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US signals intention to rethink job H-1B lottery
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- sownkun 1y agoThe amount of foreign tech workers in the U.S. seems far too high right now given how bad the job market is.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- zihotki 1y agoThere will always be a shortage of tech workers* in the US * - low paid skilled workers who don't have right to say no to 60h work weeks.
- techpineapple 1y agoYou’d have to make it harder to outsource as well, right?
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y agoEh, if recent events are any indicators ( going after migrants and not after employers that hire them ), I think most people already know the answer to that question.
- sleepyguy 1y agoNinety-nine percent of the developers at one of the world's largest transportation companies are from India, with most employed through the H1B visa program. Many of them are aghast at the company's decision to open a new office in India, seeing it as a cost-cutting measure that could put their positions at risk.
- rhapsodic 1y ago* >Ninety-nine percent of the developers at one of the world's largest transportation companies are from India* What company is that?
- anonreeeeplor 1y agoIn my area, there is a Tae Kwon Do school my kids go to. You can see every year the class picture. For the last 10 years it was almost all white kids then it made a dramatic change to almost 100% Indian. We live near Microsoft. Something very obviously is going on with immigration. To say Microsoft has simply been flooding the area with Indians is shown visually.
- ivape 1y agoIf Microsoft decided to be a fully Indian company, what would change? I'm actually kind of curious. Then they can just stop pretending and have a giant Taj Mahal HQ in India with tons of Indians. Who is going to stop using Microsoft Office in the enterprise? I have no clue what's actually keeping some companies here at all.
- sownkun 1y agoYep. I live in the same area.
- anonreeeeplor 1y agoI was a self taught software developer that was very advanced. I remember applying to Microsoft dozens of times. Your resume goes right in the trash … unless you are a foreign indentured servant. These companies are not our friends. I was permanently shadow banned and limited on LinkedIn for mentioning this. It’s a racket. Intel laying off 30K people a quarter. Who do they replace them with?
- vachina 1y ago[flagged]
- buckle8017 1y agoThe answer to why this is happening is also very clear. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya_Nadella https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya_Nadella
- femiagbabiaka 1y agoA lot of people seem to believe that the path to the next generation of American prosperity is playing a series of zero-sum games through demagoguery. I’m not convinced.
- vkou 1y agoThat's not a fair and complete description of their beliefs, they also believe in negative-sum burn-the-furniture-to-stay-warm.
- malfist 1y agoWhatever is required to make the next quarter's numbers be higher.
- epistasis 1y agoI'm not even sure that's it's a desire for greater prosperity, honestly. I think it's most about enforcing social hierarchy by race and gender and parentage, though people vary a lot on what they want the hierarchy to be based on. This is a huge change from past visions for America, and will lead to far less prosperity, inevitably. The fight against DEI, policies meant to maximize corporate success by taking the best talent no matter race or gender, is clear indication of that. And there was plenty of indication that companies that used ESG in running their companies overperformed, yet there was a huge revolt against that.
- umvi 1y ago> The fight against DEI, policies meant to maximize corporate success by taking the best talent no matter race or gender, is clear indication of that. That's not how DEI looked to me. In the places I've worked, DEI consisted of policies meant to force organizations to hire underqualified applicants so long as they were members of certain demographics, i.e. a variant of affirmative action.
- vkou 1y agoIn any place where I worked, all it influenced was where the intake funnel was sourced from. Once someone was in the recruiting funnel, it had exactly zero bearing on interviews and hiring decisions. From observing the public behavior of the current regime and it's war against DEI, it itself seems to be lazer-focused on hiring unqualified morons whose most important quality is loyalty to the supreme leader. Methinks merit was never the goal, and DEI was just a figleaf to get angry culture warriors to turn out and vote for them.
- kubb 1y agoI got rejected from the lottery once! It was a while ago, at that time I had about 40% chance to "win" it. I suppose folks from India and China make up the bulk of the applicants, and a high percentage of the people who end up getting the visas. My life could have been completely different if I did get an H-1B. Oh for the path not taken. I hope there is someone who received it in my stead, who now is wonderfully happy and successful in the US.
