3 ms·

I hear this argument all the time. There's an excess of this, there's an excess of that. Seems it only comes from people who are not directly involved in hiring

by esalman 4mo ago

I hear this argument all the time. There's an excess of this, there's an excess of that. Seems it only comes from people who are not directly involved in hiring of such roles. We hired for an analyst role few months ago in the bay area and there was no qualified American applicants. My wife is in pavement consultancy and they hardly ever find qualified Americans for pavement design jobs.

anon-3988 4mo ago
Does your wife's consultancy business have a growing number of clients to handle? It might also be an issue of distribution.
- esalman 4mo ago
  No such issues. It's actually not a solo business, it's a civil/geological engineering consultancy firm with a mix of state/local government and private clients.
dmix 4mo ago
People can’t seem to separate the issue of exploitation of H1B by (mostly Indian) consultancy mills to lower wages and bypass normal immigration vs the legitimate value of specialized skilled visas. You can fix one without killing the other. It’s plausible Education might be one of the industries that gets exploited as they have no caps in the lottery like other H1 visas categories such as tech or doctors. But I don’t know enough about education visas personally.
- aprilthird2021 4mo ago
  Yep, H1B visa abuse exists and should be clamped down on, but it's also extremely vital to our sustained economic growth and frankly our biggest growth industry: tech
  - adjejmxbdjdn 4mo ago
    No, it’s clear that H1Bs have destroyed the American software industry as evidenced by the fact that the American software industry saw the largest growth in wages relative to any other field in the U.S. over the past 2 decades while also seeing a massive growth in the numbers of employees over the same period, also outpacing every other industry here as well. Clearly the H1B has been devastating to American workers unlike all those other industries which haven’t seen an influx of a capped number of H1B workers every year. And that’s even before we get to how the U.S. software industry remains one of a handful of industries where the U.S. is the leader in the world and has generated trillions in wealth, and is largely responsible for the US’s continuing dominance in the world today.
KingMachiavelli 4mo ago
Isn’t it a self-fulfilling issue? Dependence on H1B and other visa dependent workers leads to lower salaries which discourages local talent from that specialty. What requirements did the role have and what’s the salary range? From what little I gather from online job listings, most foreign labor dependent positions are trying to pay 90K for a masters degree, maybe 120-140K Bay Area. Additionally, many of these job listings want extremely specific degrees or certifications that frankly are of little interest to US citizens - but F1 students will take any masters program despite the program having little salary benefit - the degree is a requirement for the visa. I have a hard time believing you can’t find a US civil engineer who could learn the subject matter right out of college. Although saying that I know first hand low starting salaries have pushed students towards mechanical engineering or CS if inclined.
- esalman 4mo ago
  > What requirements did the role have and what’s the salary range? 4+ years in product development. Python/R + a low-level language. Terabyte-scale data stream and batch processing. HPC knowledge (vectorization, memory access, distributed computing) to build efficient algorithms. Degree in a quantitative field (Math, Stats, Physics, CS, or Engineering). Upper limit on compensation was 200k. > Although saying that I know first hand low starting salaries have pushed students towards mechanical engineering or CS if inclined. You answered your own question. The American engineering pool consists mostly of high school diplomas who can't pass PE exam at multiple trials. Edit: coincidentally, my wife was offered a state civil engineering job in Bay area. Didn't take up because the salary offered was below 100k, even with 5 years of experience.
  - zdragnar 4mo ago
    There are a ton of jobs that pay as well or better with lower requirements, even outside the bay area. Anyone with that level of experience, Python and a low level language isn't going to take you up. I'm not normally in agreement with the "you're not paying enough, there's plenty of people" crowd, because I've been on the hiring side too and know what a crapshoot it can be... But you're definitely offering too little for those requirements.
davidf18 4mo ago
[dead]
jlarocco 4mo ago
Pay more.
- hvb2 4mo ago
  And you pay for this, how? Because typically that would mean taxing something more. I've seen those kind of proposals as ballot measures that get voted down.
  - fc417fc802 4mo ago
    Tough. The undesirable consequences needs to be forced to occur so that the voters have no choice but to deal with it. You shouldn't get to just rip the bottom out of the market and proclaim to have fixed the problem.
- esalman 4mo ago
  I have added compensation information in another reply.
- wesleywt 4mo ago
  But you Americans hate taxes. You spend like a European country and tax like an African one.
fc417fc802 4mo ago
