8 ms·

"That’s right. Facebook and Google brought in 900 and 2,800 H-1B employees, respectively, with salaries of $140,000 and $127,000. Cognizant? 3,300 at $72,000. T

"That’s right. Facebook and Google brought in 900 and 2,800 H-1B employees, respectively, with salaries of $140,000 and $127,000. Cognizant? 3,300 at $72,000. Tata? A whopping 16,435 for a (relatively) paltry $70,000 – literally less than half what Facebook paid." I still think a good first step is to require a salary for H-1B workers at 10x single person poverty guidelines for the local area[1]. Another measure of base salary would probably work, but something that requires a salary that discourages the body shops[2]. According to the legislation and goals of the program, the people we accept have the talent to be worth this salary[3]. 1) https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-01-25/html/2016-01450.htm https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-01-25/html/2016-01450.... 2) http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2016-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2016-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx - the top 10 has a lot of consulting / body shop firms 3) http://www.dol.gov/whd/immigration/h1b.htm http://www.dol.gov/whd/immigration/h1b.htm "The intent of the H-1B provisions is to help employers who cannot otherwise obtain needed business skills and abilities from the U.S. workforce by authorizing the temporary employment of qualified individuals who are not otherwise authorized to work in the United States."

ardit33 11y ago
Sorting the visas by salary will work just as well. Right now there is a random lottery choosing who gets the visas, where the Indian body shops are known to "oversubscribe" to it. Also, after a verification that the Visa recipient is working at the given salary for at least two years, then the they can apply for green card irrelevant to who their current employer is (as long as they are employed and earning at least similar salaries to what they did when they got the visa). Switching jobs (as long as it is the similar profession/pay), should not reset the Green Card process. This will remove the current defacto "Indentured servitude" state that most H-1B visa holders find themselves in. There are many ways to improve the current system (without changing the quotas), to benefit the country itself, and not large corporations, but right now there is no direct personal incentive for lawmakers to do that.
- vowelless 11y ago
  > Sorting the visas by salary will work just as well. And it makes sense for the federal government too. Higher salary = higher taxes.
- protomyth 11y ago
  > Sorting the visas by salary will work just as well. I would rather have a explicit floor to make sure that simply increasing the numbers allowed doesn't put us back in the same situation or tempt companies into collusion.
- dominotw 11y ago
  >Sorting the visas by salary will work just as well. what abt TCS working around this with paying high salary for the first year and then lowering the wage following year.
  - bhangi 11y ago
    If you have easy H-1B transfers (which we do), then this is not an issue since the H-1B worker would have no motivation to stick on in a lower wage job.
    - pm90 11y ago
      You are assuming this worker is hireable by other companies. Most of the body shops train people in a very specific and often obscure technology and they cannot work as general software engineers. e.g. my cousin was trained in COBOL and while he was smart enough to develop other skills, most of his co-workers did not. They are tied to the job. Many are even grateful simply for the opportunity to 'come to America'.
      - bhangi 11y ago
        Well, if a company is willing to pay top dollar for a year to hire a candidate for a specific skill, I'd say that the specific skill should be in high demand. So it would be easy enough to find another employer in need of that skill.
gaius 11y ago
There are moves afoot in the UK for a minimum salary required for a visa.
existencebox 11y ago
A concern I have when I see the suggestion to simply set a higher salary floor. There are foreign workers for many other job types (translation, chef, specialty craftsman) that likely fall far short of what we consider a fair base salary in tech. These are exactly the sort of foreign workers, however, I'd imagine we WANT coming in, since they are by definition specialty and non-replaceable. Would they still have an avenue into the country, without precluding their use to only those with the money to pay exorbitant salaries? (I don't actually know the visa system well enough; I'm curious if they could use a different visa type or something of that respect) Otherwise I'd worry about the unintended side effects of such an approach, notably because as mentioned above, the problem seems to be more one of the semantic requirements of visa-ship being abused than just salary requirements at the root of the problem. (the latter is certainly happening, but doesn't seem like the core, better worded.)
- protomyth 11y ago
  I am speaking only for STEM workers. That is where the biggest conflict lies. It does seem a bit odd to mix cultural folks in with STEM for expressing a need in the USA. I would rather see them separated.
- Terr_ 11y ago
  > (translation, chef, specialty craftsman) [...] I'd imagine we WANT coming in, since they are by definition specialty and non-replaceable. If the ostensible goal of the program is to bring in people for low-supply positions (but short of individual O-1 visas) then isn't salary a reasonable not-too-game-able way to measure that?
  - existencebox 11y ago
    Potentially, but at the exclusion as I say of anyone who simply doesn't have those sort of funds. Can a local food business afford 100k+ for a chef? It appears to me that this would disallow many smaller businesses from being able to utilize specialty or cultural labor. Thus my suggestion to address violations of the intent of the law; yes, more game-able, but actually gets at the root of the problem.
DrScump 11y ago
Those who missed the thread on the Disney outsourcing may want to see this and its parents. Note the video that proves that firms are deliberately posting phony job ads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10970166 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10970166

