20 ms·

H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colleges over American grads

391 points by hanging 8y ago

reaperducer 8y ago
Slightly off-topic, but there's something about H-1B abuse that the vast majority of people in the SV bubble don't realize. H-1B appears to hurt the poor. No, I'm not talking about struggling coders in India who dream of a life in Seattle. I'm talking about the really hand-to-mouth poor who apparently rely on seasonal H-1B visas to feed their families. For example, there was a report on Radio New Zealand this week about how dirt-poor Samoans can't get H-1B's to go to American Samoa to work in its last fish cannery because all of the American visas have been slurped up by the mainland tech industry. I know H-1B's are supposed to be for specialists, and according to Wikipedia: "A specialty occupation requires the application of specialized knowledge and a bachelor's degree or the equivalent of work experience." But I suspect that the "specialist" requirement is lifted for U.S. territories so they can get the workers they need. There are a great number of mainland labor rules that are relaxed, voided, or otherwise not valid in U.S. territories, so I wonder if this is one of them. Anyway, something to ponder.
- hanging 8y ago
  Agriculture (including aquaculture) work visas are a different category: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-2A_visa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-2A_visa
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- netsa 8y ago
  So, How do you think of the billionaire?
wahjiwah 8y ago
Good time to plug this utility, swiss army knife for websockets: https://github.com/vi/websocat https://github.com/vi/websocat Author is extremely nice as well.
- duskwuff 8y ago
  I think you meant to post this on another thread, like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19000109 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19000109
  - wahjiwah 8y ago
    Oh yeah.. thanks a lot my man
    - nixgeek 8y ago
      That’s not very nice. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=madar%20chod https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=madar%20chod https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=laude%20ke%20bal https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=laude%20ke%2...
mykowebhn 8y ago
Granted that H-1B visas should ostensibly be filled only for positions where it is difficult to find qualified American citizens or permanent residents, but in all honesty are the Department of Labor's allegations really that surprising? In the Bay Area, qualified job candidates are so scarce that it's quite common for citizens/permanent-residents to change jobs frequently. H1-B candidates are attractive for companies because it is harder for them to switch jobs. Companies can lock these employees for longer, and they can pay them less. Rather than going after the companies, shouldn't we be focusing on fixing the H-1B visa process instead? It almost seems like the government has set up a broken process for companies to take advantage of, and instead of fixing things, they blame the companies.
- wuxb 8y ago
  So an obvious solution would be allowing H1B holders to freely change jobs, even with gaps. Accordingly, the employers won't be able to lock the visa holders. Then there will be fair competition that makes sense. But anyway the big companies don't want to lose the "lock" so it would be hard to change.
  - untog 8y ago
    Clarification in case any H1B holders are reading: you absolutely can transfer your H1B visa, though I think a break of more than 30 days would be a violation. The trick is when you H1B employer also offers to sponsor your green card. That isn't transferrable, and if you're from certain countries (like India) it can take up to ten years to get one.
    - whack 8y ago
      > "The trick is when you H1B employer also offers to sponsor your green card. That isn't transferrable" Yes but the priority date itself is transferable. This allows you to job hop as many times as you want, without losing your place in line. If you have to wait 10 years for your green card, you might as well take advantage of this option and only worry about your green card 9 years down the road.
wickrom 8y ago
With the recent articles doing rounds about the feds Looking into Oracle paying minorities and women less, this seems part of the scheme to basically get lower wage workers under H1B who they know will work like minions for long hours because their visas are tied to the job. It's a pretty standard way of gaming the H1B. Oracle is no different.
kolbe 8y ago
Disparate outcomes do not imply disparate treatment. Maybe the real reason that Oracle favored hiring Asian students is that they are more talented than domestic alternatives?
- bdcravens 8y ago
  In order to not abuse the h1b visa, they would have had to establish that there is no available local talent per an objective standard.
h1bslave 8y ago
I’ve been on h1b for over 7 years now , with no chance of getting a green card because I was born in India , all my immigrant friends who started working at the same time have already gotten their green cards - they all have the option to quit their jobs if they feel like they are being underpaid or exploited. But not me , I’m looking at 70 years before I get my freedom , until then I have to tolerate the indentured servitude. As long as the law allows it Corporations will take advantage of it . The system is broken . And for those of you who feel like I should “go back to where you came from “ sorry , I worked hard to get here , I played by the rule , I pay my taxes . I came here because this is the land of the free, just like your ancestors
- bdcravens 8y ago
  Slavery or indentured servitude implies you have no choice. You do.
  - chottocharaii 8y ago
    Easy for you to say. You're probably not bonded to your employer like the OP. Get your head out of the sand.
    - bdcravens 8y ago
      If you're allowed to quit and go to another country, whether your country of origin or another country, that's a choice.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > You're probably not bonded to your employer like the OP. No one gets an H-1B involuntarily, and it would be an unusual circumstance where someone who had one was not free to leave. That said, I support liberating everyone bound by the H-1B by eliminating the visa category entirely.
    - AmericanChopper 8y ago
      They’re obviously getting what they want, a higher wage and living in America. If all they wanted was higher wages and a better standard of living, there’s any number of other countries, that have more relaxed immigration policies, they could have moved to. If they can get a job and a visa in the US, they’re obviously good enough.
known 8y ago
Last year it was discussed in https://qz.com/889524/the-us-says-oracle-is-encouraging-indians-to-hire-others-indians-and-its-killing-diversity/ https://qz.com/889524/the-us-says-oracle-is-encouraging-indi...
objektif 8y ago
I am sure locking in employees played a part in their decision. However, I have to point out that foreign graduates, especially from China are preferred in my profession due to their strong technical background. Its kind of how things evolved over time. So a similiar thing might be going on here.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
synaesthesisx 8y ago
Makes sense - they can guarantee employee loyalty by locking them down, and can probably pay them less too. It's no wonder Oracle abused this.
jorblumesea 8y ago
It's really not hard to see why, H1B have none of the bargaining power and all of the risk. Especially for a shady company like oracle it's just pure exploitation going on here.
1024core 8y ago
A simple solution to the H1B "cheap workers" problem is to sort applications by (descending) order of salary, and pick the top 65K as authorized by Congress.
- enraged_camel 8y ago
  And have basically all H1Bs go to Silicon Valley/Seattle/NYC tech companies? (You really should think things through before suggesting them as solutions, especially when the problems are complex.)
  - loosescrews 8y ago
    Why can't companies in other locations pay competitively?
    - raz32dust 8y ago
      They pay competitively for their location. Pay is determined by demand and supply. If you sort H1Bs by pay, the places with highest cost of living will get all of the H1Bs. Perhaps a better idea is to do the same thing, but on pay that is normalized against a cost of living index.
      - maksimum 8y ago
