
Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation - melenaboija
https://twitter.com/AndrewYNg/status/1275250038898212865
======
gbronner
H1B is terrible for the employees, and for those who work alongside them.
Companies try to slow down green cards, and use H1Bs as virtual indentured
servants.

They also fake looking for Americans- in practice, many of the jobs are
earmarked for a specific person, and you are wasting your time applying for
it.

Losing your job as an h1b requires you to leave almost immediately, which
isn't great for anyone.

Hopefully they'll reform the process to focus on bringing talent into the
country without chaining it to a specific company

~~~
georgeburdell
When I was a new grad, I interviewed at Qualcomm for an embedded software job.
I studied hardware, and was very up-front with the hiring manager in the phone
screen, and he responded “not to worry about it”. I was flown out to do an on-
site interview, and the first thing that struck me, sitting in the lobby for
20 minutes while my first interviewer arrived, was that 100% of the employees
who walked through the front door were Indian. The interviewers were all
Indian (except HR, who was white) and several of them mentioned they were
H1B’s. Anyway, I apparently failed the interview, mostly theoretical CS, so
horribly that they cut the day short and dismissed me after lunch.

I wonder sometimes if the hiring manager was incompetent or was just using me
as justification that no Americans could do the job

~~~
mighty_mighty
This is over the board racist comment! Re-read your comment by replacing
"Indian" with "Black" and see how you feel about it.

~~~
jmpman
If employment was a representative percentage of the US, then you’d expect
1.3% of the employees to be Indian. He’s identifying that Indians are over
represented by almost 76x. Let’s say that the company is made up of 100
engineers. In order to get 100 Indian engineers randomly, the odds are much
worse than 3720 to 1. It implies immense discrimination by the employers which
is systemic.

~~~
DarmokJalad1701
Is only 1.3% of prospective qualified candidates Indian?

Using statistics from the general population is not relevant here.

~~~
jmpman
Ok, let’s say qualified candidates are 50% Indian. If 100 of the employees are
Indian, what is the probability of that being a random coincidence? (.5)^100?

I see this throughout industry. Even if the qualified candidates are 75%
Indian, and a team of 10 is 100% Indian, what’s the probability that’s a
coincidence?

------
jsnenl52882hehd
I see a lot of comments that miss the point. H1B visas have their problems and
the system could be greatly improved by reforms. But that is not the issue. We
are talking about suspension of ALL H1Bs and J visas!

Whatever you feel about the problems with the current system, it is a net
positive for the US. It has some pernicious negative effects, but ultimately
our economy benefits more by being able to draw and integrate top talent from
all over the world. To put this in a context that might be more familiar to
readers here, it would be like Google or Facebook putting a moratorium on
aquihires, or implementing some other policy that hurts their ability to
recruit.

Please do not buy into the hype that this is the first step toward reform. The
current administration has had 3.5 years to overhaul the H1B system and has
done nothing to date.

This is horribly short sighted and a strategic blunder. It will hurt American
innovation and the American economy. It’s the type of move made Yahoo and AOL
in the mid aughts that ultimately led to their stagnation and demise 10 years
later.

~~~
rantwasp
yeah. this is not about reform. it’s about having another bullet point on some
stupid list to please the voters. some of the same voters that were so
disoriented to understand that obamacare is aca.

~~~
throwawaygh
_> this is not about reform._

Agreed.

 _> it’s about having another bullet point on some stupid list to please the
voters_

Agreed.

 _> some of the same voters that were so disoriented to understand that
obamacare is aca._

Disagreed.

The H1B system as it exists is not easily defensible, so Trump is basically
unconstrained. It's easier to defend a system against executive abuse when the
system is working as intended. There are things that Trump would like to kill
by XO but which he will not kill because their popularity constrains his
political capital. The less popular/functional a program is, the easier it is
to justify screwing with it.

You're saying that other commenters don't realize this is a political issue. I
think it's exactly the other way around: you don't realize how much political
support for skilled immigration H1B abuse has burned in the past 10ish years.

