6 ms·

I wonder if switching from a lottery to an auction would help curtail some of the abuse? That is, for each position a company wants to fill with a non-citizen

I wonder if switching from a lottery to an auction would help curtail some of the abuse? That is, for each position a company wants to fill with a non-citizen they also have to bid on the visa fee they're willing to pay. The highest ~7,000 bids that month are accepted and paid to the government in exchange for a visa. We could debate things like sealed-bid versus open auction and uniform-price versus paying your bid but whatever details we pick I suspect this would allow us to discover which companies are actually desperate for skills and which primarily use it as a cost-savings measure. (I'm also curious how much H-1B visas would cost if there was a market: thousands of dollars? tens of thousands? hundreds of thousands? more?)

punksatoni 2y ago
Yes it would. This would prevent abuse of foreigners who are underpaid. It would also allow most of the applicants to go to good jobs (FAANG) which can pay premiums salaries. Reverse auction is the best way to go. Good for foreigners, good for top companies, economically the best option.
huevosabio 2y ago
Probably hundreds of thousands. A big reason master programs can command such a massive price tag is that they are tickets to enter the US labor market. It also has the benefit of giving the government an incentive to increase the quota to get more revenue.
cheriot 2y ago
This is the simplest way to improve the H1-B system!
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  The simplest way to improve the H-1B system is to abolish it. The better but slightly less simple way is to abolish it (and a bunch of other employment-related visa categories), but also allow individuals who aren’t personally barred from entry because of past misconduct, etc., but who are not eligible (or wish to bypass wait times) for admission under other existing visa categories to pay an fee (which others, including employers, can subsidize if they wish, but gain no special power over future status by so doing) for a limited term, renewable employment-eligible status that becomes eligible to transition to permanent residency automatically after a set time in status. (This also fixes a number of other problems in the immigration system beyond the H-1B.)
Aperocky 2y ago
Think you would also lose everyone that's not working in IT/finance in an instant (or until whenever their visa expires). The biologist, geologist, physicists and the likes.
- diebeforei485 2y ago
  Lottery only applies for initial employment, not for renewals. Most physicists and biologists and geologists work in universities or labs or other institutions, which are cap-exempt anyway and don't go through the lottery.
darth_avocado 2y ago
Remember, H1B isn’t always about tech, even if we’d all like to pretend it is. You’ll have to have separate bidding process for different occupations, otherwise you’ll end up with a system where Facebook will get all the visas, while in some cases, doctors would not be sponsored.
- H8crilA 2y ago
  How is that resolved now? Uniform probability sampling across all requests, regardless of occupation?
  - basiccalendar74 2y ago
    yes
  - darth_avocado 2y ago
    Yes and some occupations are cap exempt.
- liontwist 2y ago
  Good. There is no shortage of doctors except the one created by accreditation cartel.
  - darth_avocado 2y ago
    There absolutely is. Especially in underserved areas.
    - superq 2y ago
      Your statement and the parent's can be concurrently true.
    - liontwist 2y ago
      You mean the ones where the 400k/yr young single people don’t want to work? It’s the same problem. Accreditation is so expensive there are no mid range doctors anymore.
superfrank 2y ago
I actually think that could end up having the opposite effect in lower paying fields. An mid level engineer at Google averages $280k/yr according to levels. A principal mechanical engineer at Boeing averages $170k/yr according to levels. If Google can pay an H1-B engineer 70% of what a non H1-B employee would get ($196k), they can bid up to 80k and still save money. Since Boeing is going for a high level employee who actually highly skilled, it's less likely that they would be able to underpay their candidate, but even if they could pay their H1-B employee 70% of the market rate ($117k), they only have ~$50k to before they hit the break even point. Obviously if the person is highly skilled and Boeing actually needs them it would make sense to bid beyond the break even point, but Boeing needs to be more choosy than Google. In that scenario, Google should put every single L4 candidate up for and H1-B because if even one gets their bid accepted it saves them money. Boeing actually has to decide which candidates they're willing to overpay for which will result in a smaller pool of mechanical engineers being put up for H1-B visas.
- ponty_rick 2y ago
  Only the base salary counts, not the total comp. That 280k/yr sounds like total comp - includes base+bonus+RSUs. The average base would be more along the lines of 150k-190k.
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  > Since Boeing is going for a high level employee who actually highly skilled "actually": Are you saying that mid-level engineer at Google making ~300K/yr is not actually highly skilled?
  - forgotoldacc 2y ago
    I don't think that's what they were implying, but with the way google has been going this past decade, I don't think anyone is still under the impression that google employees are highly skilled. They're the butt of tech jokes for a reason.
  - never_inline 2y ago
    Leetcode mediums do not count as skill in this context.
ponty_rick 2y ago
Why not just auction on the candidate's salary instead of paying a tax to the government who will burn your money anyway.
pjfin123 2y ago
An auction is a great idea. If a foreign worker is valuable enough then companies should be willing to pay up for them. Then the American People can benefit in multiple ways, we get the revenue paid into the auction, and we get the economic benefits of high skill foreign workers. Let the market decide. Currently the lottery gets spammed by IT outsourcing firms: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-staffing-firms-game-h1b-visa-lottery-system/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-staffing-firms-game-... The American People built this country into the economic powerhouse it is today; we should reap the benefits of all this economic activity not random outsourcing firms.

