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> Basically the administration turned the tables on Big Tech. They primarily import H1Bs to dilute the employment pool to let the market take care of wage depre

> Basically the administration turned the tables on Big Tech. They primarily import H1Bs to dilute the employment pool to let the market take care of wage depression. Not really, Big Tech pays H1Bs competitive salaries (https://insights.dice.com/2020/05/19/google-apple-amazon-other-tech-h-1b-salaries-2020-still-high/ https://insights.dice.com/2020/05/19/google-apple-amazon-oth...). What this mostly affects is IT consulting firms like Tata and Infosys.

runawaybottle 6y ago
Does it though? Prior discussions on this made me aware that H1B is mostly not profitable for the consulting firms. It’s the offshore work where they can severely underpay. So long as a US company can get offshore workers via the consulting firms (their preferred business model), all is well. But ya, we don’t need to import someone doing JavaScript over to America anymore (which, believe it or not, is what I’ve witnessed). There’s no rhyme or reason to it, we have a solid home grown talent pool for that. A lot of full stack web dev work can be saturated by Americans because there’s enough people crossing industries to take it on. I’ll let the other types of developers chime in on what kind of shortage they are seeing, because I see zero in web development. It’s nothing personal to my immigrant friends, but believe it or not our industry is pretty crowded at the moment to justify opening up to foreign workers. We can easily drive prices down amongst ourselves at the rate we’re going at. I support this policy through and through, and I’m a Democrat.
- bawolff 6y ago
  > But ya, we don’t need to import someone doing JavaScript over to America anymore (which, believe it or not, is what I’ve witnessed). There’s no rhyme or reason to it, we have a solid home grown talent pool for that. Being able to program language X isn't really the marketable skillset at the high level. You don't hire good javascript programmers. You hire good programmers
  - unishark 6y ago
    Unfortunately I think there are a lot of people who know the technology to some limited degree to do some tasks, but indeed cannot really program. They do testing or something, running scripts and needing a lot of supervision.
  - runawaybottle 6y ago
    You know other countries also have multi million dollar companies too. At scale, I don’t ever see them importing American talent because ‘no one else can do it in our country’. It’s just pure bullshit, there’s 300+ million people across a lot of these countries. At scale, the talent is there, in every country.
biggermike 6y ago
> Not really, Big Tech pays H1Bs competitive salaries That doesn't challenge the argument. Wages are set by supply and demand, expand the supply and wages fall. It doesn't matter if H1B wages are similar to a U.S. residents; wages as a whole are depressed. As a personal example, the entry level of my field is almost completely composed of freshly graduated H1B Visa holders. The market rate is dictated by whatever their wages are, which actually isn't too far below the $200K headline number.
- lern_too_spel 6y ago
  If anything, this change will reduce big tech wages because they don't have to compete against the bodyshops in the H1B lottery. The people the bodyshops were bringing in weren't going to get hired by the big tech companies anyway. On the other hand, the H1Bs working at big tech with higher salaries are more likely to later start another company, which will increase demand for top tier engineers, but this effect will take longer to materialize.

runawaybottle 6y ago

Does it though? Prior discussions on this made me aware that H1B is mostly not profitable for the consulting firms. It’s the offshore work where they can severely underpay. So long as a US company can get offshore workers via the consulting firms (their preferred business model), all is well. But ya, we don’t need to import someone doing JavaScript over to America anymore (which, believe it or not, is what I’ve witnessed). There’s no rhyme or reason to it, we have a solid home grown talent pool for that. A lot of full stack web dev work can be saturated by Americans because there’s enough people crossing industries to take it on. I’ll let the other types of developers chime in on what kind of shortage they are seeing, because I see zero in web development. It’s nothing personal to my immigrant friends, but believe it or not our industry is pretty crowded at the moment to justify opening up to foreign workers. We can easily drive prices down amongst ourselves at the rate we’re going at. I support this policy through and through, and I’m a Democrat.

bawolff 6y ago
> But ya, we don’t need to import someone doing JavaScript over to America anymore (which, believe it or not, is what I’ve witnessed). There’s no rhyme or reason to it, we have a solid home grown talent pool for that. Being able to program language X isn't really the marketable skillset at the high level. You don't hire good javascript programmers. You hire good programmers
- unishark 6y ago
  Unfortunately I think there are a lot of people who know the technology to some limited degree to do some tasks, but indeed cannot really program. They do testing or something, running scripts and needing a lot of supervision.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  You know other countries also have multi million dollar companies too. At scale, I don’t ever see them importing American talent because ‘no one else can do it in our country’. It’s just pure bullshit, there’s 300+ million people across a lot of these countries. At scale, the talent is there, in every country.

biggermike 6y ago

> Not really, Big Tech pays H1Bs competitive salaries That doesn't challenge the argument. Wages are set by supply and demand, expand the supply and wages fall. It doesn't matter if H1B wages are similar to a U.S. residents; wages as a whole are depressed. As a personal example, the entry level of my field is almost completely composed of freshly graduated H1B Visa holders. The market rate is dictated by whatever their wages are, which actually isn't too far below the $200K headline number.

lern_too_spel 6y ago
If anything, this change will reduce big tech wages because they don't have to compete against the bodyshops in the H1B lottery. The people the bodyshops were bringing in weren't going to get hired by the big tech companies anyway. On the other hand, the H1Bs working at big tech with higher salaries are more likely to later start another company, which will increase demand for top tier engineers, but this effect will take longer to materialize.