~~~
rantwasp
some of the voters clearly did not understand that obamacare==aca

setting this aside, I don’t think anyone is saying that H1B was a perfect
system, but IMHO the benefits from it greatly outweigh the downsides. We’ll
see how this unfolds and what the medium and long term impact is (spoiler:
people will think twice about coming to work/live in the US)

My favorite example when it comes to what’s going on in the US is the Roman
Empire. It lasted for 1000+ years but it did disintegrate when the people in
power lost track of what made the Roman Empire great. I am not saying this is
going to happen in the next 5, 10 or 15 years, but things are definitely
shifting and the world your grand grand kids are going to live in is going to
be radically different from what we call normal right now.

~~~
throwawaygh
Yes, I agree with you on policy. I disagree on political strategy.

I think it's politically disastrous to go on using H1B how it's currently
used.

We need to admit that there's a lot of low/midskill immigration happening
using H1B and then fix it. If we don't, then we'll lose the H1B entirely.
Already you see that the H1B is wildly unpopular because of a few large bad
actors. So, we'll lose the baby with the bathwater. As we are now. If H1B were
used how it's supposed to be used, then it'd be a lot easier to say "hey why
are we kicking out our best scientists, our tippy-top engineers, and our
surgeons? It's not like anyone loses by having these people here -- _clearly_
none of us can even quality for those jobs". Right now, that's just not an
argument I can use to convince my uncle or grandfather to support H1B visas.
That's a problem. Now we're going to lose even skilled immigration because of
a few big abusers.

Because of those politics, I would rather restrict H1B to its original intent
and then have the debate about low/midskill immigration on its own terms.

My argument is that your political strategy is bad, not that your policy
imperatives are wrong :)

~~~
rantwasp
it bothers me that we are arguing about this when we know that you and I have
probably put more though into this than Trump. I don’t believe a crackdown on
H1B abuse would have been half as bad as what is going on now and the
“strategy” adopted now is just pure failure. Failure that is going to impact
everyone in the long term

------
btilly
H1B visas provide employers every incentive to lie to import cheap talent and
work them hard.

There are ways to meet the very real need to import the best brains from
around the world. But H1B isn't set up to do this very effectively.

Off the top of my head, a better option would be to allow immigration with a
$60k bond to the government that has to be paid down at $1k/month by the
current employer. With the employee in question able to transfer jobs at any
time with the bond transferring to the new employer.

~~~
throwawaygh
Really, we should just enforce the _original intent_ of the H1B.

1\. Companies that import labor when they had a perfectly acceptable local
candidate should face severe fines, and Justice should be given a real budget
for running these investigations as a matter of course. And the burden of
proof to demonstrate you needed to import labor should be pretty high. If you
don't do this, then H1B abuse will happen.

2\. Companies should be forced to pay H1Bs _significantly above_ prevailing
wage, where "prevailing wage" is interpreted liberally instead of
conservatively. H1Bs for software engineers making less than $200K ( _maybe_
150K) in a major metro area is a pretty obvious violation of the intent of the
H1B, imo.

NB: this will have the effect of making H1Bs a lot harder to get and keep. But
I think this is the least evil of all possible worlds. In addition, we could
also independently argue for increased immigration in general. But midskill
immigration to fill jobs for which local qualified candidates exist should not
be done through the H1B program. That's not what it's designed for, and that
mismatch between program design and actual use is the source of a lot of H1B
mistreatment.

I actually _don 't_ believe that ending the tie to an employer will help. I
mean, we should do it anyway, but the abuse will continue.

~~~
foota
Personally, I don't think it matters much. So what if we allow more software
engineers from other countries? We haven't done anything special to deserve a
job more than they have. My only concerns with it are about their well-being
and freedom under the current system.

~~~
pylua
The problem is that it doesn’t cut both ways. You will not be able to get a
job in their country.

