Silicon Valley Is Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants
huffingtonpost.com
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If you truly believe that H-1B should exist only for truly extraordinary talent, not available in the U.S. at any salary, this might be a reasonable proposal. But the thing is, there is already a program for extraordinary talent, the O-1 and EB-1 categories. If you instead believe that it should be possible for companies to get the best talent, regardless of where they happen to have been born, and for people to work abroad from their nations of birth, then the H-1B program can't be quite that stringent. It is a skilled workers program, and H-1B workers are skilled. It is not a genius engineer only program.
Now, if your proposal is to change green card process so that employers can't hold people hostage over it, or to institute controls that companies can't underpay H1-B workers on average, that's one thing. But in the current political climate the suggestions seems to be "all foreigners must go! exceptions made for super stars". If the U.S. is truly becoming that closed, I genuinely think that, over time, it will find the best technology being developed elsewhere (maybe not at the research lab level if it keeps the O-1/EB-1 programs, but at the industrial/software innovation level for sure). Either in the countries that welcome immigration of skilled professionals (e.g. Canada, Germany, Singapore) or those with large pools of human capital to being with (e.g. China and India).
I dunno, I say the more the merrier. There's lots of problems to solve, may as well solve them here.
Second to last paragraph:
"Employers claim that they hire H-1Bs for rare skill sets or outstanding talent ― traits that they would need to pay a premium for on the open market. Yet current law requires only that they pay the average wage. Worse, it is the average wage within one of those four experience levels. Instead, we should replace this with a single wage floor set at the 75th percentile of the overall wage distribution for the given occupation and region."
Silicon Valley is actively exploiting H1Bs and antagonizing and attacking US born/educated workers just to justify bringing in a cheaper labour force of lower skilled workers from India and China.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think the system should incentive not hiring Americans because they can resign with more ease, that is absurd. But on the other hand, I don't think the U.S. really benefits over the long run of having a system where the talent market is strongly distorted by citizenship. Let me put it another way, would you think it is a good idea, if it were legal to do so, if California passed a law saying people born out of state should only be able to work here at 75th percentile overall wage for their occupation?
What are the names of those "normal visas"?
And added on that temporary work permit that'd be suitable for contractors.
The USA issues over 3 million visas under which work is permitted per year, so I wonder why isn't there room in the existing legislative framework to accommodate skilled workers without having them be given H1-B.
The government of a country should be first and foremost advocates for, and protectors of, the welfare of its own citizens. If a large number of those citizens are being encouraged to accumulate massive debts gaining an education that them leaves them unable to find a job, then that is a social problem that needs a solution. And if the government can help the situation by putting reasonable restrictions on the number of foreign workers competing for those jobs, then they absolutely should do that.
I really do not understand how so many people came to view these kind of theoretical, free-market niceties as more important than the practical wellbeing of their fellow citizens, but it's an incredibly dangerous attitude. If you support free-markets and globalisation, then you should want them implemented in a way that doesn't cause major social damage that ends up creating hostility to them. Otherwise, you end up with the kinds of populist movements we're seeing now, which feed upon the resentments of people who've watched successive governments refuse to place their own citizen's welfare above that of an ideology that harms them.
You can talk about culture, but I'm sure I have more in common culturally with a phd student or entrepreneur in Dhaka than a Christian fundamentalist in Kansas.
I understand that there is a lot of complexity in these issues, but it's hard for me to see nationalism as anything more than a form of widely accepted bigotry.
Given that many US citizens don't start paying much if anything in the way of taxes until post-education (18-22), a non-citizen coming to the US right after college will be paying roughly the same.
But ok, let's say that's not persuasive. I was born in New Jersey, and grew up in Maryland. I moved to California when I was 23 to start working. My family had of course never paid CA state taxes. Should CA have placed artificial "preferences" on workers who were born in CA, preferences that would have put me at the bottom of the hiring pile? Should I have been excluded from a job because other Californians were unemployed at the time? If that sounds ridiculous, then applying the same reasoning to a non-citizen sounds just about as ridiculous.
They pay taxes because now they are here within the imaginary lines and even if they don't get Social security, etc they are still benefitting from being here where they have all the other niceties of being here.
Re: citizens don't start paying until 18.
Their parents paid for them.
Re: California
Still part of a larger imaginary piece where everyone contribute.
You're stuck thinking in terms of just $. And no one is saying no one should be able to come here. You simply asked why do people think negatively about H1-B and I explained it to you. What company wouldn't hire workers that cost them significantly less and can't easily leave over someone local, and hence the position against. It's not difficult.
