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I'm glad our government has introduced the H1B program to help out employers like you who are dealing with a shortage of tech workers (who will work for 2/3 mar
by ndiddy 2y ago
I'm glad our government has introduced the H1B program to help out employers like you who are dealing with a shortage of tech workers (who will work for 2/3 market and will do anything you say because if they get fired they'll be deported).
- hombre_fatal 2y agoFwiw they're probably just making a point to protest the phenomenon.
- bluGill 2y agoH1b should be a bid salery to play not first to apply. That is we will allow x of them, when you sponser someone you commit to paying them some salary for the full term - no layoffs (you get fire for cause but that is a legal thing they can take you to court for , and the courts can force you to give back pay if it wasn't a good cause) , you should know your budget can afford them. , someone who really is the best , offer them a million dollars to be sure they get in , just a warm body , if they don't get in who cares. There are ways to abuse the above, but note they can always quit.
- para_parolu 2y agoThis means small companies may not get good talent that value things besides salary (wfh, perks, fun project) and will have to compete with corporations for people who only cares about money. This may (or may not) impact startups
- mrkstu 2y agoSame as ever though, this is tangential to H1B.
- gigel82 2y agoStop it, no one "values things besides salary", and you know it.
- galangalalgol 2y agoI get your point, but if that were completely true, no one would work in the videogame or embedded software sectors. They pay dramatically less, especially early in career.
- freeone3000 2y agoI value a good manager, a fun team, an actual PTO policy I can use, and cool projects to work with at about $40,000 a year. Salary is valuable but it is not the only valuable thing.
- consteval 2y agoSalary is the most valuable thing, however. Because I would happily take a salary of 1 billion dollars with an awful manager and a no-fun team. And, conversely, I would never take a job with the best people on planet earth for a salary of one dollar.
- ghaff 2y agoWell, of course, you can make up hypotheticals. I used to say that you couldn't pay me enough to work in NYC. But of course I didn't literally mean that I wouldn't take FU money for a couple years to work there (not doing anything criminal etc.). But that wasn't going to realistically happen.
- jfengel 2y agoIf you were offered a job with an awful manager and a no-fun team for $250,000, and a job with the best people on the planet for $249,999, which one would you choose?
- consteval 2y agoRight, naturally the extent matters, but it's still the most important statistic when doing cost analysis. Also, other statistics are just wage in disguise. Work-life balance refers to working less, which means a higher wage. PTO is also just working less, which is a higher wage. WFH means less driving + lower cost of living, which is an effective higher wage.
- pbmonster 2y agoAdd "automatic green card at the end of three years if sponsored again by the same employer". Otherwise, the job would just be extremely cushy. Work the absolute bare minimum not to give cause for dismissal, and you're untouchable for the duration.
- Wowfunhappy 2y ago...If your goal was to force companies to hire native citizens wherever possible, and only H1B workers when absolutely necessary, that might be the point.
- bluGill 2y agoCompanies should vet their emplopees better than that before hiring. Though there is potential to fire for cause if someone who should be able to do the work in 40 hour weeks isn't getting it done. note that I added a 40 hour work week qualifier above.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y agoYou're halfway there. H1Bs should also require payment to the government of $250k/year. Style it as a fee or a tax or whatever.
- kappi 2y agoone possible option to prevent ghost job posting for visa is to force employers to share the hiring month, salary, qualification and annonymized resume of the H1B/GC employer with all those they interviewed or applied. This will give closure to those applicants that didn't get the job.
- riazrizvi 2y agoIn 2023 there were 755,020 H1-B admittances. Why was it much easier to get a job in 2021? Because there were only 148,603 [1]. Notice that even though Republicans talked about immigration, neither party is talking about reducing H1-B filled roles. The kicker is if you’ve had a gap doing your own thing or because you were laid off and you apply for a job at a discount salary, you’re still not competitive against an H1-B worker because employers know you’d be able to trade up once you’ve been working for a few months. [1] https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/h1b-visa-program-fact-sheet https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/h1b-visa...
- returningfory2 2y agoThese numbers probably don't mean what you think they mean. Certainly, the number of H-1B holders in 2021 and 2023 is about the same. An "admittance" is someone with a H-1B visa appearing a port of entry like an airport to enter the US. If a single H-1B holder goes on (say) 3 international trips in 1 year, that will count as 3 "admittances" in that year. The reason why the number is so low in 2021 is that the US government had a COVID non-immigrant travel ban. People with H-1B visas couldn't re-enter the US from many countries e.g. most countries in Europe. Many people in H-1B status (like myself) simply didn't take international trips that year.
- doctorpangloss 2y agoBut if I bothered to look up what the words mean about complex administrative questions, I forfeit my right to be outraged!
