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Overall, I really support these changes. However, this piece really struck me as a big mistake: "Under the changes, an applicant must have a college degree in
by chairmanwow1 6y ago
Overall, I really support these changes.
However, this piece really struck me as a big mistake:
"Under the changes, an applicant must have a college degree in the specific field in which he or she is looking to work. A software developer, for example, wouldn’t be awarded an H-1B visa if that person has a degree in electrical engineering."
Some of the best software engineers I know are graduate degree holders from neuroscience, biophysics, EE, and more. This might be a distinction that is only relevant in software engineering, but my intuition is that other fields will feel the sting of this decision.
- sushshshsh 6y agoI would absolutely speculate that this requirement was made to block many good candidates. After all, the point of a visa system is to constrict the pool of potential candidates anyway.
- chrisseaton 6y ago> After all, the point of a visa system is to constrict the pool of potential candidates anyway. No, that's not the point. If that's what you wanted to achieve then you'd be best off not having any visa system. So obviously this is not what they're optimising for.
- sushshshsh 6y agoYou mean, if you wanted to constrict international immigrants you would block all immigrants from coming here. If there was no visa system, then companies would be free to hire whoever they wanted.
- chrisseaton 6y ago> If there was no visa system, then companies would be free to hire whoever they wanted. No. I don't know if you're not familiar with what these terms mean, but by default most people don't have permission to work in the US. That's the default situation if there were no visas. Visas didn't create this default situation - they're the tool that allows you to get permission beyond the default of not having permission. If you had no visa system... nobody would have the needed permission. You're thinking everyone would get default permission but that's not the case.
- gumby 6y ago> If that's what you wanted to achieve then you'd be best off not having any visa system. So obviously this is not what they're optimising for. If you want to change an existing system, slice the salami thinly. Whether they intend it or not they are optimizing for moving a lot of work overseas. They seem to think the economy is the same as in 1945. And even to get to 1945 the US imported a ton of nuclear physicists and other scientists.
- xenospn 6y agoSimple. List multiple jobs requiring "electrical engineer" or "data scientist" and pool all applicants together for a single position.
- sushshshsh 6y agoHehehe... I like this solution. I'm an American citizen, my wife was on H1B and now we're in the middle of transfering her to a green card. This process is designed to make immigrants' lives hard, as far as I can tell.
- flurben 6y agononsense. The point of a visa system is to expand the domestic labor pool.
- ajsnigrutin 6y agoThis is bad for the local workers. Smaller labor pool = higer wages.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- chrisseaton 6y ago> This is bad for the local workers. This is short sighted. If an expert is brought in from overseas to do something that local people can't do, then it can create additional employment opportunities on projects and development that would not have been possible without their expertise. That's the point of the visa.
- flurben 6y agoWell that is the original stated legislative intent, for "jobs local people can't do." But in reality, this was never an enforced requirement. It is very common for expensive americans to be fired and replaced with a cheaper holder of an h1b.
- ajsnigrutin 6y agoA minimum wage, set as (eg.) 1.5x avearage wage in that sector in that state would be a good requirement for getting a visa. That would make companies offer more (1.1, 1.2 ... 1.499x average) and get local workers, and if they're still, even with a higher wage, unable to get a worker, they'd get one with an H1B visa.
- flurben 6y agoThat is far too low, and far too bureaucratic and far too easy to game. It should simply be a fixed number of visas allocated to the highest wage applicants, like an auction, end of story.
- AlexTWithBeard 6y agoWill they keep recognizing equivalent experience in lieu of formal education?
- kichik 6y agoHave they removed the 3 years of experience for each missing degree year exception?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- hoot 6y agoI share the same experience. The most talented software developers that I've worked with have just about all been EE's. On the flip side, I've also met some terrible software developers who were also EE's.
- azurezyq 6y agoAnd I met so many engineers with CS major but have no idea how to write good code or design docs.
- phonebanshee 6y agoIs this just a small sample size? There aren't that many EEs working on software, certainly compared to the whole universe of software developers.
- cm2187 6y agoThat's going to be interesting for people who studied humanities. In banking, you have even more diverse backgrounds than software development.
- rjsw 6y agoIs there a shortage of bankers in the US ?
- outworlder 6y agoAre bankers fungible?
- rjsw 6y agoIf you are putting them into a woodchipper to make fertilizer then they are.
- haolez 6y agoUseless policy. This will only create a market for schools with easy-to-obtain degrees.
- bdcravens 6y agoThey already exist. I have a friend who did an online masters in CS in about 18 months, and she's not qualified to be a junior dev.
