New Data Show How Firms Like Infosys and Tata Abuse the H-1B Program
epi.org
epi.org
I searched to see what Infosys (1) and TCS (2) actually pay a "Computer Systems Analyst" and found:
- For Infosys, there's only one result for Houston where the salary came out to be ~105K.
- For TCS, it's around 85K-87K for San Franscisco area. Didn't find anything for Los Angeles.
I can't vouch for the correctness of data but the site says they get it from the Department of Labor. Infosys and TCS would probably be using different job titles on their H1B petitions to try and get a lower wage determination.
(1) http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=INFOSYS+LIMITED&job=COMPUTE...
(2) http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=TATA+CONSULTANCY+SERVICES+L...
This is a more complete list:
http://visadoor.com/h1bvisa-by-companies-2014-infosys-limite...
http://visadoor.com/h1bvisa-by-companies-2014-tata-consultan...
Or how about this company paying $70k-$90k https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9128292
Or this one at $70-$100k https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9128067
InfoSys and Tata actually seem to be paying more than these US Companies.
People seem to have a problem with H1Bs, but people are happy to enjoy the benefits of cheap fruit and vegetables possible with labor of (illegal) immigrants --farmers, even descendants of immigrants oppose amnesty because that would result in the help actually getting legal jobs which pay more. But here, in the case of H1Bs, people seem to have a strong dislike for them. They are just people looking for jobs like anyone else.
Is the implicit argument we should have a different system to allow a greater supply of tech immigrants but with a more flexible visa, maybe even grant residency status thus eliminating this kind of soft exploitation?
Did you read the article? Here are the subtitles from the article and the first line of the referenced article: - Lower wages - H-1B is not a bridge to permanent immigration - H-1B is not about skills or skills gap
"Information technology workers at Southern California Edison (SCE) are being laid off and replaced by workers from India."
In other words, would we care if Bangladeshis or Siberian Russians displaced Walmart, or farm workers? Probably not. We'd say, yay, more and cheaper products... but as soon as that workforce threatens tech --uh-oh, no, we can't have that. Immigration bad.
Lots of people also don't buy the cheapest meat, cheapest coffee, cheapest clothing, etc.
Is that suspect? I'm neither for nor against immigration in principle: I'm just seeking to optimize outcomes for me and my in-group.
We have a bias against people acting in their own interests when they have a public trust to act for the good of all. An ethical governor would ignore the fact that his family lives in a certain town when trying to decide where to put the new state prison.
But citizens of a country are under no such trust. It may not make Mexicans particularly happy that we have a giant fence down south, but this is not a betrayal. Foreign nationals are fellow human beings and it's great if I can help them, but I'm not under obligation to do so at the cost of my own or my neighbor's economic well-being.
So open the borders and let anyone who wants to come in come in and work any job they want - let them vote as well.
Until that happens, I have a problem with this.
The last few years, I've lived and worked in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Wilmington. All are shadows of their former shells, hollowed out by deindustrialization. What little remains is threatened by automation. Proponents of technology, and of globalization in capital and labor tell me that it will lead to greater prosperity for everyone. New, better jobs will replace the ones that are lost. We're waiting.
We can argue if we think there should be 7 billion people who consume goods at the same rate as Americans, Japanese and Europeans, but so long as we accept an integrated world where we want emigration and immigration and further neo liberal economics, this is the progression we are looking at.
When people bemoan the hollowing out of industries while at the same time saying they support peoples in the third world, something is not right. They are lamenting the loss of their jobs but those jobs are being transferred to second and third world economies helping to build them.
What do we do about the people who aren't able to retool for more skilled jobs? It's an open question. Some day something will have to give. Either we figure out a way to manage that or society will suffer the consequences of inattention.
The process for an internal, expedited H1b transfer is significantly simpler than an H1b from scratch.
Evidently not, as foreign doctors aren't allowed to immigrate to the US and practice medicine without first going through a costly and onerous relicensing program. As it stands, all foreign doctors, even from first-world nations with statistically better health outcomes than the US like Germany or Japan are all deemed unqualified to practice medicine in the US: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/12/business/economy/long-slog...
The real question is why programmers should be singled out for this kind of treatment when US doctors are the highest paid in the world, price-per-procedure is the highest in the world, and medical bills remain the number one cause of bankruptcy.
