Me and many other people commented here when the whole thing started that layoffs in a time of record profits and cashflows were basically a strategy to keep salaries low. At this point I honestly don't know how innocent one has to be to think that everything is an organic coincidence and not an orchestrated move.
Companies colluding to make the life of workers worse and boost their profits, that has never happened before in the history of humanity.
I always have a healthy dose of skepticism when it comes to conspiracy stuff like this, but it's not like they weren't busted before.
Apple and Google were caught red handed for their secret anti-poaching agreement (With the Jobs/Schmidt emails leaked to prove it). All these CEOs are in the same social circles, it's not a big reach to think they chat with each other behind the scenes about things like RTO, Layoffs, etc.
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
— Adam Smith
Keep salaries low? This is one of the boomiest industries, with truly insane salaries, with years of employee-favorable conditions.
Beyond that, we’re in for years of macroeconomic reckoning for unresolved asset bubbles in the 2000s and horrendously bad COVID policy. Laying off makes sense. Sometimes you hire to backfill roles or for strategic teams. Sometimes an H1b is the correct hire.
>This is one of the boomiest industries, with truly insane salaries
How many software developers can, in a reasonable timeframe, buy a house in the place they live and support alone a family of four people? Then the truly insane salaries you are talking about are not really that insane.
>Laying off makes sense. Sometimes you hire to backfill roles or for strategic teams. Sometimes an H1b is the correct hire.
Developers are seen by companies as over expensive peons and they have been maneuvering to turn the whole field in an low cost industry. I hope you are younger than 30 to still hold such a naïf worldview.
How many software developers can, in a reasonable timeframe, buy a house in the place they live and support alone a family of four people? Then the truly insane salaries you are talking about are not really that insane.
House prices have gone absolutely nuts in the last forty years. We are witnessing the largest generational transfer of wealth in the history of the world.
Healthcare and education have also experienced broken cost growth.
But those are problems for everyone that’s not on the winning side of these giant money sucks.
It doesn’t change the fact that ratio of programmer salary to median salary has been moving way up. It’s both true that we are doing relatively much better and we are getting screwed by costs just like everyone else.
I’m in the industry too and would like to see it resume. But this small reversal is not why we feel poor. That’s not a programmer specific issue.
The causes of that are things we can band together with people across many industries to fight. Like breaking the power of the land-owning gerontocracy.
Luckily these companies that are trying to depress wages are super chill about working from home and are absolutely not demanding that their employees live nearby in the Bay Area so they can come into the office by executive decree…
This is the only part of the article that matters, and even it is a stretch:
> Just a month after Sundar Pichai announced Google’s plan to cut 12,000 jobs around the world in January, the company filed applications for H1B visas to hire software engineers, analytical consultants, user experience researchers and other roles from outside the United States, with several requests aimed for new Google employees to join in August, the report states. Google parent Alphabet owned Waymo too has reportedly filed similar H1B applications to hire engineers.
The article fails to mention and actual H1B requests by the others, just lumps them in with the layoffs.
It's not really being submitted in good-faith. My advice is to flag submissions with edited titles, and ignore the obvious outrage porn. It seems to work, more often than not.
Generally not supposed to say this out loud, but being the only American on an all H1B team at these companies can be absolutely brutal. Very alienating, always missing out on back channel communications, no sympathy for missteps
I'm a manager of a team that's mostly H1Bs at Google. It's mostly fine but a few of them just refuse improve their English, and it's frustrating spending hours every day just being an English teacher to an engineer who writes at a 5th grade level. The problem with hiring too many H1Bs is they speak to each other in Chinese and thus take forever to become proficient at communicating with the rest of the company.
Also, I'd call into question the credibility of this article. Google pays H1Bs the same as Americans as far as I know. What Google is doing is hiring a large number of engineers in India. These people I assume are paid much less than American engineers.
As someone with some exposure to Chinese characters as a Japanese speaker, I’ve had the please to casually glance a WeChat group and realize some of the back channel Chinese from my teammates was joking about trying to get me fired.
(Edit: my also Chinese manager dealt with it very well and that person left the company after some time)
I have a completely different experience. My (Indian) manager told me I couldn't be let go because it would make the team entirely Indian :) Apart from that, I found it much easier to work with H1B colleagues than with entitled and full of ego "native" Americans.
I can't speak for other countries, but I'm not too surprised that you can run into certain cultures of Americans who seemingly have zero regards for the sentiment of others. Maybe it is ego and entitlement, but it's not because they can't be deported.
I don't think the risk of being sent back (or lack thereof) is important for how to treat other people. To put it crudely, assholes will be assholes no matter where they come from.
Interesting, isn't it considered impolite to speak in a language that someone in the group doesn't understand?
When I was in Germany, Germans even texted their SO in English in case I glance over their phones. Maybe the group I was in was exceptionally welcoming but everywhere in Europe where I lived(EU, non-EU, UK etc.) it was always considered rude to speak a language that others don't understand and everyone always tried their best to speak in English as a lingua franca.
If I happen to be in a working group that speaks multiple languages, I would definitely raise the question of speaking a common language in a work environment because you can't all be on the same page when your communications are patchy.
Yes, but many Chinese engineers have such a low level of proficiency that they genuinely struggle to communicate in spoken English. Pronunciation/accent can also be a major barrier to comprehension.
for example, if they need to create a class or a function, how do they name it ? I live in the non English speaking world, I had to learn a minimum of English to be able understand, reason about and write code.
I've had multiple coworkers remove comments or reject CRs because there were too many comments. If you foster a culture where comments are discouraged then it's less of an impediment
I mean you still have to comment on issues, and even within the code itself you need to name things in ways that make sense to others.
It's not that English specifically is required to do this, but if the organization is American it does seem like English would be the default and proficiency would be pretty important.
I can say that I didn't agree with it. But that's what lead devs were pushing. The common mentality among devs is that releasing is more important than building something sustainable.
I don't know where in germany you worked at but most offices here are not nearly as english friendly, in my experience it's quite rare and more than half the IT jobs still expect you to know some German otherwise it's a non starter.
I’m European, Dutchman specifically, and I find it mentally difficult, almost impossible sometimes, to not converse in English with a person I know does speak English. I used to work at a Dutch company with ~35 nationalities and me and my Dutch colleagues where often reminded by our non Dutch coworkers that they prefer us to continue water cooler conversation in Dutch and not switched to English when they joined in. For them this was a great way to learn more Dutch. Right now there is also a parent at my kids school who is Welsh, and even though he understands Dutch very well and prefers to speak it, everytime I approach him for a conversation the first sentence in my head is formed in English. I have to consciously switch to Dutch before starting the conversation. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s some genetic heritage from when our country was a big international trading nation?
I find it interesting that H1B implies Indian or Chinese workers. As a South African I don't know why you don't hire more English speakers that would be H1Bs. I myself have tried to get an H1B and so far the door has been closed.
It's been easier for me to move to a European country where I had to learn another language.
It's not common. I was on a call with a group of Indian contractors and one of them announced they were relocating to the USA. The cheers on the call were insane.
From an employer's point of view it's easier to stick to X countries as the source of H1Bs as the process overall can differ between countries.
It's because statistically they are just almost entirely from India. There are a few Chinese ones but it's no where near the amount of Indian hires. Chinese H1b candidates are post graduates from PhD programs and are less common but make up the 2nd largest but still extremely small group.
For quite a while, H1B had been almost exclusively for foreign graduates from American schools so the distribution of H1B workers is as same as the distribution of foreign students.
In tech or IT, the ones who hires are mostly indians so mostly prefer to hire from there, I think even in Canada international students acceptance process, there were some complains that the majority of these students are from India.
I’m not American and don’t live in America (I presume by “America” you mean the United States?), but shouldn’t it be “… refuse to improve their English”?
It should be “refuse to…” yea. I’m going to hazard a guess that the author you’re responding to missed the to there in their comment. It’s a common thing. Sometimes for example when I’m replying on mobile I might miss a word or autocorrect from my web browser may do something strange and I don’t catch it.
> I presume by “America” you mean the United States?
Yea that’s almost for sure what they mean. Typically people from the United States of America are called Americans and people across the world refer to those people as “Americans” and they/we also refer to ourselves and our country as “America” as a shortened form. I’m a little surprised you weren’t aware of this given your clearly written English but yep that’s what that means!
Presumably the parent comment meant that their English was poor to the point where they couldn’t communicate effectively with the worker, not that the worker was getting their point across but lacking pristine grammar.
As an anecdote I’ve found that non-Americans from well off families tend to speak near grammatically perfect English because that’s how foreign languages are taught.
As an anecdote, an eternal rule for venting about insufficient language skills of damned foreigners on the Internet seems to be that it must be articulated by at least one demonstration of one's own inability to possess the very competence demanded (e.g., through absolutely careless spelling, grammatical error, etc.), which my contribution above was simply commenting on ironically— with a tangential spoof of U.S. exceptionalism of course.
My old boss in academia went through a “hire tons of Chinese chemists” phase and it got so bad he just had to eventually ban Chinese from being spoken in the lab. That seemed to work well and their English improved greatly and understanding in the lab went up. When they went back to China, hopefully they got more out of their experience here also. They learned new techniques instead of just doing things the same way they had always done them.
I don't know about google but at my fortune 500 company they are technically paid the same but clearly paid less in reality. A bunch of them are at lower levels then they should be based on experience and skills.
Things have changed in India. In these top companies, engineers get as much as 1/3rd of the pay here. That’s relatively much better given the cost of living in India.
You can’t hire a bunch of people without lowering the bar. This is a big part of the reason why big tech doesn’t appeal to me. “We’ve got tens of thousands of the best of the best” sounds like weird delusional fetishism and I’d like to think that we are mostly past that now thank God. I see communication skills as a core competency, end of story. When you hire like crazy, standards slip, or you might forego one standard in favour of “engineering” capability, or whatever.
If there are n tech jobs to be done, y people in group A who can do them, and z people in group B who can do them, opening hiring to all (y + z) people makes hiring easier than confining yourself to only y.
