17 ms·

I'll give you that, but it seems like a much simpler solution would have just been improving the flexibility for an H1B worker to be allowed to work at any empl

I'll give you that, but it seems like a much simpler solution would have just been improving the flexibility for an H1B worker to be allowed to work at any employer for the term of their status. If an employer used an H1B in order to hire a foreign worker and then under pay them, the worker would just get another job that pays market rate, without the work status concern. Without the artificial control over the employee, H1B fraud, in this manner, wouldn't be worth it.

jzymbaluk 6y ago
This is right. The answer that's best for the economy is to allow more immigration, not less (especially skilled immigration). This move will just make it more dificult for the average company to sponsor H1B workers
- mc32 6y ago
  Why not make companies sponsor underprivileged kids who need the opportunity just as much but don’t get as much consideration?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - rbultje 6y ago
    Because educating underprivileged kids takes up to 20 years(school, college, potential post-grad studies), whereas the H1B worker can start immediately. H1B workers also typically have several years experience in the specific position where they're being considered. You need both.
    - mc32 6y ago
      Some H1Bs are talented, many, many copy paste. Yes it takes years to develop talent. It’s not easy. But these are the same companies who throw money to the wind for the purpose of empty virtue signaling and making some connected politicos happy. Why not devote that money to real causes that actually provide hope for kids rather than fill the pockets of people who know how to shake corps down?
  - bufferoverflow 6y ago
    Start a company and see how much it costs to sponsor some uneducated kid. You have good intentions towards the kids, but some communist intentions towards business owners. Let them decide how to spend their money. It's their money.
    - phonebanshee 6y ago
      Businesses should have the expectation that they can hire zero H1B workers. The suggestion is that they do something in exchange for that privilege.
      - bufferoverflow 6y ago
        Not being able to hire H1B workers is a privilege?
  - acituan 6y ago
    Because a good chunk of immigrants are underpriviliged kids of the world, when you compare the GDP levels of their home countries to the US. That and US doesn’t need to pay a dime for them developing their skills while getting to skim the cream of the crop.
    - mc32 6y ago
      It’s not the responsibility of the US govt, companies or people to underwrite other countries’ underprivileged people when we have our own we fail to care for well enough. We had a revolution and a civil war and unrest to fix our own failures. They can work to improve their own self determination. Look, Panama 25 years ago was a basket case. But now they are one of the better economies of the southern cone.
      - acituan 6y ago
        > we have our own we fail to care for well enough. Tell me more of this “our own”. 25% of the current US population is either 1st or 2nd gen immigrants arrived after immigration reform of 1965. They include the innovators, laborers, entrepreneurs, researchers that pay a lot for your “our own”. Can’t eat the cake and have it too.
        mc32 6y ago
        Yes first or second generation Americans (or long established Americans) don’t owe anyone else any responsibility. They only owe their descendants and fellow Americans here. They don’t owe non descendants elsewhere anything. It’s not like they can go back to their grandparents country and say hey, remember my grandparents, they were from here, I need help, help me out over here!
        kelnos 6y ago
        > It’s not like they can go back to their grandparents country and say hey, remember my grandparents, they were from here, I need help, help me out over here! That's not entirely true everywhere though. For example, I was born in the US, as were my parents and grandparents. My great-grandparents immigrated from Italy, and if I can gather the proper documentation, I'm eligible for Italian citizenship. If I ever get this done, then yes, I could indeed go back to my great-grandparents' country and do what you suggest is silly. I believe quite a few other countries also have policies like this.
- booleandilemma 6y ago
  Serious question: wouldn’t that be leaving less jobs open for Americans? As an American myself, I want to see my fellow Americans getting good jobs over people from other countries.
  - nrmitchi 6y ago
    I'm not an American, but I fully understand your point. Let me provide some background. If you already know this, my apologies. The process of getting an H1B is not the employer picking up the phone and ordering "1 H1B for delivery please". It involves applying at the beginning of April, being entered into a lottery, and you find out if you "won" (and your application is looked at) around the end of March. IIRC it is ~30% that your application is even looked at. At this point, you're out legal and processing fees (at least a couple thousand), and likely more if USCIS wants more evidence that the position qualifies, or that the individual being sponsored is eligible. As a side note, this is often why job descriptions have degree requirements and such, even if they will hire people without a degree. If a similar job at the same company doesn't "need" a degree, it will be much more difficult to get a work status for, even if the requirement bar is actually quite high. After this, assuming you actually get your status, you don't "get" it until the beginning of October. It's now cost your employer 6 months of lead time, a legal process, thousands of dollars, and uncertainty throughout to know if they even _could_ hire someone. It is not _easy_ to get an H1B. If you have 2 equally qualified people, who will make the same amount of money (which is what market rates are, see my initial suggestion above), then any reasonable employer is going to go with the candidate that they can hire the next week, rather than going through the H1B process.
    - claudeganon 6y ago
      > then any reasonable employer is going to go with the candidate that they can hire the next week, rather than going through the H1B process. Except in industries that have high turnover, like technology and fashion. There, H1Bs are abused by companies who don’t want to compete for talent at market rates and instead can lock in foreign workers. It makes more sense to hire the foreign worker specifically because they can prevent them from leaving. Illegal threats and intimidation of H1B workers are more common than you think.