~~~
foota
I mean, I don't really want a job in a country paying a fraction of what I
make now? It's true though, there is not an existing reciprocal program afaik,
but so what? We have things much better economically. And who knows, maybe we
could arrange a labor trade deal of sorts with these countries.

~~~
pylua
By the logic presented earlier , it would only be fair if Americans could
compete for jobs in foreign countries the same way their workers compete for
jobs in ours .

~~~
foota
Sure, I think that would be reasonable. I have two points though. Someone else
doesn't have to do the right thing for us to do it. While it would be better
if other countries reciprocated, it doesn't have to stop us from doing the
right thing. Secondly, from a practical point of view the demand for people to
emmigrate from the US and work in a country with lower wages is not nearly as
high as the demand the other way.

~~~
pylua
With the high number of jobs being offshored and outsourced I would not be
surprised if many Americans would gladly leave to increase their job
prospects. It may be the case that people in the United States can no longer
sustain a living here due to the high cost of living. Perhaps we will reach
that point.

~~~
foota
The United States had a very high employment rate leading up to the covid
crisis. Lower than it had been during the 90s, but that was an anonymously
propserous decade: [https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employment-
rate#:...](https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employment-
rate#:~:text=Employment%20Rate%20in%20the%20United%20States%20averaged%2059.25%20percent%20from,percent%20in%20April%20of%202020).
It stood at roughly 62%.

According to the same website India's current employment rate is ~50% (part of
this likely due to gender imbalances) and you can bet that wages are much
lower. The relevant metric is purchasing power parity adjusted household
median income. It's roughly 50 times higher in the United States than in say
India (less so for China and Russia).

I don't understand how you can see countries like China or India as presenting
more opportunity with local wages. There are of course cultural reasons to
want to move there, but I don't think there's any reasonable case that there's
more economic opportunity. Some things will be cheaper for sure (rent and
labor, namely) but consumer goods, food, electricity, and the like, will not
be commensurately cheaper wrt the drop in income.

~~~
pylua
Yes, but having a job and staying in the middle class in any country is much
better than entering a lower class after your position has been either
eliminated, outsourced, or off-shored and you cannot find another.

However, maybe there is an argument that the middle class in a different
country is worse off in terms of purchasing power than the lower American
class. I'm not sure if that is the case, but either way it would be better to
be gainfully employed in an industry of a person's choosing than to be lower
class in an industry a person does not want to work in.

The threat of this happening in America, as I perceive it anecdotally, is much
more real than the statistics suggest. I could see a scenario where only the
top 20% of skilled professionals in major industries survive in the United
States, while the demand for the bottom 80% is met by outsourced or off-shored
professionals.

------
vsskanth
IMO all this uncertainty is due to a lack of action from Congress on
immigration. US Citizens need to come to terms with their immigration
priorities - how many and what kind of immigrants do we need in the US, and
vote for representatives who promise to bring this to a conclusion.

H1B, in its current state combined with green card laws have led to a massive
group (600K+) of permanent non-immigrants in the US. This leads to a lot of
pain and heartbreak for people who follow all the laws, pay all taxes and
looking to establish a stable life. Many of these folks have US citizen kids.

Many don't realize how difficult it is to keep up with all the paperwork just
to ensure you are in legal status in the US. The level of arbitrary regulation
by USCIS is only making everyone's life painful while not solving the root
cause (H1B abuse).

------
thomaspaine
ITT: People criticizing the H1B program for reasons that have nothing to do
with why it was suspended, or considering the fate of people/families who are
already here on H1Bs.

This is a pretty obvious move by the administration to discourage immigration,
in any form. Could the H1B system be more equitable to workers, more
efficient, less confusing, etc? Absolutely. But suspending H1Bs and green card
applications like this does the opposite of all of that and throws thousands
of families into limbo.