Easier could mean easier to hire, cheaper to hire (even if you pay them all the same as each other, the clearing wage is likely lower due to increased supply), easier to retain, etc.
Because when minwage is established, the market naturally simply adjusts the other parts accordingly.
Sure you pay both $x, but the skill diff can be 10x. USD16$250 can get you a bootcamp coder w zero exp (but w profile/status of citizen cardholder) [1], or someone way beyond 10x that skill who simply can't afford to negotiate.
probably because of non-pay related practices? things like differences in healthcare laws, unionization, legal rights as a citizen (of a particular country) vs being a visitor who can be evicted/deported at will.
Being the odd one out also makes you a target for things like PIP quotas. It's very disturbing to watch, especially as managers try to justify it with phony evidence to save their own.
My ex gf is here on H1B and so is all her friend group. I feel bad for her situation, it adds a layer of stress but the way they treat the visa is disrespectful to Americans I think. For example, they are generally of the mindset that Americans are stupider and lazier than them which is why they are here. So they will vent their frustrations on Americans by calling us stupid and lazy and entitled because we have citizenship but they do all the work. It's not a healthy way to view this country or their coworkers. They take the "nation of immigrants" line too far and act as if their American coworkers are basically their inferiors but who were lucky enough to happen to have citizenship. I always tried to provide a different perspective to no avail.
Ie, cardholding need be blind to recruiters.
Ie, insteadof <Do you have work authorization?> as the first question [no less], it need be enforceably ILLEGAL to try fish info on it.
In practice that can't be fully done without also blinding a lot of other things. but having Single Market enforced by law certainly will reduce the paygap found today in equal lvl-to-lvl comparisons (top x% vs top x%; differing only in cardholding).
re "vent" "disrespectful"; I contend that those folks actually trying to be assholes are Americans. It's likely the comparison you saw was just done in a neutral and nonhurtful manner/intention, albeit not of PC enculture.
The only scenario where this makes sense is if the "all H1B team" is all from the same country / speaks the same language. The issue is not "all H1B", it's the lack of diversity in the team.
No. This is 100% just informed by your ideology. Enough said. Don’t peddle that here.
When people actually discuss the advantages of diversity in the workplace, the advantages exist due to actual diversity, not just “a non-white-male voice”.
You’ll no doubt cite some extreme view or vocal minority to justify making this assumption, but it is not what most people mean most of the time. You’re painting a false reality which I’ve got no doubt creates a feedback loop leaving you seething.
> No. This is 100% just informed by your ideology. Enough said. Don’t peddle that here.
My friend was filling a technical role and he had to turn down fitting white male candidates and hire technically inferior one just to satisfy diversification. It's not about ideology, it's about pathology that diversification creates in some cases.
Look, I'm very sure there's women only companies and minority only companies that claim they are diverse. It's not hard to find. (I'm black and I have eyes). Some of them covered in articles stating that thier composition is growing diversity. Or talking about how their diversity helps. People forget about diversity in experience & experiences. You can't all be devs after all.
I remember a body shop in Austin that recently made it into the news for allegedly putting up an ad for a white people only job linked to Berkshire.
Everyone there looked from the Indian subcontinent. The board had Middle eastern and black people.
No visibly Hispanic or White people or Black people among the rank and file in an Austin company.
The important thing to realize is that “white” doesn’t mean everyone with “white” skin. Middle class kids from Ohio are “white,” and these race conscious programs and elimination of meritocracy hurts them. But the second or third generation Harvard folks aren’t functionally “white,” regardless of their skin color. Those folks will learn, through private schools and social capital, how to end up in top positions in this new economic structure, while they are joining in complaining about “white” people.
Yes, because race is a social construct. “White” encompasses many unrelated groups, from descendants of people on the Mayflower to Italian immigrants. But when elite Yankees complain about “white” people, they don’t really mean themselves, they mean southern or Midwestern whites. Essentially, they’re “post white.”
Post-whites will do fine under the new system, because they have the cultural capital to navigate the new rules. They know how to write a “diversity statement” that gets them credit for some human rights whatever even though they trace their ancestry to Dutch colonists in New York. But the kids in Ohio won’t have that cultural capital and social connections. They are still “white.”
Why "not supposed" to say out loud? Sounds simply as a problem of the only X on a team of Ys. Cultural (and other) differences can be hard, it is just a fact of life.
Think of it as being in the shoes of a lonely non-American in the country of Americans, if that is any consolation.
In corporate and academic America diversity unofficially means not majority white. Further, you're not supposed to acknowledge any sort of ingroup bias of any nonwhite racial group
It isn’t the “opposite” because this isn’t a binary situation. There is a spectrum. If the group members were all from the same place it wouldn’t be an issue either. If everyone is from different places it isn’t an issue. If many are from one place and some aren’t, then it is an issue.
Yes, the grandparent comment also describes the common immigrant experience on a team where the others are native speakers of the work language. It’s not intentional prejudice, but just the wrong kind of accent can leave you excluded because the others start to feel that verbal communication is “harder” with you around.
Social posturing in certain cultures is very different from Euro rooted cultures in a way that you don’t notice until you are immersed in it for awhile. I personally found this aspect extremely hard to work with, and it seems to guide communication to a surprising degree.
It’s not as if it’s directly attributable to an H1B but if a group has eight Indian people on it chances are they’ll converse in their native language from time to time and it’s quite possible they’ll have a group chat and a close relationship (given their shared similar circumstances). Not difficult to see how an outsider might feel excluded.
That said, that same group often faces exclusion in the wider company (and coming together is often in reaction to that), so it’s kind of miserable for everyone.
To be honest, I'm actually in favor of them not needlessly struggling to communicate with each other in broken English.
I was once in an Econ class with a Chinese professor that spoke mandarin natively. As did a slim majority of the class. I recall him trying to explain something to the other mandarin-speakers and struggling before squeezing in like a 4 second mandarin quip and the response was a wave of "eureka!" across the other ones. Like he just somehow squeezed the past 40 minutes into 4 seconds and they all finally understood it completely. Astonishingly, really.
"chances are they’ll converse in their native language from time to time"
This needs to be a big No No. Everyone should speak the language everyone else can understand in the workplace at all times. I natively speak German, but I never speak German at work even when I temporarily was only working with someone visiting from Germany. It would have been rude to everyone around us. But then I'm also weird in that I dislike speaking my native language...
Agreed, I'm Indian and thus often it is the case that other Indians try to speak with me in Hindi, but I end up having to insist on English in certain contexts.
It's unnecessarily rude and exclusionary towards others to speak a language others cannot understand in an environment where they have an interest in participating. All it does is form cliques and encourages toxic dynamics to form.
But on the other hand, I previously encountered the opinion that people who insist on speaking in English (especially without the "quirks" and accent of Indian English) despite being able to do Hindi are just trying to be pretentious.
My last couple of jobs(non tech) almost everyone I talked to on a daily basis was ESL. It was great as an introvert because they could talk around me and about me while I kept to myself. Now Im in tech with all English speakers there's no escape from the slights. Id love to be only a team of ESL people, because now it's like highshcool. The only time they talk to me now is for baiting too cute by half questions and comments.
It happens in the UK too. For example a friend of mine was taken advantage of by the boss who was not hesitant at all to remind her that her existence in the country depended on his approval; so she had to do long hours with unreasonable tasks for little pay.
that's putting it too far - they are free to leave or quit as they wish. Unlike the true modern slavery of which is migrant workers (like described here https://www.antislavery.org/world-cup-2022-the-reality-for-m...), where their passports are confiscated, etc.
H1B is exploiting the rules for cheap labour. It does benefit the H1B holder - since they would otherwise not have signed up. The losers in the situation are the local workers who expect to be paid higher, but is out-competed by these foreign workers.
“Modern slavery” is definitely an exaggeration but many are also not quite so free to quit.
The H1B is a “dual intent” visa, meaning you can apply for permanent residency while you have it. But you must maintain your H1B the entire time, which can be a decade or more for folks from places like India. You can transfer an H1B but it’s not easy and if you quit your job you must line another one up in 60 days or say goodbye to the life you’ve built yourself in the US. Some employers are happy to take advantage of this.
This is what creates more downward pressure on everyone's comp than just getting foreign workers. It artificially creates a group of workers for whom it's significantly harder and more risky to change jobs or simply quit when they are unsatisfied. I think everyone in tech would be better off if you wouldn't lose the H1B quickly if unemployed and if you wouldn't need to rely on an employer doing extra work to sponsor you. Make it two years instead of two months and make it so that the visa holder just can mail in proof of a paycheck. There is no real downside to this change for anybody in US society.
Or like... if the actual _company_ that claims it "needs that worker from outside the U.S. so so so much" actually took the risk on instead of foisting it on the poor employee (and by extension, the entire labor market). My 2-step process for fixing the H1-B system.
1. H1Bs are _auctioned_ instead of raffled. You really need that H1B? Prove it - pay for it.
2. Sponsoring companies are responsible for cost of living for that employee for the entire duration of their H1B. That obligation can be transferred to another company.
3. (Bonus) After reaching a certain threshold of "taxes paid to the U.S." (maybe 300k or something) H1B holders _automatically_ get their green cards. No questions asked. If you can take that much of their money, they can be citizens.
My issue with "H1B to the highest bidder" is that there's a lot of industries outside of tech that use H1Bs like healthcare, academia, skilled trades, or heck, even fashion models. I think something like that would have to be paired with quotas on the industry otherwise high tech salaries would blow away possibly-even-more-important healthcare and research spots.
As for #2, the main issue now is more of supply and demand. The US only gives out 140,000 employment based green cards a year (plus some from other unused categories), which also includes the worker's families. There are far more ways to get an employment based green card than through H1B. The problems we're hearing about are less to do with the process (which _is_ byzantine) and more to do with that there are not enough green cards to go around.
