5 ms·

Long-Prized H-1B Visas Lose Cachet

46 points by ubasu 15y ago

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maxklein 15y ago
I will say something: Just from perception, the U.S does not feel attractive anymore as a place to work in. Americans are whining constantly online about how terrible their country is, on my recent visit I was shocked at how dilapidated the place looks compared to europe, the value of the dollar is falling rapidly, and there is this undercurrent of anti-immigrant sentiment that is broadcasted via the media. In the past the U.S felt like the open and powerful place where everything can be achieved, but now it no longer feels that way. So many new countries are now nimble and growing with markets opening up - while the U.S is going exactly the other way. It's restricting and shrinking, markets are getting closed. Worst of all, with the weak dollar, earning money in the U.S doesn't get you a lot of money to send home anymore.
- endtwist 15y ago
  I just want to point out that you're making a gross over-generalization by saying that you were "shocked at how dilapidated the place looks" as though it were a 250 sq. foot (~23 m^2) apartment. The continental US is 3,794,101 sq. miles (9,826,676 km^2) and some of it is bound to look "dilapidated," but not nearly the entirety.
  - maxklein 15y ago
    Well San Francisco, which is the tech mecca, looks pretty dilapidated.
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    - d_r 15y ago
      San Francisco is a beautiful city that for some reason is not incredibly well-kept. I'm not sure if I feel that way because of the not-too-friendly homeless, or the overall look of being worn out in some parts like Market Street. I'm from New York and frequently travel to China, both of which obviously have "old" spots. For some reason, "old" there for me evokes the feeling of appreciation for history, while the San Francisco "old" makes me sad.
      - beedogs 15y ago
        "Old" in China is several hundred years different than "old" in San Francisco, unless you're in Muir Woods.
      - geebee 15y ago
        I agree... kind of. Not all of SF feels dilapidated, and not all old parts make me depressed. Kind of depends. I've lived here my whole life (almost 40 years now, sheesh), and some parts have gotten more interesting. The embarcadero has gotten much more appealing. The decision to not rebuild the old freeway was a good one - now there's a long bayside path from the restored ferry building past the new ballpark (one of the nicest in the country, I think), and then finally down past the new UCSF biomed campus (which will be producing some mind blowing work). This will be a pretty incredible new neighborhood. I also think that crissy field is a more appealing place than it was when I was a kid, and the long walk from the presidio (fort point under the bridge through fort mason contains "old stuff" that is very evocative). Market Street around civic center is appalling, and it spills over into Powell street and the Embarcadero near market enough that those spots are clearly tarnished, especially in the eyes of visitors. But pretty much every corner of the city suffers from blight - the new Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park or the De Young may sparkle (a little too much for my taste), but the appeal of the park is diminished by the presence of a large homeless population (including stray pit bulls). Maybe these things are more noticeably to newcomers now? While it may seem a little facile to blame too much on one problem, I don't think you can understate how severe an impact the "hardcore homeless" population has had on SF. Not only does it create blight, it's also a big drain on our finances. SF is in a tough spot here. It's a liberal city that has friendlier homeless policies, but unfortunately, that makes us a magnet. As for New York... lived there for only 6 months, but Mahnattan is truly a vibrant place. I was at Columbia, and I'd say I was hit up for spare change about as often as I am in SF, though. This was in the mid 90s, maybe it's cleaned up better than SF since then, haven't really been back.
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  - danssig 15y ago
    Not really. I lived in the US for nearly three decades and I've been to most states and I can say you'd be hard pressed to find a city that didn't have dilapidated looking parts. I think it's the nature of it. When a business moves out they just leave the place as it is and it's up to the next renter to make their business look nice. In every place I've been in Europe that is reversed: putting the place back how you found it is the responsibility of the renter. That alone accounts for a big "ghost town" look when towns are going through hard times.
- pacomerh 15y ago
  As a place to live you might be right, but as an industry (in my case) I'm finding it more attractive in the sense that I always meet people (mostly online) that are building new things, that are experimenting with new ideas and trying to break conventional schemes. Today if I wanted I could move back to my country and I would have almost the same amount of work working remotely. I live in CA and most of my clients are local & I never meet most of them in person. There's an interesting trust that wasn't here before. 2 years ago, even if you presented an amazing resume they would still want to see your face, today 20% of the cases do that. Again this is from my perspective.
- va_coder 15y ago
  Which countries do you consider to be "new", clean and nimble?
  - potatolicious 15y ago