> there was no qualified American applicants. But are there qualified Americans who could easily switch to that job for one reason or another? Is the issue a lack of qualified professionals or is it a lack of interest by qualified professionals in the listed position? It's very easy to receive no applications from qualified professionals that do in fact exist by simply not offering to pay them enough (among many other things). That shouldn't mean you get to undercut the domestic labor market; rather you should be forced to rethink the business plan.
- Grombobulous 4mo ago
  One of the problems is that geography and demographic movement trends within that geography is a very real thing. Let’s say a rural town has lost population in the last 20 years, and most of the population that left is educated. Now they need a teacher, which requires a bachelors or even masters degree. The rural town’s unemployment rate is 10% but there are no qualified teachers who are unemployed. So now we want to move someone in from a nearby urban center that has a big market of educated people. But the unemployment rate in that big urban area is 3%, and the area is wealthier with a higher salary rate for jobs across the income spectrum. Let’s say my local teacher salary is $50,000, the big city teacher salary is $90,000, and the big city high school diploma career salary is $50,000. I have to find someone who is a qualified teacher who isn’t already a teacher and isn’t already working someone where else that’s still paying better than my local area. Plus, that person has family, friends, and prefers the big city with all its amenities and infrastructure. I can tell you right now that you would have to pay me far above market rate to get me to move because I’m already employed and happy. In contrast, someone in a foreign country is potentially getting a huge upgrade to move to the US or another developed wealthy country and is way more motivated to make that leap. I imagine these programs exist because the cost benefit just makes sense. Not only do you solve the imbalance faster, easier, cheaper, but now the wider country has gained educated population which is generally an economic benefit. Certainly there are flaws in the system that need to be fixed. I don’t mean to advocate for it necessarily, just explain why I think it exists. I would also point out that it’s not necessarily the case that the local labor market is being undercut (see the geographic example I gave above), it’s being expanded, and that includes adding someone who is paying taxes, buying stuff from local businesses, etc, which they do even before they become citizens.
winrid 4mo ago
Were you actually involved in the hiring? What is qualified? College degree and $30/hr? I know people who are actively looking for data analyst roles. Email me
icepush 4mo ago
What salary range were you offering ?
dani__german 4mo ago
"We were unable to attract highly experienced data analysts, and we REFUSE to ever train anyone for any role, so we should be allowed to use scab labor to undercut American wages"
- esalman 4mo ago
  I have replied to another comment - we ended up hiring a fresh graduate with relevant research experience who is being trained for the role.
jsemrau 4mo ago
> there was no qualified American applicants I have been hiring for 20 years and find this increasingly impossible to believe. Please expand why that would be the case.
- realitysballs 4mo ago
  In order to find a qualified candidate : (A) individual must be interested in job/benefits/comp. and decide to apply. This makes them a ‘candidate’ (B) candidate must be qualified per minimum requirements It’s entirely possible to not have candidates if no one is interested in the position at the stated comp/benefit rate.
- dpark 4mo ago
  He posted on another comment. They were offering way under market. Shocking, really.
  - esalman 4mo ago
    150k-200k base offered to a fresh grad for some python and low-level, data intensive work. Really shocking.
    - dpark 4mo ago
      You ended up getting a fresh grad because you asked for 4+ years of experience both broad and deep. 150-200k is probably reasonable for a new grad in the bay (not certain what starting salaries there are now) but not for what you actually asked for. I’m not hating on you. Your budget is what it is. But you’re well under market and that’s why you didn’t get the applicants you wanted.
- esalman 4mo ago
  The original article is about a federal judge blocking H1B fee because there is a teacher shortage in Alaska. Can you believe that?
- cgag 4mo ago
  Every post I see from young people trying to get tech jobs is about applying to 500 places to get one interview. It’s a lie.
corndoge 4mo ago
We need to incentivize more kids to get pavement design degrees to increase the supply
- esalman 4mo ago
  The reason US is in this mess is because in the 50s and 60s there was a liberal arts education boom in the US, and STEM education boom in India/China.
  - hdgvhicv 4mo ago
    Anyone educated in the 50s and 60s has retired And in China they were far more occupied with a cultural revolution than any form of advanced education. At best you could argue that they were teaching basic literacy to more people.
    - esalman 4mo ago
      [flagged]
  - aprilthird2021 4mo ago
    We had a STEM education boom in the last decade in the US
wheelerwj 4mo ago
[flagged]
bsder 4mo ago
Capitalism has an answer for that ... it's called "higher salary." Everybody loves capitalism--until they are on the other side of the arrow.