> Their parents paid for them.
Quite the opposite. Their parents got a tax deduction simply because their children exist.
>> Re: California
> Still part of a larger imaginary piece where everyone contribute.
Exactly! Just as the entire world is part of a still larger imaginary piece! Borders are just squiggly lines drawn on a map. I have more in common with an engineering student in India than with most people in middle America: socially, culturally, etc.
> You're stuck thinking in terms of just $.
I was replying to a post of yours wherein you were making an argument about solely $.
Parents absolutely pay into the system when they have children even if they get a federal tax credit. The extra food they buy is more sales tax, etc. just think about it.
excluding a few billionaires who really do believe in helping others.
With that framing, it is easy to see how it isn't (necessarily) bigotry, but just that the outsiders appear to offer little or negative value to many people. By saying "They are taking our jobs", people are expressing that they believe the outsiders being let has a negative effect on them, thus it is quite rational that they want to strengthen those imaginary lines.
Also, acting like the STEM jobs in the U.S. exist independent of globalization is disingenuous. They exist because S.V. software is used across global markets, so if protectionism for labor is ok as long as it helps your citizens, then I assume the same is true for trade protectionism or Internet 'great firewalls'? The problem is, that way, we all end up significantly worse for it.
The US is a nation of immigrants. Nobody should deny that. But when workers inside a nation are negatively affected because companies would rather source cheap labor, there's a problem. A country's job first and foremost is to protect the rights of its citizens.
They exist because S.V. software is used across global markets, so if protectionism for labor is ok as long as it helps your citizens, then I assume the same is true for trade protectionism or Internet 'great firewalls'?
No, they exist because software is used across the world. Presumably if we weren't artificially manipulating labor, it'd help the domestic industries of many countries. To your second comment, IP, labor and capital have always been separated. You are directly conflating physical and virtual goods and that would not hold up in an other discussion in this industry.
You can make this into some kind of indignant us vs them thing but I assure you there are a lot of people who care about the rights of workers everywhere and the current situation clearly has detrimental aspects.
Note that I am in favor of better conditions for workers, more progressive taxes, UBI, free higher education, some forms of fair-trade arrangements, you name it. What I am not for is "no foreigners until unemployment is strictly at zero". I think in the long run we should be able to come up with systems at the national and international levels that are fair to both local workers and immigrants. In the context of the current administration, though, I don't see us getting that, I see a lot of scapegoating, a lot of rash policies and an international industry supported by an international workforce, eventually either dying, fragmenting or leaving the U.S.
Building up domestic industries is a win for everyone and that goes for any country. Send your best workers to Silicon Valley and your nation is already suffering a drain on talent.
For many countries, blocking U.S. Internet services and substituting 80%-of-the-way domestic alternatives does just that in terms of boosting employment. It might not be the same legal framework, but if you are advocating for putting co-national workers first at all costs, then that's very much an option.
Those countries are welcome to try it and it might even be good for them, but I doubt they want to lose access to US services. That's what leverage is. If those countries have leverage then let them use it.
I think in the long run we should be able to come up with systems at the national and international levels that are fair to both local workers and immigrants.
Ok, so let's deal with the current H-1B program now instead of waiting another 4 or 8 or 16 years or however long some people would like to delay it.
You can sell your shit to me and I can't sell my labour to you. Ok, at least pay taxes locally and fund my universities, roads and infrastructures to pump up the local market.
You've got it backwards. Nobody is forcing the US to take anyone. Instead, employers in the US are instead being forced to hire native workers, and are effectively being prohibited from hiring from the rest of the world. It's this prohibition that needs to be defended.
I'm an employer, and I want to hire a French software developer. I'm willing to pay him $160,000 a year. But now, immigration restrictionists are getting in my way and saying that I can't hire him. If I hire him disregarding the laws prohibiting me from doing so, I would get hit by heavy fines and might literally be thrown in jail. Immigration restrictionists effectively advocate for the use of state violence to block me from employing non-Americans.
Now this isn't some hypothetical story that I came up with. I work for a French company that has an office in New York, and we've tried to bring a Software Developer from our Paris office for two years now. For two years in a row, he lost the H-1B lottery both times. The L-1B visa didn't work out either. My company which is French-owned and French-based and has to deal with this stuff. It's this restrictionism that has got to be justified.
One objective reason to favor hiring a candidate living locally over one abroad is effective communication. The less local a candidate is, the greater the chance of poor communication due to increasingly diverging dialects and cultures and a lack of knowledge about the local culture.
