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I think there's a big misconception here on this thread, thanks to the poorly written WSJ blog post. Rep. Issa's bill only applies to companies which have more

by shas3 10y ago

I think there's a big misconception here on this thread, thanks to the poorly written WSJ blog post. Rep. Issa's bill only applies to companies which have more than 15% of their workforce of 50 or more on visas. That number is calibrated to affect outsourcing companies like Infosys, TCS, HCL, etc. So, while it's fun to jump on the "foreigners shouldn't work in America" bandwagon on this thread, this bill is not what you are looking for. https://www.americanbazaaronline.com/2017/01/06/new-h-1b-visa-bill-darrell-issa-will-hurt-indian-companies-zoe-lofgren-introduce-new-bill/ https://www.americanbazaaronline.com/2017/01/06/new-h-1b-vis... However, Rep. Zoe Lofgren's bill is a little different and does two things, replace lottery by a bidding type system and eliminate country caps, which, by introducing an artificial 8-12 year wait time for Indians, makes even non-outsourcing company employees de facto indentured labor. (So, if you are one of five experts in the world on say, mining safety, you still have to wait 10 years for a permanent residency just by virtue of where you were born.)

diogenescynic 10y ago
Sounds awesome considering those body shops use up most of the H-1B quota and significantly underpay their employees compared to industry wages. For example, somewhere between 47% and 85% of H-1Bs are being significantly underpaid compared to their peers, evidence that the program is not being used to bring over workers with "specialized knowledge" as they claim--but to drive down wages. It makes sense though, when you 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 mostly the low quality outsourcing shops like Infosys, TCS, Wipro, HCL, and Cognizant. 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 Infosys, TCS, Wipro, HCL, and Cognizant that game the immigration system by applying for the cheapest H-1Bs possible.
- shas3 10y ago
  I'm not sure about the bidding war. I've been in situations where companies are looking for people with specific skills (e.g. working with specific microbiology techniques) but would never be able to outbid what Facebook or someone in Bay Area would pay for generalist skills in another field. There is nowhere close to 100% elasticity in wages to make an auction system fair. Also, this would handicap companies in low-cost-of-living regions of the US. This includes a massive chunk of the economy in solid economies with low costs of living like Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Texas, Arizona, North Carolina, and Georgia.
  - davidw 10y ago
    Auctions are also predicated on some random, arbitrary number that has little relationship with reality. And, I'll add, is currently absolutely dwarfed by the number of people coming in on other visas; mostly family ones, IIRC.
  - untog 10y ago
    I'd also be curious how this would affect startups - I very much doubt you can factor in some equity into that equation, so you're looking at a high upfront cost no matter what.
  - ng12 10y ago
    That's why there's also L1, EB3, etc. The problem with H1B is the volume and relatively weak definition of what a "skilled employee" is.
  - hamandcheese 10y ago
    ...bummer? This is already the situation with US based talent willing to relocate (which is a fair benchmark since H1B workers are relocating no matter what).
  - geebee 10y ago
    I'm not sure that I'm sympathetic to employers who want to pay less. Keep in mind, the US takes in well over a million immigrants a year, and has a huge internal workforce. The H1B was created to help employers find critical and highly skilled workers that are in desperately short supply in the US. "Oh, but we can't afford to pay them a lot of money, that's not fair!" isn't the sort of argument that tends to evoke much sympathy. We're talking about empowering corporations to bestow US live and work rights on an employee of their choosing, in an end-run around normal immigration procedures. Honestly, if the salary isn't really high, I'm skeptical about whether this visa is being used properly.
    - tn13 10y ago
      > We're talking about empowering corporations to bestow US live and work rights on an employee of their choosing, in an end-run around normal immigration procedures. What is wrong with that ? Honestly I dont see why getting Indian and Chinese workers as cheap labor is bad either. Whatever regulations drove out manufacturing sector from USA mgiht drive out tech from USA too.
- cthalupa 10y ago
  This pits new grads against people with many years of experience. If kids come to the US for their undergrad/masters/phd and want to work here, they're not going to be the highest paid people competing, but they might have more long term value and chance of truly integrating with the country.
  - Veratyr 10y ago
    I'm not sure there are enough people with many years of experience to fill the quota so I doubt new grads are going to miss out. Looking at [0] and a simple bit of JS, the bottom end of the 65k person cap is at line 281 at a salary of $100,442, which is on the low end for new grads at Google, Facebook etc. Plus, > If kids come to the US for their undergrad/masters/phd and want to work here I'm not sure of the details but some of my colleagues are in this position and they work on some kind of visa that isn't a H-1B and is related to the fact they recently finished studying here.
