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Big Tech Resumed Hiring Foreign Workers Just Weeks After Layoffs
- TurkishPoptart 3y agoThe best crises are manufactured.
- treeman79 3y ago[flagged]
- Mistletoe 3y agoIf it was manufactured, where is my sister-in-law’s fit and healthy dad? Oh yeah he’s dead from Covid.
- treeman79 3y agoPerhaps the US shouldn’t be funding gain of function research in other countries.
- leesalminen 3y agoTbh that’s a pretty lame appeal to emotion argument. An event can be “manufactured” while also having real negative externalities. I’m not making any statement on the veracity of the claim that the pandemic was manufactured, just pointing out a flaw in the logic here.
- hollasch 3y agoAs per usual, I'm mortified more by the clowns "on my side" than by those I'm opposed to. This comment is really a threat to those of us who take the pandemic seriously? We need to censor/downvote positions opposite our own? Cowards.
- throw123123123 3y agoI don't see why that is inconsistent. Companies doing layoffs keep hiring people, what are the news?
- mathgeek 3y agoThe implied “problem” is that these companies are loopholing the H1-B process to hire for positions that American workers were laid off from. Of course, lawyers know how to make things work. > The intent of the H-1B provisions is to help employers who cannot otherwise obtain needed business skills and abilities from the U.S. workforce by authorizing the temporary employment of qualified individuals who are not otherwise authorized to work in the United States.
- la64710 3y agoMost comment proves how readers easily see through garbage article like this nowadays. Maybe transparency is a good thing after all.
- notyourwork 3y agoThis audience isn’t the same as the population at large. Many would conclude from this headline the wrong thing and not see through the BS.
- UncleMeat 3y ago> for positions that American workers were laid off from Is this true? My observation at Google has been that very few teams had layoffs and now have open headcount. The teams that are hiring aren't the ones that had people fired.
- throw123123123 3y agoThe H1b requirement is the loophole to prevent americans from hiring non-americans. A world without loopholes is a world without H1Bs.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
- boomboomsubban 3y agoAny non-paywall source? Have the companies stopped hiring domestically? As this seems like normal behavior.
- shihab 3y ago> Google filed dozens of applications for foreign workers to serve as software engineers... For comparison, Google laid off 12,000 employees this cycle.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoAnd there was no one capable for these roles in those 12,000 people? I find that hard to believe. If the answer is “no”, prove it (I have been the sponsor of H1Bs, and am familiar with the paperwork and the process). Edit: > Normalizing reneging on job offers is a bad path to go down. Google has already done this previously during economic uncertainty. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/29/google-said-to-rescind-job-offers-for-thousands-of-contractors-temps.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/29/google-said-to-rescind-job-o...
- UncleMeat 3y agoA bunch of Googlers who were fired managed to get rehired in new positions. But you can imagine that a lot of the people who were laid off would be justifiably pissed and uninterested in that sort of thing.
- ivalm 3y agoThat’s not really how it works. It’s hard to be fine-grained when firing 12k people. It’s operational much easier to do the layoff and then fix the gaps.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoIndeed, the gist of my complaint to my Congressional reps is going to be “Google appears incapable of managing Human Resources at scale and defaults instead to hiring folks on visas at the same time letting a bunch of existing domestic workers go.” “Too hard” to sorting hat a subset of 12k employees into other roles and slash and burn instead? You shouldn’t get H1B quota. We are coming up on an election cycle after all. > but there is no logical or legal reason to do so. Edit: throttled, can’t reply @bubblethink that is what the law and legislation is for, helping corporations along when their actions are too efficient for society’s liking. I expect regulation to catch up to their labor practices.
- TexanFeller 3y agoOnce you switch to full remote, why not hire from Central and South America at maybe 1/4 the price of a Californian.
- Gigachad 3y agoAmericans like to think they have a monopoly on skilled programmers. But the reality is that most countries have them and they will do the same work for a fraction of the price. Everything is done over the internet these days so it doesn't matter that much where you are located.
- whaleofatw2022 3y agoWe still have a monopoly on good language practices for American english and/or AFAIK how to actually build something that solves business needs rather than requirements. We saw similar between 2005ish-2015ish. Lots of offshoring where you could get whatever you 'wanted' built, but it was exactly what you 'wanted' and not what actually made sense. By this I am referring to contract houses that weren't quite 'code genies' but still would deliver products that were barely workable upon delivery. More than one shop I worked at over the last decade actually -suffered- from this. Magically, most orgs who could figure out how to deliver even semi passable/realistic functional requirements could get the same done in house for a LOT less money.
- Gigachad 3y agoYou are probably thinking about dirt cheap outsourcing to places like India. When part of the shift that's happening now is internal hiring of full time developers in places like Australia or the UK where the language skills and culture is pretty much the same but the wages far lower.
