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90% of laid-off H1-B visa holders were able to find new work
- richwater 3y agoH1B is completely abused and can be seen by anyone paying attention. Just another scheme to pay people less money. Frankly, I'm way more concerned that citizens get jobs after a layoff than foreign workers.
- User23 3y agoThat’s based on the false assumption that a State is purposed with acting in the interests of its current citizens. It’s an observable fact that western States at least prioritize acting in the interests of “the economy” which is a term I won’t attempt to unpack beyond pointing out that the old question “who benefits” is germane as always. Therefore it follows that if employing foreign immigrants instead of citizens is better for the economy then the State must set policies to support and encourage that.
- isanjay 3y agoWhy the downvotes people?
- macintux 3y agoI was tempted to downvote for the lack of empathy for people who are threatened with being kicked out of the country if they don’t immediately find new work, often after spending years or decades building a life here.
- henry2023 3y agoMaybe you have never emigrated to anywhere else in your entire live. But other people had and it's not because they are opportunists trying to "steal" work from other citizens. Many times it's not even about the money. Being a little empathic does not hurt anyone.
- dangwhy 3y agoYou conflated 'immigration bad' to 'immigrants bad' in dishonest way. Lots of countries have 'immigration bad' as their core policy like south korea, japan ect. Are you blaming whole countries as lacking empathy?
- davidw 3y agoI'm going to guess that someone in that person's ancestry immigrated to the US in search of a better life. The point being, IMO, is that trying to pull the drawbridge up on new people immigrating is kind of ugly. We are not 'full' in the US.
- dnissley 3y agoThe only reasons that citizens have such lucrative opportunities is that there is (to a greater or lesser degree) free flow of capital across borders. To me it seems unfair that there is not a corresponding free flow of workers across borders. These two should come hand in hand.
- i2cmaster 3y ago[flagged]
- aiisahik 3y agoOh citizens can get jobs, alright. Record low unemployment. Wage inflation through the roof. We need citizens to get off their butts and take the jobs that are out there.
- i2cmaster 3y agoAsset price inflation is and for many decades has far outpaced wage inflation. Combined with the widespread social destruction it's not really worth participating for most people.
- throwaway5959 3y agoWhich ones? The retired ones? Disabled?
- dangwhy 3y agoonly if you are below 45, in tech.
- darth_avocado 3y agoCitizens do get the jobs. By design visa workers need to find a new job asap, while citizens can take their time to find something. From personal experience with recent layoffs, pretty much all the citizens took a break before resuming job search. Everyone has been burnt out since covid started. Companies milked record high profits from employees by making them work hard only to lay them off once they were burnt out. If given an opportunity most visa workers would also take a break.
- felcro 3y ago[dead]
- conqrr 3y agoThe relationship isn't complicated at all. It's one based on keeping things as uncertain as possible and giving corporates all the advantages of the talent and driving down wages. The 90% statistic if true only shows how less of a choice Immigrants have when everyone blames immigrants you chose this policy unfair or not and you can choose to leave.
- calebm 3y agoIf the statistics are 90% find new work, then by definition, it was not against all odds.
- runnr_az 3y agohaha... yeah. Seems like the odds are pretty good?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pavlov 3y agoLaid-off non-immigrant visa holders usually have only two weeks to find a new job. So the comparison odds here are the percentage of the overall population that find new employment within two weeks of being laid off. I’m guessing that’s less than 90%.
- beckingz 3y agoIt's a 60 day window for another employer to file. So you need to have another job lined up with the new employer submitting paperwork within 60 days.
- arcticbull 3y agoNot exactly, the H-1s are valid for 6 years from the date of issue, and you can re-capture all time spent outside the US. There's a 60 day grace period where you can do your job search from within the US (prior to 2017 I believe you had to get out immediately and do your job search from abroad) but you can file for a new cap-exempt H-1B for the remaining balance of time - plus recapture all time spent outside the US even on holiday - up to 6 years from the date you got it. [edit] Actually as of 2017, there's no time limit to apply for recapture. So if you came to the US on an H-1B, worked for 1 year, then you can apply for a new cap-exempt H-1B for the balance of the 5 years remaining at any time in the future. [1] [1] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/11/18/2016-27540/retention-of-eb-1-eb-2-and-eb-3-immigrant-workers-and-program-improvements-affecting-high-skilled#p-685 https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/11/18/2016-27...