    I immigrated from Taiwan in the mid 90s and went back this month, the first time in nearly 17 years. When I left, it was squarely sitting in second-world status, but I was surprised to go back and find a modern, bustling, clean, developed nation. There is infrastructure there, unlike most American cities. I live in Seattle, and everything around here feels like it's falling apart - you walk around and there's the distinct feeling that you're walking through a relic... something from another era, now disused and slowly decaying. I did not get this feeling anywhere in Taipei. Everywhere you go something is being overhauled, more metro lines are being built constantly, there's new construction, new businesses. Technology is being integrated into people's lives in a wonderful way - even my 80 year-old grandmother navigates all the touch screen smart-card kiosks in the MRT system like a pro. It was a bit of a disappointment to come back to Seattle and pick up a paper transfer riding a dilapidated bus that doesn't even have a voice-recorded stop call-out feature. It's even more depressing to watch all the political infighting in the city about rapid transit buildouts - the Taiwanese tunneled through much more densely populated, existing developed areas years ago, and now they get to enjoy one of the most advanced rapid transit system I've ever seen, while here in Seattle we've been sitting on our ass about this issue for 30 years.
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    - va_coder 15y ago
      There's a lot I love about the US but it's true that many cities have poorly managed public transit systems. I don't think I have ever grabbed a bus transfer and not felt disappointed either, regardless of how clean it was. Maybe you need to upgrade your lifestyle and buy yourself a nice set of wheels. That's how we roll in America ;)
- tybris 15y ago
  I had the opposite feeling. When I first went there 10 years ago no one had a GSM, the powergrid looked like Edison himself built it (without help), websites were of laughable quality, even mundane things like hotels had a primitive feel to them. Now, I can only dream of Europe having things like America's NetFlix, Internet industry, smart phone usage, creative restaurants, hotels, and much more. There are still some things quite primitive in the U.S. Internet banking in the is ridiculously limited. The last time I saw a CRT monitor was on an American air line. Overall though, my feeling is that Europe prevailed in the past 10 years, but America evolved.
  - beedogs 15y ago
    > 10 years ago ... websites were of laughable quality Did anyone have a reasonable-looking website in 2001? How is that an American phenomenon? > Now, I can only dream of Europe having things like America's NetFlix, Internet industry, smart phone usage, creative restaurants, hotels, and much more. The service industry is the only thing left throughout America, so it's no wonder it's the only one where innovation is taking place.
    - tybris 15y ago
      > Did anyone have a reasonable-looking website in 2001? How is that an American phenomenon? Yes. European websites at the time were reasonably modern. e.g., a web shop http://replay.web.archive.org/20010614234849/http://www.bol.com/index.html http://replay.web.archive.org/20010614234849/http://www.bol.... American websites were always one big mess, lacking any form of tasteful design or functionality. http://replay.web.archive.org/20000516060156/http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/home/home.html http://replay.web.archive.org/20000516060156/http://www.amaz...
      - beedogs 15y ago
        I'm really not sure what kind of point you're trying to make with that terrible comparison; those two companies couldn't be any more different. Show me what European storefront sites looked like in 2001.
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- thisisfmu 15y ago
  returning from a recent trip to continental Europe I was shocked at how dilapidated most of the UK looks compared to Germany and Austria. I wonder to what extent this is a matter of cultural priorities and taste rather than an indicator of economic well-being however.
cloudhead 15y ago
Maybe if they removed the irrational restrictions and complications around it, they would have more talent coming in the country. Most startups can't afford to go through the H-1B process, and many candidates just don't meet the criteria (4 years of school or 12 years combined experience).
- jamii 15y ago
  Earlier in the year I spent some time applying for jobs in the US and the response was almost always that they couldn't afford the time or money to get a visa.
- psykotic 15y ago
  > Most startups can't afford to go through the H-1B process, and many candidates just don't meet the criteria (4 years of school or 12 years combined experience). If you're a garage-level startup then $10,000 in legal fees to hire an employee might sound like a lot. Otherwise I see it as a cheap bargain if you are truly bringing on talent otherwise lacking domestically, which is the H-1B's nominal charter. As for not meeting the requirements, I'm an example of someone who did not and got an O-1 instead. It's a lot harder but still absolutely doable if the candidate has enough demonstrable accomplishments and acclaim to his or her name. The time sink of going through the process is probably the bigger issue for a typical fast-moving startup.
  - cloudhead 15y ago
    Yea, when I said "afford it" I meant in time and money, which are both scarce in the startup space. I was unaware of the possibility of an O-1 until the H-1B process failed for me, it was brought to my attention only recently.. It's good to know it's an option. Would you be willing to disclose some of the strategies you used to get the O-1? It seems very much geared towards traditional sciences and old media from looking at the criteria.
mtviewdave 15y ago