Ah, fair enough, I guess the reason is to "avoid the process of bringing someone from abroad". Sounds pragmatic enough to me.
> One objective reason to favor hiring a candidate living locally over one abroad is effective communication. The less local a candidate is, the greater the chance of poor communication due to increasingly diverging dialects and cultures and a lack of knowledge about the local culture.
You have just contradicted yourself; but let's bite: Even if this looks reasonable to you, it's nowhere near the problem you think it is and most of the times far outweighed by the other reasons you had to choose a non-locally-born-or-raised candidate.
It also decreases diversity, which studies show is an advantage and not just a nicety.
I listed that was a reason, not the only reason. Skill sets being equal, the candidate with a knowledge of the local culture will likely be the better candidate. That's not saying choose the local candidate solely because he is local. I fail to see how it's contradictory. I think we're talking about two subtlety different things. I'm talking about where someone currently resides, not where that person was born or raised.
> It also decreases diversity, which studies show is an advantage and not just a nicety.
I'm pretty sure you meant "increases diversity" because that's the popular trend. I've never comprehended why the "diversity" attribute magically makes a candidate superior. Typically, "diversity" superficially targets ethnic diversity rather than diversity in expertise, experience, or thought. Granted, those aren't mutually exclusive but they're not mutually inclusive either.
Why is it better to know the local culture? E.g. would a local 65 year old be a better or worse culture fit than a 25 year from Canada?
> That's not saying choose the local candidate solely because he is local. I fail to see how it's contradictory. I think we're talking about two subtlety different things. I'm talking about where someone currently resides, not where that person was born or raised.
The problem is you haven't given a pragmatic reason why it's better to hire a local person. Well, in fall fairness that's not fully true, you might have implied less hassle during the hiring process (the remote person has to move locally, find a place, might need more time to settle due to that).
> I'm pretty sure you meant "increases diversity" because that's the popular trend.
I meant decreases, then I've meant that diversity is an advantage as per several studies. I'm sorry it was not clear.
I am the one referencing objective reasons, not sure why would you precisely call me out as a trend follower though.
> I've never comprehended why the "diversity" attribute magically makes a candidate superior. Typically, "diversity" superficially targets ethnic diversity rather than diversity in expertise, experience, or thought. Granted, those aren't mutually exclusive but they're not mutually inclusive either.
It's interesting that I keep seeing this "diversity of thought" mantra more and more often. I am seriously asking: Where did you get it from? I mean, it starts to look like a meme, so I wonder if it's on purpose.
Anyway, back to the point: What do you think diversity brings? And what do you think we refer to with "diversity"? For me it is:
- Different age
- Different gender
- Different socioeconomic background
- And any other thing that would've exposed you to different challenges in life: Your skin colour, your country of origin, your native language, where did you study, your level of studies, etc
Bringing e.g. more women or people from a different ethnic background to the team is a sure way to increase your so-called "diversity of thought". These people have probably faced different challenges than you did. Now if you want to hire someone that looks like you, grew in the same part of town, studied at the same place, had a similar socioeconomic background while growing up... Your chances of getting very similar points of view are very high.
And again, please spend some time researching the different studies, there are several by reputable sources. Apparently it is a fact that diversity is an advantage.
That and language, I have worked with devs and testers who just didn't have a great grasp on the english language which lead to a lot of frustration on both sides as we probably used half our jira comments clarifying/confirming what the other person meant.
Oh wait, but that's communism, nvm then.
But, what we are talking about here is government policy. We have a government and it makes rules. There are other governments and they make rules too. Since that's the system we have, we need to analyze and balance what's right, and what works.
STEM is a broad category. Saying there's a surplus of STEM graduates is a useless metric. Most of these graduates aren't interchangeable, let alone willing to work as cheap IT workers.
The H-1/L-1 visas are abused to screw American IT workers, I get that. Do you know how most developed countries prevent that despite lenient immigration requirements (compared to the US)? Better labor laws, unions, collective bargaining, ...
That may be true, but we're hardly a homogeneous group. There certainly isn't a surplus of skilled and qualified professionals from my subgroup of STEM. And I suspect that's the one where most H-1B visa holders end up in.
Not saying the system isn't abused: oh sweet jesus, it most certainly is. But throwing it out or reducing the caps isn't the answer. Removing all the perverse incentives and the ability of employers to use their employees' visa status as a pair of handcuffs... now that'll help.
