Microsoft & Intel Get a Pass On Higher H-1B Fees 209
theodp writes "Criticizing companies that outsource high-paying American jobs, Senator Charles Schumer described Indian IT company Infosys as a 'chop shop'. (Nine Indian companies accounted for 20,000 H-1B visas as of 2007. In 2008, Infosys held 4,500 of the visas; the number was down by a factor of 10 in 2009.) The comments came as the Senate scrambled to fund the $600M Mexican Border Security Bill by hiking application fees for H-1B and L-1 visas. The Senate measure increases H-1B visa fees by $2,000 per application on firms that have 50% or more of their employees on this visa. Schumer pointed out that the bill would not affect high-tech companies such as Intel or Microsoft 'that play by the rules and recruit workers in America,' although they are among the biggest beneficiaries of the H-1B program."
did i read that right (Score:5, Funny)
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In this instacne they do... does not help them to break these rules so they'll play by them.
And apart from that its simple: =50% you do. So not exactly a hard rule (and a bit of work with HR, outsourcing/sub-contracting/contractors can help reduce you below 50% without doing any rule breaking; same as any tax - evasion of the tax would be illegal, avoidance isn't)
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Re:did i read that right (Score:5, Informative)
Posting as an AC due to the high number of H1B's in my office. But they don't work for us. They work for the contracting company we hire. The contracting company will get the bad press, slightly increase the per hour fee and the big company will point out that they're hiring American and not mentioning that they're contracting a lot more jobs than they hire and the contractors are rarely (if ever) American.
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Uh huh. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
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H1B visas get a bad reputation because Microsoft and Intel lobby congress to increase the yearly quotas on the premise that there aren't enough skill US workers to fill the positions. As part of their lobbying (aka bullying) they threaten to relocate outside the US unless they get what they want like an increase in the quota and exemption from the H1B fee hikes.
Giving companies a free pass on the H1B application is violating everyone else's right to equal protection (ie 14th amendment). I know when I was i
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If you read the article, neither Microsoft nor Intel are getting a free pass on anything. There's no free pass. The proportion of H1Bs at these companies isn't even close to the threshold beyond which it costs extra.
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Yes, it's just an incredibly huge bonus for them if they can hire the person really cheap [vs hiring a non-import].
If indeed, Microsoft and Intel are following the rules, they must pay AT LEAST the average wage in the local area, so they're not going to save all that much. Abusers don't follow that rule, they "report" that they pay the average or more, but then don't pay that amount to their H-1B employee aka Slave labor. However, one could argue that the companies can get top rung foreigners for average US worker prices, thus are really underpaying the foreigners.
Re:did i read that right (Score:4, Insightful)
You left out the part where Microsoft and Intel are keeping the local average wage low by using H-1Bs.
Also, what determines the local average wage and how often are the companies audited for compliance? I think you'll be disappointed by the answer.
Why ignore the top rung US workers or were you implying that US workers can't be top rung?
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As an example, I am a Directo
Re:did i read that right (Score:5, Insightful)
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How could one know that the standard would actually raise, instead of the work being offshored?
When a company actually plays by the rules, they aren't bringing a random programmer to the US: They bring one that, in his home country, would probably be at least leading a team and making them a whole lot more competitive, while the lack of said programmer here makes his firm less competitive.
Make the salary requirements for H1-Bs more stringent, and facilitate the Green Card process, and you'll have a far heal
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So the .1% of the US work force that are on h1-b are the movers and shakers of the whole market eh? I find that difficult to believe.
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Management/H1B-Visas-Less-Than-01-Percent-of-US-Workforce-Report-559488/ [eweek.com]
*Global*-ization (Score:2)
In essence, we've created a system that always has a labor surplus leading to lower wages (or no wages) for everyone -- from the low skilled workers in the textile industry, to highly educated people in technical fields.