>They cite former H-1B holders such as Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, and Vinod Dham, an engineer behind Intel Corp.'s Pentium chip, as proof of its value. The H-1B was created in 1990. According to Wikipedia, Dham started at NCR in Ohio in 1977, so I doubt he ever had one. Sun was founded in 1982, so Khosla couldn't have had an H-1B either.
ktsmith 15y ago
The numbers that USCIS is publishing can be seen here: http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=4b7cdd1d5fd37210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=73566811264a3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f... edit: Those numbers show the applications accepted, not the number received.
jerrya 15y ago
http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/h1b.html http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/h1b.html Professor Norm Matloff's H-1B Web Page Overview: The H-1B work visa is fundamentally about cheap labor. Though the tech industry lobbyists portray H-1B as a remedy for labor shortages and as a means of hiring "the best and the brightest" from around the world (which I strongly support), the vast majority are ordinary people doing ordinary work. Instead of being about talent, H-1B is about cheap labor. Employers accrue Type I wage savings by paying H-1Bs less than comparable Americans (U.S. citizens and permanent residents). Employers accrue Type II wage savings by hiring younger, thus cheaper, H-1Bs in lieu of older, thus more expensive (age 35+) Americans. Both types of wage savings are fully LEGAL, due to loopholes in the law and regulations. The problem is NOT one of lack of enforcement. Use of H-1B for cheap labor extends across the industry including the large mainstream firms., facilitated by the nation's top immigration law firms. It does NOT occur primarily in the Indian " body shops," and it DOES occur in the hiring of international students from U.S. university campuses. The underpayment of H-1Bs is well-established fact, not rumor, anecdote or ideology. It has been confirmed by two congressionally-commissioned reports, and a number of academic studies, in both statistical and qualitative analyses. Even former software industry entrepreneur CEO Vivek Wadhwa, now a defender of foreign worker programs, has confessed, I know from my experience as a tech CEO that H-1Bs are cheaper than domestic hires. Technically, these workers are supposed to be paid a "prevailing wage," but this mechanism is riddled with loopholes. Wadhwa has also stated I was one of the first [CEOs] to use H-1B visas to bring workers to the U.S.A. Why did I do that? Because it was cheaper.
- microarchitect 15y ago
  Interesting page, but this part is a bit hard to believe: There is no tech labor shortage. No study, other than those sponsored by the industry, has ever shown a shortage. Wages, both for new graduates and established professionals, have been flat or falling in the engineering and programming fields (adjusted for inflation). Employers hire only a tiny fraction of those who apply. HR departments routinely exclude CVs of applicants they deem "too expensive"--those that are over age 35. (So managers never see these CVs, and mistakenly believe there are no applicants.) The argument about ageism might well be true. However, I don't think it's going to be easy to find high quality software engineers, especially if you exclude the all the foreign students graduating from the top-25 or so CS programs in the country
jerrya 15y ago
Companies say they need H1-B visas because they can't find capable workers locally. At the same time, the same companies usually force all applicants to submit resumes online to a central HR service, where the HR department is usually completely unqualified to determine on any but the grossest levels who is qualified and who is not. I say any company that wants an H1-B visa worker at location X must have a way for applicants to turn in a resume at location X and be seen by a hiring manager at location X. If they are not willing to do that, than they are not serious when they complain they can't find competent local workers.
- yardie 15y ago
  Its just a ruse. They are required by law to post a that position, and then after "exhausting all options" only then can they recruit an H1B candidate. If you see a position that has some outlandish requirements (10+ years of C#) than you can be sure it's a jon post for a candidate they already had in mind but were legally required to list.
singular 15y ago
Personally I've always been put off by the perceived (let me know if I've got this wrong) ease with which American companies can get rid of you, and the short notice they can give you (2 weeks is what I've heard) - here in the UK the law is heavily weighted towards the employee.
- yardie 15y ago
  The short notice can be even shorter than that, real-time. 2-weeks is just a courtesy. But I've been on the other end where it didn't takes months of negotiation to get work. In the past this wasn't a problem there was enough work for everyone, but with globalization, outsourcing, and automation the scales have tipped greatly in favor of the employer. The UK is only slightly better in labor law. A lot of the UK companies have learned a lot from the former colony. If they can't fire you outright they'll just get more creative (ie. We caught you using the office copier to make flyers for your football league, fired for abusing company resources). My wife's company (big UK company) is in a protracted labor dispute with the unions. So what do they do? Find exagerated reasons to get union leaders fired. Of course unions have lawyers, but the company can keep it in court longer than the union can pay its lawyers.
  - singular 15y ago
    Ouch that's terrible. I guess there are always ways around things... I had always assumed you were protected. I guess that, no matter how protected you think you in the eyes of the law, being a wage-earner is more of a risk it seems to be.