ardit33 11y ago

Sorting the visas by salary will work just as well. Right now there is a random lottery choosing who gets the visas, where the Indian body shops are known to "oversubscribe" to it. Also, after a verification that the Visa recipient is working at the given salary for at least two years, then the they can apply for green card irrelevant to who their current employer is (as long as they are employed and earning at least similar salaries to what they did when they got the visa). Switching jobs (as long as it is the similar profession/pay), should not reset the Green Card process. This will remove the current defacto "Indentured servitude" state that most H-1B visa holders find themselves in. There are many ways to improve the current system (without changing the quotas), to benefit the country itself, and not large corporations, but right now there is no direct personal incentive for lawmakers to do that.

vowelless 11y ago
> Sorting the visas by salary will work just as well. And it makes sense for the federal government too. Higher salary = higher taxes.
protomyth 11y ago
> Sorting the visas by salary will work just as well. I would rather have a explicit floor to make sure that simply increasing the numbers allowed doesn't put us back in the same situation or tempt companies into collusion.
dominotw 11y ago
>Sorting the visas by salary will work just as well. what abt TCS working around this with paying high salary for the first year and then lowering the wage following year.
- bhangi 11y ago
  If you have easy H-1B transfers (which we do), then this is not an issue since the H-1B worker would have no motivation to stick on in a lower wage job.
  - pm90 11y ago
    You are assuming this worker is hireable by other companies. Most of the body shops train people in a very specific and often obscure technology and they cannot work as general software engineers. e.g. my cousin was trained in COBOL and while he was smart enough to develop other skills, most of his co-workers did not. They are tied to the job. Many are even grateful simply for the opportunity to 'come to America'.
    - bhangi 11y ago
      Well, if a company is willing to pay top dollar for a year to hire a candidate for a specific skill, I'd say that the specific skill should be in high demand. So it would be easy enough to find another employer in need of that skill.

gaius 11y ago

There are moves afoot in the UK for a minimum salary required for a visa.

existencebox 11y ago

A concern I have when I see the suggestion to simply set a higher salary floor. There are foreign workers for many other job types (translation, chef, specialty craftsman) that likely fall far short of what we consider a fair base salary in tech. These are exactly the sort of foreign workers, however, I'd imagine we WANT coming in, since they are by definition specialty and non-replaceable. Would they still have an avenue into the country, without precluding their use to only those with the money to pay exorbitant salaries? (I don't actually know the visa system well enough; I'm curious if they could use a different visa type or something of that respect) Otherwise I'd worry about the unintended side effects of such an approach, notably because as mentioned above, the problem seems to be more one of the semantic requirements of visa-ship being abused than just salary requirements at the root of the problem. (the latter is certainly happening, but doesn't seem like the core, better worded.)

protomyth 11y ago
I am speaking only for STEM workers. That is where the biggest conflict lies. It does seem a bit odd to mix cultural folks in with STEM for expressing a need in the USA. I would rather see them separated.
Terr_ 11y ago
> (translation, chef, specialty craftsman) [...] I'd imagine we WANT coming in, since they are by definition specialty and non-replaceable. If the ostensible goal of the program is to bring in people for low-supply positions (but short of individual O-1 visas) then isn't salary a reasonable not-too-game-able way to measure that?
- existencebox 11y ago
  Potentially, but at the exclusion as I say of anyone who simply doesn't have those sort of funds. Can a local food business afford 100k+ for a chef? It appears to me that this would disallow many smaller businesses from being able to utilize specialty or cultural labor. Thus my suggestion to address violations of the intent of the law; yes, more game-able, but actually gets at the root of the problem.

DrScump 11y ago

Those who missed the thread on the Disney outsourcing may want to see this and its parents. Note the video that proves that firms are deliberately posting phony job ads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10970166 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10970166