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Look HNers, let's be honest with each other. There's a lot of H1B's on here. You have friends overseas who you want to see succeed in the Bay Area. In my expe

• CapitalistCartr 12y ago
  "We" don't need anything in this. Immigrants don't assimilate the moment they get here. They never have. The old saying is, "The parents don't speak English, the children are bilingual, the grandchildren speak English". There have always been ethnic neighborhoods, as long as there's been immigration. Having said that, H1Bs are indentured servitude.
  • manticore_alpha 12y ago
    Apologies I threw that in there, I agree with you -- as much as I believe it hurts those groups to do such a thing. Agreed -- absolutely indentured servitude.
  • sremani 12y ago
    Being lived as an H1-B for about 5 years of life then on EAD and then on GC. The initial couple of years on H1-B is exploitation (not even close to any kind of servitude), but since 2006, I was fairly compensated. May be there are horror stories out there, but you have to understand most of the H1-Bs are educated enough and have contextual nuance with regard to jobs and salary matters, very few have to be indentured servants. The talented H1-Bs that come on body-shop boats, switch their employer to a more easy to work for company. Yes, H1B means being tied to hip of a company, but there are enough firms out there that really work. The problem with smaller companies is the HR and Legal are too ignorant about the whole process and needs baby sitting from the H1B holder himself. I am not denying exploitation of H1B but certain companies but I think you have a skewed view, it does not apply to majority of the situations.
  • guyzero 12y ago
    Unlike a TN visa for Canadians or an Australian E-3 visa, the H-1B is an immigrant visa that is one of the few paths to a green card. So they're actually the opposite of indentured servitude where there's a path to permanent residency and citizenship. Unlike many other visas that people use to work in the US.
    • arkem 12y ago
      YMMV but I know at least one E-3 holder that ended up with a green card. The E-3 isn't explicitly a dual intent visa but my understanding is that you can't be denied an E-3 specifically for having applied for a green card. If you're on an E-3 and are seeking a green card talk to an immigration lawyer.
  • TomVDB 12y ago
    As someone who came from Europe to the U.S. on an H1B and then won a GC through the lottery: it never felts at all as indentured servitude. At some point I managed a group of 10 people and had insight in the salaries of 40 engineers. There was no correlation between H1B status and salary, and we weren't given instructions either about giving less to H1Bs. Increases were purely determined by employee performance. I understand that it can be frustrating for local STEM candidates to compete against foreigners, but let's not forget that those locals include the full spectrum, from best in class to worse, whereas those H1B candidates have a much higher chance of already being top talent. You can't fault companies for choosing the best.
• manticore_alpha 12y ago
  Oh and don't get me started on the terrible "conditions" - relative to the tech-bro startups in SF - where H1Bs are expected to stay insane hours and work weekends. "Why, you're blessed to be here aren't you!?"
  • deleted 12y ago
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• hnnewguy 12y ago
  >There's absolutely no talent shortage in the Bay Area, provided you can pay But this is precisely what defines an economic shortage. There's no shortage of anything, if the price offered is right. I wonder if the discrepancy between supply and demand for labour in the Valley has to do with the fact that, unlike most other industries[1], so many companies aren't making money, and hence can't pay, but still demand much labour? It seems like labour shortages are built into the system. [1] Speculation. What are some examples of companies with billion-dollar valuations and no-profits, outside SV?
  • x0x0 12y ago
    Right, so there's no shortage. I get that there's plenty of demand for highly skilled engineers that want to work for $80k and a tiny handful of lottery tickets. It doesn't mean we need to further help the valley avoid the consequences of a lack of investment in domestic education, or their wild irresponsibility with respect to housing and transport issues in the bay.
    • StylusEater 12y ago
      > It doesn't mean we need to further help the valley avoid the consequences of a lack of investment in domestic education, or their wild irresponsibility with respect to housing and transport issues in the bay. Exactly!
  • 3pt14159 12y ago
    Any position paying more than minimum wage is a position with an economic shortage. I'm for easy immigration, but let's not pretend that this isn't going to reduce tech worker wages in the area. (In the long run though, it could help, since you tend to get more specialization and scale when large numbers of a certain type of profession are congregated around a certain area).
    • hnnewguy 12y ago
      >but let's not pretend that this isn't going to reduce tech worker wages in the area Right, I don't dispute this. But whether this is good or bad depends on whether you are buying or selling the labour.
• NhanH 12y ago
  I'd like to know about the "standard, normalized ways immigrants have come to the US" that you mentioned.
  • manticore_alpha 12y ago
    I won't say it's trivially easy, but with determination it can be done.
    • NhanH 12y ago
      I don't necessary disagree with you on this: if there is a will, there is a way. Regardless of how the immigration law is, even if you make it "No immigration at all", someone will find a way to get in. But that's far and far away from "standard and normalized", which implies something is accessible to standard and more average people. The top .5 or 1% (as in aptitude and willpower) will always find ways to get things done, but do you want to get the next 9% too? The Nobel winner, the Elon Musk won't ever have to care much about those laws, but the discussion has never been about them either.
      • foldr 12y ago
        > if there is a will, there is a way I'm not so sure about this. I'm a British citizen who's been living in the US for most of the past 7 years (as a student or doing academic jobs), but I can't see any easy way for me to get a job in the tech industry in the US. Perhaps a big company might be willing to sponsor me for an H1B. Apart from that there is just no realistic option that I'm aware of. What other visa could I realistically apply for?
        • NhanH 12y ago
          I'm working for a startup that's willing to sponsor me for H1B, EB-1 and even O1 (I'm employee #1, so if we're doing any good, we might try to wiggle an O1 somehow, although that's unlikely). But yes, you'd need a cooperative employer to get a visa of any sort. Most of the big company in tech (ie Google, FB etc..) are all willing to sponsor for H1B, and a lot of startups are too. But as for the questions of "how to get a job there", that's out of my ability to answer. One thing about immigration law is that just like tax law, it's too convoluted and specific that it almost depend on your exact situation. You might just qualify for some visas just because of the area you're working on (there is something for academic for H1b that's exempt from the cap). You will need to take a very close look at the law, preferably with an experience lawyer that have done this before, and see if anything that can apply to you by the wording of the law (see the O1? It's not just Nobel winner that can get it). The whole process will takes something like 10-15 years though ... so don't be discouraged. I've been in the US for 4-5 years, and just like you, I can say that I've no idea if I will still be here in 3 years. And I wouldn't expect for things to "settle down" (immigration-wise) for me for another 10 years-ish either.
• alyandon 12y ago
  >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. I worked as a contract developer for over 10 years and this was absolutely the norm for the companies I worked at. It was so egregious at some places that HR would go as far as to get the exact list of skills from the H1B they wanted to hire and then tailor a job posting to that exact list of skills in order to disqualify local applicants. The H1B system is broken. It is easily gamed and the burden of proof of wrongdoing so high that it is impossible to prevent companies from doing this. Edit: I want to add that I'm sure that there are companies whose management doesn't abuse the H1B system. My position that the H1B system is broken remains unchanged as it is the bad actors that are causing the problems yet there is no remedy short of congressional action that can properly address the issue.
  • illumen 12y ago
    Any evidence? Otherwise I don't believe you.
