Cringley: H-1B Visa Abuse Limits Wages and Steals US Jobs 795
walterbyrd sends this snippet from an article by Robert X. Cringely:
"Big tech employers are constantly lobbying for increases in H-1B quotas citing their inability to find qualified US job applicants. Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates and other leaders from the IT industry have testified about this before Congress. Both major political parties embrace the H-1B program with varying levels of enthusiasm. Bill Gates is wrong. What he said to Congress may have been right for Microsoft but was wrong for America and can only lead to lower wages, lower employment, and a lower standard of living. This is a bigger deal than people understand: it's the rebirth of industrial labor relations circa 1920. Our ignorance about the H-1B visa program is being used to unfairly limit wages and steal — yes, steal — jobs from U.S. citizens."
This article is ridiculous. (Score:5, Informative)
This article fails to even mention that H-1B visas are dual intent - green card applications are common for H-1B visa holders, and many large tech companies encourage green card application as an employee retention mechanism.
Puzzling.. (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a Canadian, and I guess, a reasonably talented EE. One avenue not mentioned is the TN-class visa; same general idea, but yearly renewable. (Canada/Mexico)
The process to actually _immigrate_ to the US is a real pain and very lengthy. So much that the logical extension is that they don't want skilled immigration on a permanent basis - at least from Canada. However, exporting work from the US is made very easy.
What's the problem with opening it up? Why not just find a way to document, all the undocumented? Am I missing something?
Re:If Americans cannot compete with non Americans. (Score:3, Informative)
Is this really true? I have yet to find a single example of someone on an H1-B and is being paid below the average. I myself am paid at par with my American colleagues. One of my friends does contracting work and is paid roughly 50% more than me.
Or are you getting confused with outsourcing?
Re:Probably true ... (Score:2, Informative)
Here is a list of H1B salary wages: http://www.h1bwage.com/index.php
Could you please point out a couple of examples where you think the wages are below par?
Re:Here here! Well said. (Score:5, Informative)
Read the article. there are about 700k H1-Bs in the US today
Heard it all before (Score:0, Informative)
Hey that sounds familiar... the guy's pretty much parroting the stuff that European far right nationalists / would-be fascists vomit out every time they need more votes. Oh no we're losing jobs and money to those dirty rotten immigrants (which invariably are anyone who is NOT a white anglo-saxon)! You'll learn to shut out the droning soon enough.
Re:If Americans cannot compete with non Americans. (Score:4, Informative)
When I was a H1B, I was the highest paid member of the team, at a Fortune 100 company.
Now that I'm not a H1B, I'm still the highest member paid.
This is a net benefit to me, and to the country, IMO.
[obviously, I'm the highest paid because I'm damned good, not because they like to pay me more than anyone else for no reason]
Re:H1-B has nothing to do with your jobs (Score:5, Informative)
I have worked in the software industry since 1984. Not once did I meet an H1-B who was MS, PhD, or other top talent. Every single one of them has been ordinary software engineering jobs. I have witnessed how companies make fake jobs ads that cater to the specific person, and HR admitting they automatically pay H1Bs $10k less because they can...
Re:Here here! Well said. (Score:4, Informative)
Just thought I'd add that TFA also indicates that H1-Bs are specifically for technical positions, the domestic labor force of which is 2.5 million, not 150 million.
Re:Here here! Well said. (Score:2, Informative)
H-1Bs are used when there is pressure on employers to pay higher wages because a certain skill is in high demand. Bringing more potential employees drives wages down because they increase the supply and because they will usually accept a lower wage. Plus they're often locked into the employer who sponsors them, it's much more difficult for them to job hop.
And that 65,000 number? That's per year, and most stay for at least six years. You can do the math but remember, H-1Bs aren't brought in to greet you at Wally World or make your latte at the local coffee shop so the 150 million doesn't apply either.
Re:If Americans cannot compete with non Americans. (Score:3, Informative)
Why are they unable to compete other that sheer incompetence and laziness?
what you say if great if american workers are welcomed around the world with open arms, but the truth is that other countries are much more protectionist than the US when it comes to foreign workers.
Re:Here here! Well said. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:If Americans cannot compete with non Americans. (Score:5, Informative)
Otherwise known as a fair market wage?
Whoever's writing as Cringly is just being racist here. There's no moral wrong when a non-American gets an "American job", whether through immigraiton or offshoring. Everyone deserves to compete for any job, without prefernce given by race or place of birth.
Sure, I'd personally like to see all the cool developer jobs reserved for somewhat overweight middle-aged white guys, but that's because I'm a greedy bastard, not because it would be some kind of moral virtue!
The problem is that it puts a net drain on the local market, both in terms of skilled workers and in terms of money. An H1-B takes a low paying job that would traditionally go to an entry-level local worker, works for several years, and returns home with enough money live on comfortably for the rest of his life due to the exchange rate. This means that the local entry-level worker can't find a job and becomes disenfranchised, and a total loss of ~50k * 3 yr = $150k is permanently removed from the local economy. Now maybe this is not ethically wrong, but it is not in the best interests of the local economy or the national economy.
Re:Probably true ... (Score:5, Informative)
So are you trying to say that by bringing in 60-80k tech workers every year, that salaries will remain 'normal'?
You don't think the H-1B program purposely puts downward pressure on salaries by adding significantly to the supply side of job candidates?
Re:Here here! Well said. (Score:5, Informative)
Cumulative effect over 20 years : You can be in H1-B status for 6 + 3 years. The 700K visa holders show this well, being close to 85K * 9 years.
