17 ms·

I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that this may not be an altogether bad thing. From the article: "The foreign work visas were originally established

by fergie 10y ago

I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that this may not be an altogether bad thing. From the article: "The foreign work visas were originally established to help U.S. companies recruit from abroad when they couldn’t find qualified local workers. But in recent years, there have been allegations the programs have been abused to bring in cheaper workers from overseas to fill jobs that otherwise may go to Americans. The top recipients of the H-1B visas are outsourcers, primarily from India, who run the technology departments of large corporations with largely imported staff." Outsourcing has come to be pretty racist, and is exploited by Big Consultancy in order to place a lower price on immigrant labour. That's a bad thing for everybody, not least the immigrants themselves. When companies like Tata are fulfilling government contracts, they _should_ be filling those positions with local labour at local rates. Meanwhile companies like Google, Facebook, Apple and MicroSoft should continue to be able to hire the experts they need from all over the world regardless of what passport they hold.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
When companies like Tata are fulfilling government contracts, they _should_ be filling those positions with local labour at local rates. Here's an alternate proposal. Suppose it would cost $70k for the wrong type of people to provide labor, and $100k for the right type of person to provide labor. Lets continue having labor sold by the lowest cost provider. But then lets engage in direct wealth transfers; we'll have the government directly send $30k to the high income software engineers who might have been able to do the same job less efficiently. This is a more or less equivalent scheme to transfer wealth from taxpayers to high income people. Do you have any objection to this scheme? If so, why does your objection not apply equally well to your protectionist scheme?
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago
  Who pays for that $30k the government sends the displaced worker?
  - juhq 10y ago
    You answered your own question. Government of course.
    - JumpCrisscross 10y ago
      So general income taxes or deficit spending? Isn't that just unemployment insurance by another name?
      - juhq 10y ago
        Does it matter? Government collects taxes and then spends it as it chooses.
        Touche 10y ago
        Yes, this is a new type of spending that hasn't existed before, and therefore taxes either have to increase or something else that is currently getting the 30k doesn't get it any more. You can't hand-wave away where this money comes from.
        tobltobs 10y ago
        Trumpists can: “This is the United States government. First of all, you never have to default because you print the money, I hate to tell you, OK?”
        croon 10y ago
        Before people dismiss this, it is an actual Trump quote.
        pessimizer 10y ago
        It is also completely true.
- DarkKomunalec 10y ago
  But it is not equivalent. Hiring local has many beneficial effects over outsourcing - increased labour demand increases wages, the local pool of talent and technology is developed, and the money you spend will in turn mostly be spent in your own economy, growing it and paying taxes to your government. You could argue that these secondary effects do not outweigh the higher cost, and I'm sure sometimes that would be true, but this is a much weaker and less general argument.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    We are discussing hiring local workers, not outsourcing. The local workers just happen to be brown and born in a different place. The money will still be spent in your own economy. The choices are threefold: My preferred scheme (1): Low income taxpayers keep $30k and spend it themselves. Government pays for $70k from lowest bidding software engineer (possibly an Indian). Fergie's preferred scheme (2): Low income taxpayers don't get to spend $30k on themselves. Government pays $100k to a non-Indian software engineer. My alternate scheme (3): Low income taxpayers don't get to spend $30k on themselves. Government pays $70k to some Indian software engineer and then gives $30k to some random high income non-Indian person. Your argument does not distinguish between (2) and (3). In both cases, money is transferred from taxpayers to high income colocated workers who will presumably spend it in the economy.
    - taneq 10y ago
      > We are discussing hiring local workers, not outsourcing. The local workers just happen to be brown and born in a different place. One distinction is that many immigrant workers will be sending money back to their family in their home country, resulting in a net drain on the economy in which they're working. I'm not saying this is a good reason to make life harder for them, but I do think it's a fair point.
