4 ms·

Many H-1B workers get temporary jobs, study finds

11 points by helwr 17y ago

ajju 17y ago
The study was called misleading by a spokesman for Compete America, a coalition of vendors, universities and other sponsors of H-1B visa holders. As someone very familiar with the visa, I can tell you the article is not misleading. Comparisons to bonded labor always come to my mind when I think about the visa. While these may be a bit far fetched since any kind of visa is opt-in, the fact that the employer can kick an employee out of the country by firing them means that they exert extraordinary control over the employee. What is worse, and what the article doesn't cover, is that by applying for a permanent residency permit (green card) for an employee, the employer all but guarantees that the employee has to stay with them for 4-7 years. That is how long it takes to go through the initial stages of getting a permanent residency and abandoning the process in the middle means you have to restart it. They also exert even more control over the employee during this period because not only can they kick him/her out of the country by firing them, they can cause the time, effort and expense he/she incurred on the green card thus far to be wasted.
- w00pla 17y ago
  That is true. The UK's highly skilled VISA system is much better - if you have a certain education + X years experience you get a visa and you can work and change jobs. With the US system, you can't even change jobs (if you quit, you have to find a new job in a short time, otherwise you get kicked out).
- barrkel 17y ago
  Indeed, and this is part of the reason why I haven't moved to the US, even though I have a H-1B visa.
- omfut 17y ago
  It takes more than 10 years to get GC. It depends on which category( EB1,EB2 or EB3) you fall into. Many big companies file only EB3 and it takes more than 10 years.
- yummyfajitas 17y ago
  By the time the employee comes to work for the company, the company has already committed quite a bit of resources into the employee. It doesn't seem all that unfair that the employee now has a somewhat greater obligation to the company, particularly since the employee chose this route. Similarly, my sister's employer invested several grand in training her in Crossfit. She is now obligated to teach Crossfit for a year at a fixed wage, or else repay (12 - # of months worked)/12 x 100% of her training costs. Is that also "bonded labor"?
  - ajju 17y ago
    Being committed for 1 year is very different from being committed for 4 to 10 years(as another commenter below pointed out). The "significant resources" amount to around $4000 for an H1B if the company files the expedited visa and $2500 (IIRC) for the default route. This is significantly less than the monthly salary of a programmer in most places. For a green card, the expenses are roughly double but often shared by the company and the employee. So the scale here is very different. What's more, your sister is not going to be thrown out of the country if she leaves Crossfit before the year ends. I think it makes sense to have a pay-back agreement for legal expenses in the case of an H1B but not to have legal immigration status dependent on that specific job. Skilled employment based immigration should be based on the immigrant's level of skills, not tied to a specific job.
    - yummyfajitas 17y ago
      First, I think you are greatly underestimating the cost of an H1B. It's more than just the application fee. For example, the company must create a job description so narrow that only the desired candidate can fit it. They must then advertise and otherwise attempt to recruit an American for that position, and a lawyer must make sure they tried hard enough. Once lawyers get involved, things get expensive. As for getting thrown out of the country, it's my understanding that someone on an H1B is in the country for the sole purpose of relieving a shortage of skilled labor. Once the job is gone, they have no reason to remain in the US. They can also leave their job at any time. In contrast, bonded labor can not leave their job until their debts are paid off. In short, I think you want the H1B system to be something that it isn't. The sole goal is to relieve a shortage of skilled labor. There is no reason we should make it easier for people to leverage an H1B into citizenship. Now, I certainly think we should increase our immigration quota for skilled immigrants, subject to much greater scrutiny than we already have [1]. But that's completely separate from the matter of visas to provide temporary labor. [1] I think we do a terrible job of making sure immigrants are a good cultural fit for the US and assimilating them once they get here.
davidedicillo 17y ago
H-1B are almost a lottery. The day they start accepting the requests (usually April 1st) they go over quota and they proceed by random selections (in October). Of course the processing fee is not refundable (over $1000). With the money I spent in visas and attorneys in the past 5 years, you could hire a full time coder oversea for at least one year...
- lutorm 17y ago
  Actually, in 2009 they didn't run out of quota for a long time. (Too bad I was only interested around April 10, 2008! By the time 2009 came around, it was a bit harder to find a job...)
  - seldo 17y ago
    The conditions of TARP for the banks meant that they could not hire H-1Bs. Since banks -- not tech -- were the biggest hirers of overseas workers, they still hadn't hit the cap in November 2009.
seldo 17y ago
This is a very misleading interpretation of the data. All it shows is that large companies like their best employees working at HQ. For Indian companies, that means they go back to India (5% immigration rate). For American companies, it means they stay in America (50%+). Also, the idea that the H-1B program is supposed to be about attracting the "best and brightest" is new to me. The whole point of the H-1B is that America doesn't want any immigrants -- the government agrees, metaphorically, to hold its nose for 6 years while we dirty foreigners get the work done, but we're not invited to stay. That's why the H-1B expires. If the government really wanted the best and brightest from overseas to come and stay, they would have a points-based system and give us green cards, not temporary visas.
- ajju 17y ago
  It's not a misleading interpretation of the data, it is a misleading interpretation of the purpose of the visa, and not necessarily by the authors alone. They are merely saying that a majority of the people who work on an H-1B visa, do not stay in the U.S. beyond their terms. The H-1B is officially a "Temporary Employment Visa", so, as you say, this was the intent. Where the intent is muddled is in letting H-1B applicants apply for permanent residency permits, but choking the supply of these permits so it takes a decade to get one. I agree with you that there should be a point based system for green cards.