by esalman 4mo ago

anon-3988 4mo ago

Does your wife's consultancy business have a growing number of clients to handle? It might also be an issue of distribution.

esalman 4mo ago
No such issues. It's actually not a solo business, it's a civil/geological engineering consultancy firm with a mix of state/local government and private clients.

dmix 4mo ago

People can’t seem to separate the issue of exploitation of H1B by (mostly Indian) consultancy mills to lower wages and bypass normal immigration vs the legitimate value of specialized skilled visas. You can fix one without killing the other. It’s plausible Education might be one of the industries that gets exploited as they have no caps in the lottery like other H1 visas categories such as tech or doctors. But I don’t know enough about education visas personally.

aprilthird2021 4mo ago
Yep, H1B visa abuse exists and should be clamped down on, but it's also extremely vital to our sustained economic growth and frankly our biggest growth industry: tech
- adjejmxbdjdn 4mo ago
  No, it’s clear that H1Bs have destroyed the American software industry as evidenced by the fact that the American software industry saw the largest growth in wages relative to any other field in the U.S. over the past 2 decades while also seeing a massive growth in the numbers of employees over the same period, also outpacing every other industry here as well. Clearly the H1B has been devastating to American workers unlike all those other industries which haven’t seen an influx of a capped number of H1B workers every year. And that’s even before we get to how the U.S. software industry remains one of a handful of industries where the U.S. is the leader in the world and has generated trillions in wealth, and is largely responsible for the US’s continuing dominance in the world today.

KingMachiavelli 4mo ago

Isn’t it a self-fulfilling issue? Dependence on H1B and other visa dependent workers leads to lower salaries which discourages local talent from that specialty. What requirements did the role have and what’s the salary range? From what little I gather from online job listings, most foreign labor dependent positions are trying to pay 90K for a masters degree, maybe 120-140K Bay Area. Additionally, many of these job listings want extremely specific degrees or certifications that frankly are of little interest to US citizens - but F1 students will take any masters program despite the program having little salary benefit - the degree is a requirement for the visa. I have a hard time believing you can’t find a US civil engineer who could learn the subject matter right out of college. Although saying that I know first hand low starting salaries have pushed students towards mechanical engineering or CS if inclined.

esalman 4mo ago
> What requirements did the role have and what’s the salary range? 4+ years in product development. Python/R + a low-level language. Terabyte-scale data stream and batch processing. HPC knowledge (vectorization, memory access, distributed computing) to build efficient algorithms. Degree in a quantitative field (Math, Stats, Physics, CS, or Engineering). Upper limit on compensation was 200k. > Although saying that I know first hand low starting salaries have pushed students towards mechanical engineering or CS if inclined. You answered your own question. The American engineering pool consists mostly of high school diplomas who can't pass PE exam at multiple trials. Edit: coincidentally, my wife was offered a state civil engineering job in Bay area. Didn't take up because the salary offered was below 100k, even with 5 years of experience.
- zdragnar 4mo ago
  There are a ton of jobs that pay as well or better with lower requirements, even outside the bay area. Anyone with that level of experience, Python and a low level language isn't going to take you up. I'm not normally in agreement with the "you're not paying enough, there's plenty of people" crowd, because I've been on the hiring side too and know what a crapshoot it can be... But you're definitely offering too little for those requirements.

davidf18 4mo ago

[dead]

jlarocco 4mo ago

Pay more.

hvb2 4mo ago
And you pay for this, how? Because typically that would mean taxing something more. I've seen those kind of proposals as ballot measures that get voted down.
- fc417fc802 4mo ago
  Tough. The undesirable consequences needs to be forced to occur so that the voters have no choice but to deal with it. You shouldn't get to just rip the bottom out of the market and proclaim to have fixed the problem.
esalman 4mo ago
I have added compensation information in another reply.
wesleywt 4mo ago
But you Americans hate taxes. You spend like a European country and tax like an African one.

fc417fc802 4mo ago

> there was no qualified American applicants. But are there qualified Americans who could easily switch to that job for one reason or another? Is the issue a lack of qualified professionals or is it a lack of interest by qualified professionals in the listed position? It's very easy to receive no applications from qualified professionals that do in fact exist by simply not offering to pay them enough (among many other things). That shouldn't mean you get to undercut the domestic labor market; rather you should be forced to rethink the business plan.