    - idiopathic 15y ago
      It is scary, and they will fire you. That scared me a lot. My first job was with the US Federal Government (I was a scientist at NIH) who had nicer terms, plus a reputation of not being able to fire egregiously bad employees. But then I switched to the private sector and I have since seen that company fire lots of people quickly. To be fair, none of those fired quickly were H1B holders, and the US citizens who were fired were given very generous severance payments (this is a management consultancy that knows former employees are future customers). My advice is to accept it, and then feel liberated by it. The same contract allowed me to leave my employer without feeling guilty, which is exactly what I did when I wanted to start my own company. For me, the turning point was when I wanted to have a family. I just found the idea of being forced to leave the country when your employer does not want to sponsor you anymore too awful, especially as I had experienced it as a child when my father had a UK university do the same thing to him. We had 1 month to pack everything and leave the country.
meow 15y ago
Could it not just be explained in terms of dollar value (actual and projected) instead of harping about missed out talent.. Since most of the companies that take in H1-B applicants operate globally, their cost of recruiting employees locally could have gone down (due to depressed job market and low attrition rates) making local recruiting much easier. In simpler words thanks to the fed printing press, local workforce might be becoming more competitive :)
nickthedart 15y ago
I think that the web has made the "dark side" of H1B more widely known. H1B holders often feel like indentured servants. There are many stories of people who slaved away for years while trying to get a Green Card but didn't get one in the end. Also , post 9-11, with the associated paranoia and security hassles, living a plane flight away from your extended family, especially in the US, would seem far less attractive. Its a pity because there are some great tech opportunities in the US right now. My solution would be , the US needs a better tech visa program where people have a chance to stay in the US on a more equal footing with Americans (and thereby become employers themselves, which helps Americans too). Also the US needs to stop treating every normal innocent visitor like they're a potential threat of some kind.
_debug_ 15y ago
To me, it's interesting that almost no discussion of the H-1B touches on another topic that is widely discussed, too, but in it's own mindspace : the U.S. is now a scary place. The eager use of tasers by the police and the presence of the TSA goons on trains and buses in addition to airports add unpleasant possibilities to the anti-immigrant sentiment (not to mention the moral questions about the whole War on Terror, Guantanamo, etc;). I have never heard of instances of immigrants getting tased just for looking different, for example, but these are things to consider when immigrating to a new country : are they friendly, are they peaceful? Do I want to be associated with them? Am I that unhappy in my own situation that I really need to go to such a place?
learner4life 15y ago
There is some truth to this. I am an H1-B visa holder who due to a lawyer mess up has been forced to file under the EB-3 category. Despite me being a productive body to my company as well as assimilating into the local culture, I am seeing at least a 10 year wait before I can switch companies or jobs or start a company. While I am at a reasonably stable company, I have the same problems everyone has at reasonably stable companies, that of an entrenched upper management with not much scope of growth. I am seriously considering moving back to India to be able to start a company. H1B's were lucrative 15 years ago for smart people as the number of opportunities were low at home. It no longer is true and smart people are unwilling to pay the culture and emotional costs it takes to make a move to an alien culture.
- DenisM 15y ago
  You can switch jobs on H1B, and you can switch jobs while waiting for the green card. Talk to a lawyer.
mavelikara 15y ago
My comment at WSJ: A few people running staffing firms had gotten into legal trouble recently. The staffing industry (a.k.a. "bodyshops", "desi consultancies" etc) overall are facing some serious heat from the USCIS and DOL this year. In my opinion, this is a huge factor contributing to the slow uptake of H-1B visas this year. Most discussions of H-1B employers surround two broad categories: 1) Big name tech firms in US - Microsoft, Google, Cisco etc 2) Indian outsourcing companies - Infosys, Wipro, TCS, Cognizant etc But the third important category of users are these staffing companies. They try to stay under the radar clinging on to the coat tails of Indian outsourcing companies by claiming to have big operations in India. But most of these firms have minimal, if any, presence in India. They are easy to identify too - their websites will have stock photographs of busy-looking professionals in business suits hunched over laptops, vacuous white papers on methodologies/delivery models/management frameworks, me-too vision statements etc. A few of these - Peri Soft, Worldwide, Vision Systems - have recently gotten into trouble with DOL; some of the business owners have even spent time behind the bars lately. This has had a chilling effect on the staffing industry, reducing the mad rush to get an H-1B petition filed on 1st April. The economy still not recovering also adds to the hesitation, but I think the firm enforcement actions of DOL, USCIS etc have been an equal contributor.