And just as an aside, there's no labor certification for an H1B, e.g. a company isn't saying they need that worker so so much. A company just wins the lottery and agrees to pay at least what the DoL says is the prevailing wage for the occupation. If they later want to get a green card for that employee, they have to redo the prevailing wage determination AND make an attempt to hire an citizen/GC before they can get the GC (or the employee has to prove they have exceptional skills that gains them international recognition, among other things which includes "being paid way more than your peers")
> Bonus) After reaching a certain threshold of "taxes paid to the U.S." (maybe 300k or something) H1B holders _automatically_ get their green cards.
I think this is a good idea in general. One of the main complained about immigration is some supposed cost to the barely-existing US welfare system. Having a minimum lifetime tax before getting access to that seems like a decent compromise to calm down the xenophobes
There's already a category for that, the EB-5 investor visa.
If we understand the act of giving a green card to mean the US wants that person to join the society for the long term, is "taxes paid" really the best measure of desirability?
> There is no real downside to this change for anybody in US society.
Well, the downside is for the companies exploiting migrants and those are the ones donating money to the people who make decisions. Lobbying is legally bribing them and the effect is that the politicians don't represent the people who vote for them but the corporations.
And No, this is not a cynical take but a factual one.
> you can apply for permanent residency while you have it.
Just to further complicate it, for many people _your employer_ has to apply for permanent residency on your behalf which is another 2 year ordeal and fair bit of money (that's just to get the green card priority date, not to mention waiting for the green card itself which varies by country). And that further indentures you since if you leave during that period you effectively abandon that application.
As long as they’re able to switch job and can leave the states (if they want to) I don’t think that the “slavery” word applies at all.
And I’m saying this because there are places like Dubai where you very often get your passport taken on arrival, can’t leave the state and can’t really go work somewhere else. There is a lot more to say, but that qualifies as “modern slavery”.
i mean, this is meant to be a jobs visa. The fact that if you quit said job, you no longer have a reason to be given to stay, seems pretty normal. You are free to leave, it doesn't mean leaving is consequence free.
the gov't doesn't intent this visa to be dual purpose. It is a job visa first and foremost, and the path to PR is at best a secondary concern for the gov't.
It's made a dual intent because it's impossible to prove the lack of immigration intent for any long-term visa. It's not the only dual intent visa, almost every long-term non-immigrant visa is dual-intent for this reason. Even the TN, which is not proclaimed a dual intent is such de facto since the TN visitors don't have to prove the lack of immigrant intent either. The reason TN is such an exception is that it's not issued by the DoS and the concept of "dual intent" exists only as a legal fiction around the DoS procedures.
It’s definitely not modern slavery in the literal sense, because indeed it’s fully legal for them to leave or quit as they wish, but neither is it fully true to say that they are free to do so.
If an H-1B worker does quit their job, or even if they get fired, they have a very tight deadline under the immigration laws to depart the country. This applies regardless of what financial obligations they may have as a renter or homeowner and regardless of the situation of the rest of their family.
And if after their job ends they rush out of the country to meet the immigration deadline, any lingering ties to the US will make it harder for them to convince CBP to let them re-enter on visitor status, so the departure may in some circumstances be either temporarily or permanently one-way as well as rushed.
The severity of this disruption forces many H-1B workers to meekly put up with a lot more abuse and mistreatment at work than must US citizens, LPRs, and those lucky few categories of nonimmigrants whose work authorizations are not tied to their employment. Agreed, it’s not slavery, but it’s not full freedom either.
A more humane approach would be what Canada does: holders of Canadian employer-specific work permits who quit or lose their job are legally allowed to remain in Canada until their current work permit expires, although not to work for a different Canadian employer without first receiving a new permit. They can rely on this predictability of legal status in the country when signing leases, planning their children’s education, and other matters. And it often gives them far more time than the tight US deadline if they want to find a new employer who agrees to sponsor a subsequent work permit for them.
> H1B is exploiting the rules for cheap labour. It does benefit the H1B holder - since they would otherwise not have signed up.
H1B, L1 etc visa schemes make you indentured to the system. The longer you stay and invest in your home and social life (which as a human you have to, otherwise you become a mindless drone), the more you are indentured to the system. Indenture is built into the visa contract – you cannot quit your current employer and stay unemployed even for a short period of time – even though you did contribute social security every single month, even though you paid all taxes every single month – you get no benefits.
So, you are in constant fear of losing your job and having to throw away your entire investment here. This means you will be pliable in many ways you would otherwise not be. You can be denied promotions, you can be given shitty/grunt work, you can be given borderline unethical work, you can be asked to fire other people in unsympathetic ways, you can be asked to work weekends and nights without any overtime pay, you can be asked to travel very long distances for work in economy class and so on and you shall not complain.
You can only suffer silently until you get another job. Btw, you cannot get any random job you like. You have to get a job where the employer is willing to go through the rigmarole of visa process - which narrows the field significantly.
Unfortunately that's not true. It is not easy even for strong programmers to polish up on Leetcode, find a new job, get a written job offer, have the new employer to file for an H1B transfer, and get an acknowledgement from USCIS all within the 60 day window. The 2021-2022 job market was an aberration where anyone with a pulse could find a programming job within a few weeks.
Even in the best case, as the 60 day deadline gets closer you also have to plan for the contingency and start planning how to uproot your life. Pack your belongings, sell your car, plan to take the kids out of school for at least the current school year. Even if you get the H1B approval a few days after you return to your home country, visa stamping can take months so you have to plan for an extended absence and the good possibility that you won't be able to return.
Sure we can say that this is exactly what H1B workers signed up for when they came to the US and it is true that no one goes into this blind. However it is not a pleasant situation to be in, and the fear of facing this, especially in the kind of job market we saw in 2023, takes its toll on families.
H1B is a lemon market for those signing up just the same as those surrendering their passports and ending up a working prisoner. Each might luck out, but they're more likely to get exploited and regret their decision. And it gets worse every year.
H1B might not meet the legal definition of modern slavery even though many are trapped just as effectively by the system but everyone in evolved with employing them is morally compromised just the same.
If the H1B program is really this bad, and if everyone involved is truly morally compromised, would it be better for the US to shut the H1B program down completely?
Surely you can think of something more nuanced than that extreme option? You can fix the visa program such that you can attract the most talented immigrants and treat them with respect for the contributions they make to your society?
This is the major problem in my view. Until your permanent residency slots, and before you actually start integrating with the culture, it is the case that many H1B's are ethically in tune moreso with their mother country than the United States.
The occasional civics lessons done over lunch in my career have been eye opening in more than one way. Interestingly, many H1B's are allergic to unionizing as well. Probably another facet of the demand for more of them.
You don't understand what slavery is. Slaves don't get paid and it isn't voluntary. H1B are paid and is entirely voluntary. The reason foreigners accept and compete for the positions is because the pay is better than the positions they can get locally. Calling that slavery is ignorant and an insult to anyone alive or historically who has suffered actual slave labor.
People who go to Dubai and end up in what people call slavery also "sign contracts" and go there "voluntarily".
They're exploited nonetheless.
Your entire comment defending exploitation is and insult to anyone alive.
Disgusting semantics game to defend what the US and other countries do with migrants. You're trying to shame people when you're the one who should feel ashamed.
Back in the days of slaves, someone would have argued how slavery isn't that bad because there were more worse things in their past and how slavery was an improvement in the lives of those slaves compared to what they would have had in their home country. Your argument reeks of the same moral flaw.
> Back in the days of slaves, someone would have argued how slavery isn't that bad because there were more worse things in their past and how slavery was an improvement in the lives of those slaves compared to what they would have had in their home country.
Its not that uncommon an argument to encounter today on the Right.
> You don't understand what slavery is. Slaves don't get paid and it isn't voluntary
Technically, that varies. Slavery is as old as humanity itself and it exists in different forms. It's not even unheard of for a slave to be wealthier than his master, although, of course, this is more of an exception. What I'm trying to say is if someone isn't picking up cotton in the american south, it doesn't mean they cannot be enslaved and don't need help
I believe companies should be forced to pay H1B visa employees the top rate that they have for that job position (actual top rate paid to citizens and green card holders). If the theory is that they're desperate for these skills because people here don't have them, then companies should be more than willing to pay a premium to get those people they so desperately need.
It's only exploitation if those workers have to live in the US. Something like 50kUSD/y is laughable to an american but is actually a ridiculous amount of money for a lot of people due to exchange rates. More than worth it so long as they can work remotely without paying US cost of living.
I know plenty of US families who gross less than 50k. They live comfortably, but not extravagantly, and not in California.
I also know a handful of people who make less than $25k/yr. They struggle more, but they still get by.
$50k/yr, $25/hr may be chump change to a big tech company engineer with a degree from a prestigious university, but it's a very normal hourly (non-overtime) wage (maybe even on the high side) for a lot of regular people.
Addition: For example, journeyman electricians average $24/hr in my state.
I don’t live in an expensive area but the general move towards $15/hr minimum has either caused or been a really strong indicative symptom of something like a collapse in the value of wages. A lot of people doubled their wages nearly overnight here, while myself making $25 did not see a raise at all.
I was an account manager at a MSP making $25 and I remember seeing a sign for a rural bar “line cook wanted $25/hour”. Tried to use that as a bargaining chip to show him how bad it was and he told me to go work at the bar if I wanted the same money for less work. No, I’d like to be gain experience and be treated like a professional, please.
Point being, $50K ain’t shit. Even in rural areas.
> Tried to use that as a bargaining chip to show him how bad it was and he told me to go work at the bar if I wanted the same money for less work. No, I’d like to be gain experience and be treated like a professional, please.
That should’ve been your hint to start looking for a new role asap. If negotiation fails, bounce as fast as you can.
$25k is close to what international students in the US get paid on average. Postdoctoral fellows get $50k on average. All of them get by, many with families.
I think I'm out of touch then. I thought US had high cost of living everywhere and that people would struggle financially unless they made about $100k per year. At least that's the impression I got while reading salary discussions here.
Is this only true in big cities? Is this true at all?
I live in Florida. Miami, Tampa, Orlando, and Jacksonville are our largest cities, with Jacksonville being the most populous (though it's only #20 nationally.)