And of course you have not seen the visa holders return home, most of these people get a green card and stay in the US, eventually becoming US citizens.
As AC pointed out above : US gets the best minds from abroad, without paying for their education. If this is not good for the US then I don't see what is...
Re:If Americans cannot compete with non Americans. (Score:5, Informative)
So, the H1-B worker, by your calculation, lives of donuts he steals in the break room and sleeps on a park bench? While there are probably some H1-B workers who remit a fraction of their income to their home country, most live in the community like every one else, renting a house, buying a car and groceries, and try to get ahead in the new country. As for the "stealing American's jobs", we graduate some 5,000,000 people a year from US colleges. Compare that to the 85,000 total H1B visa given out annually, less than 2% of the total job market entries.
No actually the ones I worked with were living 5-6 people in an apartment supplied by the company that they were contracting for. I'm guessing there is some kind of company store arrangement which paid back the company out of the wages for rent.
They all would carpool together to their work sites.
Why would US not take as many as they can? (Score:3, Informative)
As a long time H1B holder I am a bit offended by the article and there are quite a lot of inaccuracies.
* The people that I know who have H1B visas both at my company and others are definitely not scraping the bottom of the barrel wage wise.
* To get an H1B visa you generally have to find a company in the US that is willing to go through the hassle of getting you a visa (And the time this takes before you can actually come over and start working).
* H1B is a "dual intent" visa, meaning you are legally allowed to aspire for permanent residence while you are here. It takes forever though and during this time you have to stay at your company (It usually takes at least 8 years). While you are applying for a green card you can extend your H1B indefinitely (I'm just about to extend my own for 3 years and I have already been here for 9).
* O might not be attainable even if you have a exceptional talent. To get one for working in IT you are pretty much required to have a masters degree. I would contend that exceptional talent in the IT field have fairly little to do with official schooling.
* Some of the H1B visas that are "fraudulent" are also people who have gotten promoted while here and the company didn't refile the proper paperwork indicate their new job titles. This usually means that they have a more qualified job and are paid a higher salary. I am not saying actual fraud doesn't happen, just that I doubt it is as prevalent as the statistics might show.
And finally, on a macro economical note, why would you not take as many people as you could that are skilled earn a good wage, can't be unemployed and generally use social resources (If I loose my job I have 30 days to get out).
Re:If Americans cannot compete with non Americans. (Score:5, Informative)
So, the H1-B worker, by your calculation, lives of donuts he steals in the break room and sleeps on a park bench?
*fweeeet!*
Reductio ad absurdum, five-yard penalty!
What he is saying is actually rather common, though definitely not to the 'sleeps on a park bench' level.
It is very common for immigrants (legal or illegal) to spend only on what is necessary, and send every spare penny back home to family. After a few years, a sum is saved up which would be considered moderate here (say, saving off $50-$75k in aggregate from a middle-class job). After a few years, the immigrant returns to his/her country of origin, and either lives off the saved money for life, or uses it to start a business. The cost-of-living differential is high enough to return home a fairly prosperous person, and none of that money does anything in the local economy.
Renting a house? No problem - In an H1-B holder's shoes, I can rent a cheap 2-bd apartment with four of my friends, bunk two to a room, and pay a mere $200/month for that. Buy a car? No problem - a cheap-but running POS off of Craigslist cost what, $1000 at the most? Groceries? A minimal expense if you know where to shop, and don't get too picky on what you're eating. Given those low expenses, in three years as a DBA @ a (way low for the job!) wage of $80k here in the Pacific Northwest, I could eke out a semi-comfy cheap-assed living, and send home at least $100k to use for when I get back to my family. After all, it's no problem to live like a pauper in some strange land, especially when I know that in just a couple of years I will live like a deity in my own home neighborhood.
Re:H1-B (Score:4, Informative)
That's the official line. In fact, for many temporary visas, that's the only reason the visa will be granted.
But in actuality, it's not the case. The truth is that by increasing supply of qualified workers, companies can keep the price for those workers low. Basic microeconomics at play.
In my experience, the way it generally works is that the largest H1B-using companies actually provide the training necessary to meet their requirements via either related parties (offshore affiliates) or outsourcing firms. Then, because they haven't trained anyone locally in the skillset they need, they get those employees to come here under H1B.
Basically, instead of investing in the training in specific skills in local employees, they do so overseas. Then we watch those skills go back to the employees' home country with them.
I believe we need to increase the standard of living across the globe wherever we can. But I do not believe that companies allowed to operate in a certain country should be allowed to get away with not investing in the workforce of that specific country when they need skills there.
This is real (Score:3, Informative)
This is a real problem. My anecdote:
Several years ago I interviewed for a job with a software company that specialized in analytics. At the time I had almost ten years of enterprise java development experience. I sailed through all the interviews and was told I was by far the strongest candidate and they were about to make me a job offer. At final phase, HR director calls and says they want to send me an offer, they just want to know what my degree was in. I told them that while I went to school for computer science, I dropped out before completing (dot com bubble era) so I never finished my degree. After hearing that HR lady was like, "oh... lemme call you back" ... called back a few minutes later saying they were not able to extend the offer, even though I was the strongest candidate, because if they hired someone without a degree it would jeopardize their ability to hire H1-B workers. When I asked why, I was told it was because they use degrees as the primary indicator of qualified workers. If they hired someone who didn't have a degree, it would demonstrate that there really are more qualified workers in the US than they claim, and they would no longer be able to hire H1-B.
So, while it may not be that my job was directly taken by an H1-B worker (I don't know for sure if this was the case), my job went to someone less qualified because of H1-B bureaucracy.