No, not for everyone. Just for the wealthier nations. Worldwide, developing nations are catching up rapidly and benefiting tremendously from the new jobs available, and their standard of living is rising. That's the global part of globalization - they are part of the same labor force, and part of the same seesaw. The United States are essentially destined to stagnate (or just slow down) in terms of economic growth until the rest of the world catches up, unless we pull out the rug from developing countries a
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Mod parent up (Score:2)
AC speaks up against hypocrisy. Should have been brave enough to post under own ID.
Re:Open World (Score:5, Interesting)
So if you went to school to become a nurse, but now the employers are importing them the Philippines, you should go back to school to become what, a programmer? After figuring out employers are just importing programmers, what do you, go back to school to become an accountant? But that won't be safe either. Maybe the only good thing to train for is college professor.
In the medieval system you advocate, the middle class disappears because there is no hope for having a middle class job. Some few people become super-rich, and most Americans become poorer and poorer until we look any third world country. In essence, you say we should give up 70 or 80% of our income so we can become a poor unstable country with all chaos that goes with that. I think it is a bad deal for us. Yeah, selfish, but when did it become our duty to impoverish ourselves?
Addendum (Score:2)
Sweat shops may keep people from starving but it is a horrible living. The argument that screwing 1st world nations to bring up 3rd world nations to balance out the world's labor is false and overly simplistic. It is a race to the bottom of human existence where the worst possible (cheapest) is the goal of the system to maximize profits for the top of it.
At some point the middle class of the world will be so greatly undermined and shrunk they will not be able to afford all the products that employ the rest
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Re:did i read that right (Score:5, Insightful)
The mere fact that they're competing against qualified American programmers is indicative of a problem. The H-1B program is predicated on the fiction that there aren't enough qualified Americans to fill the open positions to begin with.
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Re:did i read that right (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm sorry, but while that argument might work generally, this is a special case where it does not.
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And if they left, they would compete against qualified Americans from another country with a cheaper standard of living. Claiming that wages would go up if they left is forgetting the other side of the coin altogether.
I'd also argue that, outside of a few companies that have HR departments that are more than ready to exploit the weaknesses of the program, hiring an H1-B is such a hassle that you'll still pick a comparable American instead if the salary is remotely similar.
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In my field and in many hard sciences there are no qualified americans to do the job. The Department of State actually has a webpage where they list the type of skills that are scarce in the country and the types that aren't. Here is the page for computer and mathematical types of jobs [onetcenter.org]. The outlook doesn't look bad. On the other hand, if you're a skilled auto-industry worker, I don't think the outlook is the same. And believe it or not, I have a pretty good idea of what skills set most H1B
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Of my EE classmates at an American state university, I only know of two who got into Intel. One got in as an IT tech and eventually worked his way into an engineering position. Another got a job from his dad. I had nearly perfect grades, and later I had additional education, a successful work record, and good references, but despite dozens of attempts I've never even gotten an interview. I had 7 years of engineering experience before I reached $65K. A lot of that is just me of course, but the system an
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There are very few degrees beyond computer science and engineering, unless your simply lucky, which can expect such high wages. The honeymoon is over, we have more competent people in this sector every year, it's natural for us to want wages to go up, but as our skills become more common place we have less to fall back on. It's funny really, it sounds like in your instance you went on to get another degree, but there is no shortage of people on here actually complaining about struggling to find 65k with a b
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Try supporting a family on 65k/yr in one of the highest cost-of-living areas in the country. 65k is practically poverty level for a family of three here, let alone four or five.
And before you tell me to move to somewhere where the COL is lower, you have to remember that the salaries are correspondingly lower, the standard of living is lower, and the COL is lower because nobody wants to live there. Plus, my job is here, my family is here, and I like it he
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Nothing to do with Intel or Microsoft? (Score:5, Informative)
FTFS: ``The Senate measure increases H-1B visa fees by $2,000 per application on firms that have 50% or more of their employees on this visa.''
