And there you have a step-by-step blueprint on how to undermine the efforts of local talent pools to stand out in favor of saving tens of thousands of dollars and hire an H-1B.
I would argue that this is adding to the local talent pool. And where did you get the idea that you save " saving tens of thousands of dollars " by hiring an H-1B ? I originally came to US on H-1B and I can assure you that within months I was among highest paid developers in my company; anything less and I would have walked nextdoor to my next job.
Would be quite the risky move. You have no guarantee that you'll be granted a new Visa, and if you don't get it then you'll quickly be on your flight home.
This can easily be used as leverage against an H1-B Visa holder in most situations.
You are wrong. Once you have an H1B -- you do not need a new H1B visa for a new job -- it can be transferred easily to your new employer. There is a grace period of about one month ( maybe more now) and you new employer has to file your paperwork within that time. Been there and done that !
edit: what I meant by transfer is that your new petition is not subject to H1B caps and you don't have to appear before a US embassy right away as one has to for the first time.
It is a matter of semantics. Once you have an H1B, the new employer does need to make a petition. In immigrant speak, this is usually called a transfer.
The transfer does not usually fall under the quotas that the original application falls under. It is also slightly cheaper and is processed more quickly. So an employee can move freely any time they want if the new company is willing to spend a thousand dollars or so.
H1bs can be transferred easily. I have transferred it 2 times myself. Once your 140 is filed you can extend H1b 3 years at a time indefinitely until you obtain your GC. So, whats the risk that you talk about?
Most of the H1bs that are denied are ones where the candidate work as a consultant (or a body shopper). I have never heard of H1bs of reputed technology companies being denied.
How does it add to the local talent pool? The visa is given to the company, not the programmer, so it's not like the programmer can suddenly work for another local company.
I'm interested to hear your argument about adding to the local talent pool and how you would have just "walked next door" unless the next company had an open h1b position.
Visa is granted to the foreigner. The employer has to pass some sort of qualifying regulations and job opening must be first offered to residents and citizens. Once the foreigner has the visa , he /she can transfer it to any local qualified job posting.
I would also like to point out that an H1b hire should be the last resort for most employers ; there is very little cost savings and the legal fees eats into that. Not to mention that once you hire an H1B , the native employees often feel ill at ease and will typically demand a raise. Team cohesion will be at risk. The H1B hire must have enough talent to justify all the hassle. If an employer just wants to get work done for cheap, they should simply outsource tasks to Elance or oDesk.
If the H1B visa was granted to you the individual, you could just go work for a new company without the new company having to sponsor a petition or without you having to file an emergency extension if your employer decided to let you go suddenly.
My main point is that the h1B system treats you like a second class resident at the whims of corporations, contrary to its stated claims to just exist to bring in talented individuals to fill positions that cannot otherwise be filled by locals.
I certainly agree with the "should" you've posted, but I get contacted by companies looking for people to do PHP for $12 an hour. Sure it's maybe an ok option for some person from another country with more limited opportunities, but it ultimately hurts all of us by weakening our collective bargaining position vs the outsourcers.
Where does it say that the author set out to (or did) "undermine the efforts of local talent pools"?
From the pic, it appears to be an otherwise lily-white company. Presumably if they had found the right domestic hire, they would have made it, rather than jump through all H-1B hoops described. He must have been a lot better than their other options.
If this hire pushes local talent pools to work hard and do better, isn't that a good thing? If local talent pools expect to get through life on their trust fund, or get a job simply because they're white and US-born, that's not a formula for long-term success (for the country).
I can say at least anecdotaly it's true. One of my coworkers at Lucent in 2001 was a brilliant Jamaican EE, doing his masters at the same time (had his own MOSIS chip to show off :-), and was arguably better at the job than I was, or at least equal given our various specialties.
As mentioned elsewhere, his salary was posted on the bulletin board. It was $48K at the same time I was being paid $80K. $32,000 fits my definition of "tens of thousands of dollars".
Well shit. Not all companies hire H1Bs just to reduce their operating costs. Sure there are some that may work that way, but given the current demand I haven't seen any of my friends from India working below market value.
No its not idiotic, its the truth. There's an entire business model based on the margin. Maybe you heard of one of those companies, Wipro much, Tata much, Infosys much?