        I don't think CoL indeces are relevant because salaries are based on how much value a developer brings to the business. Suppose you have two jobs: $140k in NYC, and $100k in Dallas. If only one company can get an H1B, IMO it should clearly be the NYC company. The NYC job will yield higher personal income federal income taxes. Also the NYC job is delivering at least $40k more value to the business than the Dallas job. This additional value again translates to higher corporate federal income tax. I'm not sure what benefit the federal government has by favoring the $100k job, even though normalized for CoL ($1.5 NYC=$1 Dallas according to one index) the Dallas job is "higher paying".
        8y ago
temp4358 8y ago
There is so much hate for the H1-B visa, but let me play devil's advocate. US "lax" (not really) immigration policy improves the image of America/American companies abroad. If US starts tightening immigration laws, US companies will start outsourcing their work (which they have already started). If they start to clamp down on outsourcing, countries like India have no incentive to let US to freely use their market. They would simply follow china's method and restrict entry to all foreign players. If US follows US first policy in everything, the third-world already suspicious of western countries will only see this as west's new imperial ambitions. Software is easy to replicate, specially by people which have already worked in Google, Facebook, etc. People in third world already have expertise to set up the competition to US companies. All that is stopping them is competition from US companies. US being the becon of freedom and hope the world is a net good for US and US businesses according to me.
- diogenescynic 8y ago
  That’s a fake threat. If they could outsource the work and pay less they already would. They aren’t keeping the jobs in America for their health... Go do it then.
  - temp4358 8y ago
    Currently Top Talent in those countries want to move abroad to earn more and have a better standard of living. If they see no way out, they have stay in their countries and then US companies will have access to top talent for cheaper. For example, US is the best destination for doing a Ph.D. currently and ph.D. students then work in US. If US stops them from working here, they will go back work and form competitors. China has already shown that this is achievable.
    - diogenescynic 8y ago
      That might be better for the world. Maybe if everyone wasn’t moving to America, they’d make their own countries better... spread the love out. I’d be fine with a few less tech companies. Life would go on. I care more about the impact on American workers and as I’ve said, bringing in severely underpaid workers that they can abuse isn’t really going to help. Yeah, China is really somewhere people are desperate to get into... the air and freedom! /yawn...
m0zg 8y ago
Posted this elsewhere, but as a former H1B here's what should be done to end abuse: 1. Award a fixed pool of H1Bs to qualified applicants with the highest wage in the offer (and monitor that this wage is in fact being paid). This should be easy to pass if your representatives in congress are in fact _your_ representatives. The president will sign this immediately, since he was the one who proposed it in the first place. 2. Establish at least 6 month grace period if the H1B person leaves the sponsoring company to go work elsewhere. Currently if you leave (or are laid off/fired) you have to GTFO within 2 weeks, so people endure abuse and low wages for years until they get a green card. There. There's your solution. No need to do anything else, guaranteed to work. It should not be possible to hire foreign workers into entry level positions at all.
- an_cap 8y ago
  Sort of like "it should not be possible to hire black workers into entry level positions at all"?
  - diogenescynic 8y ago
    This is a very dumb straw man attack. Stop it.
    - an_cap 8y ago
      How so? I claim that severe discrimination (like banning a group of people from entry level positions) based on circumstances of birth is ethically dubious. I think that's why we don't entertain the idea of banning people from entry level work because they were born to black parents. Why doesn't it generalize to being born to Indian parents?
      - diogenescynic 8y ago
        Because it’s intellecually dishonest and an argument based on the fallacy of appeal to extremes. There is obviously a difference between citizenship and race... the entire purpose of a government is to service its citizens. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a Star Trek utopia where there is free movement of all people. If one country were to allow this first, they’d just be harming themselves, which would be against the interests of its citizens. You look out for your own citizens first. That’s just a government fundamental.
d--b 8y ago
What's everyone so angry about? Having been through H1B, I think the system is designed fairly well. It's extremely hard to figure out whether a particular hire required a foreign worker. And, in doubt, the US in general always sides with what's easier for companies. So, in doubt, immigration will consider that there is more harm done if a company doesn't get the worker they need than if a US citizen's job is taken by a foreigner. And probably even more so in tech, where jobs are allegedly plenty. As with everything some companies will exploit it, which is forbidden, but then they get outed, and then they get sanctions, and abuse is reduced...
- raz32dust 8y ago
  "then they get sanctions, and abuse is reduced.." Sure, but how about fixing the deeper issues that caused the problem? I agree H1B works well, but I also think it can be made better. Both statements can be true.
- baby 8y ago
  Having been through H1B the system is not designed fairly. I tried twice and failed the lottery. So I had to go through a green card process that took a year and a half. Such a waste of time and a lot of moving around countries.
zachguo 8y ago
Maybe it's my own sample bias. Aren't graduates in top CS schools largely international students?
- likeabbas 8y ago
  You may be correct, but possibly for the wrong reasons that you are are inferring. The University of California lost a lawsuit in which they were accused of preferring international students to in-state and out-of-state students because the international students could afford the higher tuitions. UC has several of the top CS schools in the nation. It's possible that the we could could replace many of those accepted with US students, but it would take a major audit of the university systems to find out.
ozfive 8y ago
Looks like Oracle blew the party for the rest of the big companies that are most likely doing the same. Party foul Larry Ellingson.
baybal2 8y ago
The problem of the system is that US left close to nothing to regular work visas. The premise that only "high end" companies are deserving to be let hiring cheap workforce is wrong. In reality, it seemed to me, that pretty much any "white collar" job was passing H1B invariably of the salary, but even very high skill requirement "blue collar" jobs were denied by default. This is my experience from the time one of my past employers tried to make a final assembly plant for electronics in Washington state. It was very hard to find well educated assembly line workers. The company ended hiring fresh master degrees grads to simply do assembly from knockdown kits for 70k, but even they were not up to the task. That business was scrapped in the end.
asenna 8y ago
Can't believe this is only recently getting attention. It's not just Oracle, it's common knowledge how the same thing has been happening in several large corps. I know from the inside because Deloitte came in and scooped up our entire foreign students batch on graduating (Pennsylvania). Same thing happened the next year as well. Many of my friends still work there. I remember there was a fire drill that took place in their campus in Harrisburg, and my friend sent me a pic he took when the entire campus was out - You could've mistaken it for a campus in Bangalore or Pune. There's definitely some preference they're giving to foreign nationals (specially from India). Please note, I'm an Indian national myself working in the US.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  It's had 'attention' for a while - it's just a very hard thing to prove. Moreover, the investigation has a political sensitivity that could create bad headlines, so it needs the right environment to happen.
Thousionced1989 8y ago
