USCIS Reaches 2014 H-1B Cap
uscis.gov
uscis.gov
There can be a simple solution - instead of measuring requirements for "highly qualified workers" by forced advertisements where companies try to get no 'qualified' people to apply, and having an "adequate" salary with the current principle "average of the same job in US", which can be manipulated and abused, why not just set simple absolute criteria?
Make sure that H1B positions need to have a salary minimum of, say, $100k (or some fixed multiple of USA median salary to be future-proof). That immediately ensures that (a) H1B's are used for all professions where high skills are needed, without a need to enumerate them in laws; and (b) H1B's are used to import skills instead of cheap labor, as for less-skilled jobs it would be cheaper to hire locally.
It is illegal to do that. As part of the H1B process, an employer must demonstrate that a temporary H1B worker will be paid the prevailing wage, using the hiring record of others in the same job role. It is extremely expensive to go through the H1B process and certainly not worth it to get "cheap labor". If there's abuse like this, it's certainly not from the big employers, because it would never pass audit and it simply isn't cost effective.
If companies want to outsource there is little capital controls preventing them. There doesn't need to be these "inexepensive labor" U.S. government provided subsidies for big companies in the form of guest workers.
I'd recommend vaccinations for expatriate managers and not more "outsourcing visas".
My proposal should hopefully be more resistant to such manipulations.
Furthermore, if you have a genuine need to import talent, you should state that you're willing to pay not 'prevailing wage' but above that.
[1] http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9215405/H_1B_pay_and_... quoting "U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat whose Congressional district includes Silicon Valley .... the average wage for computer systems analysts in her district is $92,000, but the U.S. government prevailing wage rate for H-1B workers in the same job currently stands at $52,000, or $40,000 less."
Now in my case, I was always hiring people who I considered to be very strongly skilled (relative to peers working in industry). But having also hired contractors I also know that a lot of the body shops will bring in people and charge them at rates that leave no room for doubt that they are low-skill/low-quality/under-paid.
The law of supply and demand can not be repealed by the HR department of Micrsoft, Wipro or Tata consulting filling out some paperwork.
If you can only afford to pay $40.000, and no americans want to do that job at that price, then tough luck, you need to pay more to motivate people to train and learn the many years needed for your profession X; instead of bringing in workers at wages that demotivate americans to train for profession X, damaging the skilled labor supply for the future years.
Or you can hire a beginner with potential and train him yourself - that result would also further the goals of H1B program by getting more people with those qualifications.
But if you really, really need that unicorn-rarity specialist NOW, then you can pay for that; and $100k salaries (and much larger) are actually paid for top-rated designers, craftsmen, artists and actors.
I think setting a percentage could be slightly better. Say, 20% above prevailing wages. That has the effect you want.
I'm personally partial to the bidding process (i.e. we will pay this employee $150k if they get this H-1B). This would mean employers that couldn't pay above the H-1B strike price wouldn't qualify. Which I think is probably better than the status quo.
Bring in senior workers with school, experience and proven track record; but for just-out-of school jobs employ the local graduates.
Norm Matloff ( http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b.html ) points out that "The H-1B work visa is fundamentally about cheap, de facto indentured labor."
Cringely points out ( http://www.cringely.com/2012/10/23/what-americans-dont-know-... ) that "H-1B visas are about journeyman techies and nothing else."
The evidence that the wealthy need more guest workers is just not compelling.
We need on the job training and good wages.
To be honest, I'm surprised you got any developer position at all with a physics major. If you wanted to do web development, why did you get a physics degree? It's like saying "I want to be a doctor" and then getting a law degree. College is training, and you trained to be an entry level physicist. There are plenty of recent CS grads looking for jobs, and their major is at least somewhat related to the job they're applying for.
Yeah, it sucks you had a hard time, but it's not surprising, and it's hard to feel bad for you given the choices you made.
Second, I, and apparently several people you interviewed with, would claim physics isn't even peripherally related to web development. If you were writing simulation software or FEA software, I'd completely agree. But where's the connection to web development?
