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Comment by codingwagie | Hacker News Reader

What's not spoken about is that Amazon engineering is 80%+ h1bs. They will not push back against RTO, which is why these policies can be pushed through. American workers are pushed out to companies with better working conditions. The impact of foreign workers on corporate culture cannot be underestimated, this will ripple across corporate America. We are all worse off

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>Amazon engineering is 80%+ h1bs.

That sounds staggering. Is there a way to verify this?

Wikipedia says in 2022 there were 4.4 million software developers in the USA. H1bs are ~85,000 added per year. Say over the last 20 years, every h1b slot was filled (by software developers), they never left the USA, and remained on h1b without becoming permanent residents or citizens. That would be 1.7 million H1b software developers currently working.

In reality a large amount become permanent residents or leave. However, FAANG and FAANG-adjacent are probably only around 1 million employees (not including Amazon's non-AWS workforce, but including non-USA employees). Still, FAANG+ are unlikely to be typically anywhere near 80%+ active H1b visa employees. Maybe AWS is a standout exception.

Now, how many software developers in FAANG+ are not born in the USA might be a very different story.

Have you ever worked at a high paying tech company? Most are > 80%

I have, and this is an absurd assertion

Agreed.

My n-1 firm was a household name in cybersecurity. We had a _lot_ of contractors but almost no visa-based positions. I worked with two of the few who were, and they became citizens to stay with the company permanently.

Yeah this person is just making things up, the majority are not H1Bs. Also, there's this popular idea (usually on places like reddit) that H1Bs at big tech are paid "slave labor wages" because "They can't leave". This is just not true, they get the same salary and stock ranges as everyone else.

Source: was H1B (worked at a couple of big N, but not Amazon) until I got my green card (and then citizenship).

You'll never hear more nonsense about the industry than when the topic of H1Bs comes up.

No, I haven't

As someone that works at AWS this is absolutely not true lmao

> The impact of foreign workers on corporate culture cannot be underestimated, this will ripple across corporate America. We are all worse off

Can you expand on this?

When American corporations have an endless amount of applications from China and India, American workers have no bargaining power. Which makes working conditions worse

Specifically, it's that these foreign workers are not afforded the same protections as American workers. If they were, it would be a much more even playing field, and corporations would not have a "second-class" set of workers they could so easily bully.

Not OP, but my take is that it’s really not great for American workers or immigrants.

For immigrants, their ability to stay in America is predicated on maintaining a good relationship with their employer. If they have a spouse in the US who isn’t American, an interruption at work is a huge problem. And navigating the legal immigration system (USCIS) is a nightmare.

As an aside, when people list “immigration” as an election issue, I wish they were talking about USCIS. It sucks. They are slow, unresponsive, and their instructions are ambiguous. People pay thousands of dollars to lawyers to help them navigate it. Oh and you have to send everything via snail mail.

For American workers, the main problem is that our ability to organize depends on the threat of withholding labor. If companies can prevent unionization it makes it pretty much impossible to negotiate with companies. Working conditions and salary are two of the main things workers would collectively negotiate but can’t.

Also, there are many instances of H1B workers being paid far below market rate. You can check H1B salaries online. One blatant example I found was an “AI scientist” being paid $75k in San Jose, CA by Zoom. San Jose is basically Silicon Valley and has one of the highest COL in the US, and an AI Scientist is an expert who should be paid handsomely.

More broadly there was an investigation by the EPI on this trend of underpaying workers below prevailing wages:

https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-widespread-wage...

It's kind of how scabs destroy the bargaining power of a union. When you have a group of people desperate enough to work under conditions others won't do, you can optimize for that group of people and just ignore complaints.

That is an excellent point! And one that is often not factored into economic models.

> 80%+ h1bs

This is laughable, cite a source or get out.

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