- 4763382973 6y ago
  Low skill immigration hurts the poor. When economists talk about it having a neutral impact they are referring to 4-5 year time scales which is different from having zero consequences. Most poor people are not in a comfortable enough position for it to be ethical to tell them "just deal with it" without offering some kind of support.
- dartdartdart 6y ago
  I agree, American is built on the hard work of immigrants. We need to allow more immigrants, especially highly skilled workers
  - ajsnigrutin 6y ago
    Don't you have high unemployment at the moment? The right solution would be, to require high wages for H1B visas - if you're hiring a developer, the minimum wage for the H1B worker should be (eg.) 1.5x average developer wage in that area/state. This would solve companies firing local workers and replacing then with H1B workers, and still solve the problem of a company 'really needing' that one worker.
  - sudosteph 6y ago
    Maybe this comes off as too negative: but that "America is built on the hard work of immigrants" meme is an absolutely tone-deaf talking point. Many people hear hear that phrase, and immediately assume you are not arguing in good faith. Yes, immigrants built America. But so did enslaved people. So did natives. So did rebellious colonists of the British empire. Most of those people did not consider themselves immigrants - and nor do their descendants. Many immigrants have contributed amazing things to our nation, and they still do. But immigrants as a group are not a monolith. Many of the "highly skilled workers" that come over on H1Bs, are frankly - not highly skilled workers. Many are semi-skilled workers who are preferred over qualified Americans because they work for low wages and nearly never quit when abused. Americans have a right to say that we don't want our immigration system used as a tool to devalue working conditions - something which affects all of us. If we can solve this problem first, then we can talk about allowing in more immigrants. But it's absurd to say to reduce this to "immigrants = good = America". Not when we know the current system is abusive to both immigrants, and to the Americans who are part of the toxic workplaces that the H1B visa-mill paradigm has created.
    - kelnos 6y ago
      > Americans have a right to say that we don't want our immigration system used as a tool to devalue working conditions - something which affects all of us. Agreed! > If we can solve this problem first, then we can talk about allowing in more immigrants. This is really just not a hard problem at all to solve from a policy perspective. Political will has been a big problem; both parties have campaigned on comprehensive immigration reform, but nothing has materialized. Corporations with political influence love the status quo as it allows them to import workers for similar or lower wages who can't quit or do anything that would risk them losing their job without being sent home.
- xt00 6y ago
  An important dynamic very little talked about is the fact that in the majority of industrialized countries within a very short time populations will be decreasing. The battle of the future will be who can bring in a continual stream of people to keep the economy growing. So various countries will likely be battling for highly skilled workers in the future. So the challenge with more immigration is that you have to have some robust level of job creation and growth for the existing people in the country because otherwise you will have a combination of a broken system (people come to the country and get a job, but then their kids never get jobs, or they lose their job and cant get another one), or people will resent the people who are getting jobs, or people will come to the country and then end up leaving. So lots of bad outcomes if you don't actually set things up in a good way. Countries like Germany have a really strong system of vocational jobs, apprenticeships, career ladders, etc so there is a sense that the local people have some career trajectory, so somebody else having some level of success after arriving in their country is not bothering them. Of course that's not universally true, but definitely people will be resentful in a particular area if tons of new people show up and have tons of success while they struggle to get off square one..
TuringNYC 6y ago
The best thing to do would be to treat them like local workers -- increased pay AND increased flexibility. This will help retain the best overseas workers in the US. Even better would be a salary auction where US companies get to auction (higher and higher salaries for the best overseas workers.) The highest auction rates would fill the quota first. Overseas workers win bigtime. Companies seeking talent also win. Local workers win as well. Companies trying to underpay lose.
- nrmitchi 6y ago
  The problem with this is that H1Bs are not just for software engineering jobs. Other professions that qualify are things like accountants, or health care workers. If it was a straight up "who pays the most", then the software industry (mostly FAANG) would end up with 80k H1Bs per year, and other industries would still not be able to hire for jobs they can't fill locally.
  - TuringNYC 6y ago
    The H1B system is supposed to be for shortages. In a real economic shortage, prices are supposed to go up. If salaries are not going up, it is not a real shortage. I think there is a shortage, so I'm proposing increasing salaries. Accounting firms are not competing with tech firms necessarily, they are competing with the market for accountants (lots of accountants go into other fields because they cant find work at a suitable rate.) Their business model should not be to underpay workers, it should be to pay workers high enough to attract them and charge customers appropriately.
    - nrmitchi 6y ago
      > Accounting firms are not competing with tech firms necessarily, they are competing with the market for accountants Yes, I'm not disagreeing with this. However if you put ALL H1Bs in a single pool, and they go to the highest bidder across all industries, then yes, accounting firms are competing with tech firms.
      - 6y ago
jsnk 6y ago
This will elevate the income of low paying H1B workers, but also decrease the income of average paid American workers. If the market has an abundance of low paying workers, the market overall will pay workers lower.
- mrkstu 6y ago
