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that doesn't change the economics at all. the money paid to the worker through a middle-man has no bearing on the labor market as seen by the company and their

by oralty 7y ago

that doesn't change the economics at all. the money paid to the worker through a middle-man has no bearing on the labor market as seen by the company and their bottom-line. You could send your paycheck into the incinerator every month... it makes no difference. as you say the $80k is the rate to avoid hiring a US employee. maybe that's lower than what it would be with no h1-b, but then what are these displaced american workers doing for more than $80k?

alfromspace 7y ago
>what are these displaced american workers doing for more than $80k? Being unemployed and making 0k. Avoiding hiring US employees for over $80k doesn't mean they're hiring those who accept below $80k. They're not being considered for those jobs at all in the first place. I assure you there are legions of very smart lawyers who work very hard on the process for employers - I would know, I've prepared the petitions, and the sham job postings with intentionally obscure and unnecessary skill requirements placed in print newspapers when the H-1B worker was our client and already chosen for the job ahead of time. There is often no intention to consider American workers. There are entire IT departments at companies like Disney, for instance, that are de-facto off limits to American workers. H-1B workers are very attractive to employers not just for the low wages, but also for the fact that they're dependent on the particular company sponsoring them and will often stick around forever and endure the shitty wages, hours, and work environment.
- oralty 7y ago
  The lack of perspective and basic reasoning on this is staggering. > shitty wages, hours, and work environment. A "shitty" wage is better than being unemployed and making 0k. Perhaps not if we were talking about at or near minimum wage. But we're not. We're talking nearly double the median income of the location in question and well beyond the poverty line. If there were really this untapped market of native talent to replace H1-B imports, that are on average making $80k (actually $100k for tech), then that immense pool of workers can settle for $70k, $60k, $50k, $40k, $30k... and why wouldn't these companies take them at some low price between $100k and minimum wage? Why would these companies insist on hiring H1-Bs at a $100k a head if there was this large population of native, qualified, unemployed workers making $0 that would be lucky to get a measly $40k (to throw a number on it). "Legions of smart lawyers" also sounds expensive. You don't need a legion of smart lawyers to hire from this large, unemployed, qualified, bonafide American talent pool that you insist exists. The mental gymnastics H1-B paranoiacs go through does not fail to impress. During the first dot-com bust and post-recession at least it had a whiff of plausibility. But tech employment is at all time highs, it's beyond ludicrous. And another thing that doesn't add up, the average for non H1-Bs in that pdf was close to $200k. And the unemployment rate in Texas is lower than the national average which is already low. In tech heavy cities like Austin it is even lower (near 2%!). So I have seen no strong evidence that H1-Bs are pushing American tech workers out of the middle class, the opposite in fact. If you really know someone in tech that is unemployed and making nothing, then either they are not qualified or they have some other limitation making them unemployable. There are plenty of job listings at all levels across the US that are not open to H1-B sponsorship and some that are open just to US citizens (and do not require an existing clearance). Scapegoating H1-B programs in this economy isn't even offensive, it's just sad.
  - alfromspace 7y ago
    I'm staggered that you accuse me of lack of perspective and basic reasoning, then posted this. Why pretend as if I wasn't talking about a shitty wage relative to the market rate of the skills in question? Most tech workers wouldn't take a $40k job because they realize that's a gross undervaluing of their skillsets. It's a much smarter decision to continue applying and hope somebody recognizes your ability and pays you what your labor is worth, rather than tie up your schedule and possibly relocate to work the low-paying job. You can ask these bad-faith questions all you want, and they might be helpful for confusing and misleading people online, but I assure you, employers have thought about them more than you, and have long since found their answer. It seems to me that you're in outright denial about companies getting cheaper labor through the H-1B system. Instead of asking these "if companies really want to save money, why don't they just x" questions, I'd ask you why Disney DID lay off hundreds of IT workers at a time and had them train their H-1B replacements who often lacked the same skill level as their predecessors if it wasn't a significant cost savings? These aren't allegations, they're reality. What was found in court wasn't that Disney isn't guilty of replacing workers, it's that they did do it and it's perfectly legal! Wages have dropped, many Americans have switched to other professions they wouldn't have otherwise, and profits for IT firms have gone through the roof due to the H-1B program. Try reading rather than theorizing all by yourself. https://www.nber.org/chapters/c13842.pdf https://www.nber.org/chapters/c13842.pdf And go tell the Disney workers they didn't really lose their jobs. I don't normally post opinion pieces, but this is very devastating and well-researched: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/07/27/bill-gates-tech-worker-wages-reforms-employment-column/13243305/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/07/27/bill-gates... Business executives and politicians endlessly complain that there is a "shortage" of qualified Americans and that the U.S. must admit more high-skilled guest workers to fill jobs in STEM fields: science, technology, engineering and math. This claim is echoed by everyone from President Obama and Rupert Murdoch to Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. Yet within the past month, two odd things occurred: Census reported that only one in four STEM degree holders is in a STEM job, and Microsoft announced plans to downsize its workforce by 18,000 jobs. Even so, the House is considering legislation that, like the Senate immigration bill before it, would increase to unprecedented levels the supply of high-skill guest workers and automatic green cards to foreign STEM students. As longtime researchers of the STEM workforce and immigration who have separately done in-depth analyses on these issues, and having no self-interest in the outcomes of the legislative debate, we feel compelled to report that none of us has been able to find any credible evidence to support the IT industry's assertions of labor shortages. ... If a shortage did exist, wages would be rising as companies tried to attract scarce workers. Instead, legislation that expanded visas for IT personnel during the 1990s has kept average wages flat over the past 16 years. Indeed, guest workers have become the predominant source of new hires in these fields.
- HillaryBriss 7y ago
  > There are entire IT departments at companies like Disney, for instance, that are de-facto off limits to American workers. what I hear from people who work or used to work in IT at Hollywood media companies is that Disney is not alone in that