In what ways do the business models of Wipro, Tata, and Infosys resemble what is being described in the blog post, though?
The problem with the H-1B discussion is that H-1Bs are heavily bimodal. You have the highly paid foreign workers that Google, Facebook, et al like to hire. They're paid very handsomely for their work, and generally work in areas where the job market is healthy, giving employers disincentives to abuse their position.
Then you have the barely-paid foreign workers that Wipro and Infosys try to bring in, who are legitimately abused by their shitty employers and have their legal status wielded over them as a weapon.
The main problem is that nearly everyone involved in the discussion has only seen one side, and vehemently deny that the other side even exists. If your industry experience has been with a lot of the Wipro, Infosys type, you will foam at the mouth about the evils of H-1Bs. If your industry experience has been on the Google/Facebook/Microsoft side, you will patently deny anything bad exists, because in your world it really doesn't.
This is also why the H-1B discussions never go anywhere useful. The loudest people in the room are convinced that their reality is the only and complete reality.
I love when people come into a discussion with the presupposition that others just need to shout the loudest, and/or are just emotional for their beliefs. I love they present no facts, no counter evidence, other than their hubris and relative sense of superiority when they are, most likely, at the median level of intelligence in a given demographic such as this forum.
Let me counter your points, but I will do my best to keep it short. Mainly because I've done my research, and I don't feel like having a forum argument with someone that obviously thinks they are superior with their labeling people like me...the "loudest in the room".
1. "They're paid very handsomely for their work"
Can you show me the article where H1B's are paid 10%/20% or more over the prevailing market rate of their greencard holder/American peers for a given title at a given company? I'd love to read that. Visas are for skilled labor shortages. We all know in economics 101 when demand exceeds supply, prices go UP...not even or down, but UP. We are in agreement or not there?
In the meanwhile let me offer the first article to refute the exact argument of why companies say they need H1B's in the first place.
Hello potatolicious, in a field of obvious shortage, wages are FLAT, did you catch that? FLAT. That doesn't sound "very handsomely" to me.
2. Now on to your second point
"In what ways do the business models of Wipro, Tata, and Infosys resemble what is being described in the blog post, though?"
The discussion here is clearly based on "kenjagi And there you have a step-by-step blueprint on how to undermine the efforts of local talent pools to stand out in favor of saving tens"
Kenjagi, I wish I could've put the way you did. Brilliant, you got 40 comments from one sentence, that's what truth brings.
We have an immigration system with endemic issues around fraud. Do we need an article to further prove that. Here's the first one off Google, I didn't read it, I know it'll confirm my argument here. I can send you 40 more if you like. Just send me one where the H1Bs are paid so generously over the local talent due to shortages.
So we have a system that's broken, in any normal circumstance this would force a state/city/or country to investigate the issue, and possibly freeze the program. Most definitely not increase the program, as what we have currently happening, but then again Google/Microsoft/Apple/Amazon are writing the laws. Let's try a simple question, do Google/Microsoft/Apple/Amazon want to pay more for labor? Yes or No? Let me know what you think. I'm expecting yes, from your comments.
"resemble what is being described in the blog post" If you don't think this suppresses wages for US citizens, green card holders, and Visa workers, startup or not, you have no idea how labor markets work.
Visas, suppress wages for the people here and the people that come here. We are in the same boat.
I don't expect a reply, maybe you will talk down to me again, I don't know. In the outside chance I do get a reply with refuting evidence, I will gladly bring in the other 40 or so articles further supporting my case. I can bring UE data in, but t...
Why wouldn't you expect highly skilled workers to perform about the same as highly skilled local workers?
Your reply has nothing to do with potatolicious's point, which is that there are companies like Google which don't hire foreign workers for the sake of underpaying them. That's not the business model there.
What you're talking about is different. If increased supply of high-quality workers pushes wages downward a bit, that's not an act created by Google or other individual employers -- that's a macro effect you get even when they're paying any given foreign worker the same that they'd pay a local worker.
I sat there point by point with articles on why this would lead to lower wages, startup or body shop or google, and you come back with 4 lines. I'm not going to defend my points again until I see some actual evidence to refute my position.
Can you give me the citation where "there are companies like Google which don't hire foreign workers for the sake of underpaying them"
Can you show me just one article where the H1b's are above a prevailing wage? Or that is the actualy truth?