    • anjc 12y ago
      There's lots of evidence out there. Probably the most obvious signal for you should be that companies are complaining about a lack of workers, but wages are stagnant. Or another signal might be the fact that 50% of STEM grads have to work in unrelated industries because of an inability to find work in tech. If you want more proof of funniness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU Or if you want proof of major tech companies in the US colluding to suppress wages, look up everything related to this: http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f262600/262654.htm http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f262600/262654.htm If you want proof of US companies paying slave wages in the US, etc etc. The funniness goes on and on.
      • snowwrestler 12y ago
        Do you have a citation for "50% of STEM grads have to work in unrelated industries because of an inability to find work in tech"? Many STEM graduates choose not to work in tech, for example math majors who go into finance, or chem majors who go into consulting. And, many STEM grads are not actually qualified to work in tech. A BS in biology is certainly a STEM degree but that person is not likely to help scale your Rails application.
• jarjoura 12y ago
  As a hiring manager, I can promise you that your generalizations are sweeping and full of misplaced emotional verbiage. Since it is my job to hire the best candidate and even though my company gives me access to a world of engineers, I will still try to find the best with the least amount of friction. That means, someone who already lives here and can start as soon as possible with the least amount of demands. Talent may be plentiful in the Bay Area, but just like dating, both parties have to actually want to work together and believe in each other. Plus, no engineer I've interviewed was desperate for a job. Nor would I want to hire someone who was desperate. That being said, regardless of someone's H1B status, we would pay exactly the same base salary to them. Additionally, the H1B person even comes out ahead since we also pay the crazy high government fees for the application or transfer.
  • deleted 12y ago
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  • brandonl222 12y ago
    Do you really think your situation represents the majority of H1B employers?
    • bioskope 12y ago
      Absolutely, it does http://www.h1bwage.com/ http://www.h1bwage.com/
      • klochner 12y ago
        That's not helpful without comparable salaries for naturalized citizens at the same companies.
        • bioskope 12y ago
          You could always compare them using prevailing wage data from Department of Labor http://www.flcdatacenter.com/ http://www.flcdatacenter.com/
    • 12y ago
• thrwy10 12y ago
  It absolutely, positively hurts local labor - naturalized citizens - etc. Without a doubt. I disagree with this statement. I am on an H1 and know several other people who are on H1s and can testify that this is a generalization. There are many ways to end up on an H1, overseas body shops is one avenue and American grad schools are another. Most H1s I know, myself included, graduated from good schools, have worked hard within the framework of their visas, have absorbed local culture and have invested almost 100% of what they made back into the local economy, not to mention the out-of-state fees they paid their institutions. From what I see and understand, they are pretty well paid, in some cases better than the local populace and have succeeded solely because they are talented. The hardships that their spouses on H4s go through is an entirely different matter! That said, I can understand where you are coming from and know that there is abuse within the system. Truly, fake resumes are rampant among H1 consultancies. And although the visa itself is severely constrained, these people thrive due to lack of enforcement. That should change. Edit: For people who say H1 is indentured servitude. H1 is not quite indentured servitude, and you can switch employers. Although there is quite a bit of uncertainity associated with it, its still not the worst part. What bothers me, is the DOLs PERM process which is the first step to obtain a green card. This one step in itself is what can be said to make H1s bonded laborers. First, the company makes you sign a statment saying you can't leave until after 2 years upon getting your Green Card - else you'll be billed for it (approx 25K). Second, the DOL takes its own sweet time adjudicating these applications - currently 6 months (or 1.5-2 years if your application is audited, which 30-40% chance). And while you are free to switch employers, this process takes a hard reset and you've to go back to the end of the line. Unless, you stick with the shitty job, and wait out the approval and file your I-140. At this point, the H1 can be renewed indefinitely in terms of 3 years as long as each new company goes through the above process or you get your Green Card. Hopefully, the recent executive order will make this better, but only time can tell. Personally, the reset button has been hit twice for me.
  • ep103 12y ago
    >I disagree with this statement Most studies find that you are wrong though. I am sure that you and the people you know are very skilled, and worked hard to get to your current position for that reason. But overall, H1 employees are paid significantly less, and many, many firms specifically refuse to hire local talent in order to fill positions through this program. If the visa was given to the employee, not the company, then it would be a good program. But your paragraph about how difficult / chancy it can be to switch companies is exactly why it is a failed, exploitative program.
• makmanalp 12y ago
  Without commenting on your opinions, let me touch upon one point you make: > 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. Alyandon below also says: > I worked as a contract developer for over 10 years and this was absolutely the norm for the companies I worked at. It was so egregious at some places that HR would go as far as to get the exact list of skills from the H1B they wanted to hire and then tailor a job posting to that exact list of skills in order to disqualify local applicants. Could you and others give us the names of these companies? I'd be very interested to know if such abuse is seemingly random or tends towards a certain kind of company, because I have my suspicions that it's the latter, and simple legislation could easily be passed to prevent that.
  • manticore_alpha 12y ago
    I can't name names. I can tell you one was the kind of company you're probably thinking about, and the other was a publicly-traded (now) supply chain company.
    • illumen 12y ago
      If you can't provide any evidence, you're making it up.
      • falcolas 12y ago
        Or, he fears blacklisting in what is a closed market. The number of employees who have identical work histories is pretty slim; naming 2-3 of them would be very identifying. I've seen this (job openings explicitly tailored for new or exisiting H1B employees) quite a bit myself, and I too am unwilling to "name names" for the same reason.
        • LLWM 12y ago
          Then there's no reason for anyone to take your concerns seriously.
• lnkmails 12y ago
  From the other side, I see a lot of over paid "local" workers that spend a lot of time talking and doing no work. Why don't you take your honesty to your bosses and tell them that they are abusing the H1B system to save money? This is my biggest problem with honesty that comes with anonymity. Look, I am not saying there is no abuse of H1B. That is not the government's problem nor it is the problem of the immigrants. It is the American corporates that you work for that abuse the system. You are diverting all your anger towards people who want the experience to live elsewhere. Regarding us not assimilating into your culture, I have no idea what that means. On one hand, I see a lot of people moving to SF just for the variety in ethnicity so you can all be pseudo liberal and then start complaining about ethnic divide.
  • deskamess 12y ago
    If the market is willing to pay you $X (at most) then that is your market value. Not more, not less. If you see someone getting paid $X, you need to try and figure out how he/she got there. Why put your efforts/thoughts into how you can drive down that persons salary? There is no such thing as over paid. Just what you are willing to accept given your constraints. With the current H-1B system there are constraints. In particular, job mobility, that restricts you from easily taking a higher offer (the legal hoops that you and the future employer have to go through is a burden).
    • lnkmails 12y ago
      Personally, I never had a problem with my salary because I am good at what I do and I project my skills honestly. Salary negotiations involve negotiation skills that a lot of fellow immigrants don't have or don't care about. But when I see their work outperform local workers who are paid more but actually complain a lot about salary, I really get pissed. I have worked with really smart local workers who have all told me they don't feel threatened by immigrant workers. Likewise, I never have felt that someone can exploit me because I am on H1B. But honestly I have far less flexibility in moving jobs which unfortunately seems the only way to get more money in America. So long term I lose. Unlike you, I do think there is a thing called over paid. It is when your value/dollar ratio is exorbitantly high.