46 points by ubasu 15y ago

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I will say something: Just from perception, the U.S does not feel attractive anymore as a place to work in. Americans are whining constantly online about how terrible their country is, on my recent visit I was shocked at how dilapidated the place looks compared to europe, the value of the dollar is falling rapidly, and there is this undercurrent of anti-immigrant sentiment that is broadcasted via the media. In the past the U.S felt like the open and powerful place where everything can be achieved, but now it no longer feels that way. So many new countries are now nimble and growing with markets opening up - while the U.S is going exactly the other way. It's restricting and shrinking, markets are getting closed. Worst of all, with the weak dollar, earning money in the U.S doesn't get you a lot of money to send home anymore.

endtwist 15y ago
I just want to point out that you're making a gross over-generalization by saying that you were "shocked at how dilapidated the place looks" as though it were a 250 sq. foot (~23 m^2) apartment. The continental US is 3,794,101 sq. miles (9,826,676 km^2) and some of it is bound to look "dilapidated," but not nearly the entirety.
- maxklein 15y ago
  Well San Francisco, which is the tech mecca, looks pretty dilapidated.
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  - d_r 15y ago
    San Francisco is a beautiful city that for some reason is not incredibly well-kept. I'm not sure if I feel that way because of the not-too-friendly homeless, or the overall look of being worn out in some parts like Market Street. I'm from New York and frequently travel to China, both of which obviously have "old" spots. For some reason, "old" there for me evokes the feeling of appreciation for history, while the San Francisco "old" makes me sad.
    - beedogs 15y ago
      "Old" in China is several hundred years different than "old" in San Francisco, unless you're in Muir Woods.
    - geebee 15y ago
      I agree... kind of. Not all of SF feels dilapidated, and not all old parts make me depressed. Kind of depends. I've lived here my whole life (almost 40 years now, sheesh), and some parts have gotten more interesting. The embarcadero has gotten much more appealing. The decision to not rebuild the old freeway was a good one - now there's a long bayside path from the restored ferry building past the new ballpark (one of the nicest in the country, I think), and then finally down past the new UCSF biomed campus (which will be producing some mind blowing work). This will be a pretty incredible new neighborhood. I also think that crissy field is a more appealing place than it was when I was a kid, and the long walk from the presidio (fort point under the bridge through fort mason contains "old stuff" that is very evocative). Market Street around civic center is appalling, and it spills over into Powell street and the Embarcadero near market enough that those spots are clearly tarnished, especially in the eyes of visitors. But pretty much every corner of the city suffers from blight - the new Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park or the De Young may sparkle (a little too much for my taste), but the appeal of the park is diminished by the presence of a large homeless population (including stray pit bulls). Maybe these things are more noticeably to newcomers now? While it may seem a little facile to blame too much on one problem, I don't think you can understate how severe an impact the "hardcore homeless" population has had on SF. Not only does it create blight, it's also a big drain on our finances. SF is in a tough spot here. It's a liberal city that has friendlier homeless policies, but unfortunately, that makes us a magnet. As for New York... lived there for only 6 months, but Mahnattan is truly a vibrant place. I was at Columbia, and I'd say I was hit up for spare change about as often as I am in SF, though. This was in the mid 90s, maybe it's cleaned up better than SF since then, haven't really been back.
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- danssig 15y ago
  Not really. I lived in the US for nearly three decades and I've been to most states and I can say you'd be hard pressed to find a city that didn't have dilapidated looking parts. I think it's the nature of it. When a business moves out they just leave the place as it is and it's up to the next renter to make their business look nice. In every place I've been in Europe that is reversed: putting the place back how you found it is the responsibility of the renter. That alone accounts for a big "ghost town" look when towns are going through hard times.
pacomerh 15y ago
As a place to live you might be right, but as an industry (in my case) I'm finding it more attractive in the sense that I always meet people (mostly online) that are building new things, that are experimenting with new ideas and trying to break conventional schemes. Today if I wanted I could move back to my country and I would have almost the same amount of work working remotely. I live in CA and most of my clients are local & I never meet most of them in person. There's an interesting trust that wasn't here before. 2 years ago, even if you presented an amazing resume they would still want to see your face, today 20% of the cases do that. Again this is from my perspective.
va_coder 15y ago
Which countries do you consider to be "new", clean and nimble?
- potatolicious 15y ago
  I immigrated from Taiwan in the mid 90s and went back this month, the first time in nearly 17 years. When I left, it was squarely sitting in second-world status, but I was surprised to go back and find a modern, bustling, clean, developed nation. There is infrastructure there, unlike most American cities. I live in Seattle, and everything around here feels like it's falling apart - you walk around and there's the distinct feeling that you're walking through a relic... something from another era, now disused and slowly decaying. I did not get this feeling anywhere in Taipei. Everywhere you go something is being overhauled, more metro lines are being built constantly, there's new construction, new businesses. Technology is being integrated into people's lives in a wonderful way - even my 80 year-old grandmother navigates all the touch screen smart-card kiosks in the MRT system like a pro. It was a bit of a disappointment to come back to Seattle and pick up a paper transfer riding a dilapidated bus that doesn't even have a voice-recorded stop call-out feature. It's even more depressing to watch all the political infighting in the city about rapid transit buildouts - the Taiwanese tunneled through much more densely populated, existing developed areas years ago, and now they get to enjoy one of the most advanced rapid transit system I've ever seen, while here in Seattle we've been sitting on our ass about this issue for 30 years.
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  - va_coder 15y ago
    There's a lot I love about the US but it's true that many cities have poorly managed public transit systems. I don't think I have ever grabbed a bus transfer and not felt disappointed either, regardless of how clean it was. Maybe you need to upgrade your lifestyle and buy yourself a nice set of wheels. That's how we roll in America ;)
tybris 15y ago
I had the opposite feeling. When I first went there 10 years ago no one had a GSM, the powergrid looked like Edison himself built it (without help), websites were of laughable quality, even mundane things like hotels had a primitive feel to them. Now, I can only dream of Europe having things like America's NetFlix, Internet industry, smart phone usage, creative restaurants, hotels, and much more. There are still some things quite primitive in the U.S. Internet banking in the is ridiculously limited. The last time I saw a CRT monitor was on an American air line. Overall though, my feeling is that Europe prevailed in the past 10 years, but America evolved.
- beedogs 15y ago
  > 10 years ago ... websites were of laughable quality Did anyone have a reasonable-looking website in 2001? How is that an American phenomenon? > Now, I can only dream of Europe having things like America's NetFlix, Internet industry, smart phone usage, creative restaurants, hotels, and much more. The service industry is the only thing left throughout America, so it's no wonder it's the only one where innovation is taking place.
  - tybris 15y ago
    > Did anyone have a reasonable-looking website in 2001? How is that an American phenomenon? Yes. European websites at the time were reasonably modern. e.g., a web shop http://replay.web.archive.org/20010614234849/http://www.bol.com/index.html http://replay.web.archive.org/20010614234849/http://www.bol.... American websites were always one big mess, lacking any form of tasteful design or functionality. http://replay.web.archive.org/20000516060156/http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/home/home.html http://replay.web.archive.org/20000516060156/http://www.amaz...
    - beedogs 15y ago
      I'm really not sure what kind of point you're trying to make with that terrible comparison; those two companies couldn't be any more different. Show me what European storefront sites looked like in 2001.
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thisisfmu 15y ago
returning from a recent trip to continental Europe I was shocked at how dilapidated most of the UK looks compared to Germany and Austria. I wonder to what extent this is a matter of cultural priorities and taste rather than an indicator of economic well-being however.

