4 ms·

As a H1-B myself, I think I'm pretty much a modern-day slave without the physical shackles. I hate going back to my home country and I love the intellectual, ra

As a H1-B myself, I think I'm pretty much a modern-day slave without the physical shackles. I hate going back to my home country and I love the intellectual, rational environment here. But I'm stuck with my current company until I get a green card which isn't bound to happen in the foreseeable future. I read his book on this and I agree with one of Matloff's points that H1-B should be solely for talent and I also agree with the reforms he suggests that there should be laws against exploiting them (ex: don't imprison them with the whole green card ruse which could take 6-8 yrs for some countries). However, I disagree with his generalization that H1-Bs are talentless compared to Americans (Just look at Goog). And that somehow they're paid lower wages. All big companies (MSFT, FB, GOOG) pay H1-B candidates the same salaries as their American counterparts. And they all go through the same interview process. Personally, I went to a top 20 uni here and paid $100k in tuition alone. It is true that bringing more talented H1-Bs will drive down wages, but isn't that a competitive advantage ?(None of the European companies have this advantage really and I think it's one of the main reasons for the valley's growth.) What we need to rectify is fraud of H1-Bs. Come up with a white list of companies that can use H1-Bs and make sure there's no cheap, talent less labor. Don't let body-shopping, consulting and outsourcing companies like Infosys, Wipro be issued H1-Bs. Most people in the operations group running our service for instance are on H1-B and frankly, the work they do can be done by any average American working at a BK/McDonalds. The pie that outsourcing companies are eating into is really a gold mine that should be used to expand the American middle class. But the outsourcing companies themselves seem to have powerful lobbying in place (NASSCOM). So it is a hard problem.

daemin 13y ago
It's not that H1-B's get paid less than other workers, it is that by having more people available to do the same job it decreases the pay for all people doing said job. That's how the logic would appear to work, supply and demand, etc.
- lotu 13y ago
  The thing with and H1-B is if they lose their job they have to leave the country the same day. That is a big incentive to work very hard and accept low compensation.
  - daemin 13y ago
    Is it actually the same day? That would be quite harsh. E3 Visa holders get 2 weeks IIRC.
    - godzilla82 13y ago
      Yes, right, 2 weeks and that makes it so less harsh!
      - daemin 13y ago
        Indeed, some time is better than being on a plane that night.
    - newyork 13y ago
      Yep, its same day. As crazy as it may sound, there is no respite period in H1, legally.
- spiderPig 13y ago
  That's what I was alluding to in the second paragraph.
nimble 13y ago
> I hate going back to my home country and I love the intellectual, rational environment here. The US is an intellectual, rational environment? What are you from Borat's country?
abc_lisper 13y ago
I could have written this. You are my friend :)
hrjet 13y ago
> Most people in the operations group running our service for instance are on H1-B and frankly, the work they do can be done by any average American working at a BK/McDonalds. That doesn't make sense. If they can be easily replaced, then why aren't they? Wouldn't it directly benefit the company hiring them to not hire them? Also, I don't like your characterization of people based on where they work. A person may choose to work in BK/McDonalds but that doesn't imply anything (positive or negative) about their capability.
- codeonfire 13y ago
  Hmm, why don't manager replace H1-B's with skill-less people at fast food wages? Managers do not necessarily do things that benefit the company. Managers need to maintain the appearance that their project is important and relevant. Their goal is having as many people as possible to manage. Actually accomplishing important work is not important. Yes, other people should notice that nothing is getting done and all these people are sitting around doing work that could be done by a fast food worker. What are you going to do, go tell the guy that approved the project that his project sucks and he and the entire management chain are failures?
- spiderPig 13y ago
  > That doesn't make sense. If they can be easily replaced, then why aren't they? Wouldn't it directly benefit the company hiring them to not hire them? In our cloud service, these guys are the first-line of defense in troubleshooting customer issues. They're the guys customers talk to and they follow a standard troubleshooting guide before pinging one of the on-call engineers. So it can't exactly be automated. And trust me, if that were possible, it would've been done. In a way, that's also one of the reasons this stuff is outsourced, companies don't want to go through the trouble of doing the hiring themselves for these roles. > Also, I don't like your characterization of people based on where they work. A person may choose to work in BK/McDonalds but that doesn't imply anything (positive or negative) about their capability. Sorry, I probably wasn't clear. That absolutely wasn't the message I was trying to get across. I understand working there doesn't mean anything about their capability and often it is a stepping stone to something greater (ex: college/high-school students). What I meant to say was the skill level here is the same. In effect, they just need to know their way around a machine and speak good English. Heck, they'd do a better job at it considering how poor the outsourced folks are at it. They'd even have more fun because there's still room for the occasional intellectual stimulation and creativity within these roles. And they'd be better pay too. Overall, it will be a better use of their time and they'd have more job satisfaction.