• zerr 12y ago
  Fully agree. That's why H1B's should have a significant minimum requirement for the salary (depending on place). I'm in eastern Europe and I wouldn't even remotely consider Bay Area jobs with less than 250K annual income (base salary + bonuses). Even for other places, it shouldn't be far from that number for me to decide to relocate to US... So yes, there is a shortage of talent who are willing to work for cheap.
  • fataliss 12y ago
    Oh my, I would be curious to know what kind of company offers you such a high living standard in Easter Europe for you to throw any opportunity under the insane amount of 250k... If I agree that you need more in the SV to live comfortable than probably anywhere else in the world, 250k$/year is an insane amount of money.
    • jtzhou 12y ago
      A decent home in a good school district is around $2.5m in the Bay Area, so $250k before taxes might get you qualified for a mortgage (provided you saved $500k for a down payment). $100k, while above U.S. median household income, would not go very far in the Bay Area. Even in Eastern Europe, there are places with very high standards of living for talented developers, such as Prague or Warsaw. With the EU, Berlin, Vienna and Munich are now possible as well and have a very high standard of living.
      • r00fus 12y ago
        You can buy a SFH for much less than $2.5m (more like $1m) in good school districts (the best districts are more like $1.5m+). Perhaps not in Mission San Jose, Los Altos Hills or in San Francisco proper, but many many places with a good commute to most of the valley.
      • ugh123 12y ago
        >A decent home in a good school district is around $2.5m in the Bay Area Reference please? I've looked for homes in good school districts and found your number not even close (its much less). See Zillow
• chuckcode 12y ago
  I think H1-B's should entitle someone to work in the US at any company. Personally as a US citizen I think we're really lucky to get the worlds best and brightest to move here. Even if you feel different giving workers the ability to shop around for salaries would be a very effective way of ensuring that immigration is really about talent and not ensnaring workers at artificially low wages (which I've certainly seen personally).
• halflings 12y ago
  > "H1B Visas exist for one reason, and one reason only" ; "it's simple reality" ; "Without a doubt" ; "It happens all-the-fucking-time" ; "There's absolutely no talent shortage in the Bay Area" Presenting something as a fact doesn't make it one. You're basically saying that American tech companies should only hire Americans. That the facebook, Google, Mozilla, ... shouldn't hire smart people from other countries. As someone who doesn't live in the US but would like to work in this industry, I will probably have to relocate to the US (either in the Bay Area or New York). Do you mean that offers I've got in the past were because I'm "cheap labor"? (as in "Let's fly you from the other side of the world, pay for the crazy high VISA fees, pay for relocation, ... and then pay you the same as those that already live in the Bay Area") Your remarks about "divisive ethic-neuveau-ghettos" with "communities insulating themselves rather than assimilating" just makes it worst. I'm not even going to guess who the "We" in your message refers to.
  • eli_gottlieb 12y ago
    >You're basically saying that American tech companies should only hire Americans. That the facebook, Google, Mozilla, ... shouldn't hire smart people from other countries. No, the system just needs to be reformed. And I've seen the right reform proposal often enough to be circulating it myself: * The government can give out N visas in an auction. Firms bid via legally-binding salary offers. The N highest salaries bid get the visas, and the government takes a small additional payroll tax as the only fee. * The visas adhere to the workers, not the companies. That will greatly improve the current system for the workers while enabling everyone genuinely in need of high-skilled labor to get it. Of course, it's worth noting that some degree of so-called "nativism" is just part of the social contract. It's the price we pay for having a society that enforces cooperative coordination among citizens instead of letting everything be run by uncoordinated, law-of-the-jungle free-for-alls.
    • exelius 12y ago
      > * The government can give out N visas in an auction. Firms bid via legally-binding salary offers. The N highest salaries bid get the visas, and the government takes a small additional payroll tax as the only fee. This would be doomed to fail. Professional services firms can outbid basically everyone because they can turn around and bill that person out at 5x their salary. The visas will never adhere to the workers for one simple reason: the visa process exists to benefit the companies, not the workers. The workers are not US citizens and have no leverage with the US government. The visa programs only exist because the US-based companies want them - and those companies DO have leverage with the US government.
• jlebar 12y ago
  > It absolutely, positively hurts local labor - naturalized citizens - etc. Without a doubt. I think there's little question that increasing the supply of engineers reduces their price -- our salaries. We can argue about whether it's a small or a large effect, and whether it goes away in the long run due to macroeconomic effects, but it's certainly there. So you're arguing against a straw man here. But more to the point, it's short-sighted and selfish to judge policy decisions solely based on their effects on your salary. Especially since those of us in tech are, by and large, ridiculously well-compensated. Setting aside the benefits to the immigrants themselves, highly-skilled workers who emigrate to the US are a /fantastic deal/. We paid nothing to educate them, yet they come here and grow the economy and pay taxes. All of these new people have to buy housing, food, medical care, and so on. It's literally free economic growth. > 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 borderline racist. "/We/ don't need any more of /them/, especially if they choose to live apart, rather than become Real Americans." If the alternative is living near people like you, it's no wonder they tend to stick together.
  • anjc 12y ago
    > But more to the point, it's short-sighted and selfish to judge policy decisions solely based on their effects on your salary. Especially since those of us in tech are, by and large, ridiculously well-compensated. Maybe it's selfish for you, but what about the ~50% of STEM grads who can't find a job in their industry? And wages are stagnant for STEM workers, and lowering for CS workers. Hundreds of thousands have been laid off in the last 5 years, particularly faced with globalisation and outsourcing. It sounds like you're being selfish in your own way here by saying people shouldn't judge policy decisions based on the effects on their salary, because a lot of people in your country aren't as comfortable as you are in terms of pay.
    • IndianAstronaut 12y ago
      >Hundreds of thousands have been laid off in the last 5 years, particularly faced with globalisation and outsourcing. You could also make the argument that allowing women into the industry hurts the wages of male programmers.
• dominotw 12y ago
  >There's standard, normalized ways immigrants have come to the US for a long time now. And what are those? If you are being honest why not just say "We don't want any more immigrants". Because H1B is the only way to immigrate to US. Its great that your parents got a shot a new life and now you want the door to closed. PS: I am a naturalized US citizen, if it matters.
  • ambrood 12y ago
    He's referring to the Ellis Island of course.
  • mynameisvlad 12y ago
    This right here. I posted it upthread, but, unless you get really lucky and hit the green card lottery jackpot, your only viable option is an H1-B.
  • anjc 12y ago
    His point is that H1B visas are exploited to get cheap labour, and, they are. Why conflate that with general immigration, which H1Bs are not for? Do you only want immigrants who have talents in a specialised area?
    • dominotw 12y ago
      There is no such thing as "general immigration" to the US. Honest discussion can only happen if people come right out and say lets stop all immigration( I am not saying this would be wrong, I am just saying that it would be honest and productive).
• serve_yay 12y ago
  Also, the author of this post is running an early-stage business, where cost-cutting doesn't make any sense. It strikes me as a bit naive to extrapolate from what his business is trying to do, to Amazon or whoever. It strikes me as rather likely that businesses more mature than his absolutely are interested in cutting costs, even if he isn't.