    - cthalupa 10y ago
      There's plenty of jobs out there that aren't at Google, Facebook, etc. Companies in lower cost of living areas aren't going to pay that much.
  - stale2002 10y ago
    That is correct. H1B is for highly skilled workers. If the new grad isn't the highest skilled worker, then the visa isn't for them.
    - Terr_ 10y ago
      Yeah, some of this is almost a product-management problem applied to law: Have a very clear goal for your legislation and don't try to make it so everything for everyone.
    - cthalupa 10y ago
      What alternative is there for new grads?
- X86BSD 10y ago
  My wife is Indian. From Noida. I wasn't going to comment at all on this topic since it's already been beaten to death. But when I see the name Cognizant my blood BOILS. Cognizant is the most atrocious slave labor company I have ever had the misfortunate of dealing with. My wife's first company in the US to work for was Cognizant. It is horribly run by corrupt indians, and they treated her like absolute slavery. The hours, the offshore team management and conference calls, the incredibly low pay, the worst most backstabbing coworkers ever. She had managers that not only never called her, they didn't even know she worked for them when she would get relocated to another state for another one of their clients. Cognizant is appalling as a company.
  - giis 10y ago
    As ex-cognizant employee, I completely agree. My 4yr with them in India is absolute worst career decision. Manager(s) did treat fellow employee as slave. If you think yourself as a person with some kind of self-respect , I bet you will never grow up on career. Their managers want shoe-lickers not talents. Since the work is mostly junk, even school student can do them after few months of training. Ive seen these outsourced companies cheating their foreign clients like creating fake billings when employees are actually on leave or working on some other project. Indian (outsourced) IT is so bad, I'd say almost 80% people in US(working for bodyshops) is there because they are close to management not due to their talents. I have lot of friends, who stuck in their life thanks to IT. They do all the hard work in india but their counter-part in onsite gets the reward and visibility, I feel very sorry for them.
    - X86BSD 10y ago
      Exactly this. The nepotism, the inability to get promoted because you are not a relative or someone, the people who work with management getting all the credit as you said, its all just disgusting. I can't believe Cognizant is as huge a company as it is. They should never have been able to get the size they are.
      - giis 10y ago
        >They should never have been able to get the size they are. May be thats because no one really speaks about dark-side of Indian body-shops. Students are attracted by (initial) high-pay and on-site chances etc. It will take at-least 3 or 4 years to realize the mistake of joining outsourced services industry. By then its too late to leave the company - because all these years they execute some batch jobs and worked in excel sheets. Only option is either completely quit IT & do some other business or go for higher-studies & hope for better future. I assume less than 1% may quit, 10-20% will give high-studies a try while rest of them stuck due to lack of courage or/and personal/family commitments.
- arcticbull 10y ago
  How about the top in their job title in their geographical area? That way you can take into account pay variance over the US.
- SilasX 10y ago
  >Sounds awesome considering those body shops use up most of the H-1B quota and significantly underpay their employees compared to industry wages. ... It's mostly the low quality outsourcing shops like Infosys, TCS, Wipro, HCL, and Cognizant. Stupid question: Can you feasibly fix this by restricting it to large companies like that? Isn't that just going to cause them to split into several companies, like NIS ("Not-Infosys") and TNI ("Totally Not Infosys").
- wyldfire 10y ago
  > the program is not being used to bring over workers with "specialized knowledge" as they claim--but to drive down wages. While that might or might not be the intent, it seems like a pretty likely effect, right? Just based on the additional supply alone? I wonder about the effect of cutting back H1-B visas too much. If it made salaries rise significantly, wouldn't it upset the social hierarchy of these businesses? Software devs being so scarce that they're getting paid more than executives, e.g.? Seems like working with more foreign software firms is almost a given if costs skyrocket like that.
  - virmundi 10y ago
    Depends on how the execs' compensation is structured. After a certain level they get paid more in stock than in cash. This should, theoretically, incentivize them to succeed. Many devs, outside of the startup scene, are not paid in stock. They get a working wage. If their commitment causes the companies stock to increase by 20%, they will likely not see a 20% bump in pay the next salary go round.
- deepGem 10y ago