- jameson 2y agoGreat point. The H-1B receipts total[1] is probably what most are looking for 2020: 427,200 2021: 398,300 2022: 474,300 2023: 386,600 [1] https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/reports/fy2023_annual_statistical_report.pdf https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/reports/f...
- returningfory2 2y ago
- onlyrealcuzzo 2y agoWhat makes you so sure the job wouldn't just exist somewhere cheaper like Europe if they couldn't hire for 2/3 in the US?
- wil421 2y agoBecause it’s hard to fire someone in the EU. Eastern Europe is cheaper and so is India.
- actionfromafar 2y agoUsing agencies largely solves the "hard to fire someone" problem.
- Seattle3503 2y agoI worked at a globally remote company. Most of the European devs worked for a one man consulting company, that my employer then "contracted" out to. I'm not sure if that nullifies all the protections, but I'm sure it did a lot.
- smnrchrds 2y agoWealthier European countries seem to be moving towards clamping down on this kind of consulting. See IR35 in the UK as an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IR35 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IR35 This is still possible in many European countries, especially less wealthy ones.
- disgruntledphd2 2y agoI mean, IR35 happened because you could avoid a lot of tax as a contractor. In Ireland however, being a contractor is fine, but you end up basically paying the same tax as an employed person, so the tax authorities don't mind.
- newaccount74 2y agoThat's a myth. How is it hard to fire someone? I live in Austria and you can fire people for pretty much any reason. You have to give them 6 weeks notice, and there are some extra protections for people who are old or who have disabilities and who have been working for your company for a long time, but even then you can fire them. You can even fire people for getting sick a lot. And that's assuming you directly hire them as employees in the first place. Many people work via agencies or as contractors, and they have practically zero protections.
- dilyevsky 2y agoSource that prevailing wage is 2/3 of the market?
- psychlops 2y agoI thought that number was conservative. I was hiring at 1/2 and 1/3.
- dilyevsky 2y agoSo source: “trust me bro”?
- seneca 2y agoThis is an incredibly obnoxious response. This isn't a court. People can site their professional experience in an informal conversation.
- dilyevsky 2y agoYou know what’s actually obnoxious? spreading nonsense for internet points. This is all public data btw so you can easily go on DOL website and pull those apps with real salaries. If we are trading anecdotes here I personally dont know any h1bs who are making less than 300k total comp. Hows that for obnoxious?
- psychlops 2y agoI thought the same, I wasn't going to feed the troll so remained silent.
- cscurmudgeon 2y agoIs there any evidence H1B workers in tech have lowered wages? I have only seen anecdotes while the law explicitly states H1Bs should be paid the prevailing wage or above.
- hollerith 2y agoIt's what I would naturally expect to happen in the absence of consistent heroic efforts by the authorities to prevent it.
- cscurmudgeon 2y agoIf that is happening widely, surely there will be some data to support that right? Authorities do enforce H1B provisions proactively. https://www.uscis.gov/scams-fraud-and-misconduct/report-fraud/combating-fraud-and-abuse-in-the-h-1b-visa-program https://www.uscis.gov/scams-fraud-and-misconduct/report-frau... https://cis.org/North/Apple-Hit-25-Million-Penalty-Favoring-H1B-Workers-over-Citizens https://cis.org/North/Apple-Hit-25-Million-Penalty-Favoring-... https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/11/06/h-1b-visa-fraud-leads-to-third-guilty-plea-santa-clara-business-owner/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/11/06/h-1b-visa-fraud-leads... > absence of consistent heroic efforts Will that apply to every law in society or just to H1B laws? Despite absence of consistent heroic efforts, we don't see widespread criminal activities.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- hollerith 2y agoYou seem to be genuinely curious, which is commendable. >Will that apply to every law in society or just to H1B laws? The H1B laws are harder to enforce than most laws -- or so it would seem to me -- because the question of whether there are Americans that are able to do a particular job at a particular workplace depends on many fiddly details that only the managers of the particular workplace (the prospective defendant in any enforcement action) would know. When lawyers working on Capitol Hill are serious about stamping out a behavior, they write laws that are easy to enforce (unambiguous, not relying much on human judgment). Something as vague as, "as long as there are no Americans qualified to do the job," suggests that whoever wrote that just wants to reassure critics of the H1B program without caring much whether H1B workers actually displace American workers.
- happiness_idx 2y agoHow do we have ghost jobs and simultanously not have enough tech workers that we need to import them? I am seeing lots of qualified commentors (according to them) say they won't even get a call back...
- John_Cena 2y agoCorporations know the H1B scam and they only look to hire those who they can get under that indentured-servitude type contract.