An article? How about personal experience? I've worked with H1B's and seen the decision-making they had when switching jobs. They are not chained to their employer, they're high quality employees, and when changing jobs they can choose between competing offers. How would a lower-than-market salary exist in such conditions?
Why would I link to an article. In what, a newspaper? Is that supposed to be taken seriously? Like the article you linked with their joke chart bracketing all H1B's at all levels of age and experience in a comparison with all native workers at all levels of experience?
You literally linked to TechCrunch and a blogspam. And expect people to take you seriously.
And a prevailing wage in what, exactly? In the set of good software developers? In the set of all software developers? In the set of everybody working in "IT"? Your demands aren't even well-specified.
And if they were well-specified, would you have a convincing argument? No. Because it's not a problem that the foreign workers arrive in the same distribution of skill level that existing workers have. Only if you're selfish would you see that as a bad thing.
1. H1B salaries are supposed to be competitive and typically posted in your workplace. So you can figure out if you are being undercut by the dirty immigrant coming in.
2. A huge percentage of H1B engineers you will probably interact with went to school here, typically with Masters degrees etc. So I am not convinced their talents as far as writing ruby/$foo language applications are any worse than an equivalent undergrad. In the bay area at least, the term local is a farce. A majority of citizens move here from the rest of the country. As far as a native is concerned, we are all techies driving up the market.
Of course, I think the H1B is exploitative in other ways than money. It is indentured labor. I may pay Johnny American and the immigrant the same salaries, but the immigrant once fired needs to find a job the next day or is out of status. The American can go on unemployment etc. The two weeks when my company decided to dither on whether they wanted to layoff people or not was stressful for all. However, the immigrants were the ones who had to decide whether to pack their bags after spending 4-5 years building roots in this country.
Also, sure a huge percentage of H1Bs are utilized by software shops based offshore to bring people here on short term projects. This is startup world though. How much of your work are you going to outsource to India?
Rather presumptuous to assume the employer is saving "tens of thousands of dollars" by hiring H-1B. Hiring top talent usually means you hire people smart enough to know the difference. Employers pay market rate. If they don't, then there must be some other consideration at play.
Yeah, those dirty immigrant bastards that pay US taxes in the highest rate and don't have any tax allowances. Those spoiled brats whose wives can't legally work. But they are lucky to be allowed to work 80-100 hours a week in order to keep their job and visa status, and to pack up the next day if they get fired.
Yeah, you should disallow that. If you push them out, then Joe SixPack would be able to make much more money for writing JS and Ruby code and bring US economy forward.
"But they are lucky to be allowed to work 80-100 hours a week in order to keep their job and visa status, and to pack up the next day if they get fired."
Wow so off base its funny, that's the blanking problem.
I'm always amazed at the vitrol that comes from the people in the Pro-H1B denomination. You guys sometimes make the Protectionist denomination seem quaint.
1) You SHOULD disallow that. Why tolerate a system that creates incentives for that kind of abuse.
2) "dirty immigrant bastards" - You're assigning a point of view that the commenter isn't advocating at all. Protectionism is generally more about looking into the future and being scared for your ability to continue at your standard of living and less about disliking certain kinds of people.
And to add my own anecdote to this discussion without siding with anyone else's viewpoint (because I'm a special snowflake with my own nuanced opinions): I've worked at companies that chronically underpay H1B workers. The ones that got fair pay were the ones that were brave enough to demand it.
> And to add my own anecdote to this discussion without siding with anyone else's viewpoint (because I'm a special snowflake with my own nuanced opinions): I've worked at companies that chronically underpay H1B workers. The ones that got fair pay were the ones that were brave enough to demand it.
That is really a different issue. The law says that there is a baseline salary to be met. Now anything above that is what the employee should be negotiating. There are enough American/women/$minority engineers who get underpaid because they suck at negotiating. That doesn't necessarily mean discrimination exists.
Why would H1-B holders not get any tax allowances? From what I know, the IRS doesn't view citizens and non-citizens any differently from a tax rate perspective.
First of all, it is illegal for a company to pay a H1B employee less than the "standard wage" for the position in question.
But leaving legal issues aside, a large proportion of H1B employees have actually completed their education at some of the top schools in the US and around the world. I have seen many of them quickly rise to the top of their teams and compensated more than many in the "local talent pools".