- sleepytimetea 1y agoI know someone who didn't get the lottery for 3 consecutive years.
- kubb 1y agoLife is a series of lotteries. Where you're born, how wealthy your parents are, what genetic endowment you receive, what environment you grow up in. You have to win enough times and then you get a shot at a happy life. Is it fair? Not really. Most people lose. I also lost. But, such is the reality we live in.
- airstrike 1y agoThat's a bit defeatist. When discussing policy, we strive to create optimal, not random outcomes.
- kubb 1y agoRealistically, policy is the outcome of the political process. There is no single optimal policy because what's considered 'optimal' depends on what you want to achieve, and these goals will vary across individuals or groups. Some people don't want anybody to come in, others want just the brain drain but nobody else, others want cheap unskilled workers, others want open borders. And this is just a small sample.
- airstrike 1y ago
- TrackerFF 1y agoYeah...look at all the top researchers in AI, and count how many of them came here through H-1B. Gotta be something like 70%-80%. Nothing against "homegrown" talent, but let's be real - US is getting cream of the crop talent from other countries. (And that's just AI, not do the same for other fields. Many of these people started as regular engineers and devs., and didn't come to the through the EB-1B/Einstein visa. Just a regular H-1B. And many on student visas.)
- sownkun 1y agoH-1B for top talent in fields like AI makes sense. But in most cases it's not being used for that. It's just being used to fill generic software jobs that can be filled by US citizens/residents.
- lokar 1y agoEven more basic IT jobs, no programming at all
- dangus 1y agoThose top tier researchers are the kind of people the program is legitimately meant for, but for every one of those there are probably 10 or 100 H-1B contractors being paid below-market wages resulting in underemployment of US citizens, especially early career graduates. The program is also used to employ people that won’t quit when they are mistreated because their family’s existence in the country depends on continued employment.
- spacemadness 1y agoI’ve worked with a lot of backend and mobile devs that are on H1-B. They were solid for the most part but they aren’t exactly niche skills.
- bugbuddy 1y agoThis is complete BS. There are plenty of good candidates all over the world including the US. To make it fair, just put a 1000 limit per country per year.
- bradlys 1y agoCan anyone who is from India or China explain why the type of person who goes to SV and works in tech from these two countries is so wildly different than the type who goes to NYC and is from those two countries? It’s a massive cultural difference. I’ve much preferred the individuals who chose to live in NYC as they seem to be a much more outgoing, social, welcoming, and open type of person. The type of individuals that go to SV and are from these two countries seem the complete opposite.
- siliconc0w 1y agoReplace the lottery with a compensation auction until it reaches 90th percentile for the area and ban any companies with layoffs in the last three years. Anything else, like making it "skills based" will be gamed.
- dangus 1y agoOf course, layoffs themselves can be gamed. You can do things like RTO, cutting intangible benefits, and other social engineering to make people quit.
- shagie 1y agoThis appears to assume that the only worthwhile H-1B visas are those for highly compensated positions. How about a French language teacher? https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=french&city=&year=2025 https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=french&city=&year=202...
- betaby 1y ago> How about a French language teacher? Pay more? Even on language learning sites there is variability on language and location. So if french language is that important so should the compensation be. You US will end up like Quebec https://www.ctvnews.ca/montreal/article/23-quebec-business-owners-launch-300-million-lawsuit-over-temporary-foreign-worker-permits/ https://www.ctvnews.ca/montreal/article/23-quebec-business-o...
- bugbuddy 1y agoThe only people that matters to Indian tech managers in the US is being able to hire more Indian H1Bs. It’s not their money. It’s the company and shareholders’ money so they can pay whatever amount the government dictates.