      - vira 10y ago
        It's not that simple. An Indian expatriate's remittance may leave American shores, for example, but then re-enters when their family buys iPhones, Ford's and Hershey's.
- crdoconnor 10y ago
  >This is a more or less equivalent scheme to transfer wealth from taxpayers to high income people. Do you have any objection to this scheme? It's not equivalent at all. All taxpayers would now be on the hook for that 30k rather than just the corporations who pay for that labor.
- mlmlmasd 10y ago
  There's a difference between using tax payer money to pay people in that country, vs paying outsourced labor somewhere in another country.
- battlebot 10y ago
  I don't think there is a "right" or "wrong" company providing the labor. I just think that by exploiting vulnerable non-citizen "guest" workers and promising to sponsor a green card, these companies have been able to suppress wages to an extent that I am not comfortable with. Also, H1B looks a lot like indentured servitude to me. I have watched close friends suffer through this process. Foreign workers need full payment of competitive market rate wages as well as the ability to fully maneuver in the marketplace so that they can act in their own best interest. It's already hard enough for them coming to the US with less competitive skillsets, but if they could bargain freely, they could at least earn market-rate wages in their skill range and grow their careers organically.
dzhiurgis 10y ago
A large part of consulting recruits consist of yes-men who will work extra hours, do whatever their manager say with no critical thinking and will put up with clients' bullshit. This is what needed for the type of business and it has little to do with talent. I am not sure how many proud Americans who would sign up for those positions.
- sidlls 10y ago
  This is just "Americans are lazy and entitled" written differently. We see similar arguments in the agriculture sector, where a different price dynamic exists. The difference is in the world of tech companies can actually afford to pay more because there isn't a horde of Americans who want the tech equivalent of dirt-cheap food keeping prices down. Americans actually have a very strong affinity for authority. Most will put up with quite a bit especially for something they perceive as high paying.
  - dzhiurgis 10y ago
    First part still stands though. Tech companies might have money to pay, but not the businesses who consulting companies serve. Regarding lazy and entitled - I am envious when poverty there is considered eating fast food and using safe, air conditioned bus. If you are taking these pragmatic decisions at least have some self-deprecating humour with it.
    - sidlls 10y ago
      That you think fast food is much different from no food or that the buses the impoverished here ride are "safe" (or always air conditioned, for that matter) leads me to believe you haven't experienced poverty in America. I have. It really tweaks me when people compare poverty in America favorably to poverty elsewhere.
      - yummyfajitas 10y ago
        Why do you think one needs to experience poverty to make accurate claims about it? Like it or not, the statistics show that poor Americans don't work very much, they are well fed, and they have living conditions that are not drastically different from the rich and are much better than most of the world. Feel free to try and prove me wrong. But I'm willing to gamble that all you've got is anecdotes, no stats.
wiredfool 10y ago
Maybe. Here's the thing. Think about this as an MVP slapped together in a weekend, about to hit the biggest batch of software testers around. They're going to find show stopping bugs. And every one of those bugs is going to be someone's life, uprooted. Visa allocation changes _going_forward_ are certainly a reasonable thing. Fully within the realm of policy. But I'm going to bet that these changes are going to be of a far wider scope than expected and include people on current visas, and I wouldn't bet against visas getting revoked and workers having to go home the next day or get deported.
- varunsaini 10y ago
  Also if not discussed properly, there is a possibility of trade war.I am all for better VISA policy, but I am sure US doesn't want India to go China route and block american companies or apply more tarrifs(India also has a somewhat populist leader).
- 794CD01 10y ago
  That has some huge problems which we've all seen this weekend, but in the long run, is that really worse than the old style of decades of inaction and debate topped off by an ineffectual bill that does nothing? It's pretty similar to the disruption in the tech industry. "What do you mean you deploy bugs to production and then fix them after end users report them? Haven't you heard of QA?!!"
  - lordCarbonFiber 10y ago
