7 ms·

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

by 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.
  - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
    Manufacturing didn't really leave the US, the jobs are just done by robots.
    - j_koreth 10y ago
      H1-B workers are generally mostly used as programmers and brought in by large tech companies to use instead of native labor. I'm not really sure what manufacturing has got to do with this unless programming was made obsolete by robots already.
  - dpark 10y ago
    The entire justification for the H-1B visa system is so that we can bring in highly skilled labor to fill positions that cannot be filled with citizen talent for a reasonable price. If you're hiring H-1Bs at below market, your failure to fill the position is as likely due to your underpaying as it is an actual labor shortage. You cannot reasonably justify the need for H-1Bs if you're underpaying. Further, if you use H-1Bs to fill positions that you could have filled with local talent, then you're taking that visa away from another company that might legitimately need it. Making H-1Bs dependent on bidding or pay seems a plausible way to ensure that they are going to companies with real need and not just companies that are trying to undercut the labor market.
- cmurf 10y ago
  Why is it OK to pay a cheap wage for work done by an outsourced employee not in the U.S. for the benefit of a U.S. customer; but suddenly not OK when that person is in the U.S.? If the answer is merely, a critical plurality doesn't like that market outcome and has voted to legislate an alternative outcome, well OK. That's the system we have. But on principle, this must be admitted to be protectionism, it's the anti-thesis of a free market solution (which doesn't make it wrong, just call it for what is is). And protectionism is basically saying the local market is overpaid, that's why it needs to be protected.
andrewfong 10y ago
You could index wage to some cost-of-living metric set by the Department of Labor. That would control for regional differences between company. It'd also further incentivize "outsourcing" to domestic locales with cheaper costs of living. That's arguably a good thing since places with cheaper costs of living would benefit more from the workforce bump than those with high costs.
- luckydata 10y ago
  The Bay Area could truly benefit by some reduction in the H1B workforce. The influx of foreign workers contributes greatly to the housing shortage that's hurting everyone right now. p.s.: Just in case you're wondering, I'm an immigrant and I left the bay area exactly for the reasons I'm highlighting.
  - redditmigrant 10y ago
    Bay area's housing shortage is entirely self inflicted by its residents who refuse to allow more housing to be built. All this to maintain some arbitrary idea of character. A character that is frozen at some random point in time. There is no good reason for most of the bay area to be strip malls apartments and 2 story apartment complexes. There are more than enough examples of cities(Barcelona, Paris) with character, history and more vertical housing.
    - luckydata 10y ago
      Preaching to the choir, but reality is it won't change anytime soon. I voted with my feet and left, I miss the area but I couldn't justify anymore how much of a hassle it was living there lately.
  - dntrkv 10y ago
    Do you have any stats to back that claim up?
    - luckydata 10y ago
jlarocco 10y ago
I don't buy that argument. H-1B is supposed to be for hiring top notch people with valuable, specialized skills. Those people should be making a lot of money. H-1B is not meant to bypass the regular supply and demand of the job market that usually helps adjust salaries.
curun1r 10y ago
Another option would be to put in place a system where companies could be have their H1-B applications automatically approved if they maintain a certain ratio of citizens/green card holders to H1-Bs within the desired salary band and classification. Say, for example, you want to hire an H1-B engineer at $160k/yr and the required ratio is 4:1. If your engineering workforce within the $150k-$175k salary band is already greater than 4-1 non-H1-B, you should be allowed to hire an H1-B. But companies that try to abuse H1-Bs, either by hiring too large a percentage of their workforce or by underpaying them would have to use the lottery system, provided there are any H1-B slots left. Such a system seems like it works for the large Facebooks and Googles of the world as well as smaller startups and companies in areas of the country with lower CoL. It also works for citizens, green card holders and H1-Bs, since it encourages employment of non-H1-B employees and similar wages for all types of employees. It would only penalize the body shops, those that underpay H1-Bs and those companies that rely on too large a percentage of H1-Bs for their workforce. The only thing you'd have to do is ensure that the local employees are roughly the same job function as the H1-Bs, so that companies couldn't offset underpaid H1-B engineers with similarly-paid customer support or similar gaming of the system.
- snovv_crash 10y ago
  I like this idea. It also helps immigrants with integration into their new society, instead of forming pockets of foreigners.
st3v3r 10y ago
I don't see how. If you absolutely need that skill, then you need it, cost of living based salary be damned.
nathanvanfleet 10y ago
Really glad for your comment. I was agreeing with him until you made such a concise argument for how that makes no sense.
gozur88 10y ago
What I would have done is divided out the number of slots on a state-by-state basis (proportional to population, say) and had an auction in each state. I'm not convinced there would be a huge demand for H-1b visas if companies couldn't underpay them relative to people with green cards or citizenship. Certainly on the margins there are companies that are looking for specialized skills, but for the most part the industry likes high H-1b caps because they depress wages.

