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A phony STEM shortage and the scandal of engineering visas
- geodel 11y agoH1B or no H1B with the advances in computing (cloud, automation, ML AI etc) are now getting mature enough that we will simply not need so many workers in IT sector. Even folks in outsourcing destinations like India are staring at layoffs and downward income revisions.
- skybrian 11y agoEasily fixed, in theory, by letting people holding H1-B visas switch employers easily. Then they'd make market rate, and there wouldn't be incentive for companies to sponsor them to cut costs and have captive workers. In practice, it's impossible because Congress isn't going to do anything.
- neilk 11y agoBut you can. The H1-B program is designed for all that. The sponsor has to prove they're paying market-ish rate (in practice it's at the low end of market, but close enough). And the employee can quit and go to any company willing to file a little bit of paperwork. But that's IF you're the kind of worker the H1-B was designed to allow into the USA – someone highly skilled and in demand, with the cultural competence to navigate US society. The hordes of TATA people, I don't know. The real issue with the H-1B (in my opinion) is that you need to jump to a new employer very quickly if you quit. You can't quit a bad situation and then spend a couple of months trying to get a better one.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- ojbyrne 11y agoMore important than quitting, in my opinion (as an H1B) is the threat of getting fired.
- HarryHirsch 11y agoThat, and the fact that the garden-variety employee cannot easily file for their green card. It's the employer who has to file for them, and with a switch of employment the green card process needs to start again. The green card queue for Indians and Chinese is long. The confluence of these issues encourages abuse.
- hwstar 11y agoH-1B coupled with employment at will is why companies prefer to import workers to the US instead of opening offices in the low wage countries.
- throwaway11221 11y agoIt's still hard. I'm an H1B worker. I came to the US for my MBA (from a good school), graduated in the top 2% of my class with a 3.94 GPA. I got a job with a Fortune 150 company. My starting salary was 94K, and now I make more than 150K. All this happened in the last 4 years. I am not "cheap labor" and I don't work in IT. I am highly skilled (I'm a lawyer with an MBA - it's not all that common). I have an approved green card application. But - I'm from India, and there's a LONG line of people ahead of me waiting for green cards. It will take 5-7 years to get a green card. In the meanwhile, I have received job offers where I would get paid more - nearly 200K in one instance. But I'm unwilling to take those offers because it would mean restarting the green card process. There are ways to keep your spot in line, but they aren't foolproof, and for me, it's easier to stay with this company and hold onto my spot rather than take a higher paying job. So yes, even for people highly skilled and in demand, it's not easy to switch jobs. There are many factors that you have to look at, and it's stressful knowing that if you lose your job, you have days to find a new job - or else give up your life in the US and leave. I have been here for years, I have a house, cars, friends.. you can't easily just leave everything behind. The US needs to work on this issue. I agree that people shouldn't be losing their jobs to cheaper labor, but at the same time, what about highly skilled immigrants who want to contribute to the US economy and build a life here? The sword of Damocles hangs over our heads - lose your job and you have 10 days to find a new one, or get out. Doesn't matter if you've been here 10 years and have done everything you possibly could to be a good citizen.
- dominotw 11y agoI am curious if you have checked to see if you can qualify for O visa?
- throwaway11221 11y agoYes, I have checked. I don't think I do. O visas require clear proof of exceptional ability - and in my field, I'd have to show multiple international publications, awards won, a SJD, etc. O visas are easy to get if you're an author, celebrity, renowned professor, and so on. I'm not in that category. I have publications in international journals and corporate awards - but an O visa would be a stretch. It's easier for me to leave the US for a year, and come back and reapply under the EB1 classification, and this is something that I am seriously considering. It depends on what new rules the USCIS makes this year - and also on the outcome of the upcoming Presidential election.
- dougabug 11y agoThat addresses one aspect, but fails to address the issue that the supply of workers has increased, placing downward pressure on wages.
- yummyfajitas 11y agoWell, it puts downward pressure on wages at the top and upward pressure on wages at the bottom. I.e., it reduces inequality. Isn't this a good thing?