~~~
totalZero
You shouldn't dismiss comments about H1Bs that are divorced from the perceived
motivations of the White House. The effect of suspending H1B is not dependent
upon the motivations of the decision. The decision is substantial. It has
consequences and externalities that extend beyond whatever single motive we
could ascribe to the White House.

~~~
guyzero
This is disingenuous and only possible if you ignore the multiple other anti-
immigrant changes the Trump administration has made.

~~~
totalZero
As I said in the other thread, please don't hurl epithets at people. If you
disagree with me, you don't have to call me deceitful.

Do you disagree that there are consequences and externalities to the H1B
suspension that go beyond our best guess at the motivations of the White
House? That's what I suggest in my comment, but you haven't addressed that at
all.

~~~
guyzero
I know the difference between "deceitful" and "disingenuous" and if I wanted
to call you deceitful I would have. Besides,"disingenuous" isn't a name or
pejorative, like calling you "ugly" or something. It's not an epithet. It
literally means pretending to know less than you actually know which is
exactly what I feel you are doing here. It does not require mind-reading to
determine the intentions of the current executive administration around
immigration. We have their previous behaviour with regards to different
immigration policies to go on.

I think that regardless of how anyone felt about the H1B program that this
change is bad for America and was done for the wrong reasons. If this was
about the H1B program then why suspend L1 visas, student visas and green
cards? What does suspending au pairs have to do with H1B issues?

------
czatt
As an intended MBA applicant for the class of 2021, the recent uncertainty
around H1B visas makes me very uneasy and disappointed. I was forced to leave
the U.S. back in 2016 despite having an investment banking job and paying
meaningful taxes, which was incredibly frustrating. I was hoping for another
shot at living and working in the US after completing an MBA, and now it looks
like there either won't be a chance or it will be at best a shot in the dark.
I am now seriously considering avoiding U.S. schools altogether and applying
for top business schools in Europe such as LBS and INSEAD.

~~~
jimbob45
The other poster was remarkably rude for no reason. I’d say that you don’t
_really_ want an H1B though. What you want is a concrete and easily accessible
path to citizenship that takes your high-skilled degree into account. To that
end, I _would_ support broader immigration reform rather than trying to fix
the irredeemable H1B program.

~~~
czatt
I 100% agree with your statement. But for now, all that was done was suspend
H1Bs without a viable measure that would create a path to citizenship (or just
settlement) via a high-skilled degree. So it seems like a step backwards and
very disheartening.

------
hdivider
Like any other nation, the United States is in a _competition_ for top talent.
People who have other viable choices -- who are in many cases also those who
stand a high chance to create a ton of value in the US -- will now put the US
lower down in the priority list.

As Victor Hwang put it [1]:

"While other countries fight a global war for top talent, America just packs
up the tent.

Facts: \- Immigrants start new businesses at twice the rate of native-born
Americans. \- Immigrants founded 44 of the 100 largest companies in America."

[1]:
[https://twitter.com/rainforestbook/status/127517996429236633...](https://twitter.com/rainforestbook/status/1275179964292366339)

------
roystonvassey
Amidst this debate, I think it’s worth looking at the EU Blue Card scheme [1].

A few key differences versus the H1B (correct me if I’m wrong - my
understanding of H1B features are basis discussions I have seen here):

1\. Not tied to a specific employer. At least theoretically this is the case
though your residence permit clearly specifies your employer.

2\. Family-friendly options where your family can join you with the initial
visa application. Spouses/Partners are immediately eligible to work.

3\. Integration courses for language and culture, offered for free usually,
and for the entire family.

4\. After 2 years, you can switch jobs and after an another year, you can
apply for permanent residence. The steps and guidelines are clearly specified
and all the laws side with the employer to ensure no exploitation or
harassment.

1 - [https://www.auswaertiges-
amt.de/en/aamt/zugastimaa/buergerse...](https://www.auswaertiges-
amt.de/en/aamt/zugastimaa/buergerservice/faq/02a-what-is-the-blue-card/606754)

