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Trying to play a devil's advocate, I might be downvoted here right away. Disclosure: I am not going to be affected by this, but I do work in tech industry. 1.

Trying to play a devil's advocate, I might be downvoted here right away. Disclosure: I am not going to be affected by this, but I do work in tech industry. 1. With the decline of low-wage tech workers, where do you think the mundane/non-value added work they do will go? Not everything will/can be outsourced, and you don't want to your USD 130K employee to do that. There is a real scarcity of tech skilled workers in the US. This may be filled gradually in the future, but in the short-term, there will be some consequences. 2. This will affect small companies, non-SF/NYC/Seattle area start-ups, and companies, non-tech companies. Not everyone can pay this salary. These businesses are not going out of their way to pay for H1Bs. I may be wrong, and that's why I have a genuine question. Is there a credible research about the loss of jobs due to H1B and it is not just an availability heuristic? I agree that outsourcing causes loss of local jobs, but that is not what this is trying to solve.

brightball 10y ago
Not sure exactly about loss of jobs, but I do remember this Oracle story making the rounds: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-01-10/ex-oracle-manager-claims-firing-over-indian-s-pay-offer https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-01-10/ex-oracle...
- Lord_Yoda 10y ago
  Thanks, but I think that classifies under discriminatory practice. Not exactly an immigration issue.
  - brightball 10y ago
    True. Posted as reference to the pay grade perceptions around H-1Bs.
  - r00fus 10y ago
    It's related to both Oracle's investigation by the Labor Dept. and H1Bs in general.
bdcravens 10y ago
If you used to pay $50k for low-end tech jobs, you can probably find someone in the US to do it for $70k. The H1B is meant to fill skill gaps, NOT save money on those skills. If a company can't operate by paying market rates, that's a business model problem.
- Lord_Yoda 10y ago
  So that change in business model will likely mean more outsourcing of jobs. The fundamental goal of any company is to save money.
  - abakker 10y ago
    The low-skill parts will just be automated. We will source a grouping of high-skill work to someone that deserves a higher salary, and now we have a financial incentive to automate work that should have been automated already.
    - Lord_Yoda 10y ago
      Good point :-)
  - Apocryphon 10y ago
    And if outsourcing leads to lower quality, then that tactic would be abandoned by a successful business model in favor of a better way to save money.
  - chrisbennet 10y ago
    I think some businesses lose sight of the true fundamental goal of a business: make money. Saving money is secondary.
  - X86BSD 10y ago
    It's actually to make money. Not save money.
  - bdcravens 10y ago
user5994461 10y ago
> Is there a credible research about the loss of jobs due to H1B and it is not just an availability heuristic? Yes. Look there: http://h1bdata.info/topcompanies.php http://h1bdata.info/topcompanies.php You'll see that the vast majority of VISAs are taken by miserable cheap indian consulting firms.
VLM 10y ago
"There is a real scarcity of tech skilled workers in the US." That is a blatant falsehood it only exists due to "culture fit" where you can only hire a skilled tech worker if they're also a 20-something white male Stanford grad living in SV or maybe NYC. Try just considering hiring a person of color or a woman. There's a hell of a lot of them, they're not much worse at their jobs than the young white boys, but on the coasts they are not allowed in the industry at this time. No matter how far left wing tech people socially signal, that kind of person will never ever hire a woman or PoC. Yet here in the TrumpenReich rural heartland far from the coasts I've worked with a cool (South AFAIK) Korean dude and a Jamaican and I know some awesome female IT professionals. If you want to hear about how great women and PoC are, you have to move to the coasts, but if you want to actually get a job with women and PoC you need to go right wing heartland, which sounds weird but is so true. I live in one of the most segregated metro areas in the country far from the coasts, yet my neighborhood has a higher percentage of blacks than Google employees has a percentage of blacks. Huh. Klan-land is more diverse than coastal tech, you wouldn't guess that from how far left they talk. I know I sound harsh but PoC and women are wasting their time trying to get jobs on the coasts; tech industry is far too racist and sexist to hire them. They can get jobs away from the coasts and in my experience they do really well. My experience with decades of corporate speak indicates that corporations always talk the opposite of what they do. In the heartland we don't have "womens coding classes" and PoC outreach because we don't need them, instead of providing lip service we actually hire them instead.
- mhurron 10y ago
  > Try just considering hiring a person of color or a woman. There's a hell of a lot of them, they're not much worse at their jobs than the young white boys Why do you believe women and minorities are worse workers than whites?
  - jawilson2 10y ago
    I'm assuming this was dripping with sarcasm.
  - VLM 10y ago
    That was sarcasm. If read with an emphasis on the 'much' not the 'worse', even if you give the coastal tech employers the benefit of the doubt WRT the direction of the greater or less than symbol, the absolute value of the difference in performance observed has been unmeasurably small over the last couple decades. The coasties seem to claim its just a cost of doing business that companies will fall apart if a woman is hired or a black is hired, but my personal experience far from the coasts is they do just fine. I just find the whole situation comparing coastal culture and midwest development culture frustrating. Endless coastal complaining about how there's a shortage of skilled employees, because they only hire 22 yr old white boys. The heartland away from the coasts is not experiencing that crippling lack of talent, because we don't have crippling levels of racism and sexism. Endless self congratulatory crowing from the coasts about having outreach programs to get women and PoC into coding, not that it matters, because coastal tech companies only hire white men. Meanwhile they denigrate the heartland away from the coasts for not being liberal enough and not having enough "programs" to get women and PoC into coding, yet we have the only employers who actually hire women and PoC so we don't need the programs to being with! There should be a bot on HN where any time someone complains about lack of skilled employees it replies with "STFU and hire some PoC and women instead of white frat boys"

brightball 10y ago

Not sure exactly about loss of jobs, but I do remember this Oracle story making the rounds: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-01-10/ex-oracle-manager-claims-firing-over-indian-s-pay-offer https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-01-10/ex-oracle...