- dougabug 11y agoIncreasing the supply of labor puts downward pressure on labor costs in general, most specifically at the tier of labor where the labor pool is expanded. The article states that most of the labor imported is at the entry/journeyman level. Driving down the wages of less senior tech workers allows companies to target more dollars to elite talent and executives, so I don't see how inequality is reduced in this instance. Arguably importing more O-1 workers might have the effect you describe.
- yummyfajitas 11y agoInequality between the US and India is vastly larger than inequality within the US. This inequality is reduced by immigration.
- bsder 11y ago> Easily fixed, in theory, by letting people holding H1-B visas switch employers easily. Just give them a green card after 12 months, background and security check expensed to the company that wanted them (50K minimum charge). The pipeline would simply shut down for cheap workers. Technical specialists wouldn't even blip.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- discardorama 11y agoA solution to this wholesale import of cheap labor is to rank all the H-1B applications in order of salary, and take the top N. Presto: problem of low-wage imports solved; companies will now be able to find local talent, since they'll have to pay more, and tech workers will make more money. Win, win, win for all.
- shas3 11y ago...which would suck for the supply chain expert hired at some company's Kentucky logistics center. And yay for the software engineer in SF?
- dibujante 11y agoBreak it out by state?
- arh68 11y agoIt could be based on federal GS locality pay: $135,750 in SF would be equivalent to $114,350 in KY. There'd be no need for quotas per state. [1] https://www.federalpay.org/gs/locality https://www.federalpay.org/gs/locality
- TimJRobinson 11y agoThere could be x visas per state or area, relative to demand for the visa in that area. Then only the top paid workers in that area get them.
- eli_gottlieb 11y agoWhy is a Kentucky logistics center entitled to import cheap labor?
- shas3 11y agoHuh? Because you can live a king's life for $100k family income in Kentucky, while you can barely afford rent in Bay Area with the same salary. Also, manufacturing, logistics, have other reasons for being located where they are.
- shas3 11y agoThe skills shortage issue, in my experience is the inability to find someone with the specific skills and talents for a given job. It is real, as anyone who's tried to hire in certain areas can testify. It is not a strict commodity market where terms like shortage are easy to define. The purpose of the H1B visa is to make it easy for US companies to look for talent wherever in the world it is available without having to open up offices there. It fails to do this in an equitable manner. One can arrive at this conclusion without invoking STEM shortage and implying that foreign workers are somehow deficient. Frankly the only place where H1B seems to be "misused" is in the outsourcing industry. And that too it is "misused" if you look it from a protectionist perspective. I've never seen any high skilled jobs going to H1Bs just because it is cheaper. In fact I've seen the opposite: small and mid-size companies hesitating to hire H1Bs because of the uncertainties involved. Also, PhD glut in bio has nothing to do with H1B! The author misleadingly brings it up because it has the "woah" factor to buttress his argument. Also can somehow explain to me how it is not protectionism to forge Disney to do something in house while it can be done cheaper by engaging a foreign company like Infosys?
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago> I've never seen any high skilled jobs going to H1Bs just because it is cheaper. Are you familiar with the Walt Disney Company.
- shas3 11y agoI'm using the definition of "high-skilled" used by the article, which clearly claims Disney used H1B for routine jobs.
- codeonfire 11y ago>look for talent wherever in the world it is available without having to open up offices there It's not. Most large companies already have offices over there and could hire those people tomorrow if they wanted to. They bring people into the US with their families to have power over them. A manager without power over skilled people is useless in accomplishing business goals that require those skills. They also are always trying to accomplish personal goals like getting their friends promoted, getting more power generally at the cost of technical people. These types of goals tend to make technical people walk away despite any salary level, hence the need for H1B. Except for body shops, H1B is about power not money or available workforce.
- wmil 11y agoThe US can fix most of the H1B problems by just giving them out quarterly based on salary. This will mostly damage employers abusing the system -- I doubt this hog processor really vitally needs all of these "Manager Trainees" earning 30k. http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=MANAGER+TRAINEE&city=&year=All http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=MANAGER+TRAINEE&city=&... The whole prevailing wage and government allocation business is just too ripe for abuse. If they're genius visas you can afford large salaries.
- johansch 11y agoDing ding ding! This guy solved it.