  That is the opposite of what is likely. The elevation of wages for a H1B will mean the average wage in that category of work will increase, for everyone in that segment. What you suggest only makes sense if there is a fixed pot of money in the economy for all wages, which isn’t the case.
  - sjg007 6y ago
    The onus here would be on the us citizen to find out how much an equivalent H1B is being paid and asking for that much money. It's not guaranteed. You can do that though: https://h1bdata.info/index.php?year=2019 https://h1bdata.info/index.php?year=2019
commandlinefan 6y ago
> under pay them, the worker would just get another job that pays market rate Then the employer would go back to the H1B well, underpay another worker for 6 months until the worker bailed, go back to the well, lather, rinse, repeat.
- nrmitchi 6y ago
  Applications for an H1B open up in April, IIRC are accepted for a short period of time, and are not actually granted until October. That is 6 months, plus a couple thousand dollars minimum, to try to get an H1B status for someone you want to hire. If an employer is knowingly expecting the person they hire to bail after 6 months, they won't go through the process.
  - jb775 6y ago
    A couple thousand dollars per H1B hire-attempt is nothing to a big business, especially if they're eventually able to pay each H1B worker a fraction of what they'd need to pay an equally qualified American worker. Worst case scenario for the business: they lose a couple thousand dollars and a few months of employee development time, then still have the option to immediately hire the qualified American worker (or try the H1B route again). Best case scenario for the business: they get an overqualified employee at an extreme discount, since that employee is willing to accept less just to be in America. Since that employee knows it's hard to get H1B status, they're probably willing to work for a discount for many years. (therefore the business makes its money back from other failed H1B attempts, and they retain the employee at a discount)
- systematical 6y ago
  Six months of development is barely useful for most companies. It can take 3 months before a developer is reasonably efficient. Learning the codebase, culture, and business logic takes time in most cases.
dkhenry 6y ago
H1B employee's can work at any employer for the term of their status. The employee only has to transfer the visa to the new employer. I have done this for multiple employee's on H1B's its nothing like getting a new H1B for someone on OPT or getting a new H1B for an oversea's employee
- nrmitchi 6y ago
  They can, but it's still a process and not as easy as saying to a prospective employer "I have an H1B that is valid until October 2025, you don't have to do anything". Further, even though it's rarer, I believe that the transfer can still be denied if USCIS decides the new position doesn't qualify.
  - muzaffarpur 6y ago
    I think you're clueless sir.
DenisM 6y ago
I vaguely recall that the "indentured" h1b workers (as oppose to the "proper" h1b like I had) owe money back to home, and that debt becomes instantly due if they bail out. If they were super-stars they would be able to cover it from the Amazon signup bonus (and become indentured to Amazon - your signup bonus is due back if you bail out early). However superstars rarely end up in those jobs. We're looking at people with kinda average engineering skills, poor understanding of the American culture, no connections, and grim determination to grind their way out of their old life. Liberating the indentured h1b workers is not just flipping a legal switch, it's a cultural integration project.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > We're looking at people with kinda average engineering skills, poor understanding of the American culture, no connections, and grim determination to grind their way out of their old life. I don't think these are the kind of people getting an H1B visa, though. It's usually the super-talented people they hire on H1B.
  - madeofpalk 6y ago
    Usually?
  - yowlingcat 6y ago
    What makes you say that? From what I've seen, there's an entire cottage industry of cheap, expendably treated labor which forms the WITCH acronym which exists to abuse the H1B visa. I believe that is who they target.
    - howlgarnish 6y ago
      Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell? Weak Interaction Trap for Charged Particles? https://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/WITCH https://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/WITCH
      - ralph84 6y ago
temikus 6y ago
As a serial immigrant myself - hit the nail on the head there. There is the “pay debt back” (relo, visa/lawyer costs) issue in some companies but this is a very good start.
- nrmitchi 6y ago
  IIRC having an employee pay for costs associated with H1B and/or employer-sponsored Permanent Residency applications was flat-out prohibited. Is that wrong?
  - temikus 6y ago
    There are ways around it, like “returning a signing bonus” or “reimbursing relocation costs”. Those are usually subjective and super-vague as well, e.g. “approx. $$$” or “minimum of $$$” and they never give you an actual number so it’s extra scary for someone coming from a country where their current monthly wage could sustain them for a year. Temporary working visas like H1B(US) or 457(Australia) or L(Swiss) are all terrible in their own little ways, sigh. The main issue is if you make a wrong career move your situation could quickly turn into an absolute nightmare, e.g. consistent abuse at work which you cannot escape.
maxerickson 6y ago
Why such a mild change? If someone can get hired and hold a job paying, say, $25 an hour and keep it for a year, let them stay as long as they want. It would probably put some pressure on wages, but it would also increase economic activity (create demand).
- nrmitchi 6y ago
  Honestly, because mild changes are much easier to get consensus around.
ocdtrekkie 6y ago
This suggests the market rate for an H1B employee isn't just, in general, lower than a comparable American employee. If everyone's underpaying H1Bs, we need to counter that.
MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
I think part of this move is to keep tech jobs for Americans, not foreigners...hence why it's increasing the pay. In any case, it aids in my job security.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dang 6y ago
(This subthread was originally a reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24702742 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24702742.)