Finally, I was making an analogy, not comparing web development to being a doctor.
I understand that a CS degree would've made things much easier on getting a job, and I would've been offered a higher salary as well, I'm sure. As I said, that's why I don't ask for sympathy, I know full well that my path is probably the less traditional one. But even so I had plenty of hours of programming on the courses I took -- C/C++, Digital Electronics (programming FPGA boards, tinkering CPUs/APUs), not to mention that I had an 18 month internship -- which is where I learned about web dev -- and I designed two relational databases in previous part-time jobs. All of this came up during my various interviews, and I wasn't ever given a callback until I was. So I'd say there's an abundance of candidates, even if there's potentially a skill gap on those candidates it's a gap that's easily bridged, but too many employers don't want to invest any time training in their employees, which shouldn't be the norm in any industry, but is somehow acceptable in our current tech industry.
I know people with math, statistics and aeronautical engineering backgrounds who've worked at Google and Microsoft. I'm sure physicists would fit in too.
Oh? You went to school for 4 years for CS? Good for you. Show me what you've built/what you've done. Anyone can get a degree; doers build.
The OP made things more difficult for himself, so it makes little sense to complain about how difficult of a time he had. He could have made it 10x easier by switching majors to CS.
Degrees are overrated.
I couldn't disagree more with jlarocco that this is like trying to be a physician with a law degree. But if you're going to go the untraditional path, it's on you to show that you can do the job. Fortunately, that's getting easier every year - and I get the feeling that the savvier employers are far more likely to look at things like personal projects - in fact, for many of them, that's the main thing they care about, not your degree (BTW, a physics degree is impressive, though they won't care nearly as much as they do about your programming projects).
Oracle... well, yeah, frustrating stuff. But not exactly a great sign about Oracle, either. I think you'll be pretty glad you didn't work for them.
Just a note for those of you who are looking for foreign workers or if you're an Australian citizen: you can get an E3 visa (2 years, multiple entry, renewable ad infinitum). There is a cap for these too but AFAIK it's never been hit (in the 5+ year history). The E3 has two advantages over the H1B:
- there is no need to "prove" you can't find a domestic worker for your position; the only step required is the same LCA step H1B applications must do; and
- unlike on an H1B, spouses of those on an E3 visa are permitted to work (they get an E3D visa).
Also, you don't need to return to your country of origin (being Australia). You can do apply from Canada, the UK or wherever is most convenient (but you do need to leave the country to apply; you can't adjust status while in the US).
That's actually not true[1]. You can change status to an E-3 from within the US by filing Form I-129.
This can be a big deal. I changed from L1B to L1A to H1B (without leaving the country) then when I wanted to leave the country the legal advice that I received (IANAL - TIJAA[1]) was that to be safe I should return to my home country to get the new visa stamp, the Vancouver embassy might legitimately decide not to apply it - at which point I'd be stuck in Canada needing a plane ticket to the UK in a hurry and have the possibility of a multi-week wait for an appointment at the London embassy...
I waited on my green-card application to get to the point at which I could get an Advanced Parole[2] document and traveled on that instead, but this did mean: a) several years in which I couldn't travel outside the US; b) repeated lectures from border officials that the AP document was for "serious travel" only and that snowboarding trips to Whistler didn't count.
YMMV
[1] This Is Just An Anecdote [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_parole
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2010-title22-vol1/xml/CFR-2...
Others have been done much quicker but I would be prepared to wait going this route, and also take USCIS's processing times with a grain of salt.
If the E-3 allowed for premium processing[1], portability[2] or the 240-day rule[3], I would try I-129 again otherwise I think I'll just apply for a new visa outside the US.
1: Pay an extra ~$1200 to hear back from USCIS in ~2 weeks.
2: Permission to start work for a new employer upon filing the I-129.
3: A 240 day grace period during which you may continue to work for your existing employer after your status expires.
