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Comment by surferbayarea | Hacker News Reader

Companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple have thousands of job openings and are desperate to hire more talent. They will happily interview anyone(from US, India, China, heck Syria) if the person is qualified. So this is just xenophobia(surprising to see such thinking in comments here on HN). The effect though is that top valley companies have already instituted a policy to stop hiring fresh-grad H1bs to avoid risk.

While so far, places like silicon valley have been unique in being centers of innovation, this will change. Till just a couple decades ago, you literally had to be physically in the office to work on a database server etc. Within a generation or so, the advantage of physically being in silicon valley will be immaterial.

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Sorry, but there’s a massive difference between when Apple, Google etc hires an H1-B and when someone like TCS does. Very different jobs and very different reasons for using the visa.

Google, Microsoft, Apple aren’t Indian body shops. Not many of us think the former are abusing H1Bs like the latter.

In that case the solution would have been simple - just ban the top-10 in this list that are in consulting: https://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2017-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.asp...

Unfortunately, this is a political issue. Eq the changes proposed in http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-ho... will affect more than 10% of current employees at Google, Apple, Microsoft. Note - you cannot just fire these 10% employees and replace them with another warm body.

I agree with you that the abuse is being done by a few companies(some of which are Indian - Infosys/TCS, others American - eq IBM/Accenture, French - Capgemini). However, the "solutions" that have already been executed by the current administration are aimed at appeasing the economically disadvantaged section of American society. The reason for rising unemployment is not foreigners stealing American jobs, it is driven by economic disparity and in some ways an artifact of how technology innovation disproportionately benefits the few. Throw out all 100% H1bs and other foreign workers and it will not move the unemployment index at all.

PS: Reflect on the bias underlying your comment re:Indians. If you actually look at the data, you will see the companies abusing the system are not just Indian, but American, French, European as well.

Oh I totally agree, and not all Indian companies are body shops. IBM is in my mind at the same level as infosys these days.

Also the total number of unemployed people in US is 6.6 million. The number of H1b visas granted every year is 65000 (that's 2 orders of magnitude). If you were put in charge of solving the unemployment problem of USA, would you focus on the 99% bucket or the 1% bucket? So you would agree that the backlash is driven by xenophobia and not any possible rational or data driven argument.

And xenophobia is ok - it is a deep human flaw and an artifact of evolution and resource constraints. As smart logical people we should be conscious of our xenophobic biases. Not being aware of that is what leads to things like 1930s Germany.

More like 15%.

Arguably the total number of working H-1B visas (including extensions while waiting for a green card) (and working H-4 dependents) is the more relevant metric.

That number is not tracked directly, but it's about a million or so, all at significantly higher wages than the median US personal income of $31,099/y.

https://qz.com/949589/the-h-1b-visa-cap-tells-you-very-littl...

Multiply the yearly grant rate by six and you get abiutnthe total number of H1Bs, so not quite a million.

But regardless, it’s not like all unemployed are competing with body shoppers, while the HN crowd probablybisnt either.

Yeah it's different non intersecting sets. Also, if you add all the jobs created by companies started by H1bs, it's definitely more than a million.

Not many of us are against H1Bs in general, but it is easy to dislike the body shops because they don’t add much to the economy (not creating jobs).

Companies like Infosys, TCS, Accenture, Capgemini provide backoffice services for many Western business at a lower price point than what they could do themselves. That adds much to the economy.

The real leeches in this system are the consulting/placement shops.

Sure, it isn’t binary. Infosys is a good example of a mixture.

First of all, the annual number of H1Bs is over 85000: there are 65K general H1Bs, 20K for people who got Master's degree in the US and uncapped number for non-profits and other exempt orgs. And non-profit is not necessarily a shelter for orphaned kittens, NFL is one, for example.

Secondly - H1B can be extended indefinitely while the AOS process is pending, this is in the news right now since Trump's admin announced they are looking into ways to prevent this. The same news are saying over a million H1Bs holders will be affected if the admin succeeds.

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