  I think a generic rhetoric that Indian outsourcing companies just drive down wages is plain wrong. Most of the contracts that these guys bag are long term maintenance type contracts. The companies that are awarding these contracts are doing so mostly because they are stuck with legacy software that are hard to replace. The replacements costs are typically higher than the 5 year maintenance costs. It's no wonder that the people who are employed for these type of roles are paid less. In other words, the market determines the price. Infosys and the like are just optimising for profitability, like any other public company. Given how competitive the market for talent is, H1B employees of these companies are always free to find other jobs. Since they already have a H1B visa, transfers are possible. Agreed not all companies will sponsor a transfer but many do. Even startups. Some lower quality body shops try to enforce some 'bonded contract' but that is illegal and will never fly in labour courts. So no, the outsourcing companies are not underpaying talented people. They are just paying the correct price determined by the market for that particular aggregated job function.
  - diogenescynic 10y ago
    >a generic rhetoric that Indian outsourcing companies just drive down wages is plain wrong >They are just paying the correct price determined by the market for that particular aggregated job function. If 47% and 85% of H-1Bs at bodyshops are being significantly underpaid compared to their peers, what is your argument that they aren't driving down wages? If these employees weren't on visas, do you really think they would still all be paid below the market rate? And even still, why are visas for "specialized knowledge" workers going to what you call "maintenance type contracts" for "legacy software"? There's a huge disconnect between the intent and purpose of the visa programs and their actual use.
    - deepGem 10y ago
      If 47% and 85% of H-1Bs at bodyshops are being significantly underpaid compared to their peers Who are the peers ? People in similar job functions ? It's very hard to know just by the report. A 'software engineer' job function is the same on paper across Facebook and Infosys. While the software engineer in Infosys is mostly performing maintenance related tasks and nowhere on par with the software engineer in Facebook, talent wise. There are exceptions of course and they always find better jobs. "There's a huge disconnect between the intent and purpose of the visa programs and their actual use." Yes absolutely. That's mostly because there is no other legal option for these companies to hire. L1 was an option, but the USCIS hiked L1 fees and it's now very expensive. Also L1 requires the employees to have spent a year at the home branch.
berndsf 10y ago
(So, if you are one of five experts in the world on say, mining safety, you still have to wait 10 years for a permanent residency just by virtue of where you were born.) that's not correct. that person would be eligible for an O1. I haven't heard of any plans to change the mechanisms of the O1 visa
- shas3 10y ago
  Let's assume that such a person passes a triage for O1 (there's no guarantee! Suppose there are two companies using some very specific technology, first company in the US poaches an employee from the Shanghai office of the second company for his narrow skill in this technology- would he necessarily be an individual with extraordinary ability? Unique ability, yes. Extraordinary "genius"? Hard to say). There is a significant difference between H1B and O1, which is the burden for evidence. The burden for O1 is quite onerous compared to H1B. You have to present several reference letters, meet strict criteria for excellence, and even then it is not guaranteed. There is a fair amount of inconsistency in how O1 (or EB1) cases are adjudicated.
  - rurban 10y ago
    O1 is even more abused by artists, like DJ's or dancers. There's nothing extraordinary required in the artistic field. Just a few references.
  - iamaaditya 10y ago
    Recently, I have seen O1 being given pretty generously. Couple of people who I know who completed PhDs from mediocre University and less than 10 papers in total have all gotten their O1s. Yes they had to get reference letters and complete all the formality but nothing stellar or extra-ordinary was required.
uiri 10y ago
Since this might be relevant for some startup founders on here, I have a slight nitpick related to the 15% number. There are still thresholds for employers with 50 or fewer employees. Total Employees | threshold to be classified a H-1B dependent employer 25 or fewer | more than 7 H-1B immigrants 26 - 50 | more than 12 H-1B immigrants 51 or more | at least 15% of total employees Note the discontinuity at 50/51 - 8 is over 15% of 51.
- throwaway729 10y ago
  > Note the discontinuity at 50/51 - 8 is over 15% of 51. Wow, that's really terribly designed and risks creating a disincentive to growth for companies that would otherwise be growing quickly. Someone should write their Congresspeople about this discontinuity.
smb06 10y ago
What company is going to sponsor H1B visa for anyone that costs $100,000 and isn't a Comp Sc grad in the Bay Area? There are a LOT of other professions where H1B visa holders add a lot of value to the US economy. It's not just CS grads in SF.
- shas3 10y ago
  Bay Area is not just software. There are big pharma companies, financial firms, non-software roles in software companies, etc.
  - smb06 10y ago
    Exactly. But the bill in its current form will discriminate against non-CS degree holders.
sjg007 10y ago
The mining safety individual could qualify under an O visa or even have their own consulting company....
- EduardoBautista 10y ago
  Starting a consulting company won't get you a green card. At best you will have an infinitely renewable work permit if you qualify for the E2 visa.
partycoder 10y ago
You can have a large sales workforce working on 100% commission and play with that percentage.