punksatoni 2y ago

Yes it would. This would prevent abuse of foreigners who are underpaid. It would also allow most of the applicants to go to good jobs (FAANG) which can pay premiums salaries. Reverse auction is the best way to go. Good for foreigners, good for top companies, economically the best option.

huevosabio 2y ago

Probably hundreds of thousands. A big reason master programs can command such a massive price tag is that they are tickets to enter the US labor market. It also has the benefit of giving the government an incentive to increase the quota to get more revenue.

cheriot 2y ago

This is the simplest way to improve the H1-B system!

dragonwriter 2y ago
The simplest way to improve the H-1B system is to abolish it. The better but slightly less simple way is to abolish it (and a bunch of other employment-related visa categories), but also allow individuals who aren’t personally barred from entry because of past misconduct, etc., but who are not eligible (or wish to bypass wait times) for admission under other existing visa categories to pay an fee (which others, including employers, can subsidize if they wish, but gain no special power over future status by so doing) for a limited term, renewable employment-eligible status that becomes eligible to transition to permanent residency automatically after a set time in status. (This also fixes a number of other problems in the immigration system beyond the H-1B.)

Aperocky 2y ago

Think you would also lose everyone that's not working in IT/finance in an instant (or until whenever their visa expires). The biologist, geologist, physicists and the likes.

diebeforei485 2y ago
Lottery only applies for initial employment, not for renewals. Most physicists and biologists and geologists work in universities or labs or other institutions, which are cap-exempt anyway and don't go through the lottery.

darth_avocado 2y ago

Remember, H1B isn’t always about tech, even if we’d all like to pretend it is. You’ll have to have separate bidding process for different occupations, otherwise you’ll end up with a system where Facebook will get all the visas, while in some cases, doctors would not be sponsored.

H8crilA 2y ago
How is that resolved now? Uniform probability sampling across all requests, regardless of occupation?
- basiccalendar74 2y ago
  yes
- darth_avocado 2y ago
  Yes and some occupations are cap exempt.
liontwist 2y ago
Good. There is no shortage of doctors except the one created by accreditation cartel.
- darth_avocado 2y ago
  There absolutely is. Especially in underserved areas.
  - superq 2y ago
    Your statement and the parent's can be concurrently true.
  - liontwist 2y ago
    You mean the ones where the 400k/yr young single people don’t want to work? It’s the same problem. Accreditation is so expensive there are no mid range doctors anymore.

superfrank 2y ago

I actually think that could end up having the opposite effect in lower paying fields. An mid level engineer at Google averages $280k/yr according to levels. A principal mechanical engineer at Boeing averages $170k/yr according to levels. If Google can pay an H1-B engineer 70% of what a non H1-B employee would get ($196k), they can bid up to 80k and still save money. Since Boeing is going for a high level employee who actually highly skilled, it's less likely that they would be able to underpay their candidate, but even if they could pay their H1-B employee 70% of the market rate ($117k), they only have ~$50k to before they hit the break even point. Obviously if the person is highly skilled and Boeing actually needs them it would make sense to bid beyond the break even point, but Boeing needs to be more choosy than Google. In that scenario, Google should put every single L4 candidate up for and H1-B because if even one gets their bid accepted it saves them money. Boeing actually has to decide which candidates they're willing to overpay for which will result in a smaller pool of mechanical engineers being put up for H1-B visas.

ponty_rick 2y ago
Only the base salary counts, not the total comp. That 280k/yr sounds like total comp - includes base+bonus+RSUs. The average base would be more along the lines of 150k-190k.
throwaway2037 2y ago
> Since Boeing is going for a high level employee who actually highly skilled "actually": Are you saying that mid-level engineer at Google making ~300K/yr is not actually highly skilled?
- forgotoldacc 2y ago
  I don't think that's what they were implying, but with the way google has been going this past decade, I don't think anyone is still under the impression that google employees are highly skilled. They're the butt of tech jokes for a reason.
- never_inline 2y ago
  Leetcode mediums do not count as skill in this context.

ponty_rick 2y ago

Why not just auction on the candidate's salary instead of paying a tax to the government who will burn your money anyway.

pjfin123 2y ago

An auction is a great idea. If a foreign worker is valuable enough then companies should be willing to pay up for them. Then the American People can benefit in multiple ways, we get the revenue paid into the auction, and we get the economic benefits of high skill foreign workers. Let the market decide. Currently the lottery gets spammed by IT outsourcing firms: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-staffing-firms-game-h1b-visa-lottery-system/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-staffing-firms-game-... The American People built this country into the economic powerhouse it is today; we should reap the benefits of all this economic activity not random outsourcing firms.