As a foreigner with an American degree, I find this news unsurprising. In fact, I had wondered why some companies were seemingly reluctant to fill in the H1B paperwork, considering these workers are probably more loyal than their citizen / permanent resident counterparts. As for me, the lack of proper immigration avenues in practice was one of the reasons leading me out of the country, this despite the higher salaries, having adopted the “American way of life” during my stay, and my many friends in the country. I found it bizarre, for lack of a better word, that a country would welcome people for 4 or more years of highly specialised education and training (F1, J1) and yet so few alternatives would be offered later for working (basically, the H1B programme, and the O programme, the latter not being a path to permanent residence). I believe the current system mostly benefits the employer by making it difficult to switch jobs, and that this causes a real depression in salaries or working conditions. As an aside, and an example of this depression, during my stay I was only allowed to work campus jobs(1). Even though my work was voluntary (i.e., I did not _need_ to work to remain in the country), I wanted to because I thought it would help me gain experience and I found a technically relevant position. But, because I had to work on campus, I was making significantly less than I would have made outside. Edited: formatting (1) There are some exceptions to this for things like internships, unforeseen financial hardship, etc.
sgjohnson 8y ago
You could fix all of the problems with the US immigration system by abolishing the welfare state and opening up the borders. I love America and I’d move there in an instant if I’d get a chance, but I’ve got too much dignity to go thru the US immigration system and put myself in a limbo for many years. Maybe when I’ll qualify for EB2 NIW.
- jhwang5 8y ago
  For most people, green card process takes about 2 years, not many years.
petilon 8y ago
America is the most powerful nation in the world today not because it has the most number of people, but because it has the best and the brightest, gathered from around the world. There are 4x as many geniuses in China as in the US. This is not because they are superior genetically. This is simply because the population of China is 4x that of USA. If one in 1,000,000 people are geniuses, then China must have 4x more geniuses than the US. That's a threat to the US. If our economy is to remain strong and if we are to remain a superpower we should invite the smartest of the Chinese to immigrate to the US. Abuse of H1B must be stopped. It is not intended as a mechanism for undercutting American workers. But the baby should not be thrown out with the bathwater. We should expand the H1B system and make it easier for immigrants to become citizens, while at the same time preventing abuse.
- jazzyk 8y ago
  Legal and controlled immigration is absolutely beneficial for the US overall. But targeting specific industries is unfair - the software industry has been the main target, lowering the income levels respective to other, protected professions (physicians, etc.), or business executives. Since people in the trades like plumbers or electricians do not fall under the umbrella of "importing the best & brightest", their hourly rates have been going up steadily (for self-employed people).
  - flowerlad 8y ago
    >software industry has been the main target, lowering the income levels respective to other, protected professions I don’t see software engineers suffering. Starting salary in FAANG conpanies is $120K to $250K. That’s better than doctors when you factor in years of education.
    - jazzyk 8y ago
      Perhaps, but outside of the FAANG bubble, income levels have been stagnating for quite some time (if you adjust for inflation)
    - newshorts 8y ago
syntaxing 8y ago
This super prevalent in manufacturing related jobs too. It's funny how the rhetoric is to save our manufacturing nowadays when we give a crap ton of IP to countries like India with the process. The sad part is, I've seen a lot of unqualified people fill up these H-1B positions and then we'll have to train them. By the time they can start doing some real work from us training, their visa coincidentally runs out and this process repeats. We literally pay relatively high wage to train India's engineers. Yet managers turn a blind eye because it helps them balance their numbers.
testrr95 8y ago
I will tell you what they do in India In 2015, I got a call from Oracle India and interviews were arranged and I got hired into Oracle India. It was my first job change. Before to that, I used to work as a contractor for one of the US companies via one of the services company in India. Oracle offered me way less than what they are offering to other engineers in the same BU, for the same value generated. Reason Oracle told me that, since I am coming from a lower salary band, Oracle is still giving a reasonable high pay hike. I argued back IN WRITING that still it is way less than ( lesser than 1/3) of Oracle generally pays. Oracle said to me, Ok, we will raise your salary in the first pay review which happens. I asked clearly and concisely, what they mean by review, they said you will be in the band. I left Oracle in 2018. They never met their promise. Few of my financial aspirations were burned down, trauma different. They = [ recruiter, director, vp, hr, ceo's office, legal ] During all the time at Oracle, I knocked many doors, all of them simply said "Oracle never committed in writing, a phone call means there is a miscommunication ", hence I do not stand a case. It is not Indian Director which simply reneged from the bargain, it was the US director, US legal team, which simply reneged. Escalating to Safra's office also did not help. Oracle is full with corrupt directors who simply trick Oracle's own rules to cheat the potential hires and trick them to get a lower paying offer. This was done my director of SW dev in US but I was an India employee.
- flowerlad 8y ago
  If you accepted a job offer based on verbal promises as opposed to written then you only have yourself to blame. Learn your lesson and move on.
  - xaybey 8y ago
    Why are you blaming the victim? Also, have you ever succeeded in getting clauses added to a megacorp's written offer?
  - testrr95 8y ago
    I told you Sir, It was my first job change. I did not knew the tricks of the trade. Yes, I have myself to blame because I trusted the people involved in hiring from one of the top 5 tech companies in the world. Id did not occur to me that I am being played upon. However, If you had noticed, I mentioned I argued with hiring team [ PM, director, recruiter] IN WRITING BEFORE JOINING THE COMPANY. I still have those emails. As a response to those they used to call on phone, NOT reply in writing. It was evident to me that they are calling back because they have read the emails. I forgot to take the same thing in writing, because I trusted them. So, Yes I joined them because of verbal promises, but the emails do exist still, in my mailbox, where I have asked them in band pay, before joining. Initially when I approached the company's authorities they said " I am making this stuff up", but when I showed them emails from my mailbox, they switched to "since you do not have replies, ... .. .. you do not stand a case"
cptskippy 8y ago
Top teir software companies might claim the H-1B program allows them to hire the best and brightest from around the world, but that's not how everyone else uses the program. It allows consulting/contracting firms to hire low wage tech workers who are desperate to stay in the US and lock them into a form of indentured servitude because the road to a green card or citizenship is now a decade long journey and changing your job effectively restarts that journey.
- drawkbox 8y ago
  > Top tier software companies might claim the H-1B program allows them to hire the best and brightest from around the world, but that's not how everyone else uses the program. I am fine with immigration as it is a feature of a good system which people want to join, the US should attract the best and people looking to contribute, but it is obvious the H-1B system is rigged and bad for pretty much all but large companies in many cases. I have known many H-1Bs and I feel bad for their situation when they want to leave a company or feel locked in. The moment H-1Bs can work at other companies other than the sponsor, all that becomes more market priced via competition and will improve pay and discourage the H-1B abusers just looking for low wage ownership of workers. If companies REALLY wanted to hire the best and brightest from around the US and the world, remote development would be bigger and more widespread to the US and around the world. But as with most things, companies use it to own people rather than compete fairly or pay market rates. Remote development can be a cost savings and make companies more robust to employee/worker life changes over time rather than need employees to live near the company. Companies that abuse H-1Bs would rather have employees on site that they can lock into lower wages and control more. There is also the O visa that would really mean they want to hire the best from around the world [1][2]. But ultimately companies that abuse