6 ms·

Why not just go to an auction system, where the group that is going to give the highest salary gets the visa? You could adjust it for CoL so all H1Bs don't end

Why not just go to an auction system, where the group that is going to give the highest salary gets the visa? You could adjust it for CoL so all H1Bs don't end up in SF and NYC. What would be bad about this system?

belltaco 8y ago
The big companies with huge pockets will set up shop in small low CoL places and squeeze out smaller research companies out of talented graduate students in high expertise niche fields like research in EE, AI etc. They will be able to outbid anyone local easily since they're already paying a lot for them in SF/NYC/DC/Seattle/Portland/Austin etc.
- foobiekr 8y ago
  Your downsides are noted and possible, but the big picture of building out in other areas isn't necessarily a bad thing at all. The local bidders already have to compete with remote offers and people leaving.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  That would possible be good for the low cost areas. Right now everybody crowds in high cost areas so if this would cause them to spread out I think this would be good for the country.
- stale2002 8y ago
  Yes, they might do this. I am confused as to why you think this is a bad thing. I think it would be an amazing development that would only help engineers to get paid more. If these nich fields aren't able to afford to pay engineers the market salary, then I say screw them. They deserve the negative consequences. Nothing would make me happier than for employers who are underpaying people, to be punished.
  - belltaco 8y ago
    They are research labs that are hiring Masters students and PhDs just out of college, working on cutting edge technologies. Salary alone doesn't mean talent.
    - stale2002 8y ago
      No, salary alone does not mean talent. Instead, I am arguing that these theoretical research labs do not deserve to have any talent if they do not pay that talent market salary. I want these research labs to get screwed. I hope that they fail. Because they deserve it.
ilarum 8y ago
In such a system, maybe only experienced hires would get visas and fresh graduates wouldn't.
- hughperkins 8y ago
  And that's bad because?
  - cthalupa 8y ago
    Unless we implement a new visa for graduates of American universities we experience brain drain. We would be exporting American educated individuals to other countries rather than making use of them ourselves. It also doesn't account for the fact that H1B isn't just for engineers. Not all highly skilled professionals get paid salaries commensurate with the IT and CS industries. So now we also need to split it by job type. There's a lot of overhead involved in getting this proposal to just be as good as the current system, and even more to make it better. If we do all that, sure. But I'm not sold on the idea that we would.
    - ummonk 8y ago
      Salaries for other fields would rise due to the reduced supply of foreign labor. That is a good thing.
      - pm90 8y ago
        No it’s not. These are skilled positions we’re talking about. Skills that take enormous social and economic contributions to develop. The US economy will always benefit from having more skilled workers.
        ummonk 8y ago
        Yes, those enormous social and economic contributions should be adequately compensated.
      - 8y ago
davidw 8y ago
Who picks how many spots to auction off? Is there any rational basis for that number or is it just some kind of random 'out of your ass' political thing? https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-optimal-number-of-immigrants.html https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-optimal-numbe...
- hughperkins 8y ago
  Just set it to equal the current number of h1b slots
  - davidw 8y ago
    What basis does the current number have in reality?
    - BurningFrog 8y ago
      Some politicians got together and agreed on it.
      - davidw 8y ago
        Which is doubtless a terrible way to go about things. See: the article I posted above.
        BurningFrog 8y ago
        I agree. But these are unfortunately political decisions in our society.
- jmpman 8y ago
  I’d rather see an auction, not for the salary, but for a tax “right to hire”, to be paid yearly as long as the H1B is here. That tax should go for college tuition for US students studying in the field of the role being filled by this H1B. Potentially that tax should also be sent straight into social security general fund (not for the H1B holder). If those H1Bs aren’t converted to green cards, then the country will never have to pay out any Social Security benefits, continuing the systems liquidity.
mycodebreaks 8y ago
It'll put startups at disadvantage. Very hard to compare equity compensation with liquid compensation big companies offer.
- ummonk 8y ago
  The equity compensation is nearly worthless anyway, so that's only fair.
jedberg 8y ago
I thought this too, until it was pointed out to me that not every H1-B is an engineer. For example, if you want to bring in someone to teach a rare foreign language at a University, they have a qualifying special skill but they certainly aren’t making the six figure engineer salary.
- ori_b 8y ago
  Rank on how far above the prevailing wage it is.
- ummonk 8y ago
  Maybe they should get paid more to teach the rare language. Supply and demand.
  - jedberg 8y ago
    I don't think you understand. Their wage is high for what they do, but there is not as much demand for a language teacher as there is for an engineer. So even their above average salary is still low compared to an engineer. It's not fair to put them in the same ranking system.
- amf12 8y ago
  > if you want to bring in someone to teach a rare foreign language at a University All public universities are non-profit and thus are exempt from the lottery. I get your point, but regardless of the occupation if its a for-profit institution they should pay high salaries to get talent.
  - jedberg 8y ago
    Yes, but a high salary for an artist is still low compared to a high salary for an engineer.
hamstergene 8y ago
I've just posted the same and then saw your post. There are so many benefits of this approach: * Good companies that actually pay a lot will automatically push out outsourcers that sneak cheap labor under pretense of finding rate talent. * It automatically solves the problem of lowering salary standards. * If good companies happen to exhaust the quota this will make them compete for seniors which will automatically start favoring U.S. local fresh grads for junior positions, which is also good. It's always sad to see 10+ years experience people in junior positions because they are willing to lower standards to the ground for a chance to immigrate. Of course there are a lot of caveats with cost of living and titles and levels and benefit packages, but I'm sure they can be worked out? * There may be separate auctions for every occupation while occupations themselves rationed proportionally per #of applications (or even micromanaged if the country needs more of a certain skill) * It can be made illegal to offer less stocks/benefits than to a local, so companies won't cheat there * It of course should be adjusted for CoL * Startups can have their offers upscaled if necessary, though I'm not entirely sure it's the right thing to do (what prevents those outsourcers from founding 10000 startups and so abuse the boost?) Running lotteries as well as trying to indirectly rig them looks so dumb to me. If you have already identified the source of the problem why not target it directly?
throw3322 8y ago
With a salary auction system, it looks like startups will be at a disadvantage, as several have said. I wonder if investors should put in more funding to allow each startup to pay a higher salary closer to the market rate of the talent they aim to hire. Investors or at least the LPs should be able to shoulder much more risks than average startup employees, and they should have a relatively higher preference for equity over cash than employees.
conanbatt 8y ago
Why put this restrictions at all? There is no sense in trying to fit in highly skilled labor to a quota.