cloudhead 15y ago

Maybe if they removed the irrational restrictions and complications around it, they would have more talent coming in the country. Most startups can't afford to go through the H-1B process, and many candidates just don't meet the criteria (4 years of school or 12 years combined experience).

jamii 15y ago
Earlier in the year I spent some time applying for jobs in the US and the response was almost always that they couldn't afford the time or money to get a visa.
psykotic 15y ago
> Most startups can't afford to go through the H-1B process, and many candidates just don't meet the criteria (4 years of school or 12 years combined experience). If you're a garage-level startup then $10,000 in legal fees to hire an employee might sound like a lot. Otherwise I see it as a cheap bargain if you are truly bringing on talent otherwise lacking domestically, which is the H-1B's nominal charter. As for not meeting the requirements, I'm an example of someone who did not and got an O-1 instead. It's a lot harder but still absolutely doable if the candidate has enough demonstrable accomplishments and acclaim to his or her name. The time sink of going through the process is probably the bigger issue for a typical fast-moving startup.
- cloudhead 15y ago
  Yea, when I said "afford it" I meant in time and money, which are both scarce in the startup space. I was unaware of the possibility of an O-1 until the H-1B process failed for me, it was brought to my attention only recently.. It's good to know it's an option. Would you be willing to disclose some of the strategies you used to get the O-1? It seems very much geared towards traditional sciences and old media from looking at the criteria.