• ntakasaki 12y ago
  >It absolutely, positively hurts local labor - naturalized citizens - etc. Without a doubt. So does buying hardware that's made overseas. Interesting that this argument is made now, but how many local programmers ever bought anything electronic which was a little more expensive but made in the US instead of overseas? Why do software jobs deserve protection but hardware jobs do not? The amount of hypocrisy here is nauseating.
  • jazzyk 12y ago
    Why do CEO jobs deserve protection and {...} do not? Why do physician jobs deserve protection and {...} do not? Either we make the US job market open for all types of jobs, or have the same rules applied to all professions. Right now, there are many jobs that are heavily protected (how many CEOs/Wall Street types are H1B?), while others are not.
    • davidw 12y ago
      > Why do CEO jobs deserve protection "About half of VC-backed company founders are immigrants" http://venturebeat.com/2006/11/15/note-to-washington-about-half-of-vc-backed-company-founders-are-immigrants/ http://venturebeat.com/2006/11/15/note-to-washington-about-h... CEO jobs are not 'protected'.
• vishaldpatel 12y ago
  The reason why companies like doing this is because the H1-B worker is bonded to the company for a long... long time. They can continue to keep underpaying the worker. They can even choose to not follow-through with sponsoring the H1-B worker's green-card application.
• ThomPete 12y ago
  Here are the problems I have with your claims. 1) Of all the companies I know and have worked for I don't know a single company that got H1B for cheap indian labour. They got H1B because thats what they could get for people they wanted. You will find plenty on H1B/O1(my visa) etc. from Europe. It has nothing to do with exploitation although that of course happens but with these are the easiest (and hardest) visas to get 2) The irony of the tech world is that for the right talent there is always work but finding that right talent is actually pretty hard as it's a multitude of factors that are involved in the right hire. 3) The process of getting H1B is trivial but cumbersome and I have yet to meet any organisation that take people in on H1Bs just because it's cheap labour. Of course it hurts local labour but not because of the wages, because talent is hard to find.
• dgregd 12y ago
  In short term immigrants definitely have negative impact on wages. However, in long term brain drain helps Silicon Valley to maintain its software capital of the world status. Nokia mainly depended on local workforce. From Poland it is much closer to Finland than to US. But it was Google US which hired my brightest school mates.
  • MagicWishMonkey 12y ago
    Most of the large bay area tech companies have offices overseas with plenty of foreign employees. They are not 100% dependent on the local workforce.
• geekam 12y ago
  I have said this before here and I will do that again. What hurts the market is L1 visa. H1 visa holders are almost in the same boat as local talent. Why? Because there is a government dictated minimum prevailaing wage that companies have to adhere to. I am yet to meet an H1B who is earning less than his/her peers (within an area, experience, skillset and education). However, I have met a lot of L1 visa holders (primarily from India) who come here from companies like Wipro, TCS, Cognizant, IBM, Microsoft etc. who are paid lower wages because there is no such scrutiny with L1 visas. Lumping both visas in the same category is a huge mistake.
  • kmonsen 12y ago
    This is very, very true. L1 seems like a good deal since your spouse can work, but ends up being really bad since you have no negotiating power at salary adjustment time.
    • otoburb 12y ago
      The L1A is better than the L1B because of the faster permanent residence processing times, mainly due to the fact that the L1A holders can file under the EB1C category[1] and avoid the long Labor Certification from the Department of Labor[2]. [1] http://www.immihelp.com/l1-visa/l1-visa-h1b-visa-comparison.html http://www.immihelp.com/l1-visa/l1-visa-h1b-visa-comparison.... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_certification http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_certification
• exelius 12y ago
  > There's absolutely no talent shortage in the Bay Area, provided you can pay (and your ideas are interesting) There actually is a talent shortage in the Bay Area. If there was no talent shortage, prices for local labor would be lower. If there wasn't a talent shortage, it wouldn't be possible for me to hire a developer from India, pay to fly him out here, put him up in a hotel in Mountain View for 6 months - all for significantly less than it would cost to hire a local developer. H1Bs are just the tip of the iceberg. The companies that are pros at this use L1 visas. H1Bs require you to pay a similar wage to the local wage, but L1s have no such requirement. So you can take a developer working in India for $20k/yr and ship him to the US. The consulting company charges them out at the local market rate and pockets the difference. I've seen projects with margins approaching 80% due to this. The visa system is completely broken, this much is true. But it's really a symptom of the fact that the labor market in the US is not training the types of workers it needs. We train a lot of developers and many of them think they're rock stars. But the reality is that we need a deep bench of competent developers willing to work for substantially less than $100k a year. Those developers exist in other countries, and so the work is going there.
  • hkarthik 12y ago
    > But the reality is that we need a deep bench of competent developers willing to work for substantially less than $100k a year. And there we have it. You want developers to continue to be happy with less than $100K salaries while the costs of local housing skyrockets by 20% year over year. Clearly that won't work for developers hitting their 30s and wanting to start a family or those with families already. So you're left with hiring the young, highly educated, and unattached. Hence the move to hire H1Bs from overseas.
    • exelius 12y ago
      That's a problem unique to the bay area. You don't have to live in the bay area to be a developer.
      • hkarthik 12y ago
        I work for a Bay Area based company, but I work remotely in Dallas, TX and I can assure you that this problem isn't unique to the Bay Area. It's just that the numbers skew lower. Here in Dallas, many employers scoff at paying more than $80K/year for a senior developer when they can get an H1B for $50-60K. A lot of this relates to the total capital available, as well as the lower cost of living, but the trend is the same. Employers want more bodies for less money and they've figured out that the H1B is a clear path to achieve this goal.
• bduerst 12y ago
  If we're being honest, then we need to start slapping the wrists of the employers. Technically speaking, to be approved on an LCA (H1B) application, the prevailing wage has to be at or above the mean payable wage for the citizens in the same SOC job classification for the region. Long story short, if there is any exploitation or hurting the local labor, it's because the employers are getting away with illegally hiring talented labor for the wrong, often underpaid positions. More resources are needed to enforce the restrictions against immigration exploitation on employers, not the immigrants.
• bitroliest 12y ago
  I've been on an H1B visa before. This has been my experience. You forgot to mention it's a tether to keep talent in a given company also.
• barrkel 12y ago
  I got a H-1B visa. I was living in Ireland at the time. But, as it turned out, I never moved to the US. It was for a compiler position at Borland. I ended up working remotely for the next 6 years or so, first for a year as a contractor at a 6 figure Euro rate, then later as a salaried employee after I moved to London. They flew me over two to four times a year to keep up to date with the team. I collectively lived over 6 months in Scotts Valley, albeit in hotels. All this wasn't cheap. You're generalizing from a stereotype you've seen. But don't think it represents all situations. The mentality you've got is the same one at work with racism and sexism. It's reductive and will mislead you. There's a certain amount of tech talent at any given technical ability level available worldwide, and only a fraction of it is in the US. The opportunities to leverage tech talent are, however, larger in northern CA than most other places. And some things can only be implemented by people with the right level of ability. When you artificially limit the supply of qualified labour, all you can do is shuffle your existing resources - paying more won't increase the supply quickly enough. Limiting supply of able labour will reduce the speed of innovation and economic growth - including for locals. Maybe these "body shops" are a problem. I don't know for sure - I don't have enough information. The way they are talked about, it doesn't sound like the quality of people brought in is terribly high, so it seems to me you don't have much to worry about re competition, unless you're not very capable. On the other hand, it sounds like it could be upskilling India as these people get rotated out, which to my mind is a good thing - beggar-thy-neighbour policies don't pay off in the long run, and besides are morally questionable when the disparity in wealth is very large.