belltaco 8y ago

The big companies with huge pockets will set up shop in small low CoL places and squeeze out smaller research companies out of talented graduate students in high expertise niche fields like research in EE, AI etc. They will be able to outbid anyone local easily since they're already paying a lot for them in SF/NYC/DC/Seattle/Portland/Austin etc.

foobiekr 8y ago
Your downsides are noted and possible, but the big picture of building out in other areas isn't necessarily a bad thing at all. The local bidders already have to compete with remote offers and people leaving.
maxxxxx 8y ago
That would possible be good for the low cost areas. Right now everybody crowds in high cost areas so if this would cause them to spread out I think this would be good for the country.
stale2002 8y ago
Yes, they might do this. I am confused as to why you think this is a bad thing. I think it would be an amazing development that would only help engineers to get paid more. If these nich fields aren't able to afford to pay engineers the market salary, then I say screw them. They deserve the negative consequences. Nothing would make me happier than for employers who are underpaying people, to be punished.
- belltaco 8y ago
  They are research labs that are hiring Masters students and PhDs just out of college, working on cutting edge technologies. Salary alone doesn't mean talent.
  - stale2002 8y ago
    No, salary alone does not mean talent. Instead, I am arguing that these theoretical research labs do not deserve to have any talent if they do not pay that talent market salary. I want these research labs to get screwed. I hope that they fail. Because they deserve it.

ilarum 8y ago

In such a system, maybe only experienced hires would get visas and fresh graduates wouldn't.

