  We actually have this visa and employers don't want to have anything to do with it. EB2 visas for permanent residence are currently available [1] for employees with Ph.D., master's degree, or at least five years of progressive post-baccalaureate experience. [1] Excluding people born in India, Mainland China, Mexico and the Philippines because applicants from those countries have exceeded the per country maximum
  - mwnz 11y ago
    Yes, but that greencard processes like the EB2 take a very long time. It is difficult for an employer to sign up an employee, with the hope that they begin work 12 months later. This processing period can easily balloon out due to random audits. Granted, the H1B process is slow too.
    - NhanH 11y ago
      The H1B process is slow, but pretty much deterministic within a period of few months (every year). On the other hands, the EB1/2/3 and various O visa is very indeterministic (you won't know what happen, for how long), especially when those varies depends on the country of origin.
- nnutter 11y ago
  Another thing to think about is how this affect families with one or more parents on H1B visas.
- jordanb 11y ago
  I completely agree. My ideal H1-B reform would be as follows: 1) The visa holder has no obligation to the company whatsoever as soon as the visa is approved. If the only thing keeping an employee at the company is the threat of deportation then maybe the company shouldn't be employing people at all. 2) The company can not extract any fees whatsoever from the employee, not even for training or relocation. The employee is not obligated to pay anything to the employer under any circumstances, even if he immediately leaves the job. 3) The Visa program is a reverse auction on salary, down to, say, 150% of the median wage for the NAICS code. The auction ends when the cap or the salary limit is reached. 4) The company must hold the first year of salary in escrow and forfeit any unpaid salary to the government if the employee leaves early. This is to prevent hiring an employee and then firing and rehiring immediately after the visa is approved at a lower salary. Of course you're right that no real reform will happen, because as far as the Zuckerberg/fwd.us crowd is concerned, the only problem with the current system is that the cap is too low.
scient 11y ago
Thats the whole problem - the conditions of the visa should be followed. As a H1B myself, I cannot really complain at all. My salary on-par or at least above market average (I am a C level exec, not an engineer) and my company has never-ever shown any interest in exerting their power over me via the visa. In fact they are worried about the visa running out and are trying to sponsor a green-card for me. So I guess it depends, and I would say the scenario I am in is more in line with the intent of the law vs the cheap labor brought in from India and China.
mc32 11y ago
I worked over seas in the East. It was pretty much the same. Company sponsored you, if you were let go, you had a week to leave town (or seek another sponsor). It's not that atypical. Also, I met quite a few foreigners who worked the same (not an expat working in an overseas office but working for a local company). They also seemed to hire lots of Thais and Philippine people for hard labor (who were also subject to deportation once the work dried up) And the police had powers to deport --double the fun (meaning you had to have papers) That said, I don't think progressives who propose easing immigration from poor countries would allow competition for "high-skilled" jobs like doctors, engineers, lawyers because it would suffer pressure from professional pushback.

manibatra 11y ago

Obviously it sucks for people losing their jobs. But if someone's job is such that another person can come, mimic what they do and take away their job, aren't they already at risk of losing their jobs to automation in the near future?

bko 11y ago

Jobs aren't what make people wealthy, its access to markets. Jobs are an expense, not an end in itself. Politicians and now even economists always talk about jobs as some thing to strive for. This article talks about outsourcing but freeing up human resources to pursue more meaningful work should be applauded. Eliminating menial work for people to perform (usually replaced by machines or in this case outsourcing to low cost countries) has led to furthering human achievement. That is of course only true if you believe people aren't mindless sheep.

kiba 11y ago
And what if meaningful works get eliminated by machines?
- Kalium 11y ago
  What meaningful work has ever been eliminated by machines? Do you have examples?
  - yrro 11y ago
    To rephrase the question in terms you may agree with: what should happen when there is not enough meaningful work to keep everyone employed? (I believe we reached this point some time ago)
    - Kalium 11y ago
      The bounds of the human imagination, and its possible expressions, are functionally infinite. Then it is only a question of resources. I don't agree that we've reached this point. In a post-scarcity world, I don't think the problem of insufficient meaningful work is likely to occur. There will always be a kitten to be played with, art to be made, research to be performed, and more.
      - nulltype 11y ago
        Where are all these purfessional kitten-playing-with jobs?

tenpoundhammer 11y ago

I think the New York Times and other publications need to put more scrutiny on the congress in stories like this, "When Congress designed temporary work visa programs, the idea was to bring in foreigners with specialized, hard-to-find skills who would help American companies grow, creating jobs to expand the economy. Now, though, some companies are bringing in workers on those visas to help move jobs out of the country." I think this quote represents what congress claimed to be doing, but instead were just obeying their corporate masters and knew full well that the program would be used to erode the us workforce and workers rights in order to enrich large corporations. I don't expect journalistic institutions to agree with me but I do expect them to call out politicians far more than they are, and to question their motives with poorly thought laws like this one.