- ldjkfkdsjnv 3y agoI was talking to a recruiter who told me H1Bs were taking almost any offer. Which is what crashed the tech compensation. Why these people are even allowed to stay in the event of mass layoffs is beyond me. So many american college graduates cannot find a job
- ivalm 3y agoBecause these people built a life in the US and benefitted the US tremendously. The solution isn’t to kick them out, it’s to give them permanent residence so they don’t constantly live with the sword hanging over them.
- epicureanideal 3y agoBut even in that case we should reduce NEW H1B applications for the next couple of years, right? Is that being done?
- dangwhy 3y agono but there are several proposals to increase the cap.
- throwawa14223 3y agoIt seems very analogous to scabs during a strike.
- Sodman 3y agoAs of May 2023 there are[0] over 300,000 tech job listings open and unfilled across the country. There are an additional 65,000 H1B visas available each year to applicants with bachelor's degrees in STEM, and an additional 20,000 degrees available for those with masters degrees in STEM. So those +85,000 individuals wouldn't even cover one third of the currently open positions (and notably, more positions are opening every day right now, where the cap is only renewed annually). [0] https://www.computerworld.com/article/3542681/how-many-jobs-are-available-in-technology.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3542681/how-many-jobs-...
- paxys 3y agoNot surprised. While yes the H-1B system is abused to a great degree, in general people that are brought over on the visa (especially those working for FAANG-equivalents) are incredibly talented. And as the article points out, another reason for it is that they have to immediately find new work to stay in the country, as opposed to others who have the freedom to take a long vacation between jobs. Visa holders cannot afford to play hardball during negotiations or wait longer for the right opportunity. The flip side of it is that if/when the market improves they will be looking to jump ship again (which is a good thing).
- ed25519FUUU 3y agoThis hasn’t really been my experience. They’ll take any job, and also (unfortunately) deal with abusive scheduling hours, because they know they have no other choice.
- kccqzy 3y agoI think the difference between you and GP is more of H1Bs at random sweat shops and FAANG companies. FAANGs simply hire good people, regardless of whether they are on H1B. So if GP is working at FAANG, they will see highly talented H1Bs just like they see highly talented citizens.
- dangwhy 3y agonot true for amazon. Amzn hires anyone too.
- advisedwang 3y agoI'm really interested to know what there methodology here was. The article just states their finding without so much as a reference to how it is know. Is this from surveying people? Derived from government numbers? Frankly I don't have any confidence in this number at all.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- vsskanth 3y agoThis article is just an ad for Revelio Labs. I don’t trust the conclusion. Very little info on methodology
- Maciek416 3y agoH-1B data is available for public view.
- roundandround 3y agoI think the whole reason articles like this are common is that one can easily calculate these numbers from visa statistics, i.e. number of people who didn't get a job within the grace period. Naturally these kinds of statistics can be a bit off, for example someone might transition to another type of visa instead of seeking work.
- purpleblue 3y agoIf 90% were able to find new work, then it's not really "against all odds" is it?
- dathinab 3y agoIsn't the requirement for a H1-B visa that your skills can not be "easily" replaced with a local person (which doesn't mean that there aren't local people with the skill but that there are not enough "free"/"jobless" people with such skills). In that case while 90% is still a surprising high number I would expect at least 80% or so. Especially if you consider that desperation might make take them jobs with a salary or other conditions worse then what they would normally accept.
- Sodman 3y agoIn reality the bar to clear this requirement is quite low. E.g. "We put an ad in the (physical) local newspaper one time for this job, with every single esoteric skill this individual has, listed as hard-requirements..." is typically sufficient to check the box and say "We've tried, nobody applied!".
- dathinab 3y agojust because you can cheat the system doesn't mean it's most times done In my experience companies write out jobs with the requirements they would like to have, then see who applies including from people which doesn't quite fulfill the requirements, and then pick who fits best independent of where they come from (if they can). I mean for them to intentionally come up with some trickery to allow someone _specific_ to get a H1-B visa often already means they want them enough so that they "conceptually" fulfill the requirements even if on paper for formal reasons they do no. Sure, they are probably cases where companies come up with some trickery to "wild card wide spread" allow people without the full qualification to get a H1-B visa to then combine this with some form of laborer abuse, but assuming the whole FANG industries is basically only doing this all the time is really quite a stretch IMHO.
