3 ms·

Time and time again, this type of article pops up. Time and time again, it's about economics, and the solution has ALWAYS been about economics. It's just that

Time and time again, this type of article pops up. Time and time again, it's about economics, and the solution has ALWAYS been about economics. It's just that the companies that the political machines don't want to talk about it. Like I've said in the past, and it is a simple solution that would make people like AeroFS happy is to have an economic one: Your H1-B employee must be paid in the >95% (or more) percentile in the field, or in your company, no which ever is greater. All salaries must be compared to that of senior engineers or higher. That's when the real "need" shows up and that will weed out the bogus H1-B gamers and get real value from it. Now, if we are still capping out on H1-Bs even with this rule, then we can then agree that there is a "tech workers shortage". Before then, we all know it's either using improper induction (one brown cow) or examples to try and prove a contradiction (has always been invalid), or they are flat out lying.

DINKDINK 12y ago
What about the (cost to hire a local) + (costs of employing that local person annually) = (cost to hire a H1B) + (costs of employing that H1B person). The cost to hire that h1B person is going to be much higher and hence the lower wage.
gumby 12y ago
The author of the article areas with you! He says that hiring an H1-B is MORE expensive -- not only do you have to pay what the DOJ considers the prevailing wage for the area and the job but you have to pay legal bills, relocation, interview costs, a lot of personnel time plus you have to wait frigging forever to be able to finally employ the person. His experience is exactly my experience too: I have hired a lot of H1-Bs (perhaps 5-10% of all the hires I've done over the years) and they were always a last resort because at the end of the day they cost so damned much. I don't see anything wrong with this. Hire a local if you can, just like shopping locally if you can. (I suppose if you're a commodity contractor shop hiring people to write Java code as the front end of a billing system, the situation might be different -- that's the programming equivalent of hiring a gardener and I assume in most cases skills aren't considered that important).
- tankerdude 12y ago
  If he really did agree with me, then why did he point out how X and Y INTERN costs SOOO much money? It is orthogonal to the conversation, and yet he brought it up. It is there for a reason, and that reason is to point out that it is costly to hire an engineer. Why would he bring up that point? So what exactly where the salaries of those on H1-Bs? If you put on your job posting, that the salary range would be 250-300K, do you think you'd be digging through the bottom of the barrel for the resumes? Lastly, what is the difference in costs to you? In house lawyer (if the company is large enough, can handle the docs). Paperwork for them is a few K. Relocation and interview process is nearly a wash for out of state candidates. Again, a few K delta. That then is the excuse of a lower salary for the employee (by a significant amount). So "expensive" in terms of processing seems like not a whole lot in the grand scheme of things.

DINKDINK 12y ago

What about the (cost to hire a local) + (costs of employing that local person annually) = (cost to hire a H1B) + (costs of employing that H1B person). The cost to hire that h1B person is going to be much higher and hence the lower wage.

gumby 12y ago

The author of the article areas with you! He says that hiring an H1-B is MORE expensive -- not only do you have to pay what the DOJ considers the prevailing wage for the area and the job but you have to pay legal bills, relocation, interview costs, a lot of personnel time plus you have to wait frigging forever to be able to finally employ the person. His experience is exactly my experience too: I have hired a lot of H1-Bs (perhaps 5-10% of all the hires I've done over the years) and they were always a last resort because at the end of the day they cost so damned much. I don't see anything wrong with this. Hire a local if you can, just like shopping locally if you can. (I suppose if you're a commodity contractor shop hiring people to write Java code as the front end of a billing system, the situation might be different -- that's the programming equivalent of hiring a gardener and I assume in most cases skills aren't considered that important).

tankerdude 12y ago
If he really did agree with me, then why did he point out how X and Y INTERN costs SOOO much money? It is orthogonal to the conversation, and yet he brought it up. It is there for a reason, and that reason is to point out that it is costly to hire an engineer. Why would he bring up that point? So what exactly where the salaries of those on H1-Bs? If you put on your job posting, that the salary range would be 250-300K, do you think you'd be digging through the bottom of the barrel for the resumes? Lastly, what is the difference in costs to you? In house lawyer (if the company is large enough, can handle the docs). Paperwork for them is a few K. Relocation and interview process is nearly a wash for out of state candidates. Again, a few K delta. That then is the excuse of a lower salary for the employee (by a significant amount). So "expensive" in terms of processing seems like not a whole lot in the grand scheme of things.