mwnz 11y ago
Agreed. The abuse of the system is the symptom of a broken system. The real solution is to revise the policy. Policy regulates. The market seeks to circumvent regulation.

aianus 11y ago

I hate the racist and nationalistic undertones whenever this is brought up. Why should Americans make more money than Indians for the same work? What is so intrinsically great about Americans that I should pay more for an American to do my accounting than an Indian and why am I wrong if I don't do that? Edit: > The 36-year-old accountant said the young Indian assigned to shadow her appeared to have no extraordinary knowledge of accounting. His expertise was in observing and mapping what she did. > At the close of business, the recording was transmitted to India, where workers practiced mimicking his tasks. If this is possible you don't have a real job and the Indian will be shortly be replaced in turn by a piece of software.

obrero 11y ago
> racist and nationalistic undertones whenever this is brought up. Why should Americans make more money than Indians for the same work? Your idea that Indians (or perhaps Chinese) should be the only ones coming in sounds a bit racist to my ears actually. Why should it be Indians coming in, when so many Syrians are fleeing their homes, much due to the US invasion of Iraq (and undermining of Assad - so that now ISIS runs much of Syria). I don't see how India providing its citizens with free IIT educations, only to be brought to the US and work like coolies, chained to an H1-B visa, is some wonderful thing. We should be giving out citizenship, and that's it, the foreign worker programs are only used to screw over American workers. You have this racist attitude of wanting Indians, and excluding Syrians etc. You want them chained them chained as coolies to H1-B visas to exploit them. Then you accuse anyone opposed to your scheme to exploit people for a buck "racist" like you're some kind of humanitarian.
- scintill76 11y ago
  Huh? Nowhere did the GP post say that Indians/Chinese are preferable over Syrians or anyone else. I assume Indians were only mentioned because they are mentioned in the article, and are the stereotypical target of outsourcing hate. I really don't get this response; the GP also expresses distaste, or at least skepticism, at treating Americans as entitled to higher pay (having "coolies").
- 11y ago

maerF0x0 11y ago

It seems to me that its best for the free market for jobs to go where the value/cost tradeoff is maximized. Simply put, first worlder's are not providing the value that their salaries demand. And if we actually are, then the companies we work for will have an advantage and will eventually beat the competitors using cheap labor. As well local inflation + foreign deflation will change this, it will probably fix itself due to the crazy printing of money in the US. Eventually, a $100k a year employee will just be subsistence in terms of real goods.

Swizec 11y ago
> Eventually, a $100k a year employee will just be subsistence in terms of real goods. In a certain popular city in the US that starts with S, that is not far from truth right now.
- mywittyname 11y ago
  This is such bullcrap. $6k a month after taxes goes a long way EVERYWHERE in the US. People that can't afford to live in SF on this salary are just bad with money. Even spending $3k/mo on rent leaves you with $3k to spend on everything else. $3k/mo after taxes is like a $50k/yr salary. If you can live in Nebraska on $50k/yr, then you can live BETTER in SF on $100k/yr. The SF tech crowd that can't get by on $100k need a lesson in managing money.
  - maerF0x0 11y ago
    Firstly, it goes fast in SF. $3500 a month for a 1 bedroom is more realistic, unless one wants a >45minute commute (just checked with padmapper). Food ($350/mo), fun money($160 per month), clothes($50 per month), haircuts($30 per month), utilities($150 per month), healthcare copays, transit and other random crap probably eats $1k. Someone saving for retirement should roughly put $1k a month away (makes about $80k a year retirement income). So now we have $500 a month left for things like saving for a house, ring, wedding, visiting family once a year, maybe buying a car or a trip somewhere. So yes, of course, its livable but certainly not as intense as you've put it. ("such bull crap"... "just bad with money") Secondly. The marginal price on a room is about $1000 so if you perchance want to have a family then you're looking at more like $4k- $4500 for your rent. Everything is more expensive in SF as well, not just your rent. My bias is that I do not consider it a healthy society if a couple couldnt have a family of 2 (roughly replacement) on 1-1.5 incomes (some blend of parents have some time off to raise the kids) . End result: $6k a month after taxes (roughly $110k before) is enough such that you still have to make sacrifices, either live far away (1 hr commute each way), live in a terrible place (tenderloin), have roommates or give up on a family.

srinivasan 11y ago

Google, Facebook et al should not be campaigning for more H-1B's; that would simply worsen the offshoring situation. They should instead campaign for an improved program that distinguishes employees from (effectively) contract workers.