And Microsoft and Intel evidently are below this 50% limit. As far as I can tell, this isn't Microsoft and Intel "getting a pass", as the title states. No company is being singled out here. It doesn't matter who you are, what matters if you have 50% or more of your employees on H-1B visa.
Re:Nothing to do with Intel or Microsoft? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah... 50% total is also easy for big companies to avoid, by making sure to have plenty of employees performing non-skilled labor that count. They could actually aim to hire minimum-wage non-technical employees in advance in order to reduce the proportion of H1B workers. It could still be more cost-effective than hiring skilled labor from local applicants.
They ought to require firms applying for H1Bs to report number of workers in various categories or types of work, and if you have 50% or more of your employees performing any particular type of work on H-1HB visa , then the higher app fees apply for workers in that category...
So e.g. if >50% or your secretaries or H1B, or >50% of your support personnel are H1B, if >50% of your accountants/managers are H1B, or if >50% of your engineers are H1B....
lot's of places use contrack jantors ferms any way (Score:2)
lot's of places use contract janitors firms any way some of then hire illegals so even that is better as you have more Americans working and they must pay min wage as well.
Re:Nothing to do with Intel or Microsoft? (Score:5, Interesting)
FTFS: ``The Senate measure increases H-1B visa fees by $2,000 per application on firms that have 50% or more of their employees on this visa.''
And Microsoft and Intel evidently are below this 50% limit. As far as I can tell, this isn't Microsoft and Intel "getting a pass", as the title states. No company is being singled out here. It doesn't matter who you are, what matters if you have 50% or more of your employees on H-1B visa.
Every Infosys site I have been on has been 99% India citizen staffed. When they go back to their country for personal reason like marriage or death another one flies over and takes their place. Maybe 2% of US citizens is all I have ever seen in any department run by them.
Talk about Cliques
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I'm a tax-savings bonus hunter. My job is to apply the formula.
Take the number of foreign workers in the field, (A), and multiply it by minimum wage, (B), then multiply the result by a trivial arbitrary number of payable hours, (C). A times B times C equals X...
If X is less than the cost of H1-B visas for A, we hire shills.
Are there a lot of these kinds of loopholes?
Oh, you wouldn't believe.
... Which... software company do you work for?
A major one.
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That's very funny, but apparently Fight Club is too old of a movie to reference any more.
Sorry bro.
You are right (Score:5, Interesting)
This is just spin to try and make MS look like the bad guys getting special treatment. The reality of the situation is that if companies hire a majority of American (meaning either citizen or resident alien) employees then they don't pay the extra fee. MS and Intel were noted in the article as tow companies that "play by the rules" and hire a majority of American workers, but they were not given special dispensation.
My guess is the logic is twofold:
1) It is to help protect American jobs and encourage companies to hire local. After all if it costs more to hire H-1B employees, then it is not as attractive a proposition.
2) To derive the funding for the measure from a relevant source. The measure deals with immigration, so companies that bring in the most immigrants get to shoulder the burden. While it isn't a direct thing (since the bill is about southern border security) it is still related.
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This is just spin to try and make MS look like the bad guys getting special treatment.
Posted by kdawson on Monday August 09, @02:02AM
In other news: water is wet and the sky is blue. Film at 11.
Re:Nothing to do with Intel or Microsoft? (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft has 90,000 employees. Intel has 83,000 at least. Considering that there are around 100,000 H1B recipients, you could place nearly all of them at just these two companies and they wouldn't have to pay a dime for any applications, since it would be less than 50% of their employment.
Trickle down tax policies favor monopolies, and anything that taxes a company based on allowed percentage is going to favor huge corporations. But that's entirely the point. Start a ten man company with six H1B recipients, and you're looking at 12,000 in taxes. Microsoft can hire 44,000 H1B recipients and not pay a dime for the application fee.
Every company that hires people from outside the United States should be given zero incentives to do so. Otherwise they have no incentive to train an American for the same job, or to support public education measures so America can produce better workers.