- andreshb 11y agoThis article is confusing offshoring with outsourcing, it says of the h1b: "outsourcing firms that use them to import workers" And throughout it interchanges offshoring and outsourcing, all the way through its conclusion: "Overwhelmingly, the H-1B program is working to speed up the offshoring," Hira said, "rather than keeping [jobs] here in the U.S." What h1b does is keep the jobs in the U.S. staffed by work permit holders, it is the opposite of offshoring.
- tosseraccount 11y agoPlease see : http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2015-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2015-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx The biggest H1B companies specialize in outsourcing and offshoring.
- oldmanjay 11y agoI have the (unfortunate, given reality) mindset of believing borders are an outmoded fiction, so protectionist arguments never seem very convincing to me. No one has yet made a believable case for Americans being more deserving of employment than any given nationality, and I believe the global federation of skills that happens as a result of various immigration programs is the greater good for the species.
- falsestprophet 11y agoDo Americans "deserve" to write laws for their benefit? Do you "deserve" whatever wealth you have when it could be liquidated and save one live for every $3,500 [1]? It's easy to be generous with other people's resources. Being as virtuous as you imagine you are is expensive. [1] https://www.againstmalaria.com/ https://www.againstmalaria.com/
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- jimmydddd 11y agoRe: "global federation of skills is greater good for the species." Yes, but IMHO, a smooth transition over time would probably work best. Not an abrupt disruptive change where whole departments of guys lose their job over night.
- eximius 11y agoWe may not be more deserving of jobs, but totally ridding ourselves of borders would have us inundated with people that hope to achieve the "American dream". Most will not succeed given current conditions and we'd just have more poor people. :/
- oldmanjay 11y agoYou can't possibly extrapolate the reality of a borderless world from current conditions, it would be a sea change in civilization.
- lsc 11y ago
- rm999 11y agoPeople concentrate on legislative solutions, but the H-1B program is well-defined by the current law. It seems to me that this is on the executive branch - why isn't the Department of Labor cracking down on obvious abuse? Does anyone know if anything ever came of this investigation? http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/12/us/politics/outsourcing-companies-under-scrutiny-over-visas-for-technology-workers.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/12/us/politics/outsourcing-co...
- jessaustin 11y agoWhy do any of our captured regulatory agencies fail to regulate? Many times it's because senior staff will get their pension within the next five years, and they want to make sure they have a nice private position to transfer into when that happens. If a large firm fails really egregiously in meeting standards, it will get a series of phone calls and private meetings as the prospective junior exec demonstrates how "helpful" she can be. If OTOH some small manufacturer with forty employees (executive positions available: 0) has the safety info signs installed too far from the equipment, the regulatory hammer is sure to hit it hard.
- lukeschlather 11y agoIt's sad that the focus is on just ripping down the program. Right now the thing is a huge bureaucracy which costs tons of lawyer time as well as employee time. Raise the minimum H1B wage to $110k, index it to CPI, and the problem will basically go away overnight. I'd also advocate that we allow companies to convert their existing H1Bs to green-card holders after 3 years, in exchange for getting a new H1B. This would effectively raise the cap while increasing mobility among immigrants working under the program.
- diogenescynic 11y agoIn my opinion, the real fix is to make the H-1B 'lottery' into an auction. Instead of accepting 65,000 H-1Bs at random--accept the 65,000 H-1Bs with the highest wages. That way we are getting the immigrants with the highest valued skills and stopping companies like Cognizant and Infosys that game the immigration system by applying for the cheapest H-1Bs possible. Look at the biggest H-1B recipients: http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2015-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2015-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx It's all low quality outsourcing shops like Cognizant and Infosys. If you've ever applied for an H-1B then you know how easy it is to abuse the prevailing wages. The process to evaluate the skills of the applicant is simply filling out a form online for their experience level, job title, and location. Give it a test here: http://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesWizardStart.aspx http://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesWizardStart.aspx It's very easy to game their job title and location to lower the salary. Here is the law firm Cohen & Grigsby advising other employers in running classified ads with the goal of NOT finding any qualified applicants, and the steps they go through to disqualify even the most qualified Americans in order to secure green cards for H-1B workers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU This seems like clear fraud. The issue I have with H-1Bs is when companies lie/cheat/commit fraud to outsource jobs that Americans do want and are qualified/willing to do, all for the sake of driving down wages.
