9 ms·

You're comparing the average salary of all H-1B jobs (developer, accountant, analyst, etc.) to the salary of a developer. Instead, look at the average salaries

by freyr 10y ago

You're comparing the average salary of all H-1B jobs (developer, accountant, analyst, etc.) to the salary of a developer. Instead, look at the average salaries for H-1B software engineers in 2016: Facebook @ Menlo Park: $152k Google @ Mountain View: $130k Apple @ Cupertino: $154k Amazon @ Seattle: $124k Microsoft @ Redmond: $120 So comparing base salary alone, these companies are definitely not underpaying their H-1B hires. To see salaries for yourself, you can go here and filter by year to see the latest data: http://h1bpay.com/companies/Facebook/cities/Menlo%20Park-CA/job-titles/Software%20Engineer/salaries http://h1bpay.com/companies/Facebook/cities/Menlo%20Park-CA/...

rsuttongee 10y ago
Also don't forget to add the ~$10-$20k in legal fees for sponsoring an H1b on top of that.
- makmanalp 10y ago
  I don't know if the legal fees go that high, but it can depend on the lawyer I guess. 10k is normal, 20k seems high. But regardless, also add the non-salary benefits, of course: non-discretionary bonuses, stock grants, etc.
- FireBeyond 10y ago
  I guarantee all of the countries on this list, both the Valley tech firms, and the Indian IT firms, have in-house counsel specially versed in this, making the process largely boilerplate. When I moved to the US (to work for one of the companies on that list of tech firms), their attitude was "Do you need a visa?" (I didn't, as it happened) "Just let us know, we'll get you a H-1B". There wasn't any shadow of a doubt in their mind that it was much more than a formality.
  - arcticbull 10y ago
    It still about $6000 in filing fees and premium processing fees on top of the legal fees and meeting any other requirements the business has to meet to be in a place to sponsor them in the first place.
    - refurb 10y ago
      My experience with a large multi-national was that they outsourced all of the immigration work to outside legal firms. This firm hired a lot of immigrants, but I don't think it makes sense to hire full time legal immigration experts.
      - arcticbull 10y ago
        The $6000 is USCIS filing fees, legal fees are on top of that, broken down as: $325 base + $1500 AICWA + $500 fraud protection fee + [potential $4000 Public Law 114-113 fee] + [optional $1125 premium processing fee] = $6325 + [optional $1125]. Legal fees vary from $500 to $3000 on top of that. [1] http://redbus2us.com/h1b-visa-2017-filing-fee-summary/ http://redbus2us.com/h1b-visa-2017-filing-fee-summary/
- JamesBarney 10y ago
  The obligation for h1-bs is to pay a competitive salary, not a competitive salary sans legal fees for obtaining visa sponsorship.
lowbloodsugar 10y ago
So by "these companies" you mean Facebook, Google, etc, because they are paying the going rate by paying $152k. That just confirms the OPs first point, that TCS, Wipro and Infosys, with their 30,000 Visas avg. ~$70k, are massively abusing the system. Its about time these companies were prosecuted for lying to the government: Title 18, United States Code, Section 1001 makes it a crime to: 1) knowingly and willfully; 2) make any materially false, fictitious or fraudulent statement or representation; 3) in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative or judicial branch of the United States.
- canttestthis 10y ago
  And it disproves OP's other point (the one he even highlighted in italics): > None of those salaries listed are competitive with what a non-H1B (read citizen or permanent resident) would earn.
  - mememachine 10y ago
    However it still leaves the impression that H1Bs are doing more bad than good
    - serge2k 10y ago
      Maybe if you have an agenda against H-1Bs. Otherwise it looks like they just pay them the normal amount.
- trhway 10y ago
  >That just confirms the OPs first point, that TCS, Wipro and Infosys, with their 30,000 Visas avg. ~$70k, are massively abusing the system. >Its about time these companies were prosecuted for lying to the government: while they obviously abuse the system, i doubt they do it in immediately clear criminal ways - instead i suppose they use various loopholes like bringing people into some cattle grazing mid-states where $70K is prevailing wage (and where is real shortage of programmers, at least if you try to hire couple hundred or thousand of them in a short time, so technically these companies do follow the law here to the letter) and "bodyshopping" the people from there.
jlj 10y ago
Many people I've worked with came to the US on H1-B's sponsored by the big outsourcing firms, then they move to one of the above mentioned companes. Presumably they move to those companies for better pay and working hours. And they have processes in place to handle the H1-B transfers. There is a lot of prestige with landing a job at those companies too. It's not everyone who can do that though, these folks are the upper end of the talent pool. An argument I've heard for the lower paying jobs at the outsourcing companies is that they can communicate with the offshore teams in the local language. One on-site lead is gathering requirements and funneling work to 20 offshore devs. They work a full day during US hours then spend their evenings on calls with the offshore team. There is a huge supply of people overseas wanting those jobs so that they can get their foot into the US and then find something better. Supply and demand would naturally drive down the wages for those types of jobs. Another path is to transfer from the bigger outsourcing firms to smaller US based consulting and staffing companies to do contracting work. At this moment it seems that many companies have frozen their H1-B hiring with all of the US visa uncertainty. This is putting people in tough situations where they can't find work and have families to support that they brought with them to the US. These are my own observations.
- monksy 10y ago
  > huge supply of people overseas wanting those jobs so that they can get their foot into the US and then find something better That's not really a good justification of claiming that the US Supply is more than what the current market holds. With that same arguement, a business could claim: Banana processing in Costa Rica costs $0.5/hr, so that means that we should have that as a ceiling in the US for the same job. It's apples and oranges. There is a huge amount of people that would like to emigrate for financial improvement. But, at the end of the day they live there you live here. Want to take advantage of the supply that you're referring to, open up a location there. (And find out why they don't already have that organization there)
  - azinman2 10y ago
    > It's apples and oranges. And here I thought it was bananas all along.
CodeSheikh 10y ago
Infosys pays a sub-par salary of $52k to a systems engineer in Sunnyvale California: http://h1bpay.com/companies/Infosys/cities/Sunnyvale-CA/job-titles/Systems%20Engineer/salaries http://h1bpay.com/companies/Infosys/cities/Sunnyvale-CA/job-...
ryandrake 10y ago
I don't think anyone is complaining about companies like Facebook and Google, who, by many accounts in this thread, are paying market rate for H-1B holders. These guys are not abusing the system. People are complaining about those outsourcing consultant companies who are abusing the system by paying far below market rate to H1B holders.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