- airstrike 1y agoI think it's important to note that not all H-1B jobs are the same. There are many companies that abuse the system, and this is one of main reasons to revamp it. But there are also companies that are just looking for talent that they can't easily find in the US. I had an H-1B working in Investment Banking and was paid a high salary after business school. Most of my classmates did not want to go into banking. I was ranked a top performer year after year, put in hundred-hour weeks and provided actual value to the bank, clients, and the US economy. Economies generally want high-skilled, high-salary immigrants. The H-1B can and should be a program for that. Literally everyone benefits. It should also enable a path to citizenship. Right now, those high-skilled workers get a lottery with ~30% odds, another try at 40% odds if they have a graduate degree, and then six years working for Uncle Sam before they're kicked out of the country. There's no path to a green card unless your employer chooses to sponsor you, at which point you are even more at their whims than during your H-1B stint and obviously there's a massive imbalance in that relationship. And because I believe offering solutions is more valuable than just criticizing, here's my relative non-controversial suggestion for the program: • Country quotas • Minimum salary of [$175-200k/year] (pick your number) • H-1B workers should be allowed to easily switch jobs, so long as the job is still above the minimum salary. (Giving workers flexibility reduces the possibility of abuse. Currently you have 30-days to find a job or you have to leave the country.) • Spouses of H-1B workers (H-4 visas) should get a work permit with no minimum salary (They're currently not allowed to work at all. They don't need a salary minimum because their visa is tethered to the H-1B already, and it's better (for everyone) to have them work some job rather than no job.) • H-1B can self-petition a green card after X years working in the US (personally I'd say 3 years, but 5 may be more palatable to the general public) • H-1B visas should be good for 5 years instead of the current 3. They should also be allowed to extend for another 5 years, so 5+5 instead of 3+3.
- shagie 1y ago> • Minimum salary of [$175-200k/year] (pick your number) How would this impact... say... Foreign Language Instructors? https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=foreign+language+instructor&city=&year=2025 https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=foreign+language+inst... or school teachers? https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=teacher&city=&year=2025 https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=teacher&city=&year=20...
- e1g 1y agoHere's a bulletproof working visa policy: automatically approve everyone who will be in income tax (state and federal) more than the median gross income (~$60k). Sort of minimum-income-tax personal guarantee, which all highly-skilled migrants for in-demand occupations will easily match (OTE >$200k). Alternatively, earning 2x of the median income in their profession, with a national floor of $200k pa. It won't solve all immigration woes, but it will do a great deal to keep the country competitive.
- atoav 1y agoYes, only that it leaves vast parts of the US economy without workers, since not only skilled labour is sought after. Farm work would be one popular example. So unlike you somehow explain to Americans why foreigners get the good jobs while they now have to work the fields, a kins of labour that has been beneath them for decades, that won't even remotely fly (at least not without other major restructuring).
- e1g 1y agoAs an immigrant, I understand the deal (for a working visa): I must bring valuable and scarce skills that this economy lacks (as demonstrated by the premium it is willing to pay). "Total Compensation" is an imperfect-but-good-enough proxy for how valuable and scarce my skills are. This does nothing to address other issues in immigration or labour forces, but if your goal is to attract global professionals with valuable and scarce skills, you need a working visa based on the total compensation this economy offers for those skills (i.e., Total Compensation).
- ffitch 1y agoI’m curious what the policy with the highest long-term benefit would be. The country needs external talent, but would skewing H-1B towards high skill be good? The economy seems to need unskilled labor for the jobs Americans are not interested in. Should the government try to curb hi-tech outsourcing instead, to create more jobs in the States, both for the citizens and the skilled immigrant workers? But that would be protectionism, and protectionism rarely play out well economically.
- bugbuddy 1y agoAsk the countless unemployed and underemployed CS and CE and EE grads. They have a simple answer: give them a job first. Until local grads are fully employed, H1B should be limited to a fixed and equal amount per country per year. That’s fair. No more Indian managers hiring only Indian H1Bs. If they need the foreign talents so much let them hire some Irish or South Korean H1Bs.