Median household income in Florida is $62k/yr. This includes the 13% of our population of 22 million who are in poverty and the about 7% on government food assistance (SNAP). I have personally lived on less than $20k/year as a younger, single man with low cost housing.
Florida is in the bottom third of states by median household income. DC, Maryland, and some of the northeastern states have median household income in the high-80s to just over $90k, but no state in the US is at $100k median. California is at $85k/yr.
To answer your question, HN has a higher than average population of young, childless, city-dwelling people with good education, well-paying careers, and relatively expensive tastes ($8+ cups of coffee, etc.) If they suddenly made the median salary for their state, they would likely struggle financially for a bit.
Are H1Bs hired at big tech paid that low anywhere? From what I saw, they may be given the bottom of the job level band, but it's still usually quite high.
At the same time, it was obvious that having h1b engineers gave the managers a lot more power to overwork them and prevented them from speaking out.
This feels a little hyperbolic. I’m a world where Forever 21 was importing actual slaves chained to sewing machines I think the people accepting voluntary contracts that undercut the price of local labor are at most modern indentured servants.
To hold this position is to assert that modern employment is wage slavery. That extends beyond H1B. It also undermines the suffering of the actually enslaved but I do not think that was your intention.
Seems quite clear that H1B should be reformed to allow for easier moves to another employer. It should just be a work permit for any job for a period of time.
This comment might be interpreted as offensive on so many levels. :) One of them being the implication that, on average, nationals are bigger slackers than foreigners.
In fairness, the worst case implication is that nationals with a cushy salary are less motivated than poorly paid foreigners who need to maintain their job to maintain their visa and position in the immigration process. That doesn’t seem particularly offensive to me, a decently paid national.
>In fairness, the worst case implication is that nationals with a cushy salary are less motivated than poorly paid foreigners who need to maintain their job to maintain their visa and position in the immigration process.
"Motivated" can be one of those euphemistically loaded words. Am I "insufficiently motivated" when I refuse to cross an ethical/legal/moral line? Is an H1B who has their residency on the line "more motivated" when they're totally okay with crossing that line?
Also, here's another little thing you don't get told about H1B and everyone just assumes you you know: any H1B you manage is only supposed to be able to work in their state of residence, and you, the employer are supposed to enforce that.
Think about that from a native's point of view. You:re drawing a box around this person and basically saying "you must stay here and work". Whereas I just move around and do what needs being done wherever it's conducive to being done from.
Sure, call me privileged, but it's awful bloody draconian when the System demands you implement a surveillance mechanism on their behalf over your workers.
Maybe I'm just a bad employer. These things just really leave a bad taste in my mouth. Point being always track all the outputs. Often the desired ones are the ones no one wishes to direct your attention to.
In general, I think it's best to avoid stereotypes like this, unless they aren't just stereotypes but a statistic. And even then, interpreting a statistic can often be tricky.
There wasn’t a stereotype; we were discussing different incentive structures (national vs foreigner was not a salient part of the discussion). No one is hinting toward nationals being innately lazy or foreigners being innately hard working
This is such a tone deaf rosy eyed out of touch with reality comment.
Modern slavery exists. See things like Uyghur camps, people sold to work until death on Thai boats or exit visas in Saudi Arabia.
Having a choice to work for money or (gasp) return home is not even remotely the same? To put them under the same label is to discount the actually bad stuff.
"Return home" is awfully convenient phrasing to gloss over the fact that to many of the people caught in this system, the US IS their home in practical terms and "returning home" to their country of origin is more like uprooting your entire life within a few weeks and restarting it in a foreign land.
Especially with Chinese and Indian H1Bs, the wait for permanent residency can be so long that they may have spent over a decade in the US with no meaningful connection to their country of origin, with all their friends and immediate family here.
Correct. Now you can maybe read up on those things I mentioned and understand why you are still failing to make H1B even remotely look like actual modern slavery. (Spoiler alert: it might have something to do with pitting "uprooting life" & "no friends" against "no option to leave", "life in confinement" and "work till death")
Calling it slavery isn't to say that the situation is on par with Uyghur camps or Indian laborers in the middle east etc. Just like "I'm dying from this heat" doesn't actually say that the heat is so severe as to kill you the way it can in some parts of the world.
The point is that the system creates a similar sense of entrapment as slavery. The fact that it isn't literal slavery doesn't make it not an exploitative practice worth fixing.
"I'm dying from this heat" is okay because dying is something we all do.
That phrase would stop being okay if death was something that happens not to you but to poorer people in other countries. See the difference?
Comparing your privileged life with really bad events that happen to others makes light of them. There's a reason things like "omg it's like a gas chamber here amirite?" are often frowned upon and Auschwitz is stuff of the past but slavery happens today.
Also, sorry but the last part about "similar sense of entrapment", when the worst that can happen is you leave it's not entrapment, actually the opposite of. I myself am on a working visa, yes if I get fired I go home where I'd rather not be, but I'd never have the gall to compare it to literal slavery as long as it's happening...
Easy to say that when you don't have a family member who is suicidally depressed because they spent 20 years working hard to get through the process, had their green card application process messed up by their employer, have barely lived in their country of origin and have no career prospects there because what they are educated in is not valued there.
I have extended family members who lived in war zone in the past couple of years. Somebody just started bombing their city. They had to move.
So yeah sorry to hear but it's one of those many sucky situations in life. The lack of options is illusory. Mental issues are mental issues, slavery is slavery, misfortune as a free person is misfortune as a free person.
Sounds like grounds to sue for the "messed up" process? If not I assume if whoever it is worked 20 years in the US they have experience that can be valued in many countries. I'd recommended checking around the more reasonable ones like Canada or Australia. As free person can.
There are no exit visas for foreign workers, right? Just like with SV, you have an option to come work for money or leave home anytime. Yeah condition may suck but it's a fundamentally different situation.
I’ve been the only US citizen on a team and now I am on a team with exclusively white, remote employees. I’ve watched my current team build the worst systems I’ve ever seen while constantly congregating themselves.
He's trying to defend immigrants without understanding that that BS political correctness means immigrants get exploited to hell and back while pretending "to care for immigration".
Companies largely don't care about the environment or immigration. They care about the right branding while maximizing profits and they have no qualms exploiting people. Or laying then off if they don't toe the line (RTO being a grand example)
I don’t think the companies in question let people go based on performance or any other logical criteria. They saw an opportunity to unload and they did.
I can speak based on Netherlands where I work now. If an employee is performing below expectations, then a conversation needs to be had(documented), given a chance to improve or change course. If after an extended period of attempt, the decision to let that employee go still holds, then they may.
However, the above reasoning cannot be made for several employees at once (like the layoffs that occurred).
To do an American style layoff, the government will insist on the company to document the reasons why, and in most cases, take away the choice for the company to choose which employee they can let go. Which makes it very unattractive. So, if a company wants to let go of several people at once, they typically offer good severance packages and request the employees to quit.
We have labour protections in the UK and this isn't a big problem. We can't fire people on manager whims and tantrums, and there is more accountability in the process, but not a problem or an obstacle to firing people who are not capable or performing.
First, there is the initial probation period. 80% of the people who won't perform, won't perform in the initial months. You just need a veto system or objective managers and it's easy to let slackers go. A lot of managers are soft on their employees and let them pass probation even if their performance is somewhat poor and, frankly, sometimes it's obvious it will continue to be poor. This is a mistake. So long as the company doesn't make these mistakes, this solves 80% of the matter.
Secondly, employees can be put on probation again, or on personal improvement plans. Yes, it can be done for actual performance reasons, not only Google-style. They can then fail these periods if their performance doesn't improve. But once again, this needs to be done with a clear head and accountability. This solves another 10% of the matter.
Thirdly, you can demote employees so that their pay matches their effort. This probably needs some foresight as demotion requires consent from the employee, if I recall. But if that consent is given as part of the employment contract, it's another way to make things just. You pay someone who underperforms less, you use that cash to hire people who perform. This option mitigates the perceived problem in firing under-performers even more.
In short, so long as there is good evidence that the employee was underperforming, it's not a problem. There are small peculiarities around dealing with this and not exposing the company legally beyond reason. But that's true for everything. Just don't be a clueless asshole about firing employees, do it when there really is a good reason, and it will all be fine.
There are, of course, employees who are vindictive or abuse these laws. But then again, a vindictive employee or one willing to abuse the company into keeping them around is a global problem. Some small % of people will just do these things everywhere - labour protections or not.
If they are not performing their job, they will be fired.
Unless by “low performers” you mean the supposedly weakest pawn in some “feelings-based” CEO’s desperate attempt to increase profits. And when that overpaid asshole realizes that he doesn’t actually have any ideas or other ways of impressing the board (which conveniently also consist of overpaid CEOs that think that desperately squeezing employees is the only way forward), shuffling around employees whose jobs he doesn’t understand in the slightest, becomes the way to seem actionable.
It’s far easier to get rid of an employee not doing their job, than it is to get rid of a delusional billionaire CEO or boardmember.
The real question is how do we get rid of these abysmal, low performing CEOs/boardmembers who hide behind idiotic ideas that fuck around with their employees lives or depend on exploiting people from poorer countries, to cover up their own ineptitude?
(And no, “shareholders” are just an effigy, conjured to represent private equity and geriatric pension funds, represented by a handful of investment bankers. It’s by definition a dysfunctional market, because the number of actors are tiny, and contained within the same industry. I mean, Adam Smith literally warned us about this…)
> I want to work with people from my town, not people from halfway across the world.
And I want to work with the brightest people from all over the world. I guess we are at an impasse and are best off leaving subjective preferences out...
Brightest in the world definitely isn’t what H1B recruits on. It recruits on who is the most desperate to do hundreds of leetcode problems in order to stay in the country.
Go figure, people who want to stay in the country will jump through some ridiculous hoops and we’re all worse for it.
I have never found a reason to believe any folks on H1B are smarter than their non-H1B peers. By any stat, never seen it.
