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Comment by bjornsing | Hacker News Reader

So isn't the obvious solution to move the allocation strategy from lottery to "auction" (highest payed employees get their visas first)?

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That would essentially mean only silicon valley and NYC employers would get H1B employees. The entire South would face a skills shortage. The economist article actually provides a better solution. Visas shouldn't be tied to a particular employer. The employee should be able to transition to a new employer without a new visa application. There could be minimal paperwork to determine when a foreign worker is and whether they pay prevailing wages. Also the limit on visa numbers actually make the problem worse. Instead of say Apple getting engineers they need, their visa applications now have to compete with TCS' low paying applications. Apple in this case would then be forced to subcontract TCS employees so they can work onntheir projects. Also visas are once a year thing. So employers are forced into subcontracting if they have say a 6 month project. The solution would be to eliminate cap on visa numbers and to raise the prevailing wages labor department provides on a given city and to consolidate the multitude of job titles available for visa applications. For example there are Application Engineers, UI Engineers and Software Engineers all having different prevailing wages as per labor department.

So that is how the free market works your not one of those gosh darned socialists are you :-)

And I suspect that for a "brown" skinned persons the south is not exactly a welcoming environment.

Big cities in the South are liberal oases. Houston, TX had a lesbian mayor till last year, who got married legally while in office.

But do you want to live in a Gheto

I'd rather live in a liberal area where I can be myself, than have boring/inconsequential/fake/superficial conversations about BBQ, football, weather etc.

Source: Lived in Dallas and Austin for 7 years.

>And I suspect that for a "brown" skinned persons the south is not exactly a welcoming environment.

That's very ignorant.

That's not what my co-worker who is from the south and biracial said and its perception that counts.

How so? The south is extremely hostile (in general; exceptions exist in pockets) to non-whites.

Well, if you remove the limit on the number of H1B visas then all is of course fine and dandy for employers and potential H1B visa holders like myself, but I do think you have to respect the fact that American workers have a legitimate interest in restricting the number of visas...

You missed the part about labor department reporting correct prevailing wages. That would prevent abuses.

> The entire South would face a skills shortage.

Maybe the "entire South" should increase their rates if they want to compete on talent. I have no sympathy for a company that can't find talent because "we don't pay SV rates because we're not in SV".

It's amusing how "cost of living" is somehow seen as a reasonable consideration for determining salary but not what rates a customer is charged for the products.

> Maybe the "entire South" should increase their rates if they want to compete on talent. I have no sympathy for a company that can't find talent because "we don't pay SV rates because we're not in SV".

Then the "entire South" is going to start charging you and me SV rates for their products and services. Probably not what you had in mind.

That's not the real issue. The real issue is that tech workers are not the only one's coming here on H1B, and those professions don't pay nearly what an SDE gets paid.

The premise of my post was a change to an auction-style H1B program.

Let's assume there is a $FooCorp in Alabama looking for a SysAdmin but not having much luck. They'd like to spend $70k and enter the H1B lottery under our current system. Maybe they win, maybe they lose but can hire an H1B for $80k from $OutsourcingFirm. Under an auction system, let's examine what happens instead.

$Hooli (and other SV companies) are offering $135k for SDEs. Because $135k > $70k no H1Bs can be imported as SysAdmins for $70k. This raises the cost of SysAdmin work across the country for employers. The new baseline is now somewhere above $70k which is the price it takes to attract citizens (or otherwise eligible residents) to $FooCorp.

Under an auction system, $FooCorp still needs a SysAdmin and they have 3 options:

(1) do without a SysAdmin

(2) pay more than $70K to attract an already eligible to work SysAdmin to Alabama

(3) pay more for a SysAdmin than SV pays SDEs in order to hire an H1B

Let's look at those options. If they need a SysAdmin, the first option isn't really feasible. If the role is optional, this might be a situation where they decide to do without. That means there are two options left, and the rational decision depends on what the true market value of a SysAdmin currently is. If $FooCorp can pay a citizen $100k to move to Alabama, there isn't a skills shortage. If $FooCorp can't find anyone to move to Alabama to be a SysAdmin for less than $135k, there might be a legitimate skills shortage and then the H1B program is attractive again.

It's worth noting that if $FooCorp can't find a SysAdmin for less than a SDE to move to Alabama, the true value of a SysAdmin is at least $135k (in this example). Under the current system, SysAdmins are being short-changed, both H1Bs and other eligible SysAdmins in our workforce.

There is no such thing as a skills shortage. There are only greedy employers looking to abuse a system to underpay all workers, whether they are H1Bs or otherwise authorized to work. Anyone who tells you there is a skills shortage is making money off telling you that. Don't be a sucker.

Considering tech companies are the ones filing H1 petitions by the truckload, sounds like non-tech professionals are screwed either way.

How's lottery status quo a better deal?

>> The economist article actually provides a better solution. Visas shouldn't be tied to a particular employer. The employee should be able to transition to a new employer without a new visa application.

I'm surprised by the level of expertise, demonstrated by the economist, given the fact that current H1B system already works EXACTLY THAT WAY. H1B visa holder can transfer to a new employer any time, if new employer is willing to fill in the papers, even without notifying the current employer.

L1B visa is tied to a particular employer (because it just intracompany transfer), not H1B.

> The entire South would face a skills shortage.

Any loophole created for this scenario would be immediately exploited by outsourcing companies headquartering themselves in the South, sponsoring H1's and then immediately arbitraging a freshly arrived employee to a Silicon Valley or NYC client.

> The employee should be able to transition to a new employer without a new visa application.

That is such a great idea that it's always been part of the H1 visa. New employer just needs to initiate an H1 transfer.

There are a few solutions sloshing around at the moment. This article covers some of the levers in play: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/12/fixing-...

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