  • malandrew 12y ago
    I'm a software engineer and green card holder from Brazil and there is nothing I want more than to see many of my friends who work in Brazil have the opportunity to come here to work in a great industry. That being said, both you and the anon person you replied to are right about the situation. The position you came to fill is a relatively rare skill here in the US and it helps the US to bring in talent from abroad, but the person you replied to isn't wrong. It's not like compiler engineers don't exist in the US. They most certainly do and they most certainly would make more money if you couldn't get compiler people from abroad. Personally, I would love it if we were far more liberal with giving out H1-B visas, but also required companies to pay those H1-B visa holders a premium over local talent. i.e. if the market rate is foo, then you need to pay 1.5x foo salary to bring that person from abroad. This would ensure that companies actually can get access to all the talent they need irrespective of origin, but that the talent that comes from abroad doesn't depress salaries. 1.5x foo is friggin' cheap if the alternatively is not having the talent at all. It also forces you to always consider domestic labor first if it exists instead of abusing the H1-B visa program to get cheap labor like many companies do. Such a system would also serve to help salaries rise to the levels enjoyed by doctors and lawyers (which is really where salaries should be for any solid engineer). If this means certain business models are no longer viable, then c'est la vie. There's nothing that says that you have a right to a business model that wouldn't exist if salaries were not depressed. Alternatively, I would be okay with eliminating the lottery and giving visas out on the basis of the premium companies are willing to pay over the salary a domestic worker would be paid. If your company is willing to pay 2.0x foo for a position, then you will get the H1-B visa ahead of a company only willing to pay 1.5x foo. The floor would be set at something like 1.1x foo.
• vladtaltos 12y ago
  what you say may be true for web-development but afaik there is not too much PhD requirements for web-dev work. I'm in the computer vision and pattern recognition field and as you can guess from its popularity there's definitely a shortage - not just in the US but all over the world. I'm in France and in my company we are trying aggressively to hire new people in the field but everybody good is already working somewhere or they're working on their own ideas. About 80% of our research/engineering team is from abroad: 2 Swiss, 2 Italian, 3 Turkish, 3 American, 1 Israeli, 2 Russian, 2 Canadian, 2 Spaniard, 1 Iranian - and only 5 French. finding talent in this day and age is a world-wide problem. there's not enough experienced people around for cutting edge companies and there's no way you can hire someone good in the field cheap local or away. that's a very absurd notion... As I said, I'm currently not located in US and I'm not a US citizen. So, if I decide to work again there I'll need an H1B but as I'm already making quite well where I'm now, I wouldn't consider uprooting my life and returning back to US for no less than $200-250k. if this is considered cheap work, then so be it. exploiting imperialist bastards...
  • Iftheshoefits 12y ago
    How much of the CV/pattern recognition talent shortage you're describing is because of an unwillingness to consider candidates who don'match exactly. That is, do you have a condition where something like only "PhD in Machine Learning with extensive CV experience" resumes are considered when it is arguably the case that, e.g., "MS/PhD in math/engineering/physics with programming experience" would be equally able to do the work with a (very) modest learning curve to adapt to the specific jargon/processes?
    • Nursie 12y ago
      I think there is absolutely a tech hiring culture that discards people who don't have the exact right experience. And it's awful. A good coder with lots of general experience can adapt. An awful, useless hack can sit in a sector and look valuable to a prospective employer while actually being a huge net drain.
    • vladtaltos 12y ago
      I myself have electronics engineering background (telecommunications sub-specialty), 5 others are similarly with ee backgrounds and 3 or 4 people are from applied maths departments. I believe we have only 2 mechanical eng people and the rest is CS guys. It's not resume or education background bias. However, if you're going to pay in the 150k-200k euro range to somebody, you naturally want them to have relevant experience. After ee undergrad, I majored in signal processing and then got a phd in cv. Hiring people in the hopes that they'll become useful is being done but not excessively in a way that it is counter-productive ( eg. we're not hiring number theorists but accept applied maths guys - one new hire (one of our immigrant workers) has a very cool phd thesis on probability and the data he worked with came from CERN experiments - so it's not CV or PR at all - pure math applied on physics experiments... but he's smart and experienced enough that after only 3 months he's already doing substantial contributions ) cv/pr is not a field where you have a 'modest learning curve' if you hire people to do research - you really need at least a few years of research experience for working on state-of-the-art problems... otherwise, you're paying people to develop their research skills at a very high premium. that should be done at a university... maybe I'm biased - I always consider this H1B problem in terms of research work - not regular stuff where what you need to do is 95% engineering and 5% research.. this is my bias. but it is also a valid example for H1B discussion in contrast to dismissing all H1B immigrant workers as 'cheap labor' for doing engineering tasks with low requirements. The US is a country spanning a large continent - maybe that is the reason for many of the racist rants I've seen here on this discussion - it doesn't have many neighbouring countries ( and at odds with all of them except maybe Canada? ) and most US citizens don't leave the states to work in other parts of the world. If you have a whole continent for a country it's easier to find a job in a different part of it than moving to a completely different culture. And so this sort of causes people who don't travel much to have a conservative view of 'immigrant' labor. EU is definitely not perfect and has many problems to solve - but at least, in my opinion, opening the borders for quota-free worker exchanges lets people to hire from a richer pool of talent and helps reduce culture clashes and racist viewpoints in the long term. I'm feeling very lucky to get to know many different cultures from all around the world. I wish you could also have a taste of it too...
• avemuri 12y ago
  > It absolutely, positively hurts local labor - naturalized citizens - etc. Without a doubt. This may be unpopular, but so what if it hurts local labor? The global flow of goods is good, but the flow of labor is bad? Twenty years ago Pepsi and Coke entered the Indian market and destroyed/replaced the local beverage industry. Uber and Amazon have launched their own price wars more recently. A lot of people want Indian companies to win, but I don't see words like 'unfair' being used in regard to the American companies with deeper pockets that hurt local businesses. I get that immigration hurts American wages, but that's just kinda how the world works. What does it matter if your job is outsourced to India or if an Indian comes to America to take it? The latter is probably better for the US if anything.
  • chroem- 12y ago
    >The global flow of goods is good, but the flow of labor is bad? But that's just it: this is an attempt to slow the flow and distribution of capital (wages) by importing cheap labor. It allows even more economic power and resources to be concentrated in even fewer hands. It should be pretty self-evident why that's undesirable.
    • thetruthseeker1 12y ago
      Is that not true when Pepsi goes to India and sells its product there. The profit is distributed only to share holders of Pepsi, and the Indian beverage companies stand to lose. If Pepsi had not been so "greedy", Indian beverage companies would make some money and probably cause a more better distribution of wealth? Is Amazon guilty of using drones/machines for its 70 Billion$ business where as Target employs 5 times as many people for an equivalent revenue?