by shas3 10y ago

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.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  Manufacturing didn't really leave the US, the jobs are just done by robots.
  - j_koreth 10y ago
    H1-B workers are generally mostly used as programmers and brought in by large tech companies to use instead of native labor. I'm not really sure what manufacturing has got to do with this unless programming was made obsolete by robots already.
- dpark 10y ago
  The entire justification for the H-1B visa system is so that we can bring in highly skilled labor to fill positions that cannot be filled with citizen talent for a reasonable price. If you're hiring H-1Bs at below market, your failure to fill the position is as likely due to your underpaying as it is an actual labor shortage. You cannot reasonably justify the need for H-1Bs if you're underpaying. Further, if you use H-1Bs to fill positions that you could have filled with local talent, then you're taking that visa away from another company that might legitimately need it. Making H-1Bs dependent on bidding or pay seems a plausible way to ensure that they are going to companies with real need and not just companies that are trying to undercut the labor market.
cmurf 10y ago
Why is it OK to pay a cheap wage for work done by an outsourced employee not in the U.S. for the benefit of a U.S. customer; but suddenly not OK when that person is in the U.S.? If the answer is merely, a critical plurality doesn't like that market outcome and has voted to legislate an alternative outcome, well OK. That's the system we have. But on principle, this must be admitted to be protectionism, it's the anti-thesis of a free market solution (which doesn't make it wrong, just call it for what is is). And protectionism is basically saying the local market is overpaid, that's why it needs to be protected.

andrewfong 10y ago

You could index wage to some cost-of-living metric set by the Department of Labor. That would control for regional differences between company. It'd also further incentivize "outsourcing" to domestic locales with cheaper costs of living. That's arguably a good thing since places with cheaper costs of living would benefit more from the workforce bump than those with high costs.

luckydata 10y ago
The Bay Area could truly benefit by some reduction in the H1B workforce. The influx of foreign workers contributes greatly to the housing shortage that's hurting everyone right now. p.s.: Just in case you're wondering, I'm an immigrant and I left the bay area exactly for the reasons I'm highlighting.
- redditmigrant 10y ago
  Bay area's housing shortage is entirely self inflicted by its residents who refuse to allow more housing to be built. All this to maintain some arbitrary idea of character. A character that is frozen at some random point in time. There is no good reason for most of the bay area to be strip malls apartments and 2 story apartment complexes. There are more than enough examples of cities(Barcelona, Paris) with character, history and more vertical housing.
  - luckydata 10y ago
    Preaching to the choir, but reality is it won't change anytime soon. I voted with my feet and left, I miss the area but I couldn't justify anymore how much of a hassle it was living there lately.
- dntrkv 10y ago
  Do you have any stats to back that claim up?
  - luckydata 10y ago

jlarocco 10y ago

I don't buy that argument. H-1B is supposed to be for hiring top notch people with valuable, specialized skills. Those people should be making a lot of money. H-1B is not meant to bypass the regular supply and demand of the job market that usually helps adjust salaries.

curun1r 10y ago

Another option would be to put in place a system where companies could be have their H1-B applications automatically approved if they maintain a certain ratio of citizens/green card holders to H1-Bs within the desired salary band and classification. Say, for example, you want to hire an H1-B engineer at $160k/yr and the required ratio is 4:1. If your engineering workforce within the $150k-$175k salary band is already greater than 4-1 non-H1-B, you should be allowed to hire an H1-B. But companies that try to abuse H1-Bs, either by hiring too large a percentage of their workforce or by underpaying them would have to use the lottery system, provided there are any H1-B slots left. Such a system seems like it works for the large Facebooks and Googles of the world as well as smaller startups and companies in areas of the country with lower CoL. It also works for citizens, green card holders and H1-Bs, since it encourages employment of non-H1-B employees and similar wages for all types of employees. It would only penalize the body shops, those that underpay H1-Bs and those companies that rely on too large a percentage of H1-Bs for their workforce. The only thing you'd have to do is ensure that the local employees are roughly the same job function as the H1-Bs, so that companies couldn't offset underpaid H1-B engineers with similarly-paid customer support or similar gaming of the system.

snovv_crash 10y ago
I like this idea. It also helps immigrants with integration into their new society, instead of forming pockets of foreigners.

st3v3r 10y ago

I don't see how. If you absolutely need that skill, then you need it, cost of living based salary be damned.

nathanvanfleet 10y ago

Really glad for your comment. I was agreeing with him until you made such a concise argument for how that makes no sense.

gozur88 10y ago

What I would have done is divided out the number of slots on a state-by-state basis (proportional to population, say) and had an auction in each state. I'm not convinced there would be a huge demand for H-1b visas if companies couldn't underpay them relative to people with green cards or citizenship. Certainly on the margins there are companies that are looking for specialized skills, but for the most part the industry likes high H-1b caps because they depress wages.