> The government of a country should be first and foremost advocates for, and protectors of, the welfare of its own citizens. If a large number of those citizens are being encouraged to accumulate massive debts gaining an education that them leaves them unable to find a job, then that is a social problem that needs a solution.
Why are they unable to find a job?
Are they less skilled and capable than a foreign worker? If so, then the foreign worker should get the job. I care about our country's competitiveness in the science and technology landscape. If we can entice people smarter than us to come here and help make us smarter, that's the right move.
Are foreign workers willing to work for less? Well then perhaps these citizens should suck it up and be willing to work for less as well. Or maybe they shouldn't get into a field with questionable job prospects in the first place. Four years isn't a very long time; the landscape doesn't change that much, and even if it does, changing majors/fields/etc. midway through isn't that hard (and even if it is, we're talking about your job prospects for the rest of your life; that sort of thing is good motivation to take on something hard).
I want the best people here. Period. I don't care where they are from. Protectionism will just make us less competitive globally, and will move cutting-edge research and development to countries with more permissive immigration policies. We're already losing our status as the global superpower, and kicking out qualified immigrants will only hasten that decline.
>Are they less skilled and capable than a foreign worker? If so, then the foreign worker should get the job
Are you under the impression that organizations when hiring are looking to maximize skill and disregard all other factors?
once you reach 'good enough' skill level, its a cost minimization game.
If the American costs twice as much, but the foreign worker is good enough - who should get the job?
If there's a race to the bottom, maybe the solution is for workers to force capital to stop pitting them against each other.
Obviously the H-1 program is flawed, and it allows for some pretty perverse incentives. But we should be focusing on fixing that, not applying some asinine protectionism policy.
And a much better question: is the problem that we're letting too many immigrants in, or that capital has had control of the laws and culture so much that labor can't fight to get their fair share? Immigrants don't write the laws, they don't make the business decisions, all they do is sign up for a space in the H1B lottery.
If your field isn't getting its share, maybe it's not the immigrants who should be getting the blame for this.
The O-1 visas have been growing too, particularly issued to UK nationals: https://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/1bc51064/4/
However, the claim that immigrant employees are somehow not as good as their American counterparts is based on shoddy logic.
The criteria he uses in his paper to measure this:
- high salary - high rate of patent production - Ph.D. dissertation awards - doctorate earned at a top-ranked university - employment in R&D
Because of issues with the employment based visa, he himself argues earlier in the article that immigrant employees end up with a lower salary.
Top ranked universities don't always admit people based on merit. Being in the country when applying to school and speaking the language have huge advantages. A lot of graduate admissions are on a case by case basis, and getting an in person meeting with the professor can make all the difference. Also, top graduate schools tend to be a lot more expensive.
Employment is R&D is also hampered by the fact that immigrants don't have comparatively fewer choices when looking for a job, again because of issues with employment based visas. This is especially true is you want to do research in aerospace or materials because of security clearances.
Overall, this doesn't give me a lot of confidence in his other analyses.
Disclaimer: I'm an immigrant, so I'm not without my biases here.
However, if you believe my reasoning, then he isn't really measuring anything. So, we don't know if immigrants are exceptional or ordinary or worse. Or at least not based on his paper.
http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2016-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx
There are some companies that underpay, while other pay quite well. Conflating the two is like throwing out the baby with the bath water.
1- https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1f0iZ7VZkA7Th2dCE6rgD...
Unless you are living in NYC/SV your cost of living in the US is lower, you tax burden is lower. 86K$ is more than the vast majority of highly paid developers in Europe get.
I don't understand why Amazon/Google paying 50-60K Euros in Germany or even lower than that in other EU countries with a tax burden of nearly 50% of income is fine by some guy from India coming and working for 85K+ in the US is somehow exploitation.
Do companies take advantage of the fact that they relocate people from effectively developing nations and pay them below market rates, sure, that's business but honestly do you think anyone complains? The average indian developer with 5-10 years of experience earns between 350-500K RS a year, with the 350-400K being more common this is about 5500-6000$.
If you think that the cost of living in India is so low that it can offset the discrepancy in income then you clearly haven't spent much time in India.
Some employers might abuse H1B too much, some might even do illegal things with it, but that's the case those things are illegal, just offering a lower than average salary isn't illegal, it's not even amoral.
In contrast in California, one pays as high as 33% tax rate and get a fraction of these services.
I wouldn't be tempted to change my 60K euros Berlin salary with 110K $ San Diego salary. I would have a much better life quality in Berlin.
