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"Body shops" like Infosys and Tata Consulting that import thousands of H1Bs under borderline fraudulent applications, and then underpay these employees. Just a

"Body shops" like Infosys and Tata Consulting that import thousands of H1Bs under borderline fraudulent applications, and then underpay these employees. Just a random link, but the contours of the problem: https://www.epi.org/blog/new-data-infosys-tata-abuse-h-1b-program/ https://www.epi.org/blog/new-data-infosys-tata-abuse-h-1b-pr...

zerr 6y ago
50k-60k is pretty normal in many places in US. Were they bringing staff in SF or NYC?
- deleted 6y ago
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- dodobirdlord 6y ago
  H1B visas are in theory intended to be awarded only when there is a shortage of some specialized labor and it is not possible to find enough qualified candidates within the country. If a person hired under that premise ends up making a “pretty normal” wage it’s a pretty clear sign that the process is being abused.
  - AnAnonyCowherd 6y ago
    I work for a company that's about 30th in terms of H1B's. All around me, I see degreed engineers -- many with their Masters -- doing clerical work that a sharp high-school graduate could do. I'm not talking about a few. I'm talking about dozens. There's nothing about what they're doing that requires specific engineering knowledge. They only have to be conversant about what the actual engineers are doing. So the effect is 2-fold: the fact that his arrangement exists puts downward pressure on wages for the skilled jobs, but it also takes great opportunities away from people who would have gotten those jobs a few decades ago.
tylerhou 6y ago
Sure, there are low paid H1B workers, but why is that necessarily a problem? Your link shows no evidence that they depress the wages or employment of native-born workers. In fact, there are many proper economic analyses that show that native-born workers benefit from immigration: https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/3pi8vo/highskill_immigration_is_bad_mmkay/ https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/3pi8vo/highsk...
- mikeyouse 6y ago
  I'm fully supportive of massively more immigration - I believe it's a net economic positive and a moral imperative. At the same time, if a program is designed to bring in 'exceptional talent' but is really just importing mediocre drones from a single country, that's not really serving the purpose of the program. Let's fix H1Bs and then work on more equitable ways to allow other forms of beneficial immigration.
  - AnAnonyCowherd 6y ago
    > At the same time, if a program There's no "if" here.
  - AndriyKunitsyn 6y ago
    So, draining talent from less successful countries with a desperate need of this talent is a ‘moral imperative’ to you?
    - mikeyouse 6y ago
      Aside from all of the evidence that both countries benefit in these arrangements as people skill up and often move home later on, letting free citizens choose where to maximize their livelihoods is a moral imperative, yes.
      - AndriyKunitsyn 6y ago
        >Aside from all of the evidence that both countries benefit in these arrangements as people skill up and often move home later on Can you please provide this evidence? I want to be educated on that. I thought that returning home is really rare for these people, and it does not compensate negative effects of the "brain drain" at all. >letting free citizens choose where to maximize their livelihoods is a moral imperative, yes People should be free to pursue whatever they want, no questioning that. However, elites of the US create such conditions that the best career path for the people from less fortunate countries is to move out, break cultural bonds and, probably, make the countries that they moved from, even less fortunate in the end - is it really moral? I think that the most moral option would be increasing investment and creating child companies in countries where these people move from, creating nice jobs outside of the US, so nobody would have to move anywhere.
deleted 6y ago
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zerr 6y ago

50k-60k is pretty normal in many places in US. Were they bringing staff in SF or NYC?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dodobirdlord 6y ago
H1B visas are in theory intended to be awarded only when there is a shortage of some specialized labor and it is not possible to find enough qualified candidates within the country. If a person hired under that premise ends up making a “pretty normal” wage it’s a pretty clear sign that the process is being abused.
- AnAnonyCowherd 6y ago
  I work for a company that's about 30th in terms of H1B's. All around me, I see degreed engineers -- many with their Masters -- doing clerical work that a sharp high-school graduate could do. I'm not talking about a few. I'm talking about dozens. There's nothing about what they're doing that requires specific engineering knowledge. They only have to be conversant about what the actual engineers are doing. So the effect is 2-fold: the fact that his arrangement exists puts downward pressure on wages for the skilled jobs, but it also takes great opportunities away from people who would have gotten those jobs a few decades ago.

tylerhou 6y ago

Sure, there are low paid H1B workers, but why is that necessarily a problem? Your link shows no evidence that they depress the wages or employment of native-born workers. In fact, there are many proper economic analyses that show that native-born workers benefit from immigration: https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/3pi8vo/highskill_immigration_is_bad_mmkay/ https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/3pi8vo/highsk...

mikeyouse 6y ago
I'm fully supportive of massively more immigration - I believe it's a net economic positive and a moral imperative. At the same time, if a program is designed to bring in 'exceptional talent' but is really just importing mediocre drones from a single country, that's not really serving the purpose of the program. Let's fix H1Bs and then work on more equitable ways to allow other forms of beneficial immigration.
- AnAnonyCowherd 6y ago
  > At the same time, if a program There's no "if" here.
- AndriyKunitsyn 6y ago
  So, draining talent from less successful countries with a desperate need of this talent is a ‘moral imperative’ to you?
  - mikeyouse 6y ago
    Aside from all of the evidence that both countries benefit in these arrangements as people skill up and often move home later on, letting free citizens choose where to maximize their livelihoods is a moral imperative, yes.
    - AndriyKunitsyn 6y ago
      >Aside from all of the evidence that both countries benefit in these arrangements as people skill up and often move home later on Can you please provide this evidence? I want to be educated on that. I thought that returning home is really rare for these people, and it does not compensate negative effects of the "brain drain" at all. >letting free citizens choose where to maximize their livelihoods is a moral imperative, yes People should be free to pursue whatever they want, no questioning that. However, elites of the US create such conditions that the best career path for the people from less fortunate countries is to move out, break cultural bonds and, probably, make the countries that they moved from, even less fortunate in the end - is it really moral? I think that the most moral option would be increasing investment and creating child companies in countries where these people move from, creating nice jobs outside of the US, so nobody would have to move anywhere.

deleted 6y ago

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