Lord_Yoda 10y ago
Thanks, but I think that classifies under discriminatory practice. Not exactly an immigration issue.
- brightball 10y ago
  True. Posted as reference to the pay grade perceptions around H-1Bs.
- r00fus 10y ago
  It's related to both Oracle's investigation by the Labor Dept. and H1Bs in general.

bdcravens 10y ago

If you used to pay $50k for low-end tech jobs, you can probably find someone in the US to do it for $70k. The H1B is meant to fill skill gaps, NOT save money on those skills. If a company can't operate by paying market rates, that's a business model problem.

Lord_Yoda 10y ago
So that change in business model will likely mean more outsourcing of jobs. The fundamental goal of any company is to save money.
- abakker 10y ago
  The low-skill parts will just be automated. We will source a grouping of high-skill work to someone that deserves a higher salary, and now we have a financial incentive to automate work that should have been automated already.
  - Lord_Yoda 10y ago
    Good point :-)
- Apocryphon 10y ago
  And if outsourcing leads to lower quality, then that tactic would be abandoned by a successful business model in favor of a better way to save money.
- chrisbennet 10y ago
  I think some businesses lose sight of the true fundamental goal of a business: make money. Saving money is secondary.
- X86BSD 10y ago
  It's actually to make money. Not save money.
- bdcravens 10y ago

user5994461 10y ago

> Is there a credible research about the loss of jobs due to H1B and it is not just an availability heuristic? Yes. Look there: http://h1bdata.info/topcompanies.php http://h1bdata.info/topcompanies.php You'll see that the vast majority of VISAs are taken by miserable cheap indian consulting firms.

VLM 10y ago

"There is a real scarcity of tech skilled workers in the US." That is a blatant falsehood it only exists due to "culture fit" where you can only hire a skilled tech worker if they're also a 20-something white male Stanford grad living in SV or maybe NYC. Try just considering hiring a person of color or a woman. There's a hell of a lot of them, they're not much worse at their jobs than the young white boys, but on the coasts they are not allowed in the industry at this time. No matter how far left wing tech people socially signal, that kind of person will never ever hire a woman or PoC. Yet here in the TrumpenReich rural heartland far from the coasts I've worked with a cool (South AFAIK) Korean dude and a Jamaican and I know some awesome female IT professionals. If you want to hear about how great women and PoC are, you have to move to the coasts, but if you want to actually get a job with women and PoC you need to go right wing heartland, which sounds weird but is so true. I live in one of the most segregated metro areas in the country far from the coasts, yet my neighborhood has a higher percentage of blacks than Google employees has a percentage of blacks. Huh. Klan-land is more diverse than coastal tech, you wouldn't guess that from how far left they talk. I know I sound harsh but PoC and women are wasting their time trying to get jobs on the coasts; tech industry is far too racist and sexist to hire them. They can get jobs away from the coasts and in my experience they do really well. My experience with decades of corporate speak indicates that corporations always talk the opposite of what they do. In the heartland we don't have "womens coding classes" and PoC outreach because we don't need them, instead of providing lip service we actually hire them instead.

mhurron 10y ago
> Try just considering hiring a person of color or a woman. There's a hell of a lot of them, they're not much worse at their jobs than the young white boys Why do you believe women and minorities are worse workers than whites?
- jawilson2 10y ago
  I'm assuming this was dripping with sarcasm.
- VLM 10y ago
  That was sarcasm. If read with an emphasis on the 'much' not the 'worse', even if you give the coastal tech employers the benefit of the doubt WRT the direction of the greater or less than symbol, the absolute value of the difference in performance observed has been unmeasurably small over the last couple decades. The coasties seem to claim its just a cost of doing business that companies will fall apart if a woman is hired or a black is hired, but my personal experience far from the coasts is they do just fine. I just find the whole situation comparing coastal culture and midwest development culture frustrating. Endless coastal complaining about how there's a shortage of skilled employees, because they only hire 22 yr old white boys. The heartland away from the coasts is not experiencing that crippling lack of talent, because we don't have crippling levels of racism and sexism. Endless self congratulatory crowing from the coasts about having outreach programs to get women and PoC into coding, not that it matters, because coastal tech companies only hire white men. Meanwhile they denigrate the heartland away from the coasts for not being liberal enough and not having enough "programs" to get women and PoC into coding, yet we have the only employers who actually hire women and PoC so we don't need the programs to being with! There should be a bot on HN where any time someone complains about lack of skilled employees it replies with "STFU and hire some PoC and women instead of white frat boys"