    • avemuri 12y ago
      1) It may be depressing wages in the US, but tech wages in India are skyrocketing. The best are leaving for better lives in the US and local companies are realizing they need to compete globally for talent. 2) Capitalism concentrates wealth in general but I don't think it's black and white that it's bad. 60% of India's population is small farmers and there's a lot of protection against scale farming with land ceiling laws, subsidies, etc. I don't think we're doing them any great favour by protecting them. The US by contrast has only 3% of it's population employed in agriculture. I'm sure there was a lot of pain in going from 60% to 3% there as well, but it's probably a better outcome even weighing the concentration of wealth that resulted. It isn't perfect, but it's sort of the best available system. And treating labour different to goods makes no sense. By the same argument, importing cheap Chinese manufactured goods are bad. Any automation that removes jobs is bad. Any consolidation for economies of scale is bad.
• nardi 12y ago
  The classic economics mistake of focusing on a single group to the detriment of the whole. Yes, there is a group of local engineers that is hurt by companies importing cheaper, better labor from overseas. But everyone else benefits.
• danudey 12y ago
  > 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 just smacks of exclusionary racism. Like, 'us white people don't need folk from other countries coming over here and associating with each other, eating their own food and speaking their own language'. You might be surprised to learn that if you're moving from another country, it's highly beneficial to your adjustment to be around other people from your area; in fact, it can accelerate assimilation because they have a source they can turn to for all kinds of cultural, bureaucratic, or social questions, so they don't have to re-learn everything from scratch. Admittedly, that still doesn't change your original claim of 'we don't need cheap foreigners coming over here and taking American jobs', or the inherent racism there.
• vikas5678 12y ago
  Communities tend to gravitate toward each other. Your attitude towards these neighborhoods is the same as the attitude expressed toward the european immigrants in the early 1900s. Does the H1B system need to be reformed? Yes I completely agree. But your reaction is xenophobic. America is a country of immigrants, get over it maybe?
• bluishgreen 12y ago
  "ethic-neuveau-ghettos .. insulating themselves rather than assimilating" Usually the kids assimilate pretty well, and thats mostly how it works, has always worked with non-europeans. You can't expect these people to wake up one morning, and do a running jump while yelling 'muricaaa!!' and assimilate in a flash. From my experience, most of them want their kids to assimilate while setting up personal thresholds for themselves as to how much they can/want to buy in. You'd be surprised, the country can learn a thing or two from these peoples, for eg. many of these folks come from places where evolution is common sense, and high-schools don't give people life long depressions from which people never recover.
  • davidw 12y ago
    One only need look at San Francisco's "little Italy", which is not in any sense an Italian neighborhood any more, except sort of for tourist purposes. And yet people were really worried about Italians coming and taking jobs and being Catholic and all those other nasty immigrant things. It takes time, but the advantages to integrating far outweigh consigning your children to a ghetto.
• verst 12y ago
  So far I haven't seen anyone mention the H-1B applicants already in the country. FWIW that's a large number of people. I don't have any stats on that, but assume that it's at least 50% of applicants. Many foreign nationals who choose to be educated in the US (often at a major premium as most scholarships or subsidized loans are unavailable) aspire to stay in the US to work post-graduation. There are temporary programs that allow this: F-1 Optional Practical Training (OPT) for 12 months. This can be renewed by another 17 months for a STEM degree holder. The 17 month extension was introduced in 2008 to allow the candidate to have two chances at the H-1B lottery [1]. I'm a German citizen who went to college in the US on a F-1 student visa. I worked on an OPT post-graduation before my employer sponsored me for a H-1B. I can guarantee you that I was one of their most expensive employees of comparable education and experience: Preparing a H-1B application (and the associated filing fees) is costly, especially if the government sends a request for further evidence. Just 3 months after I had started (before the H-1B application was filed) I managed to get a 50% raise because I had made myself indispensable and started looking for other opportunities as I felt significantly underpaid. They generally did not give raises to anyone, and as far as I know all of my citizen coworkers continued to be vastly underpaid for years. If it weren't for the H-1B program, I wouldn't have had an opportunity to stay and work in the country after having already spent some 6 years here. As an aside: Nobody ever suspects me of being foreign. I'm a white guy with flawless English. However, many of my friends who were born here (to foreign parents or grandparents) are treated with racism. That's simply not ok. [1]: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2008-04-08/html/E8-7427.htm http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2008-04-08/html/E8-7427.htm
• tn13 12y ago
  > It absolutely, positively hurts local labor - naturalized citizens - etc. Without a doubt. That is not true at all. If engineers get cheaper the result of their labor too gets cheaper and hence the entire American society benefits. American government's job is not to protect interest of Engineers but of everyone. American Medical Council for example has made it illegal for Indian doctors to practice in America and we can see the results. Doctors earn a lot but at the cost of average American. But there is another important aspect that even the intelligent minds of HN seem to ignore. In highly skilled professions, jobs opportunities are not Zero sum games. Mr. Kumar got a job in US does not mean some Mr. John Smith lost one. On the contrary more engineers you have faster you can solve problems. Key questions to ask is if US government completely bans H1B throws all Indian H1Bs out will that serve the interest of the American people ?
• vvhn 12y ago
  >There's standard, normalized ways immigrants have come to the US for a long time now Just out of curiosity, what are the "standard, normalized ways " that people immigrate to the US ? If i were to go to the American Embassy in New Delhi and apply for immigration and i don't have close, immediate family in the United States i don't see a way other than becoming a Fiance of a US citizen ( http://newdelhi.usembassy.gov/immigrant_visas.html http://newdelhi.usembassy.gov/immigrant_visas.html ) Wikipedia also fails to provide anything other than family based immigration. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_laws_concerning_immigration_and_naturalization_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_laws_concerning_immi... )
• kjackson2012 12y ago
  I know two Bay Area H1Bs that were just recently offered over 180K base salary with 250k+ in RSUs over 4 years. That's roughly $250k/yr total package. The good H1Bs will get extremely high salaries and the shitty H1Bs will take all the jobs that pay shit. There is no exploitation, it's just how the world works. If you're good there's nothing to fear from competition, and if fact it helps you.
• dethstar 12y ago
  If it was about costs, why wouldn't they simply off shore it? I made another post on a similar thread here a few days ago. I live in Mexico and there's plenty of companies here that do work for US companies, it's great for both sides, on the US business side they're getting what they want for cheaper, and often by some really talented people. On the Mexican side, the company is getting paid in USD and through exchange rates and what not this turns out to be better for them than doing consulting for local business. So why would they bother opening the borders even more? When they can get the same people to make it for cheaper from this side? http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/06/this-map-reveals-exactly-where-silicon-valley-gets-its-talent/ http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/06/this-map-reveals-exactly-w...
• ktom 12y ago
  if there isn't a talent shortage and there are workers in the bay area without jobs that work in engineering I would appreciate an intro to said workers. also to clarify, if you mean there isn't a shortage and that i just have to offer higher salaries to poach from other companies I would categorize that as a shortage since it will just results in the equivalent of music chairs for jobs. i don't mind paying top dollar for the best engineers but if the permanent state is music chairs for engineers that to me implies a shortage. Irrespective of the salaries you have to pay, there should be enough engineers to fill all job openings otherwise I would say there is a shortage. not advocating excessive numbers of workers to drop salaries, ideally it would (job openings -1) number of engineers.