- whaleofatw2022 3y agoThe cost of Australian software historically gives me pause to at least part of your comment. That said, yes a lot of counties can provide very competent software development and houses.. but the communication time gap is often still present. Another shop I worked at had EU devs that were competent, but that communication gap was still a big hurdle.
- zaptheimpaler 3y agodamn its almost like they're hiring and firing people at the same time. crazy stuff. shocking.
- astrange 3y agoLayoffs aren't the same as firing and specifically aren't for performance.
- BobTheDestroyer 3y ago[flagged]
- howinteresting 3y ago[flagged]
- umeshunni 3y ago[flagged]
- zx8080 3y ago> Pichai’s firm filed applications for low-paid foreign workers to come to America and take highly specialized tech jobs. 1. Fire high-paid workers 2. Import low-paid ones 3. ... 4. Profit.
- howinteresting 3y agoGoogle isn't TCS or Wipro. It pays H1B workers very high wages.
- phpisthebest 3y agoI am sure they pay their H1B workers less than their non-H1B workers. So it still may be "high wages" but that does not negate the GrandParent comment that they laid off higher paid workers in favor in importing lower paid workers
- remote_phone 3y ago> I am sure they pay their H1B workers less than their non-H1B workers. I’m quite sure they don’t. My friend makes over $1M total comp. Are you saying he would be paid $2M if he were a citizen?
- paxys 3y agoI have been in many comp planning meetings at companies like Google and Microsoft for the last two decades, and can assure you that no one in the room even knows the visa status of people in their division. That is not a factor when considering promotions and raises.
- lazyasciiart 3y agoWhy are you sure of that? I certainly never saw a change in salary when I went from H1B to citizen.
- howinteresting 3y agoFalse. Visa status does not play into comp discussions at high-end tech companies (FAANG, or many smaller high-quality startups.)
- grensley 3y ago"Things Growing Again After Forest Fire"
- darth_avocado 3y agoThere are multiple missing things for this: 1. Layoffs happened regardless of visa status, so visa workers were part of the layoffs. 2. The visa applications for H1B could be for workers already working in the company under a different visa like TN or F1 3. The positions affected by layoffs and positions filing for H1B could be different. For example, a front end position may be affected by layoffs, but the visa application could be for an ML eng. 4. Visa could also be for more tenured staff. Plenty of companies are now only hiring staff+ roles after the layoffs 5. Because of the lottery system and how it works, you could have filed for a visa before a certain date but then before the visa was picked, the worker was laid off. i.e. you filed for a visa in Feb for the April lottery but laid off the person in March, giving the illusion that you filed for a visa after laying people off.
- whaleofatw2022 3y ago>Many of the Google visas are for new employees, with some starting as soon as August 17th. Refutes at least two points you made if not three..
- kazamaloo 3y agoNot sure how the article knows "new" employees, but something doesn't click for me. H1B visas kick in on October 1st of each year. August 17th can only be for H1B transfers. Might still be a new employee, but definitely not someone coming from overseas.
- arcticbull 3y agoCorrect, in which case, it seems like a manufactured outrage. These folks are already in the US and authorized to work here for up to 6 years - basically indefinitely if applying for a green card.
- belltaco 3y agoAlso from where is the article getting that they're low paid? Its paywalled. If you see their filings the salaries are on par.
- diebeforei485 3y ago> Just one month later, Pichai’s firm filed applications for low-paid foreign workers to come to America and take highly specialized tech jobs. It is important to note that LCA filings (which are public) have a wage that is typically lower than the actual wage paid, because companies do not want to disclose publicly how much they're actually paying.
- infamouscow 3y agoBig tech is redistributing extremely privileged salaries to tragically underserved markets. I applaud them.
- howinteresting 3y agoWe're talking about immigration to the US here, not offshoring. Immigrants are part of the US economy.
- refurb 3y agoThe only way this could be a problem is if you assume employees are fungible. But they aren't. You may have too many of one type of worker, and not enough of another, so it would make perfect sense to lay off the first ones, and hire foreign workers for the second one.
- opisthenar84 3y agoThis is not surprising. Big tech would love to fire 50% of their engineers and replace them all with H1Bs. Immigrants get shit done.
- selimthegrim 3y agoThank you, Bari Weiss.
- ugh123 3y ago>Many of the Google visas are for new employees, with some starting as soon as August 17th. Anyone here from Google want to pose some interesting questions to Sundar at the next all hands?
- goldfish3 3y ago> Pichai’s firm filed applications for low-paid foreign workers Google salary bands are the same whatever visa you're (not) on, and they're certainly not low-paid. This "article" is ridiculous xenophobic garbage.