- hwstar 11y agoI agree, and these people should be offered a green card as soon as they start with the employer.
- tosseraccount 11y agoPut the corporations in charge of immigration? H1B a program is for special access for tech firms to nonresident alien guest workers.
- dominotw 11y ago>should be offered a green card as soon as they start with the employer. they can jump ship to a big company like google after your small startup went through the hassle of lawyers/visa fees/ govt fees ect.
- dominotw 11y agoAnother day another 'stem shortage' article on front page. Complete with same old recycled "solutions" in the comments. last one here from 11 days ago : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11105798 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11105798
- datashovel 11y ago"Congress is still holding hearings that lead nowhere"... And who continues to vote incumbents into office? It's as if we have no one to blame but ourselves.
- a3n 11y agoPeople vote for who they've heard of, and who they've heard. Who pays for all those ads? Not ourselves.
- kozikow 11y agoI didn't get an H1B visa in the lottery. I didn't magically vanish and made place for an American engineer. My employer moved me to UK and I got paid very similar salary. I know about many USA tech companies increasing size of their European offices, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Palantir. It is bad situation for everyone. USA general public: Role of USA as the tech capital of the world is diminished, as there is more intellectual capital elsewhere. My taxes go to UK rather than to USA. Tech companies: They need to open offshore offices. Foreign tech workers: There is less choice of companies in Europe (especially startups). Some people may want to live in USA for various reasons. The only potential beneficiaries are American tech workers. I believe that the benefit is only in the short term. If tech companies could get all engineers they want into USA, they wouldn't need to open offshore offices. As soon as offshore office is opened, the company have access to more engineers than they could import to USA, as not all people are open to relocating to USA, regardless of Visa situation. Therefore, "value" of an American engineer drops more. Edit:typo.
- DyslexicAtheist 11y ago>> ... including Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Palantir ... Palantir is opening up a EU based branch? Where? I think people who work there should be put on lists and never be allowed to work in a normal company again. If by now a person still thinks it's ok to work for Palantir they really should be closely watched.
- hkmurakami 11y agoSo a good fraction of Stanford CS grads should never be allowed to work in a normal company again? They're in their early 20's and got swept up by the recruiting machine. It's like brandishing all Goldman Sachs analysts who joined the firm pre-2008 as having evil intent rather than just having been ill informed.
- DyslexicAtheist 11y agoOh I'd go much further. They should be judged like a Nazi German in WWII. If you are complicit in supplying technology to the surveillance state and have the knowledge that cowardly drone-operators are killing innocent[1] people around the world (while calling their children targets "fun sized terrorists"). Then they should not say "oh but I needed the job". Millions of Germans were also only doing their jobs during the holocaust. The difference is those who happily concur and support these sick systems and those that rise up and distance themselves from it or fight it. It is that black and white unfortunately. But only because current US legislation with their war on everything made it so. It is up to Americans to change it and as a non American I'd judge anyone who doesn't rise up and distance themselves. You should be on the streets protesting and not behind laptops and cowardly half-arsed remarks hiding yourself. Downvote me all you want I really don't care. [1] https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/ https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/ edit forgot to add the link
- serge2k 11y ago> These workers aren't uniquely skilled, engineering grand masters, but are rank-and-file IT often with bachelor's degrees and supplementary on-the-job training. But their salaries often come to $100,000 or more, leaving them vulnerable to lower-cost imported workers. Okay, but if they aren't skilled and no shortage exists then why aren't companies able to find cheaper US based graduates? > Employers are legally required to pay visa holders the "local prevailing wage" for their jobs, but enforcement is porous. "It is extraordinarily easy to pay an H-1B worker much less than an American worker," Hira observed; the trick lies in how the job is defined So fix this. > Evidence is ample that the very claim of a STEM shortage in the U.S. is phony. Salzman noted that "overall, our colleges and universities graduate twice the number of STEM graduates as find a job each year." The mismatch is especially stark in the biomedical field. There, according to a 2014 paper by experts from UC San Francisco, Harvard and Princeton, "the training pipeline produces more scientists than relevant positions in academia, government, and the private sector are capable of absorbing." Wow. That's compelling evidence since everyone known STEM degrees are entirely interchangeable. How many H1-Bs are given out to biomedical graduates?