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copponex wrote:
Do try reading the article next time. I'll quote the relevant section.
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As a foreign I could just tell you, it's not about Intel or MS. It's about another bunch of companies that charge people for getting them an H1-B. Which
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Microsoft has 90,000 employees. Intel has 83,000 at least. Considering that there are around 100,000 H1B recipients, you could place nearly all of them at just these two companies and they wouldn't have to pay a dime for any applications, since it would be less than 50% of their employment.
In other words, this is little more than a tempest in a teapot. Yeah, Microsoft and Intel are big companies who employ lots of people. However, as a fraction of the overall economy, they only make up a small portion. I
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If there are 100 tickets to a concert and 99 of us want them, they will go cheap.
If there are 100 tickets to a concert and 103 of us want them, they may get very expensive.
Listen, wages will average out between our countries- nothing can stop that. They will come up and we will stagnate or go down.
Anyway, all of this ignores an upcoming surge of inexpensive robotic labor which will decimate manual labor jobs.
Continuing from above, if the demand for math degrees is 1% of the population and .5% have one, the
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The submission is from theodp... what did you expect, an anti-Amazon patent rant?
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The submission is from theodp... what did you expect, an anti-Amazon patent rant?
Google gets a 'free pass' too, not to mention almost every American company. Looks like the headline and summary were spinned to troll Slashdot.
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My God! Even McDonalds gets a free pass! Those bastards, with their McCafe's and McSmoothies and McShakes!
Seriously, this story is retarded.
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As far as I can tell, this isn't Microsoft and Intel "getting a pass", as the title states. No company is being singled out here
Does it make sense? (note: I'm not discussing or implying anything about the desirability of any situation. Just explorin
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It even tries to make Infosys out to be not so bad (because the real bad guys are somehow Intel and Microsoft, for not highering as high a percentage of H1-B's?) even though Infosys has something like 70-80% H1-B employees.
The target is obviously those companies who are using the H1-B program to hire cheep labor at rates Americans can't compete with (because of school loans and the like), of which Intel and Microsoft are not.
Trust me, hiring foreign workers is no panacea, and most companies realize it. Whi
Re:Nothing to do with Intel or Microsoft? (Score:4, Interesting)
FTFS: ``The Senate measure increases H-1B visa fees by $2,000 per application on firms that have 50% or more of their employees on this visa.''
And Microsoft and Intel evidently are below this 50% limit. As far as I can tell, this isn't Microsoft and Intel "getting a pass", as the title states. No company is being singled out here. It doesn't matter who you are, what matters if you have 50% or more of your employees on H-1B visa.
You must not be from america..... Or you failed you high school civics class. Of course it's worded this way, if it said the specific companies that didn't get taxed it would be a bill of attainder. The question is who it targets, 50% sounds like a round number, but you would be surprised at how many people probably lobbied to get it set that high. A good question is which companies would have been hit if it was set to 25% or 75%.
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Picking out MS and Intel in the headline was clearly meant to troll Slashdot. Google and almost every other big tech company gets a 'free pass' too.
why? (Score:3, Interesting)
And why does it make sense to tax legal immigration to fight illegal immigration? As if legal immigration causes illegal...
Re:why? (Score:4, Informative)
Interesting portion of the article
and
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:why? (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem I see is the H1-B's are locked in to their jobs, and nearly indentured servants. My problem is that the Hungarian will work for 30k and they expect an American with that level of skill to work for a mere 45k. Though with some relaxing on the H1-B the Hungarian could go on to find 6 figure work. Working at a project appropriate to his skill level.
My take is that we should keep the high end labor.. it makes the US richer, it makes the immigrants richer, and it means we have more top end people working the hard problems.
Storm
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Switching jobs is not so easy under H1-B, but not impossible anymore. Still, a barrier.
The real problem is in the Green Card backlog. If a company wants to make an H1-B permanent, they better have a Master's degree, because if they don't they will get approved, but face a backlog between 5 and 10 years. This is one reason many weak international students will go for a master whether they find it useful or not: It shortens the Green Card application process to under 6 months.