Grombobulous 4mo ago
One of the problems is that geography and demographic movement trends within that geography is a very real thing. Let’s say a rural town has lost population in the last 20 years, and most of the population that left is educated. Now they need a teacher, which requires a bachelors or even masters degree. The rural town’s unemployment rate is 10% but there are no qualified teachers who are unemployed. So now we want to move someone in from a nearby urban center that has a big market of educated people. But the unemployment rate in that big urban area is 3%, and the area is wealthier with a higher salary rate for jobs across the income spectrum. Let’s say my local teacher salary is $50,000, the big city teacher salary is $90,000, and the big city high school diploma career salary is $50,000. I have to find someone who is a qualified teacher who isn’t already a teacher and isn’t already working someone where else that’s still paying better than my local area. Plus, that person has family, friends, and prefers the big city with all its amenities and infrastructure. I can tell you right now that you would have to pay me far above market rate to get me to move because I’m already employed and happy. In contrast, someone in a foreign country is potentially getting a huge upgrade to move to the US or another developed wealthy country and is way more motivated to make that leap. I imagine these programs exist because the cost benefit just makes sense. Not only do you solve the imbalance faster, easier, cheaper, but now the wider country has gained educated population which is generally an economic benefit. Certainly there are flaws in the system that need to be fixed. I don’t mean to advocate for it necessarily, just explain why I think it exists. I would also point out that it’s not necessarily the case that the local labor market is being undercut (see the geographic example I gave above), it’s being expanded, and that includes adding someone who is paying taxes, buying stuff from local businesses, etc, which they do even before they become citizens.

winrid 4mo ago

Were you actually involved in the hiring? What is qualified? College degree and $30/hr? I know people who are actively looking for data analyst roles. Email me

icepush 4mo ago

What salary range were you offering ?

dani__german 4mo ago

"We were unable to attract highly experienced data analysts, and we REFUSE to ever train anyone for any role, so we should be allowed to use scab labor to undercut American wages"

esalman 4mo ago
I have replied to another comment - we ended up hiring a fresh graduate with relevant research experience who is being trained for the role.

jsemrau 4mo ago

> there was no qualified American applicants I have been hiring for 20 years and find this increasingly impossible to believe. Please expand why that would be the case.

realitysballs 4mo ago
In order to find a qualified candidate : (A) individual must be interested in job/benefits/comp. and decide to apply. This makes them a ‘candidate’ (B) candidate must be qualified per minimum requirements It’s entirely possible to not have candidates if no one is interested in the position at the stated comp/benefit rate.
dpark 4mo ago
He posted on another comment. They were offering way under market. Shocking, really.
- esalman 4mo ago
  150k-200k base offered to a fresh grad for some python and low-level, data intensive work. Really shocking.
  - dpark 4mo ago
    You ended up getting a fresh grad because you asked for 4+ years of experience both broad and deep. 150-200k is probably reasonable for a new grad in the bay (not certain what starting salaries there are now) but not for what you actually asked for. I’m not hating on you. Your budget is what it is. But you’re well under market and that’s why you didn’t get the applicants you wanted.
esalman 4mo ago
The original article is about a federal judge blocking H1B fee because there is a teacher shortage in Alaska. Can you believe that?
cgag 4mo ago
Every post I see from young people trying to get tech jobs is about applying to 500 places to get one interview. It’s a lie.

corndoge 4mo ago

We need to incentivize more kids to get pavement design degrees to increase the supply

esalman 4mo ago
The reason US is in this mess is because in the 50s and 60s there was a liberal arts education boom in the US, and STEM education boom in India/China.
- hdgvhicv 4mo ago
  Anyone educated in the 50s and 60s has retired And in China they were far more occupied with a cultural revolution than any form of advanced education. At best you could argue that they were teaching basic literacy to more people.
  - esalman 4mo ago
    [flagged]
- aprilthird2021 4mo ago
  We had a STEM education boom in the last decade in the US

wheelerwj 4mo ago

[flagged]

bsder 4mo ago

Capitalism has an answer for that ... it's called "higher salary." Everybody loves capitalism--until they are on the other side of the arrow.