H-1B just want to lower wages and lock in their workers. Cringely in 2012 wrote this: > H-1B isn’t the only way for foreigners to work in America. They can work to some extent on student visas and, in fact, many student visas are eventually converted to H-1B for those who have a job and want to stay but maybe not immigrate. > There is a misconception about the H-1B program that it was designed to allow companies to import workers with unique talents. There has long been a visa program for exactly that purpose. The O (for outstanding) visa program is for importing geniuses and nothing else. Interestingly enough, the O visa program has no quotas. So when Bill Gates complained about not being able to import enough top technical people for Microsoft, he wasn’t talking about geniuses, just normal coders. > I don’t want to pick on just Microsoft here, but I happen to know the company well and have written over the years about its technical recruiting procedures. Microsoft has a rigorous recruitment and vetting process. So does Google, Apple — you name the company. All of these companies will take as many of O visa candidates as they can get, but there just aren’t that many who qualify, which is why quotas aren’t required. > So when Microsoft — or Boeing, for that matter — says a limitation on H-1B visas is keeping them from getting top talent, they don’t mean it in the way that they imply. If a prospective employee is really top talent — the kind of engineer who can truly do things others simply can’t — there isn’t much keeping the company from hiring that person under the O visa program. > H-1B visas are about journeyman techies and nothing else. Oracle though, will literally do anything to save a penny and the last thing on Oracle's list is developer pay and developer usability/user experience. Oracle tools and systems are a nightmare and Oracle is only sold in on the golf courses from top down. Oracle is still in legacy licensing land. Oracle sees developers as nothing but resources to extract value from then discard. Oracle == IBM == SAP and all those are not developer or employee/contractor/worker friendly systems and all of them do the same gaming of H-1B systems just like the TCS, Infosys and Cognizant type companies of the world. [1] https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-workers/o-1-visa-individuals-extraordinary-ability-or-achievement https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-worker... [2] https://www.cringely.com/2012/10/23/what-americans-dont-know-about-h-1b-visas-could-hurt-us-all/ https://www.cringely.com/2012/10/23/what-americans-dont-know...
oracle_anon_29 8y ago
Hiring manager at Oracle here- Oracle is very balkanized, different business units have different practices and policies, so I can only speak (unofficially) about the one I am part of. Whenever I have openings for junior positions, I get flooded with resumes from men and women with degress at universities in China and India, and only a very small fraction from people educated entirely in the US. My personal speculation is that younger software engineers in the US would rather not work at a company that is perceived to be a dinosaur, and is definitely not as sexy as other FAANGs or startups. People who want to be H1-B sponsored have fewer options, and I think Oracle's name isn't as tainted in China or India. Also, for the (unofficial) record, the women and those with H1-B visas (incl women with H1-B visas) on my team are paid the same as US born men on my team with similar experience.
- tagrun 8y ago
  Oracle has deeper problems than just being a dinosaur.
newshorts 8y ago
Well of course. Is anyone surprised by visa abuse? It’s clear that tech companies are all for the program, why do you think that is? Equality?
aiisahik 8y ago
I think there are two cures for this issue: 1. Expose the pay disparity at Oracle and other companies so candidates know ahead of time what they are getting themselves into. 2. Make it easier for any H1B employee to get a job at a different company if they have the ability and desire. I am on this visa called the E-3 which is almost identical to the H1B except: - No annual cap - No 6 year limit - Only available to Australian nationals I have never had any trouble finding a tech job despite being an asian foreigner. My pay has varied from 60k - 180k and the companies i've worked at have varied from multi-nationals to 3 person startup. High Minimum salaries would disadvantage startups and companies in smaller cities. Here's how to fix the h1B - No hard annual cap - No 6 year limit - For any company that hires more than 10 H1B hires, the average salary of h1b employees should not be lower than the average salary of non-h1b employees. - Additionally, for large companies (say > 10,000 employees) the average salary of h1b employees of a certain level of seniority should not be lower than the average salary of non-h1b employees of that same seniority. This will give companies more certainty that a potential H1B hire would be approved, providing H1B candidates more job mobility. It would also prevent larger companies from abusing this system.
En_gr_Student 8y ago
Duh! It is 1/3 the cost (bullshit aside) for someone from a culture of hunger, hard work, desperation, and oppression. That makes them easy to work very hard, unlikely for them to push back, and so they have superior output for 1/3 the price. There is no book-cooking megacorp in the US that doesn't prefer H1b to citizens with the same qualifications. Not one. A "competitive" work schedule in China is 9-9-6, or 9am to 9pm for 6 days a week. That means "normal" is a 72 hour work-week plus commute. A 40-hour work week, is comparatively cake. The 72 hour work-week is 80% increase over a 40 hour work-week. The HR ghouls say imagine salaried employees being glad to work 80% more hours, including nights or weekend hours, for the same pay: amazing; sold! The book-cooking for h1b is intense, but after talking personally with a dozen or so folks, they really do only take home about 1/3 to 1/2 what their peers do. There is bs about job duties, titles, responsibilities, but that is just folks trying to pay the lowest price for a commodity worker. I've seen several fortune 100 companies say they prefer "low cost geo's" as much as h1b so that gives a second population with similar pricing. It is open knowledge that engineers in Malaysia, India, or Costa Rica are paid 1/3 of US wages for what is, as far as HR can tell, the same job. They do the same job, and get a lot lower wages for it. When someone was bullied as a child, they are easier to bully as an adult. Stupid/evil/inept bosses love employees who they can abuse without pushback. Folks from cultures of oppression aren't going to report safety issues to safety folks. They aren't going to report managerial violations to those who police managers. They are non-reporting victims. The HR ghouls see them as "don't make waves" or "get along" and the hiring managers see them as "easy prey". In grad school there were prof's who wouldn't let overseas grad students get even a short break to attend their own mothers funeral, and those guys got away with it. That is "liberal academia" and not the underbelly of corporate/industrial America. Think about what that means for bully-bosses in the workplace. It isn't going to change unless the value of the commodity can be forced into a competitive market, where the price will go toward actual parity, and the rate of preference will go to parity with citizens. Until that, h1b is the lottery where the only way to lose is not to play. There is one and only one solution, and it is a lottery. If it becomes an auction, then the h1b prices will double or triple - that is to day they will go up to parity for US wages for the same job.
OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago
the entire point of the H1B program is to outsource labor costs for a 1/3rd of the price
chenpengcheng 8y ago
Remove the caps. Let us change job easily. Give green cardright away. Make immigration suck less.
john4534243 8y ago
There is another loop hole other than H1B. Do your post graduate in the US and you will get hired easily. Its common among indians who can afford post graduate study in US.
Friedduck 8y ago
I don’t know if my experience in the mid-2000s is unique. A company I worked for laid off thousands of American workers and replaced them with H-1B and off-shore labor. Many (most?) of the H-1B workers were utterly unqualified. Right out of school, inexperienced, and some just hopeless. The impact beyond the obvious was anyone pursuing a tech career at that company found alternate work. The lesson was not lost. They learned that they could be replaced at any time by much cheaper global labor. So I wonder if some of the scarcity in the tech labor market isn’t due to this perception.

