6 ms·

Free H-1B for laid off tech-workers

47 points by forrestblount 4y ago

forrestblount 4y ago
If you’re in the process of job searching, please mention this option to any company with less than 250 employees that you are in the recruitment process with.
- cactusplant7374 4y ago
  Seems a bit desperate. I wouldn't feel comfortable selling another company during an interview.
pirate787 4y ago
The H-1B program is designed to suppress tech worker wages in the U.S. and create a more compliant workforce here. I'm not sure it is possible for a company to ethically use this program, and many outright use it for abuse https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-widespread-wage-theft-in-the-h-1b-program/ https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-widespread-wage...
- JacobThreeThree 4y ago
  Indeed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU
  - tristor 4y ago
    We all know that this is the ground truth, but wow that video was damning. And that's not even the body shops that regularly engage in straight immigration fraud (like faking resumes entirely), but regular companies being advised as to how they can fraudulently circumvent the necessity of hiring a local American worker before seeking cheaper foreign labor. What's even worse about this is that there are many many highly skilled and qualifies foreign workers in the US on H1B that absolutely deserve to be here in the roles they are filling, and their presence is negatively impacted by the sheer quantity of fraud that surrounds the H1B program through things like what is shown in the video and the behavior of body shops.
  - foogazi 4y ago
    Damn - I was H1B and even I’m appalled But everything checks out to what I saw: throw every qualification or certification into the job ad, no one could seriously match it
  - belltaco 4y ago
    That video isn't even about H1B. It's crazy how little techies know about the legal immigration system, the tech forums are always in mass confusion over it.
- bushbaba 4y ago
  To be fair, in during a downturn it actually helps US Citizens. Any laid off H1b who doesn't find a job soon will end up deported. This will prevent a large glut of labor considerably bringing US down wages.
  - whatshisface 4y ago
    If the supply goes down as a response to falling demand that's not going to help anybody's wages...
    - thwayunion 4y ago
      There are situations where GP is correct, because there is an alternative to the H1B. Employers can outsource the entire department. Outsourcing has risks, though. These risks are especially difficult to mitigate in "real" high tech where IP and trade secrets have real value. Outsourcing risks are also difficult to manage in cases where sensitive customer (or valuable company) data is being handled. In these cases, companies will only outsource when they really cannot find domestic labor, full stop. (Remember that >60% of CS PhDs go to immigrants.) In these cases, H1Bs allow the job function to stay completely onshore. So then local employees benefit from the fact that they are easier to hire when companies over-shoot layoffs or lose H1Bs due to ratios.
  - lgleason 4y ago
    Except this company is trying to make it easier to keep these people here to depress wages during a downturn.
    - pcthrowaway 4y ago
      I think it's really unethical to tell people they need to pack up their lives and move countries because of external factors that were not their fault.
      - HideousKojima 4y ago
        That's up to the citizens of a country to decide, as they have the collective sovereign right to decide who can or cannot reside/work/etc. within their borders.
- el_nahual 4y ago
  "Hi, can I work at your company?" "No, it is not possible for me to ethically hire you" is... quite a take.
- notch656a 4y ago
  It baffles my mind why anyone would immigrate here legally, considering how laughably easy it is to overstay (or cross one of our multi-thousand mile borders or coasts). I've interacted with DHS (the department under which immigration is housed) and they are nothing but authoritarian jack-boots who systematically destroy your civil rights, I can't imagine what it would be like to actually ask them "may I pretty please papa" on a regular basis while you wait for the next arbitrary reason for denial. If you came here legally there's millions of illegal immigrants laughing their ass off at all your effort. ~400k removals a year with ~11M undocumented/illegal immigrants; the chances of someone undocumented being removed without committing a crime is well below 5% a year (and probably well below that, since a pretty small minority get into crime and thus disproportionately expose themselves to the system). ------- re: it is not easy to retain a good middle class lifestyle long term Something like half of illegal immigrants don't have a high school education. Yet they earn roughly the same amount as US non-high-school graduates at roughly ~25k / yr. So portraying them as earning much less than Americans without high school education would be wrong. They are earning close to same as citizen without having to go through immigration process. The higher earning illegal immigrants may be using B2B payments (possibly to offshore company they setup) or someone else's document to satisfy I-9, if they aren't working off the books.
  - Ao7bei3s 4y ago
    It may be easy to overstay, but it is not easy to retain a good middle class lifestyle long term. For example: 1. Mandatory I-9 verification means you will not be able to work at any large or non-shady company. No more highly paid tech jobs. 2. You can not re-enter and therefore you cannot leave, e.g. to see your parents in your home country, business trips or international vacations. 3. You cannot renew your drivers license past your visa expiration date. At best you can get a worse alternative (depends on state; AB60 in California) that lets you drive and not much more. 4. You would live in fear of ICE. After going through the legal immigration system, I cannot even imagine the stress of interacting with the illegal immigration system. 5. At that point your chance of naturalization is gone. Even everything else being equal, leaving and legally coming back on another H-1B would've been a _much_ more appealing option. And I don't think any illegal immigrants would be laughing at the efforts of legal immigrants. I am shocked that you would write that. I am pretty sure nearly all illegal immigrants would love to follow a legal path if there was one that was achievable for them. After all, undocumented immigrants currently pay billions of dollars in state and federal taxes every year.