Disclaimer: I am another early H1B employee at a startup here, and my company has certainly not saved any money by hiring me instead of a citizen. I like to think that the value I brought in has more than compensated for the extra costs.
I actually upvoted the comment because this statement comes up again and again. Eventually reasonable arguments float up to the top. My hope is that the responses to the drive-by-attack are read so that people understand how the system works.
h1b here. I get 20-30k year less than my native counterparts. but since it's a big company I'm still in the "salary range for position". If you count my experience and the position i had before, I'm making much less because I'm in a much lower bracket that i would be back home. I know my company spend 10k to sponsor me. Which is peanuts for saying 40k year considering all that.
Also, it's very hard for me to look better pay as a native could do. Even the ones making 10k more than i do already left...
Well, I am a counter anecdotal example to that. I am here on an H1B and am paid on an equivalent level to my co-workers, slightly higher than some.
Without wanting to sound like an asshole here, you are within the salary range for your position- maybe the difference between you and your coworkers is performance based? Why not just get a job elsewhere?
eshvk may not be phrasing it in the most sensitive way, but he/she is right.
If you are not in a major tech hub, your pay is going to be low, and the ability for your employer to abuse you is going to be high given the small market of jobs. This applies to both natives and immigrants alike.
You are also unlikely to be in a market where companies are willing to pull out the stops to find qualified talent. In the Bay Area, Seattle, Austin, NYC, etc, I have found the majority of companies willing to consider visa requirements when hiring. The competition for candidates is fierce enough that this is a non-issue.
As an international in this country also, just get out of that job. If they've violated a non-written promise before, they will do so again. As you mentioned yourself, the natives at your company are treated poorly too - but they have left for greener pastures where you have not. There is no shortage of high-paying tech jobs in this country, even when you limit the search to companies that will sponsor a visa.
You don't need to move to a new city every week. You just need to move once, to a market that has more choice, therefore fewer incentives for abuse.
I am being harsh because money is a false signal that doesn't serve both sides of the debate. I am against the H1B as it stands now because it is exploitative, indentured labor. How does it matter if I get paid 10% more or 10% less when I have to work under fear, constant persistent fear?
Disclosure: I spent five months in an H1B. At one point, I was three days before my green card interview. My company kept dithering on whether I would be laid off or not. A layoff would have met all the work done for my green card would have gotten fucked because I would become out of status immediately. Now I didn't get laid off and got the green card. Yet, that system continues to exist because companies don't want to change that; immigrants are too scared to protest. An immigrant from India/China goes through 5+ years of this. That is the key advantage from an employer's perspective. Not a few thousand dollars. But the ability to get these people working all the time under threat of deportation. Also, it doesn't matter how good you are. Getting a good new job takes time.
I'm also an H1B, I get paid the same as my counterparts at my work, and I suspect more than some of them. In my first job in the US I was paid less as a Senior engineer than some Juniors were - when I found out and kicked up a fuss my pay went up.
When I changed jobs I had no difficulty negotiating for a competitive salary - I think in part due to an H1B transfer being much less intimidating (and cheaper) than an initial sponsorship. Maybe you should start talking to other employers?
I am sick of seeing this posted on HN every time someone discusses H1B visas. I am here on an H1B, and I am absolutely not underpaid. If anyone is underpaid, they are free to transfer their visa to a new employer that will pay them more.
Now, there are shops out there that abuse the system- importing thousands of developers from India and paying them below the market rate. But they are the exception to the rule (and yes, should be shut down) - the company in this post is nothing like that. It's like accusing everyone that takes disability benefit of being a fraud.
Skills are just one component. Possibly team dynamics, prior knowledge, attitude, passion and intellect played a role. These are characteristics that are hard to find anywhere, not just Boston.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where discrimination against someone who doesn't hold the right passport is legitimate. Replacing the word 'citizen' in your statement with 'white', 'straight' or 'men' would automatically destroy any argument there.
So explain this to me like I am 12: If the law made it legal to discriminate based on race (as must have existed when you were a kid), would you be okay with aforesaid discrimination?
It's for me to decide if I think the government is "taking care that the laws are faithfully executed", as the Constitution requires of the Executive Branch. Been a lot of questions about that these days.