Do you want to work with them even if that means a lower salary? Surely, since you’re among the “brightest in the world” you understand that labor prices are set by supply and demand. The H1B process increases the labor supply and thus decreases the price of labor.
I'm certainly not one of them, but love working with bright people.
> you understand that labor prices are set by supply and demand. The H1B process increases the labor supply and thus decreases the price of labor.
The pie isn't fixed. I believe it will grow and there will be more for everyone if we allow everyone to thrive. New people create demand and maybe reverb start some new companies. Further, the labor could also happen entirely in another country which would be much worse for US workers.
IMO the biggest issue with H1B is that it restricts worker choice and thus creates a somewhat captive class of workers who can be paid less. The best way to solve this is to reduce constraints on H1B holders
Are you asserting that there is enough American talent to satisfy the job market and that they are being unjustly suppressed? It’s an interesting idea. Do you have any reading relevant to the topic that supports this assertion?
Absolutely. And I would go even further and say that many of the people we hire from overseas aren't even that good. They're just cheap labor and that's what makes them attractive.
If you are looking for someone to blame for you not getting your dream job, blame it on employers instead of the government. Companies like Verizon and Wells Fargo almost never hire anyone on a visa. Go work for those companies. Oh wait, they do hire foreigners with a green card. Are you going to find a company that only hires US-born citizens like the requirement for the US President?
Many countries offer work visas (for many good reasons), although they are often used in unintended ways. It is very much a stretch to say these programs shouldn't exist at all because they "take away" jobs.
Also, if half of the people you work with are on H1B, very likely you are not in a midwest "town" with 3,000 population, but rather a decent metropolitan area with a large immigration population, and the company you work is of decent size. I wouldn't be surprised if even half of the Americans in your company relocated from a different "town".
Finally, I like working with people that are productive and easy to communicate, instead of looking at which country they come from or their visa status. If anything that's my boss's concern.
Therefore, if you want to actually see any change, maybe (1) become the CEO of your company, fire all H1B and only hire US citizens (2) join a different company (3) start your own company, or at least (4) call your senator and advocate for anti-immigration bills, or sue USCIS, instead of posting these useless and borderline racist comments on HN.
The latter. To think otherwise is to ignore thousands of years of human history that has consistently proved it through many different forms of government. Whatever the initial idea of any new system of government might be, after a few generations it degenerates into serving the elites first and foremost. The problem is human nature.
Sounds impractical to me. In fact every company I've worked for is flooded with non-Americans. It would be tough to find a company that only hires Americans.
I think a better solution is to end H-1B. Nobody is forcing people to come here.
That's the whole point, that's why H1B is apparently still very popular. People will take lower salaries just to get to the US because they apparently want to move there at all cost and have a chance to stay.
US has historically low unemployment past several years so idk who you think they are taking jobs away from but most let go are almost immediately re-hired elsewhere. With little to no slack in the local unemployment pool it only makes sense to hire from elsewhere.
These companies do business all over the world (read: take money away from other companies in those countries). I'm not sure why Google having a lot of people from other countries is bad if it makes money from those countries).
(Btw, I see your point and am not necessarily criticizing it. However, you do see that these companies operate globally and having the workforce reflect that should be considered ok?)
Because you compete with other businesses. If labor regulations allow companies to do X, and one or more companies actually do X, then others have to follow suite and do X or be undercut. It’s simply the prisoner’s dilemma but the prisoners are companies and exploiting labor is defecting.
No, a nation should not put just its citizens first, that’s nationalistic garbage. Firstly it presumes a nation decides who its citizens are through some fair system, and secondly it presumes its citizens are somehow inherently more deserving than its non citizens.
Anyone who agrees to the social contract gets to benefit from the nation. That’s what a country actually is.
Your premise is flawed. If I create a new nation and my nations social contact is one norm: no outsiders, then you can't simply be a national by agreeing to the contract.
In practice, nations prioritize their own citizens, in the same way you will prioritize your family. Do you abandon taking care of your family because it would be "more fair," to take care of someone on the other side of the planet?
Your countrymen should have aligned values, cultures, goals, missions, etc that prioritizes them. That's the fabric of society.
The problem you’re ignoring is that there is not a 1:1 correlation between citizenship and people who agree to the social contract.
Everyone who gives up freedom to the state is entering into a social contract with that state, citizenship or no. Once those people enter into that contract, they deserve all of the rights and services the contract provides.
By tying the contract to citizenship, you provide a way for racists and nationalists to steal from the people arbitrarily determined to be noncitizens, usually along racial lines.
At the same time, if a surplus of noncitizens enter and suddenly the country's ability to provide for all of its people is strained, wouldn't that be a grave disservice to the citizens? What would be the difference between a citizen and a noncitizen then? Not that a country like the US is reasonably providing for a large portion of the populace anyways, so I suppose that's a moot point right now.
No, as these people who are part of the influx, once accepting the social contract, are no better or worse than anyone else who has agreed to the social contract, citizen or no.
Besides, all evidence suggests immigrants benefit a society substantially more than they harm it. In the US for example, noncitizens consume significantly fewer national resources while still paying the full amount of taxes expected of citizens.
I don't deny that immigrants are beneficial at the moment. However, some people aren't going to have jobs. Besides, it's not as if noncitizens should be paid less just because they can survive with those wages. I'm saying that if the US actually cared for all of its people, I'll say present immigrants included, there won't be room for an arbitrary number of new immigrants. Are you going to try to stretch that limit until something bad happens? I have no interest in excluding people of "other races" or something like that, but pragmatically, I think the line needs to be drawn somewhere at some point.
There is no "pragmatic" limit. As more people arrive, more jobs are needed to support them, more jobs are made available as a larger pool of workers able to do a wider variety of tasks for wages that allow for corporations to turn a profit. It's a self sustaining cycle.
The general rule here is that unless there's an obvious reason to deny equal people something you've given other people, you shouldn't deny it in the first place.
> The general rule here is that unless there's an obvious reason to deny equal people something you've given other people, you shouldn't deny it in the first place.
Of course. The problem is that your view of the economy is optimistic, perhaps dangerously so. Let's hope we never reach the limit and have a concrete problem on our hands, I guess.
This viewpoint appears somewhat naive and unrealistic. It's important to consider that there are literally billions of people who might be willing to make certain sacrifices and agree, or at least pretend to agree, to a social contract just to migrate to the US. What would happen in such a scenario? Society could collapse. To get a clearer perspective on this, it's worth examining what started happening in the European Union around 2015 when there was a substantial influx of immigrants from Africa and Asia. It created huge social tensions. Look at the rising crime rates in Sweden (majority from immigrants, that's not some right wing propaganda but actual statistics, just google it), the increased popularity of far-right parties like AFD in Germany or neo nazi parties in France or Italy. I am grateful that this perspective is in the minority because the consequences of the proposed decisions could potentially harm society. There will always be individuals who exploit divisions and tensions between groups to gain power. Don't forget that Hitler was elected in democratic society.
Preach it fellow human. I sometimes am baffled by how little a damn people in privileged positions can give about others. All they're interested in is preserving their position of privilege, and their political views and philosophy on life will typically reflect that.
Personally I would give citizenship and a free house to any good hearted hard working individual and not give a damn where they come from. Our whole society would benefit if we didn't have to waste so much of our brain power just on surviving.
You throw a lot of half baked assertions on this thread but it doesn't seem to go anywhere.
Who should a nation put first then?
I dont see the connection between how citizenship is acquired (AFAIK each nation is free to set the rules/laws that they think is fair) and if citizens should get special treatment or not.
If citizens can't get "special" treatment over non resident in their own country what's the point of countries?
How people become residents and what "rights" they have die to this status is part of the "social contract".
A nation supports the people who agree to the social contract upon which the nation is founded, citizenship be damned.
Citizenship in the US is a profoundly broken system with a horrendous and racist past, and using it to decide who deserves the benefit of the social contract and who doesn’t is actively buying into the nationalistic and false idea that Americans are superior just because they were born somewhere and foreigners weren’t.
You wouldn’t argue that black slaves weren’t worthy of US protection and services until the 14th Amendment was passed, would you? You wouldn’t pretend like the US granting and then revoking citizenship from Mexican settlers repeatedly in the 19th and 20th century was acceptable, would you? Was the Chinese Exclusion Act acceptable?
A foreign life is worth exactly the same as an American life, and the difference is completely arbitrary.
You're now blatantly strawmaning. Nobody is talking about the value of a life or people being superior to others. We're discussing employment policies.
Deserve means everything in this context, because I, as an American, am discussing with my fellow Americans how our country works and the principles upon which we ought to rule ourselves.
Those principles are heavily founded in “deserve”. You are watching some infinitesimally small part of that “ruling” process.
Citizenship is meant to limit external actors influencing the vote of who should represent the people of any given area, and being qualified to represent the people by virtue of a sustained commitment and longevity.
No, it's meant to determine which people have agreed to the social contract. Citizenship is not some sacred thing you must earn; simply agreeing to give up some freedom is all it takes to benefit from the social programs offered by a government.
The bureaucratic concept of "citizenship" is just a way for people to construct barriers of hate around the benefits offered by a nation while still forcing people to accept the sacrifices.
Man that's some serious goal post moving happening on this thread. We go from land superficy to land ownership - with a little sprinkle of "muh racism" because why not.
Is it about land superficy or about ownership? Can we establish a clear framework here instead of constantly jumping from one wishy washy thing to the other?
You aren't the sole owner of your house either. Even without a mortgage you are not. So if someone adhere to the social contract in your house I assume you let them in to do as they please (within the limit of the contract of course.)
The house analogy makes zero sense, as my house is not a commons (I am sole owner, even with a mortgage, methinks you don’t have one of these), but if it were then yes, anyone agreeing to the social contract of the government of my home would be allowed in or out.
It’s about how to manage shared resources amongst people who all have equal claim, which is everyone who has agreed to the social contract. When you agreed is irrelevant.
Frankly, I would argue that many people born in the US do not hold up their end of the social contract, and should thus take a backseat to immigrants who would come here and care deeply for the social contact in their place.