• 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...
• tohrwwaya 12y ago
  > let's be honest > one reason only > absolutely, positively > without a doubt > simple reality > definitely, absolutely > all-the-fucking-time > absolutely no Yikes.
• serge2k 12y ago
  H1-B is a standard normal way.
• TheMagicHorsey 12y ago
  Man, you make me ashamed to call myself American. What are you so afraid of? Have you ever been to a nice Indian restaurant in Sunnyvale? I'm glad those ethnic conclaves exist. Also, from a strictly moral perspective, the attitude that you deserve special treatment based on the fact that you were born within an imaginary closed cell on a map just isn't justified. What makes you so special versus someone from Asia with better skills? I'm supposed to hire you because ... what? We share the same passport and so I owe you some special heightened loyalty beyond what I owe any human being born on our common planet? Your comment is full of implicit prejudice. Some redneck told you that you deserve to be treated as a special person because you saluted the flag when you were a little kid in class, and without thinking very critically about the concept, you just swallowed it whole. Now you are regurgitating the same concept here as though this audience is as paranoid as the one on MSNBC.com. This is a totally different audience, that isn't afraid to compete against other workers on a skills versus skills basis. I don't think most people here think they need special protection from Uncle Sam against programmers from abroad. You are probably afraid of some Indian and Chinese programmers. I have zero fear. In fact I welcome the competition and hope that some of the best can be my co-workers. You are welcome to form an exclusive zone with the country's coddled also-rans. Just don't try to form that zone in the Bay Area. I don't know if you are watching Google or Facebook, or Twitter, but former H1Bs are working on the most complex projects at those companies ... and not because those companies can't afford to hire the best students. But because those H1Bs ARE the best students.
  • nhayden 12y ago
    One could make the argument that Americans deserve American jobs more than foreigners because the vast majority of Americans have been contributing to American society their entire lives through their work and taxes and will most likely continue to until their death. Foreigners come to the US having never been part of the society that made the job possible.
    • TheMagicHorsey 12y ago
      By that logic, someone in Arizona has no claim to a job in California. In fact, someone in Sacramento has no claim on a job in San Francisco.
• deeviant 12y ago
  I agree with many points of your post, and I can absolutely say that the system does not work as it's advertised to: my wife is(was) an H1B for a prominent tech company, they pretty much insisted on her coming to the US and when they did it they advertised a position publicly (as is required by law) so specific as to completely rule anybody but her, and of would of course summary deny anybody that managed to get an interview(which they don't do any ways, they publicly post the position but than do not hold any interviews, and if they did for show they will never give a thumbs up). The decision to hire the non-U.S. candidate is made before the position is before the posted, which I do think is duplicitous and very much against the spirit of the law. On the other hand, I just don't feel to strongly that US jobs are solely for US people. This is a global economy and bringing in (hopefully bright and talented) people into the states does increase our national economic prospects. I do feel strongly, however, that the laws governing the process should be enforced completely, not in just the letter but in spirit. There are also some very complicated factors involved such as the cost of education in the US versus many other countries that substantially subsidize it, the potential use of unskilled works simply being used to drive the labor market down.
• IndianAstronaut 12y ago
  This comment is guilty of the lump of labor fallacy. There is not a fixed quantity of jobs. The job market is dynamic and can generate jobs. One person getting a job does not mean another losing one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy
  • geebee 12y ago
    I think you can criticize targeted visa programs without committing the lump of labor fallacy. The reason is that very targeted types of migration such as high tech visas can cause market distortions relative to other fields. For instance, every new developer probably leads to employment for baristas, brick layers, dermatologists, mortgage brokers, real estate agents, and divorce lawyers. Because developers and engineers in general tend to generate wealth rather than redistribute it, this is especially true. Here's the thing, if you create a visa program to allow easy migration for developers, but not for all those other professions (or you create a regulatory state that makes it very difficult for migrants to join those fields), what you create is a market distortion. Because new economic activities are available without the competition from the newly arrived migrants, those with existing work and residency rights will have an incentive to avoid engineering and go into other fields. Even if people aren't specifically displaced, even if pay rises a bit, better prospects in other fields may ensure that the existing workforce never goes into software development or engineering in the first place (i.e., someone who would have done so will now instead go into dentistry or tax law). This, I think, is what we've seen - people who have the right to live and work in the US at the time when they are choosing a career path are shunning these fields. Now, if migration were more general, it wouldn't do as much harm to developers, because while there would be more competition, it would be spread evenly across all fields, not just software. Think of it this way - suppose we allowed farmers to come to the US, but only if they grow lemons. If you switch your crop, you must leave, because there's a shortage of lemon growers. This would hurt likely harm existing lemon farmers, and you'd expect them to switch to a different crop (probably avocados, where they don't have to compete on price with the suddenly larger and captive population of lemon growers). There might seem to be a shortage of lemons, prices of lemons might still go up, but until they reflect the opportunity cost (what you could get growing avocados), people with the choice won't grow lemons. In this case, the "come here if you agree to grow lemons" visa program would be creating a market distortion that is preventing the lemon market from "clearing". This is also why a lot of people who have no objection to general skilled immigration strongly oppose such specific tinkering with employment levels, and why a lot of people feel that there really is no evidence of a developer or engineer shortage when you consider the opportunity cost of becoming a developer for people who are free to choose a profession.
• Sorgam 12y ago
  It absolutely, positively hurts local labor - naturalized citizens - etc. Without a doubt. I agree. But that's not a bad thing. That's the market operating more efficiently. The flipside is that it absolutely, positively helps foreign labor. Or alternatively, the overabundance of US citizens absolutely, positively hurts each other's labor. What makes naturalized citizens so privileged? Surely they themselves are 2nd class citizens to native born Americans, who are in turn less deserving than descendants of actual American Indians. Drawing the line between "naturalized citizen" and "H1B visa holder" is quite arbitrary. It's still discrimination akin to racism or sexism. Relevant quotes from recently posted article on Pavel Durov: "Me myself, I’m not a big fan of the idea of countries" "I consider myself a legal citizen of the world."
• GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
  That's a whole lot of words you used to get the point across, you could have said the same thing in only fourteen.
• rtpg 12y ago
  It hurts because of how H1-B visas are structured. If there was free-flow movement of these high-skilled workers (and none of this indentured servitude to the company), then salaries would raise equivalently. But for now it hurts local labor because it gives companies a pool of employees without rights (notably the right to walk away from a toxic environment without having to leave the country).