by oralty 7y ago

alfromspace 7y ago

>what are these displaced american workers doing for more than $80k? Being unemployed and making 0k. Avoiding hiring US employees for over $80k doesn't mean they're hiring those who accept below $80k. They're not being considered for those jobs at all in the first place. I assure you there are legions of very smart lawyers who work very hard on the process for employers - I would know, I've prepared the petitions, and the sham job postings with intentionally obscure and unnecessary skill requirements placed in print newspapers when the H-1B worker was our client and already chosen for the job ahead of time. There is often no intention to consider American workers. There are entire IT departments at companies like Disney, for instance, that are de-facto off limits to American workers. H-1B workers are very attractive to employers not just for the low wages, but also for the fact that they're dependent on the particular company sponsoring them and will often stick around forever and endure the shitty wages, hours, and work environment.

oralty 7y ago
The lack of perspective and basic reasoning on this is staggering. > shitty wages, hours, and work environment. A "shitty" wage is better than being unemployed and making 0k. Perhaps not if we were talking about at or near minimum wage. But we're not. We're talking nearly double the median income of the location in question and well beyond the poverty line. If there were really this untapped market of native talent to replace H1-B imports, that are on average making $80k (actually $100k for tech), then that immense pool of workers can settle for $70k, $60k, $50k, $40k, $30k... and why wouldn't these companies take them at some low price between $100k and minimum wage? Why would these companies insist on hiring H1-Bs at a $100k a head if there was this large population of native, qualified, unemployed workers making $0 that would be lucky to get a measly $40k (to throw a number on it). "Legions of smart lawyers" also sounds expensive. You don't need a legion of smart lawyers to hire from this large, unemployed, qualified, bonafide American talent pool that you insist exists. The mental gymnastics H1-B paranoiacs go through does not fail to impress. During the first dot-com bust and post-recession at least it had a whiff of plausibility. But tech employment is at all time highs, it's beyond ludicrous. And another thing that doesn't add up, the average for non H1-Bs in that pdf was close to $200k. And the unemployment rate in Texas is lower than the national average which is already low. In tech heavy cities like Austin it is even lower (near 2%!). So I have seen no strong evidence that H1-Bs are pushing American tech workers out of the middle class, the opposite in fact. If you really know someone in tech that is unemployed and making nothing, then either they are not qualified or they have some other limitation making them unemployable. There are plenty of job listings at all levels across the US that are not open to H1-B sponsorship and some that are open just to US citizens (and do not require an existing clearance). Scapegoating H1-B programs in this economy isn't even offensive, it's just sad.
- alfromspace 7y ago
  I'm staggered that you accuse me of lack of perspective and basic reasoning, then posted this. Why pretend as if I wasn't talking about a shitty wage relative to the market rate of the skills in question? Most tech workers wouldn't take a $40k job because they realize that's a gross undervaluing of their skillsets. It's a much smarter decision to continue applying and hope somebody recognizes your ability and pays you what your labor is worth, rather than tie up your schedule and possibly relocate to work the low-paying job. You can ask these bad-faith questions all you want, and they might be helpful for confusing and misleading people online, but I assure you, employers have thought about them more than you, and have long since found their answer. It seems to me that you're in outright denial about companies getting cheaper labor through the H-1B system. Instead of asking these "if companies really want to save money, why don't they just x" questions, I'd ask you why Disney DID lay off hundreds of IT workers at a time and had them train their H-1B replacements who often lacked the same skill level as their predecessors if it wasn't a significant cost savings? These aren't allegations, they're reality. What was found in court wasn't that Disney isn't guilty of replacing workers, it's that they did do it and it's perfectly legal! Wages have dropped, many Americans have switched to other professions they wouldn't have otherwise, and profits for IT firms have gone through the roof due to the H-1B program. Try reading rather than theorizing all by yourself. https://www.nber.org/chapters/c13842.pdf https://www.nber.org/chapters/c13842.pdf And go tell the Disney workers they didn't really lose their jobs. I don't normally post opinion pieces, but this is very devastating and well-researched: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/07/27/bill-gates-tech-worker-wages-reforms-employment-column/13243305/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/07/27/bill-gates... Business executives and politicians endlessly complain that there is a "shortage" of qualified Americans and that the U.S. must admit more high-skilled guest workers to fill jobs in STEM fields: science, technology, engineering and math. This claim is echoed by everyone from President Obama and Rupert Murdoch to Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. Yet within the past month, two odd things occurred: Census reported that only one in four STEM degree holders is in a STEM job, and Microsoft announced plans to downsize its workforce by 18,000 jobs. Even so, the House is considering legislation that, like the Senate immigration bill before it, would increase to unprecedented levels the supply of high-skill guest workers and automatic green cards to foreign STEM students. As longtime researchers of the STEM workforce and immigration who have separately done in-depth analyses on these issues, and having no self-interest in the outcomes of the legislative debate, we feel compelled to report that none of us has been able to find any credible evidence to support the IT industry's assertions of labor shortages. ... If a shortage did exist, wages would be rising as companies tried to attract scarce workers. Instead, legislation that expanded visas for IT personnel during the 1990s has kept average wages flat over the past 16 years. Indeed, guest workers have become the predominant source of new hires in these fields.
HillaryBriss 7y ago
> There are entire IT departments at companies like Disney, for instance, that are de-facto off limits to American workers. what I hear from people who work or used to work in IT at Hollywood media companies is that Disney is not alone in that