I'm disturbed by the reactions in this thread. To argue that the US shouldn't allow foreigners to come and work here because it undermines local talent is like saying schools should give out fewer CS degrees because big companies will exploit them to undermine existing talent. It screams narrow-minded selfishness. What are we, a medieval guild?
These reactions are extra-funny given HN's propensity to complain about the long arm of the government, state-sanctioned monopolies, artificial restrictions on the free market, suppression of competition, etc.
It seems like some people want the government to GTFO of the way when it benefits them, but cry for government when the free market doesn't tilt things in their favor.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 125 ms ] threadThis can easily be used as leverage against an H1-B Visa holder in most situations.
edit: what I meant by transfer is that your new petition is not subject to H1B caps and you don't have to appear before a US embassy right away as one has to for the first time.
This seems to contradict what you're saying.
The transfer does not usually fall under the quotas that the original application falls under. It is also slightly cheaper and is processed more quickly. So an employee can move freely any time they want if the new company is willing to spend a thousand dollars or so.
Most of the H1bs that are denied are ones where the candidate work as a consultant (or a body shopper). I have never heard of H1bs of reputed technology companies being denied.
I'm interested to hear your argument about adding to the local talent pool and how you would have just "walked next door" unless the next company had an open h1b position.
I would also like to point out that an H1b hire should be the last resort for most employers ; there is very little cost savings and the legal fees eats into that. Not to mention that once you hire an H1B , the native employees often feel ill at ease and will typically demand a raise. Team cohesion will be at risk. The H1B hire must have enough talent to justify all the hassle. If an employer just wants to get work done for cheap, they should simply outsource tasks to Elance or oDesk.
My main point is that the h1B system treats you like a second class resident at the whims of corporations, contrary to its stated claims to just exist to bring in talented individuals to fill positions that cannot otherwise be filled by locals.
I certainly agree with the "should" you've posted, but I get contacted by companies looking for people to do PHP for $12 an hour. Sure it's maybe an ok option for some person from another country with more limited opportunities, but it ultimately hurts all of us by weakening our collective bargaining position vs the outsourcers.
From the pic, it appears to be an otherwise lily-white company. Presumably if they had found the right domestic hire, they would have made it, rather than jump through all H-1B hoops described. He must have been a lot better than their other options.
If this hire pushes local talent pools to work hard and do better, isn't that a good thing? If local talent pools expect to get through life on their trust fund, or get a job simply because they're white and US-born, that's not a formula for long-term success (for the country).
You may be saving tens of thousands of dollars if you outsource the job, but hiring an employee to work in the USA is different.
As mentioned elsewhere, his salary was posted on the bulletin board. It was $48K at the same time I was being paid $80K. $32,000 fits my definition of "tens of thousands of dollars".
The problem with the H-1B discussion is that H-1Bs are heavily bimodal. You have the highly paid foreign workers that Google, Facebook, et al like to hire. They're paid very handsomely for their work, and generally work in areas where the job market is healthy, giving employers disincentives to abuse their position.
Then you have the barely-paid foreign workers that Wipro and Infosys try to bring in, who are legitimately abused by their shitty employers and have their legal status wielded over them as a weapon.
The main problem is that nearly everyone involved in the discussion has only seen one side, and vehemently deny that the other side even exists. If your industry experience has been with a lot of the Wipro, Infosys type, you will foam at the mouth about the evils of H-1Bs. If your industry experience has been on the Google/Facebook/Microsoft side, you will patently deny anything bad exists, because in your world it really doesn't.
This is also why the H-1B discussions never go anywhere useful. The loudest people in the room are convinced that their reality is the only and complete reality.
Let me counter your points, but I will do my best to keep it short. Mainly because I've done my research, and I don't feel like having a forum argument with someone that obviously thinks they are superior with their labeling people like me...the "loudest in the room".
1. "They're paid very handsomely for their work"
Can you show me the article where H1B's are paid 10%/20% or more over the prevailing market rate of their greencard holder/American peers for a given title at a given company? I'd love to read that. Visas are for skilled labor shortages. We all know in economics 101 when demand exceeds supply, prices go UP...not even or down, but UP. We are in agreement or not there?
In the meanwhile let me offer the first article to refute the exact argument of why companies say they need H1B's in the first place.
http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/01/study-stem-immigrants-are-n...