Zoning laws, property taxes, liens, HOAs. You live a fantasy, you never answer any question in replies and just keep jumping from one thing to another. Completely unproductive. Done here.
No. But they shouldn't restrict sales based on birth / color, and allow everyone to buy-in. The problem here is that people who actually want to join/buy/agree cannot do so.
"Judge a person by their actions, not their words"
When you willingly leave your family out in the cold, thanksgiving winter; to have space to provide random passersby into your house to eat your turkey, lets talk!
And in America we earn our keep. Life is not fair, if someone's willing to work for less, you simply show up and do a better job and demand a better salary. Entitlement is not America, it's communism
Life isn't fair, but we could do a lot better than imposing even more unfairness. Sexual harrassment and sexism, LGBT discrimination, racism, nepotism, etc. We're not quite living in a meritocracy.
Where's the joke? The purpose of any government ought to be to benefit its citizens. Certainly there's a moral obligation to not unduly wrong others in the course of that pursuit, but it is contrary to the mission of a government to benefit foreigners at the expense of its own population.
The purpose of government is to provide social goods to everyone who agreed to give up some freedoms to be part of that government.
Non citizens have equal right to feed their families, and anyone who has agreed to the social contract has equal rights to the social services the government has agreed to provide, regardless of citizenship.
If my house were like a country, it would be quite convenient and I would indeed open my home to everyone willing to participate in my social contract.
But my home isn’t in any way like a country, so this question isn’t meaningful.
So your logic doesn't apply for your home, for your neighborhood or your city? Does it hold for you state or do you need to become completely independent country?
The people who share ownership are entitled to the resource and can decide how someone can join.
The land your home is built on is part of a shared resource: the space available for the community.
If we apply your logic there s nothing wrong with immigrants showing up and colonizing natives - be it in America, Australia, etc - shared resource bro!
Once we reach level 4 or 5 of replies I think it's not really worth pursuing so I'll just give my take on this one and leave it there. That's probably a case where principles/values or whatever you want to call it differ too much for anything to come out of it.
People were allowed and welcome to immigrate because there was a gigantic country to fill. Now this policy makes no sense so rules have changed. It's just common sense. The way a country was built/populated doesn't need to persist forever and should adapt to whatever works best at a given time.
Otherwise let's push the logic: mostly white people immigrated at the beginning, should we stick to this? It makes no sense.
It's not about "deserving". It's about the common good of the population. I believe in helping people who are already here better their life instead of relocating someone.
One could argue that having access to good jobs is part of the nebulous "social services" you mention.
As a side note, it's interesting how the interest of the immigrant seems to always be superficially taken into consideration. Immigrants don't all want to move. I would bet a lot of them would much prefer to have a better life where they are to begin with.
You keep getting stuck in the bureaucracy, presuming it results in just outcomes. It doesn’t.
If the concept of citizenship was simply an agreement to the social contract, open to all, you could start to favor those who’ve agreed over those who haven’t, though even then you can’t say from a moral perspective the lives of those who’ve agreed are superior.
However you seem overly attached to the concept of soil and citizenship, both of which can be manipulated by bigots to hurt the people they’re hateful towards. This is why “Americans” can’t be considered first; what even qualifies is set based on a wildly racist past, riddled with hateful people making nationalistic laws that remain in effect today.
If the contract is this simple then is it surprising that existing control givers (aka permanent residents) may have a sense that as long as they're still 'giving' they should still be 'getting' or at least have a place in line to 'get' ahead of a prospective 'giver' (h1b).
I abhor any system that results in second hand citizens, such as the H1B program. It suppresses the general welfare, in service of capital. If I were able to, I'd give everyone in the program an immediate option for citizenship, and then cancel it.
Yes, literally everyone but employers is worse off because of the system. It depresses wages for everyone. The limitation of worker supply might even hurt employers enough to make up for their benefits as well. Like tariffs, this hurts everyone involved because of misguided, protectionist instincts.
H1Bs aren’t second hand citizens, and canceling the H1B program would trigger an immediate humanitarian crisis, not to mention completely shut off America’s main advantage in innovation; the idea that we don’t care where you’re from if you’re great at what you do.
> we don’t care where you’re from if you’re great at what you do.
Yes, that’s true but isn’t what is happening here. They’re not bringing in H1Bs for their talent, they’re firing US workers so they bring in H1Bs to do the same job, but cheaper.
All well and good but I never mentioned performance. Of course they’re able to do the job, no doubts there. But the bottom line is US companies are firing US workers not because they need to, but because they want an excuse to hire cheaper workers through an immigration program.
There is nothing at all special about a US worker.
Welcome to the world, where people who aren’t from or in the US also need to feed their families, and have just as much a right to do so as Americans do.
So what stops them from doing it in their host country?
And if their host country is non functional what should be done about that?
Are you arguing we should bring back colonialism? Or are you arguing that all the most capable people should live in one rich country and the rest of the world should be an endless slum?
Maybe all these capable people should work to reform and improve the conditions of the country where they are.
Welcome to the world, where people who are from the US need to feed their families, and have just as much a right to do so as immigrants do.
See the issue? Just because we accept immigrants and they benefit the economy doesn't mean everyone is magically happy. Do you think the US should support every poor person in the world? Can it?
You'd be fine with us going from a population of 3XX million to, say, 3 billion? I feel like there'd be a few problems with that. Can we annex other countries then? I'm not trying to be facetious; I genuinely don't understand how "immigrants good" translates to "literally anyone who is willing to work should be allowed and there won't be any logistical issues because why would there be".
That may be the original idea, but the focus on the worker and ignoring their lives and family is brutal. Moving between jobs or ___location is difficult. Going outside the country may land people in trouble. It’s not slavery, but feels like one at times. Of course, it’s a choice, but they do live as second hand citizens.
What, don't Americans need things too? The logical conclusion of "countries should support their people" is that the countries these people are emigrating from should support them. If a country like the US is doing that well for its people, it can afford to give aid to these other countries, maybe accept a portion of the immigrants. As it stands, it's kind of a lose-lose situation because who cares about caring for their people? Not the US or those countries that people are emigrating en masse from. It's not like the US has the sole responsibility or capability to care for everyone under the sun. That's the reality of the situation, if nothing else.
I'm clearly not against immigrants because I don't like immigration. It's also not grounded in reality for you to say that Americans can support arbitrary numbers of immigrants because the economy will magically make things work out.
It absolutely is grounded in reality, because in reality billions of people wouldn’t move to the US. You’re trying to claim realism but then applying absurd hyperbole.
There's nothing really new in this article. These companies hire H1B's all the time. There is no evidence that they are low paid. I was an H1B at [FAANG] and I had a bigger salary and more stock options than most of my teammates (not sure why, but I think I was more aggressive in asking for raises). I also received help to get my green card quickly.
Here's how it works in practice: You create a job posting that's buried on your careers page and has so many very specific requirements for an underleveled role (because it's custom-made for the H1B person you want to hire) that no local worker can possibly meet them all. Then you half-heartedly phone screen a few people to check the box before throwing up your hands and saying, "We tried and weren't able to find any local workers; we have no choice but to hire an H1B!"
This could all be fixed by making H1B visas an auction system, but all the H1B legislation changes I've seen have been half-hearted at best.
There are actually even more arcane requirements like placing a job ad in a Sunday newspaper with a certain distribution. The ads have bizarre keywords that make it borderline impossible to determine the real job. Those regulations are controlled by the DOL.
One of which is some sort of a posted positions/wages or something at work place. ( it doesn't have to be prominent but it has to be there, usually it's in the same forgotten corner where they post labor right rules etc., usually around the water cooler I guess )
During Covid, our company told H1Bs to print those out and put them up in their kitchen fridges since it was their temporary "worksite" XD
Because both political parties have donors that benefit from H1Bs and it's beyond just tech companies. Even the angry orange man has his hotels applying for H1B visas. Fucking hotels.
The public's lack of understanding of the real motivations of political/business leaders with regards to immigration policy is like a masterclass on propaganda and brainwashing.
Trump actually tried to end H1B, and suspended the H1B program with an executive order. One of his policy decisions I support. Actually the entire platform was centered around immigration.
As soon as it happened though, there were news stories left and right about how "Immigration is our strength" and "The US is a country founded by immigrants". All these sob stories about why we need cheap, exploitable labor to undercut American workers.
Trump didn't try to "end" the program. His administration straight up wanted to close the borders to interns, skilled workers, and their relatives. That goes far beyond H-1B visas.
> All these sob stories about why we need cheap, exploitable labor to undercut American workers.
This is not how the H-1B program works.
Also, they didn't try to stop agricultural workers from entering the US. If you really want to focus on "cheap labor", you may want to start there.
One of my friends saw a job the other day. It was a non academic, non R&D, run of the mill marketing position that required… a PhD???. The pay was also pretty pathetic with the start of the range probably not much more than a PhD stipend. I was wondering at first if credential inflation had reached its peak, but someone else suggested it was H1B bait.
Why would companies take the time, money, effort to nurture when talent is readily available as H1bs? The mostly American shareholders don’t approve that.
I've personally noticed that H1B tech workers get paid significantly lower than others. It's a shameful business practice and obviously also really hurts the competitiveness of non-visa workers.
My guess is that there's no clear market rate for any position. Companies can always say there's a wide range between lowest and highest paid for any given role.
Market rate is based on the national median. So yeah... they do get paid more than the median, but far less than a developer where they work. It's why H1 workers tend to get hired in high paying areas. That's when it's worth it. If they can swing remote, it might be worth it. I've had a California company "lowball" me and I cackled at my amazing raise internally.
A PERM (permanent labor certificate) actually requires prevailing wage for a specific job position at a specific area. Just go check this website: https://flag.dol.gov/programs/prevailingwages
It depends on the company and I would bet my life’s savings that if a discrepancy exists at Google, it is not intentional. I have many American friends, friends on TN visas, and friends on H1Bs and we are transparent about our pay (to protect each other from poor business practices). Being involved in the process there are so many legal barriers and red tape and people take it all seriously.
