7 ms·

Do keep in mind. H-1B is for when you cannot find an American to fill a role so somebody comes into the US on a visa to fill that slot. O-1 [1] is a for when

Do keep in mind. H-1B is for when you cannot find an American to fill a role so somebody comes into the US on a visa to fill that slot. O-1 [1] is a for when somebody non-American has a lot of skill and is allowed to immigrate into the US to perform it. I still think H-1B visas should require some kind of additional fee proportional to training an American to fill that role. Afaik, most of the H-1B visas are just abuse where you hire somebody at a low wage than you'd need to for an otherwise legal resident so there needs to be some kind of higher opportunity cost to the company. [1]: https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary-workers/o-1-visa-individuals-with-extraordinary-ability-or-achievement https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary...

30minAdayHN 1y ago
I agree with your broader point about companies abusing H1-Bs. But I'm not sure if the abuse happens through hiring at lower wage. For example, if you look at FANG, they pay as much for an H1-B as they would pay any other employee. Where is this perspective that you can hire someone at lower wage because they come with H1-B? Would love understand the loophole.
- mgh2 1y ago
  Are the H1B salary reports self-reported by company, employees or are actual numbers based on W-2s, tax filing?
  - tyre 1y ago
    From my experience hiring as an EM at one company (Stripe) immigration status does not factor into offers. You’re competing for this talent against every other company. If they’re good, you (and others) want to hire them. Again: data set of one, at a high-paying company who generally has a strong ethical bent. There seem to be a lot of other experiences with the system.
    - mgh2 1y ago
      This is what policy says, but behind doors it is completely different: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/gonza-penovi_a-recruiter-playbook-just-leaked-and-it-activity-7315647808093470720-NdkF?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAPUX-kBJrldwhg3-01ijvQnOfQmap9v0dM https://www.linkedin.com/posts/gonza-penovi_a-recruiter-play...
      - mgh2 1y ago
        Most recruiters will do this due to avoid extra paperwork/work required. So now you know that anti-immigration rethoric is fueled by Americans to take advantage of the vulnerable.
- happytoexplain 1y ago
  Wages are not straightforward, as much as businesses would like to pretend they are. What do you mean by "would pay"? They don't just make up a number. The willingness of applicants to accept a lower wage lowers the wage they "would" pay ("our wages are competitive").
- code_runner 1y ago
  not every company is FANG. there are tens of thousands of companies operating at sub trillion dollar valuations which absolutely positively do this. FANG (or even "big tech") is far too narrow to draw any meaningful conclusions in the broader market.
- some_random 1y ago
  You can work an H1-B nearly to death, Elon has all but explicitly said so for instance. If they're fired it's very unlikely that they'll be able to get a new job before being forced to leave the country at which point they're unlikely to ever get the chance to come back and they know this.
  - aprilthird2021 1y ago
    But this doesn't really happen in FAANG, as most on this board can tell you. Maybe in Elon companies, but they were well known for overworking everyone almost a decade ago
    - orsenthil 1y ago
      This happens. It is not explicit, but implicit. We realize this happens only when put someone through such a situation.
      - aprilthird2021 1y ago
        It doesn't happen. If you've worked in FAANG you know very well it's not reality
  - fuzztester 1y ago
    >You can work an H1-B nearly to death, Elon has all but explicitly said so for instance. Interesting. Citation?
- lesuorac 1y ago
  Perhaps, FAN pay as much. G is alleged to pay less. https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-widespread-wage-theft-in-the-h-1b-program/ https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-widespread-wage...
fredfoobar 1y ago
Yeah, there's plenty of abuse with H1B with those consulting companies operating out of India and shipping people overseas, I don't believe many of them would qualify for the H1B. That said, many folks who come here to study and get hired by companies (usually, for their specialization in a masters degree for most foreign students) also apply for a H1B. I don't understand your "low wage" argument though, aren't there laws against it currently? they need to be paid at least the prevailing wage in their location/job level.
- rawgabbit 1y ago
  From https://www.epi.org/publication/h-1b-visas-and-prevailing-wage-levels/ https://www.epi.org/publication/h-1b-visas-and-prevailing-wa... Quote The statute creating the H-1B visa—which allows U.S. employers to hire college-educated workers as well as fashion models from abroad—contains language establishing a “prevailing wage.”4 This prevailing wage requirement is intended to protect the wages of U.S. workers in occupations requiring a college degree from adverse impacts and to prevent college-educated migrant workers from being underpaid and exploited. Corporate lobbyists and other H-1B proponents often cite this prevailing wage requirement in the H-1B law as evidence that H-1B workers cannot be paid less than U.S. workers. However, the reality is that the H-1B statute, regulations, and administrative guidance allow employers wide latitude in setting wage levels.... Although salary information that corresponds to requested positions on LCAs has been made available by DOL for a number of years through the Office of Foreign Labor Certification’s LCA disclosure data, until recently the prevailing wage levels selected by employers were not readily available. In 2011, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) for the first time reported what some had suspected and speculated about but to that point were not able to officially confirm: The vast majority of H-1B jobs were being certified by DOL at the two lowest wage levels.