~~~
rrrrrrrrrrrryan
These differences all look like net-positives, but I've always wondered how
well "integration courses" would be received in America. In conversations with
Europeans, I've found that many people are pro-immigration "so long as they
integrate," but I think this same statement might be perceived as (rightly?)
kind of racist or culturally insensitive in America.

~~~
roystonvassey
Relevant point but given that the US is much more diverse, an integration
course might not be relevant but such an immersion course might help non-
English/non-western candidates feel at home faster.

------
dckeyjqmon
I came to the US from Canada under TN status, and later switched to an H1B so
I could get a green card. I used to think it was a good thing, but I have
since changed my mind.

The Wikipedia article for the H1B outlines most of the problems, but I'll talk
about my experience.

When I moved from Canada to the US (for a software engineering role), I
thought I getting a huge raise. It was about twice what I was earning in
Canada prior, so for me personally it was a big step up, but what I didn't
realize at the time is that they were actually paying me about 50% below the
market rate in the US. At the time I was making about $56k/year in Canada (in
CAD, about $40k USD), and I was hired at around $85k/year in the US. This was
in 2009. What I realized soon after, was that someone with my experience was
making about twice that much in the US.

It wasn't until I got a green card (which took 5 years) that my salary
adjusted upward to the market rate. The company that helped me get my green
card was Airbnb, but even back then they hired me (while I was still on a TN)
well below the market rate. I managed to negotiate my salary up, but I was
still anchored near the bottom of my cohort.

While working at these companies (including Airbnb), I felt trapped because I
could not easily quit or search for a better paying job. My employers knew
this, since according to the rules I'm required to leave the country if I lose
or quit my job. Many companies also don't want to deal with H1Bs or TNs
because they don't want the fuss of dealing with immigration problems.

While waiting for my green card to arrive, I was trapped at Airbnb for about 2
years. They actually fired me from my job _before_ my green card arrived, and
were kind enough to let me wait a few more months until I had the card in hand
before I officially left the company. In those months I pretty much just sat
around, enjoyed the nice lunches and dinners, and hung out with coworkers.

I think immigration is great, but I think these employment based visas only
work well for employers. They make it easy to hire cheap workers at below
market rates, and have them stick around because they can't leave. I think we
need real immigration reform, or, better yet, allow companies to hire the best
people and make it illegal to discriminate based on nationality. The TN/H1B
system is just legalized discrimination.

~~~
thejynxed
We have labor laws forbidding discrimination based on national origin, and
yes, some corporations use H1-B and related visa systems as a loophole around
those laws to discriminate based on national origin and more than likely the
rest such as race, ethnicity, etc. In my time spent in tech-related fields I
have certainly seen companies provide more favorable benefits and overall
treatment to say, Ukrainian SysOps vs their counterparts from India or
Bangladesh.

------
airstrike
Any blanket statement in this thread or elsewhere that reads like "H-1B visas
X" is probably wrong, as the visa is used by a wide range of employers and
employees.

That is probably the biggest issue with the visa. It's meant to do one thing
but abused to be solve many other needs, some of which are needs society
really doesn't want to solve (hiring cheaper labor for positions Americans
could easily fill)

Attempts to solve this problem should start by shining a light on the many
current uses of the visa, figuring out which are worth safeguarding and which
are worth eliminating and then discussing how to reform this particular visa
(and possibly create others) to address the worthwhile needs.

------
gringoDan
Patrick Collison tweeted a powerful graph that quantifies this:
[https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/1275288642022289410](https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/1275288642022289410)

~~~
peteradio
How is that quantifying impact on the U.S. innovation? It shows people being
moved out of a bunch of countries and to another but I see no demonstration of
that positive impact.

~~~
gringoDan
The graph is not just people, but specifically inventors.