By the time an H1-B without a gra
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I'm actually quite unclear on what the difference between someone with an H1-B visa and someone who has signed an indentured servitude contract is. Even the terms are similar - indentured servants sign a contract for three to seven years, receive housing, clothing and food in return for their labor, and must remain with the contractor until the end of their terms. H1-B Visas are valid for only three years which can be extended up to six, the workers are generally paid just barely enough to cover food, cloth
It's not the US (Score:2)
Countries in general seem unable to have sane immigration policies. It is just one area that stupidity and bureaucracy form a perfect storm. Example:
My father is American, born in the US. My mom is a Canadian, born in Canada. Most of their lives were spent in the US (that's where I was born and raised). However, before I was born, during the Vietnam War they went up to Canada. My dad intended to dodge the draft. I say intended because he was never actually drafted but he wasn't waiting around for that to ha
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I am a canadian tech worker. I work for a small/medium tech company and we've had a hell of a time finding quality lead developers, and even difficulty getting mid level positions filled (entry level is no problem). It took us 6 months to find a new software lead for one project, and he was a compromise. The new mid level we found (after interviewing many applicants) I ended up poaching from another company. There is talent in this town, but people who live here alread
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What else is Chucky Schumer to do?
In an election year, the voters have three priorities: jobs, borders, and deficits.
Like any good Democrat he knows that you can't tax the illegal immigrants: they are already poor, and you will piss off many liberals.
You also you can't tax regular citizens because they might vote you out!
But by taxing work visas it looks like you are creating more jobs for Americans, while funding the borders, while reducing the deficit! Killing three birds with one stone!
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Those are pretty much the priorities of most people for most years, although it seems to more favor Republicans. Illegal immigrants DO pay taxes, they pay sales and property taxes (which are unavoidable if you buy goods and rent property) and most have payroll taxes taken out of the checks by their employer to cover their own asses. Many also pay into SS with fake numbers, so they'll never see any of that money but are subsidizing people who will.
Jobs aren't being saved or created by making it harder for ed
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You also you can't tax regular citizens because they might vote you out!
But by taxing work visas it looks like you are creating more jobs for Americans, while funding the borders, while reducing the deficit! Killing three birds with one stone!
You say "looks like." How is this not the case? IMHO, this reinforces the stated goals of the H1-B program, which is to attract exceptional talent to the US that can't be sourced domestically. If you're looking to hire a "rockstar,*" $2k is not a lot of money to drop. On the other hand, it might make a company think twice about hiring a foreign worker as a "grunt."
*Forgive me, I hate the term too, but it works here.
Re:why? - record profits by wipro etc. (Score:2)
Indian staffing companies are reporting record profits. When US politicians smell windfall profits, it's just like when sharks smell blood in the water.
When there is money to be had, the US politicians will think up some excuse to get their cut. Remember Godfather II? The way things worked in the old neighborhood, when you made a score, the local Don had an automatic right to "wet his beak." The same system was portrayed in that Goodfellas movie.
07/23/2010
> Indian software services provider Wipro said quarterly profit jumped 31 percent to 13.19 billion rupees ($284 million), beating expectations, as India's No. 3 outsourcer ramped up staffing to meet stronger global demand.
> Revenue for the April-June quarter rose 16 percent over the same period last year to 72.36 billion rupees ($1.56 billion) under international accounting standards.
> A Thomson Reuters poll of 23 analysts forecast quarterly profit of 12.15 billion rupees.
> "We are seeing strong demand ... across our industry," chairman Azim Premji said in a statement Friday. "We added the highest number of billable employees ever, in this quarter."
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_15586063 [mercurynews.com]
same reason passport fees almost doubling (Score:2)
Legal challenges are a comin' (Score:4, Insightful)
Right or wrong this is going to cause some fur to fly.