Further, a global workforce is only one component of free trade. What about a global retail market? Did you know that there is presently a federal law barring the re-importation of prescription drugs from nations where they're sold for pennies on the dollar? That form of free trade is bad for the bottom line of big corporations, so it is illegal.
However, it is quite evident that professionals are _against_ immigration of other professionals because that directly threatens their professional stability.
So, we know immigration, on the whole is good. We know that immigration from poor countries allows those people to better their lives -at the expense of undereducated (blue collar) locals. But professionals don't quite care, actually, we prefer this since it makes products and services cheaper for us. But once the immigration threatens our lifestyles, then on, no, immigration is bad it drives down wages, it threatens quality of work, it allows exploitation and so on. When push comes to shove, we're all protectionists of varying degrees.
You don't have any justification for making programming a license-based profession. You wouldn't want that even if you are an American citizen. It makes things significantly harder and more arbitrary when you have licensing requirements (just look at how hard each of USMLE, CPA, bar, CFA, etc. are, even for US citizens). Engineers, for example, can be licensed, but apart from public contracts in civil, mechanical, or electrical engineering, few employers care if you are a 'P.E.'
You either immigration for every profession or non at all. Not screwing one profession in particular.
Tell that to the national governments that make it difficult for me, as an American, to move to their countries. We've got tons of treaties that require free movement of goods and capital but, very interestingly, I think, few that deal with the movement of people (labor) and almost none that make it an easy process (I realize there are zones where this is possible, such as in the EU, I'm speaking as an American).
> Is the implicit argument we should have a different system to allow a greater supply of tech immigrants but with a more flexible visa, maybe even grant residency status thus eliminating this kind of soft exploitation?
I, personally, would prefer a system of multi-lateral "free labor" agreements. If the US wants to let in workers from country A, then those workers should be 100% free to come to the US and work, no strings attached, no industry preferences, nothing. BUT, the same should also be true for US workers who wish to go to country A, otherwise, no deal.
This would create a truly more fluid workforce and, unlike with H1B, would benefit everyone instead of a few big companies and the handful of workers they bring in each year (while hurting everyone else).
I would love it if the US could reciprocate :(
You can, however, become a freelancer. Not the same, but close enough. If this were not just US->NL but US<->NL, that would be swell.
Even if there were no legal or immigration costs (which there definitely is), it seems to me they could easily do the same by getting someone from a less prosperous part of the US and moving them to, say, CA. I'm sure this happens all the time.
I would also imagine it's a lot easier to convince an employee to "go the extra mile" when you're dangling their ability to remain in the country over their head, especially if they're also applying for citizenship.
It's also not just about saving money. Modern day corporations (and probably old fashioned ones) are basically extortion pyramids. The entire livelihood of everybody with employees at a corporation depends on having complete control over their subordinates. Why would you hire someone that can quit when you piss them off. Corps hire people for management jobs on visa as well. Its all about control. The thought is you're nothing if you don't have people under control. It's sad that corporations work that way, but that doesn't change the fact that they do.
You are correct that outside IT, hiring decisions rely heavily on the community. Within most serious IT firms, which definitively include Infosys and Tata, hiring is roughly as meritocratic as it is in the west. That's due to simple market forces - your community is simply not big enough or smart enough that you can hire exclusively from within it.
("Community" refers to a narrow slice of your ethnic group, e.g. Parsis, Gujus or Conkanis.)
This logic seems wrong: if a person moves from somewhere to CA, they should now be paid a CA-level salary. Consider that at any point they can quit, and to every other employer they will look like a regular CA job market participant, so the other employers would offer them a CA-level salary. So you can't, in fact, hire someone from outside CA and have them work in CA at a low salary: they would just quickly move to a similar but higher-paid job.
This logic breaks down with visas that restrict your choice of employers. If your freedom to pick your employer is taken away, then your logic is correct: it would be possible to hire someone in CA at a low salary, without them immediately switching jobs, because they are forbidden from doing that.
The 20% premium that the company collects on the salary is (at least partially) a consequence of this lack of employee's freedom in the labour market. Without this restriction you would expect skill-adjusted salaries to be equal for visa and non-visa employees. It's not even anything to do with immigration per se, just this type of visa.
The Indian employees at TCS and Infosys are ready to work long hours and obediently carry out orders without questioning anything, which sometimes helps.
