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Comment by P_I_Staker | Hacker News Reader

No, it's just a way to bring in cheap labor, and bring salaries down. That's it. It's very rarely the case that there's genuinely no one here that can do the jobs. It's widely know that companies are making no legitimate attempt to hire a citizen. I'm not saying this is a good move, and I'm not commenting on the morality of it (ie. who says someone from another country shouldn't be competing for your job)

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I understand it must be comforting to issue a blanket statement like that, but I it's just simply not universally true. I was hired on an E3, next job transitioned to H1-B and now have a green card. My work has directly enabled the hiring of three Americans. Is the H1-B perfect? Of course not. But on both occasions there were no other candidates, and when I was hired on H1-B I got a mandated higher salary to meet expected pay rates.

Having just gone through the H-1B application with my company for myself, causing my small startup to pay pretty large sums of money to the USCIS and spend significant time and resources putting together the paperwork, I think they would definitely prefer to have avoided that if possible.

I'm not saying there aren't Americans who could do my job, but I have been on the hiring side since joining and there is clearly enough demand for labour in the market right now that it is hard for them to hire qualified people at all, let alone qualified Americans. Employees in this field just have so many options that companies have to go to pretty significant lengths to get who they want. And I know Americans coming from my background and working in the same field and I can tell you I am not being underpaid relative to them.

How is that possible, given that these people are paid above the prevailing wage?

That's literally one of the requirements for the Visa, the minimum has been repeatedly raised to address this problem.

So? Want to explain that to me?

If you classify someone as foo and have them do bar you can pay them above the prevailing rate for foo while actually being below the prevailing rate for bar.

It can also serve as a way for third party to earn a sizable chunk of that persons wages which would be a less likely scenario for someone hired stateside.

Why would they agree to be paid under when they are in tech where companies until at least a year ago were fighting for employees? They could literally cross the street in SF and land a better job at a better price. I mean, for a country that prides itself on free markets, it’s remarkable that you believe that free markets simply stop working.

And here’s the kicker. An H1B employee costs a company a lot more than a resident because of government fees and lawyer costs.

So if you have a citizen and an H1B holder drawing the same salary, it actually means the company values the H1B holder far more than they do the citizen.

H1B can't simply cross the street and change companies. If they find themselves between jobs they will shortly find themselves between countries and many companies have been found to have made agreements not to hire each others people.

So, as long as you're willing to commit fraud, you can commit fraud?

How is fraud a problem with the visa or the visa holder?

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