3 ms·

How would you enforce what market rate is? What prevents a company from saying that market rate is something absurdly low?

by freeqaz 12y ago

_delirium 12y ago
That's why I'd support allocating H1Bs by highest-salary-first, instead of via the current first-come-first-served system with a difficult to enforce "prevailing rate" requirement tacked on. Doing so would also tend to allocate the slots to areas where they're most in demand: if a company is offering $140k salary and wants an H1B to bring the person in, I'm more willing to believe this job has a shortage than if another company is offering only $60k for a job that supposedly has a shortage. (I doubt tech companies want this, though.)
- jimbokun 12y ago
  This is elegantly simple, puts the right market incentives in place for all the affected parties, and makes so much sense I'm sure it will never happen. (For the reason cited in your parenthetical comment.)
- malandrew 12y ago
  At the same time, I think it would be awesome to start a petition to draw attention to such an idea so that it does become part of the agenda somehow. If such an idea did become part of the national discussion regarding H1-B visas, it would be extremely difficult for those trying to get these visas to depress wages to argue against this. I for one would sign such a petition and I know a lot of people who would (American workers and existing H1-B holders). It's important that the opinion of both groups is represented in the debate. Is there a PAC or other organization that would lobby on behalf of such a solution?
  - tarikjn 12y ago
    Given that the White House gave information that they are asking the USCIS to streamline processing of visa through these kinds of tweaks (the law doesn't say how the quotas should be distributed AFAIK), I believe the correct venue would be a whitehouse.gov petition.

3 ms·

How would you enforce what market rate is? What prevents a company from saying that market rate is something absurdly low?

by freeqaz 12y ago

How would you enforce what market rate is? What prevents a company from saying that market rate is something absurdly low?

_delirium 12y ago
That's why I'd support allocating H1Bs by highest-salary-first, instead of via the current first-come-first-served system with a difficult to enforce "prevailing rate" requirement tacked on. Doing so would also tend to allocate the slots to areas where they're most in demand: if a company is offering $140k salary and wants an H1B to bring the person in, I'm more willing to believe this job has a shortage than if another company is offering only $60k for a job that supposedly has a shortage. (I doubt tech companies want this, though.)
- jimbokun 12y ago
  This is elegantly simple, puts the right market incentives in place for all the affected parties, and makes so much sense I'm sure it will never happen. (For the reason cited in your parenthetical comment.)
- malandrew 12y ago
  At the same time, I think it would be awesome to start a petition to draw attention to such an idea so that it does become part of the agenda somehow. If such an idea did become part of the national discussion regarding H1-B visas, it would be extremely difficult for those trying to get these visas to depress wages to argue against this. I for one would sign such a petition and I know a lot of people who would (American workers and existing H1-B holders). It's important that the opinion of both groups is represented in the debate. Is there a PAC or other organization that would lobby on behalf of such a solution?
  - tarikjn 12y ago
    Given that the White House gave information that they are asking the USCIS to streamline processing of visa through these kinds of tweaks (the law doesn't say how the quotas should be distributed AFAIK), I believe the correct venue would be a whitehouse.gov petition.