Is that a viable business model? (Score:5, Insightful)
If 50%+ of your employees are H1-B's, I would suggest that your business model is not viable in the United States.
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No, it just means your lobbying expenses are above average.
Re:Is that a viable business model? (Score:5, Insightful)
Care to explain? If a company is doing it there and not going out of business it would appear to me that it's very viable indeed.
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You get subsidies for hiring H1-Bs?
Where do I sign up - I'll take a dozen!
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The H1B is a subsidy in the sense that it artificially suppresses the wages of the H1B workers, due to the government-imposed barriers for changing jobs and the requirement to have a qualifying job in order to maintain legal status.
If the H1B visa weren't tied to a specific employer so they could change jobs freely without the next employer having to file a mountain of immigration paperwork, and there were a sufficient grace period (say 90 days) for a fired/laid off H1B worker to find new employment without
WSJ: Senator Probably Meant to Say 'Body Shop' (Score:2)
WSJ [wsj.com]: It is likely the senator was going for 'body shop,' also a derogatory term, but one that describes firms who shuffle low-cost tech engineers around the globe.
Tax H1-B to fight illegal immigration? (Score:3, Insightful)
Shouldn't we be taxing H1-B applications to increase funding for local schools? After all, a big reason why workers come over on the program is because we genuinely lack enough skilled labor to meet our needs at reasonable price levels. Having come through the California school system myself, I'm a bit shocked that computers can add.
Taxing companies that bring over immigrant workers to pay for border patrol paranoia seems foolish. Tax them to help increase local talent levels. Or require the people to become permanent citizens, thereby permanently increasing the local talent levels.
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What country do you live in? It's not the US!
It would be nice though
Re:Tax H1-B to fight illegal immigration? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you don't. You, like all non-third-world economies, lack skilled labour willing to work at subsistence wage. This is the corporate definition of "reasonable price level", and is what offshoring and immigration labour is meant to fix. After all, the top 1% holds only a third of all wealth, so there's plenty of room for improvement.
Do these H1-B stay in the US (Score:5, Interesting)
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As I've been the beneficiary of an H-1B with Microsoft, I know very well that MS also does a good job at sending H1-B permit holders back home after 1-2 years, before they get a green card. They actually paid for my 1-way ticket back to Europe. I'd be interested to see what is the proportion of H-1B visa holders who end up staying permanently in the US and which company hired them.
In not trying to read into any underlying cynicism with your post, I assume you going back to Europe, and thus forgoing the greencard process, is what you wanted.
Support StartupVisa.com (Score:2)
Alot of foreigners (like me) out there would like to come to the U.S. and hire (relatively) cheap American engineers,
but we can't do it because foreign investment visas are too costly/risky for small companies.
Here in Australia, our labour market is tightly government regulated, and it's nearly impossible to hire decent
engineers here for anything less than a king's ransom as competition for anyone good is fierce - even the banks
have problem hiring people.
So support startupvisa.com, to drive jobs and innovat
Protectionism by another name (Score:3, Interesting)
This is just protectionism - why shouldn't American companies be able to hire whoever they want?
Re:Protectionism by another name (Score:4, Insightful)
They can; but just because a company hired someone does not entitle that person to be allowed to live in (or even visit) the US.
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Just because an economy is "nationalist oriented" does not mean everything is does is "protectionism".
Immigrants are not goods or services hence restricting them is not protectionism - unless slavery was reinstated recently anyway.
You'd have something closer to a point if you were talking about restricting access by tourists. Still not as point though.
I assume you also classify quarantine rules stopping me from bringing my rabid dog into Australia as protectionist?
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H1 (Score:2, Insightful)
The new sweatshops in the US (Score:2, Insightful)
Who needs H1Bs anymore? (Score:4, Interesting)
I would say that any H1B in this economy is pretty frustrating if just based on perception (and perception tends to be reality...); I guess I just don't believe there aren't enough American workers to do those jobs.
