4 ms·

Several companies have grown to rely on this type of employee (H1B) so they have some flexibility and don't have to take on permanent employees. Many companies

Several companies have grown to rely on this type of employee (H1B) so they have some flexibility and don't have to take on permanent employees. Many companies that hire H1B's are already paying these contracting firms 100k for a contractor employee who earns 60-80k at the end of the day. So will this proposal change things? Probably not. Possible solutions could be regulate contracting firms and don't allow more than a certain percentage of H1B employees in their workforce pool or H1B employees can't work for a contracting firm. Reduce the number of H1B's granted to a much smaller percentage. Any company that hires a H1B employee must prove every 6 months that their are still no possible Americans that can do the job. This program is being exploited at the expense of Americans. It was not set up as a charity to help poor people come and work in America. It was set up to bring in talent that was not available. If company truly can't find someone locally and needs to hire someone from India then they need to sponsor/pay for that person to become a permanent/citizen of the USA.

guitarbill 10y ago
Maybe something like if you sponsor an H1B employee, you have to guarantee their job for the time of the visa, e.g. 2-3 years? The only way it's going to work is if the risk vs reward is balanced for everybody, including employers. For legitimate uses, surely <x> years isn't a big deal. If they aren't sure they need somebody for <x> years, then hiring an American becomes far more attractive. About permanent residency though, the system is set up to make this quite hard (on purpose?). But AFAIK, H1B is still one of the most reliable ways to permanent residency. <Edit: Please see the comments, this next sentence is incorrect and doesn't say what I meant. But I'm leaving it here for continuity's sake.> So I'm not sure about your point, because currently companies cannot sponsor people "to become a permanent/citizen of the USA" easily or at all.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 10y ago
  By 'cannot' do you mean _can't afford to_ or _are not allowed to_? Because companies can file a green card application (I-140) for someone under the 'Employment Based' category.
  - guitarbill 10y ago
    Neither, I mangled my train of though a bit. Let me try again. (Wish HN had strikethrough.) Dual intent is a great idea, and H1-B is really useful for companies who want to tempt highly skilled workers who aren't sure yet if they definitely want to immigrate. Some of my UK collegues stayed in the US, but about half came back after a few years. So that's a good reasons not to force companies to automatically apply for permanent residency, not everybody wants it (probably the majority though - hard to get numbers on this). But then if you do want permanent residency, the process takes ages. I'm not sure there's a good solution to this. One option would be to increase the cost of the H1-B application, require companies to submit the I-140, and pre-process it. Then if the visa holder decides to apply for permanent residency it's already mostly done. I think requiring companies to guarantee a certain employment time also fixes this though, because that way they're invested and the visa holder has time and safety to figure out if permanent residency is what they want.

guitarbill 10y ago

Maybe something like if you sponsor an H1B employee, you have to guarantee their job for the time of the visa, e.g. 2-3 years? The only way it's going to work is if the risk vs reward is balanced for everybody, including employers. For legitimate uses, surely <x> years isn't a big deal. If they aren't sure they need somebody for <x> years, then hiring an American becomes far more attractive. About permanent residency though, the system is set up to make this quite hard (on purpose?). But AFAIK, H1B is still one of the most reliable ways to permanent residency. <Edit: Please see the comments, this next sentence is incorrect and doesn't say what I meant. But I'm leaving it here for continuity's sake.> So I'm not sure about your point, because currently companies cannot sponsor people "to become a permanent/citizen of the USA" easily or at all.

kinkrtyavimoodh 10y ago
By 'cannot' do you mean _can't afford to_ or _are not allowed to_? Because companies can file a green card application (I-140) for someone under the 'Employment Based' category.
- guitarbill 10y ago
  Neither, I mangled my train of though a bit. Let me try again. (Wish HN had strikethrough.) Dual intent is a great idea, and H1-B is really useful for companies who want to tempt highly skilled workers who aren't sure yet if they definitely want to immigrate. Some of my UK collegues stayed in the US, but about half came back after a few years. So that's a good reasons not to force companies to automatically apply for permanent residency, not everybody wants it (probably the majority though - hard to get numbers on this). But then if you do want permanent residency, the process takes ages. I'm not sure there's a good solution to this. One option would be to increase the cost of the H1-B application, require companies to submit the I-140, and pre-process it. Then if the visa holder decides to apply for permanent residency it's already mostly done. I think requiring companies to guarantee a certain employment time also fixes this though, because that way they're invested and the visa holder has time and safety to figure out if permanent residency is what they want.