hughperkins 8y ago
And that's bad because?
- cthalupa 8y ago
  Unless we implement a new visa for graduates of American universities we experience brain drain. We would be exporting American educated individuals to other countries rather than making use of them ourselves. It also doesn't account for the fact that H1B isn't just for engineers. Not all highly skilled professionals get paid salaries commensurate with the IT and CS industries. So now we also need to split it by job type. There's a lot of overhead involved in getting this proposal to just be as good as the current system, and even more to make it better. If we do all that, sure. But I'm not sold on the idea that we would.
  - ummonk 8y ago
    Salaries for other fields would rise due to the reduced supply of foreign labor. That is a good thing.
    - pm90 8y ago
      No it’s not. These are skilled positions we’re talking about. Skills that take enormous social and economic contributions to develop. The US economy will always benefit from having more skilled workers.
      - ummonk 8y ago
        Yes, those enormous social and economic contributions should be adequately compensated.
    - 8y ago

davidw 8y ago

Who picks how many spots to auction off? Is there any rational basis for that number or is it just some kind of random 'out of your ass' political thing? https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-optimal-number-of-immigrants.html https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-optimal-numbe...

hughperkins 8y ago
Just set it to equal the current number of h1b slots
- davidw 8y ago
  What basis does the current number have in reality?
  - BurningFrog 8y ago
    Some politicians got together and agreed on it.
    - davidw 8y ago
      Which is doubtless a terrible way to go about things. See: the article I posted above.
      - BurningFrog 8y ago
        I agree. But these are unfortunately political decisions in our society.
jmpman 8y ago
I’d rather see an auction, not for the salary, but for a tax “right to hire”, to be paid yearly as long as the H1B is here. That tax should go for college tuition for US students studying in the field of the role being filled by this H1B. Potentially that tax should also be sent straight into social security general fund (not for the H1B holder). If those H1Bs aren’t converted to green cards, then the country will never have to pay out any Social Security benefits, continuing the systems liquidity.

mycodebreaks 8y ago

It'll put startups at disadvantage. Very hard to compare equity compensation with liquid compensation big companies offer.

ummonk 8y ago
The equity compensation is nearly worthless anyway, so that's only fair.

jedberg 8y ago

I thought this too, until it was pointed out to me that not every H1-B is an engineer. For example, if you want to bring in someone to teach a rare foreign language at a University, they have a qualifying special skill but they certainly aren’t making the six figure engineer salary.

ori_b 8y ago
Rank on how far above the prevailing wage it is.
ummonk 8y ago
Maybe they should get paid more to teach the rare language. Supply and demand.
- jedberg 8y ago
  I don't think you understand. Their wage is high for what they do, but there is not as much demand for a language teacher as there is for an engineer. So even their above average salary is still low compared to an engineer. It's not fair to put them in the same ranking system.
amf12 8y ago
> if you want to bring in someone to teach a rare foreign language at a University All public universities are non-profit and thus are exempt from the lottery. I get your point, but regardless of the occupation if its a for-profit institution they should pay high salaries to get talent.
- jedberg 8y ago
  Yes, but a high salary for an artist is still low compared to a high salary for an engineer.

hamstergene 8y ago

I've just posted the same and then saw your post. There are so many benefits of this approach: * Good companies that actually pay a lot will automatically push out outsourcers that sneak cheap labor under pretense of finding rate talent. * It automatically solves the problem of lowering salary standards. * If good companies happen to exhaust the quota this will make them compete for seniors which will automatically start favoring U.S. local fresh grads for junior positions, which is also good. It's always sad to see 10+ years experience people in junior positions because they are willing to lower standards to the ground for a chance to immigrate. Of course there are a lot of caveats with cost of living and titles and levels and benefit packages, but I'm sure they can be worked out? * There may be separate auctions for every occupation while occupations themselves rationed proportionally per #of applications (or even micromanaged if the country needs more of a certain skill) * It can be made illegal to offer less stocks/benefits than to a local, so companies won't cheat there * It of course should be adjusted for CoL * Startups can have their offers upscaled if necessary, though I'm not entirely sure it's the right thing to do (what prevents those outsourcers from founding 10000 startups and so abuse the boost?) Running lotteries as well as trying to indirectly rig them looks so dumb to me. If you have already identified the source of the problem why not target it directly?

throw3322 8y ago

With a salary auction system, it looks like startups will be at a disadvantage, as several have said. I wonder if investors should put in more funding to allow each startup to pay a higher salary closer to the market rate of the talent they aim to hire. Investors or at least the LPs should be able to shoulder much more risks than average startup employees, and they should have a relatively higher preference for equity over cash than employees.

conanbatt 8y ago

Why put this restrictions at all? There is no sense in trying to fit in highly skilled labor to a quota.