by shas3 10y ago

diogenescynic 10y ago

Sounds awesome considering those body shops use up most of the H-1B quota and significantly underpay their employees compared to industry wages. For example, somewhere between 47% and 85% of H-1Bs are being significantly underpaid compared to their peers, evidence that the program is not being used to bring over workers with "specialized knowledge" as they claim--but to drive down wages. It makes sense though, when you 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 mostly the low quality outsourcing shops like Infosys, TCS, Wipro, HCL, and Cognizant. 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 Infosys, TCS, Wipro, HCL, and Cognizant that game the immigration system by applying for the cheapest H-1Bs possible.

shas3 10y ago
I'm not sure about the bidding war. I've been in situations where companies are looking for people with specific skills (e.g. working with specific microbiology techniques) but would never be able to outbid what Facebook or someone in Bay Area would pay for generalist skills in another field. There is nowhere close to 100% elasticity in wages to make an auction system fair. Also, this would handicap companies in low-cost-of-living regions of the US. This includes a massive chunk of the economy in solid economies with low costs of living like Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Texas, Arizona, North Carolina, and Georgia.
- davidw 10y ago
  Auctions are also predicated on some random, arbitrary number that has little relationship with reality. And, I'll add, is currently absolutely dwarfed by the number of people coming in on other visas; mostly family ones, IIRC.
- untog 10y ago
  I'd also be curious how this would affect startups - I very much doubt you can factor in some equity into that equation, so you're looking at a high upfront cost no matter what.
- ng12 10y ago
  That's why there's also L1, EB3, etc. The problem with H1B is the volume and relatively weak definition of what a "skilled employee" is.
- hamandcheese 10y ago
  ...bummer? This is already the situation with US based talent willing to relocate (which is a fair benchmark since H1B workers are relocating no matter what).
- geebee 10y ago
  I'm not sure that I'm sympathetic to employers who want to pay less. Keep in mind, the US takes in well over a million immigrants a year, and has a huge internal workforce. The H1B was created to help employers find critical and highly skilled workers that are in desperately short supply in the US. "Oh, but we can't afford to pay them a lot of money, that's not fair!" isn't the sort of argument that tends to evoke much sympathy. We're talking about empowering corporations to bestow US live and work rights on an employee of their choosing, in an end-run around normal immigration procedures. Honestly, if the salary isn't really high, I'm skeptical about whether this visa is being used properly.
  - tn13 10y ago
    > We're talking about empowering corporations to bestow US live and work rights on an employee of their choosing, in an end-run around normal immigration procedures. What is wrong with that ? Honestly I dont see why getting Indian and Chinese workers as cheap labor is bad either. Whatever regulations drove out manufacturing sector from USA mgiht drive out tech from USA too.
cthalupa 10y ago
This pits new grads against people with many years of experience. If kids come to the US for their undergrad/masters/phd and want to work here, they're not going to be the highest paid people competing, but they might have more long term value and chance of truly integrating with the country.
- Veratyr 10y ago
  I'm not sure there are enough people with many years of experience to fill the quota so I doubt new grads are going to miss out. Looking at [0] and a simple bit of JS, the bottom end of the 65k person cap is at line 281 at a salary of $100,442, which is on the low end for new grads at Google, Facebook etc. Plus, > If kids come to the US for their undergrad/masters/phd and want to work here I'm not sure of the details but some of my colleagues are in this position and they work on some kind of visa that isn't a H-1B and is related to the fact they recently finished studying here.
  - cthalupa 10y ago
    There's plenty of jobs out there that aren't at Google, Facebook, etc. Companies in lower cost of living areas aren't going to pay that much.
- stale2002 10y ago
  That is correct. H1B is for highly skilled workers. If the new grad isn't the highest skilled worker, then the visa isn't for them.
  - Terr_ 10y ago
    Yeah, some of this is almost a product-management problem applied to law: Have a very clear goal for your legislation and don't try to make it so everything for everyone.
  - cthalupa 10y ago
    What alternative is there for new grads?
X86BSD 10y ago
My wife is Indian. From Noida. I wasn't going to comment at all on this topic since it's already been beaten to death. But when I see the name Cognizant my blood BOILS. Cognizant is the most atrocious slave labor company I have ever had the misfortunate of dealing with. My wife's first company in the US to work for was Cognizant. It is horribly run by corrupt indians, and they treated her like absolute slavery. The hours, the offshore team management and conference calls, the incredibly low pay, the worst most backstabbing coworkers ever. She had managers that not only never called her, they didn't even know she worked for them when she would get relocated to another state for another one of their clients. Cognizant is appalling as a company.
- giis 10y ago
