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I'm all for importing top talent to work at American companies. In fact, I think H1-Bs should be allowed to start businesses and move from job to job like anyon

I'm all for importing top talent to work at American companies. In fact, I think H1-Bs should be allowed to start businesses and move from job to job like anyone else. If it's about innovation, why force them to stay in one job while they're here?

toomuchtodo 1y ago
Indentured servitude to depress domestic wages.
- jjtheblunt 1y ago
  as an American who worked in Silicon Valley for years, but is not from there, i'd say it's also "captive real estate customers" created by H1-B people.
  - throwawaybbq1 1y ago
    Can you clarify this? You saying non H1B's would not pay the crazy high rents of SV's housing?
    - jjtheblunt 1y ago
      I once asked an (American) director where i worked just this question. He said what you surmised: while there are plenty of qualified American engineers in the United States, citing Motorola headcount reductions as an example, it was a challenge to convince them to move to California's cost of living.
  - lisbbb 1y ago
    Seriously. All I needed to do to be filthy rich was move to Silicon Valley back in '97 when I got my MS, then eventually have bought a house or two out there. That's it. To recap: 1. Move to the Bay Area circa 1997 2. Buy houses 3. Profit enormously in the 2020s Mind you, I had no idea...
- lisbbb 1y ago
  I worked for a couple of very "household name" big companies as a tech lead. I trained probably dozens of H1Bs over the past 15 or so years. I've seen it all. I decided that I would help anyone who wanted to improve their skills regardless of their origin or employment status, and that's what I did. I got mistreated terrible at times, in particular by a Venezuelan woman, but generally speaking, I helped raise the bar for a lot of people who maybe otherwise would have been ignored because big companies don't care about training people at all. As I look back on what my career was, I think that all the informal mentoring I did was probably my biggest contribution. I just wish it had turned out better for everyone involved. I saw a lot of absolutely heartbreaking situations arise over the years. And now my situation is kind of heartbreaking as well. We were all in this together, but nobody spent a single second thinking about that.
- tboyd47 1y ago
  Exactly. It's not about talent at all. It's about using the strong arm of the government to give large multinationals an advantage in the tech market. Total grift and corruption!
msgodel 1y ago
I used to be but that's not how any of these immigration programs are used. Often they've been used to crush domestic workers and even change demographics and voting patterns. At this point it doesn't look like allowing anything other than net emigration is practical. You just can't trust the people involved to do anything else.
- Permit 1y ago
  > Often they've been used to crush domestic workers and even change demographics and voting patterns Can you give an example where H1Bs changed voting patterns?
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - msgodel 1y ago
    I meant immigration in general. Obviously people on H1B visas don't (or at least shouldn't) change voting patterns.
- DragonStrength 1y ago
  That's a great point: immigrants are great for the existing voting populace. They count for the census, but if you keep them on a program like H-1B, they'll live their whole lives without being able to vote. The existing voters have their votes count more and more with H-1B population growth. A great gig when you've got something like Prop 13 making sure the newcomers pay most of the taxes too. What a racket!
vouaobrasil 1y ago
How would you prevent people from getting an H1-B visa for a job just for the sake of moving to a different job in a sector that doesn't need a lot of workers? And if they are going to start a business, they could start a business in tech that is actually successful, and then fill a few extra positions with friends/family/contacts/people willing to pay, and then those people could move on to other jobs for which they are more suited. Fact is, immigration systems in all of the richest countries are already bursting with abuse from certain countries with very ingenious schemes and you gotta have some ways to protect it unless you want a free-for-all.
- Ar-Curunir 1y ago
  I would encourage you to actually read up about the hoops that people with H-1Bs have to jump through just to stay in the country. It is a demeaning and abusive process, and not usually one that people engage in frivolously. Additionally, you can already today legally switch jobs as an H-1B, but it is a process that gives undue amounts of power to the employer, which makes switching difficult. Finally, regarding switching fields, it's not that easy. You have to show that your new field is related to your degree and experience. So please, instead of making up imaginary bogeymen, learn more about the immigration system.
  - vouaobrasil 1y ago
    I never said it should be as difficult as it is, which you seem to imply that I did. I only said meant to say the system shouldn't be too easy, either.
colechristensen 1y ago
If it's actually top talent, sure. But if it's a replacement for supporting domestic education and a source of cheap skilled labor, no thanks. If FAANG were screaming at Congress about their inability to hire and the solution was better primary and secondary education programs for people at home to create that skilled workforce, we probably wouldn't have such an aggressive urban/rural political divide in this country.
- exe34 1y ago
  It takes ~22 years to train up a native. Election cycles are on a 2-4 years basis and corporate profit reporting is on a 3 month scale.
  - jibe 1y ago
    The fix may take a long time, but the bigger problem is there are no workable ideas for a fix. It's not like better education hasn't been thought of, attempted, and tons of money dumped into it. Results have been mixed at best.
