6 ms·

The obvious way to make H1B work for the high end software engineers is to approve applicants based on highest paid applicant first, instead of via a random lot

by Buge 10y ago

The obvious way to make H1B work for the high end software engineers is to approve applicants based on highest paid applicant first, instead of via a random lottery. It's fairly clear to me that this would be beneficial for the long term success of the United States. It's unclear to me what it would do to short term salaries for highly paid software engineers. Would it lower their salaries due to an increase in supply of very talented software engineers, or would it raise their salaries as companies get into bidding wars over H1B visas.

NotSammyHagar 10y ago
Using high pay as a decision maker on who gets in makes sense, and it incentivizes things in the right direction. But you don't get a list of everyone all at once applying for a single year, do you? Maybe we need to have a monthly "auction" where the high pay gets through first. Who could argue with that?
- mcrae 10y ago
  Actually you do get them all at once I believe! The current mechanism is a lottery which is executed in early April. It could be replaced with an auction as you propose.
outworlder 10y ago
Only if you group by occupation. Unless translators are paid the same as Bay Area software engineer.
- fredophile 10y ago
  You don't need to group by occupation. If there is a shortage of translators then their wages should go up. As their wages increase more people will see translation as a desirable career. If wages increase enough for them to be competitive for H1B positions that would be an indication that there really is a shortage of local translators.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
psykotic 10y ago
> The obvious way to make H1B work for the high end software engineers is to approve applicants based on highest paid applicant first, instead of via a random lottery. This would grant a massive advantage to companies like Google and Facebook over smaller companies, and more generally to geographic locales and parts of the industry with higher pay. In terms of economic and competitive impact for those companies and for Silicon Valley, it's hard to think of anything that could have greater impact. They already have an inherent advantage when it comes to hiring due to their financial firepower.
- kcorbitt 10y ago
  ...and that financial firepower, and resulting ability to outbid everybody else, comes because they're using their workers more productively than anybody else. Successful companies should be able to command the best, most scarce resources -- that's just efficient asset allocation, and is the entire point of the free market.
  - jldugger 10y ago
    Well, it's not entirely efficient allocation, if you take the daring leap to assume that rents in certain areas are not totally subject to free market forces. I know a number of people who suggest they take home more by working in the Midwest metros than they would in equivalent jobs in the West Coast hubs. It's possible that living in a high cost West Coast metro area is itself some sort of benefit, or at least better in ways we can't deduce by salary means alone. One alternative would be to keep the existing lottery system, and simply allow visa holders more latitude to switch employers. At which point any firms flooding the lottery with underpaid and underqualified applicants would see themselves out the door.
    - legolas2412 10y ago
      Well, that solves the issue of worker exploitation. But it won't address the America first arguments, neither the rampant abuse by service companies. If TCS sees attrition rates go from 1% to 40%. Wouldn't they just put 66% more applications (40% of 166 = 66). There is no disincentive to not flood the visas. Also, if candidates are underqualified, they aren't going to switch at all. There is no reason to keep lottery system at all, maybe normalize by geographical location, years of experience and field of work. But it is absolutely insane to put it down to lottery and incentivize companies to flood applications. As a personal example, I am a PhD student on a F1, but I'd prefer other countries than the uncertainty of H1B and then painful decades long GC application. Further, there aren't as many jobs for PhDs. If I was a bachelors degree holder though, I'd have a ton more candidate employers to make the risk palatable.

by Buge 10y ago

NotSammyHagar 10y ago

Using high pay as a decision maker on who gets in makes sense, and it incentivizes things in the right direction. But you don't get a list of everyone all at once applying for a single year, do you? Maybe we need to have a monthly "auction" where the high pay gets through first. Who could argue with that?

mcrae 10y ago
Actually you do get them all at once I believe! The current mechanism is a lottery which is executed in early April. It could be replaced with an auction as you propose.

outworlder 10y ago

Only if you group by occupation. Unless translators are paid the same as Bay Area software engineer.

fredophile 10y ago
You don't need to group by occupation. If there is a shortage of translators then their wages should go up. As their wages increase more people will see translation as a desirable career. If wages increase enough for them to be competitive for H1B positions that would be an indication that there really is a shortage of local translators.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

psykotic 10y ago

> The obvious way to make H1B work for the high end software engineers is to approve applicants based on highest paid applicant first, instead of via a random lottery. This would grant a massive advantage to companies like Google and Facebook over smaller companies, and more generally to geographic locales and parts of the industry with higher pay. In terms of economic and competitive impact for those companies and for Silicon Valley, it's hard to think of anything that could have greater impact. They already have an inherent advantage when it comes to hiring due to their financial firepower.

kcorbitt 10y ago
...and that financial firepower, and resulting ability to outbid everybody else, comes because they're using their workers more productively than anybody else. Successful companies should be able to command the best, most scarce resources -- that's just efficient asset allocation, and is the entire point of the free market.
- jldugger 10y ago
  Well, it's not entirely efficient allocation, if you take the daring leap to assume that rents in certain areas are not totally subject to free market forces. I know a number of people who suggest they take home more by working in the Midwest metros than they would in equivalent jobs in the West Coast hubs. It's possible that living in a high cost West Coast metro area is itself some sort of benefit, or at least better in ways we can't deduce by salary means alone. One alternative would be to keep the existing lottery system, and simply allow visa holders more latitude to switch employers. At which point any firms flooding the lottery with underpaid and underqualified applicants would see themselves out the door.
  - legolas2412 10y ago
    Well, that solves the issue of worker exploitation. But it won't address the America first arguments, neither the rampant abuse by service companies. If TCS sees attrition rates go from 1% to 40%. Wouldn't they just put 66% more applications (40% of 166 = 66). There is no disincentive to not flood the visas. Also, if candidates are underqualified, they aren't going to switch at all. There is no reason to keep lottery system at all, maybe normalize by geographical location, years of experience and field of work. But it is absolutely insane to put it down to lottery and incentivize companies to flood applications. As a personal example, I am a PhD student on a F1, but I'd prefer other countries than the uncertainty of H1B and then painful decades long GC application. Further, there aren't as many jobs for PhDs. If I was a bachelors degree holder though, I'd have a ton more candidate employers to make the risk palatable.