jzymbaluk 6y ago

This is right. The answer that's best for the economy is to allow more immigration, not less (especially skilled immigration). This move will just make it more dificult for the average company to sponsor H1B workers

mc32 6y ago
Why not make companies sponsor underprivileged kids who need the opportunity just as much but don’t get as much consideration?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- rbultje 6y ago
  Because educating underprivileged kids takes up to 20 years(school, college, potential post-grad studies), whereas the H1B worker can start immediately. H1B workers also typically have several years experience in the specific position where they're being considered. You need both.
  - mc32 6y ago
    Some H1Bs are talented, many, many copy paste. Yes it takes years to develop talent. It’s not easy. But these are the same companies who throw money to the wind for the purpose of empty virtue signaling and making some connected politicos happy. Why not devote that money to real causes that actually provide hope for kids rather than fill the pockets of people who know how to shake corps down?
- bufferoverflow 6y ago
  Start a company and see how much it costs to sponsor some uneducated kid. You have good intentions towards the kids, but some communist intentions towards business owners. Let them decide how to spend their money. It's their money.
  - phonebanshee 6y ago
    Businesses should have the expectation that they can hire zero H1B workers. The suggestion is that they do something in exchange for that privilege.
    - bufferoverflow 6y ago
      Not being able to hire H1B workers is a privilege?
- acituan 6y ago
  Because a good chunk of immigrants are underpriviliged kids of the world, when you compare the GDP levels of their home countries to the US. That and US doesn’t need to pay a dime for them developing their skills while getting to skim the cream of the crop.
  - mc32 6y ago
    It’s not the responsibility of the US govt, companies or people to underwrite other countries’ underprivileged people when we have our own we fail to care for well enough. We had a revolution and a civil war and unrest to fix our own failures. They can work to improve their own self determination. Look, Panama 25 years ago was a basket case. But now they are one of the better economies of the southern cone.
    - acituan 6y ago
      > we have our own we fail to care for well enough. Tell me more of this “our own”. 25% of the current US population is either 1st or 2nd gen immigrants arrived after immigration reform of 1965. They include the innovators, laborers, entrepreneurs, researchers that pay a lot for your “our own”. Can’t eat the cake and have it too.
      - mc32 6y ago
        Yes first or second generation Americans (or long established Americans) don’t owe anyone else any responsibility. They only owe their descendants and fellow Americans here. They don’t owe non descendants elsewhere anything. It’s not like they can go back to their grandparents country and say hey, remember my grandparents, they were from here, I need help, help me out over here!
        kelnos 6y ago
        > It’s not like they can go back to their grandparents country and say hey, remember my grandparents, they were from here, I need help, help me out over here! That's not entirely true everywhere though. For example, I was born in the US, as were my parents and grandparents. My great-grandparents immigrated from Italy, and if I can gather the proper documentation, I'm eligible for Italian citizenship. If I ever get this done, then yes, I could indeed go back to my great-grandparents' country and do what you suggest is silly. I believe quite a few other countries also have policies like this.
booleandilemma 6y ago
Serious question: wouldn’t that be leaving less jobs open for Americans? As an American myself, I want to see my fellow Americans getting good jobs over people from other countries.
- nrmitchi 6y ago
  I'm not an American, but I fully understand your point. Let me provide some background. If you already know this, my apologies. The process of getting an H1B is not the employer picking up the phone and ordering "1 H1B for delivery please". It involves applying at the beginning of April, being entered into a lottery, and you find out if you "won" (and your application is looked at) around the end of March. IIRC it is ~30% that your application is even looked at. At this point, you're out legal and processing fees (at least a couple thousand), and likely more if USCIS wants more evidence that the position qualifies, or that the individual being sponsored is eligible. As a side note, this is often why job descriptions have degree requirements and such, even if they will hire people without a degree. If a similar job at the same company doesn't "need" a degree, it will be much more difficult to get a work status for, even if the requirement bar is actually quite high. After this, assuming you actually get your status, you don't "get" it until the beginning of October. It's now cost your employer 6 months of lead time, a legal process, thousands of dollars, and uncertainty throughout to know if they even _could_ hire someone. It is not _easy_ to get an H1B. If you have 2 equally qualified people, who will make the same amount of money (which is what market rates are, see my initial suggestion above), then any reasonable employer is going to go with the candidate that they can hire the next week, rather than going through the H1B process.