I have a coworker who is an unbelievably talented and respected developer both at my company and in the open source community. He has been working on a student visa after he graduated from an Ivy League school in computer science last year.
That the U.S. is even considering deporting him is batshit crazy to me.
We're a relatively small company (~75) company, so it's quite disruptive.
Seriously people; this is Hacker News. We build things on The Internet. Since when is distance an acceptable excuse of a limitation for team members?
I haven't followed the immigration reform process since it first broke a few months ago, but as of January the proposals definitely included something addressing this.
When you go to school in the US and then get a job, you build a network of both personal and professional relationships, you get settled in a place, etc. Why should someone who's actively contributing to the economy be forced to throw that away?
I'm in the same boat as OP's colleague. Graduated from a US grad school, now working in SF with an apartment, furniture, friends, a girlfriend, a professional network, etc. The company I helped start has created 4 jobs in the last month or two, with many more to come.
And now I'm in a lottery against some large companies who view the visa as just an opportunity to place cheap labor.
How is that fair, sane, reasonable or sensible in any way?
That's in addition to other reforms this program needs like the right to switch jobs.
There is an abuse I have however heard of (sorry no citation): obtaining H1B visas for employees you never intend to bring to the US. This is due to how difficult it is to get work visas to the US, so you end up with an H1B "just in case" you need them to travel.
The right to switch jobs is another tricky one. The remit of an H1B is to place a foreign worker in a job role which has been demonstrated to be difficult to fill with a citizen. It does not replace an individual job. You can switch jobs with an H1B so long as the other job is the same job role (very much the same job responsibilities). This seems ok to begin with, but after several years it turns into a shackle because it's difficult for H1B workers, who by their nature are specialists, to switch to another job with the same specialist role. Combine that with the huge amount of time it can take to convert to a green card (5-10 years for some countries), and they're stuck in a job for most of a decade in an era where job hopping is common.
If the visa were awarded directly to the immigrant in such a way that an H1B holder had essentially the same job mobility as a green card holder, I'd be more inclined to agree that the process is expensive. After all, you'd be paying big $$ to hire someone who has the right to quit the first day on the job.
There's really no reason for government to artificially cap the number of available visas, provided that educational and other requirements are met. The governments are in the business of generating revenues, and H1-B employees pay all proper taxes, so net result is a win-win for both parties.
Here is the distribution of H1-bs amongst companies last year (the cap was filled on June-11th I think).
http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2013-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx
Look at the number of offshoring companies in that list! And look at the average salaries they pay (still higher than the stipulated 60k I think). I am also aware of some of these offshoring companies who file for h1 and then don't bring the person to US in the year (they reserve it for future).
There should be some way to weed out these Indian offshorers who file for h1 and never use it.
Good luck to all who are hoping to get a H1! (that includes me)
Having to worry about potential deportation in addition to the risks of a startup seem like an overkill. I'm probably going to move to Canada if my current startup fails (unlikely that it will). It is much easier to become a resident there. Additionally, I don't want my dating life to influenced by such decisions.
>>> 85.000 / 124.000 0.6854838709677419
Out of the 124k, 20k will be for masters. The remaining masters join the pool of lottery for 65k. So there are 65k spots available for 124k - 20k(=104k)
* Category 1 is your average small company who found a great foreign engineer and wants to keep them for one reason or the other. These are in the minority.
* Category 2 is your Google, Microsoft, etc hiring high quality engineers.
* Category 3 is your IT outsourcing / consultancy companies, like WiPro, InfoSys etc.
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Of H-1B applicants, #3 is overwhelmingly the largest. These companies fill up most of the quota and crowd out the smaller employers. They also pay closest to prevailing wage (i.e. "low" wages). The crappy part is that sometimes they don't even end up using those H-1Bs down the road while people like me lose their chance in the lottery.
#1 and especially #2 seem to pay wages that are not really correlated with prevailing wage, they pay what they think an employee is worth. In #2's case this can be multiples above prevailing.
