4 ms·

I would say it's more to assert or, if you are skeptical, present, in good faith that your business model or strategy isn't H1-B employee arbitrage. I.e. for th

I would say it's more to assert or, if you are skeptical, present, in good faith that your business model or strategy isn't H1-B employee arbitrage. I.e. for the purpose of this scenario, in a holistic sense, Facebook doesn't avoid hiring Americans. So like, the government says facebook had a bunch of PERM positions that they sandbagged recruiting for to Americans. But then, > while comparable positions at Facebook that were advertised on its careers website during a similar time period typically attracted 100 or more applicants each. Are these...the same positions? How does facebook's hiring process work? Is there actually any discrete limit to the 'slots' on the careers website? Do they have 2500 listings for software engineers, or just like, everyone applies, we are looking to hire ~2000 people this year. I can see where the government is probably right in saying "you did it wrong". But if you are facebook, and the hiring strategy is honestly: * Hiring for the 'American' positions is only limited by the company finding the applicant skilled enough. There is no numerical cap. * Only foreign applicants apply to a discrete, government-limited pool of PERM positions. This way you don't waste the PERM positions on Americans, who can apply to you nigh-unlimited pool of 'American' positions. * Starting salary for everyone is the same ($156k) I could certainly see that the government's way of interpreting your 'insidious hiring program' is flat-footed to the point of being wrong.

unishark 6y ago
Seems like a bad idea to allow a corporation to reinterpret immigration law to mix and match visas and green cards in whatever ways that best fits its goals. You can pretty much bet it will be used in a way that gets around some aspect of the law. Suppose the 500 jobs at the highest skill level are basically impossible to keep filled? Playing games like you suggest allows them to continually hire less skilled workers for roles Americans have no problem filling also. And they can continually complain to congress about needing more visas.
- xenadu02 6y ago
  A lot of immigration law seems built around the idea that workers are interchangeable cogs. I see a lot of arguments in the comments here that seem based on the same assumption. At top tier software shops (that pay US and immigrant employees the same) you're lucky if you can find enough US employees to fill the available roles by the time the next fiscal year starts. There are plenty of people applying who call themselves "Software Engineers" but most of them aren't very good. There is also a limit to how many new grads you can take on while having the bandwidth to train them. Once every team of 3-7 has a new grad you can't really take on any more. And the places I'm talking about already pay the highest salaries and bonuses in the world for SWEs. Doing an L1 transfer or H1b is a lot of work. Dealing with PERM is a lot of work. If there really were a glut of super capable US engineers no one would bother going through that hassle. Just what is supposed to happen here when you're already paying 2-3x (or more) average comp, hiring hundreds or thousands of US engineers every year, and you still can't find enough people? I guess the government thinks somehow you should use the PERM process to find a replacement for your immigrant employee when you already can't find enough qualified US candidates to fill the brand new positions your company created this fiscal year? That chain of logic just leads to an even bigger deficit in unfilled positions or a government mandate to lower hiring standards. Neither of those is good for the company's competitiveness. I don't know if this case is politically motivated but surely the Justice Department's time would be better spent going after the many well-known H1b body shops, where mega corps are abusing the system to replace US workers with cheaper immigrants?
  - unishark 6y ago
    If you mean the big consulting firms, they got taken out first. And they still prove the point don't they? The constraints got tightened, but it's still a bell curve with most people at the lowest level that makes it past the constraint. And while I shudder at the thought of Facebook not being able to man its critical ad targeting development, this is all about growth and taking over every major new booming product category as they emerge. The more people they can funnel into the game of leveraging of their current products to take over others, the more they can take over. Then the economics of paying more makes sense. Also the need for people productive immediately without training. Though according to the complaint, the pay for PERM positions is 156k, not that crazy. And that's the average. For a company in Menlo Park. This isn't the "super-capable" people of the field.
  - gimmeThaBeet 6y ago
    Definitely, I agree with that a lot. That the process as-is would force them to justify not hiring an American over the foreign employee who already works for them just feels so strange to me.
- gimmeThaBeet 6y ago
  Admittedly, reading the complaint further, it looks like there are accusations facebook did indeed do some sketchy stuff with regards to the process. For instance, if an American happened to actually apply to one of these jobs, and be qualified, they allege facebook would just abandon the process. But honestly, I think for the same reasons that what they did was sketchy, I find myself agreeing with it more. I think that the complaint really buries the lede because not only did they have someone in mind with these PERM positions, according to the complaint, it looks like they had someone in mind who already worked for them. Once again, I can see why the government is mad, facebook seems to have hacked their process. But while there is an accusation of a systematic dark pattern, I don't view it as a pattern of abuse. If the law is so spinlocked that you can't in good faith hire your own employees at market rates since they aren't American, I can't really blame companies trying to take their destiny into their own hands.