H1B holders will get paid less over time due to not being able to leave companies at the drop of a hat. A similar but less significant effect holds for TN visas. I have not once seen any significant pay discrepancy for two comparable software engineers at the same company based on visa status.
I worked at FAANG and knew more than one Indian on H1B. They weren't getting paid "the same but slightly less". They were getting like 50k TC on a team where the rest of the team was making 200+.
I wonder if it's different in the public sector? I'm at a university and (pay transparency) earn pretty much equivalent to equivalently experienced colleagues. (Edit: in the Midwest)
In theory yes, but not in practice. Job roles are often downplayed. The basic mechanism where titles, roles, and pay are kept in sync because people will jump to new jobs breaks down in the H1B system.
Yea the market rate definitely has shenanigans. And I almost wonder if the "response" to a made up ad with low ball number is used to declare it's a valid market rate.
Case in point, when I graduated 15 years ago. There was a big H1B software farm (Accenture maybe?) That randomly emailed. 2 year contract job, $30k/year out of NYC.
Yea....not a reasonable salary even 15 years ago lmao
15 years ago I interviewed at Electronic Arts. They did this same thing. I wasn’t a recent college grad. I had a family to support. They offered me the job but at 60% of what I asked for. They were shocked when I told them to go eat dirt.
I’m not familiar with the US visa rules, but aren’t companies supposed to demonstrate that they can’t source talent domestically before bringing people in on visas? This seems odd and damaging to the US economy. And I say this as a non-US person
Yeah but it's excessively easy. Rules most likely have changed since I was myself on an h1b 10+ years ago, but iirc all you had to do was show a job posting up for a certain amount of time without being able to hire.
No worries. If this thread has proven anything, that would be that not even Americans know, but they sure love a good flame bait.
Jokes aside, what you just said is absolutely correct and it is indeed how it works in the US. I'm an immigrant myself, and that was part of the process. Most people complaining about how this "hurts" Americans, are, unknowingly I hope, echoing the same xenophobic slogans we have been hearing for a couple decades now.
I don’t suspect this is as nefarious as just stupid bureaucracy. My company has kept hiring interns immediately after laying off 10% of their staff, “to keep the funnel open”. H1Bs seem to be organized similarly; it’s a different “system” to companies and tends to be not that aligned with general hiring.
Of course, at my job I’m now surrounded by junior engineers on a very old legacy product. These juniors are very much not equipped, and struggle. I mention this will take months of training and mentoring, challenging the teams ability to execute on product in any case. It appears protecting a head count matters more than real results.
It’s saddening to watch these silly management trends take over in the industry, but, it just looks like the big companies are due for being challenged.
I’m an immigrant myself and know how the visa application process works. There are a few mechanisms in place to prevent H-1B holders to receive lower wages than their colleagues, first and foremost the PERM, which guarantees similar wages in the same occupation and area of employment.
If Google or anyone else are hiring H-1B visa holders directly, they have to pay them accordingly to their own standards.
Also, visa salaries have to be publicly available. It’s not like they could lie about it.
When people speak of visa holders as “cheap” labour, they probably think of IT consultants hired by Indian companies, which regularly are the worst offenders.
> You aren't supposed to take hyperbole literally.
I didn't say "literally", but "seriously".
> I didn't hire H1B workers because I couldn't find Java programmers in the US...
You are misdirecting your anger at the program, instead of the abusers, which are never FAANG companies but large IT consultancy corporations like Tata.
If your company is hiring H-1B visa holders at a rate way below market, they are committing fraud. Again, not an issue with the visa holders themselves, but your company HR personnel being absolute crooks.
I love the program. You are now accusing me of fraud and being a crook when you clearly don't know the first thing about the system that you yourself took advantage of. Good luck with that attitude.
I'm not accusing you of being anything. I'm just saying that if your company is hiring visa holders at a rate below market, then they are committing a crime.
> ... you clearly don't know the first thing about the system that you yourself took advantage of.
Don't make me laugh. Do you really believe that anyone going through several years of dealing with the USCIS knows nothing about visa processes?
In the US employees of all nationalities have less leverage than many parts of the world. Healthcare tied to employment, persistent union-busting, at-will employment laws etc.
And I don't believe that is the case, unless we are talking about hired vs outsourced employees.
H-1B salaries are publicly available. If what you say was true, don't you think that a country as notoriously litigious as the US, wouldn't have started a massive class action lawsuit against tech companies a long time ago?
As a once H1B holder I can confirm this is actually a common practice not only a FAANGs but pretty much any large and medium size tech corporation in America.
The visa is not the actual problem but the green card promise and process.
It took me 6 years to be "free" and that's considered pretty fast compared to my Indian colleagues many who are still waiting more than a decade later.
One of the teams I work with today is about 90% Indian, most from great schools like CMU, many overqualified for the job they do, all trapped in the green card promise making 1/3 of what they could be making somewhere else.
> ... all trapped in the green card promise making 1/3 of what they could be making somewhere else.
Your colleagues need to find a lawyer, then.
Visa holders don't need to stay employed in the same company to obtain a green card. And if they really are underpaid compared to other coworkers, that's a clear case of visa fraud against the employer.
The trends I’ve seen in the industry are to hire lots of H1b’s who just churn out questionable code, then hire sharp people to fix that code. Rinse and repeat. Soon the H1b’s will be replaced by AI, this might be the last batch, probably using them to fine tune the AI. Unfortunate.
Many of the AIs themselves are build by people on H-1B!
You can easily verify that Open AI, for example, have made tens of H-1B applications. Also, please go check the names of authors of influential papers - many of them are from countries who don’t share a land border with the US, but work here.
Yes, there are plenty of engineers who churn out questionable code. But those are not all folks on H-1B, or are H-1B exclusively on those roles.
I believe for H1B they have to post the jobs and demonstrate no qualified American could be found. I've seen companies do this quickly and quietly to satisfy the requirement. I wonder if there a way to identify these opportunities and take advantage of the low applicant pool.
These companies have already found their H1B hire before they even craft the job description. The description will be carefully written to match exactly that candidate's specific expertise and experience, so they can easily decline all other candidates. Also look up a "bench and switch"[1] scheme where foreign hires are lined up in positions that don't even exist to form a defacto H1B staffing agency.
Ultimately, the Silicon Valley job market is bimodal. If you don't make $500k+ here, it's not because a H-1B worker is taking your job. It's because you're not good enough at interviewing. Because people are hiring even now.
You clearly don’t get it, you just made an unrelated argument. And ya, obviously if you don’t make a half million dollars you don’t have a good enough resume and don’t interview well enough to make that much. That’s tiny portion of jobs and not what anyone here is talking about. Truly a pointless, navel-gazing comment.
There are stats you can find if you look for it. Something like 5-10% was made up of actual engineers. Large majority was sales, marketing, HR, product and design, recruiting, and finance. I've only seen stats for Google but assume it was similar at most other companies with the exception of Twitter.
Again, what stats? Because that doesn't appear to be the case at all according to [1].
But let's take your word for it since you didn't provide a source. Here's an actual hard number: 170,000 tech workers cut this year alone (plus more last year) [2]. Let's use your 5% lower bound. That's 9,000 engineers. I hope you'll agree that's a lot.
Meta-question, but what in the world is going on with that website URL? It has another URL for the same ___domain specified as a query parameter? I feel my sanity slipping...
Daydream: American companies are allowed to replace well-paid American workers with ill-treated, ill-paid H1B workers all they want...with the small caveat that the highest replacement rates and worst ill-treat/-pay rates must occur the C suite.
Introducing this nearly alwats means that if the company has a bad year, the company only pays out a small fraction of the money to the employees that it would in a good year.
The problem is that many employees want the best of the two worlds: a huge bonus in good years and a rather high guaranteed salary.
I’m curious about the role of fresh out of college hires in this issue. Hired on an OPT for two years and then converting to H1b. Any inside info on the fraction of applications in this scenario?
18 months ago i was talking to 4 recruiters in parallel, turning down jobs and making companies outbid each other.
Today the only recruiters who will return my calls are the ones who have gotten me jobs in the past and they all said they don’t have anything. One of them talked about an opportunity that might exist in 3 weeks time that he’ll put me in for if it gets the go ahead.
Weird, that vast majority of jobs I see posted now (in my area of experience) are either from grifty third party recruiters or small random consulting firms. I see very few first part job postings by companies.
Yes, and what you'll find is that the output of your work product will become magically disconnected from your pay. Management will love your ideas because they came from a consultant. Ideas which come from within the business cannot be trusted, but consultants are expensive, and therefore they are both intelligent and also correct.
Absolutely. It's just about getting into a firm that isn't doing staff augmentation and is building out things for companies. While you will be paid well, it's worth noting that the code will be shit. Worse than code sometimes. That's why the company is outsourcing. I once spent six months just cataloging all the repositories and dependencies a company had. They needed to move to the cloud but they literally had no idea what code they had. Everything worked and so they just never touched it.
Depends on the ‘consulting’ - are you giving strategic advice to the CTO’s office at a multinational? You could be making millions! Are you augmenting an SME’s team as an IC? You can make a little more than an employee after accounting for all the things you have to pay for that tend to be included as an employee.
You tend to need some really awesome work experience to get the former while the latter is fairly easy to walk into.
Of course it is. Everyone’s mileage will vary. Not everyone is cut out to be CEO of a consulting firm. As a solo consultant, you’ll be hard pressed to charge more than they could get a FTE. As a firm, well, Deloitte, Cognizant, Pearsons, Booz Allen, all started as a consultancy or professional services spin off.
If you’re wondering how to be a consultant, you won’t get FAANG money. If you know how to be a consultant, it’s a matter of finding the right clientele and/or hiring a sales rep for their clientele.
Again a massive no true Scotsman stretch. GP asked if we could make FAANG money as a contractor and you claim four fold... If you have the network, money and sub-hire a bunch of people. Ok sure but then it's not a like for like comparison.