A per company limit could help with this, and seems fair to me. This would also distribute the foreign labor better. Not everyone would apply to WiPro et al because they know they're getting a guaranteed visa. Instead smaller companies would get some attention too, and the "h-1b sweat shop" dynamic would be reduced. There are already penalties for being H-1B dependent, but apparently not large enough to be a deterrent.
Or maybe smaller companies could be cap exempt, or part of their own cap. It's not like they are threatening to overthrow the US labor market, accounting for maybe 10k jobs a year. Leave them alone. Let the larger multinationals and such deal with expensive legal procedures, since they really have the power to displace American workers.
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Of the PERM (green card) applicants, the overwhelming majority is #2, followed by #1 and then #3. This tells you how much cat#3 cares about retaining their H-1B workers. For them, I imagine H-1Bs are an incentive for their workers to come work in the US for the lower end of the prevailing wage, and maybe a vague promise for immigration that doesn't get fulfilled very often. Otherwise, I'm not sure why you wouldn't just get an L-1 for your employee (which is even more abusive since it has absolutely no prevailing wage requirements).
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Another tangential point is that people say that this isn't an enforcement problem but in some respects it is. Prevailing wage is determined not only by your profession / job but also your level in that job. I imagine many companies misrepresent that level and also the job title (programmer instead of software architect, etc) to be able to pay lower. Of course the way the government checks against this is mainly through attestation: you tell them what the job description is and they compare with the description of that level. After that there is 0 enforcement. But I'm not sure if more enforcement is the key, since even the mention of an audit is enough to stop any but the largest companies (with expensive counsel) from hiring H-1Bs.
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Anyway, hope this gives you guys some perspective. It's not all bad, and not everyone is in the business of undercutting Americans. But reform is definitely needed. People like me are struggling.
Some (smart or stupid, but capable) risk-takers are willing to join the first 10 members of such teams for equity and/or becoming founding members for far less than "commensurate pay" for their role. That "role" itself may be something blurring the lines between many things, they may have to take up lead positions in departments they know little to nothing about. The rigid policies around authorizing people to work in this country is an unnecessarily and ridiculously high barrier.
Now this would all be understandable even for legal immigration if the United States was suffering a massive population problem (like most of the countries these immigrants may be coming from), but that is far from the case here. The worry is that the immigrants will do more harm than good.
Given that I believe I'm a person willing to pay my taxes, contribute to the economy positively (possibly hugely), support myself (and be responsible about any dependents I may take up) and not be a criminal, I feel the machinery in place just prevents innovation and entrepreneurship and holds the economy back.
Or maybe I'm just really stupid and don't understand how country's and economies work.
Source: I'm yet another H1B applicant, currently the 4th member of a tech startup and looking into starting another venture with my technical background, while being threatened to be deported every 6 months.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5265181
Although my views have slightly changed since then, I think many of the points still stand.
One of my particular pet peeves with StackOverflow's jobs board is the endless parade of remote work with "NO NON-US CITIZENS" at the bottom of the job description.
IIRC, it was in 2007/2008 when the cap was reached on day1.
It is incredible how much power the computerized lottery system wields to change the lives of candidates who file for H1-B visas.
Source: I'm one.
Otherwise I'd be asking my employer how difficult it is to transfer to their Canadian office...
Under the law the first 20,000 H1B petitions that are filed on behalf of foreign nationals that have earned an advanced degree from a U.S. institution of higher education are exempt from the USCIS H1B quota. This essentially creates a separate pool of 20,000 additional H1B visa numbers each fiscal year that are available only to those foreign nationals who have earned a Master's or higher graduate degree from a US institution of higher education.
src :http://www.visapro.com/Immigration-Articles/?a=1090&z=48
The big companies get some, but most of the slots, even for the masters-degree-only section, go to "insourcing" outfits that have the paperwork down to a science, and have a list of colleges with super slightweight (but still accredited) masters degree programs.