Nobody says that the fault is with the Visa holder who happily work for less than average wage. The problem is with companies exploiting this law which was designed to attract best talents who wouldn't work for less than average because they know their worth.
As a foreigner, I say this is not fair to local population (including those immigrant after they obtain their permanent residency) whose wages are kept low by companies who abuse these laws.
$86K might might not be competitive for the HN crowd with their inflated egos, but it's quite high for a number that includes other industries and regions.
Tell the average American to guess what underpaid is, they're likely going to guess lower 86K. You got to wonder why these rants don't like to cite any actual numbers.
Normally jobs are a two way relationship, with either party being able to back out if things are working out. With H1B's, the employee is a lot more tied down to the company.
However, the HN version of the headline omits "Trump is Right:", which I suppose is attention grabbing, especially from an outlet like HuffPo.
Well, whenever something isn't being done about X, that implies headlines saying "X!" probably aren't quite "duh" enough.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" -- Upton Sinclair
And also...
"News Flash: Water is Wet! Government Has No Plan To Deal With Issue, Forms Committee."
He was my CS professor as an undergrad.
I haven't seen H1B visa's used like this in my personal experience. At the last company I worked for they were mostly used to fill our testing team with people from India.
Maybe they were all guinness, the problem was all but one of them could speak/write english fluently.
I can also look at my boyfriend's current employer who recently took a trip to india in order to hire a team of indians "on the cheap" only to fire all but 1 within a month after they didn't really get anything productive done.
The comment was in response to a lot of "citizens first, immigrants only if they don't hurt our current citizens at all" arguments here. By proposing that visas may be, or at least could be, a form of foreign policy I believe helps to dispute that point in general, highlighting higher goals than plugging talent shortages that may or may not exist.
Anyway, the point should be you want to get people who are skilled. Maybe/maybe not that means English fluency. But, that's another matter.
It seems most abuse[0] happens due to random Indian body-shops. Since Trump is so carte-blanche maybe he can just blacklist the ones we know to be obvious abusers.
Maybe a better answer is to require all H1-Bs be actual full-time employees of the company, rather than being under contract through a third party?
[0]I define abuse as using H1-Bs primarily for cheap labor vs skilled labor.
Some companies are seeking cheap labor. Others are seeking talent that American engineers don't have (except the ones they do hire).
Is this an indian pun?
In any case:
> How can you complain that foreign worker is taking your job?
maybe you can't, but this is a straw-man; you can complain your wages are lower than they should be.
No one in the Techtopus scandal was likely 'low' page, but it was still wage theft.
Just to be clear, immigrants should be welcome to become devs. And dental hygienists, drywall installers, real estate agents, and sandwich shop owners. What I don't welcome is a program that specifically uses the immigration system to increase the number of developers relative to other professions. That should be left to the market and freedom of choice for the individuals who participate in it.
I just see absolutely no reason whatsoever to give tech employers the power to determine who is allowed to come to the US, what jobs they are allowed to work, and the circumstances under which they are allowed to remain in the US. This is immensely harmful, and doesn't have much to do with immigration. It has to do with corporate control over the immigration system.
Because H-1B visa is broken. Just cause there's a good side to it doesn't mean we can ignore the broken parts.
Take the good parts and fix the bad one.
Worker exploitation is not going to help native workers nor helped international workers.
> They don't ever hear about how the best employees at Microsoft, Google, and Facebook are also H-1B's.
Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc.. have caught colluded in wages before.
Nitpick - if you meant the "no cold call agreement" case, the defendants were Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and eBay. Microsoft was not accused.
Sometimes the visa sponsors(employers) does not enter a specific salary, but a salary range.
Our algorithm uses the middle point of the range to calculate the average salary.It's much easier to bring workers on L visa - they have even less opportunity to skip jobs or aruge for a raise than H1B holders, and there's no lottery and no limits. Just bring as much people on L as possible.
As far as I know, Microsoft did this with Canada long ago. They hire you and relocate to Canada, then after a year they make L visa for you and toss over the border to Redmond.
Usually when people talk about the "H1b" debate they're talking about the whole constellation of skilled temporary worker visas (H1, L1, OPT, etc).
> can not work offsite
Can you elaborate what's officially permitted and what is not? Because wikipedia is unclear on the subject and refers to legalese that I have no hope of understanding.
Many countries have agreements with US that allow their citizens to work without the hassle of h-1b
Sadly, because of the clout Indian outsourcing firms have in filing the number of h1b applications, most people think Indian outsourcing firms are steeling jobs.