5 ms·

Every time H1B related stuff comes up, I make the same simple suggestion: just inflation adjust the minimum H1B salary from when the law was passed in 1990. 60K

Every time H1B related stuff comes up, I make the same simple suggestion: just inflation adjust the minimum H1B salary from when the law was passed in 1990. 60K dollars in 1990 is about 110K now. This should be able to see a lot of support from different groups because: 1. It makes a clear appeal back to the original intent of the law. 2. It would most likely end most of the perceived abuse/misuse of the law, which occurs at lower salary ranges. 3. It will not prevent tech companies that actually do cool stuff like Google & co from hiring, since most of their hires probably start over 110K now. I also think that the impact on American workers in this salary range from H1B is pretty low. Many companies with salaries in this range are always hiring provided you have the skills.

awkwarddaturtle 9y ago
> I also think that the impact on American workers in this salary range from H1B is pretty low. Many companies with salaries in this range are always hiring provided you have the skills. Actually most companies that you are referring to want tech salaries to decline. One of the best weapons against high tech salaries are H1B visas and offshoring.
- quicknir 9y ago
  Do you have any empirical evidence that H1B is an effective "weapon against high tech salaries" in the income range that Google pays? I think that whatever is going on in the lower end of the market, there is still a substantial shortage of labor in the higher jobs that cannot be made up domestically anytime soon. Higher end jobs tend to have a much less elastic labor pool because fewer people can do the work. Whatever the impact is for tech workers, for the general public it is definitely a bad outcome to have perpetual labor shortages at tech companies; it just means that they get their products/features/bug fixes/other improvements more slowly.
  - tanilama 9y ago
    Anecdata, Google is in the process of long hiring freeze. The recruiter told me that there isn't a shortage of candidates, there is a shortage of slots to accommodate them. Several other companies as well, big or small. There might not be a substantial labor shortage that you might assume. Things are changing.
jrs95 9y ago
I think that's a start but specifically because $110K is nearly entry level in silicon valley it ought to be significantly higher. $150K would probably be enough to stop it from holding wages down. A great side effect of this is that it pretty much makes H1B not viable in the Midwest or other areas where we probably ought to be trying to develop more talent
- quicknir 9y ago
  Getting an H1B worker is significantly more expensive than someone domestic at the same salary. You have to pay lawyers a bunch of money, the employee can't always start when you/they want, and worse, right now the chance of actually getting an H1B is only something like 1/3. So there's a 2/3 chance that after all of the work of interviewing for this person, paying lawyers, holding a spot for them, they will never actually be able to work for you. At any rate, I would like to see some empirical backing for those who want to raise H1B salaries higher than inflation adjustment. The side effect you think is great, is actually really bad. It's not a question of developing more talent, it's the fact that people move to the coasts for jobs. All this really does is disadvantage companies not in NYC and SF, and make it more likely that they will have a labor shortage they can't make up, and pack up. This isn't reflective of anything though, except basically regional inflation (it's not simply that salaries in NYC and SF are so much higher because the companies there are the most productive and therefore deserve the H1B slots more, the salaries are partly inflated because cost of living is also super high, i.e. a dollar is worth less).
- seanp2k2 9y ago
  Yep re: rust belt. Fix cost of living or find a way for all the other markets in the US to come up to where CA is (don't do that).
  - jrs95 9y ago
    I'm sure a $15 an hour national minimum wage would do a pretty good job of that. Especially since that's nearly the median income in the poorer parts of the country.
- 9y ago

awkwarddaturtle 9y ago

> I also think that the impact on American workers in this salary range from H1B is pretty low. Many companies with salaries in this range are always hiring provided you have the skills. Actually most companies that you are referring to want tech salaries to decline. One of the best weapons against high tech salaries are H1B visas and offshoring.

quicknir 9y ago
Do you have any empirical evidence that H1B is an effective "weapon against high tech salaries" in the income range that Google pays? I think that whatever is going on in the lower end of the market, there is still a substantial shortage of labor in the higher jobs that cannot be made up domestically anytime soon. Higher end jobs tend to have a much less elastic labor pool because fewer people can do the work. Whatever the impact is for tech workers, for the general public it is definitely a bad outcome to have perpetual labor shortages at tech companies; it just means that they get their products/features/bug fixes/other improvements more slowly.
- tanilama 9y ago
  Anecdata, Google is in the process of long hiring freeze. The recruiter told me that there isn't a shortage of candidates, there is a shortage of slots to accommodate them. Several other companies as well, big or small. There might not be a substantial labor shortage that you might assume. Things are changing.

jrs95 9y ago

I think that's a start but specifically because $110K is nearly entry level in silicon valley it ought to be significantly higher. $150K would probably be enough to stop it from holding wages down. A great side effect of this is that it pretty much makes H1B not viable in the Midwest or other areas where we probably ought to be trying to develop more talent

quicknir 9y ago
Getting an H1B worker is significantly more expensive than someone domestic at the same salary. You have to pay lawyers a bunch of money, the employee can't always start when you/they want, and worse, right now the chance of actually getting an H1B is only something like 1/3. So there's a 2/3 chance that after all of the work of interviewing for this person, paying lawyers, holding a spot for them, they will never actually be able to work for you. At any rate, I would like to see some empirical backing for those who want to raise H1B salaries higher than inflation adjustment. The side effect you think is great, is actually really bad. It's not a question of developing more talent, it's the fact that people move to the coasts for jobs. All this really does is disadvantage companies not in NYC and SF, and make it more likely that they will have a labor shortage they can't make up, and pack up. This isn't reflective of anything though, except basically regional inflation (it's not simply that salaries in NYC and SF are so much higher because the companies there are the most productive and therefore deserve the H1B slots more, the salaries are partly inflated because cost of living is also super high, i.e. a dollar is worth less).
seanp2k2 9y ago
Yep re: rust belt. Fix cost of living or find a way for all the other markets in the US to come up to where CA is (don't do that).
- jrs95 9y ago
  I'm sure a $15 an hour national minimum wage would do a pretty good job of that. Especially since that's nearly the median income in the poorer parts of the country.
9y ago