  - claudeganon 6y ago
    > then any reasonable employer is going to go with the candidate that they can hire the next week, rather than going through the H1B process. Except in industries that have high turnover, like technology and fashion. There, H1Bs are abused by companies who don’t want to compete for talent at market rates and instead can lock in foreign workers. It makes more sense to hire the foreign worker specifically because they can prevent them from leaving. Illegal threats and intimidation of H1B workers are more common than you think.
4763382973 6y ago
Low skill immigration hurts the poor. When economists talk about it having a neutral impact they are referring to 4-5 year time scales which is different from having zero consequences. Most poor people are not in a comfortable enough position for it to be ethical to tell them "just deal with it" without offering some kind of support.
dartdartdart 6y ago
I agree, American is built on the hard work of immigrants. We need to allow more immigrants, especially highly skilled workers
- ajsnigrutin 6y ago
  Don't you have high unemployment at the moment? The right solution would be, to require high wages for H1B visas - if you're hiring a developer, the minimum wage for the H1B worker should be (eg.) 1.5x average developer wage in that area/state. This would solve companies firing local workers and replacing then with H1B workers, and still solve the problem of a company 'really needing' that one worker.
- sudosteph 6y ago
  Maybe this comes off as too negative: but that "America is built on the hard work of immigrants" meme is an absolutely tone-deaf talking point. Many people hear hear that phrase, and immediately assume you are not arguing in good faith. Yes, immigrants built America. But so did enslaved people. So did natives. So did rebellious colonists of the British empire. Most of those people did not consider themselves immigrants - and nor do their descendants. Many immigrants have contributed amazing things to our nation, and they still do. But immigrants as a group are not a monolith. Many of the "highly skilled workers" that come over on H1Bs, are frankly - not highly skilled workers. Many are semi-skilled workers who are preferred over qualified Americans because they work for low wages and nearly never quit when abused. Americans have a right to say that we don't want our immigration system used as a tool to devalue working conditions - something which affects all of us. If we can solve this problem first, then we can talk about allowing in more immigrants. But it's absurd to say to reduce this to "immigrants = good = America". Not when we know the current system is abusive to both immigrants, and to the Americans who are part of the toxic workplaces that the H1B visa-mill paradigm has created.
  - kelnos 6y ago
    > Americans have a right to say that we don't want our immigration system used as a tool to devalue working conditions - something which affects all of us. Agreed! > If we can solve this problem first, then we can talk about allowing in more immigrants. This is really just not a hard problem at all to solve from a policy perspective. Political will has been a big problem; both parties have campaigned on comprehensive immigration reform, but nothing has materialized. Corporations with political influence love the status quo as it allows them to import workers for similar or lower wages who can't quit or do anything that would risk them losing their job without being sent home.
xt00 6y ago
An important dynamic very little talked about is the fact that in the majority of industrialized countries within a very short time populations will be decreasing. The battle of the future will be who can bring in a continual stream of people to keep the economy growing. So various countries will likely be battling for highly skilled workers in the future. So the challenge with more immigration is that you have to have some robust level of job creation and growth for the existing people in the country because otherwise you will have a combination of a broken system (people come to the country and get a job, but then their kids never get jobs, or they lose their job and cant get another one), or people will resent the people who are getting jobs, or people will come to the country and then end up leaving. So lots of bad outcomes if you don't actually set things up in a good way. Countries like Germany have a really strong system of vocational jobs, apprenticeships, career ladders, etc so there is a sense that the local people have some career trajectory, so somebody else having some level of success after arriving in their country is not bothering them. Of course that's not universally true, but definitely people will be resentful in a particular area if tons of new people show up and have tons of success while they struggle to get off square one..