  - fredfoobar 1y ago
    any update since 2011?
- lesuorac 1y ago
  > they need to be paid at least the prevailing wage in their location/job level. I mean if you follow the law sure. It's easy to either just pay them below market or hire them at a lower title than the role actually requires. https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/h1b_visa_fraud/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/h1b_visa_fraud/ https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-widespread-wage-theft-in-the-h-1b-program/ https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-widespread-wage...
paxys 1y ago
> H-1B is for when you cannot find an American to fill a role No, this is a myth. Employers can sponsor H-1B visas for any "speciality occupation" regardless of whether a citizen is available to do the job or not. Legally there are no restrictions in place re: criteria. The only thing they are required to do is pay the prevailing wage. Tests for whether a citizen can do the job only come into play later when they are sponsoring a green card.
- fredfoobar 1y ago
  Some of these posts make it seem like software engineering is a low skilled job, I beg to differ, it's still a very high skilled job, < .5% of the world knows how to code.
  - lesuorac 1y ago
    Is it that skilled when it gets taught in 4 years in college while an Electrician has to apprenticeship for 7? That said, whether software is high-skill or not is tangential to the point I'm making. Which is, H1-B is being used to depress wages and that reworking it shouldn't affect jobs that actually have few people that can do it because O-1 allows them to work that job.
    - fredfoobar 1y ago
      I don't think this is a fair comparison, software development is very complex, but an electricians job isn't, it's very simple but it's high consequence. Software development may seem simple for a lot of people here on HN, but trust me, I can do the electricians job easily, but an electrician won't be able to do my job. The regulatory environment which requires the "apprenticeship" is a totally different topic and doesn't inform anything on the skill required to do the job. Also, the electrician apprentice gets paid while learning on the job, the software developer in training doesn't.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
mvieira38 1y ago
Not to mention the EU countries already do effectively the same thing. If your wage is below a certain treshold (based on profession), you can't compete fairly with europeans (i.e. the company has to prove they couldn't find anyone), but if you're above it then you're eligible for the Blue Card program and get to compete fairly. Very similar to Trump's changes in intent
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
lgleason 1y ago
There is no requirement to demonstrate that you cannot find an American to do the job to get an H1b visa approved. If that person applies for a PERM position (needed to convert to a green card) there is. Hence the H1b is easy to game by employers to get cheap indentured servants. With PERM (converting to a green card) they try to hide the job postings so that people will not apply so that they can get the green card approved. Some of the tricks include putting ads in the newspaper, using esoteric websites and other media such as radio instead of job boards where tech people actually look for jobs. Some Americans who have trouble finding jobs in the current market took on a side project of scraping newspaper ads and these job boards and created https://www.jobs.now/ https://www.jobs.now/ which lists these jobs. If enough Americans that meet the minimum qualifications apply for a listed job it stops the green card process for that position, usually for 6 months before the sponsor may try again. Also, there are a lot of stories about people getting O-1 visas via fake credential mills and research papers. Both can and are being gamed to get O-1's.
- unsupp0rted 1y ago
  A lot of these jobs are from places like Stripe or Big-4 accounting. Are they hiding jobs?
  - lgleason 1y ago
    They are making these specific jobs tough to find because they are for a PERM test and don't want to get applicants. This video is old, but the same thing is happening today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU
    - mythrwy 1y ago
      I live in a remote, low education, low income, low population area and they frequently take out classified ads specifically here. I haven't bothered to ever apply because to me it seemed obvious what is going on.
- nine_k 1y ago
mtrovo 1y ago
Is that really true? My impression is that companies tries as much as possible to not use the O-1 route, not sure because the requirements are by design too high or process and cost are not worth it compared to other routes. O(1) data point: got offer from FAANG to join on the H-1B lottery, later moved to L-1 because the timing was not going to work well for the H-1B process and L-1 at least would give my partner the chance to also work, I later decided to not migrate and keep working from a different country.
toomuchtodo 1y ago
I have personally seen H-1B visas used to displace US workers for labor cost optimization. Bloomberg has even done a piece on this. H-1B Middlemen Bring Cheap Labor to Citi, Capital One - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44398978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44398978 - June 2025
- simianwords 1y ago
  H1B is ultimately a cost optimization technique from the start. And it is a good thing overall for everyone. You can technically be forced to hire only citizens by paying them really high salaries but you wouldn’t be able to have that many businesses.
  - franktankbank 1y ago
    > H1B is ultimately a cost optimization technique If you don't account for the kickback schemes and terrible results.
phyzix5761 1y ago