mtviewdave 15y ago

>They cite former H-1B holders such as Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, and Vinod Dham, an engineer behind Intel Corp.'s Pentium chip, as proof of its value. The H-1B was created in 1990. According to Wikipedia, Dham started at NCR in Ohio in 1977, so I doubt he ever had one. Sun was founded in 1982, so Khosla couldn't have had an H-1B either.

ktsmith 15y ago

The numbers that USCIS is publishing can be seen here: http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=4b7cdd1d5fd37210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=73566811264a3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f... edit: Those numbers show the applications accepted, not the number received.

jerrya 15y ago

http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/h1b.html http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/h1b.html Professor Norm Matloff's H-1B Web Page Overview: The H-1B work visa is fundamentally about cheap labor. Though the tech industry lobbyists portray H-1B as a remedy for labor shortages and as a means of hiring "the best and the brightest" from around the world (which I strongly support), the vast majority are ordinary people doing ordinary work. Instead of being about talent, H-1B is about cheap labor. Employers accrue Type I wage savings by paying H-1Bs less than comparable Americans (U.S. citizens and permanent residents). Employers accrue Type II wage savings by hiring younger, thus cheaper, H-1Bs in lieu of older, thus more expensive (age 35+) Americans. Both types of wage savings are fully LEGAL, due to loopholes in the law and regulations. The problem is NOT one of lack of enforcement. Use of H-1B for cheap labor extends across the industry including the large mainstream firms., facilitated by the nation's top immigration law firms. It does NOT occur primarily in the Indian " body shops," and it DOES occur in the hiring of international students from U.S. university campuses. The underpayment of H-1Bs is well-established fact, not rumor, anecdote or ideology. It has been confirmed by two congressionally-commissioned reports, and a number of academic studies, in both statistical and qualitative analyses. Even former software industry entrepreneur CEO Vivek Wadhwa, now a defender of foreign worker programs, has confessed, I know from my experience as a tech CEO that H-1Bs are cheaper than domestic hires. Technically, these workers are supposed to be paid a "prevailing wage," but this mechanism is riddled with loopholes. Wadhwa has also stated I was one of the first [CEOs] to use H-1B visas to bring workers to the U.S.A. Why did I do that? Because it was cheaper.

microarchitect 15y ago
Interesting page, but this part is a bit hard to believe: There is no tech labor shortage. No study, other than those sponsored by the industry, has ever shown a shortage. Wages, both for new graduates and established professionals, have been flat or falling in the engineering and programming fields (adjusted for inflation). Employers hire only a tiny fraction of those who apply. HR departments routinely exclude CVs of applicants they deem "too expensive"--those that are over age 35. (So managers never see these CVs, and mistakenly believe there are no applicants.) The argument about ageism might well be true. However, I don't think it's going to be easy to find high quality software engineers, especially if you exclude the all the foreign students graduating from the top-25 or so CS programs in the country

jerrya 15y ago

Companies say they need H1-B visas because they can't find capable workers locally. At the same time, the same companies usually force all applicants to submit resumes online to a central HR service, where the HR department is usually completely unqualified to determine on any but the grossest levels who is qualified and who is not. I say any company that wants an H1-B visa worker at location X must have a way for applicants to turn in a resume at location X and be seen by a hiring manager at location X. If they are not willing to do that, than they are not serious when they complain they can't find competent local workers.

yardie 15y ago
Its just a ruse. They are required by law to post a that position, and then after "exhausting all options" only then can they recruit an H1B candidate. If you see a position that has some outlandish requirements (10+ years of C#) than you can be sure it's a jon post for a candidate they already had in mind but were legally required to list.

singular 15y ago

Personally I've always been put off by the perceived (let me know if I've got this wrong) ease with which American companies can get rid of you, and the short notice they can give you (2 weeks is what I've heard) - here in the UK the law is heavily weighted towards the employee.