    The difference is bugs in the current ad-tech darling or "uber for tindr dogs" won't ruin people's lives. There are good reasons why most professions (and even most difficult software) can't act as flippantly as "test it in prod".
    - 794CD01 10y ago
      That's not true at all. Most tech companies, like uber or tindr, are fundamentally aimed at ruining certain people's lives. And even when it's not intentional, it still happens, whether it's a bug that is effectively slander without a guilty party to bring suit against, an ad that infects you with malware that destroys your life's work, or just people being people.
gutnor 10y ago
It may be good overall, but not necessarily for the US worker in particular. The thing is, tech worker market is global and large companies always have the choice to outsource plain and simple. The H-1B visa trick is a win-win between foreign worker and local companies (loss/draw for local worker and loss for foreign companies). Local companies get locked-in resources in a friendly timezone, foreign worker get US experience and higher than average salary. Without that trick, the large company will outsource which mean probably rising salaries in India or wherever (we are talking abuse here, you don't outsource for 1 guy in a odd position like what H-1B should be about, but for a team of generic tech resources, yes). Except for companies that were using H-1B for what it was actually designed, that's not going to change much in the US. Now, the US government can add some trick to prevent outsourcing, Trump after all is a big fan of protectionist policies, with the usual caveats of such measures.
- battlebot 10y ago
  How did you get "higher than average salary?" All the H1Bs I have known, and I have worked with hundreds of them over the years, have all been underpaid compared to market rates. Some were outright exploited by ridiculous middle man consulting arrangements consisting of multiple levels taking a percentage of the hourly from the actual workers. I have nothing against foreign workers, but if they are going to be allowed to work in the states they should be paid market rate or above. I consider this protectionism for my own livelihood and those of my US-citizen colleagues. The typical bill rate for software development work has not risen since 2000. Think about that.
  - adharmad 10y ago
    I think he meant "higher salaries than they would make at home".
    - gutnor 10y ago
      Thank you, yes that's what I meant. I'm not sure how the salary compare relative to the cost of living, but the fact of having a US-base job is also part of the package and is valuable to foreign workers.
mttddd 10y ago
I agree however as someone who works with a number of H-1Bs (who id argue should be here) my concern is always the collateral damage. But regardless either way things seem broken
smsm42 10y ago
> That's a bad thing for everybody, not least the immigrants themselves. I don't see how it is a bad thing, as an immigrant. It seems to me it's better to get a job (and relocation) to US at slightly lower rate than US-native professional, but still much higher than one I'd get in the origin country. Note that once you're in the US, you can build the network, find better job, apply for green card, then citizenship, etc. And, of course, for many to benefit from safer environment, higher quality of life, etc. > When companies like Tata are fulfilling government contracts, they _should_ be filling those positions with local labour at local rates. If local rates are significantly higher, I am not sure - why taxpayer dollars should be spent more abundantly than private investor's dollar? I don't care too much if Sergey Brin loses one of his billions, it's not like he's going to raise the price of Google searches, but if my city doesn't have enough money to fix the road because they spent too much on other stuff and now have to raise taxes, that hits me right in the wallet.
urazen 10y ago
Banning H1B doesn't mean more local hiring. The best scenario for U.S.: Hiring only locals The worst scenario for U.S.: Offshore outsourcing The base scenario for U.S.: Hiring H1Bs If H1B is banned or becomes effectively useless, many companies will go for the worst scenario. Even now, big tech companies have been investing on their offshore dev centers. H1Bs pay taxes and spend their money here.
- flukus 10y ago
  A lot of companies that hire the worst H1B abusers already know what happens when they offshore the development. The only reason they still use these consultancies is because of the perception that development is onshore and higher quality.
  - urazen 10y ago
    As I mentioned above, big techs are already expanding their offshore dev centers. Going offshore is a proven option to them.
gdilla 10y ago
This problem is relatively easy to fix. If H1Bs weren't indentured to a company and free to move around (free market includes freedom of labor!), abuse would stop overnight. Because those workers could leave for better opportunities. Companies would be forced to pay market wage and treat them properly or face high turnover.