- bobosha 4y ago
  IMO this is a gross generalization and exaggeration. Sure some abuse occurs in H1b, but it has also been the path of entry for many immigrants. While I am not certain, I believe Nadella, Pichai, Musk, and many others came in via the h1b. Over 50% of companies founded in SV have a founder who is foreign born. To just blithely dismiss the positives because of your own naked self-interest. ("suppress tech worker wages"). FYI US tech workers are among the highest paid occupations in the nation, and there is full tech worker employment, your claims have no basis I am afraid.
  - htkibar 4y ago
    Just dumping my thoughts on the topic in general; H1B is quite problematic in its design for sure, a sensible approach would be to determine the need for a certain job group / skill set and give people relatively long residence permits (i.e. 5 years) to come and build a life with the option to naturalise at the end. A skilled worker won’t change professions usually as that is a huge undertaking. Instead you have company controlled visa structures where market swings can result in quite a bit of losses. Almost anything can be seen as wage suppression, however creating a healthy market for both parties is much more important than some people significantly earning more at the expense of unfulfilled need.
  - tristor 4y ago
    > Sure some abuse occurs in H1b, but it has also been the path of entry for many immigrants. You are not even remotely addressing the concerns of the person you are replying to. Saying the program is a "path of entry for many immigrants" while true doesn't in any case obviate the fraud, in fact it's true even in cases of fraud, it's a tautology. There are ENTIRE multi-billion dollar businesses that are entirely based on immigration fraud. This last fiscal year TCS alone made nearly $5B in profit on more than $25B in revenue, and their entire business model is based on immigration fraud. The entire WITCH segment (Wipro, Infosys, TCS, Cognizant, HCL) are structured to enable, support, and advance immigration fraud for profit. > US tech workers are among the highest paid occupations in the nation This does not obviate wage suppression, it's merely a testament to the real value of technology. It's been litigated and proven beyond doubt that SV companies engaged in wage-fixing, including FAANGs like Apple and Google, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L... This type of behavior was a concerted effort that is provable that was taken to suppress tech worker wages. Immigration fraud is also a pathway to do so.
- bergenty 4y ago
  It’s unethical to hire foreign talent and provide a legal means of entry for high quality immigrants? This is a despicable take and very suspect agenda minded rationalization.
  - cactusplant7374 4y ago
    I think OP is suggesting that the position could be filled locally. Should H1-B be used to fill junior or mid-level positions? Certainly these positions require a lot of training and development work on the part of the company hiring them. That certainly is an argument against the applicants being at a high skill level.
mechanical_bear 4y ago
Why? What is their motivation in offering this? It is not altruistic.
- xeromal 4y ago
  You don't know their motivation yet you know it's not altruistic? Thems bold claims cotton.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- adrianmonk 4y ago
  It could easily be a way to drum up business. They're offering their services to businesses looking to hire. If those businesses get the legal work done for free on their first H1B hire, they may decide to do more of it, and then this firm is a known quantity to them and a safe choice.
- lgleason 4y ago
  To make a name for themselves and to drum up further business.
- r00fus 4y ago
  It's to help companies and H1B workers at the same time. It doesn't support the nativist theme that legal immigrants should be tossed out of the country for no other reason than their company had layoffs it a tight market. Ideally, we'd spend more on education/training and less on sourcing workers from other countries - but being nice to the workers already here and making it work for small companies seems a legit altruistic move (and good PR).
  - edgyquant 4y ago
    People who are allowed here to work for a company should indeed be forced to leave when said company lays them off.
rightbyte 4y ago
"It is absolutely worth considering as data has shown that there are drastic shortages of STEM workers in the U.S." Really? Still going with this? Especially the S and M?
- HideousKojima 4y ago
  "Shortage" doesn't mean a lack of qualified workers, it means a lack of qualified workers willing to work at the salaries being offered.
  - thwayunion 4y ago
    In the case of "S" and "M", those wages are below median for the country and in some cases not even livable for the first 6 years of a career [1, 1a], and people struggle with rent well into middle age [2]. For better or worse, Science and Mathematics are case studies in "limitless immigration" and the result is wage suppression to the point of not being able to afford rent on a shared apartment and food at the same time. NB: this isn't an argument against immigration. We should welcome all. But we should also truly require reasonable prevailing wages, no matter what. Otherwise everyone loses. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03478-x https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03478-x [1a] graduate students are often instructors of record on courses and conduct funded research. These are jobs. [2] https://www.science.org/content/article/professors-struggle-recruit-postdocs-calls-structural-change-academia-intensify https://www.science.org/content/article/professors-struggle-...
yen223 4y ago
Free H1-B legal services. The submission title is extremely misleading here.
- jlund-molfese 4y ago
  And to make it worse, it's being submitted by an employee of the company. They know better!
blue039 4y ago
H-1Bs are a form of wage suppression. They claim they can't find workers to work in STEM but what they can't find is workers who are willing to take massive pay cuts. So, instead, they hold foreigners hostage (in all but the most literal sense) with poor wages and the "promise" of citizenship eventually. No one wins - except of course the megacorps.