It drives down wages across the industry by increasing unemployed labor supply. It's a lever to put downward pressure on wages in a macroeconomic sense.
They're probably saving a lot more than 15-20%.
I understand this argument is often used to claim that it isn't about wages, it's about availability of someone, anyone to hire. But at what rate?
Suppose you say that you can't hire a developer with a particular in demand skill set. You've posted at what you've determined to be "market rate" for the position, or maybe a bit higher You pick up the phone and call various highly regarded developers at google, apple, and Facebook and say "what would it take to get you to quit your job, this moment, and come work for my company?"
My guess is that the difference between the "market rate" the company is offering and the rate they'd pay if they were prepared to do what it takes to get that engineer to leave google is a lot greater than 15-20%. I wouldn't be surprised if they'd have to double the offer.
(wile VivekW is not exactly an "Unbiased" commentator).
So as not to keep this ad-homoniem the data comparison is silly
Avg & Median wages On one side vs Specific SoCal wages on the other?
That said some of the criticisms are valid: TCS, Infosys, Wipro & Cognizant are terrible at taking care of their US employees. They very rarely get a chance at a greencard among other exploitative practices.
Unfortunately Ron is sabotaging his own argument by using flaky data & being a tool.
Actually it is possible (and probably) that H-1B holders earn the same wages as their equivalents. The presence of the H-1B workers increases the supply of labor, and lowers wages for everyone. But it happens simultaneously so that at no time are the H-1B holders earning less.
It's interesting to me that in order to deal with this inconsistency, people have basically invented the myth that it's hard to shift jobs while on an H-1B, and thus H-1B holders are like "indentured servants". The reality is for most H-1B holders the job market is no different, as long as they have the visa, which depends on the government, not their company.
The left ignore the benefits of the free market, and pretend that there is a better system out there. They selfishly expect workers the developing world to respect the "right" of the Western middle class to high wages, as if magically other opportunities that don't involve competing with the Western middle class will arise.
The right want people to think that capitalism is magic, because they don't even want redistribution, which mainstream economists believe is something the market cannot do itself, and must be done by the government. The right want people to believe that all government intervention in the economy is equally bad, whether it is fixing the price of rent, providing medical services, or a negative income tax.
That said, I don't think H-1Bs are best used on average paid contractors. I know people earning a lot more money who missed out on the lottery. These people could have contributed a lot more to the economy.
EDIT: Added scare quotes around "right" in response to a comment.
The "government" is nothing but a collection of people who have used political acumen, and not technical or business skills, to gain control of a system.
They are really no different from the executives whom control various Fortune 500 companies, so in the long run, it seems unlikely that they will behave in a different matter, or ever put your wants and desires above theirs.
At least market-based systems, as described by Hayek, have some built in incentives to reward those in power to keep those without it happy.
The ideology I support is free market economics with generous redistribution and government services. This has been put into practice in Australia, NZ, Canada, the UK and Scandinavia. The only serious deviation is in the concessions made to the labour union movement, but these have been lessening with time.
I am 50 yo, and have seen 100's of politicians come and go over my years, and I can count on one hand how many I believe have these values that you mention.
They all certainly try very, very hard to project this fiction, but time and time again, their actions have betrayed them.
My experience, guided by intelligence, tells me that most people who dedicate their lives to politics are megalomaniacs whom are only in it for the power and glory.
Maybe because it was not intended to "lift tens of thousands of poor Indian workers out of poverty" but to "lower or keep the same american developer wages"?
As if those US business owners give a rats arse about getting "poor Indian workers out of poverty".
If those guys are so concerned about "poor Indians developers" how about paying them exactly the same as any American developer? It's not like they have a lower cost of living when they come to the US. So, do they consider them sub-human or something?
Or maybe they are more concerned for the "I can exploit their poorness relative to our domestic wage demands and screw me fellow country-men".
Oh, and it works both ways: next time some other country with cheaper wages than India developers a decent-ish IT education, those "poor Indian developers" would be dropped like dead weights in a race to the bottom...
>If Californians dislike foreign workers so much, why are they still allowing people from the midwest to work there? Shouldn't they be throttled too to keep wages high in silicon valley?
Perhaps because of this thing called patriotism, a.k.a. "do not piss where you live"...