Most ppl in contracting are just interested in FTE work, with a better rate, tax framework, less office politics, etc. Very few want to go full Cognizant.
I see perhaps somewhat lost in translation. In Europe a contractor is often referred to as an external consultant and _actual_ "Consultancy" are somewhat interchangeable terms but one is John's LLC and the other is BCG's pricetag consultants.
That's the realm of extreme skill, luck, and timing. There is no way there's a cookie-cutter solution to that and if people say there is I suggest they're no different to Tai Lopez etc...
Two solutions I have seen (thanks to the news):
1. Be being a world-class academic on a hot ML topic consulting to a huge tech company at a strategic level
2. Be the prime minister of a G8 country and consult for global investment firms
If you're a software engineer or even engineering leader at a startup/SME you're not going to find these contracts unless you're in the 0.001% of the market for a niche skill that's desperately in need.
Consultants exist at every level. An individual will (should?) never make more than the client they serve. However, a team of consultants (like the ones who consult for global firms) can demand more than an individual can. Often times a lot more. They also take on indemnification and more risk. Last I checked, an engagement with Deloitte for anything costs $10M out the gate.
Yes but the question was how does one consultant earn multiple millions of dollars. The average managing directors at Deloitte earn around $500k - I don't think there's any reasonable way to earn over double the average managing directors rate at a Big 4 without being a sole contractor directly contracting with a company
You say you’re a consultant and yet link to a definition of a sole contractor.
Again, I’m talking about consulting, not contracting. Those are different. If you don’t know the difference then here’s a definition of a consultant https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/consultant
Now, to a layman, these may look identical. To a consultant, these are vastly different things.
You are not paid on output, you are paid on outcome.
Example: I can spend 10 days consulting a startup board on how to do something and make $50,000.
I can spend 10 days coding for client X and make $5,000 tops as a contractor.
You're misunderstanding me. I'm saying it is extremely rare for a consultant to earn multiple millions a year. On the cases it is possible, they are going to be very niche individuals not going into a company via Deloitte etc but as themselves.
Start a consultancy, start making money. There’s no hard guide. No playbook on how to succeed for you personally. It’s a business, just like any other. Treat it as a business. Not a job. Build it up. Network. Showcase. Charge slightly less than you would have. Hire more people to assist in the work. Compound your time. Compound your money.
Has Google given up on hiring the best engineers? I remember a time when the interview process was very tough (and erred on the side of caution) but they paid top money / benefits.
Where in the article does it justify "low paid"?? Given that H1B salaries and job titles are public, and so is levels.fyi, its trivially easy for the authors to be able to fact check this. Unless it's just a scare piece designed to feed into a narrative.
And then they managed to put the two indian FAANG CEOs in the picture, without even mentioning one of their companies? This is really junk journalism...
I'm just going by the HN guidelines: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Not surprising attitude from these companies, at this point H1B are more "warm bodies" hired for low wages than hiring for talent (with all respect to the recipients of those visas)
But why does this site looks like an intranet site "best viewed with IE6"?
Of course. Money Hoovering megacorps gonna megacorp. I had an H-1B boss at Meta before layoffs. They didn't lay off the non-engineer workers who sat around the office and socialized all day... hot seat rto bullshit.
Are there any political candidates on the Presidential ballot for 2024 who might be willing to hold corporations accountable for these types of practices with stricter enforcement or perhaps changing immigration policy?
This topic is a lightning rod and it seems we're conflating a bunch of things. All these things can be separately true.
1) H1B's are abused
2) Immigrants, like any other people, can form cliques at work
3) Companies do layoffs while simultaneously hiring
4) H1B semi-indenture the hired immigrant
First off the bat, this is a clickbaity article. The literal implication is FANG laid off and FANG also hired H1Bs therefore FANG laid off Americans to employ lowly-skilled H1Bs. This is pure sleight of hand. Facebook's had ~20k layoffs and ~3k H1B hires. It'd be easy to claim a wholesale clean out/swap out if Facebook successfully hired ~10000 to 20k H1Bs. Secondly, H1B hires usually include a mix of net new hires (say a college grad joining facebook) and existing employee (I work at facebook and want to switch to an H1B visa). Thirdly, H1Bs are usually lodged independently of layoffs or better put, H1Bs are lodged several months in advance. A decent chunk of those H1B hires started their application process 16-18 months ago. You cannot just fire someone and immediately pick an H1B. The H1B process is independent and nondeterministic (or random because it takes several months to process an application & it all depends on the lottery). It's pretty blatant the article doesn't even mention the number of visas awarded. It also doesn't even bother backing up the 'low-salaried' claim (fun fact, all H1B salary info is public so you can actually do the math yourself and see if say Amazon's H1B salaries are 'low'/'deflated'. Spoiler, no such thing)
(I'll also add, the energy required to perform a conspiracy of multiple managers coordinating to mass replace american workers at FANG could boil the sun. I think labor collusion happens i.e. a do-not-poach from X company, but H1B would be practically infeasible at distributed semiautonomous Google/Facebook hiring teams. But hey, I guess it's doable but not worth the RoI)
Secondly, H1B abuse definitely happens and we literally know who the obvious culprits are. These are the standard offshoring culprits. I'm not going to mention them by name here but they are responsible for most of the horror stories you hear i.e. having an american train their literal replacement
Thirdly, I totally get it. Tech is a tough-to-hire industry and hiring is a zero sum game (if i were an economist, i'd argue the productivity gains from a diverse skilled workforce actually makes the pie bigger but that's for another day). If I were American I would be pissed off at the idea of a bunch of foreigners coming in and taking my jobs. But that's not what's happening in this article.
The last thing is the almost xenophobia which I don't think should be relevant to H1B hiring, but idk folks. If a PhD team is full of a bunch of folks from Bleurgh, of course the Bleurghians will clique up. It's naturally human tendency especially if you're a foreigner. I literally see Americans do this wherever they go :). But sometimes some people do experience stone-wall cliques where the Bleurghians refuse to even attempt to assimilate. That's a complicated issue, but I can see why it'd be frustrating. I once took a graduate CS class that was mostly full of Bloopians and I found it amusing when the instructor would sometimes conduct office hours in Bloopian
Honestly the best way to fix immigration is to be mad at your government and compel them to make common sense regulations. We literally know who perpetuates H1B abuse but the USCIS doesn't have the means to fully stamp it out. USCIS is woefully understaffed and inundated and like any government bureau, pretty slow. The government, because of partisanship, has been pretty much roadblocked on common-sense immigration for decades.
You have this backwards: the visa is required only to live in the US for the purposes of working. If you aren't living in the US, you can work as much as you like for a US company, provided they and you comply with laws in your country. Typically this requires them to set up a subsidiary in your country, or contract with a local company that you become an employee of.
There are worse stuff than H1B, eg L1B. H1B has the req that you must find another sponsor within 60 days of leaving a company, but you can quit just fine otherwise.
L1B means you can only work for the sponsor company and nobody else and as soon as you get fired you are gone.
They won't file an H-1B for people working from outside the country. It's much faster to just employ you in one of the other places they have a presence. And if they need you to visit, there's an L-1 and related class.
Sounds like a great business plan. Join the layoff news cycle to avoid criticism and get rid of old or innificient employees. Maybe that's why zuck and Sundar are at the top.
> Rent in Silicon Valley and NYC are definitely a lot higher than anywhere in Europe
Salaries in SF and NYC for tech workers are way higher in those areas indeed. I would argue that that is probably the main reason why rents are so high, there's plenty of tech workers with stellar salaries willing to pay for a house.
Non-unionized tech workers finally facing the music…
The smart ones know what to do, hopefully they will be a majority against the ones indoctrinated into right wing market fundamentalism.
In any case, the unionization issue will sort itself out eventually, when the spoiled assholes are no longer in the industry, but damn it’s probably gonna be painful for a while.
A massive chunk of big tech exists to put others out of business, and by extension, out of jobs.
Simplest case: how many companies used to employ a team to administer their MS email solution? Outlook was once very dominant. I know my university did. Then places started jumping to Gmail because it saved money and was more reliable. You didn’t have to just trust your small onsite team.
Those jobs were cut. Yes, they found other employment usually, but that’s because of the relentless growth of tech.
A strong union would have done what? Prevented the switch to gmail?
Yes, tech eliminates other jobs, and like what the OG luddites had a problem with, the issue is not the technology or even the eliminated jobs, it’s the effect on the labor population. In the situation we are actually discussing in this thread, normal employees where terminated, and then replaced by employees on H1B visas, people in a vastly more precarious position, allowing the companies far more control over its employees. If you’re an employee, I’m curious how you feel this is valuable to you? Especially in the longer run.
Are you claiming people are not employed to maintain MS Exchange? That’s just a fairly simple issue of ignorance; get out of the SV tech bubble. Those jobs are not gone, albeit somewhat reduced in numbers by competitors providing better service like you say.
Unfortunately this also brings along the concept of outsourcing these jobs to countries with lower salaries because these “feelings-based” overpaid CEOs lack any other substantial ideas for reducing costs. A union that opposed this kind of globalization arbitrage, would have forced these overpaid CEOs to provide policies that actually increased profits, instead of simply exploit desperate employees in other countries. Ergo, weak unionization creates inefficiencies, who would have thought??
See also amazon drivers unionization efforts. A union would have very simply blocked the idea that drivers should be obliged to piss in bottles and shit in bags while on delivery.
I think we can safely conclude that most people enjoy deliveries NOT contaminated by feces, YMMV.
I mean, unless you are the rare tech employee who enjoys doing your toilet needs in a garbage can in the middle of your hot desked, open office. I’ll leave it as an open exercise for others to determine what’s more laughable.
Why is this allowed? This is blatant corruption. Firstly the H1B was never intended to be used to hire cheap labour en-masse from abroad, in fact quite the opposite. Why is no politician cracking down on it? It’s madness and does not help the US or its citizens in any way, shape or form.
Companies colluding to make the life of workers worse and boost their profits, that has never happened before in the history of humanity.