by freyr 10y ago

rsuttongee 10y ago

Also don't forget to add the ~$10-$20k in legal fees for sponsoring an H1b on top of that.

makmanalp 10y ago
I don't know if the legal fees go that high, but it can depend on the lawyer I guess. 10k is normal, 20k seems high. But regardless, also add the non-salary benefits, of course: non-discretionary bonuses, stock grants, etc.
FireBeyond 10y ago
I guarantee all of the countries on this list, both the Valley tech firms, and the Indian IT firms, have in-house counsel specially versed in this, making the process largely boilerplate. When I moved to the US (to work for one of the companies on that list of tech firms), their attitude was "Do you need a visa?" (I didn't, as it happened) "Just let us know, we'll get you a H-1B". There wasn't any shadow of a doubt in their mind that it was much more than a formality.
- arcticbull 10y ago
  It still about $6000 in filing fees and premium processing fees on top of the legal fees and meeting any other requirements the business has to meet to be in a place to sponsor them in the first place.
  - refurb 10y ago
    My experience with a large multi-national was that they outsourced all of the immigration work to outside legal firms. This firm hired a lot of immigrants, but I don't think it makes sense to hire full time legal immigration experts.
    - arcticbull 10y ago
      The $6000 is USCIS filing fees, legal fees are on top of that, broken down as: $325 base + $1500 AICWA + $500 fraud protection fee + [potential $4000 Public Law 114-113 fee] + [optional $1125 premium processing fee] = $6325 + [optional $1125]. Legal fees vary from $500 to $3000 on top of that. [1] http://redbus2us.com/h1b-visa-2017-filing-fee-summary/ http://redbus2us.com/h1b-visa-2017-filing-fee-summary/
JamesBarney 10y ago
The obligation for h1-bs is to pay a competitive salary, not a competitive salary sans legal fees for obtaining visa sponsorship.