yardie 15y ago
The short notice can be even shorter than that, real-time. 2-weeks is just a courtesy. But I've been on the other end where it didn't takes months of negotiation to get work. In the past this wasn't a problem there was enough work for everyone, but with globalization, outsourcing, and automation the scales have tipped greatly in favor of the employer. The UK is only slightly better in labor law. A lot of the UK companies have learned a lot from the former colony. If they can't fire you outright they'll just get more creative (ie. We caught you using the office copier to make flyers for your football league, fired for abusing company resources). My wife's company (big UK company) is in a protracted labor dispute with the unions. So what do they do? Find exagerated reasons to get union leaders fired. Of course unions have lawyers, but the company can keep it in court longer than the union can pay its lawyers.
- singular 15y ago
  Ouch that's terrible. I guess there are always ways around things... I had always assumed you were protected. I guess that, no matter how protected you think you in the eyes of the law, being a wage-earner is more of a risk it seems to be.
  - idiopathic 15y ago
    It is scary, and they will fire you. That scared me a lot. My first job was with the US Federal Government (I was a scientist at NIH) who had nicer terms, plus a reputation of not being able to fire egregiously bad employees. But then I switched to the private sector and I have since seen that company fire lots of people quickly. To be fair, none of those fired quickly were H1B holders, and the US citizens who were fired were given very generous severance payments (this is a management consultancy that knows former employees are future customers). My advice is to accept it, and then feel liberated by it. The same contract allowed me to leave my employer without feeling guilty, which is exactly what I did when I wanted to start my own company. For me, the turning point was when I wanted to have a family. I just found the idea of being forced to leave the country when your employer does not want to sponsor you anymore too awful, especially as I had experienced it as a child when my father had a UK university do the same thing to him. We had 1 month to pack everything and leave the country.

meow 15y ago

Could it not just be explained in terms of dollar value (actual and projected) instead of harping about missed out talent.. Since most of the companies that take in H1-B applicants operate globally, their cost of recruiting employees locally could have gone down (due to depressed job market and low attrition rates) making local recruiting much easier. In simpler words thanks to the fed printing press, local workforce might be becoming more competitive :)

nickthedart 15y ago

I think that the web has made the "dark side" of H1B more widely known. H1B holders often feel like indentured servants. There are many stories of people who slaved away for years while trying to get a Green Card but didn't get one in the end. Also , post 9-11, with the associated paranoia and security hassles, living a plane flight away from your extended family, especially in the US, would seem far less attractive. Its a pity because there are some great tech opportunities in the US right now. My solution would be , the US needs a better tech visa program where people have a chance to stay in the US on a more equal footing with Americans (and thereby become employers themselves, which helps Americans too). Also the US needs to stop treating every normal innocent visitor like they're a potential threat of some kind.

_debug_ 15y ago

To me, it's interesting that almost no discussion of the H-1B touches on another topic that is widely discussed, too, but in it's own mindspace : the U.S. is now a scary place. The eager use of tasers by the police and the presence of the TSA goons on trains and buses in addition to airports add unpleasant possibilities to the anti-immigrant sentiment (not to mention the moral questions about the whole War on Terror, Guantanamo, etc;). I have never heard of instances of immigrants getting tased just for looking different, for example, but these are things to consider when immigrating to a new country : are they friendly, are they peaceful? Do I want to be associated with them? Am I that unhappy in my own situation that I really need to go to such a place?

learner4life 15y ago

There is some truth to this. I am an H1-B visa holder who due to a lawyer mess up has been forced to file under the EB-3 category. Despite me being a productive body to my company as well as assimilating into the local culture, I am seeing at least a 10 year wait before I can switch companies or jobs or start a company. While I am at a reasonably stable company, I have the same problems everyone has at reasonably stable companies, that of an entrenched upper management with not much scope of growth. I am seriously considering moving back to India to be able to start a company. H1B's were lucrative 15 years ago for smart people as the number of opportunities were low at home. It no longer is true and smart people are unwilling to pay the culture and emotional costs it takes to make a move to an alien culture.

DenisM 15y ago
You can switch jobs on H1B, and you can switch jobs while waiting for the green card. Talk to a lawyer.

mavelikara 15y ago

My comment at WSJ: A few people running staffing firms had gotten into legal trouble recently. The staffing industry (a.k.a. "bodyshops", "desi consultancies" etc) overall are facing some serious heat from the USCIS and DOL this year. In my opinion, this is a huge factor contributing to the slow uptake of H-1B visas this year. Most discussions of H-1B employers surround two broad categories: 1) Big name tech firms in US - Microsoft, Google, Cisco etc 2) Indian outsourcing companies - Infosys, Wipro, TCS, Cognizant etc But the third important category of users are these staffing companies. They try to stay under the radar clinging on to the coat tails of Indian outsourcing companies by claiming to have big operations in India. But most of these firms have minimal, if any, presence in India. They are easy to identify too - their websites will have stock photographs of busy-looking professionals in business suits hunched over laptops, vacuous white papers on methodologies/delivery models/management frameworks, me-too vision statements etc. A few of these - Peri Soft, Worldwide, Vision Systems - have recently gotten into trouble with DOL; some of the business owners have even spent time behind the bars lately. This has had a chilling effect on the staffing industry, reducing the mad rush to get an H-1B petition filed on 1st April. The economy still not recovering also adds to the hesitation, but I think the firm enforcement actions of DOL, USCIS etc have been an equal contributor.