daemin 13y ago

It's not that H1-B's get paid less than other workers, it is that by having more people available to do the same job it decreases the pay for all people doing said job. That's how the logic would appear to work, supply and demand, etc.

lotu 13y ago
The thing with and H1-B is if they lose their job they have to leave the country the same day. That is a big incentive to work very hard and accept low compensation.
- daemin 13y ago
  Is it actually the same day? That would be quite harsh. E3 Visa holders get 2 weeks IIRC.
  - godzilla82 13y ago
    Yes, right, 2 weeks and that makes it so less harsh!
    - daemin 13y ago
      Indeed, some time is better than being on a plane that night.
  - newyork 13y ago
    Yep, its same day. As crazy as it may sound, there is no respite period in H1, legally.
spiderPig 13y ago
That's what I was alluding to in the second paragraph.

nimble 13y ago

> I hate going back to my home country and I love the intellectual, rational environment here. The US is an intellectual, rational environment? What are you from Borat's country?

abc_lisper 13y ago

I could have written this. You are my friend :)

hrjet 13y ago

> Most people in the operations group running our service for instance are on H1-B and frankly, the work they do can be done by any average American working at a BK/McDonalds. That doesn't make sense. If they can be easily replaced, then why aren't they? Wouldn't it directly benefit the company hiring them to not hire them? Also, I don't like your characterization of people based on where they work. A person may choose to work in BK/McDonalds but that doesn't imply anything (positive or negative) about their capability.

codeonfire 13y ago
Hmm, why don't manager replace H1-B's with skill-less people at fast food wages? Managers do not necessarily do things that benefit the company. Managers need to maintain the appearance that their project is important and relevant. Their goal is having as many people as possible to manage. Actually accomplishing important work is not important. Yes, other people should notice that nothing is getting done and all these people are sitting around doing work that could be done by a fast food worker. What are you going to do, go tell the guy that approved the project that his project sucks and he and the entire management chain are failures?
spiderPig 13y ago
> That doesn't make sense. If they can be easily replaced, then why aren't they? Wouldn't it directly benefit the company hiring them to not hire them? In our cloud service, these guys are the first-line of defense in troubleshooting customer issues. They're the guys customers talk to and they follow a standard troubleshooting guide before pinging one of the on-call engineers. So it can't exactly be automated. And trust me, if that were possible, it would've been done. In a way, that's also one of the reasons this stuff is outsourced, companies don't want to go through the trouble of doing the hiring themselves for these roles. > Also, I don't like your characterization of people based on where they work. A person may choose to work in BK/McDonalds but that doesn't imply anything (positive or negative) about their capability. Sorry, I probably wasn't clear. That absolutely wasn't the message I was trying to get across. I understand working there doesn't mean anything about their capability and often it is a stepping stone to something greater (ex: college/high-school students). What I meant to say was the skill level here is the same. In effect, they just need to know their way around a machine and speak good English. Heck, they'd do a better job at it considering how poor the outsourced folks are at it. They'd even have more fun because there's still room for the occasional intellectual stimulation and creativity within these roles. And they'd be better pay too. Overall, it will be a better use of their time and they'd have more job satisfaction.