lowbloodsugar 10y ago

So by "these companies" you mean Facebook, Google, etc, because they are paying the going rate by paying $152k. That just confirms the OPs first point, that TCS, Wipro and Infosys, with their 30,000 Visas avg. ~$70k, are massively abusing the system. Its about time these companies were prosecuted for lying to the government: Title 18, United States Code, Section 1001 makes it a crime to: 1) knowingly and willfully; 2) make any materially false, fictitious or fraudulent statement or representation; 3) in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative or judicial branch of the United States.

canttestthis 10y ago
And it disproves OP's other point (the one he even highlighted in italics): > None of those salaries listed are competitive with what a non-H1B (read citizen or permanent resident) would earn.
- mememachine 10y ago
  However it still leaves the impression that H1Bs are doing more bad than good
  - serge2k 10y ago
    Maybe if you have an agenda against H-1Bs. Otherwise it looks like they just pay them the normal amount.
trhway 10y ago
>That just confirms the OPs first point, that TCS, Wipro and Infosys, with their 30,000 Visas avg. ~$70k, are massively abusing the system. >Its about time these companies were prosecuted for lying to the government: while they obviously abuse the system, i doubt they do it in immediately clear criminal ways - instead i suppose they use various loopholes like bringing people into some cattle grazing mid-states where $70K is prevailing wage (and where is real shortage of programmers, at least if you try to hire couple hundred or thousand of them in a short time, so technically these companies do follow the law here to the letter) and "bodyshopping" the people from there.

jlj 10y ago

Many people I've worked with came to the US on H1-B's sponsored by the big outsourcing firms, then they move to one of the above mentioned companes. Presumably they move to those companies for better pay and working hours. And they have processes in place to handle the H1-B transfers. There is a lot of prestige with landing a job at those companies too. It's not everyone who can do that though, these folks are the upper end of the talent pool. An argument I've heard for the lower paying jobs at the outsourcing companies is that they can communicate with the offshore teams in the local language. One on-site lead is gathering requirements and funneling work to 20 offshore devs. They work a full day during US hours then spend their evenings on calls with the offshore team. There is a huge supply of people overseas wanting those jobs so that they can get their foot into the US and then find something better. Supply and demand would naturally drive down the wages for those types of jobs. Another path is to transfer from the bigger outsourcing firms to smaller US based consulting and staffing companies to do contracting work. At this moment it seems that many companies have frozen their H1-B hiring with all of the US visa uncertainty. This is putting people in tough situations where they can't find work and have families to support that they brought with them to the US. These are my own observations.

monksy 10y ago
> huge supply of people overseas wanting those jobs so that they can get their foot into the US and then find something better That's not really a good justification of claiming that the US Supply is more than what the current market holds. With that same arguement, a business could claim: Banana processing in Costa Rica costs $0.5/hr, so that means that we should have that as a ceiling in the US for the same job. It's apples and oranges. There is a huge amount of people that would like to emigrate for financial improvement. But, at the end of the day they live there you live here. Want to take advantage of the supply that you're referring to, open up a location there. (And find out why they don't already have that organization there)
- azinman2 10y ago
  > It's apples and oranges. And here I thought it was bananas all along.

CodeSheikh 10y ago

Infosys pays a sub-par salary of $52k to a systems engineer in Sunnyvale California: http://h1bpay.com/companies/Infosys/cities/Sunnyvale-CA/job-titles/Systems%20Engineer/salaries http://h1bpay.com/companies/Infosys/cities/Sunnyvale-CA/job-...

ryandrake 10y ago

I don't think anyone is complaining about companies like Facebook and Google, who, by many accounts in this thread, are paying market rate for H-1B holders. These guys are not abusing the system. People are complaining about those outsourcing consultant companies who are abusing the system by paying far below market rate to H1B holders.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]