61 ms·

If there's a smoking gun for IBM great, fine $$$$$$$ IBM. But my personal anecdotal experience is that the companies I've worked for pay the same for HB-1 vs lo

If there's a smoking gun for IBM great, fine $$$$$$$ IBM. But my personal anecdotal experience is that the companies I've worked for pay the same for HB-1 vs local. They don't look at it as trying to find cheap employees. They look at as trying to find qualified employees anywhere, world wide. Companies I've worked for, Virgin Games (run by a British immigrant), Shiny Entertainment (also run by a British immigrant and seemed like > 50% foreigners). Naughty Dog had at least 5 or 6 foreigners of 30 employees when I was there. The owner even made a point of showing us the first hire's salary and asking us if we knew any locals that were qualified for the job that wanted the job so that he was sure he was above the law. A few years later that hire went on to co-found Ready At Dawn which was founded by 3 immigrants. I have no idea how many of their employees are foreign. I have seen one company, Interplay, abuse their power over a foreign employee by threatening to pull their visa support for him before if he didn't do X (I think X was stop some un-work related outside music activity). He ended up marrying his local GF and then got the hell out of that company. The company I currently work for, as far as can tell, has a similar position. We'll hire anyone that applies that can convince us they can do the job. Finding them is hard. There may be tons of qualified people but either they aren't applying, they can't write a resume that makes it look like they're qualified, or they can't convince us in the interview that they are qualified.

aristus 14y ago
It may not be true for smaller companies hiring the fastest guns in the West (or the East, as may be). But I assure you that the "visa discount" is real. The most common form is to hire someone who really should be at level N at level N-2 instead, and get as much level N work out of them as you can. For example, an architect working as a draftsman, or a managing editor working as a reporter. I've seen people with 10+ years of experience having their pay cut from $17/hr to $15/hr, and told that they should be grateful to have a job. Again, this may not be common at small companies who need rarified skills, but it does happen.
- Evbn 14y ago
  This is of course completely illegal under H1B law, but hard to police.
nullc 14y ago
I've seen many kinds of H1B employment. People with excellent skills and experience being paid competitive wages, people with reasonable skills being exploited at low wages at the clear expense of locals, and people who were hardly qualified to warm a seat being pulled in to pad up some contract as cheaply as possible. As usually when you paint with broad strokes you cover some dissimilar surfaces. But at the core the employment market is about supply and demand. Increases in supply relative to some demand decreases what a rational party will pay. It doesn't matter how kind, qualified, equally paid, etc. The increase in supply weakens the employees negotiating position. Are the employees entitled to the 'artificial' supply limitation created by national boundaries? Is it socially beneficial to reduce those barriers? Do increases in supply protect the industry and leave all employees better off in the long run and cause little harm because the demand is already so great? What policy decisions can mitigate the harm and maximize the benefits? These are interesting questions. But I don't think there is any real room to question if H1B's— no matter how well managed— harm employees short to medium term financial interests.
- netcan 14y ago
  I definitely think that the instinct in increased supply = lower prices is a good starting point. But, there's some danger in overly simple economic thinking, especially when we talk about labour markets. For example, you would think that around a hub of science & engineering universities* there would be an oversupply of engineers. Someplace where there aren't many engineering schools would be the place with the highest salaries. That's clearly not the case. Demand for some professions (like doctors) is fairly fixed. For other things it appears to spring up around supply. *This assumes that the universities are not themselves a market reaction.
- Nursie 14y ago
  "Are the employees entitled to the 'artificial' supply limitation created by national boundaries?" That's a very complex question. If you're talking about importing people then there is one set of answers, and if you're talking about outsourcing there's another. Personally I think we should be more worried about the outsourcing. At least the people who come to the country in question and live there have similar costs, similar employment law and become part of the local economy. Where outsourcing happens there's no chance of competition at all because there's no such thing as health and safety in a lot of places.
supercanuck 14y ago
I work in the SAP space, My experience is most of the abuse is handled through 3rd parties. You will never be able to pin it on an IBM or an HP directly, but their will be 3rd party resourcing companies that will pull visas and force project members to live 2 to a room in a 2 bedroom apartment to save costs.
- mbesto 14y ago
  Hi! SAP'r here too! Yup, this is pretty much consistent with what I've seen too. IIRC, there was a situation where an IBM/Accenture (I forget, they're all the same) technical outsourcing group in Malaysia brought a few of the guys over to Europe and had them stay in a van instead of a hotel...
- ArbitraryLimits 14y ago
  SAP is a space now? I thought it was a company.
  - supercanuck 14y ago
    There is a whole eco-system of products and functionality and thus specialized skills. The term "SAP" can be used to describe R/3 or the company or the collection of products referred to as the Business Suite.
isalmon 14y ago
>> the companies I've worked for pay the same for HB-1 vs local. They don't look at it as trying to find cheap employees. They look at as trying to find qualified employees anywhere, world wide. My experience is very different. I was on H-1b for 4 years before getting my green card and EACH of my 3 employers (including big Finnish cell phone company) paid me MUCH lower than my market salary. Each time they told me that they had additional costs of: 1. Filing for my H-1b 2. Filing for my green card. Almost everyone I know who's on H-1b is dreaming about getting their GC. Pretty much the only legal way to get it is through your current employer. Employers know about that and leverage when it comes to salary negotiations. The result - H-1b's get paid MUCH less than people with US passport or GC.
- akiselev 14y ago
  In my family's experience, we have had both situations. The H1-B can become a massive expense, especially if the State Department get's more involved in the process (sometimes called a "security check") and many tiems, the entire H1-B to GC process can cost in excess of $30-40k (The management overhead/legal fees are huge, well above the $3k filing fees), especially after you factor in risk of turn over to the employer. Between my parents and all of our friends (Russian born engineers mostly), we don't know of more than one or two cases out of dozens where someone was paid more than 10% below market wage
rada 14y ago
The H1B issue is not simply salary as measured in absolute numbers. Naked salary numbers may be the visible tip of the iceberg but there are bigger issues to consider. 1. Most H1B workers are under 30, and most unemployed American programmers are over 35. This is by far the biggest part of the iceberg, made invisible by the fact that these people drop out of statistics. 2. Visa handcuffs are not slavery per say, but close enough. (If you think that's an overly dramatic statement, you are probably not an immigrant from some place you really don't want to be, like me, or someone whose family will quite literally starve if you don't send them money). People endure getting beat up by their husbands for 5 years straight for the sake of a green card, so there is no doubt they will endure long working hours and much more. 3. The whole "shortage of IT talent" hysteria is way overblown when you look at the actual numbers. Just one example, latest DICE salary report: http://media.dice.com/report/2012-2011-dice-salary-survey/ http://media.dice.com/report/2012-2011-dice-salary-survey/ Contrast the opening sentence: Technology professionals enjoyed their largest annual salary growth since 2008, according to the 2012-2011 Salary Survey from Dice, the leading career site for technology and engineering professionals. ... with the actual numbers: After two straight years of wages remaining nearly flat, tech professionals on average garnered salary increases of more than two percent, boosting their average annual wage to $81,327 from $79,384 in 2010. So, let's see. While the inflation is chugging along at ~3% per year, we get 2 flat years, followed by a 1% increase? So basically, we make less money each year? Is the tech industry an economic miracle? Are programmers the one must-have product whose prices get lower when it's in short supply and the buyers have pockets full of cash? Or is there a simpler explanation?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- chaostheory 14y ago
  > 2. Visa handcuffs are not slavery per say, but close enough. I can confirm this. A few of my former H1B coworkers described how an unscrupulous manager would take advantage of them by dangling a sponsorship carrot (for a green card if I remember correctly). None of them were very happy about it and most felt trapped.
lrobb 14y ago
>> But my personal anecdotal experience The plural of anecdote is not data.
- supercanuck 14y ago
  it is information
  - lrobb 14y ago
    sure... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence The expression anecdotal evidence refers to evidence from anecdotes. Because of the small sample, there is a larger chance that it may be unreliable due to cherry-picked or otherwise non-representative samples of typical cases.[1][2] Anecdotal evidence is considered dubious support of a claim; it is accepted only in lieu of more solid evidence. This is true regardless of the veracity of individual claims.[3][4][5]

