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> In my experience at many tech companies in the Bay Area, H1B Visas exist for one reason, and one reason only - to get skilled engineering/STEM labor -- and to

by tarikjn 12y ago

> In my experience at many tech companies in the Bay Area, H1B Visas exist for one reason, and one reason only - to get skilled engineering/STEM labor -- and to exploit connections (primarily Indian/Pakistani) among these workers to continue to get cheap labor. Good to hear your experience, but this response imply that you either think the author is dishonest or that you don't care about their experience because it's not yours (your emphasis "one reason, and one reason only"). I won't be ignoring your response, because I think it's based on truth and it got so many up-votes, but as many have already pointed out, it does indeed goes into unnecessary details to make your point, giving it a xenophobic feel as a whole. Now to get to the actual subject I believe there are two distincts type of actors (company sponsors) competing for H1-B creating a bit of a dialogue of the deaf every time the subject comes up: (1) consulting companies, commonly called "body shops" that swift around H1-B workers and scale profits on workers/margins. Such companies as Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro and to a much lesser extend Western IT companies such as Accenture, Microsoft (let's not forget Microsoft make nearly $700k of revenue per employee [1]), etc. [2] (2) startups and small groups who do product development or research and thus are not looking for cost savings, nor can they scale human costs very well. For these groups (like the authors's), hiring the right candidate has a significant cost and importance and making a mistake can be even more costly. The burden of processing H1-B visas is very high, but the importance of being able to access a global pool of talent is big enough that they still go through the trouble. This is especially evident by the fact that such startups usually do not usually have oversea offices yet but are competing globally. The problem is that (1) has a very well refined process that has scaled with the bureaucratic obstacles and eats the majority of H1-B visa numbers without much impact for them when some of their petitions get dropped when the lottery gets "drawn". (2) loses however loses greatly at this game. A very simple solution to this problem is to award the top 65,000 petitions with the highest salaries, and award them monthly instead of yearly, as timing is also a major issues for small companies. If we talks about quotas after making such change, we'll be talking about a very different kind of H1-B and the road will be much more open for a positive debate. Also, am I the only one bothered by the use of the term labor? High-tech jobs are not usually factory jobs, but more generally creative-type of jobs. This may be how it's viewed in (1), but for (2), people are not necessarily replaceable entities, if a startup want to hire a candidate because they have worked with her in the past or have had a very promising interview, it is their business and their choice, they are not hiring "labor". Also, just to give a bit of scale context of the H1-B issue in the grand scheme of the immigration debate, the 4 million work permits granted recently through executive orders are roughly equivalent to combining 65 years H1-Bs at current quota levels, not justifying one or the other, just trying to give scale and expose how much legal work visa venues are completely squeezed in the US. [1] http://venturebeat.com/2014/11/30/why-eric-schmidt-doesnt-know-how-google-works/ http://venturebeat.com/2014/11/30/why-eric-schmidt-doesnt-kn... [2] http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/04/03/176134694/Whos-Hiring-H1-B-Visa-Workers-Its-Not-Who-You-Might-Think http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/04/03/176134...

tarikjn 12y ago
In correction to my previous comments, I missed the part about "at many tech companies", so I shouldn't have taken your statement as an absolute one, my bad on that. Some additions however to your comments: > I've worked at multiple companies (managed their websites) -- where we would temporarily post a job description to appear that it was a fair playing field for local workers -- when in reality that position was definitely, absolutely going to be filled by a cheaper, exploitable H1B visa position. It happens all-the-fucking-time. All companies have to do that, often time a startup really want to hire a specific candidate, and they still have to play this game. If you are a co-founder and are sponsoring yourself (in the off chance that you think that might work), you have to post a CTO/etc. job offer for your position in your office, with skills matching yours to be able to work in your company. This feel like a relic of industrial jobs protectionism and won't be necessary if companies compete for quota numbers using highest salaries (although it would probably still have to be followed because no one changes immigration laws). It feels somewhat like a dishonest system, but it also dishonest as a factor or the law not evolving with it's time (e.g. just think of the job posting having to be posted on a wall). > There's standard, normalized ways immigrants have come to the US for a long time now. What exactly? I don't believe I am the only one asking this question in this thread, and you are not alone in expressing this statement, and it reflects one of the single most misunderstood by Americans realties of US Immigration. Namely that there is not a single straightforward immigration pathway for skilled and motivated immigrants (family, refugees, green card lottery winners however do have one). > We also don't need any more of the divisive ethic-neuveau-ghettos we're seeing in the south bay, cupertino and east bay with communities insulating themselves rather than assimilating. This is the part that doesn't add anything to your comment.

by tarikjn 12y ago

tarikjn 12y ago

In correction to my previous comments, I missed the part about "at many tech companies", so I shouldn't have taken your statement as an absolute one, my bad on that. Some additions however to your comments: > I've worked at multiple companies (managed their websites) -- where we would temporarily post a job description to appear that it was a fair playing field for local workers -- when in reality that position was definitely, absolutely going to be filled by a cheaper, exploitable H1B visa position. It happens all-the-fucking-time. All companies have to do that, often time a startup really want to hire a specific candidate, and they still have to play this game. If you are a co-founder and are sponsoring yourself (in the off chance that you think that might work), you have to post a CTO/etc. job offer for your position in your office, with skills matching yours to be able to work in your company. This feel like a relic of industrial jobs protectionism and won't be necessary if companies compete for quota numbers using highest salaries (although it would probably still have to be followed because no one changes immigration laws). It feels somewhat like a dishonest system, but it also dishonest as a factor or the law not evolving with it's time (e.g. just think of the job posting having to be posted on a wall). > There's standard, normalized ways immigrants have come to the US for a long time now. What exactly? I don't believe I am the only one asking this question in this thread, and you are not alone in expressing this statement, and it reflects one of the single most misunderstood by Americans realties of US Immigration. Namely that there is not a single straightforward immigration pathway for skilled and motivated immigrants (family, refugees, green card lottery winners however do have one). > We also don't need any more of the divisive ethic-neuveau-ghettos we're seeing in the south bay, cupertino and east bay with communities insulating themselves rather than assimilating. This is the part that doesn't add anything to your comment.