391 points by hanging 8y ago

Slightly off-topic, but there's something about H-1B abuse that the vast majority of people in the SV bubble don't realize. H-1B appears to hurt the poor. No, I'm not talking about struggling coders in India who dream of a life in Seattle. I'm talking about the really hand-to-mouth poor who apparently rely on seasonal H-1B visas to feed their families. For example, there was a report on Radio New Zealand this week about how dirt-poor Samoans can't get H-1B's to go to American Samoa to work in its last fish cannery because all of the American visas have been slurped up by the mainland tech industry. I know H-1B's are supposed to be for specialists, and according to Wikipedia: "A specialty occupation requires the application of specialized knowledge and a bachelor's degree or the equivalent of work experience." But I suspect that the "specialist" requirement is lifted for U.S. territories so they can get the workers they need. There are a great number of mainland labor rules that are relaxed, voided, or otherwise not valid in U.S. territories, so I wonder if this is one of them. Anyway, something to ponder.

hanging 8y ago
Agriculture (including aquaculture) work visas are a different category: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-2A_visa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-2A_visa
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
netsa 8y ago
So, How do you think of the billionaire?

wahjiwah 8y ago

Good time to plug this utility, swiss army knife for websockets: https://github.com/vi/websocat https://github.com/vi/websocat Author is extremely nice as well.

duskwuff 8y ago
I think you meant to post this on another thread, like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19000109 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19000109
- wahjiwah 8y ago
  Oh yeah.. thanks a lot my man
  - nixgeek 8y ago
    That’s not very nice. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=madar%20chod https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=madar%20chod https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=laude%20ke%20bal https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=laude%20ke%2...

mykowebhn 8y ago

Granted that H-1B visas should ostensibly be filled only for positions where it is difficult to find qualified American citizens or permanent residents, but in all honesty are the Department of Labor's allegations really that surprising? In the Bay Area, qualified job candidates are so scarce that it's quite common for citizens/permanent-residents to change jobs frequently. H1-B candidates are attractive for companies because it is harder for them to switch jobs. Companies can lock these employees for longer, and they can pay them less. Rather than going after the companies, shouldn't we be focusing on fixing the H-1B visa process instead? It almost seems like the government has set up a broken process for companies to take advantage of, and instead of fixing things, they blame the companies.

wuxb 8y ago
So an obvious solution would be allowing H1B holders to freely change jobs, even with gaps. Accordingly, the employers won't be able to lock the visa holders. Then there will be fair competition that makes sense. But anyway the big companies don't want to lose the "lock" so it would be hard to change.
- untog 8y ago
  Clarification in case any H1B holders are reading: you absolutely can transfer your H1B visa, though I think a break of more than 30 days would be a violation. The trick is when you H1B employer also offers to sponsor your green card. That isn't transferrable, and if you're from certain countries (like India) it can take up to ten years to get one.
  - whack 8y ago
    > "The trick is when you H1B employer also offers to sponsor your green card. That isn't transferrable" Yes but the priority date itself is transferable. This allows you to job hop as many times as you want, without losing your place in line. If you have to wait 10 years for your green card, you might as well take advantage of this option and only worry about your green card 9 years down the road.

wickrom 8y ago

With the recent articles doing rounds about the feds Looking into Oracle paying minorities and women less, this seems part of the scheme to basically get lower wage workers under H1B who they know will work like minions for long hours because their visas are tied to the job. It's a pretty standard way of gaming the H1B. Oracle is no different.

kolbe 8y ago

Disparate outcomes do not imply disparate treatment. Maybe the real reason that Oracle favored hiring Asian students is that they are more talented than domestic alternatives?

bdcravens 8y ago
In order to not abuse the h1b visa, they would have had to establish that there is no available local talent per an objective standard.

h1bslave 8y ago

I’ve been on h1b for over 7 years now , with no chance of getting a green card because I was born in India , all my immigrant friends who started working at the same time have already gotten their green cards - they all have the option to quit their jobs if they feel like they are being underpaid or exploited. But not me , I’m looking at 70 years before I get my freedom , until then I have to tolerate the indentured servitude. As long as the law allows it Corporations will take advantage of it . The system is broken . And for those of you who feel like I should “go back to where you came from “ sorry , I worked hard to get here , I played by the rule , I pay my taxes . I came here because this is the land of the free, just like your ancestors

bdcravens 8y ago
Slavery or indentured servitude implies you have no choice. You do.
- chottocharaii 8y ago
  Easy for you to say. You're probably not bonded to your employer like the OP. Get your head out of the sand.
  - bdcravens 8y ago
    If you're allowed to quit and go to another country, whether your country of origin or another country, that's a choice.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > You're probably not bonded to your employer like the OP. No one gets an H-1B involuntarily, and it would be an unusual circumstance where someone who had one was not free to leave. That said, I support liberating everyone bound by the H-1B by eliminating the visa category entirely.
  - AmericanChopper 8y ago
    They’re obviously getting what they want, a higher wage and living in America. If all they wanted was higher wages and a better standard of living, there’s any number of other countries, that have more relaxed immigration policies, they could have moved to. If they can get a job and a visa in the US, they’re obviously good enough.

known 8y ago

Last year it was discussed in https://qz.com/889524/the-us-says-oracle-is-encouraging-indians-to-hire-others-indians-and-its-killing-diversity/ https://qz.com/889524/the-us-says-oracle-is-encouraging-indi...

objektif 8y ago

I am sure locking in employees played a part in their decision. However, I have to point out that foreign graduates, especially from China are preferred in my profession due to their strong technical background. Its kind of how things evolved over time. So a similiar thing might be going on here.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

synaesthesisx 8y ago

Makes sense - they can guarantee employee loyalty by locking them down, and can probably pay them less too. It's no wonder Oracle abused this.

jorblumesea 8y ago

It's really not hard to see why, H1B have none of the bargaining power and all of the risk. Especially for a shady company like oracle it's just pure exploitation going on here.

