You can look at the data, SV companies aren't paying H1B people low wages. Unless you think 200-300k is low wages.
You are looking at the top 100 companies and their full-time employees but not at the 1000s of vendor-employer ponzi scheme/scams that happen every day in the form of contractors who apply with fake resumes, take proxy interviews and outsource the assigned work to someone in India. Doesn't stop there, the dependents of those do a unlicensed food selling, baby sitting, work in local stores, what not. The hard to digest fact is the student who comes on F1 visa, succumbs to the pressure of 90 days period to get into a job to maintain the visa status joins a consultancy company, which starts the game. These consultancies market the candidate with high experience fake resume, arranges proxy candidate to take interviews, even Falsify the requirement of GC/citizenship candidate requirement - all these to charge the client a 100$/hr and pay a mere 40$/hr to the candidate through their sister companies acting as layers. A honest try from USCIS to do a quick scan in containing these will drop at least 50% of H1B lottery applications, void 30% of the consulting company licenses and also help the right talent to get an opportunity. If you are a gov/USCIS rep, drop me an email I'll be more than happy to provide more details, and possible ways of catching the wrong ones.
Once you let employees freedom, the market will take care of the salary. I also understand that employers invest in the visa application and relocation of people, so it should be fair to them as well. This can solved by having a period (1-year is pretty reasonable) that prohibits new visa holders from moving companies.
It's almost like the SV's previous gentleman agreement of non-poaching got replaced with "hey, let's use H1Bs, sure we might have to pay near market rates, but at least we can tie them down for at least 3/5 years without any option of leaving".
Personal experience in my part of the world seems to suggest that it is cost. Permanent employees are expensive and H1B's are so terrified of losing employment they are willing to work around the clock and for less.
I would like to see the whole program gone. I don't believe it is being used as it was intended.
This doesn't include stock so maybe double that number for TC.
https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=STRATEGIC+STAFFING+IT+INC&...
It's possible (maybe even likely) that title deflation is happening, but based on my experience the salaries are definitely in line with the pay ranges for each job title (I worked at Amazon for 3 and a half years, so I have some first and second hand information on pay.)
If nothing else it's a great resource to see the unfiltered payscale at SV companies.
Americans are plenty smart, but they are only 4% of the world population. American companies compete on an international stage and not having access to the other 96% of talent would be a competitive disadvantage.
Many SV companies are in constant need of more skilled engineers.
Since the H1B visa can be transferred, when I arrived in the USA, nothing would have prevented me from going door to door and find a better paying job. Especially in the SV where there are tons of companies hiring.
So companies have a good incentive to give you a fair salary.
This is not true for all visas. In particular there is one visa (sorry can't remember its name off the top of my head) that is an "international transfer visa" : you work for one year for the company in a foreign country and then you can move to the USA while continuing to work for that company. It is pretty easy to get that visa but it is also very hard to transfer it to another company afaik.
Hiring is also a bit broken in our industry. The thing is, it is often pretty hard to distinguish what makes a good or a bad engineer. This being said, there are just not enough skilled engineers in the USA.
It would absolutely be possible to hire more local engineers and train them on the job but that would cost a lot of time for uncertain results. Companies prefer to hire engineers that can already be pretty productive from day 1.
https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=netflix&year=2020
https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=apple&year=2020
At the price point you wanted. A pool of eager H1Bs reduces the need for companies on the same block to be competitive on wages.
It'd be really interesting to see data on how often H1B's change jobs compared to the rest of the population.
All reputable Silicon Valley companies pay people exactly the same whether they are on a visa, have a green card, or are a US citizen.
I know for a fact that in my industry (not in SV) H1-B wages are lower, going off both public data and conversations I've had with H1-B coworkers, many who I consider my friends.
As a side note, I don't blame H1-B workers at all for coming here. They're generally great developers and great people.
source: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/immigration/h1b
According to you, L&T were taking a cut out of the wages. Honestly, you should blow the whistle. L&T or whatever that middleman company is, they need to shutdown their H1-B program.
It is simply illegal otherwise.
(Sorry, not trying to be a jerk, but it is quite nuanced and I don't remember the details).
It’s both obvious and not at the same time, how does that work?
Can you please show me how it's obvious?
your words:
> I'm not referring to a deep secret. This is well documented. Just search the Internet for H1-B "prevailing wage" loophole and you'll find some.
and in the next sentence you seem to imply that it is not obvious, again your words:
> but it is quite nuanced and I don't remember the details
Nowhere did I say it. Definitely not in this statement:
> I'm not referring to a deep secret. This is well documented. Just search the Internet for H1-B "prevailing wage" loophole and you'll find some.
I suggest that if you want to have a fruitful discussion, you not put words into people's mouths.
* A "loophole" is easily searchable on the internet, and that I'll find "some"
* You don't believe that is "obvious"
<scratches head> You ok, my dude?
How so? Presumably he signed his contract in India - how would his company enforce it?
1) H1B's get salaries that are comparable to US engineer salaries.
2) A middleman takes a big bite out of that, the engineer thus takes home less.
3) H1B's are essentially like most immigrants, indentured servants who have no freedom to leave their employers, thus have little leverage asking for promotions or even autonomy as an employee.
4) Companies probably are most aware of 3) but it seems like at least for FAANG the biggest factor is they don't want to invest in training people and rather want people who already are skilled and such. It's probably true if you draw your net very tightly yes anyone can find that there aren't enough qualified workers out there who won't demand I guess near half a mill salaries.
Shut them down. Enforce the law.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/immigration/h1b
FYI for the rest: the user-ids in green means that they created their account recently.