- xerxesaa 3y agoI don't think anyone is implying Google pays differently based on visa status. The implication is that Google would rather hire a foreign worker who is willing to accept lower wages as opposed hiring locally - and therefore put downward pressure on all employees wages.
- paxys 3y agoWhoever wrote this doesn't understand how the H-1B system works. Most of these applications are for existing employees of the company who are on some other kind of work authorization (like EAD or OPT). Because of the lottery they have to reapply every year for 3-4 years until their authorization expires. The layoffs have nothing to do with anything.
- Frost1x 3y ago>The layoffs have nothing to do with anything. They probably should though, at least I think so. With mass layoffs of this scale, it seems like H1B roles should be the on the top of chopping block if we're keeping in the spirit of the actual purpose of the program. That means those H1B roles should have been so unique and world class talented that they were considered irreplaceable by the other thousands laid off. It seems they should be required to show justification this holds. It seems this should be pretty easy to provide evidence for if your holders are say Google Fellows (picking Google as an example) or the Peter Norvigs of the world. I have nothing against H1B holders, I do however have a lot against businesses who often abuse these programs to suppress labor costs and dangle green cards as a piece of leverage. To be fair, big tech companies tend to be better about this and pay competitively for these roles though not always.
- thomasahle 3y ago> this should be pretty easy to provide evidence for if your holders are say Google Fellows (picking Google as an example) or the Peter Norvigs of the world. Google Fellows wouldn't be on H-1B but on O-1. The H-1B visa is a good fit for foreign nationals in the early to mid-stages of their careers hoping to expand their experience by working in the U.S. The O-1 visa is generally suited for established professionals and researchers.
- Frost1x 3y agoVery true, I forgot about the O-1 visa distinction. From the DOL (https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/immigration/h1b https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/immigration/h1b), emphasis mine: The H-1B program applies to employers seeking to hire nonimmigrant aliens as workers in specialty occupations or as fashion models of distinguished merit and ability. A specialty occupation is one that requires the application of a body of highly specialized knowledge and the attainment of at least a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent. The intent of the H-1B provisions is to help employers who cannot otherwise obtain needed business skills and abilities from the U.S. workforce by authorizing the temporary employment of qualified individuals who are not otherwise authorized to work in the United States.
- remote_phone 3y agoThe biggest concern is that people spur the government into forcing companies to fire H1Bs before US citizens. There was a time when I thought that could never happen but given the political climate it might happen, with disastrous consequences.
- napierzaza 3y ago[dead]
- indigodaddy 3y agoGlad to see excellent journalists like Lee Fang on the front page of HN.
- tibbon 3y agoIf you are in a union, this is a good reason to push for recall provisions in regard to layoffs
- RajT88 3y ago(post removed)
- xupybd 3y agoI think you are commenting on another news item. I suspect you thought this was going against https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35968968 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35968968
- RajT88 3y agoDamn. How did that happen? Thanks!
- valianteffort 3y ago[flagged]
- farhanhubble 3y agoWhile opinions differ about whether the article has any merit, I know that when California brought the AB5 bill several top quality folks doing "side gigs" for my then employer were subtly let go because the management believed that the nature of their association with us brought them within the ambit of "contractor". They were quickly replaced with people from cheaper locales. I've also seen documents supporting a few H1B filings and know that most of the skills mentioned in their are fabricated. So yes companies do this regularly to cut costs in the name of layoffs and talent shortage.
- meltyness 3y agoBreaking: Google accidentally leaks all customer personal data to the blockchain, governments enacting forced breeding to support the product.
- rhaway84773 3y agoThe dumbest thing Americans have decided to complain about is the H1B visa. This is a visa that requires employees to be paid as much or more than equivalent American workers in the region. In addition the company is required to pay the significant legal fees involved in getting and maintaining this visa. It is obviously about workers living and working in the US paying taxes in the US. And it’s primarily used for an industry where working remotely is super easy. And the number of visas are capped so there’s only so many that can be hired. So if these people aren’t hired in the US, the same company could hire them outside the US in their home countries where they can pay them far less and yet get the same people working for them. Literally dangling the prospect of American citizenship is all it takes to get tens of billions of dollars in taxes and hundreds of billions of dollars in company development to stay within the U.S. as opposed to being dispersed to other countries. If you really want to fight something fight companies that send jobs and dollars to the same people who don’t live in the US. It’s also ironic that the H1B visa gets so much attention when over the past 2 decades the kinds of jobs that H1B visas work in have increased employee pay far more than nearly every other industry in the US, completely undermining the idea that the H1B visa reduces pay. You know what did reduce pay? Apple and Google colluding to reduce pay. And yet that gets a fraction of the vitriol the H1B visa which has been an obvious good for America does. If there’s anything to complain about the H1B visa it’s that it prevents the workers from unleashing their entrepreneurial talents within the US even more. So maybe Americans should push for improving the visa to allow the H1B workers more freedom as a opposed to trying to send them and their jobs abroad with them.
