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Most people coming on H1B are no less talented /skilled or hardworking that an average american techie. However, the H1B worker is not aware of his rights. The

• hemantv 12y ago
  I don't fully agree with "Most people coming on H1B are no less talented /skilled or hardworking that an average american techie" Remember workers in H1B are suppose to be specialized and cream layer of workers. Apart from few thousand people (working in Google/FB/Microsoft), others are completely replaceable by american workers, it just that H1B people will put with lot of stuff at lot less pay than there american counterparts, hence contributing to bottom line of these body shopping companies. (TCS/HCL/Wipro) are no different. A competent person has many options regardless of visa status and nationality.
• tristor 12y ago
  > Most people coming on H1B are no less talented /skilled or hardworking that an average american techie. I would like to disagree on this point, however I have never conducted any long-term research nor seen any conducted. My anecdotal experiences though definitely seem to indicate otherwise. I think it's first important to clarify that by me making the statement that an H1B is less qualified than the average American tech worker, I am not saying that due to their race. I think that the process is broken and exploitative, and it encourages and incentivizes companies to specifically bring in people who are under-qualified. Let's take two possible scenarios: A: Shyam excelled at the top of his class while attending school in India and managed to be accepted to receive a government scholarship to attend school overseas. With much glee he heads off to the US on his student visa to get his degree from a university there and get earlier exposure to new ideas and techniques. While there, he does an internship during the summers his sophomore and junior year with a local tech company. As graduation nears, he applies for and receives a green card, choosing to permanently reside in the US. Afterwards he begins his job search, starting with a position he is hired at with the company he interned with his junior year. B: Deepak did not do so well in school, but knows that he wants to work in the technology field because it's a good way to make money and gain social status so he can date and marry the girls he is interested in. Unfortunately, he didn't meet the requirements for an overseas scholarship, so he attends an Indian university instead. Afterwards, he goes to work for a large Indian technology firm (Infosys, Wipro, et al). During his entire professional experience to this point he and his colleagues have been slogging away doing things mostly incorrectly, but with many hours so that their clients appear to be getting a good deal. After doing this for a number of years, he realizes he's got to get out of India and this situation, so he reaches out internally and gets accepted for a staffed role through his firm. Happily heading overseas to the US he arrives in California with his shiny new H1B working at a big American tech company on behalf of the staffing firm, only to realize that he's been thrust into a position intended for somebody with 5 years of useful experience, not the 3 years of useless experience he's had. He's way under-qualified, and struggles to keep up. He tries but is just not experienced or educated enough to handle the situation well, so finds himself in the exact same slog of burning more hours to do things less efficiently to meet deadlines. I'm kind of hamming it up here, obviously, but my point is that for the most part there is absolutely no quality control from the perspective of the people who busted their ass, proved themselves, and have succeeded in their careers who are now working alongside people who are under qualified brought in under the guise of a staffing agency hiring H1Bs. Nobody has a problem working with Shyam from situation A, but they would have a problem working with Deepak from situation B. It's not an issue of xenophobia or race as you seem to make it out to be, and it's not that we don't care or empathize. But we're at work to get our jobs done and we all have goals. If you're an engineer at the top of your game working on some exciting new technology, the last thing you need is to have your project derailed by inefficiencies, bugs, or outright bad actions from someone who is not experienced or qualified enough to be involved, but through the foibles of management found themselves there anyway.
  • tsycho 12y ago
    > As graduation nears, he applies for and receives a green card, choosing to permanently reside in the US. While I understand your point, you are painting too rosy a picture for Shyam. Shyam will not get a green card for 6-13 years[1,2], he will also be on a H1B for all those years. And in my anecdotal experience, he faces a lot of the same prejudice/racism/xenophobia indiscriminately as Deepak in your example. This is not at the Google/Facebook (where likely you only see the Shyams), but at the remaining majority of large tech companies. [1] depending on EB2 vs EB3, decided by whether he got a PhD/Masters or just a Bachelors from the US. [2] due to the country-of-birth based green card quotas
  • hibikir 12y ago
    Your story for Shyam would be wonderful.. I want the immigration system to work like that! However, it does not. A university graduate that is looking for an entry level position cannot just request a green card! I have been there, actually. As a graduate from a US university, with good grades, wanting to stay in the US. This is how it actually works. Without at the very least a standing offer, a foreigner can't even apply for the green card. The company has to say they can't find a qualified American, prove that the foreigner is qualified have to wait until the green card is handed out before working there. For a recent graduate that would mean an EB-3. Even if you come from Europe, the wait for that is of years. Nobody will hold the job for that long, so that route is impossible. So this is what a foreigner with an American CS degree has to do. First he gets an F1 visa, and looks for a company that would sponsor him further. He better hope it's a good fit. In that period, he has to keep the company happy, and then get sponsored for an H1-B. Let's remember that H1-B periods are today open for 1 or 2 days a year, thanks to the H1-B mill companies. Then, once we have the H1-B, the company gets to decide if they want to sponsor for permanent residency. This will take years, and cost tens of thousands of dollars. Only after that, we get back to the position where Shyam is in your story. I am a pretty good example of the real version of Shyam story. I graduated in 2000 from a US university, and went though the immigration maze while working for a variety of US companies. I got my permanent residency in 2011. I did not go through staffing companies, but many people do, because while it provides a way worse service for your employer, it's far, far safer for the employee. If they get hit by a round of layoffs that says 'effective immediately' while getting that green card, they have to go back home, or stay illegally. The staffing company will not lay them off: they will just not pay them while they hand them another position: For all intents and purposes, they become a shell company that keeps their immigration status safe, in exchange for a very big pay cut. In my case, there was only one close call, when my first employer lost a big contract for their product, and started doing rounds of layoffs, shrinking their workforce in the US by a factor of 10. When I saw what they were doing (and that I did not share the nationality of the company owners), I got another job 2 weeks before my department received their notice. So If you want more stories of immigrants that come here and compete honestly, and that you'd want to have on your team, wish for better immigration legislation, because the current system actually promotes your scenario B. The immigrants don't like it either.