> H-1B is for when you cannot find an American to fill a role so somebody comes into the US on a visa to fill that slot. The job market would disagree with you right now. I know so many US citizens who have 10+ years of work experience and work in modern stacks that have been out of a job for 6+ months yet companies are still hiring H-1B workers because its cheaper.
- alephnerd 1y ago
  > I know so many US citizens who have 10+ years of work experience and work in modern stacks that have been out of a job for 6+ months The tech industry like tech stack is broad. For example, it's nigh impossible to hire an American citizen with professional CUDA or eBPF experience because almost anyone with those skills already has a job. If you have those skills YOU WILL land a job (not remote first though - that era's over). And it's not like you can retrain a fullstack engineer to understand systems programming overnight - it takes years of experience and knowledge of computer and OS architecture. And it's not like companies aren't paying top dollar for these skills - they are, but people with those skills simply don't exist in significant numbers in the US. There's a reason a large portion of the cybersecurity industry shifted to Israel and India - the kinds of table stakes skills in systems development aren't heavily taught in the US anymore compared to 15 years ago, and the only universities where you might have a shot hiring someone with those skills are T10 programs where students can field multiple job offers. That said, the proposed changes in the H1B program are good - it's easier for a startup or a professional company to sponsor an H1B now instead of dealing with unethical consultancies gumming up the works. The H1B market is bimodal - you have a huge chunk at consultancies who are paid low even by Indian standards and then an equally large chunk of people who are actually pretty elite and successful in India and are working at FAANG or top startups. You want to optimize for the right hand but don't want to make it so hard that you don't end up incentivizing talented people from leaving and returning to India or China or Europe. That said, I don't envision this having much impact on easing hiring - AI/ML in the hands of experienced devs is fairly powerful AND the economic conditions currently are incentivizing us to limit hiring to only those who are truly critical.
- Terr_ 1y ago
  I suspect the parent-poster meant that in terms of original legislative intent, rather than practical outcome.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
kstrauser 1y ago
That's right. To be explicit: I am absolutely, 100% for smart people coming to the US and participating as full, equal peers in our job market. Come on in, friend! I welcome you! However, I am wholly opposed to the H-1B program as I've seen it used in reality, where those smart peers are used as below-market-rate slave labor who can't really complain about it without facing immediate deportation. I've personally worked with iOS app devs who were making less than I was while working many more hours per week, all because our asshole boss let them know that if they didn't like it, they had 60 days to find another visa sponsor or GTFO of the country and leave their homes and friends and partners behind. They weren't coming here to invent quantum computers. They were writing phone apps. The sole reason said asshole boss hired them was because he knew he'd own them. I firmly, adamantly believe there should be an extra 50% employer-borne tax on H-1B roles, making it so that it's possible but expensive to bring in new employees. It wouldn't stop people like those quantum computer scientists. The companies making those things would still hire them in a heartbeat if they couldn't find "local" talent. But it would stop the asshole boss from exploiting my friends to work them like rented mules while artificially suppressing salaries for everyone else.
- lacker 1y ago
  In my experience the FAANG companies don't really abuse their H-1Bs. At Google or Meta the H-1Bs really are just smart people who participate as full and equal peers. And the FAANGs employ plenty of American citizens, they hire all the good employees they can get. The trouble either comes from small companies or from consulting shops. The simplest solution is just to take salary into account. If someone is making $180k a year then they aren't "owned".
  - lukeschlather 1y ago
    I think there is probably title deflation going on. Yes, every engineer working at a FAANG is well-paid, and the H1Bs are no exception. But my feeling is they're probably at least a level lower than they would be if they didn't have the captive visa. And this only reinforces that they're all great workers.
partiallypro 1y ago
That's the idea, but I don't think it's used like that in practice and is actually heavily abused.
yieldcrv 1y ago
Every controversial and disruptive problem occurring in this administration is solely because an activity was allowed to continue in a controversial and disruptive way for many administrations On the topic of H1B’s specifically, I wish the minimum salary kept pace with inflation, and that overall our immigration system didn’t kick out mentally capable and educated people after finishing school or between employers. Intellectual fitness and those with the support system to flourish improve our society.
selkin 1y ago
H1B is also for fashion models, which AFAIK, do not need their employer to prove they can not hire an American person for the role before being granted permission to hire a temporary foreign employee.
therealdkz 1y ago
[dead]
mikewarot 1y ago
I think a tax of at least $100,000 per year per H-1B visa going forward would help eliminate abuse of the system. All current visa holders should get an expedited path to citizenship to keep them from being exploited as well
- m463 1y ago
  a lot of these sound like an import tariff on workers.
  - mikewarot 1y ago
    That's a great way of putting it... if you're going to poke holes in the immigration system to help industry... they should pay for the privilege a high enough value to make sure it's not just about cheap labor.
- karakot 1y ago
  or it will move remaining jobs from the US to India.

