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Comment by aprilthird2021 | Hacker News Reader

aprilthird2021

In general, H1B visas do have such provisions. At least in CA most jobs must provide a salary range. Even if every H1B is the lowest of the range in those postings, that alone means there are many many jobs which fit your criteria.

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The ranges are way too low then. I checked H1B salaries and I found the following in San Jose (median rent approx $2200 for 1BR):

FLEXON TECHNOLOGIES INC Database analyst: $60k

DATA TRACE INFORMATION SERVICES LLC Software engineer: $65k

PRIMARIUS TECHNOLOGIES US LLC DATA ANALYST $72k

ZOOM VIDEO COMMUNICATIONS INC AI SCIENTIST $74k

HBI SOLUTIONS INC DATABASE ADMINISTRATOR $75k

BEACONFIRE STAFFING SOLUTIONS INC COMPUTER SYSTEMS ENGINEER $88k

https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=&city=san+jose&year=2...

Sort by salary ascending and you will see what I mean.

These are blatant violations. We know how much software engineers should make. Do the immigrants know they are moving to one of the most expensive cities in the US?

Taking advantage of the system !!

The good ones do and use this as a way to get through the door.

Someone should put together a package for the new administration with advertisements to target for H1B violations. I’m sure Stephen Miller would want to see it.

Almost all H1Bs have already been in the US for years on their student visas, so of course they know COL and where they are moving to.

Those you are posting look like they could be violations. But if you just visit your link, you quickly see that most jobs are in line with median salaries in the bay area.

For example:

https://www.indeed.com/career/software-engineer/salaries/San...

And then:

https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=zoom+video+communications+...

Those are pretty close to the median in aggregate.

> Those are pretty close to the median in aggregate.

Pretty close to the median?

Aren't these H1-B visas supposed to be for specialists? To bring in the best and brightest?

Compared to average workers, software engineers are specialists. H1B holders are often brighter than their citizen counterparts by at least one objective measure: advanced degrees holding. It's very hard to find US citizens with advanced degrees who can code well and understand computer science.

Not all H1B holders have advanced degrees, and the reason some of them do is because that’s one of the immigration pathways —- pay for a 1-2-year Master’s degree so you get a better chance of landing an H1B after you graduate. Most citizens don’t go for advanced degree because there’s no utility in them, and not because they aren’t smart.

I know this. But it is a measurable differentiator in qualification that H1Bs are way more likely to have than citizens. Many young men don't see the utility in college compared to women in the the US, but employers do.

Then it’s all the more difficult to explain why such “advanced” applicants would accept low salaries. Unless, of course, we accept the inevitable conclusion that companies are using foreign labor to suppress domestic wages.

The page you linked is filled with violations. There is no universe where an “AI scientist” shouldn’t be making the median salary at a minimum. The job titles have been manipulated so as to not raise any flags.

It doesn’t matter whether the median in aggregate is inside the range. If one person makes 60k, another makes 150k and another makes 155k you are still not paying someone enough. No American was going to take that job for 60k, that doesn’t mean you can use a visa to fill it.

It does matter though because it means the violations are likely outliers

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