The US has a giant net influx of inventors (some of whom arrive on a H1B),
which presumably creates wealth, jobs, etc.

~~~
tomp
How many of those really arrive on H1B, and how many of those have no other
options? I was told that even _I_ could apply for some "talent visa" (the one
that fashion models often use) because I competed in the math olympiad... the
bar seems to be set incredibly low (speaking of myself, not the models).

~~~
nine_zeros
I would recommend googling the process and try it out. Just try to find out if
it is actually easy before commenting.

------
jimbob45
Counterpoint: I’d rather gut the H1B system and ease the path to citizenship.
The H1B system just exists for employers to pay lower wages to skilled
workers. I would much rather those workers get fast-tracked to citizenship
instead. Letting them leave with the money they make here isn’t in our best
interests and neither is preventing them from changing companies, which allows
employers to underpay them. I would heavily support using the H1B as a
probationary period to test assimilation into the US before granting full
citizenship but that’s not really in the spirit of the program at that point.

~~~
nsm
The reality is that the US government has done NO meaningful progress on
immigration reform to guarantee a path to citizenship for skilled people. This
leaves H1B as the only option and now that is gone too, but only due to
executive order. I find it hard to believe there will be any meaningful reform
under any administration. Particularly until they can get out of this habit of
clumping all kinds of immigration (legal and illegal, skilled and unskilled)
into one bill, so that nobody can agree on anything.

------
esalman
Looking at the details, this allows for transitions from F1 and OPT status to
H1B. However it suspends H1B stamping, meaning you probably cannot leave USA.
Having said that, there's been rumors of some form of restriction or
suspension of OPT as well.

I am researching on brain function and mental health. As a grad student I make
less than what many Americans get in unemployed benefits. I think you'll be
hard pressed to find any American willing to do my job. My mom was denied US
visitor Visa several times, I need to travel abroad to see her and this
suspension will force me to rethink my future in the USA.

------
justapassenger
Wow, amount of discrimination in the comments here reminds of facebook
political discussions.

It's basically "I've once worked for a company with H1B, and it was a scam.
Ergo all H1Bs are scam, should be eliminated ASAP, and they should go back to
their own country!". Sadly, progressives and tolerance ends when it's touching
your wallet.

~~~
throwmehaweh
The proclamation isn't even about ending H1B/H2B/J/L, it specifically says
that it is to address the economic laborforce risk brought on by pandemic
(thus it has expiration date).

------
ones_and_zeros
Immigration is good for innovation, the H1B system is not. This
administrations rollout of the suspension is cruel, which is the point. H1B
Reform/Replacement is needed, the status quo is not.

~~~
andrewla
Agreed completely. I feel like this administration exists simply to taunt
Congress to take actual action with regards to its wild swings on various
issues.

Congress has given way too much power over to the executive, and having the
most corrupt real estate developer in a city frankly renowned for the
corruption of its real estate developers in charge of the executive should be
teaching Congress that they need to actually exercise power rather than just
handing it over to whoever is sitting at that desk.

------
atlgator
Beg to differ. H1B's may live the high life in Big Tech, but that is not the
experience of most H1Bs. For the rest, it is akin to indentured servitude.
They are dramatically underpaid compared to American counterparts and unable
to change jobs without losing your place in line for citizenship. I have
worked with Indian subcontractors that have waited 20 years! H1B is nothing
more than the wealthy using labor arbitrage to exploit foreign workers at the
expense of American workers.

~~~
thomaspaine
>I have worked with Indian subcontractors that have waited 20 years!