1024core 8y ago

A simple solution to the H1B "cheap workers" problem is to sort applications by (descending) order of salary, and pick the top 65K as authorized by Congress.

enraged_camel 8y ago
And have basically all H1Bs go to Silicon Valley/Seattle/NYC tech companies? (You really should think things through before suggesting them as solutions, especially when the problems are complex.)
- loosescrews 8y ago
  Why can't companies in other locations pay competitively?
  - raz32dust 8y ago
    They pay competitively for their location. Pay is determined by demand and supply. If you sort H1Bs by pay, the places with highest cost of living will get all of the H1Bs. Perhaps a better idea is to do the same thing, but on pay that is normalized against a cost of living index.
    - maksimum 8y ago
      I don't think CoL indeces are relevant because salaries are based on how much value a developer brings to the business. Suppose you have two jobs: $140k in NYC, and $100k in Dallas. If only one company can get an H1B, IMO it should clearly be the NYC company. The NYC job will yield higher personal income federal income taxes. Also the NYC job is delivering at least $40k more value to the business than the Dallas job. This additional value again translates to higher corporate federal income tax. I'm not sure what benefit the federal government has by favoring the $100k job, even though normalized for CoL ($1.5 NYC=$1 Dallas according to one index) the Dallas job is "higher paying".
      - 8y ago

temp4358 8y ago

There is so much hate for the H1-B visa, but let me play devil's advocate. US "lax" (not really) immigration policy improves the image of America/American companies abroad. If US starts tightening immigration laws, US companies will start outsourcing their work (which they have already started). If they start to clamp down on outsourcing, countries like India have no incentive to let US to freely use their market. They would simply follow china's method and restrict entry to all foreign players. If US follows US first policy in everything, the third-world already suspicious of western countries will only see this as west's new imperial ambitions. Software is easy to replicate, specially by people which have already worked in Google, Facebook, etc. People in third world already have expertise to set up the competition to US companies. All that is stopping them is competition from US companies. US being the becon of freedom and hope the world is a net good for US and US businesses according to me.

diogenescynic 8y ago
That’s a fake threat. If they could outsource the work and pay less they already would. They aren’t keeping the jobs in America for their health... Go do it then.
- temp4358 8y ago
  Currently Top Talent in those countries want to move abroad to earn more and have a better standard of living. If they see no way out, they have stay in their countries and then US companies will have access to top talent for cheaper. For example, US is the best destination for doing a Ph.D. currently and ph.D. students then work in US. If US stops them from working here, they will go back work and form competitors. China has already shown that this is achievable.
  - diogenescynic 8y ago
    That might be better for the world. Maybe if everyone wasn’t moving to America, they’d make their own countries better... spread the love out. I’d be fine with a few less tech companies. Life would go on. I care more about the impact on American workers and as I’ve said, bringing in severely underpaid workers that they can abuse isn’t really going to help. Yeah, China is really somewhere people are desperate to get into... the air and freedom! /yawn...

m0zg 8y ago

Posted this elsewhere, but as a former H1B here's what should be done to end abuse: 1. Award a fixed pool of H1Bs to qualified applicants with the highest wage in the offer (and monitor that this wage is in fact being paid). This should be easy to pass if your representatives in congress are in fact _your_ representatives. The president will sign this immediately, since he was the one who proposed it in the first place. 2. Establish at least 6 month grace period if the H1B person leaves the sponsoring company to go work elsewhere. Currently if you leave (or are laid off/fired) you have to GTFO within 2 weeks, so people endure abuse and low wages for years until they get a green card. There. There's your solution. No need to do anything else, guaranteed to work. It should not be possible to hire foreign workers into entry level positions at all.

an_cap 8y ago
Sort of like "it should not be possible to hire black workers into entry level positions at all"?
- diogenescynic 8y ago
  This is a very dumb straw man attack. Stop it.
  - an_cap 8y ago
    How so? I claim that severe discrimination (like banning a group of people from entry level positions) based on circumstances of birth is ethically dubious. I think that's why we don't entertain the idea of banning people from entry level work because they were born to black parents. Why doesn't it generalize to being born to Indian parents?
    - diogenescynic 8y ago
      Because it’s intellecually dishonest and an argument based on the fallacy of appeal to extremes. There is obviously a difference between citizenship and race... the entire purpose of a government is to service its citizens. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a Star Trek utopia where there is free movement of all people. If one country were to allow this first, they’d just be harming themselves, which would be against the interests of its citizens. You look out for your own citizens first. That’s just a government fundamental.

d--b 8y ago

What's everyone so angry about? Having been through H1B, I think the system is designed fairly well. It's extremely hard to figure out whether a particular hire required a foreign worker. And, in doubt, the US in general always sides with what's easier for companies. So, in doubt, immigration will consider that there is more harm done if a company doesn't get the worker they need than if a US citizen's job is taken by a foreigner. And probably even more so in tech, where jobs are allegedly plenty. As with everything some companies will exploit it, which is forbidden, but then they get outed, and then they get sanctions, and abuse is reduced...

raz32dust 8y ago
"then they get sanctions, and abuse is reduced.." Sure, but how about fixing the deeper issues that caused the problem? I agree H1B works well, but I also think it can be made better. Both statements can be true.
baby 8y ago
Having been through H1B the system is not designed fairly. I tried twice and failed the lottery. So I had to go through a green card process that took a year and a half. Such a waste of time and a lot of moving around countries.

zachguo 8y ago

Maybe it's my own sample bias. Aren't graduates in top CS schools largely international students?

likeabbas 8y ago
You may be correct, but possibly for the wrong reasons that you are are inferring. The University of California lost a lawsuit in which they were accused of preferring international students to in-state and out-of-state students because the international students could afford the higher tuitions. UC has several of the top CS schools in the nation. It's possible that the we could could replace many of those accepted with US students, but it would take a major audit of the university systems to find out.

ozfive 8y ago

Looks like Oracle blew the party for the rest of the big companies that are most likely doing the same. Party foul Larry Ellingson.

baybal2 8y ago

The problem of the system is that US left close to nothing to regular work visas. The premise that only "high end" companies are deserving to be let hiring cheap workforce is wrong. In reality, it seemed to me, that pretty much any "white collar" job was passing H1B invariably of the salary, but even very high skill requirement "blue collar" jobs were denied by default. This is my experience from the time one of my past employers tried to make a final assembly plant for electronics in Washington state. It was very hard to find well educated assembly line workers. The company ended hiring fresh master degrees grads to simply do assembly from knockdown kits for 70k, but even they were not up to the task. That business was scrapped in the end.

asenna 8y ago

Can't believe this is only recently getting attention. It's not just Oracle, it's common knowledge how the same thing has been happening in several large corps. I know from the inside because Deloitte came in and scooped up our entire foreign students batch on graduating (Pennsylvania). Same thing happened the next year as well. Many of my friends still work there. I remember there was a fire drill that took place in their campus in Harrisburg, and my friend sent me a pic he took when the entire campus was out - You could've mistaken it for a campus in Bangalore or Pune. There's definitely some preference they're giving to foreign nationals (specially from India). Please note, I'm an Indian national myself working in the US.

sonnyblarney 8y ago
It's had 'attention' for a while - it's just a very hard thing to prove. Moreover, the investigation has a political sensitivity that could create bad headlines, so it needs the right environment to happen.