30minAdayHN 1y ago

I agree with your broader point about companies abusing H1-Bs. But I'm not sure if the abuse happens through hiring at lower wage. For example, if you look at FANG, they pay as much for an H1-B as they would pay any other employee. Where is this perspective that you can hire someone at lower wage because they come with H1-B? Would love understand the loophole.

mgh2 1y ago
Are the H1B salary reports self-reported by company, employees or are actual numbers based on W-2s, tax filing?
- tyre 1y ago
  From my experience hiring as an EM at one company (Stripe) immigration status does not factor into offers. You’re competing for this talent against every other company. If they’re good, you (and others) want to hire them. Again: data set of one, at a high-paying company who generally has a strong ethical bent. There seem to be a lot of other experiences with the system.
  - mgh2 1y ago
    This is what policy says, but behind doors it is completely different: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/gonza-penovi_a-recruiter-playbook-just-leaked-and-it-activity-7315647808093470720-NdkF?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAPUX-kBJrldwhg3-01ijvQnOfQmap9v0dM https://www.linkedin.com/posts/gonza-penovi_a-recruiter-play...
    - mgh2 1y ago
      Most recruiters will do this due to avoid extra paperwork/work required. So now you know that anti-immigration rethoric is fueled by Americans to take advantage of the vulnerable.
happytoexplain 1y ago
Wages are not straightforward, as much as businesses would like to pretend they are. What do you mean by "would pay"? They don't just make up a number. The willingness of applicants to accept a lower wage lowers the wage they "would" pay ("our wages are competitive").
code_runner 1y ago
not every company is FANG. there are tens of thousands of companies operating at sub trillion dollar valuations which absolutely positively do this. FANG (or even "big tech") is far too narrow to draw any meaningful conclusions in the broader market.
some_random 1y ago
You can work an H1-B nearly to death, Elon has all but explicitly said so for instance. If they're fired it's very unlikely that they'll be able to get a new job before being forced to leave the country at which point they're unlikely to ever get the chance to come back and they know this.
- aprilthird2021 1y ago
  But this doesn't really happen in FAANG, as most on this board can tell you. Maybe in Elon companies, but they were well known for overworking everyone almost a decade ago
  - orsenthil 1y ago
    This happens. It is not explicit, but implicit. We realize this happens only when put someone through such a situation.
    - aprilthird2021 1y ago
      It doesn't happen. If you've worked in FAANG you know very well it's not reality
- fuzztester 1y ago
  >You can work an H1-B nearly to death, Elon has all but explicitly said so for instance. Interesting. Citation?
lesuorac 1y ago
Perhaps, FAN pay as much. G is alleged to pay less. https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-widespread-wage-theft-in-the-h-1b-program/ https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-widespread-wage...