And you think this suspension will help them?

~~~
atlgator
The solution is not to increase them, that's for sure. The solution is to
abolish the quota system which Democrats keep upholding for their Big Tech
overlords.

------
archenary
1/ Yes, there are companies like Tata and Wipro who game the system to hire
software developers at below market rate. This is absolutely a problem that
should be addressed. Outright banning H-1B does solve the problem, but it is
nowhere near optimal. For many skilled talents, H-1B is the only path to work
in the U.S. Banning H-1B is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

2/ No, there is no systemic difference in compensation for non-U.S. citizens
at FAANG and equivalent. Compensation packages are formulaic. No one gets +/\-
X% just because they are a citizen or immigrant. If Google one day decides to
pay H-1B 20% lower, they would lose out on a ton of qualified candidates to,
say, Facebook. It'd require the entire conglomerate of FAANG, and whom they
consider "peer" companies, to agree to suppress compensation for this to work
[1]. It would also require everyone involved in the hiring process, many of
whom were immigrants, to be onboard. I simple don't believe companies who
compete for top talents would find this tradeoff worth it. I might just be
living in a bubble, and am willing to be proven wrong. Just show me the data.

3/ Many successful companies are founded or led by immigrants who now happily
call the U.S. their home. These are success stories that the country should
celebrate, not chastise. You might think that Larry Page could've founded
Google without Sergey Brin. You might be right, or wrong. The fact is we only
have reality to observe. We don't have counterfactuals to compare against.

[1] I know about the Steve Jobs no-poach email. That was also 13 years ago.

~~~
pandaman
> No one gets +/\- X% just because they are a citizen or immigrant.

It's true. People get +X% because they negotiate. I believe citizens/LPRs have
much stronger negotiation position: they can apply to companies, which do not
consider H1B and they can walk away from any offer without catastrophic
consequences even if they are between jobs so they can do "give me a raise or
I walk" move at any time and not just when they have a next job lined up. I do
not even mention supply and demand effects on the compensation for everyone
here because it seems to be a very controversial concept.

> Many successful companies are founded or led by immigrants who now happily
> call the U.S. their home.

Can you give an example of such a company founded by somebody on one of the
visas being discussed here?

------
devalgo
H1B is a scam. It allows employers to shortchange their workers and abuse
immigrants who are beholden to them for their right to live in the US.

------
andrenotgiant
My news and social media feeds are almost universally negative about this.

Who is happy about H1B Visa suspension? Who was advocating for it?

~~~
Supermancho
Everyone I know, including me? There is _no_ shortage of workers for virtually
any industry. There is a shortage of people willing to work for submarket
rates.

~~~
Daishiman
This is really not true. If you do hiring in tech, just finding qualified
candidates is a long, arduous process way before even talking about
compensation.

There's a hell of a lot of problems with hiring practices worldwide, but
qualified software engineers are not abundant.

~~~
geebee
"If compensation were higher, qualified software engineers would be more
abundant."

Supply and demand isn't just about what's out there _right now_ , it's about
elasticity of both curves. When prices rise, supply increases, and demand
decreases.

What you've said indicates that prices are so low that demand is very high,
and supply is very low.

Yes, it does take a while, in some fields, for supply to ramp up - but bidding
wars for the existing supply are part of the mechanism that increases the
prices and signals to people with choice that software engineering (as opposed
to, say, finance or corporate law) is the way to go.

There's a pretty strong case to be made the the H1B is specifically designed
to create a population of software engineers who are not allowed to respond to
market signals that would cause them to stop being software engineers in order
to do something else (or perhaps not become a software engineer in the first
place).

So back the the original question - compensation. What compensation package
were you offering to compete for those rare and highly valuable software
engineers you wanted to hire?

------
tmoney1818
Here's an interesting alternative to the current H1B visa. It replaces the
lottery with an auction. I imagine this would make companies think twice about
hiring "cheap" foreign labor, but then again it might lower the salaries
further given the extra burden on the sponsoring company.

[https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/aafs/2013...](https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/aafs/2013/05/Estimating-
the-Economic-and-Budgetary-Effects-of-H-1B-Reform-
In-S.744.pdf?fbclid=IwAR26rlc-NO--YQZfUPQ-
AoVXSfWP28_ZbthfGartLpxfPAQTLgqy2CzKZ30).