  As ex-cognizant employee, I completely agree. My 4yr with them in India is absolute worst career decision. Manager(s) did treat fellow employee as slave. If you think yourself as a person with some kind of self-respect , I bet you will never grow up on career. Their managers want shoe-lickers not talents. Since the work is mostly junk, even school student can do them after few months of training. Ive seen these outsourced companies cheating their foreign clients like creating fake billings when employees are actually on leave or working on some other project. Indian (outsourced) IT is so bad, I'd say almost 80% people in US(working for bodyshops) is there because they are close to management not due to their talents. I have lot of friends, who stuck in their life thanks to IT. They do all the hard work in india but their counter-part in onsite gets the reward and visibility, I feel very sorry for them.
  - X86BSD 10y ago
    Exactly this. The nepotism, the inability to get promoted because you are not a relative or someone, the people who work with management getting all the credit as you said, its all just disgusting. I can't believe Cognizant is as huge a company as it is. They should never have been able to get the size they are.
    - giis 10y ago
      >They should never have been able to get the size they are. May be thats because no one really speaks about dark-side of Indian body-shops. Students are attracted by (initial) high-pay and on-site chances etc. It will take at-least 3 or 4 years to realize the mistake of joining outsourced services industry. By then its too late to leave the company - because all these years they execute some batch jobs and worked in excel sheets. Only option is either completely quit IT & do some other business or go for higher-studies & hope for better future. I assume less than 1% may quit, 10-20% will give high-studies a try while rest of them stuck due to lack of courage or/and personal/family commitments.
arcticbull 10y ago
How about the top in their job title in their geographical area? That way you can take into account pay variance over the US.
SilasX 10y ago
>Sounds awesome considering those body shops use up most of the H-1B quota and significantly underpay their employees compared to industry wages. ... It's mostly the low quality outsourcing shops like Infosys, TCS, Wipro, HCL, and Cognizant. Stupid question: Can you feasibly fix this by restricting it to large companies like that? Isn't that just going to cause them to split into several companies, like NIS ("Not-Infosys") and TNI ("Totally Not Infosys").
wyldfire 10y ago
> the program is not being used to bring over workers with "specialized knowledge" as they claim--but to drive down wages. While that might or might not be the intent, it seems like a pretty likely effect, right? Just based on the additional supply alone? I wonder about the effect of cutting back H1-B visas too much. If it made salaries rise significantly, wouldn't it upset the social hierarchy of these businesses? Software devs being so scarce that they're getting paid more than executives, e.g.? Seems like working with more foreign software firms is almost a given if costs skyrocket like that.
- virmundi 10y ago
  Depends on how the execs' compensation is structured. After a certain level they get paid more in stock than in cash. This should, theoretically, incentivize them to succeed. Many devs, outside of the startup scene, are not paid in stock. They get a working wage. If their commitment causes the companies stock to increase by 20%, they will likely not see a 20% bump in pay the next salary go round.
deepGem 10y ago
I think a generic rhetoric that Indian outsourcing companies just drive down wages is plain wrong. Most of the contracts that these guys bag are long term maintenance type contracts. The companies that are awarding these contracts are doing so mostly because they are stuck with legacy software that are hard to replace. The replacements costs are typically higher than the 5 year maintenance costs. It's no wonder that the people who are employed for these type of roles are paid less. In other words, the market determines the price. Infosys and the like are just optimising for profitability, like any other public company. Given how competitive the market for talent is, H1B employees of these companies are always free to find other jobs. Since they already have a H1B visa, transfers are possible. Agreed not all companies will sponsor a transfer but many do. Even startups. Some lower quality body shops try to enforce some 'bonded contract' but that is illegal and will never fly in labour courts. So no, the outsourcing companies are not underpaying talented people. They are just paying the correct price determined by the market for that particular aggregated job function.
- diogenescynic 10y ago
  >a generic rhetoric that Indian outsourcing companies just drive down wages is plain wrong >They are just paying the correct price determined by the market for that particular aggregated job function. If 47% and 85% of H-1Bs at bodyshops are being significantly underpaid compared to their peers, what is your argument that they aren't driving down wages? If these employees weren't on visas, do you really think they would still all be paid below the market rate? And even still, why are visas for "specialized knowledge" workers going to what you call "maintenance type contracts" for "legacy software"? There's a huge disconnect between the intent and purpose of the visa programs and their actual use.
  - deepGem 10y ago
    If 47% and 85% of H-1Bs at bodyshops are being significantly underpaid compared to their peers Who are the peers ? People in similar job functions ? It's very hard to know just by the report. A 'software engineer' job function is the same on paper across Facebook and Infosys. While the software engineer in Infosys is mostly performing maintenance related tasks and nowhere on par with the software engineer in Facebook, talent wise. There are exceptions of course and they always find better jobs. "There's a huge disconnect between the intent and purpose of the visa programs and their actual use." Yes absolutely. That's mostly because there is no other legal option for these companies to hire. L1 was an option, but the USCIS hiked L1 fees and it's now very expensive. Also L1 requires the employees to have spent a year at the home branch.