deleted 11y ago
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deleted 11y ago

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ecobiker 11y ago

NYTimes is identifying the wrong problem here. What if Toys R Us sends an employee to India to train the team there (that's not uncommon). I'm struggling to understand the key takeaway from the article.

jzwinck 11y ago
One could also complain about Americans who choose to live abroad. They often end up training foreigners either directly or indirectly. Companies understand that outsiders can be used to gain understanding more quickly in some areas, and they'll pay above the domestic market for it. America discourages this by taxing its citizens abroad; this would be even more punitive if not for the foreign earned income exclusion. True nationalists might consider its repeal.
nsenifty 11y ago
Or by video conferencing. I don't see how temporary work visas being the main problem here.
tomohawk 11y ago
With H1B, the government is providing assistance for the activity. In the case you mention, it's on the companies dime.

kevin_thibedeau 11y ago

Hopefully this coerced/forced training of your replacement will get captured at some point on a viral video incendiary enough to force Congress to do something out of national embarrassment. That's the only way to get the entrenched players to budge from the status quo.

deleted 11y ago

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cwilkes 11y ago

A Cengage spokeswoman, Susan M. Aspey, said the company needed to install higher-grade accounting systems. “To do this quickly and efficiently,” she said, Cengage sought support from Cognizant. Thanks, I needed a good laugh. Outsourcing is great when you have a repeatable process that isn't constantly changing. The worst possible thing is to take a project that: 1. is changing constantly 2. is new 3. you can't get your hard around Think it is hard managing a project when it is in the same building as you? Try doing that from thousands of miles away.

datashovel 11y ago

I think so many of today's "controversial" topics / issues are related. Capitalism, if it were generalized and mapped to a function, optimizes in the same way as the "least squares error" ML function does. The world is just getting too good at capitalism too quickly and it's causing too many people to lose out on the happy / comfortable lifestyle they would have were this not the case.

mdpopescu 11y ago
Very good point about optimization, I will remember the analogy.

theshadowmonkey 11y ago

Why does H1B visas directly relate to Indian consulting companies? I agree those companies are the ones applying for the largest number of visas. But, I as an Indian working in the United States on H1B visa and earning more than a lot of Americans feel offended. I got my advanced STEM degree here from a reputed university and work for a US company. So, should I not be given the opportunity to stay and work in this country when I am contributing to the economy on par or more than many Americans? I work on temporary visas and wait for ~12 years to get a permanent residency even if I have bigger dreams and want to start a company. On my visa status, its very hard to do anything risky. Create a new visa class then for students and entrepreneurs who come here and get their advanced degrees. Universities and talent out of those universities is what builds this great nation. edit: I personally hate consulting companies from India because they get employees with a lot of experience and pay them peanuts. Even a new college graduate would not accept a job offer for their salary.

sul4bh 11y ago
I like your point. The government should provide a new visa category for students who get an advanced STEM degree from US college. Its absurd that students who got their advanced STEM degree from a college in US has to complete in the same visa category as the people applying from consulting companies.

lanewinfield 11y ago

Oh, the irony of "Tata" Consultancy Services.

dirkdk 11y ago

It sounds like most of this abuse goes with employees that are here for a much shorter period than the visa is valid for (2 periods of 3 years for H1B). That is a clear indicator that they were here for only training purposes

pm90 11y ago

I think the article has got one major fact wrong. The Visa program that is most abused is the L1. I don't think those employees here for a few days/months were on a H1B, they were surely on a L1, because they had to leave soon after. An L1 has no cap, and all companies have to do is to have someone on their payroll for 2 years in another country. In fact, if an employee does get an H1B, they will frequently try to keep them in the US as long as possible, since there is a shortage of professionals with an H1B.

lifesucks1 11y ago

You will all be shocked if you realize the number of H1B's in the federal government. Forget about private business your jobs are guaranteed to be outsourced sooner or later. Just move to management and skip being skilled labor of any sorts. STEM education is a joke. As a tax payer/citizen there are no jobs in the federal sector either. There are a tonne of folks on H1B at the government agencies itself. I am not making this up....

powera 11y ago

The idea that we can Save American Jobs by preventing foreigners from coming into the country is pure insanity. I'm 100% sure that India could find some way to do accounting without sending people to the US for 4 weeks to learn. This is pure fear-mongering by the New York Times, probably just because of the political winds against immigration.

kopter 11y ago

The real problem is that the same Visa quota is being used for both highly-skilled workers who _don't_ displace American workers (e.g. Silicon Valley or high-tech manufacturing), and "body-shopped" workers who are _intended_ to displace American workers (the example in this article, and the previous example of Disney).