Comment by gutnor | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gutnor | Hacker News Reader

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It may be good overall, but not necessarily for the US worker in particular.

The thing is, tech worker market is global and large companies always have the choice to outsource plain and simple.

The H-1B visa trick is a win-win between foreign worker and local companies (loss/draw for local worker and loss for foreign companies). Local companies get locked-in resources in a friendly timezone, foreign worker get US experience and higher than average salary. Without that trick, the large company will outsource which mean probably rising salaries in India or wherever (we are talking abuse here, you don't outsource for 1 guy in a odd position like what H-1B should be about, but for a team of generic tech resources, yes). Except for companies that were using H-1B for what it was actually designed, that's not going to change much in the US.

Now, the US government can add some trick to prevent outsourcing, Trump after all is a big fan of protectionist policies, with the usual caveats of such measures.

> The thing is, tech worker market is global and large companies always have the choice to outsource plain and simple.

The tech worker market segment the body shops proliferate within in the US is one-way permeable: from developing to developed world markets. There is nowhere near the kind of market demand for developed world tech workers in developing world markets. Without that equivalency, claiming a "global" market omits key information, because everyone who makes that "global" claim is trying to advance the argument that the globalization status quo is a two-way street of equal opportunity, and US workers should therefore welcome this new normal. There is in actuality an arbitrage over standard of living, environmental conditions, rule of law, etc. that coupled with US immigration laws create the market opportunity. That arbitrage is an externality cost pushed onto US taxpayers.

When US economists for globalization move en masse to India for its obvious competitive advantages over the US cost of living, because it is so cheap to live like a local in India and an economist can "obviously" work from anywhere, then their academic prescriptions align with their personal creed, and I'm all-in on globalization again.

> There is nowhere near the kind of market demand for developed world tech workers in developing world markets.

I think the suggestion from the parent was that if you prevent i.e. Google from bringing in H1B workers, they will simply hire them in their India office.

That's what I meant.

The market may not be global from an employee point of view, but that's an oxymoron, that has never been the case ever in any field. ( not saying it is a good thing )

Without any protectionist measure, it just remove one of the many resourcing options for the large US companies. It is unrealistic to think that the job will be automatically reassigned in the US when those companies are already spread all around the world.

All I'm trying to say is that suppressing H-1B is probably good because abuse is never good. However, I don't believe it will magically solve the problems of stagnating salaries without something else.

Goa is India, and quite a few (anecdotally) tech people moved there for several years (IDK about "permanently") for its lower cost of living and nice climate. They continue to work remotely for multi-national / Western companies, affording them a quite high local standard of living, and allowing to make savings.

These same people won't stay there if / when they decided to have children and educate them, though.

>The tech worker market segment the body shops proliferate within in the US is one-way permeable: from developing to developed world markets.

But software services flow the other way. Google, Facebook, Microsoft etc. are big players in India, and US employees benefit from increased revenue and profit from those populations.

You cannot arbitrarily pick and choose the aspects of globalization that hurt you vs. that benefit you.

> ... and US employees benefit from increased revenue and profit from those populations.

US employees of "Google, Facebook, Microsoft etc.", or US employees in aggregate?

From the context, I believe the OP meant US employees of the said companies.

How did you get "higher than average salary?" All the H1Bs I have known, and I have worked with hundreds of them over the years, have all been underpaid compared to market rates. Some were outright exploited by ridiculous middle man consulting arrangements consisting of multiple levels taking a percentage of the hourly from the actual workers.

I have nothing against foreign workers, but if they are going to be allowed to work in the states they should be paid market rate or above. I consider this protectionism for my own livelihood and those of my US-citizen colleagues. The typical bill rate for software development work has not risen since 2000. Think about that.

I think he meant "higher salaries than they would make at home".

Thank you, yes that's what I meant. I'm not sure how the salary compare relative to the cost of living, but the fact of having a US-base job is also part of the package and is valuable to foreign workers.

People with H1Bs at Google and Facebook make far, far more than the average in the US (3x average salary, 1.5x average SWE salary).

As someone who worked for Google while on an H1B, I can attest to this. Also, the consulting firm that I worked through (not directly hired by Google) took a hearty cut of that.

Sorry to hear that. My fiancee and I have both been working for Google (directly) on an H1B for the past 5 years. I don't know of any software engineers on an H1B at Google making less than $100K base, even straight out of college.

Google and Facebook are not employing the vast majority of H1B workers, the large BPO consulting firms like Wipro, CapGemini, Tata, Infosys, and Cognizant are (Source: http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2017-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx). Just because Google treats their H1B employees well doesn't mean everyone does, it's a small sample.

My experience is more in line with the previous poster. The workers can be terribly treated, at the mercy of their sponsoring company, and underpaid. There is the constant threat that you can be sent back to India at any time if you don't tow the company line. Many of these folks have moved their lives and their families to the US for these jobs, so this is a very serious threat.

We had one extremely talented lead engineer from Wipro that was so overworked from 10-12 hour days in the office and then another 6-8 at home on calls w/his team in India that his hair literally started falling out from the stress and lack of sleep.

Let's not kid ourselves, H1B is a source of cheap(er) skilled labor that the tech firms love because they don't need to invest in training and can exercise a level of control over them. The company can reduce or eliminate the risk that the worker will quit for a better position, unlike if they took a US worker and spent the money to train their skills up. We all know salary is just a small part of the overall cost of recruiting and retaining talent.

Personally, I'm in favor of opening up the restrictions on immigration. I believe that immigration and growing a country's population is essential to the long term viability of a nation. From my personal experience, I've seen that the H1B program has been abused and distorted to the whims of the big consulting firms at the expense of the workers in the program.

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