- taurath 3y ago> If you really want to fight something fight companies that send jobs and dollars to the same people who don’t live in the US. There is no way to "fight" corporate power structures though outside of unionization, the barons and lords of the investor class get to do whatever they want to do and have different sets of laws.
- nsporillo 3y agoIncidentally I used https://h1bdata.info/ https://h1bdata.info/ to lookup the pay my company was advertising for my exact role and spoke with my manager to get a near 20% raise. Company was just small enough to not have accurate data elsewhere but large enough to have a handful of h1b postings up.
- spoonjim 3y agoLayoffs are to clear out people who aren’t wanted or needed anymore. They still need to hire!
- charles_f 3y agoExcept that it's not how it pans out in fang. Layoffs are non discrete and impact entire orgs, individual performance has rarely anything to do with it
- bhawks 3y agoHiring H1Bs post layoffs adds distraction to the real problem at hand. Google's 10k layoff was simply not justified by management's soulless explanation. The company is a technical and financial juggernaut. It is still hiring. The only problem they faced is they wanted to pivot their headcount investment on a grand scale and did not want to deal with the typical horse trading reorgs take. Tldr Google's layoffs was just an example of leadership taking the easy way out and it also is a time in the macro economy where wall street will award a layoff.
- jimsimmons 3y agoLayoffs and removing staplers are management’s way of saying good times are over. They want to stop rest and vest culture. It has nothing to do with actual value of those employees or the financial necessity
- bhawks 3y agoManagement is captured by rest and vest itself.
- azurezyq 3y agoLayoff == rapid re-org You can achieve the same goal by redistributing the workforce / head counts across groups and wait for natural attritions, but it has some major downsides: * Slow due to endless debates and deals across all levels * Good people may leave before mediocre ones, since the latter may be difficult to leave. I don't think layoffs are good. But I think once you've located the problem, solving it sooner may be better than leaving it for further development.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- myko 3y agoMy company did this as well (global but not a household name in a niche industry). We've recently started trying to re-hire folks we let go, most of whom make much bigger paychecks at other companies now. Productivity has plummeted. But we saved a lot on payroll for a few months.
- hippich 3y agoTotal anecdote, but after probably 4-5 years of almost no emails from bodyshops, I started getting tons of emails and calls from familiar call centers... Things certainly changed.
- the_only_law 3y agoWhen I look at jobs in my stack now, it seems to be mostly consulting firms with bizarre names that sound like they belong in Office Space and the most spammy listings by equally bizarre sounding recruiting agencies .
- throwaway084087 3y agoKinda-sorta reminds me of the movie Moneyball. There were big layoffs, including a number of highly paid people, thus lowering the average prevailing wage. Now even if firms are bringing in foreign workers at the average prevailing wage, that wage is still lower than before the layoffs. An effective play on the system, replacing US workers with cheaper foreign workers.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y agoWill any news media organisations publish this story. If not, then one might wonder why.
- yazzku 3y agoSeems like clickbait + disinformation. The title + "Just one month later, Pichai’s firm filed applications for low-paid foreign workers to come to America and take highly specialized tech jobs." almost suggest that the company is firing high-pay American citizens to bring in low-pay immigrants, and the post doesn't mention anywhere that most of the layoffs were probably immigrants to begin with anyway.
- skullfrog 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- hgs3 3y agoWork visa programs shouldn't exist. They undercut supply and demand. i.e. If there is a demand but a low supply, then the price should go up. Here there is a demand for workers and, according to Big Tech, an "insufficient supply" so they should be raising wages to compete for the available talent. Importing "talent" artificially increases supply and thus suppresses wages.
- deelly 3y agoMaybe instead of killing "work visa programs" we can kill "low wages" for foreign workers?
- hgs3 3y agoHere is a better solution: the countries foreign workers are coming from should do a better job of retaining them. When countries lose their talent, they are brain-drained and this stunts the growth of their own tech-sectors. Ideally, foreign workers won't want to leave their own countries because they should have high-wages and good opportunities at home.
- deelly 3y agoSo, to solve working immigration issue one country should somehow force foreign countries to retain outside immigration by proposing better job to workers? How one country can do it?
- spprashant 3y agoEveryone wants a open market, till it's hits the job market. H1B workers come from countries where the wages are about a fourth of the average wage here. Of course they would settle for lesser salaries. Most privileged American software developers would rather gatekeep than level up their skills.