    - exe34 1y ago
      Better education works elsewhere, so it's probably not where the problem is.
      - jibe 1y ago
        Ok, so let's just do that then, sounds easy.
        exe34 1y ago
        > so it's probably not where the problem is. Did I give the impression that better education is sufficient to solve the problem?
        ben_w 1y ago
        If you want the British to take back control of the USA so that the British can enforce the superior* British education system onto the USA, that would be very very funny to watch, but I don't think it would be "easy" — especially when people realise it means no guns in schools or anywhere else. * The British system may not be superior, I left uni in 2006 and the UK in 2018, and UK politicians have been fiddling with education seemingly forever. But that just means you should substitute whichever country is doing education best at the moment; the point is, even obviously correct things are still hard in the world of politics.
hombre_fatal 1y ago
If it's top talent, then they should be forced to pay them the wage of a US worker, if not more. Instead, you end up competing against the whole world on salary and servitude hours for a local job.
- meatmanek 1y ago
  They already are. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Condition_Application https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Condition_Application
  - hombre_fatal 1y ago
    I've yet to see that once. Not the H1Bs at Amazon who were paid less and guilted into working weekends. Not my Mexican girlfriend who works for $50k as an oil rig chemical engineer in Houston at a company that only hires visa workers on the cheap. Not my Indian neighbors I befriended making $60k in software at Chase bank in Houston on their all-visa teams. SLB is a good example, where I met my girlfriend. Entry level American chemical engineer: $120-150k. Visa chemical engineer imported to work on the same team in the same position: $50k. Guess which part of the pie chart grew while I worked there. But I'm not supposed to notice any of this. And until very, very recently it was a faux pas to mention it at all.
    - Bnjoroge 1y ago
      your personal anecdotes doesnt negate the actual data
      - DragonStrength 1y ago
        It's basic economics that more workers with fewer rights lower wages across the board. "They make what Americans do" when there is a continuous flow of competing labor. Sure. What would companies pay if they didn't have these exploitable workers? Would the companies have opened new office closer to where Americans are educated? Certainly, one of those two would happen.
root_axis 1y ago
The median H1B engineering salary is 120k. There is no top talent working for that salary.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- rs186 1y ago
  Well, surprise, H1B visas are issued to more than software engineers. For biomedical engineers, 120k is a very decent salary. You don't know what you are talking about. P.S. you probably want to provide a source for that number.
  - root_axis 1y ago
    > H1B visas are issued to more than software engineers Not really. More than 70% of all H1Bs are going to software positions. Biomedical engineers are less than 1%, so a rounding error > you probably want to provide a source for that number Just google it yourself.
    - rs186 1y ago
      If you are referring to the statistics for "computer-related" positions and trying to equal "computer-related" to "software engineers", I have nothing to say other than you are just trying to push your agenda.
9x39 1y ago
When Microsoft does layoffs and then mass H1-Bs, is that shedding low-skill Americans for top Indian talent, or just labor arbitrage? Is a country of 340 million really lacking talent, or do we just want cheaper and controllable labor? https://www.newsweek.com/microsoft-layoffs-h1b-visa-applications-2094370 https://www.newsweek.com/microsoft-layoffs-h1b-visa-applicat... Companies always want the lucrative American businesses and consumers as customers, all the while wanting to shed expensive American workers.
- 3uler 1y ago
  If they wanted cheap labour, they would outsource. H1Bs are an important source of talent. That does not mean it is abused by outsourcing companies to bring cheap talent to America and profit from the arbitrage. Big tech is not the one abusing this program.
  - 9x39 1y ago
    >That does not mean it is abused by outsourcing companies to bring cheap talent to America and profit from the arbitrage. It doesn't have to follow directly; the problem is often indirect. H1Bs are much better behaved for employers because they are nearly powerless to say no, and can be slow-walked for raises, promotions and squeezed for high hours worked to reduce effective wages. There's also cultural migration issues - India is 70%+ of the H1B program. Does India have a monopoloy on top global talent, or is it just a process vulnerable to political capture and top execs' whims? Talent exists everywhere, but when one country absolutely dominates a process, it suggests the process has been captured. >Big tech is not the one abusing this program. Did they promise that in a press release or something? Compared to Microsoft, TCS and Infosys are bottom tier tech, but the H1B program in general is sketchy based on the accusations the biggest players have had over the last decade.
DragonStrength 1y ago
Yup, if you take the restrictions off, none of these companies would want them. They love the restrictions. Americans can just up and quit on them, but not temporary workers.
- tboyd47 1y ago
  Exactly. It's a very cynical and corrupt game being passed off in the name of "innovation" and "competiton" XD
lisbbb 1y ago
You know the answer! It's veritable slave labor is why. I've seen it a thousands times at major US companies and how it plays out. It is a horrible form of leverage they have over their "assets."
- tboyd47 1y ago
  Yep. If anything, it depresses the economy. Doesn't grow anything except the stock price of multinationals.