Re:Who needs H1Bs anymore? (Score:5, Insightful)
I know your former company, and they have changed their temp labor policy recently. In fact, the mix of foreign workers has been changing from largely Indian nationals to Asian nationals. But the offices worldwide still exist, and show no signs of being dininished.
Offshoring is still in progress. But I'm being converted as we speak.
It's a tangled mess, but I'm still disappointed. We just got a new temp in who is in the U.S. on an H1B. Seriously, they are doing the very same job that dozens of U.S. citizens did in 2008m the VERY SAME JOB. And many of those U.S. citzens that were laid off in 2008 are still looking for that work.
It's abusive, and has been for a long time. H1Bs need to be reduced dramatically. There are, repeat ARE, citizens that can do the work.
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There are, repeat ARE, citizens that can do the work.
US citizen, here. been laid off for many months. have been horrified by the lowball offers that come in, trying to take advantage of the perception of the 'poor economy'.
american-born workers are looking for jobs and yet we continue to import and outsource jobs.
if only those in power would feel what its like. that's all I ask. have them walk in our shoes for a while.
not only is there ageism happening in high tech, but its reverse discrimination when l
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still believe in this misguided concept of 'trickle down'
That isn't a concept, it's a campaign slogan (really, I'm being serious for once)
Where are the visas for foreign lawyers? (Score:2)
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There are huge numbers of licensed American attorneys who already will work for $20 an hour, don't need to import anyone.
Border Security? (Score:2)
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Yes, this is crazy. There are more than "11 million" illegal* Hispanic immigrants to US. The logic is, that by raising the fees for H1B, more money can be raised to control the immigration at the borders. There is nothing wrong with that, as every country has the right to determine the cost of its visa applications. But then is it logical?
The "total" number of H1B's has been 65,000. Out of this, only 20,000 applications got filled last year. And most of these applications are by people who are educated, Eng
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Quick question (Score:2)
Why don't Intel and MS (and others) don't open centers in immigration-friendly countries then? Specifically for that purpose.
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Because neither of them are abusing H-1B visas.
The OP is just trolling.
Infosys (Score:2)
We did some financials outsourcing to Infosys, and I can honestly say it was nothing like "skilled" work. Most of the people whose jobs were outsourced had mediocre skills, and no special education.
Mind, the Infosys people are hilariously bad, and the number of errors that they're making on financial jobs that have to be tediously fixed because they can't be re-run is staggering.
Just my two cents.
My two rupees ;-) (Score:2, Informative)
Why an American company would want to hire H1-B holders instead of citizens:
- Contractors are cheaper (No need for 401K, benefits etc etc)
- Contractors are easily expendable (If, Heavens forbid, we have another meltdown like 2008)
- The American company can plan inaccurately and dial the contractor workforce up or down based on budgets/company or project performance. You can basically tweak
If you're going to have immigrants; (Score:3, Interesting)
It strikes me that the "problem" is how to keep and feed huge numbers of US citizens that are not in this league professionally. The problem to my mind is not so much that there are only so many highly-skilled tech jobs around as that there are fewer and fewer productive things for people that lack high-end skills to do. If we are looking for a way to fully employ America and maintain a strong middle class (ie, what passes for socialism here) then we need to look for solutions for Americans in the bottom 50% of qualification and not worry about a few thousand high-end earners.
For the bottom 50%, H1Bs look like a winning proposition to me because they assume their burden of the tax base.
H1B is specificly designed to replace US workers (Score:3, Informative)
A US company can hire an H1B even when a US worker is available. This happens all the time. US workers are frequently required to train their H1B replacements.
This has a very harsh "chilling effect" on aspiring tech workers. Why train for a job when you're just going to replaced by a cheaper H1B?
Re: (Score:2)
Because it was written by theodp.
China does not give a f* if people die in a lab th (Score:2)
China does not give a f* if people die in a lab that makes nukes and then will cover it up / get rid of the true as well.