Let me offer a second, as I feel generous: http://lionoftheblogosphere.wordpress.com/2013/07/24/the-cas...
Hello potatolicious, in a field of obvious shortage, wages are FLAT, did you catch that? FLAT. That doesn't sound "very handsomely" to me.
2. Now on to your second point "In what ways do the business models of Wipro, Tata, and Infosys resemble what is being described in the blog post, though?"
The discussion here is clearly based on "kenjagi And there you have a step-by-step blueprint on how to undermine the efforts of local talent pools to stand out in favor of saving tens"
Kenjagi, I wish I could've put the way you did. Brilliant, you got 40 comments from one sentence, that's what truth brings.
We have an immigration system with endemic issues around fraud. Do we need an article to further prove that. Here's the first one off Google, I didn't read it, I know it'll confirm my argument here. I can send you 40 more if you like. Just send me one where the H1Bs are paid so generously over the local talent due to shortages.
http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/us-senator-introduces-...
So we have a system that's broken, in any normal circumstance this would force a state/city/or country to investigate the issue, and possibly freeze the program. Most definitely not increase the program, as what we have currently happening, but then again Google/Microsoft/Apple/Amazon are writing the laws. Let's try a simple question, do Google/Microsoft/Apple/Amazon want to pay more for labor? Yes or No? Let me know what you think. I'm expecting yes, from your comments.
"resemble what is being described in the blog post" If you don't think this suppresses wages for US citizens, green card holders, and Visa workers, startup or not, you have no idea how labor markets work.
Visas, suppress wages for the people here and the people that come here. We are in the same boat.
I don't expect a reply, maybe you will talk down to me again, I don't know. In the outside chance I do get a reply with refuting evidence, I will gladly bring in the other 40 or so articles further supporting my case. I can bring UE data in, but t...
Your reply has nothing to do with potatolicious's point, which is that there are companies like Google which don't hire foreign workers for the sake of underpaying them. That's not the business model there.
What you're talking about is different. If increased supply of high-quality workers pushes wages downward a bit, that's not an act created by Google or other individual employers -- that's a macro effect you get even when they're paying any given foreign worker the same that they'd pay a local worker.
No, they just wrote the law to:
" increased supply of high-quality workers pushes wages downward a bit"
That's whats in Congress today.
Can you give me the citation where "there are companies like Google which don't hire foreign workers for the sake of underpaying them"
Can you show me just one article where the H1b's are above a prevailing wage? Or that is the actualy truth?
Why would I link to an article. In what, a newspaper? Is that supposed to be taken seriously? Like the article you linked with their joke chart bracketing all H1B's at all levels of age and experience in a comparison with all native workers at all levels of experience?
You literally linked to TechCrunch and a blogspam. And expect people to take you seriously.
And a prevailing wage in what, exactly? In the set of good software developers? In the set of all software developers? In the set of everybody working in "IT"? Your demands aren't even well-specified.
And if they were well-specified, would you have a convincing argument? No. Because it's not a problem that the foreign workers arrive in the same distribution of skill level that existing workers have. Only if you're selfish would you see that as a bad thing.
2. A huge percentage of H1B engineers you will probably interact with went to school here, typically with Masters degrees etc. So I am not convinced their talents as far as writing ruby/$foo language applications are any worse than an equivalent undergrad. In the bay area at least, the term local is a farce. A majority of citizens move here from the rest of the country. As far as a native is concerned, we are all techies driving up the market.
Of course, I think the H1B is exploitative in other ways than money. It is indentured labor. I may pay Johnny American and the immigrant the same salaries, but the immigrant once fired needs to find a job the next day or is out of status. The American can go on unemployment etc. The two weeks when my company decided to dither on whether they wanted to layoff people or not was stressful for all. However, the immigrants were the ones who had to decide whether to pack their bags after spending 4-5 years building roots in this country.
Also, sure a huge percentage of H1Bs are utilized by software shops based offshore to bring people here on short term projects. This is startup world though. How much of your work are you going to outsource to India?
We live in a global economy.
Yeah, you should disallow that. If you push them out, then Joe SixPack would be able to make much more money for writing JS and Ruby code and bring US economy forward.
Wow so off base its funny, that's the blanking problem.