Thousionced1989 8y ago

As a foreigner with an American degree, I find this news unsurprising. In fact, I had wondered why some companies were seemingly reluctant to fill in the H1B paperwork, considering these workers are probably more loyal than their citizen / permanent resident counterparts. As for me, the lack of proper immigration avenues in practice was one of the reasons leading me out of the country, this despite the higher salaries, having adopted the “American way of life” during my stay, and my many friends in the country. I found it bizarre, for lack of a better word, that a country would welcome people for 4 or more years of highly specialised education and training (F1, J1) and yet so few alternatives would be offered later for working (basically, the H1B programme, and the O programme, the latter not being a path to permanent residence). I believe the current system mostly benefits the employer by making it difficult to switch jobs, and that this causes a real depression in salaries or working conditions. As an aside, and an example of this depression, during my stay I was only allowed to work campus jobs(1). Even though my work was voluntary (i.e., I did not _need_ to work to remain in the country), I wanted to because I thought it would help me gain experience and I found a technically relevant position. But, because I had to work on campus, I was making significantly less than I would have made outside. Edited: formatting (1) There are some exceptions to this for things like internships, unforeseen financial hardship, etc.

sgjohnson 8y ago

You could fix all of the problems with the US immigration system by abolishing the welfare state and opening up the borders. I love America and I’d move there in an instant if I’d get a chance, but I’ve got too much dignity to go thru the US immigration system and put myself in a limbo for many years. Maybe when I’ll qualify for EB2 NIW.

jhwang5 8y ago
For most people, green card process takes about 2 years, not many years.

petilon 8y ago

America is the most powerful nation in the world today not because it has the most number of people, but because it has the best and the brightest, gathered from around the world. There are 4x as many geniuses in China as in the US. This is not because they are superior genetically. This is simply because the population of China is 4x that of USA. If one in 1,000,000 people are geniuses, then China must have 4x more geniuses than the US. That's a threat to the US. If our economy is to remain strong and if we are to remain a superpower we should invite the smartest of the Chinese to immigrate to the US. Abuse of H1B must be stopped. It is not intended as a mechanism for undercutting American workers. But the baby should not be thrown out with the bathwater. We should expand the H1B system and make it easier for immigrants to become citizens, while at the same time preventing abuse.

jazzyk 8y ago
Legal and controlled immigration is absolutely beneficial for the US overall. But targeting specific industries is unfair - the software industry has been the main target, lowering the income levels respective to other, protected professions (physicians, etc.), or business executives. Since people in the trades like plumbers or electricians do not fall under the umbrella of "importing the best & brightest", their hourly rates have been going up steadily (for self-employed people).
- flowerlad 8y ago
  >software industry has been the main target, lowering the income levels respective to other, protected professions I don’t see software engineers suffering. Starting salary in FAANG conpanies is $120K to $250K. That’s better than doctors when you factor in years of education.
  - jazzyk 8y ago
    Perhaps, but outside of the FAANG bubble, income levels have been stagnating for quite some time (if you adjust for inflation)
  - newshorts 8y ago

syntaxing 8y ago

This super prevalent in manufacturing related jobs too. It's funny how the rhetoric is to save our manufacturing nowadays when we give a crap ton of IP to countries like India with the process. The sad part is, I've seen a lot of unqualified people fill up these H-1B positions and then we'll have to train them. By the time they can start doing some real work from us training, their visa coincidentally runs out and this process repeats. We literally pay relatively high wage to train India's engineers. Yet managers turn a blind eye because it helps them balance their numbers.

testrr95 8y ago

I will tell you what they do in India In 2015, I got a call from Oracle India and interviews were arranged and I got hired into Oracle India. It was my first job change. Before to that, I used to work as a contractor for one of the US companies via one of the services company in India. Oracle offered me way less than what they are offering to other engineers in the same BU, for the same value generated. Reason Oracle told me that, since I am coming from a lower salary band, Oracle is still giving a reasonable high pay hike. I argued back IN WRITING that still it is way less than ( lesser than 1/3) of Oracle generally pays. Oracle said to me, Ok, we will raise your salary in the first pay review which happens. I asked clearly and concisely, what they mean by review, they said you will be in the band. I left Oracle in 2018. They never met their promise. Few of my financial aspirations were burned down, trauma different. They = [ recruiter, director, vp, hr, ceo's office, legal ] During all the time at Oracle, I knocked many doors, all of them simply said "Oracle never committed in writing, a phone call means there is a miscommunication ", hence I do not stand a case. It is not Indian Director which simply reneged from the bargain, it was the US director, US legal team, which simply reneged. Escalating to Safra's office also did not help. Oracle is full with corrupt directors who simply trick Oracle's own rules to cheat the potential hires and trick them to get a lower paying offer. This was done my director of SW dev in US but I was an India employee.

flowerlad 8y ago
If you accepted a job offer based on verbal promises as opposed to written then you only have yourself to blame. Learn your lesson and move on.
- xaybey 8y ago
  Why are you blaming the victim? Also, have you ever succeeded in getting clauses added to a megacorp's written offer?
- testrr95 8y ago
  I told you Sir, It was my first job change. I did not knew the tricks of the trade. Yes, I have myself to blame because I trusted the people involved in hiring from one of the top 5 tech companies in the world. Id did not occur to me that I am being played upon. However, If you had noticed, I mentioned I argued with hiring team [ PM, director, recruiter] IN WRITING BEFORE JOINING THE COMPANY. I still have those emails. As a response to those they used to call on phone, NOT reply in writing. It was evident to me that they are calling back because they have read the emails. I forgot to take the same thing in writing, because I trusted them. So, Yes I joined them because of verbal promises, but the emails do exist still, in my mailbox, where I have asked them in band pay, before joining. Initially when I approached the company's authorities they said " I am making this stuff up", but when I showed them emails from my mailbox, they switched to "since you do not have replies, ... .. .. you do not stand a case"

cptskippy 8y ago

Top teir software companies might claim the H-1B program allows them to hire the best and brightest from around the world, but that's not how everyone else uses the program. It allows consulting/contracting firms to hire low wage tech workers who are desperate to stay in the US and lock them into a form of indentured servitude because the road to a green card or citizenship is now a decade long journey and changing your job effectively restarts that journey.