11 points by helwr 17y ago

ajju 17y ago

The study was called misleading by a spokesman for Compete America, a coalition of vendors, universities and other sponsors of H-1B visa holders. As someone very familiar with the visa, I can tell you the article is not misleading. Comparisons to bonded labor always come to my mind when I think about the visa. While these may be a bit far fetched since any kind of visa is opt-in, the fact that the employer can kick an employee out of the country by firing them means that they exert extraordinary control over the employee. What is worse, and what the article doesn't cover, is that by applying for a permanent residency permit (green card) for an employee, the employer all but guarantees that the employee has to stay with them for 4-7 years. That is how long it takes to go through the initial stages of getting a permanent residency and abandoning the process in the middle means you have to restart it. They also exert even more control over the employee during this period because not only can they kick him/her out of the country by firing them, they can cause the time, effort and expense he/she incurred on the green card thus far to be wasted.

w00pla 17y ago
That is true. The UK's highly skilled VISA system is much better - if you have a certain education + X years experience you get a visa and you can work and change jobs. With the US system, you can't even change jobs (if you quit, you have to find a new job in a short time, otherwise you get kicked out).
barrkel 17y ago
Indeed, and this is part of the reason why I haven't moved to the US, even though I have a H-1B visa.
omfut 17y ago
It takes more than 10 years to get GC. It depends on which category( EB1,EB2 or EB3) you fall into. Many big companies file only EB3 and it takes more than 10 years.
yummyfajitas 17y ago
By the time the employee comes to work for the company, the company has already committed quite a bit of resources into the employee. It doesn't seem all that unfair that the employee now has a somewhat greater obligation to the company, particularly since the employee chose this route. Similarly, my sister's employer invested several grand in training her in Crossfit. She is now obligated to teach Crossfit for a year at a fixed wage, or else repay (12 - # of months worked)/12 x 100% of her training costs. Is that also "bonded labor"?
- ajju 17y ago
  Being committed for 1 year is very different from being committed for 4 to 10 years(as another commenter below pointed out). The "significant resources" amount to around $4000 for an H1B if the company files the expedited visa and $2500 (IIRC) for the default route. This is significantly less than the monthly salary of a programmer in most places. For a green card, the expenses are roughly double but often shared by the company and the employee. So the scale here is very different. What's more, your sister is not going to be thrown out of the country if she leaves Crossfit before the year ends. I think it makes sense to have a pay-back agreement for legal expenses in the case of an H1B but not to have legal immigration status dependent on that specific job. Skilled employment based immigration should be based on the immigrant's level of skills, not tied to a specific job.
  - yummyfajitas 17y ago
    First, I think you are greatly underestimating the cost of an H1B. It's more than just the application fee. For example, the company must create a job description so narrow that only the desired candidate can fit it. They must then advertise and otherwise attempt to recruit an American for that position, and a lawyer must make sure they tried hard enough. Once lawyers get involved, things get expensive. As for getting thrown out of the country, it's my understanding that someone on an H1B is in the country for the sole purpose of relieving a shortage of skilled labor. Once the job is gone, they have no reason to remain in the US. They can also leave their job at any time. In contrast, bonded labor can not leave their job until their debts are paid off. In short, I think you want the H1B system to be something that it isn't. The sole goal is to relieve a shortage of skilled labor. There is no reason we should make it easier for people to leverage an H1B into citizenship. Now, I certainly think we should increase our immigration quota for skilled immigrants, subject to much greater scrutiny than we already have [1]. But that's completely separate from the matter of visas to provide temporary labor. [1] I think we do a terrible job of making sure immigrants are a good cultural fit for the US and assimilating them once they get here.

davidedicillo 17y ago

H-1B are almost a lottery. The day they start accepting the requests (usually April 1st) they go over quota and they proceed by random selections (in October). Of course the processing fee is not refundable (over $1000). With the money I spent in visas and attorneys in the past 5 years, you could hire a full time coder oversea for at least one year...

lutorm 17y ago
Actually, in 2009 they didn't run out of quota for a long time. (Too bad I was only interested around April 10, 2008! By the time 2009 came around, it was a bit harder to find a job...)
- seldo 17y ago
  The conditions of TARP for the banks meant that they could not hire H-1Bs. Since banks -- not tech -- were the biggest hirers of overseas workers, they still hadn't hit the cap in November 2009.

seldo 17y ago

This is a very misleading interpretation of the data. All it shows is that large companies like their best employees working at HQ. For Indian companies, that means they go back to India (5% immigration rate). For American companies, it means they stay in America (50%+). Also, the idea that the H-1B program is supposed to be about attracting the "best and brightest" is new to me. The whole point of the H-1B is that America doesn't want any immigrants -- the government agrees, metaphorically, to hold its nose for 6 years while we dirty foreigners get the work done, but we're not invited to stay. That's why the H-1B expires. If the government really wanted the best and brightest from overseas to come and stay, they would have a points-based system and give us green cards, not temporary visas.

ajju 17y ago
It's not a misleading interpretation of the data, it is a misleading interpretation of the purpose of the visa, and not necessarily by the authors alone. They are merely saying that a majority of the people who work on an H-1B visa, do not stay in the U.S. beyond their terms. The H-1B is officially a "Temporary Employment Visa", so, as you say, this was the intent. Where the intent is muddled is in letting H-1B applicants apply for permanent residency permits, but choking the supply of these permits so it takes a decade to get one. I agree with you that there should be a point based system for green cards.