1) You SHOULD disallow that. Why tolerate a system that creates incentives for that kind of abuse.
2) "dirty immigrant bastards" - You're assigning a point of view that the commenter isn't advocating at all. Protectionism is generally more about looking into the future and being scared for your ability to continue at your standard of living and less about disliking certain kinds of people.
And to add my own anecdote to this discussion without siding with anyone else's viewpoint (because I'm a special snowflake with my own nuanced opinions): I've worked at companies that chronically underpay H1B workers. The ones that got fair pay were the ones that were brave enough to demand it.
That is really a different issue. The law says that there is a baseline salary to be met. Now anything above that is what the employee should be negotiating. There are enough American/women/$minority engineers who get underpaid because they suck at negotiating. That doesn't necessarily mean discrimination exists.
Policies for people, written by corporations. Clearly this is a good thing for us long term.
First of all, it is illegal for a company to pay a H1B employee less than the "standard wage" for the position in question.
But leaving legal issues aside, a large proportion of H1B employees have actually completed their education at some of the top schools in the US and around the world. I have seen many of them quickly rise to the top of their teams and compensated more than many in the "local talent pools".
Disclaimer: I am another early H1B employee at a startup here, and my company has certainly not saved any money by hiring me instead of a citizen. I like to think that the value I brought in has more than compensated for the extra costs.
> out in favor of saving tens of thousands of dollars and hire an H-1B.
What evidence do you have that they saved tens of thousands of dollars with an H1B? They spent over 5000$ in legal fees just trying to get the H1B.
Also, it's very hard for me to look better pay as a native could do. Even the ones making 10k more than i do already left...
Without wanting to sound like an asshole here, you are within the salary range for your position- maybe the difference between you and your coworkers is performance based? Why not just get a job elsewhere?
Also the other company that wanted to hire me didn't want to go thru the h1b thing.
But mostly because I'm still a sucker believing in non written promises.
Americans face this issue too.
> Also the other company that wanted to hire me didn't want to go thru the h1b thing.
Life is filled with disappointments; such is the nature of life.
> But mostly because I'm still a sucker believing in non written promises.
I am not clear how you are getting shafted because you are an immigrant then. An American who is naive would also get shafted.
If you are not in a major tech hub, your pay is going to be low, and the ability for your employer to abuse you is going to be high given the small market of jobs. This applies to both natives and immigrants alike.
You are also unlikely to be in a market where companies are willing to pull out the stops to find qualified talent. In the Bay Area, Seattle, Austin, NYC, etc, I have found the majority of companies willing to consider visa requirements when hiring. The competition for candidates is fierce enough that this is a non-issue.
As an international in this country also, just get out of that job. If they've violated a non-written promise before, they will do so again. As you mentioned yourself, the natives at your company are treated poorly too - but they have left for greener pastures where you have not. There is no shortage of high-paying tech jobs in this country, even when you limit the search to companies that will sponsor a visa.
You don't need to move to a new city every week. You just need to move once, to a market that has more choice, therefore fewer incentives for abuse.
Disclosure: I spent five months in an H1B. At one point, I was three days before my green card interview. My company kept dithering on whether I would be laid off or not. A layoff would have met all the work done for my green card would have gotten fucked because I would become out of status immediately. Now I didn't get laid off and got the green card. Yet, that system continues to exist because companies don't want to change that; immigrants are too scared to protest. An immigrant from India/China goes through 5+ years of this. That is the key advantage from an employer's perspective. Not a few thousand dollars. But the ability to get these people working all the time under threat of deportation. Also, it doesn't matter how good you are. Getting a good new job takes time.
When I changed jobs I had no difficulty negotiating for a competitive salary - I think in part due to an H1B transfer being much less intimidating (and cheaper) than an initial sponsorship. Maybe you should start talking to other employers?
Now, there are shops out there that abuse the system- importing thousands of developers from India and paying them below the market rate. But they are the exception to the rule (and yes, should be shut down) - the company in this post is nothing like that. It's like accusing everyone that takes disability benefit of being a fraud.
It seems like some people want the government to GTFO of the way when it benefits them, but cry for government when the free market doesn't tilt things in their favor.
Ima just go out and build a 6 lane highway myself. For everyone else to use. In exchange for free emoji.