47 points by forrestblount 4y ago

If you’re in the process of job searching, please mention this option to any company with less than 250 employees that you are in the recruitment process with.

cactusplant7374 4y ago
Seems a bit desperate. I wouldn't feel comfortable selling another company during an interview.

pirate787 4y ago

The H-1B program is designed to suppress tech worker wages in the U.S. and create a more compliant workforce here. I'm not sure it is possible for a company to ethically use this program, and many outright use it for abuse https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-widespread-wage-theft-in-the-h-1b-program/ https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-widespread-wage...

JacobThreeThree 4y ago
Indeed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU
- tristor 4y ago
  We all know that this is the ground truth, but wow that video was damning. And that's not even the body shops that regularly engage in straight immigration fraud (like faking resumes entirely), but regular companies being advised as to how they can fraudulently circumvent the necessity of hiring a local American worker before seeking cheaper foreign labor. What's even worse about this is that there are many many highly skilled and qualifies foreign workers in the US on H1B that absolutely deserve to be here in the roles they are filling, and their presence is negatively impacted by the sheer quantity of fraud that surrounds the H1B program through things like what is shown in the video and the behavior of body shops.
- foogazi 4y ago
  Damn - I was H1B and even I’m appalled But everything checks out to what I saw: throw every qualification or certification into the job ad, no one could seriously match it
- belltaco 4y ago
  That video isn't even about H1B. It's crazy how little techies know about the legal immigration system, the tech forums are always in mass confusion over it.
bushbaba 4y ago
To be fair, in during a downturn it actually helps US Citizens. Any laid off H1b who doesn't find a job soon will end up deported. This will prevent a large glut of labor considerably bringing US down wages.
- whatshisface 4y ago
  If the supply goes down as a response to falling demand that's not going to help anybody's wages...
  - thwayunion 4y ago
    There are situations where GP is correct, because there is an alternative to the H1B. Employers can outsource the entire department. Outsourcing has risks, though. These risks are especially difficult to mitigate in "real" high tech where IP and trade secrets have real value. Outsourcing risks are also difficult to manage in cases where sensitive customer (or valuable company) data is being handled. In these cases, companies will only outsource when they really cannot find domestic labor, full stop. (Remember that >60% of CS PhDs go to immigrants.) In these cases, H1Bs allow the job function to stay completely onshore. So then local employees benefit from the fact that they are easier to hire when companies over-shoot layoffs or lose H1Bs due to ratios.
- lgleason 4y ago
  Except this company is trying to make it easier to keep these people here to depress wages during a downturn.
  - pcthrowaway 4y ago
    I think it's really unethical to tell people they need to pack up their lives and move countries because of external factors that were not their fault.
    - HideousKojima 4y ago
      That's up to the citizens of a country to decide, as they have the collective sovereign right to decide who can or cannot reside/work/etc. within their borders.
el_nahual 4y ago
"Hi, can I work at your company?" "No, it is not possible for me to ethically hire you" is... quite a take.
notch656a 4y ago
It baffles my mind why anyone would immigrate here legally, considering how laughably easy it is to overstay (or cross one of our multi-thousand mile borders or coasts). I've interacted with DHS (the department under which immigration is housed) and they are nothing but authoritarian jack-boots who systematically destroy your civil rights, I can't imagine what it would be like to actually ask them "may I pretty please papa" on a regular basis while you wait for the next arbitrary reason for denial. If you came here legally there's millions of illegal immigrants laughing their ass off at all your effort. ~400k removals a year with ~11M undocumented/illegal immigrants; the chances of someone undocumented being removed without committing a crime is well below 5% a year (and probably well below that, since a pretty small minority get into crime and thus disproportionately expose themselves to the system). ------- re: it is not easy to retain a good middle class lifestyle long term Something like half of illegal immigrants don't have a high school education. Yet they earn roughly the same amount as US non-high-school graduates at roughly ~25k / yr. So portraying them as earning much less than Americans without high school education would be wrong. They are earning close to same as citizen without having to go through immigration process. The higher earning illegal immigrants may be using B2B payments (possibly to offshore company they setup) or someone else's document to satisfy I-9, if they aren't working off the books.