fredfoobar 1y ago

Yeah, there's plenty of abuse with H1B with those consulting companies operating out of India and shipping people overseas, I don't believe many of them would qualify for the H1B. That said, many folks who come here to study and get hired by companies (usually, for their specialization in a masters degree for most foreign students) also apply for a H1B. I don't understand your "low wage" argument though, aren't there laws against it currently? they need to be paid at least the prevailing wage in their location/job level.

rawgabbit 1y ago
From https://www.epi.org/publication/h-1b-visas-and-prevailing-wage-levels/ https://www.epi.org/publication/h-1b-visas-and-prevailing-wa... Quote The statute creating the H-1B visa—which allows U.S. employers to hire college-educated workers as well as fashion models from abroad—contains language establishing a “prevailing wage.”4 This prevailing wage requirement is intended to protect the wages of U.S. workers in occupations requiring a college degree from adverse impacts and to prevent college-educated migrant workers from being underpaid and exploited. Corporate lobbyists and other H-1B proponents often cite this prevailing wage requirement in the H-1B law as evidence that H-1B workers cannot be paid less than U.S. workers. However, the reality is that the H-1B statute, regulations, and administrative guidance allow employers wide latitude in setting wage levels.... Although salary information that corresponds to requested positions on LCAs has been made available by DOL for a number of years through the Office of Foreign Labor Certification’s LCA disclosure data, until recently the prevailing wage levels selected by employers were not readily available. In 2011, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) for the first time reported what some had suspected and speculated about but to that point were not able to officially confirm: The vast majority of H-1B jobs were being certified by DOL at the two lowest wage levels.
- fredfoobar 1y ago
  any update since 2011?
lesuorac 1y ago
> they need to be paid at least the prevailing wage in their location/job level. I mean if you follow the law sure. It's easy to either just pay them below market or hire them at a lower title than the role actually requires. https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/h1b_visa_fraud/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/h1b_visa_fraud/ https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-widespread-wage-theft-in-the-h-1b-program/ https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-widespread-wage...

paxys 1y ago

> H-1B is for when you cannot find an American to fill a role No, this is a myth. Employers can sponsor H-1B visas for any "speciality occupation" regardless of whether a citizen is available to do the job or not. Legally there are no restrictions in place re: criteria. The only thing they are required to do is pay the prevailing wage. Tests for whether a citizen can do the job only come into play later when they are sponsoring a green card.