drawkbox 8y ago
> Top tier software companies might claim the H-1B program allows them to hire the best and brightest from around the world, but that's not how everyone else uses the program. I am fine with immigration as it is a feature of a good system which people want to join, the US should attract the best and people looking to contribute, but it is obvious the H-1B system is rigged and bad for pretty much all but large companies in many cases. I have known many H-1Bs and I feel bad for their situation when they want to leave a company or feel locked in. The moment H-1Bs can work at other companies other than the sponsor, all that becomes more market priced via competition and will improve pay and discourage the H-1B abusers just looking for low wage ownership of workers. If companies REALLY wanted to hire the best and brightest from around the US and the world, remote development would be bigger and more widespread to the US and around the world. But as with most things, companies use it to own people rather than compete fairly or pay market rates. Remote development can be a cost savings and make companies more robust to employee/worker life changes over time rather than need employees to live near the company. Companies that abuse H-1Bs would rather have employees on site that they can lock into lower wages and control more. There is also the O visa that would really mean they want to hire the best from around the world [1][2]. But ultimately companies that abuse H-1B just want to lower wages and lock in their workers. Cringely in 2012 wrote this: > H-1B isn’t the only way for foreigners to work in America. They can work to some extent on student visas and, in fact, many student visas are eventually converted to H-1B for those who have a job and want to stay but maybe not immigrate. > There is a misconception about the H-1B program that it was designed to allow companies to import workers with unique talents. There has long been a visa program for exactly that purpose. The O (for outstanding) visa program is for importing geniuses and nothing else. Interestingly enough, the O visa program has no quotas. So when Bill Gates complained about not being able to import enough top technical people for Microsoft, he wasn’t talking about geniuses, just normal coders. > I don’t want to pick on just Microsoft here, but I happen to know the company well and have written over the years about its technical recruiting procedures. Microsoft has a rigorous recruitment and vetting process. So does Google, Apple — you name the company. All of these companies will take as many of O visa candidates as they can get, but there just aren’t that many who qualify, which is why quotas aren’t required. > So when Microsoft — or Boeing, for that matter — says a limitation on H-1B visas is keeping them from getting top talent, they don’t mean it in the way that they imply. If a prospective employee is really top talent — the kind of engineer who can truly do things others simply can’t — there isn’t much keeping the company from hiring that person under the O visa program. > H-1B visas are about journeyman techies and nothing else. Oracle though, will literally do anything to save a penny and the last thing on Oracle's list is developer pay and developer usability/user experience. Oracle tools and systems are a nightmare and Oracle is only sold in on the golf courses from top down. Oracle is still in legacy licensing land. Oracle sees developers as nothing but resources to extract value from then discard. Oracle == IBM == SAP and all those are not developer or employee/contractor/worker friendly systems and all of them do the same gaming of H-1B systems just like the TCS, Infosys and Cognizant type companies of the world. [1] https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-workers/o-1-visa-individuals-extraordinary-ability-or-achievement https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-worker... [2] https://www.cringely.com/2012/10/23/what-americans-dont-know-about-h-1b-visas-could-hurt-us-all/ https://www.cringely.com/2012/10/23/what-americans-dont-know...

oracle_anon_29 8y ago

Hiring manager at Oracle here- Oracle is very balkanized, different business units have different practices and policies, so I can only speak (unofficially) about the one I am part of. Whenever I have openings for junior positions, I get flooded with resumes from men and women with degress at universities in China and India, and only a very small fraction from people educated entirely in the US. My personal speculation is that younger software engineers in the US would rather not work at a company that is perceived to be a dinosaur, and is definitely not as sexy as other FAANGs or startups. People who want to be H1-B sponsored have fewer options, and I think Oracle's name isn't as tainted in China or India. Also, for the (unofficial) record, the women and those with H1-B visas (incl women with H1-B visas) on my team are paid the same as US born men on my team with similar experience.

tagrun 8y ago
Oracle has deeper problems than just being a dinosaur.

newshorts 8y ago

Well of course. Is anyone surprised by visa abuse? It’s clear that tech companies are all for the program, why do you think that is? Equality?

aiisahik 8y ago

I think there are two cures for this issue: 1. Expose the pay disparity at Oracle and other companies so candidates know ahead of time what they are getting themselves into. 2. Make it easier for any H1B employee to get a job at a different company if they have the ability and desire. I am on this visa called the E-3 which is almost identical to the H1B except: - No annual cap - No 6 year limit - Only available to Australian nationals I have never had any trouble finding a tech job despite being an asian foreigner. My pay has varied from 60k - 180k and the companies i've worked at have varied from multi-nationals to 3 person startup. High Minimum salaries would disadvantage startups and companies in smaller cities. Here's how to fix the h1B - No hard annual cap - No 6 year limit - For any company that hires more than 10 H1B hires, the average salary of h1b employees should not be lower than the average salary of non-h1b employees. - Additionally, for large companies (say > 10,000 employees) the average salary of h1b employees of a certain level of seniority should not be lower than the average salary of non-h1b employees of that same seniority. This will give companies more certainty that a potential H1B hire would be approved, providing H1B candidates more job mobility. It would also prevent larger companies from abusing this system.

En_gr_Student 8y ago

Duh! It is 1/3 the cost (bullshit aside) for someone from a culture of hunger, hard work, desperation, and oppression. That makes them easy to work very hard, unlikely for them to push back, and so they have superior output for 1/3 the price. There is no book-cooking megacorp in the US that doesn't prefer H1b to citizens with the same qualifications. Not one. A "competitive" work schedule in China is 9-9-6, or 9am to 9pm for 6 days a week. That means "normal" is a 72 hour work-week plus commute. A 40-hour work week, is comparatively cake. The 72 hour work-week is 80% increase over a 40 hour work-week. The HR ghouls say imagine salaried employees being glad to work 80% more hours, including nights or weekend hours, for the same pay: amazing; sold! The book-cooking for h1b is intense, but after talking personally with a dozen or so folks, they really do only take home about 1/3 to 1/2 what their peers do. There is bs about job duties, titles, responsibilities, but that is just folks trying to pay the lowest price for a commodity worker. I've seen several fortune 100 companies say they prefer "low cost geo's" as much as h1b so that gives a second population with similar pricing. It is open knowledge that engineers in Malaysia, India, or Costa Rica are paid 1/3 of US wages for what is, as far as HR can tell, the same job. They do the same job, and get a lot lower wages for it. When someone was bullied as a child, they are easier to bully as an adult. Stupid/evil/inept bosses love employees who they can abuse without pushback. Folks from cultures of oppression aren't going to report safety issues to safety folks. They aren't going to report managerial violations to those who police managers. They are non-reporting victims. The HR ghouls see them as "don't make waves" or "get along" and the hiring managers see them as "easy prey". In grad school there were prof's who wouldn't let overseas grad students get even a short break to attend their own mothers funeral, and those guys got away with it. That is "liberal academia" and not the underbelly of corporate/industrial America. Think about what that means for bully-bosses in the workplace. It isn't going to change unless the value of the commodity can be forced into a competitive market, where the price will go toward actual parity, and the rate of preference will go to parity with citizens. Until that, h1b is the lottery where the only way to lose is not to play. There is one and only one solution, and it is a lottery. If it becomes an auction, then the h1b prices will double or triple - that is to day they will go up to parity for US wages for the same job.

OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago

the entire point of the H1B program is to outsource labor costs for a 1/3rd of the price

chenpengcheng 8y ago

Remove the caps. Let us change job easily. Give green cardright away. Make immigration suck less.

john4534243 8y ago

There is another loop hole other than H1B. Do your post graduate in the US and you will get hired easily. Its common among indians who can afford post graduate study in US.

Friedduck 8y ago

I don’t know if my experience in the mid-2000s is unique. A company I worked for laid off thousands of American workers and replaced them with H-1B and off-shore labor. Many (most?) of the H-1B workers were utterly unqualified. Right out of school, inexperienced, and some just hopeless. The impact beyond the obvious was anyone pursuing a tech career at that company found alternate work. The lesson was not lost. They learned that they could be replaced at any time by much cheaper global labor. So I wonder if some of the scarcity in the tech labor market isn’t due to this perception.