berndsf 10y ago

(So, if you are one of five experts in the world on say, mining safety, you still have to wait 10 years for a permanent residency just by virtue of where you were born.) that's not correct. that person would be eligible for an O1. I haven't heard of any plans to change the mechanisms of the O1 visa

shas3 10y ago
Let's assume that such a person passes a triage for O1 (there's no guarantee! Suppose there are two companies using some very specific technology, first company in the US poaches an employee from the Shanghai office of the second company for his narrow skill in this technology- would he necessarily be an individual with extraordinary ability? Unique ability, yes. Extraordinary "genius"? Hard to say). There is a significant difference between H1B and O1, which is the burden for evidence. The burden for O1 is quite onerous compared to H1B. You have to present several reference letters, meet strict criteria for excellence, and even then it is not guaranteed. There is a fair amount of inconsistency in how O1 (or EB1) cases are adjudicated.
- rurban 10y ago
  O1 is even more abused by artists, like DJ's or dancers. There's nothing extraordinary required in the artistic field. Just a few references.
- iamaaditya 10y ago
  Recently, I have seen O1 being given pretty generously. Couple of people who I know who completed PhDs from mediocre University and less than 10 papers in total have all gotten their O1s. Yes they had to get reference letters and complete all the formality but nothing stellar or extra-ordinary was required.

uiri 10y ago

Since this might be relevant for some startup founders on here, I have a slight nitpick related to the 15% number. There are still thresholds for employers with 50 or fewer employees. Total Employees | threshold to be classified a H-1B dependent employer 25 or fewer | more than 7 H-1B immigrants 26 - 50 | more than 12 H-1B immigrants 51 or more | at least 15% of total employees Note the discontinuity at 50/51 - 8 is over 15% of 51.

throwaway729 10y ago
> Note the discontinuity at 50/51 - 8 is over 15% of 51. Wow, that's really terribly designed and risks creating a disincentive to growth for companies that would otherwise be growing quickly. Someone should write their Congresspeople about this discontinuity.

smb06 10y ago

What company is going to sponsor H1B visa for anyone that costs $100,000 and isn't a Comp Sc grad in the Bay Area? There are a LOT of other professions where H1B visa holders add a lot of value to the US economy. It's not just CS grads in SF.

shas3 10y ago
Bay Area is not just software. There are big pharma companies, financial firms, non-software roles in software companies, etc.
- smb06 10y ago
  Exactly. But the bill in its current form will discriminate against non-CS degree holders.

sjg007 10y ago

The mining safety individual could qualify under an O visa or even have their own consulting company....

EduardoBautista 10y ago
Starting a consulting company won't get you a green card. At best you will have an infinitely renewable work permit if you qualify for the E2 visa.

partycoder 10y ago

You can have a large sales workforce working on 100% commission and play with that percentage.