fredfoobar 1y ago
Some of these posts make it seem like software engineering is a low skilled job, I beg to differ, it's still a very high skilled job, < .5% of the world knows how to code.
- lesuorac 1y ago
  Is it that skilled when it gets taught in 4 years in college while an Electrician has to apprenticeship for 7? That said, whether software is high-skill or not is tangential to the point I'm making. Which is, H1-B is being used to depress wages and that reworking it shouldn't affect jobs that actually have few people that can do it because O-1 allows them to work that job.
  - fredfoobar 1y ago
    I don't think this is a fair comparison, software development is very complex, but an electricians job isn't, it's very simple but it's high consequence. Software development may seem simple for a lot of people here on HN, but trust me, I can do the electricians job easily, but an electrician won't be able to do my job. The regulatory environment which requires the "apprenticeship" is a totally different topic and doesn't inform anything on the skill required to do the job. Also, the electrician apprentice gets paid while learning on the job, the software developer in training doesn't.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]

mvieira38 1y ago

Not to mention the EU countries already do effectively the same thing. If your wage is below a certain treshold (based on profession), you can't compete fairly with europeans (i.e. the company has to prove they couldn't find anyone), but if you're above it then you're eligible for the Blue Card program and get to compete fairly. Very similar to Trump's changes in intent

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

lgleason 1y ago

There is no requirement to demonstrate that you cannot find an American to do the job to get an H1b visa approved. If that person applies for a PERM position (needed to convert to a green card) there is. Hence the H1b is easy to game by employers to get cheap indentured servants. With PERM (converting to a green card) they try to hide the job postings so that people will not apply so that they can get the green card approved. Some of the tricks include putting ads in the newspaper, using esoteric websites and other media such as radio instead of job boards where tech people actually look for jobs. Some Americans who have trouble finding jobs in the current market took on a side project of scraping newspaper ads and these job boards and created https://www.jobs.now/ https://www.jobs.now/ which lists these jobs. If enough Americans that meet the minimum qualifications apply for a listed job it stops the green card process for that position, usually for 6 months before the sponsor may try again. Also, there are a lot of stories about people getting O-1 visas via fake credential mills and research papers. Both can and are being gamed to get O-1's.

unsupp0rted 1y ago
A lot of these jobs are from places like Stripe or Big-4 accounting. Are they hiding jobs?
- lgleason 1y ago
  They are making these specific jobs tough to find because they are for a PERM test and don't want to get applicants. This video is old, but the same thing is happening today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU
  - mythrwy 1y ago
    I live in a remote, low education, low income, low population area and they frequently take out classified ads specifically here. I haven't bothered to ever apply because to me it seemed obvious what is going on.
nine_k 1y ago

mtrovo 1y ago

Is that really true? My impression is that companies tries as much as possible to not use the O-1 route, not sure because the requirements are by design too high or process and cost are not worth it compared to other routes. O(1) data point: got offer from FAANG to join on the H-1B lottery, later moved to L-1 because the timing was not going to work well for the H-1B process and L-1 at least would give my partner the chance to also work, I later decided to not migrate and keep working from a different country.

toomuchtodo 1y ago

I have personally seen H-1B visas used to displace US workers for labor cost optimization. Bloomberg has even done a piece on this. H-1B Middlemen Bring Cheap Labor to Citi, Capital One - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44398978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44398978 - June 2025

simianwords 1y ago
H1B is ultimately a cost optimization technique from the start. And it is a good thing overall for everyone. You can technically be forced to hire only citizens by paying them really high salaries but you wouldn’t be able to have that many businesses.
- franktankbank 1y ago
  > H1B is ultimately a cost optimization technique If you don't account for the kickback schemes and terrible results.

phyzix5761 1y ago

> H-1B is for when you cannot find an American to fill a role so somebody comes into the US on a visa to fill that slot. The job market would disagree with you right now. I know so many US citizens who have 10+ years of work experience and work in modern stacks that have been out of a job for 6+ months yet companies are still hiring H-1B workers because its cheaper.