- Ao7bei3s 4y ago
  It may be easy to overstay, but it is not easy to retain a good middle class lifestyle long term. For example: 1. Mandatory I-9 verification means you will not be able to work at any large or non-shady company. No more highly paid tech jobs. 2. You can not re-enter and therefore you cannot leave, e.g. to see your parents in your home country, business trips or international vacations. 3. You cannot renew your drivers license past your visa expiration date. At best you can get a worse alternative (depends on state; AB60 in California) that lets you drive and not much more. 4. You would live in fear of ICE. After going through the legal immigration system, I cannot even imagine the stress of interacting with the illegal immigration system. 5. At that point your chance of naturalization is gone. Even everything else being equal, leaving and legally coming back on another H-1B would've been a _much_ more appealing option. And I don't think any illegal immigrants would be laughing at the efforts of legal immigrants. I am shocked that you would write that. I am pretty sure nearly all illegal immigrants would love to follow a legal path if there was one that was achievable for them. After all, undocumented immigrants currently pay billions of dollars in state and federal taxes every year.
bobosha 4y ago
IMO this is a gross generalization and exaggeration. Sure some abuse occurs in H1b, but it has also been the path of entry for many immigrants. While I am not certain, I believe Nadella, Pichai, Musk, and many others came in via the h1b. Over 50% of companies founded in SV have a founder who is foreign born. To just blithely dismiss the positives because of your own naked self-interest. ("suppress tech worker wages"). FYI US tech workers are among the highest paid occupations in the nation, and there is full tech worker employment, your claims have no basis I am afraid.
- htkibar 4y ago
  Just dumping my thoughts on the topic in general; H1B is quite problematic in its design for sure, a sensible approach would be to determine the need for a certain job group / skill set and give people relatively long residence permits (i.e. 5 years) to come and build a life with the option to naturalise at the end. A skilled worker won’t change professions usually as that is a huge undertaking. Instead you have company controlled visa structures where market swings can result in quite a bit of losses. Almost anything can be seen as wage suppression, however creating a healthy market for both parties is much more important than some people significantly earning more at the expense of unfulfilled need.
- tristor 4y ago
  > Sure some abuse occurs in H1b, but it has also been the path of entry for many immigrants. You are not even remotely addressing the concerns of the person you are replying to. Saying the program is a "path of entry for many immigrants" while true doesn't in any case obviate the fraud, in fact it's true even in cases of fraud, it's a tautology. There are ENTIRE multi-billion dollar businesses that are entirely based on immigration fraud. This last fiscal year TCS alone made nearly $5B in profit on more than $25B in revenue, and their entire business model is based on immigration fraud. The entire WITCH segment (Wipro, Infosys, TCS, Cognizant, HCL) are structured to enable, support, and advance immigration fraud for profit. > US tech workers are among the highest paid occupations in the nation This does not obviate wage suppression, it's merely a testament to the real value of technology. It's been litigated and proven beyond doubt that SV companies engaged in wage-fixing, including FAANGs like Apple and Google, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L... This type of behavior was a concerted effort that is provable that was taken to suppress tech worker wages. Immigration fraud is also a pathway to do so.
bergenty 4y ago
It’s unethical to hire foreign talent and provide a legal means of entry for high quality immigrants? This is a despicable take and very suspect agenda minded rationalization.
- cactusplant7374 4y ago
  I think OP is suggesting that the position could be filled locally. Should H1-B be used to fill junior or mid-level positions? Certainly these positions require a lot of training and development work on the part of the company hiring them. That certainly is an argument against the applicants being at a high skill level.