- belltaco 6y agoThis one is also a particularly terrible move: >“ Because those required wage increases take effect this week, existing H-1B holders looking to renew their visas might not qualify unless their employers raise their salaries accordingly.” Copying from my comment below, this is likely to backfire. Since remote work has become acceptable and they already know the ins and outs of the job, many of these folks losing their visa will just be allowed to work remotely from India or Canada where it's trivial to get a work visa if you have a job offer. This means the US economy will lose all the taxes and local expenditure in the economy by the family like rent, food, travel, vacations, utilities, medical expenses, entertainment, cars, home sales, etc. etc. And if that works out, the next hire may just be directly hired in India or Canada itself. If I were in the Canada govt, I'd immediately create a way around the travel ban for workers who's visas didn't get renewed to be able to move to Canada after following a strict quarantine protocol. If the worker was able to work remotely in the US using Zoom, why can't they do the same job remotely in the same time zone in Canada using the same remote working tools? This might be a once in lifetime opportunity for Canada to grow their tech sector, especially if Trump gets re-elected and puts further restrictions. There is already a small industry in Canada where a company takes a few % of the billing rate in order to sponsor and hold a Canadian visa for people who lost their H1B visas due to increased and inconsistent rejections over the past few years, but whose employer is willing to allow them to work from Canada. This moves a lot of money to Canada. Also, some tech companies have been outright moving jobs to Canada because they can hire from a global workforce and Canada has been welcoming them. This is going to intensify. https://www.npr.org/2020/01/27/799402801/canada-wins-u-s-loses-in-global-fight-for-high-tech-workers https://www.npr.org/2020/01/27/799402801/canada-wins-u-s-los... https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2020-07-20/how-canadas-tech-sector-benefits-from-us-visa-policy https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2020-07-... There is a reason this regulation didn't follow the normal rule-making and public comment period. Very likely this wouldn't have happened if there wasn't an imminent election.
- majormajor 6y ago> Since remote work has become acceptable and they already know the ins and outs of the job, many of these folks losing their visa will just be allowed to work remotely from India. This means the US economy will lose all the taxes and local expenditure in the economy like rent, food, travel, vacations, utilities, cars, home sales, etc. etc. And if that works out, the next hire may just be directly hired in India itself. There's a big assumption in "Since remote work has become acceptable". Some companies are talking about making things permanent, others are already trying to get people back in the office. And if the remote work swing is both big and permanent, then I think this is less likely a "backfire" situation and more of an "irrelevant" one. Companies looking to save money would hire in the foreign country regardless of the new rules.
- chrisseaton 6y agoWow, I don't know how many people even have a degree specifically in software development or engineering! They'll have to be somewhat flexible! > Some of the best software engineers I know Presumably the best be ok as they'll be able to get in on the O-1 visa for people with exceptional ability? It's everyone else who will be in trouble.
- avs733 6y agoIt’s not supposed to make sense... it’s supposed to make the system unwieldy and frustrating. There is no requirement that you assume good faith. It’s usually a nice (and calming) place to start, but when the evidence is to the contrary it’s reasonable to not give them the benefit of the doubt.
- yashap 6y agoYeah, the high level idea of “get H1Bs back to their original purpose” (hiring high skill employees in sectors with labour shortages in America) makes a lot of sense, and I say this as a major Trump hater. It’s a good idea. But some of the implementation details really suck, and this is a key one. It’s incredibly common for outstanding employees in technical fields to come from non-traditional backgrounds. Screwing up details like this could be simple incompetence - the Trump administration is quite bad when it comes to putting “yes men” with little relevant experience in key decision making positions. Or it could be malice - a strongly anti-immigrant policy disguised as something less anti-immigrant. I can easily see it being either one.
- PaulDavisThe1st 6y agoI would never have made it to the US with that rule. I had a UK BS(c) in molecular biology, had done 1 year of a PhD at EMBL in computational molecular biology, dropped out to focus on the computers instead. 2 years later, hired on an H1B and emigrated to the US. 6 years after that, I was the 2nd hire at amzn, and the rest is history. Does the Trump admin really want to mess with that kind of story?
- sedatk 6y agoI’m a high school graduate and a self-taught developer. I got hired by Microsoft as a software engineer to the Microsoft Windows Core OS team based on my skills with an H-1B. I made Microsoft millions of dollars with my work. I’m now writing a book on software development published by Manning Books. None of that would have happened if such a criteria existed. That policy doesn’t make any sense at all.
- person_of_color 6y agoHow did you get hired as a kernel engineer without a degree out of college?
- azurezyq 6y agoHonestly colleges don't teach you much about practical kernel developments. Most people just learn them as side projects. This is the same for other fields as well, e.g., frontend developments. Requiring degrees for doing anything is a big step backward. I'm working for Google and lots of my peers are from non-CS majors (Physics, EE, even literature), but they are all excellent engineers.
- zxcmx 6y agoThe original poster can give the real answer (I have a feeling you know what I'm about to write and want the _story_) but: For certain technically focused jobs it's easy for other skilled practitioners to tell that you can do it. A degree is nice but is actually less useful for signalling than concrete, interesting work in the field because the latter is rarer. I've seen this play out particularly in computer security and low-level software development. Where lack of qualifications really holds you back is when you're being hired by non-experts. They usually can't evaluate "direct evidence" and must rely on credentials instead. Paradoxically this means you can have an easier time getting hired without a degree at a "top" company than a mid-tier one.
- person_of_color 6y agoWhat you say is true, but thousands of smart grads apply for big tech companies, why choose someone without a degree?
- bdcravens 6y agoThat just means there'll be fast track CS programs pop up (They already exist - I have a friend who had a degree in hospitality management, who did an online master's program in CS in about 18 months, and she can't write a line of code today)
- edge17 6y agoCouldn't employers just ultimately recategorize a job title to suit the degree? As far as I know there is no actual audit of what the contents of the work are.
- linuxftw 6y ago> Some of the best software engineers I know are graduate degree holders from neuroscience, biophysics, EE, and more This is evidence that H-1B shouldn't apply to those positions, they don't require any skill set that is in actual shortage.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]