alephnerd 1y ago
> I know so many US citizens who have 10+ years of work experience and work in modern stacks that have been out of a job for 6+ months The tech industry like tech stack is broad. For example, it's nigh impossible to hire an American citizen with professional CUDA or eBPF experience because almost anyone with those skills already has a job. If you have those skills YOU WILL land a job (not remote first though - that era's over). And it's not like you can retrain a fullstack engineer to understand systems programming overnight - it takes years of experience and knowledge of computer and OS architecture. And it's not like companies aren't paying top dollar for these skills - they are, but people with those skills simply don't exist in significant numbers in the US. There's a reason a large portion of the cybersecurity industry shifted to Israel and India - the kinds of table stakes skills in systems development aren't heavily taught in the US anymore compared to 15 years ago, and the only universities where you might have a shot hiring someone with those skills are T10 programs where students can field multiple job offers. That said, the proposed changes in the H1B program are good - it's easier for a startup or a professional company to sponsor an H1B now instead of dealing with unethical consultancies gumming up the works. The H1B market is bimodal - you have a huge chunk at consultancies who are paid low even by Indian standards and then an equally large chunk of people who are actually pretty elite and successful in India and are working at FAANG or top startups. You want to optimize for the right hand but don't want to make it so hard that you don't end up incentivizing talented people from leaving and returning to India or China or Europe. That said, I don't envision this having much impact on easing hiring - AI/ML in the hands of experienced devs is fairly powerful AND the economic conditions currently are incentivizing us to limit hiring to only those who are truly critical.
Terr_ 1y ago
I suspect the parent-poster meant that in terms of original legislative intent, rather than practical outcome.

deleted 1y ago

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kstrauser 1y ago

That's right. To be explicit: I am absolutely, 100% for smart people coming to the US and participating as full, equal peers in our job market. Come on in, friend! I welcome you! However, I am wholly opposed to the H-1B program as I've seen it used in reality, where those smart peers are used as below-market-rate slave labor who can't really complain about it without facing immediate deportation. I've personally worked with iOS app devs who were making less than I was while working many more hours per week, all because our asshole boss let them know that if they didn't like it, they had 60 days to find another visa sponsor or GTFO of the country and leave their homes and friends and partners behind. They weren't coming here to invent quantum computers. They were writing phone apps. The sole reason said asshole boss hired them was because he knew he'd own them. I firmly, adamantly believe there should be an extra 50% employer-borne tax on H-1B roles, making it so that it's possible but expensive to bring in new employees. It wouldn't stop people like those quantum computer scientists. The companies making those things would still hire them in a heartbeat if they couldn't find "local" talent. But it would stop the asshole boss from exploiting my friends to work them like rented mules while artificially suppressing salaries for everyone else.

lacker 1y ago
In my experience the FAANG companies don't really abuse their H-1Bs. At Google or Meta the H-1Bs really are just smart people who participate as full and equal peers. And the FAANGs employ plenty of American citizens, they hire all the good employees they can get. The trouble either comes from small companies or from consulting shops. The simplest solution is just to take salary into account. If someone is making $180k a year then they aren't "owned".
- lukeschlather 1y ago
  I think there is probably title deflation going on. Yes, every engineer working at a FAANG is well-paid, and the H1Bs are no exception. But my feeling is they're probably at least a level lower than they would be if they didn't have the captive visa. And this only reinforces that they're all great workers.

partiallypro 1y ago

That's the idea, but I don't think it's used like that in practice and is actually heavily abused.

yieldcrv 1y ago

Every controversial and disruptive problem occurring in this administration is solely because an activity was allowed to continue in a controversial and disruptive way for many administrations On the topic of H1B’s specifically, I wish the minimum salary kept pace with inflation, and that overall our immigration system didn’t kick out mentally capable and educated people after finishing school or between employers. Intellectual fitness and those with the support system to flourish improve our society.

selkin 1y ago

H1B is also for fashion models, which AFAIK, do not need their employer to prove they can not hire an American person for the role before being granted permission to hire a temporary foreign employee.

therealdkz 1y ago

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mikewarot 1y ago

I think a tax of at least $100,000 per year per H-1B visa going forward would help eliminate abuse of the system. All current visa holders should get an expedited path to citizenship to keep them from being exploited as well

m463 1y ago
a lot of these sound like an import tariff on workers.
- mikewarot 1y ago
  That's a great way of putting it... if you're going to poke holes in the immigration system to help industry... they should pay for the privilege a high enough value to make sure it's not just about cheap labor.
karakot 1y ago
or it will move remaining jobs from the US to India.