Trump administration goes ahead with rule to scrap visa lottery | Hacker News Reader

Trump administration goes ahead with rule to scrap visa lottery

mercurynews.com

56 pointsrawgabbit41 comments

> ...a regulation to replace the lottery-based allocation system for the controversial H-1B visa with a wage-based process

So, it seems that the deal is to switch from a "random" assignment, to one based on proposed wage, favoring - I presume - higher wages.

This might actually be an interesting idea. Let me explain.

I'm not up to date, but a few years ago the issue with H1-B was that the big Indian consulting firms (Wipro, Tata (TCS), HCL, Infosys, Tech Mahindra) [0] were used to submit a VERY large amount of H1-B applications, knowing that about 1/3rd to 1/4th of these would "win" the lottery and be accepted. As a result, most of the H1-B granted are theirs (top 3 in this list [1]).

At least, if it's wage-based instead of random, they would be forced to review the wages offered to Indians moving to the US to work for them.

I am not sure if there are other implications (did I miss something important in my little analysis?), but I think it would be something worth exploring more.

[0]: https://www.deccanherald.com/business/economy-business/india...

[1]: https://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2020-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.asp...

This is a good change which prevents body shops from privatizing the financial surplus of the visa. Right now body shops can flood the lottery and underpay their employees relative to direct hire h1b.

I agree. The H-1B lottery favors exploiting foreign workers for relatively low paying tech jobs with poor working conditions. I hope this article is wrong about Biden reversing this.

For the record, I make $300/month as a hired software engineer here in Russia. I would prefer slightly better conditions, than no such opportunity at all.

Nonsense. You can make this working as a cashier at Magnit (grocery chain). Average salary for non-skilled labor outside of Moscow is $500 per month. Probably higher when you consider the gray/black market (tax avoidance is huge here).

A competent software developer in Russia working remotely for western countries is making at least $20 per hour, and in many cases much more. Even a developer working for local companies is going to make several grand per month.

Here's some random ad in Krasnodar: https://krasnodar.hh.ru/vacancy/40992302 for web developer.

10 000 - 30 000 RUB which is $134 - $400. And that's not even Junior position, as it's required to have 1-3 years of experience to apply and plenty of checkboxes to tick.

I agree that good developer can find much better wages, especially if he's not hesitating to move to Moscow/SPb. But not every developer is good and not everyone is fine with relocating.

English translation of this ad: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&u=https:/...

Crazy, thanks for the info - that's not far from where I am (Anapa). There's many devs living here working for western or Moscow companies.

Is this common in Russia? It seems low even for a junior and even in Russia. When I look on Upwork and Freelancer, decent mid and senior level developers in Russia/Ukraine etc seem to charge $30/hour on the low end.

Can't you freelance for more money if that's true?

It's probably just Russia. Software developer salaries in Ukraine[0] are usually in 2k-5k per month range with virtually no tax overhead. Median for the city of Kyiv was 2800 USD per month in 2020.

You probably can get as low as 300 working in public sector, but I'm not sure about that now.

[0] https://dou.ua/lenta/articles/salary-report-devs-june-2020/

Is it true that you do actually get paid in USD due to UAH being unstable?

Yes, all contracts in last 10 and something years I had were denominated in USD.

Now what you get -- that depends. It's either USD or EUR wired from abroad directly or equivalent sum in UAH if you have contract with Ukrainian entity (we simply can't have transactions inside the country in currencies other then hryvnia). You can't get your hands on hard cash in USD or EUR either way, but in the first scenario you can at least keep it and choose when to sell.

Yes. Absolute majority of software developers in Ukraine work as contractors with rate fixed in USD/EUR.

Not sure how common it is but it's not that difficult to get more. A bit difficult for me to say what the exact numbers are at the moment but most of my friends make around 4 to 5 thousands USD after all taxes (nvidia, jetbrains, some remote work).

That sounds really low, even for Russia. Could you share a bit more about your location, and perhaps how junior/senior you are?

That's pretty realistic for Russia, Russia is big and non-homogenous with the most of wealth concentrated in 2-3 cities.

This looks extremely low, you should be able at least twice of that as a junior without much experience.

Do you even get dollars or you have fixed sum in RUB in your contract?

If he's in Russia, he gets paid in rubles. It's easier to just put out USD values everyone can understand considering how international HN is. Also,not sure if that's still the case but US dollars used to be tightly woven into day to day lives of Russians because of ruble's instability.

Well of course they get RUB, the question is -- whether the sum in RUB fluctuates along with exchange rate or stays fixed and they eat the cost of denomination.

I just checked and that's less than half the median wage...

That is a lie.

There's no evidence that this is true. H-1B workers are generally paid above market wages compared to workers of similar skill level[1].

This argument is often brought up when people compare median wages, but they seem to forget that half of the American workforce isn't paid the median wage.

[1]https://www.cato.org/blog/100-h-1b-employers-offer-average-m...

H1-B visas were intended to be used to exceptional workers in cases where there was genuine immediate need for them. Currently they are just being used for matters of convenience. That’s people true gripe with them.

The US should steal Australia's point based system of immigration. Put a value on the attributes we are looking for and if you reach that number of points you can immigrate. It is far too difficult to become a naturalized US citizen.

It is a lot easier to become a US citizen than an Australian one.

Statements like this requires a huge asterisk, in that it depends very heavily on where you are from and what's your background in general.

This certainly isn't true for someone like me.

Try New Zealand. Even harder.

Try Canada, the paperwork required is just something.

I personally know someone who managed to exploit H1B to work a relatively low skilled job who can be done by Americans instead. The person even managed to get a permanent residence an bringing his family with him. It was a motel manager job.

The UK did this really well with the erstwhile Tier1 visa program: no work restrictions (including starting your own company), but show us annual earnings of more than, for example 2x of the general populations average salary when you apply to renew every 2 years.

Doesn't that guarantee that foreigners will continue to be paid more than locals?

Is that a problem? Isn’t the usual complaint that foreigners are happy to accept less pay, and h1bs are used to fuel that?

You want foreigners to cost more, to incentivize usage of the local population first — and the whole point of the h1b was supposed to be to “improve the average”, by only hiring for those skills/expertise that can be met by local population.

It could cause other problems for other people, like gentrification of entire cities.

This is literally an episode of south park: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Comes_the_Neighborhood

Why would a business pay 2x to someone when they can get the same output from a local at 1x pay? Unless they(business) are doing some financial trickery

>Why would a business pay 2x to someone when they can get the same output from a local at 1x pay?

In the Netherlands it's 2x of median salary across all job market, not 2x of the same position that could be filled by local. The idea of this policy is to prevent foreigners (which EU citizens are not) from outbidding locals and lowering the living standard in the country.

So if knowledge workers are a scarce resource which you can't find at home, you are naturally paying more.

Because they can't get the work done by locals? Isn't that half if not the entire point of bringing people in through H1-B visas?

Exploitation, easier disposal, less accountability, more access to higher qualifications, etc.

The ones that don't make the bar at the renewal time go home, and many did.

What does this mean for people on H1-B visas right now?

People who are already on H1B do not fall into this quota. Their visas can be extended up to 3+3 years or their employer should apply for a green card so they can stay beyond the 6 year limit.

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