TuringNYC 6y ago

The best thing to do would be to treat them like local workers -- increased pay AND increased flexibility. This will help retain the best overseas workers in the US. Even better would be a salary auction where US companies get to auction (higher and higher salaries for the best overseas workers.) The highest auction rates would fill the quota first. Overseas workers win bigtime. Companies seeking talent also win. Local workers win as well. Companies trying to underpay lose.

nrmitchi 6y ago
The problem with this is that H1Bs are not just for software engineering jobs. Other professions that qualify are things like accountants, or health care workers. If it was a straight up "who pays the most", then the software industry (mostly FAANG) would end up with 80k H1Bs per year, and other industries would still not be able to hire for jobs they can't fill locally.
- TuringNYC 6y ago
  The H1B system is supposed to be for shortages. In a real economic shortage, prices are supposed to go up. If salaries are not going up, it is not a real shortage. I think there is a shortage, so I'm proposing increasing salaries. Accounting firms are not competing with tech firms necessarily, they are competing with the market for accountants (lots of accountants go into other fields because they cant find work at a suitable rate.) Their business model should not be to underpay workers, it should be to pay workers high enough to attract them and charge customers appropriately.
  - nrmitchi 6y ago
    > Accounting firms are not competing with tech firms necessarily, they are competing with the market for accountants Yes, I'm not disagreeing with this. However if you put ALL H1Bs in a single pool, and they go to the highest bidder across all industries, then yes, accounting firms are competing with tech firms.
    - 6y ago

jsnk 6y ago

This will elevate the income of low paying H1B workers, but also decrease the income of average paid American workers. If the market has an abundance of low paying workers, the market overall will pay workers lower.

mrkstu 6y ago
That is the opposite of what is likely. The elevation of wages for a H1B will mean the average wage in that category of work will increase, for everyone in that segment. What you suggest only makes sense if there is a fixed pot of money in the economy for all wages, which isn’t the case.
- sjg007 6y ago
  The onus here would be on the us citizen to find out how much an equivalent H1B is being paid and asking for that much money. It's not guaranteed. You can do that though: https://h1bdata.info/index.php?year=2019 https://h1bdata.info/index.php?year=2019

commandlinefan 6y ago

> under pay them, the worker would just get another job that pays market rate Then the employer would go back to the H1B well, underpay another worker for 6 months until the worker bailed, go back to the well, lather, rinse, repeat.