toomuchtodo 1y ago

Indentured servitude to depress domestic wages.

jjtheblunt 1y ago
as an American who worked in Silicon Valley for years, but is not from there, i'd say it's also "captive real estate customers" created by H1-B people.
- throwawaybbq1 1y ago
  Can you clarify this? You saying non H1B's would not pay the crazy high rents of SV's housing?
  - jjtheblunt 1y ago
    I once asked an (American) director where i worked just this question. He said what you surmised: while there are plenty of qualified American engineers in the United States, citing Motorola headcount reductions as an example, it was a challenge to convince them to move to California's cost of living.
- lisbbb 1y ago
  Seriously. All I needed to do to be filthy rich was move to Silicon Valley back in '97 when I got my MS, then eventually have bought a house or two out there. That's it. To recap: 1. Move to the Bay Area circa 1997 2. Buy houses 3. Profit enormously in the 2020s Mind you, I had no idea...
lisbbb 1y ago
I worked for a couple of very "household name" big companies as a tech lead. I trained probably dozens of H1Bs over the past 15 or so years. I've seen it all. I decided that I would help anyone who wanted to improve their skills regardless of their origin or employment status, and that's what I did. I got mistreated terrible at times, in particular by a Venezuelan woman, but generally speaking, I helped raise the bar for a lot of people who maybe otherwise would have been ignored because big companies don't care about training people at all. As I look back on what my career was, I think that all the informal mentoring I did was probably my biggest contribution. I just wish it had turned out better for everyone involved. I saw a lot of absolutely heartbreaking situations arise over the years. And now my situation is kind of heartbreaking as well. We were all in this together, but nobody spent a single second thinking about that.
tboyd47 1y ago
Exactly. It's not about talent at all. It's about using the strong arm of the government to give large multinationals an advantage in the tech market. Total grift and corruption!

msgodel 1y ago

I used to be but that's not how any of these immigration programs are used. Often they've been used to crush domestic workers and even change demographics and voting patterns. At this point it doesn't look like allowing anything other than net emigration is practical. You just can't trust the people involved to do anything else.

Permit 1y ago
> Often they've been used to crush domestic workers and even change demographics and voting patterns Can you give an example where H1Bs changed voting patterns?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- msgodel 1y ago
  I meant immigration in general. Obviously people on H1B visas don't (or at least shouldn't) change voting patterns.
DragonStrength 1y ago
That's a great point: immigrants are great for the existing voting populace. They count for the census, but if you keep them on a program like H-1B, they'll live their whole lives without being able to vote. The existing voters have their votes count more and more with H-1B population growth. A great gig when you've got something like Prop 13 making sure the newcomers pay most of the taxes too. What a racket!

vouaobrasil 1y ago

How would you prevent people from getting an H1-B visa for a job just for the sake of moving to a different job in a sector that doesn't need a lot of workers? And if they are going to start a business, they could start a business in tech that is actually successful, and then fill a few extra positions with friends/family/contacts/people willing to pay, and then those people could move on to other jobs for which they are more suited. Fact is, immigration systems in all of the richest countries are already bursting with abuse from certain countries with very ingenious schemes and you gotta have some ways to protect it unless you want a free-for-all.

Ar-Curunir 1y ago
I would encourage you to actually read up about the hoops that people with H-1Bs have to jump through just to stay in the country. It is a demeaning and abusive process, and not usually one that people engage in frivolously. Additionally, you can already today legally switch jobs as an H-1B, but it is a process that gives undue amounts of power to the employer, which makes switching difficult. Finally, regarding switching fields, it's not that easy. You have to show that your new field is related to your degree and experience. So please, instead of making up imaginary bogeymen, learn more about the immigration system.
- vouaobrasil 1y ago
  I never said it should be as difficult as it is, which you seem to imply that I did. I only said meant to say the system shouldn't be too easy, either.

colechristensen 1y ago

If it's actually top talent, sure. But if it's a replacement for supporting domestic education and a source of cheap skilled labor, no thanks. If FAANG were screaming at Congress about their inability to hire and the solution was better primary and secondary education programs for people at home to create that skilled workforce, we probably wouldn't have such an aggressive urban/rural political divide in this country.

