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Comment by wsxcde | Hacker News Reader

Although Infosys and the like apply for a lot of H1Bs, they make very very few (we're talking double-digit numbers) successful applications for green cards. This means most of these people on H1Bs for the consulting companies are actually going back home.

Which means that Infosys, TCS and the like are contributing a rotating pool of about ~30k-40k "migrant" software labor consisting of individuals who live in the US for a maximum of a couple of years. Could this be the reason why Americans wages are depressed? Well, let's run the numbers. There are 3.6 million software developers in the US. 40k is an insignificant fraction of that. So no. That's not it.

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Let's examine your math. So this year there were 86,000 visas for 2017 that last for 3 years. So that means by 2020, if the visa limit stays at 86,000, there will be 258,000 H1Bs, of course this assumes that H1Bs were created in 2017, we are ignoring all those that came before. Let's NOT ignore those and look at the below link -

http://insights.dice.com/2013/05/14/how-nearly-800000-h-1b-w...

Yes, in 2013, it was 775,957. So by now, let's say it's closer to 1.2 million. That's a third of all software developers in the USA.

So Yes! This is exactly the reason that American wages are depressed in the job markets that H1Bs work in.

A few points - you're assuming all of those visas were for low-skilled software development (however you define it as). The alternative to wages being depressed is the work moves entirely to a different country. The central problem is the consequence of the way balance sheets are structured. Employees are a cost center that reduce profit, rather than an asset. Unless your company is developing software (in which case you never want to outsource), you don't want to hire any IT if possible. So Basically, not hiring H1bs is "leaving money on the table". Its hard to convince someone to not make more money.

Every country has its exports, lets say for a moment that India's export is IT services, and the market is global. The work visas allow them to "sell" into the US market, in a very limited way. Its as good as it gets in terms of protectionism for the US. If we were told J&J could only sell 100 shampoos each year in China or India, that would sound weird and bizarre. I don't believe IT services any different in principle. Its just that when you purchase an iPhone the hundred Chinese employees who worked to produce it are not seen. But they have technically displaced/depressed American wages just like every other import.

You can't stay for more than 6 years on an H1B unless your employer files a PERM application, has that approved, and then you/your employer files an I-140, and that is also approved. In other words, if your employer never filed a PERM, or never had one approved, you have to leave after a maximum of 6 years.

Green card applications for Indians (and to a lesser extent Chinese and Mexicans) are backed up for decades. So you're looking at people who filed PERMs in the last decade and are still waiting for green cards. They're allowed to stay on the H1B, which is why we have 800k people on H1Bs today. But these people are not working for Infosys, they're working for Google and Microsoft.

The 86,000 number contains 20,000 visas allocated to people who have graduate degrees from US universities. I don't think any of these folks are working for Indian consulting firms. So that leaves about 66,000 visas and 40,000 of those, at most, go the consulting firms. I did make an error in my math, which is not accounting for the fact you can stay for 6 years on this visa. Anecdotally, I know that most people of these people leave after about 2-3 years, when their "project" ends. But anyway, let's assume the worst case. You may have 240,000 people in the US on an H1B and working for an Indian tech consulting firm. That is still a small fraction of 3.6 million.

You should really look at TCS/WIPRO/InfoSys employees, or talk to them, it would really enlighten you.

240,000 is way more than your initial 40,000, yet you still say it's a small fraction.

So many articles say differently. I guess they could be all wrong. https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2016/04/14/how-the-salari...

Yes, it is 6.67%. That is literally the definition of a small fraction. And that is assuming a gross overestimate of 240k employees for Indian consulting firms in the US. Exact numbers are hard to get but here are some more facts: Infosys had a total of 23,594 employees in the US for 2016. TCS in 2012-13 had a total of only 21,830 employees outside India. With the two biggest H1B employers out of the way, I don't see how you're going to support your claim that there are 700k employees of Indian consulting firms on H1Bs in the US. It is simply not possible.

I have plenty of friends who work for Infosys and TCS. None of my friends even applied for a green card and they all went back to India after a couple of years here at the most. Many postings in the US at these companies last only 9-12 months. And neither TCS nor Infosys have any interest whatsoever in helping people immigrate to the US. (You need an employer to file a PERM application if you want a green card. A green card is required if you want to stay here more than 6 years.) That is the exact opposite of what they want to do.

The article you've mentioned says nothing about H1Bs. Outsourcing is not going to go away even if you eliminate H1Bs. And yes, all these articles making noise about this epidemic of H1Bs are in fact wrong. They're written by a bunch of poorly-informed Americans who wouldn't know the difference between an I-140 and an I-20. And their goal is to just generate clickbait to cater to nativist sentiment in the US. There's a lot of conservatives who emphatically don't want more Indians in this country. But they know they'll never win if they argue that they don't want Google and Microsoft employees here. So instead they've come up with this nonsense about Infosys and TCS stealing American jobs.

> Well, let's run the numbers. There are 3.6 million software developers in the US. 40k is an insignificant fraction of that. So no. That's not it.

What fraction are looking for work at any given time? That's where the race to the bottom takes place.

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