- Sodman 3y agoI was going to say that FANG companies don't make up a very large proportion of H1-B visas and that the majority go to Infosys, Tata, Cognizant and the like... But I just looked it up, and it turns out that trend has been reversed considerably in the past few years, which is great to see! 2016 numbers - https://h1bgrader.com/reports/sponsors/lca/2016 https://h1bgrader.com/reports/sponsors/lca/2016 2022 numbers - https://h1bgrader.com/reports/sponsors/lca/2022 https://h1bgrader.com/reports/sponsors/lca/2022
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- haolez 3y agoOn a side note, it must have been really painful for the 10%.
- glitchc 3y agoAll that demonstrates is that it is cheaper to hire the H1-B visa holder over a local developer with the same experience.
- amrb 3y agoThere is a salary requirement, as not to under cut local works. Of course if you working over 40 hours a week maybe the company gets it's pound of flesh!
- dangwhy 3y agoYou get paid higher if you rent your apartment on a month to month lease vs signing a 2 year lease.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- revlolz 3y agoI concur, the factoid appears to be built upon self linking to other equally reliable articles published by Fortune and then citing they purchased the data, or possibly only insight, from a 3rd party data company. Without demonstrating methodology, equations, and sourcing in my opinion it's meaningless. The boilerplate for all of the articles, the 'this in an opinion piece' disclaimer at the end also inspires no confidence. This seems like an article created to take advantage of the psychology behind the "we eat x amount of spiders in our sleep" sentiment. Even completely untrue, with no backing, getting the statement out subscribes people to believe it. I have to question why? Are the designs here to minimize H1B suffering from the layoffs? To get people to think, 'oh they are fine, 90% got a job quickly!'? It just doesn't sit well with me.
- BenFranklin100 3y agoFantastic. Now let’s fast track them to a green card and then citizenship. As someone born and raised in America, I appreciate immigrants (i.e. human beings) work ethic, innovation, and their continued contribution to keeping America at the technological and economic forefront.
- lelanthran 3y agoIt's always struck me as absurd that the H1B visa exists at all. I mean, if an individual is such a valuable contributor to the economy, why would you want to bring them in as indentured laborers, let them accumulate even more value, and then send them away to create startups and value in their home country? Just bring em in, say welcome, stay as long as you can, settle down if possible, have children here. Better to bring in talent permanently rather than temporarily. Of course, I'm not American so I might be missing something mething here...
- alephnerd 3y agoInertia. Reforming H1B requires congressional intervention, and as such it's extremely difficult because of partisan bickering. Also, a number of pressure groups on the Dems (eg. The EPI, AFL-CIO, and sometimes the SEIU) and the Republican (eg. NumbersUSA, ProjectUSA) sides are opposed to immigration.
- giobox 3y agoAgreed, It's also worth remembering the recipients of work visas can't vote either, nor can green card holders, so not a constituency that rewards a political party at the ballot box for policy change, which also likely contributes to the inertia. The earliest (generally speaking) an H1B holder could likely become a voter is often 10 years in the best cases, and decades in the worst. GC quota queue for countries like India is measured in decades, and you need a GC for something like 5 years before you can apply for citizenship and finally get a vote.
- alephnerd 3y ago
- epicureanideal 3y agoCould it be that some companies are prioritizing hiring these folks over other candidates? Could also be a happenstance correlation to places of employment. If a high percentage worked at FAANG and employers are trying to pick up all the available ex-FAANG talent for example.
- morgango 3y agoLet's look at this through another lens. More than 10000 people had to return to their country of origin on very short notice, because of decisions they had no control over. They likely lost money having to pay for travel costs, break leases and contracts, and will be without income. That is sad. How do I get to that number? First, lets trust the 90% number in the headline. Because the top 30 H-1B employers laid of 85,000 visa holders in 2022 and 2023. So, it is not a stretch to say that there would be at least 10,000 people overall. https://www.epi.org/blog/tech-and-outsourcing-companies-continue-to-exploit-the-h-1b-visa-program-at-a-time-of-mass-layoffs-the-top-30-h-1b-employers-hired-34000-new-h-1b-workers-in-2022-and-laid-off-at-least-85000-workers/#:~:text=and%20Ron%20Hira-,Tech%20and%20outsourcing%20companies%20continue%20to%20exploit%20the%20H%2D1B,in%202022%20and%20early%202023 https://www.epi.org/blog/tech-and-outsourcing-companies-cont...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- friend_and_foe 3y agoI think by definition the fact that 90% could do it meant the odds were in their favor. This tells us something about the narratives floating around in our environment.