- hash872 1y agoBasically all of the problems with the H1-B system could be fixed overnight by simply banning visa holders from working for consulting companies. 'No visa holder may be employed by a company whose main business is consulting for other firms, or staffing'. We'd keep the highly skilled folks who are going to the FAANGs, and at least letting the midmarket companies bid for everyone else. But there's no compelling national or economic interest in importing a class of Accenture/Cognizant/Wipro/Infosys workers who work on 6 month contracts at Wells Fargo or whatever. I'd actually support more skilled immigration if we could get rid of the consulting firms Edit to clarify slightly: if your concern is 'skilled immigration', I would like to gently but firmly state that most of the developers that work for the consulting firms are just not very good. Sorry. If you're in a hiring capacity at a tech company at all, everyone knows that the Wipro guys who work on 6 month contracts doing Java at Fortune 100 companies cannot pass even the simplest tech screen. Yes it makes me sound like a jerk to say this, but they're not 'highly skilled'
- bradlys 1y agoThe culture that is brought over is definitely very prevalent in faang.
- snozolli 1y agoI would also suggest not tying the visa to a particular employer. The current system makes H1Bs easier to exploit.
- hash872 1y agoThey're not tied to a particular employer, this is a myth that will seemingly never die. H1-Bs are transferrable between employers. I know multiple people in both my professional & personal life who have done so easily https://immigrationhelpla.com/h1b-visa-transfer/ https://immigrationhelpla.com/h1b-visa-transfer/
- persolb 1y agoHaving H1-B visa employees introduce overhead. Not all companies are willing to do it. We’ve recently decided to stop H1-Bs for anyone that isn’t a senior hire.
- supportengineer 1y agoIn my position I directly deal with the consequences of others design choices. There is one type of software engineer who creates software to keep running without any maintenance. Or with a very small number of people. They create software that operates logically and is essentially self documenting. There’s another group of people who create software with no regard to the amount of mindless busy work that is required to maintain it. It seems like their primary goal is to create more work, not to actually solve the problem. From years of direct observation and experience, people in the first group are those who are not concerned about being deported. The ones in the second group are people who will do absolutely anything to stay in this country.
- bugbuddy 1y agoIt’s not just because of being afraid of losing H1B. Even the Indian developers in India behave the exact same way. They are extremely envious of their foreign counterparts and often sabotage the project through passive aggressive ways. They are even more envious of other Indians that have better jobs in India. They will often try to overcompensate by astronautic architecture designs.
- almostgotcaught 1y agololol yc/hn/sv is in for a wakeup call when all the cheap, extremely competent, highly motivated talent dries up. i'm not saying labor exploitation is to be celebrated but it's also very clear to anyone who works at a FAANG that their success is highly coupled to how many immigrants work very long hours.
- sxp 1y ago> He also proposes that USCIS should replace the random selection of H-1B visas with a system that prioritizes highest wages.... This change is so obvious that's it's incredible that it hasn't been implemented yet. Auction off the H1-B visas based on how much federal income tax the role will pay and let the market sort it out.
- hash872 1y agoThe problem with this argument is that most non-spouse H1-Bs are granted to new college grads who just graduated from a US college. Brand new engineers do not have very high salaries, so if you insisted on a 'highest wages' system you'd be sending virtually every new grad from say Stanford back to their home country the second they graduate. US public policy since the 60s has been to welcome foreigners who graduate from our elite colleges. As I say above- just get rid of visas for consulting companies instead, and everything else fixes itself
- airstrike 1y agoI'm not sure what you mean by "spouse H-1B" as that doesn't really exist.
- slipnslider 1y ago>new college grads So? The point of h1-b isn't to hire new grads. It's to find the already educated, industry proven, experienced top talent that exists in the world. How would a new grad fit that description?
- hash872 1y agoH1-Bs are overwhelmingly new grads, and have been since the inception of the visa. The purpose of a system is what it does- H1-Bs are issued to new grads, hence the point of the visa is to hire new grads. You may want a different system, but that's not how it works now. Experienced career professionals don't generally move to the US as adults, and anyways if your company really needed one you could just hire them remotely
- srameshc 1y agoH-1B visas have significantly benefited many non-profit science labs, attracting talented researchers who often earn less than those in the technology sector. Therefore, using salary as the sole criterion for H-1B eligibility would be bad idea. A careful approach is needed, as many H-1B talents, though perhaps not immediately impressive on paper by certain metrics, consistently add immense value.
- more_corn 1y agoGood riddance. Theres a place for skilled worker visas. This implementation is garbage and deserves to be burned to the ground. I literally cannot think of a worse system if I tried.