exe34 1y ago
It takes ~22 years to train up a native. Election cycles are on a 2-4 years basis and corporate profit reporting is on a 3 month scale.
- jibe 1y ago
  The fix may take a long time, but the bigger problem is there are no workable ideas for a fix. It's not like better education hasn't been thought of, attempted, and tons of money dumped into it. Results have been mixed at best.
  - exe34 1y ago
    Better education works elsewhere, so it's probably not where the problem is.
    - jibe 1y ago
      Ok, so let's just do that then, sounds easy.
      - exe34 1y ago
        > so it's probably not where the problem is. Did I give the impression that better education is sufficient to solve the problem?
      - ben_w 1y ago
        If you want the British to take back control of the USA so that the British can enforce the superior* British education system onto the USA, that would be very very funny to watch, but I don't think it would be "easy" — especially when people realise it means no guns in schools or anywhere else. * The British system may not be superior, I left uni in 2006 and the UK in 2018, and UK politicians have been fiddling with education seemingly forever. But that just means you should substitute whichever country is doing education best at the moment; the point is, even obviously correct things are still hard in the world of politics.

hombre_fatal 1y ago

If it's top talent, then they should be forced to pay them the wage of a US worker, if not more. Instead, you end up competing against the whole world on salary and servitude hours for a local job.

meatmanek 1y ago
They already are. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Condition_Application https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Condition_Application
- hombre_fatal 1y ago
  I've yet to see that once. Not the H1Bs at Amazon who were paid less and guilted into working weekends. Not my Mexican girlfriend who works for $50k as an oil rig chemical engineer in Houston at a company that only hires visa workers on the cheap. Not my Indian neighbors I befriended making $60k in software at Chase bank in Houston on their all-visa teams. SLB is a good example, where I met my girlfriend. Entry level American chemical engineer: $120-150k. Visa chemical engineer imported to work on the same team in the same position: $50k. Guess which part of the pie chart grew while I worked there. But I'm not supposed to notice any of this. And until very, very recently it was a faux pas to mention it at all.
  - Bnjoroge 1y ago
    your personal anecdotes doesnt negate the actual data
    - DragonStrength 1y ago
      It's basic economics that more workers with fewer rights lower wages across the board. "They make what Americans do" when there is a continuous flow of competing labor. Sure. What would companies pay if they didn't have these exploitable workers? Would the companies have opened new office closer to where Americans are educated? Certainly, one of those two would happen.

root_axis 1y ago

The median H1B engineering salary is 120k. There is no top talent working for that salary.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
rs186 1y ago
Well, surprise, H1B visas are issued to more than software engineers. For biomedical engineers, 120k is a very decent salary. You don't know what you are talking about. P.S. you probably want to provide a source for that number.
- root_axis 1y ago
  > H1B visas are issued to more than software engineers Not really. More than 70% of all H1Bs are going to software positions. Biomedical engineers are less than 1%, so a rounding error > you probably want to provide a source for that number Just google it yourself.
  - rs186 1y ago
    If you are referring to the statistics for "computer-related" positions and trying to equal "computer-related" to "software engineers", I have nothing to say other than you are just trying to push your agenda.

9x39 1y ago

When Microsoft does layoffs and then mass H1-Bs, is that shedding low-skill Americans for top Indian talent, or just labor arbitrage? Is a country of 340 million really lacking talent, or do we just want cheaper and controllable labor? https://www.newsweek.com/microsoft-layoffs-h1b-visa-applications-2094370 https://www.newsweek.com/microsoft-layoffs-h1b-visa-applicat... Companies always want the lucrative American businesses and consumers as customers, all the while wanting to shed expensive American workers.

3uler 1y ago
If they wanted cheap labour, they would outsource. H1Bs are an important source of talent. That does not mean it is abused by outsourcing companies to bring cheap talent to America and profit from the arbitrage. Big tech is not the one abusing this program.
- 9x39 1y ago
  >That does not mean it is abused by outsourcing companies to bring cheap talent to America and profit from the arbitrage. It doesn't have to follow directly; the problem is often indirect. H1Bs are much better behaved for employers because they are nearly powerless to say no, and can be slow-walked for raises, promotions and squeezed for high hours worked to reduce effective wages. There's also cultural migration issues - India is 70%+ of the H1B program. Does India have a monopoloy on top global talent, or is it just a process vulnerable to political capture and top execs' whims? Talent exists everywhere, but when one country absolutely dominates a process, it suggests the process has been captured. >Big tech is not the one abusing this program. Did they promise that in a press release or something? Compared to Microsoft, TCS and Infosys are bottom tier tech, but the H1B program in general is sketchy based on the accusations the biggest players have had over the last decade.

DragonStrength 1y ago

Yup, if you take the restrictions off, none of these companies would want them. They love the restrictions. Americans can just up and quit on them, but not temporary workers.

tboyd47 1y ago
Exactly. It's a very cynical and corrupt game being passed off in the name of "innovation" and "competiton" XD

lisbbb 1y ago

You know the answer! It's veritable slave labor is why. I've seen it a thousands times at major US companies and how it plays out. It is a horrible form of leverage they have over their "assets."

tboyd47 1y ago
Yep. If anything, it depresses the economy. Doesn't grow anything except the stock price of multinationals.