aristus 14y ago

It may not be true for smaller companies hiring the fastest guns in the West (or the East, as may be). But I assure you that the "visa discount" is real. The most common form is to hire someone who really should be at level N at level N-2 instead, and get as much level N work out of them as you can. For example, an architect working as a draftsman, or a managing editor working as a reporter. I've seen people with 10+ years of experience having their pay cut from $17/hr to $15/hr, and told that they should be grateful to have a job. Again, this may not be common at small companies who need rarified skills, but it does happen.

Evbn 14y ago
This is of course completely illegal under H1B law, but hard to police.

nullc 14y ago

I've seen many kinds of H1B employment. People with excellent skills and experience being paid competitive wages, people with reasonable skills being exploited at low wages at the clear expense of locals, and people who were hardly qualified to warm a seat being pulled in to pad up some contract as cheaply as possible. As usually when you paint with broad strokes you cover some dissimilar surfaces. But at the core the employment market is about supply and demand. Increases in supply relative to some demand decreases what a rational party will pay. It doesn't matter how kind, qualified, equally paid, etc. The increase in supply weakens the employees negotiating position. Are the employees entitled to the 'artificial' supply limitation created by national boundaries? Is it socially beneficial to reduce those barriers? Do increases in supply protect the industry and leave all employees better off in the long run and cause little harm because the demand is already so great? What policy decisions can mitigate the harm and maximize the benefits? These are interesting questions. But I don't think there is any real room to question if H1B's— no matter how well managed— harm employees short to medium term financial interests.