• prayinmantis 12y ago
  Look manticore_alpha, you should be honest with yourself here. The primary stakeholders in the H1B discussion are not only local labor, but also the consumers of the products and services produced by the companies that hired H1B's, and the investors in these companies. And consumers and investors have a right to obtain their products and services at a reasonable cost. This is not xenophilia, it's simply reality. This is the economic rationale behind Wal Mart sourcing globally. And as the original post points out, it is not always about low cost, its also about quality. Would you consider Satya Nadella or Sundar Pichai to be cheap labor? There is another matter. Why don't you look up the phrase "indentured servant" on wikipedia? It refers to (quote from wikipedia) " a labor system where by young people paid for their passage to the New World by working for an employer for a certain number of years. It was widely employed in the 18th century in the British colonies in North America and elsewhere. It was especially used as a way for poor youth in Britain and the German states to get passage to the American colonies. They would work for a fixed number of years, then be free to work on their own. The employer purchased the indenture from the sea captain who brought the youths over; he did so because he needed labour (sic). Some worked as farmers or helpers for farm wives, some were apprenticed to craftsmen." Basically, this system which brought in the ancestors of most Americans is very similar to the H1B system in place, right down to the duration of indenture: 7 years, while the H1B has a 6 year time limit. Been happening all-the-time, my friend. (No, I won't use expletives, and neither should you. Surprised this is the top post, despite HN policies.)
• analog31 12y ago
  >>> 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. "Please tell us about the time you most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your advantage." -- Paul Graham
• curiousDog 12y ago
  The fact that this comment has been upvoted so many times shows how low HN has sunk. Sad.
• cageface 12y ago
  The other important and often overlooked missing piece of the equation is that programming is a brutally ageist profession and that the typical programming career is short. If you haven't made it into management by 30 you will find it increasingly hard to get rank & file coding jobs. So even if the typical programmer's salary is relatively high you mustn't forget that this career may only last 10-15 years in many cases. It's pretty simple IMO. The programmer shortage would evaporate if programmers were paid according to the value they create.
• bonobo3000 12y ago
  While we are on the topic, anyone care to illuminate me on the practicalities of H1Bs as a worker? 1. What do you do if your petition for H1B is rejected. I have 2 shots to apply with my time in OPT, but what if both fail? Is the only option to go back to your home country and start over? That seems freaking absurd! 2. Can you increase your chances of being selected for H1B? For example, I've heard that working at bigger companies like Google/FB/Amazon gives you a better shot. Is there any truth to this? 3. Is there any reasonable way to start a company on an OPT or H1B? AFAIK the rules state that you can either work for a company or own majority stake but not both. So its possible with a cofounder who is a resident, but he/she would own the company legally.
  • es09 12y ago
    1. Yes, if both applications fail and OPT expires, the candidate has to go back to the home country. 2. Working for a big company will not help in getting a H1B slot in anyway. 3. Typically, these things are done by a resident starting the company and hiring the cofounder.
• hughbert 12y ago
  > It absolutely, positively hurts local labor [...] This is not a Xenophobic reaction, it's simply reality. It is absolutely xenophobic; you are insinuating that somebody "we" get "hurt" when "they" come. It's the most insidious brand of xenophobia there is.
• rconti 12y ago
  You throw a lot of alleged experience behind your opinion, but, having had to hire MANY employees in the Bay Area, it sure as hell doesn't seem like anyone's getting cheap labor, and I sure as hell don't see anyone languishing on the market thanks to this influx of ferriners.
• WWKong 12y ago
  Your experience seems rather limited. Because H1Bs by no stretch are cheap. You got to be kidding yourself if you think Indians buying up all those million+ dollar homes in Bay Area are earning low wages.
• terranstyler 12y ago
  There is one thing in your post I must particularly disagree with: > There's absolutely no talent shortage in the Bay Area, provided you can pay (and your ideas are interesting) I can generalize that "there is no shortage of anything provided you can pay". You can get a BMW in Cuba, a skyscraper in NY and what ever you want where ever you want, it's just much more expensive. Still, there are shortages and high prices are indicative of that.
• scalayer 12y ago
  Fear based ethnic favoritism is xenophobic by definition. Abstracting that with immigration policy, visa types, foreign labor law, etc to influence the effect doesn't change that.
• tptacek 12y ago
  This comment started out sympathetic, veered into an energetic deployment of anecdata, and ended up in a very creepy place. I'm not sure where I land on the H1B question; it's hard to see how there can simultaneously be a labor shortage and that immigration is going to be helpful to tech workers already here. But if you want to help make the case against them, probably leave out the appeals to "ethnic ghettos".
• wahsd 12y ago
  What people don't quite understand because it has been hammered into the minds of the minds of the middle class for decades now by the ruling elite is that immigration to the USA is bad for everyone involved all around, with exception of the ruling elite. Sure, on an individual basis someone immigrating from central Asia or Central America will be far better off coming to the USA, but fact of the matter is that not only are they sabotaging the local population but they are also being played and harming the source country they come from, which is the even greater damage. The brain, brawn, and bravado drain caused on source countries by the USA sucking up talent is the largest factor of mid to long term problems and failures in source countries, all while also sabotaging and manipulating the market in the destination (USA) country. I don't care what bleeding heart liberals whine and cry about, they are causing more damage than they appear to have the capacity to grasp. It's a process not unlike the damage cause by all the development "assistance" of the past century. Additionally, what the wealthy are doing in the USA (and other places) by supporting immigration (Pro tip: republicans only dislike immigrants and illegal immigrants when they lie to the faces of their voters) is undermining challenges and competition by the middle class and even the most modest improvement for the more challenged classes. What they are doing with immigration of any kind is sabotaging market factors that would require them to pay fair wages and appropriate costs. Sure, some will make the argument that blather, blather global market blather captialism * blather* but the fact of the matter is that the wealthy only want everything to flow one direction. They don't want global or even domestic competition and transparency for CEOs, they don't want competition at all. What they want is to rig the game, they want to change the rules as it benefits them at every single step of the way. They are nothing different than the little shit you played with in childhood, who used to change the rules as he started losing at the game or wasn't totally dominating you. What the wealthy do ... what they are ... are the people who sabotage success, they snipe progress in order to keep anyone else from competing with them; because what the wealthy hate even more than the middle class is true competition. They love fake, rigged, and manipulated competition though that means they will win with as little effort as possible.
• godzilla82 12y ago
  Lets be intelligent. Salaries for the H1Bs are low because the H1B visas are very exploitative. So, instead of forcing companies to hire local labour, force the government to remove the restrictions and salaries will rise.
• delackner 12y ago
  You worked at some companies that had foreign workers, I get that. Since most companies forbid employees from discussing salary with your co-workers, exactly how do you know they were getting paid less than they were worth? Also, I don't know if you noticed, but most of the rest of the US, and the entire world as a whole, pays significantly lower salaries for software engineering than Silicon Valley, even factoring in cost of living. Yet Silicon Valley salaries have continued to climb to amazing heights. This is not because you are any better at your job today than 10 years ago. It is because there is a crisis of supply. The industry needs far more programmers today than ever before, and the LOCAL supply is severely constrained. It is hard to even get people from other parts of the US to move to the bay area, let alone from other countries. Is the H1B exploitable? Yes, but that's because of anti-worker government policies. If the US offered skilled workers a transferrable Visa valid for a fixed (extendable if you can prove you still have solid income in your field), workers would have the power to leave a bad job. As for ghettos, I don't even know what to say to you. The housing market in the bay is so utterly broken, and there are so few real walkable neighborhoods with a sense of community, you would prefer that recent immigrants what, scatter themselves across the bay instead of striving to at least maintain some sense of continuity in their life? If you want to improve things, fight for local city governments to stop their idiotic policies against infill development and public services.