nrmitchi 6y ago
Applications for an H1B open up in April, IIRC are accepted for a short period of time, and are not actually granted until October. That is 6 months, plus a couple thousand dollars minimum, to try to get an H1B status for someone you want to hire. If an employer is knowingly expecting the person they hire to bail after 6 months, they won't go through the process.
- jb775 6y ago
  A couple thousand dollars per H1B hire-attempt is nothing to a big business, especially if they're eventually able to pay each H1B worker a fraction of what they'd need to pay an equally qualified American worker. Worst case scenario for the business: they lose a couple thousand dollars and a few months of employee development time, then still have the option to immediately hire the qualified American worker (or try the H1B route again). Best case scenario for the business: they get an overqualified employee at an extreme discount, since that employee is willing to accept less just to be in America. Since that employee knows it's hard to get H1B status, they're probably willing to work for a discount for many years. (therefore the business makes its money back from other failed H1B attempts, and they retain the employee at a discount)
systematical 6y ago
Six months of development is barely useful for most companies. It can take 3 months before a developer is reasonably efficient. Learning the codebase, culture, and business logic takes time in most cases.

dkhenry 6y ago

H1B employee's can work at any employer for the term of their status. The employee only has to transfer the visa to the new employer. I have done this for multiple employee's on H1B's its nothing like getting a new H1B for someone on OPT or getting a new H1B for an oversea's employee

nrmitchi 6y ago
They can, but it's still a process and not as easy as saying to a prospective employer "I have an H1B that is valid until October 2025, you don't have to do anything". Further, even though it's rarer, I believe that the transfer can still be denied if USCIS decides the new position doesn't qualify.
- muzaffarpur 6y ago
  I think you're clueless sir.

DenisM 6y ago

I vaguely recall that the "indentured" h1b workers (as oppose to the "proper" h1b like I had) owe money back to home, and that debt becomes instantly due if they bail out. If they were super-stars they would be able to cover it from the Amazon signup bonus (and become indentured to Amazon - your signup bonus is due back if you bail out early). However superstars rarely end up in those jobs. We're looking at people with kinda average engineering skills, poor understanding of the American culture, no connections, and grim determination to grind their way out of their old life. Liberating the indentured h1b workers is not just flipping a legal switch, it's a cultural integration project.

chrisseaton 6y ago
> We're looking at people with kinda average engineering skills, poor understanding of the American culture, no connections, and grim determination to grind their way out of their old life. I don't think these are the kind of people getting an H1B visa, though. It's usually the super-talented people they hire on H1B.
- madeofpalk 6y ago
  Usually?
- yowlingcat 6y ago
  What makes you say that? From what I've seen, there's an entire cottage industry of cheap, expendably treated labor which forms the WITCH acronym which exists to abuse the H1B visa. I believe that is who they target.
  - howlgarnish 6y ago
    Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell? Weak Interaction Trap for Charged Particles? https://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/WITCH https://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/WITCH
    - ralph84 6y ago

temikus 6y ago

As a serial immigrant myself - hit the nail on the head there. There is the “pay debt back” (relo, visa/lawyer costs) issue in some companies but this is a very good start.

nrmitchi 6y ago
IIRC having an employee pay for costs associated with H1B and/or employer-sponsored Permanent Residency applications was flat-out prohibited. Is that wrong?
- temikus 6y ago
  There are ways around it, like “returning a signing bonus” or “reimbursing relocation costs”. Those are usually subjective and super-vague as well, e.g. “approx. $$$” or “minimum of $$$” and they never give you an actual number so it’s extra scary for someone coming from a country where their current monthly wage could sustain them for a year. Temporary working visas like H1B(US) or 457(Australia) or L(Swiss) are all terrible in their own little ways, sigh. The main issue is if you make a wrong career move your situation could quickly turn into an absolute nightmare, e.g. consistent abuse at work which you cannot escape.

maxerickson 6y ago

Why such a mild change? If someone can get hired and hold a job paying, say, $25 an hour and keep it for a year, let them stay as long as they want. It would probably put some pressure on wages, but it would also increase economic activity (create demand).

nrmitchi 6y ago
Honestly, because mild changes are much easier to get consensus around.

ocdtrekkie 6y ago

This suggests the market rate for an H1B employee isn't just, in general, lower than a comparable American employee. If everyone's underpaying H1Bs, we need to counter that.

MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago

I think part of this move is to keep tech jobs for Americans, not foreigners...hence why it's increasing the pay. In any case, it aids in my job security.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dang 6y ago

(This subthread was originally a reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24702742 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24702742.)