netcan 14y ago
I definitely think that the instinct in increased supply = lower prices is a good starting point. But, there's some danger in overly simple economic thinking, especially when we talk about labour markets. For example, you would think that around a hub of science & engineering universities* there would be an oversupply of engineers. Someplace where there aren't many engineering schools would be the place with the highest salaries. That's clearly not the case. Demand for some professions (like doctors) is fairly fixed. For other things it appears to spring up around supply. *This assumes that the universities are not themselves a market reaction.
Nursie 14y ago
"Are the employees entitled to the 'artificial' supply limitation created by national boundaries?" That's a very complex question. If you're talking about importing people then there is one set of answers, and if you're talking about outsourcing there's another. Personally I think we should be more worried about the outsourcing. At least the people who come to the country in question and live there have similar costs, similar employment law and become part of the local economy. Where outsourcing happens there's no chance of competition at all because there's no such thing as health and safety in a lot of places.

supercanuck 14y ago

I work in the SAP space, My experience is most of the abuse is handled through 3rd parties. You will never be able to pin it on an IBM or an HP directly, but their will be 3rd party resourcing companies that will pull visas and force project members to live 2 to a room in a 2 bedroom apartment to save costs.

mbesto 14y ago
Hi! SAP'r here too! Yup, this is pretty much consistent with what I've seen too. IIRC, there was a situation where an IBM/Accenture (I forget, they're all the same) technical outsourcing group in Malaysia brought a few of the guys over to Europe and had them stay in a van instead of a hotel...
ArbitraryLimits 14y ago
SAP is a space now? I thought it was a company.
- supercanuck 14y ago
  There is a whole eco-system of products and functionality and thus specialized skills. The term "SAP" can be used to describe R/3 or the company or the collection of products referred to as the Business Suite.

isalmon 14y ago

>> the companies I've worked for pay the same for HB-1 vs local. They don't look at it as trying to find cheap employees. They look at as trying to find qualified employees anywhere, world wide. My experience is very different. I was on H-1b for 4 years before getting my green card and EACH of my 3 employers (including big Finnish cell phone company) paid me MUCH lower than my market salary. Each time they told me that they had additional costs of: 1. Filing for my H-1b 2. Filing for my green card. Almost everyone I know who's on H-1b is dreaming about getting their GC. Pretty much the only legal way to get it is through your current employer. Employers know about that and leverage when it comes to salary negotiations. The result - H-1b's get paid MUCH less than people with US passport or GC.

akiselev 14y ago
In my family's experience, we have had both situations. The H1-B can become a massive expense, especially if the State Department get's more involved in the process (sometimes called a "security check") and many tiems, the entire H1-B to GC process can cost in excess of $30-40k (The management overhead/legal fees are huge, well above the $3k filing fees), especially after you factor in risk of turn over to the employer. Between my parents and all of our friends (Russian born engineers mostly), we don't know of more than one or two cases out of dozens where someone was paid more than 10% below market wage

rada 14y ago

The H1B issue is not simply salary as measured in absolute numbers. Naked salary numbers may be the visible tip of the iceberg but there are bigger issues to consider. 1. Most H1B workers are under 30, and most unemployed American programmers are over 35. This is by far the biggest part of the iceberg, made invisible by the fact that these people drop out of statistics. 2. Visa handcuffs are not slavery per say, but close enough. (If you think that's an overly dramatic statement, you are probably not an immigrant from some place you really don't want to be, like me, or someone whose family will quite literally starve if you don't send them money). People endure getting beat up by their husbands for 5 years straight for the sake of a green card, so there is no doubt they will endure long working hours and much more. 3. The whole "shortage of IT talent" hysteria is way overblown when you look at the actual numbers. Just one example, latest DICE salary report: http://media.dice.com/report/2012-2011-dice-salary-survey/ http://media.dice.com/report/2012-2011-dice-salary-survey/ Contrast the opening sentence: Technology professionals enjoyed their largest annual salary growth since 2008, according to the 2012-2011 Salary Survey from Dice, the leading career site for technology and engineering professionals. ... with the actual numbers: After two straight years of wages remaining nearly flat, tech professionals on average garnered salary increases of more than two percent, boosting their average annual wage to $81,327 from $79,384 in 2010. So, let's see. While the inflation is chugging along at ~3% per year, we get 2 flat years, followed by a 1% increase? So basically, we make less money each year? Is the tech industry an economic miracle? Are programmers the one must-have product whose prices get lower when it's in short supply and the buyers have pockets full of cash? Or is there a simpler explanation?

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
chaostheory 14y ago
> 2. Visa handcuffs are not slavery per say, but close enough. I can confirm this. A few of my former H1B coworkers described how an unscrupulous manager would take advantage of them by dangling a sponsorship carrot (for a green card if I remember correctly). None of them were very happy about it and most felt trapped.

lrobb 14y ago

>> But my personal anecdotal experience The plural of anecdote is not data.

supercanuck 14y ago
it is information
- lrobb 14y ago
  sure... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence The expression anecdotal evidence refers to evidence from anecdotes. Because of the small sample, there is a larger chance that it may be unreliable due to cherry-picked or otherwise non-representative samples of typical cases.[1][2] Anecdotal evidence is considered dubious support of a claim; it is accepted only in lieu of more solid evidence. This is true regardless of the veracity of individual claims.[3][4][5]