by fergie 10y ago

yummyfajitas 10y ago

When companies like Tata are fulfilling government contracts, they _should_ be filling those positions with local labour at local rates. Here's an alternate proposal. Suppose it would cost $70k for the wrong type of people to provide labor, and $100k for the right type of person to provide labor. Lets continue having labor sold by the lowest cost provider. But then lets engage in direct wealth transfers; we'll have the government directly send $30k to the high income software engineers who might have been able to do the same job less efficiently. This is a more or less equivalent scheme to transfer wealth from taxpayers to high income people. Do you have any objection to this scheme? If so, why does your objection not apply equally well to your protectionist scheme?

JumpCrisscross 10y ago
Who pays for that $30k the government sends the displaced worker?
- juhq 10y ago
  You answered your own question. Government of course.
  - JumpCrisscross 10y ago
    So general income taxes or deficit spending? Isn't that just unemployment insurance by another name?
    - juhq 10y ago
      Does it matter? Government collects taxes and then spends it as it chooses.
      - Touche 10y ago
        Yes, this is a new type of spending that hasn't existed before, and therefore taxes either have to increase or something else that is currently getting the 30k doesn't get it any more. You can't hand-wave away where this money comes from.
        tobltobs 10y ago
        Trumpists can: “This is the United States government. First of all, you never have to default because you print the money, I hate to tell you, OK?”
        croon 10y ago
        Before people dismiss this, it is an actual Trump quote.
        pessimizer 10y ago
        It is also completely true.
DarkKomunalec 10y ago
But it is not equivalent. Hiring local has many beneficial effects over outsourcing - increased labour demand increases wages, the local pool of talent and technology is developed, and the money you spend will in turn mostly be spent in your own economy, growing it and paying taxes to your government. You could argue that these secondary effects do not outweigh the higher cost, and I'm sure sometimes that would be true, but this is a much weaker and less general argument.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  We are discussing hiring local workers, not outsourcing. The local workers just happen to be brown and born in a different place. The money will still be spent in your own economy. The choices are threefold: My preferred scheme (1): Low income taxpayers keep $30k and spend it themselves. Government pays for $70k from lowest bidding software engineer (possibly an Indian). Fergie's preferred scheme (2): Low income taxpayers don't get to spend $30k on themselves. Government pays $100k to a non-Indian software engineer. My alternate scheme (3): Low income taxpayers don't get to spend $30k on themselves. Government pays $70k to some Indian software engineer and then gives $30k to some random high income non-Indian person. Your argument does not distinguish between (2) and (3). In both cases, money is transferred from taxpayers to high income colocated workers who will presumably spend it in the economy.
  - taneq 10y ago
    > We are discussing hiring local workers, not outsourcing. The local workers just happen to be brown and born in a different place. One distinction is that many immigrant workers will be sending money back to their family in their home country, resulting in a net drain on the economy in which they're working. I'm not saying this is a good reason to make life harder for them, but I do think it's a fair point.
    - vira 10y ago
      It's not that simple. An Indian expatriate's remittance may leave American shores, for example, but then re-enters when their family buys iPhones, Ford's and Hershey's.
crdoconnor 10y ago
>This is a more or less equivalent scheme to transfer wealth from taxpayers to high income people. Do you have any objection to this scheme? It's not equivalent at all. All taxpayers would now be on the hook for that 30k rather than just the corporations who pay for that labor.
mlmlmasd 10y ago
There's a difference between using tax payer money to pay people in that country, vs paying outsourced labor somewhere in another country.
battlebot 10y ago
I don't think there is a "right" or "wrong" company providing the labor. I just think that by exploiting vulnerable non-citizen "guest" workers and promising to sponsor a green card, these companies have been able to suppress wages to an extent that I am not comfortable with. Also, H1B looks a lot like indentured servitude to me. I have watched close friends suffer through this process. Foreign workers need full payment of competitive market rate wages as well as the ability to fully maneuver in the marketplace so that they can act in their own best interest. It's already hard enough for them coming to the US with less competitive skillsets, but if they could bargain freely, they could at least earn market-rate wages in their skill range and grow their careers organically.

dzhiurgis 10y ago

A large part of consulting recruits consist of yes-men who will work extra hours, do whatever their manager say with no critical thinking and will put up with clients' bullshit. This is what needed for the type of business and it has little to do with talent. I am not sure how many proud Americans who would sign up for those positions.

sidlls 10y ago
This is just "Americans are lazy and entitled" written differently. We see similar arguments in the agriculture sector, where a different price dynamic exists. The difference is in the world of tech companies can actually afford to pay more because there isn't a horde of Americans who want the tech equivalent of dirt-cheap food keeping prices down. Americans actually have a very strong affinity for authority. Most will put up with quite a bit especially for something they perceive as high paying.
- dzhiurgis 10y ago
  First part still stands though. Tech companies might have money to pay, but not the businesses who consulting companies serve. Regarding lazy and entitled - I am envious when poverty there is considered eating fast food and using safe, air conditioned bus. If you are taking these pragmatic decisions at least have some self-deprecating humour with it.
  - sidlls 10y ago
    That you think fast food is much different from no food or that the buses the impoverished here ride are "safe" (or always air conditioned, for that matter) leads me to believe you haven't experienced poverty in America. I have. It really tweaks me when people compare poverty in America favorably to poverty elsewhere.
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      Why do you think one needs to experience poverty to make accurate claims about it? Like it or not, the statistics show that poor Americans don't work very much, they are well fed, and they have living conditions that are not drastically different from the rich and are much better than most of the world. Feel free to try and prove me wrong. But I'm willing to gamble that all you've got is anecdotes, no stats.

wiredfool 10y ago

Maybe. Here's the thing. Think about this as an MVP slapped together in a weekend, about to hit the biggest batch of software testers around. They're going to find show stopping bugs. And every one of those bugs is going to be someone's life, uprooted. Visa allocation changes _going_forward_ are certainly a reasonable thing. Fully within the realm of policy. But I'm going to bet that these changes are going to be of a far wider scope than expected and include people on current visas, and I wouldn't bet against visas getting revoked and workers having to go home the next day or get deported.

