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Comment by genidoi | Hacker News Reader

So many commenters here (presumably US/CA citizens) don't realize that the gut-wrenching feeling of being laid off whilst your visa depends on uninterrupted employment is _nothing_ like the SHTF-but-all's-ok feeling of being laid off 'regularly'.

In the USA, for most work visas, you are given a 60 day death clock pleasantly sugarcoated as a 'grace period' to find a new employer or leave the country. Cue trying weave in that baggage in between screening calls & technical interviews to explain to prospective employers how you have 47 days and 15 hours left to be hired or leave. The complication of dealing with USCIS and attaining a work visa (usually bound to your employer) is a marathon even with unlimited time, but in a puny 8 week window?...

In my own experience this also happened in mid 2021 when Australia's borders were closed (to AU citizens as well...) so leaving back home wasn't even an option.

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And so many people are okay coming into another country and wage dump because "its their right" to move halfway across the world to work in the USA or EU.

See stuff like: https://www.thelocal.se/20070523/7387/

You can't have it both ways.

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I guess this is just CBS being racist :)

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-h-1b-visas-have-been-abused...

"But this week on 60 Minutes, correspondent Bill Whitaker reports that the H-1B visa program has since been seriously abused, allowing companies to fire American workers and to bring in cheap foreign labor."

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No no, just downvote me more, don't reply, don't discuss, just hide what is uncomfortable.

For the USA, you can't attain an H1-B / E-3 / <other work visa for SWE or other technical role> without your employer compensating you above the prevailing wage[0] (determined by the DoL) paid in the city you are being hired in in the field you are being hired in.

[0] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/foreign-labor/wages#:~:text....

Is that real in practice?

I have heard they can just claim "oh we cant find anyone!" and get someone for cheaper abroad.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-h-1b-visas-have-been-abused...

No H1-B engineer at a FAANG class company is going to tolerate getting less compensation than their peers and their managers, many of them former H1-Bs as well, would not tolerate giving them less compensation either. Pichai at Google and Nadella at Microsoft are themselves non-US born engineers who have climbed their way to the top.

The body shops are a different story but this is about Meta.

That link is paywalled. Can you explain a bit more?

Sorry, they must be doing random paywalls

http://archive.today/OST1s

Basically: - Greedy company wants to hire latvian workers for cheap. Latvian wages in Sweden. basically half of Swedish wages.

- Union strikes

- Union gets called racists and all kinds of shit

- Weird compromise is made that basically gives EU countries right to social wage dump

Basically Sweden is heavy unionized so when companies can just remove the deal it breaks down: https://www.unionen.se/in-english/videos-more-about-unionen-...

I vouched for your post because you posted that companies abuse visas, with links. I don't see why it was flagged.

As far as Meta, I don't understand why recent articles criticize it. The engineers themselves are just posting on LinkedIn to seek new opportunities. This was Meta's first layoff and they're paying people for 3-4 months before the 60 day period even begins.

And when locals are let go, coworkers say "Oh, but it's good that you're not on a Visa". Should that really be a factor Meta takes into account when laying people off?

And for many tech companies, many or most of their engineering employees are on Visa; it's expected that percentage reflected in the layoffs, too.

Aside from Visas, Meta had a hiring freeze below E7 for most roles since May, which might be seen as a signal they were trying to preserve existing employees in favor of onboarding new ones.

Also, many people who last more than a week are later let go right before stock vests. Most everyone in that position will have wished they were let go their first week and got paid for four months, while they accept another offer from that same interview cycle.

I don't know about you, but that's pretty much how/why my ancestors got here.

Okay, cool story? Doesn't say anything, really.

I have super super super distant relatives in the USA due to the Swedish migration 200 years ago. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Swedish_emigration_to_the_United...

But that was a different time, with different rules, with a different market.

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