unishark 6y ago

Seems like a bad idea to allow a corporation to reinterpret immigration law to mix and match visas and green cards in whatever ways that best fits its goals. You can pretty much bet it will be used in a way that gets around some aspect of the law. Suppose the 500 jobs at the highest skill level are basically impossible to keep filled? Playing games like you suggest allows them to continually hire less skilled workers for roles Americans have no problem filling also. And they can continually complain to congress about needing more visas.

xenadu02 6y ago
A lot of immigration law seems built around the idea that workers are interchangeable cogs. I see a lot of arguments in the comments here that seem based on the same assumption. At top tier software shops (that pay US and immigrant employees the same) you're lucky if you can find enough US employees to fill the available roles by the time the next fiscal year starts. There are plenty of people applying who call themselves "Software Engineers" but most of them aren't very good. There is also a limit to how many new grads you can take on while having the bandwidth to train them. Once every team of 3-7 has a new grad you can't really take on any more. And the places I'm talking about already pay the highest salaries and bonuses in the world for SWEs. Doing an L1 transfer or H1b is a lot of work. Dealing with PERM is a lot of work. If there really were a glut of super capable US engineers no one would bother going through that hassle. Just what is supposed to happen here when you're already paying 2-3x (or more) average comp, hiring hundreds or thousands of US engineers every year, and you still can't find enough people? I guess the government thinks somehow you should use the PERM process to find a replacement for your immigrant employee when you already can't find enough qualified US candidates to fill the brand new positions your company created this fiscal year? That chain of logic just leads to an even bigger deficit in unfilled positions or a government mandate to lower hiring standards. Neither of those is good for the company's competitiveness. I don't know if this case is politically motivated but surely the Justice Department's time would be better spent going after the many well-known H1b body shops, where mega corps are abusing the system to replace US workers with cheaper immigrants?
- unishark 6y ago
  If you mean the big consulting firms, they got taken out first. And they still prove the point don't they? The constraints got tightened, but it's still a bell curve with most people at the lowest level that makes it past the constraint. And while I shudder at the thought of Facebook not being able to man its critical ad targeting development, this is all about growth and taking over every major new booming product category as they emerge. The more people they can funnel into the game of leveraging of their current products to take over others, the more they can take over. Then the economics of paying more makes sense. Also the need for people productive immediately without training. Though according to the complaint, the pay for PERM positions is 156k, not that crazy. And that's the average. For a company in Menlo Park. This isn't the "super-capable" people of the field.
- gimmeThaBeet 6y ago
  Definitely, I agree with that a lot. That the process as-is would force them to justify not hiring an American over the foreign employee who already works for them just feels so strange to me.
gimmeThaBeet 6y ago
Admittedly, reading the complaint further, it looks like there are accusations facebook did indeed do some sketchy stuff with regards to the process. For instance, if an American happened to actually apply to one of these jobs, and be qualified, they allege facebook would just abandon the process. But honestly, I think for the same reasons that what they did was sketchy, I find myself agreeing with it more. I think that the complaint really buries the lede because not only did they have someone in mind with these PERM positions, according to the complaint, it looks like they had someone in mind who already worked for them. Once again, I can see why the government is mad, facebook seems to have hacked their process. But while there is an accusation of a systematic dark pattern, I don't view it as a pattern of abuse. If the law is so spinlocked that you can't in good faith hire your own employees at market rates since they aren't American, I can't really blame companies trying to take their destiny into their own hands.