mechanical_bear 4y ago

Why? What is their motivation in offering this? It is not altruistic.

xeromal 4y ago
You don't know their motivation yet you know it's not altruistic? Thems bold claims cotton.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
adrianmonk 4y ago
It could easily be a way to drum up business. They're offering their services to businesses looking to hire. If those businesses get the legal work done for free on their first H1B hire, they may decide to do more of it, and then this firm is a known quantity to them and a safe choice.
lgleason 4y ago
To make a name for themselves and to drum up further business.
r00fus 4y ago
It's to help companies and H1B workers at the same time. It doesn't support the nativist theme that legal immigrants should be tossed out of the country for no other reason than their company had layoffs it a tight market. Ideally, we'd spend more on education/training and less on sourcing workers from other countries - but being nice to the workers already here and making it work for small companies seems a legit altruistic move (and good PR).
- edgyquant 4y ago
  People who are allowed here to work for a company should indeed be forced to leave when said company lays them off.

rightbyte 4y ago

"It is absolutely worth considering as data has shown that there are drastic shortages of STEM workers in the U.S." Really? Still going with this? Especially the S and M?

HideousKojima 4y ago
"Shortage" doesn't mean a lack of qualified workers, it means a lack of qualified workers willing to work at the salaries being offered.
- thwayunion 4y ago
  In the case of "S" and "M", those wages are below median for the country and in some cases not even livable for the first 6 years of a career [1, 1a], and people struggle with rent well into middle age [2]. For better or worse, Science and Mathematics are case studies in "limitless immigration" and the result is wage suppression to the point of not being able to afford rent on a shared apartment and food at the same time. NB: this isn't an argument against immigration. We should welcome all. But we should also truly require reasonable prevailing wages, no matter what. Otherwise everyone loses. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03478-x https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03478-x [1a] graduate students are often instructors of record on courses and conduct funded research. These are jobs. [2] https://www.science.org/content/article/professors-struggle-recruit-postdocs-calls-structural-change-academia-intensify https://www.science.org/content/article/professors-struggle-...

yen223 4y ago

Free H1-B legal services. The submission title is extremely misleading here.

jlund-molfese 4y ago
And to make it worse, it's being submitted by an employee of the company. They know better!

blue039 4y ago

H-1Bs are a form of wage suppression. They claim they can't find workers to work in STEM but what they can't find is workers who are willing to take massive pay cuts. So, instead, they hold foreigners hostage (in all but the most literal sense) with poor wages and the "promise" of citizenship eventually. No one wins - except of course the megacorps.