- 4bpp 11y agoTaking the circumstance that a half of STEM university graduates fail to find a job as evidence that there is no "STEM shortage" seems to be based on a misunderstanding about what it means to be qualified for a STEM job, or perhaps the quality of a university education. In CS, at least, which seems to be their go-to example field, my experience is that it is pretty much impossible to fail to graduate due to incompetence - I have seen the system bend over backwards to ensure that people who barely got 40% in a course with plenty of freebies in its marking scheme get passing grades, and the reason given was actually "they want to graduate this year". Considering also the number of people who flock into the relevant programs hoping for a slice of the startup cake every year, it does not seem at all surprising that half of the US graduates are simply objectively unqualified for any job in the field they graduate in.
- hkmurakami 11y agoReminds me of the PhD degrees being handed out based on pity despite gross incompetence of the candidates.
- tapiwa 11y agoCan someone please remind me again why USians should have a god given right to jobs in the US? Or put another way ... should an accident of birth(place) be the most import decider on whether someone should get a job or not? I realise that this is probably going to get stupidly downvoted, but I am a die hard libertarian. Why is it, in 2016, still OK to pick on the foreigners? Replace the word "foreigner" with Black/Woman/Jew/Gay/White/Whatever, and it would be totally unacceptable. Way I see things, in a hundred years or so, picking on foreigners will be seen in the same light as picking on some minority group today. I just worry that I won't get to live to see that day.
- diogenescynic 11y ago>pick on the foreigners? You're being ridiculous. It's not picking on them at all. They are trying to protect US citizens from losing their jobs (or getting wages cut) due to a sudden availability of cheap labor. A government is rightfully concerned with making sure its own citizens are gainfully employed. Citizens vote, foreigners don't. Every person within those borders who does not have a job puts a drain on the rest of the country. Someone without a job outside of those borders does not. So bringing someone across those borders while an unemployed person is within them is a net economic negative. Look at the biggest H-1B recipients: http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2015-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2015-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx It's all low quality outsourcing shops like Infosys and Cognizant. >why USians should have a god given right to jobs in the US? These laws/protections are intended to prevent a race to the bottom. If the public subsidizes the operation of a company through security, education, and infrastructure, the community that makes that investment is entitled to ensure that the fruits of that investment go to other members of the community.
- tapiwa 11y ago>>They are trying to protect US citizens from losing their jobs (or getting wages cut) due to a sudden availability of cheap labor. Mmmm. I hear you. Sort of. Your argument though, is not very different from the "women are taking jobs that rightfully belong to men" spiel that was all the rage after WWII. I suspect that my argument is fundamentally based on wishful thinking. That said, you can't have your cake and eat it. The 'race to the bottom' you alude to is already happening with offshoring though. But my central argument remains ... foreigners (based on borders determined by middle aged white men a couple of centuries ago), remain the last 'minority' group that you can still discriminate against, vocally, in polite society.
- raven105x 11y agoH1Bs are a form of corporate welfare that has to stop. Let me TL;DR this for you. Q. "B-b-but there's a shortage of skilled workers!" A. Good, let supply-demand make you pay what you should be paying for it. Let our colleges give meaningful education to people they're putting in debt for jobs they can actually get later on. Our economy is bleeding to death while corporations rack in record profits because of outsourcing. Few simple rules that would help a lot. * Want an H1B? Pay them in the top 10th percentile of similar domestic professionals' wages. * Want an H1B? Great, but once you sponsor it, they're free to work for anyone in the U.S. * Want an H1B? Great, but you'll be limited to no more than 5% of your total employees. * That 5% limit includes overseas offices and "international" owned ventures. If a company is domestic, they should stay domestic. If it's international, they have no need for H1Bs. I'm writing this as a disgruntled software engineer turned into a business owner. People getting away with crap like this is infuriating.
- known 11y agoTax Corporate Revenues, Not Profits;