varunsaini 10y ago
Also if not discussed properly, there is a possibility of trade war.I am all for better VISA policy, but I am sure US doesn't want India to go China route and block american companies or apply more tarrifs(India also has a somewhat populist leader).
794CD01 10y ago
That has some huge problems which we've all seen this weekend, but in the long run, is that really worse than the old style of decades of inaction and debate topped off by an ineffectual bill that does nothing? It's pretty similar to the disruption in the tech industry. "What do you mean you deploy bugs to production and then fix them after end users report them? Haven't you heard of QA?!!"
- lordCarbonFiber 10y ago
  The difference is bugs in the current ad-tech darling or "uber for tindr dogs" won't ruin people's lives. There are good reasons why most professions (and even most difficult software) can't act as flippantly as "test it in prod".
  - 794CD01 10y ago
    That's not true at all. Most tech companies, like uber or tindr, are fundamentally aimed at ruining certain people's lives. And even when it's not intentional, it still happens, whether it's a bug that is effectively slander without a guilty party to bring suit against, an ad that infects you with malware that destroys your life's work, or just people being people.

gutnor 10y ago

It may be good overall, but not necessarily for the US worker in particular. The thing is, tech worker market is global and large companies always have the choice to outsource plain and simple. The H-1B visa trick is a win-win between foreign worker and local companies (loss/draw for local worker and loss for foreign companies). Local companies get locked-in resources in a friendly timezone, foreign worker get US experience and higher than average salary. Without that trick, the large company will outsource which mean probably rising salaries in India or wherever (we are talking abuse here, you don't outsource for 1 guy in a odd position like what H-1B should be about, but for a team of generic tech resources, yes). Except for companies that were using H-1B for what it was actually designed, that's not going to change much in the US. Now, the US government can add some trick to prevent outsourcing, Trump after all is a big fan of protectionist policies, with the usual caveats of such measures.

battlebot 10y ago
How did you get "higher than average salary?" All the H1Bs I have known, and I have worked with hundreds of them over the years, have all been underpaid compared to market rates. Some were outright exploited by ridiculous middle man consulting arrangements consisting of multiple levels taking a percentage of the hourly from the actual workers. I have nothing against foreign workers, but if they are going to be allowed to work in the states they should be paid market rate or above. I consider this protectionism for my own livelihood and those of my US-citizen colleagues. The typical bill rate for software development work has not risen since 2000. Think about that.
- adharmad 10y ago
  I think he meant "higher salaries than they would make at home".
  - gutnor 10y ago
    Thank you, yes that's what I meant. I'm not sure how the salary compare relative to the cost of living, but the fact of having a US-base job is also part of the package and is valuable to foreign workers.

mttddd 10y ago

I agree however as someone who works with a number of H-1Bs (who id argue should be here) my concern is always the collateral damage. But regardless either way things seem broken

smsm42 10y ago

> That's a bad thing for everybody, not least the immigrants themselves. I don't see how it is a bad thing, as an immigrant. It seems to me it's better to get a job (and relocation) to US at slightly lower rate than US-native professional, but still much higher than one I'd get in the origin country. Note that once you're in the US, you can build the network, find better job, apply for green card, then citizenship, etc. And, of course, for many to benefit from safer environment, higher quality of life, etc. > When companies like Tata are fulfilling government contracts, they _should_ be filling those positions with local labour at local rates. If local rates are significantly higher, I am not sure - why taxpayer dollars should be spent more abundantly than private investor's dollar? I don't care too much if Sergey Brin loses one of his billions, it's not like he's going to raise the price of Google searches, but if my city doesn't have enough money to fix the road because they spent too much on other stuff and now have to raise taxes, that hits me right in the wallet.

urazen 10y ago

Banning H1B doesn't mean more local hiring. The best scenario for U.S.: Hiring only locals The worst scenario for U.S.: Offshore outsourcing The base scenario for U.S.: Hiring H1Bs If H1B is banned or becomes effectively useless, many companies will go for the worst scenario. Even now, big tech companies have been investing on their offshore dev centers. H1Bs pay taxes and spend their money here.

flukus 10y ago
A lot of companies that hire the worst H1B abusers already know what happens when they offshore the development. The only reason they still use these consultancies is because of the perception that development is onshore and higher quality.
- urazen 10y ago
  As I mentioned above, big techs are already expanding their offshore dev centers. Going offshore is a proven option to them.

gdilla 10y ago

This problem is relatively easy to fix. If H1Bs weren't indentured to a company and free to move around (free market includes freedom of labor!), abuse would stop overnight. Because those workers could leave for better opportunities. Companies would be forced to pay market wage and treat them properly or face high turnover.