Serious question - why patriotism for their country in preference to their state, country, city, continent, or planet? I've heard that Texas people don't like the rest of the USA. Perhaps they'd be more inclined to disallow out of state workers because their patriotism is applied at a different level than other Americans?
If one wants an economic "justification", I'm sure a quick google search can find articles a lot like this one - a quick stats dump with no controls showing that black people get paid less. Look at those greedy employers lowering wages by hiring black people!
Additionally, the market-based alternative to H1-B is higher wages for domestic staff and expanded (and higher paying) contracting work abroad.
Mostly that blacks have equal rights and are people too, so they should be paid the same. You know, like those Indians employers bring in so that can pay them less than American developers...
If they are all for equality and against "arbitrary lines", they can start by paying those immigrant workers the same...
>* Look at those greedy employers lowering wages by hiring black people!*
Only if one believed that black are somehow inferior would that be a logical conclusion.
In any other case, and assuming you're not racist, the problem is "paying less", not "paying black people", just in the case of Indian developers the problem is paying them less than Americans for work they do in the US.
And yeah, back in the day those Jim Crow employers also thought themselves very generous for giving those blacks a job. After all, like those "poor Indian developers", they would starve without it, so they would better appreciate it, even if it's smaller than what they'd pay whites...
You drew an arbitrary line at "patriotism" before. Why "patriotism (USA)" rather than "white nationalism" or "patriotism (CA)"? Just your personal preference?
Only if one believed that black are somehow inferior would that be a logical conclusion.
It's unclear to me how it would be a logical conclusion even if one did believe blacks are inferior on some dimension. Could you explain?
Not just mine, but the vast majority of the US.
And "personal preference" goes by a name---voting.
Democracy is a pretty scary moral philosophy.
Why, has there been another measure of good in human history? (If one doesn't believe in any divine being handing down laws that is).
And I don't get the "moral high ground in hindsight" thing. If you lived in 1890, statistics say you'd most probably be all for Jim Crow too.
>Democracy is a pretty scary moral philosophy.
Better than the capitalism, which has no morals at all outside what society enforces upon it. If it could sell crack to small children or use people as slaves it would (and it does).
Where the main justification is the BS fabrication that "egotism works for the good of all in the end".
Regarding capitalism, of course it needs controls, but on this subject, it's hard to see the harm in giving intelligent people opportunities that will benefit them. Sadly, popular opinion tells us that Indians deserve to be poor because they have the wrong parents (aka, citizens of a poor country).
Or to take a contemporary example, for reasons I don't understand Indians really seem to dislike Africans. I guess if we get Jim Krishna laws with popular support, you'll favor them also?
Better than the capitalism, which has no morals at all outside what society enforces upon it.
Yet capitalists view Indians and Africans as having "equal rights and are people too", unlike the protectionists.
No, I think "morally justifies it" in the absolute sense (which you use it) is BS, since it assumes some pre-existing morality framework.
"Morally justified" only has sense in the "is it acceptable by the moral standards of a society/era". Of course, most people naively only take it to mean "is it acceptable by the standards of OUR society/era", which they consider as some absolute definition of morals.
Fact: for the people of time it WAS morally justified. Heck, slave owners themselves were respectable and celebrated members of society.
Owning slaves was just what one did if he could, just like for business owners today setting shop in impoverished areas not to offer the same wages as elsewhere but to take advantage of poverty to offer lower wages (as if those people are worth less) is "just what you do".
I agree, but it would have to come with granting an H1B to every applicant or having an open door immigration policy. Otherwise it's not paying them the same, it's "segregating" them to India where they have to suffer lower wages. Much like black people not being allowed to work in high paying jobs.
It's amazing that people can believe it's wrong to discriminate against race (accident of birth) while at the same time insist on discrimination against nationality (almost the same accident of birth).
And yes, you are quite correct - once the Indian developers are no longer poor, capitalism will then attempt to lift others out of poverty. In fact, this is already happening - southeast Asia is the new "cheap" place, while India is becoming midrange on quality/cost.
Perhaps because of this thing called patriotism, a.k.a. "do not piss where you live"...
Note that as demonstrated by this thread, democracy will be far less effective at helping poor Indians/others than capitalism. A bunch of self-interested voters who talk about altruism while engaging in protectionism will do less to help the poor than even the worst bodyshop.