~~~
tmoney1818
Posted the wrong link before. [https://www.hoover.org/research/auctioning-
temporary-visas](https://www.hoover.org/research/auctioning-temporary-visas)

------
tempaccount4me
I am increasingly of the opinion that this is OK. Neither side is actually
interested in a conversation. Businesses are not going to want to reform the
H1B to make it less exploitative, and the people who think it's bad for
Americans are not going to believe the stated pro-H1B case. People on the visa
are stuck in the middle.

I am sympathetic to both sides, but I have no easy solution to propose.

End the damn thing and let's see what happens.

Having been through the gauntlet a few years ago, this might seem like pulling
the ladder up behind me. But, I would really like to see the Indian
education/employment system diversify out of body-shopping or emigration and
into more local innovation and progress. Maybe it won't happen, but something
needs to change.

------
LatteLazy
Whatever people think of H1B visas (and I'm generally very critical of these
programs), since work from home is the new normal, will there be a drop in
demand for visas? If Facebook have 9 engineers in an office, it makes sense to
get the 10th into the country to join them. If 7 of those 9 work from home on
any given day, does it really matter if the 10th is in <foreign place>?

------
CRASCH
I would like to see them enforce equivalent salaries on H1B visas. There
should not be a financial incentive for companies to do this.

The original purpose was to bring in talent where it could not be found in the
US.

I believe this would be great for H1B visa employees and regular employees.

If companies want to offshore they still can and they still do. Companies that
currently abuse the system would hate it.

------
BenoitEssiambre
I hope this helps dissolve the network effects that gives an unfair advantage
to the US and keeps the largest tech hubs there. We rest-of-the-worlders would
like to partake also.

What say you Musk? You already have Canadian citizenship, with the ice caps
melting, it's not even that cold up here anymore.

------
boruto
This is good news for India. 60 percent of my classmates from a mid tier IIT
work/study in US. This only increases competition levels for masters in India.
GATE and PSU's would be frikin hard this and next year.

~~~
gmanis
Unfortunately, I doubt this’ll happen. The set of kids going for MS are
certainly not the ones looking at GATE. Besides, having a masters in India
doesn’t improve your employability locally, so the opportunity cost of doing
masters is quite high unless you’re driven by need to learn more or wanting to
get into teaching.

------
oldsklgdfth
Related to J1 visas, in my area they are used extensively to fill seasonal
openings at resorts.

A large proportion of the workforce is east European college students, working
2, maybe 3 jobs, over the summer.

~~~
automated_toast
Yeah those J1 visas must go too.

------
1-6
H1B = Modern day slavery It has all the same characteristics. Large corps
'sponsor' a worker; smaller ones can't. The slave worker gets to enjoy a
somewhat better life under their master but can't run when their master is a
viscous slave driver. If the slave wins the green card lottery or comes into a
lot of money, they can eventually get freedom.

~~~
rantwasp
that’s just wrong. look up AC21. you can switch jobs on H1B. for an employer
it’s easier to do the paperwork for this vs a full-blown H1B.

------
pl0x
I was an H1B and it was a terrible experiencing having to constantly move
around.

------
blisseyGo
This is a good step. Companies abuse H1B visas and pay them less than what
they would have paid citizens. I have so many friends who are paid 25-50% less
for same jobs as citizens.

------
Overtonwindow
H1B is an excuse for companies to pay employees less, and treat them worse.

------
Daishiman
The message has been loud and clear: do not emigrate to the US because no
career advancement is worth constant uncertainty about your possibility to
build a life.

Middle income emigrants nowadays have a choice of multiple countries with a
high standard of living and job opportunities, in addition to the many new
opportunities that have been created by offshoring and satellite offices.

In the past 4 years I have seen all my software engineer and PhD friends
choosing Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Germany and Denmark to emigrate. I have
discarded the US for potential MBA studies since then too.

Desperate poor refugees will just take whatever country takes them as anything
is better than war or genocide, so ironically this does very little to
dissuade the most desperate, which I would assume would be one of the primary
targets of these xenophobic policies.

------
resters
Most of the stuff Trump has done in the name of "America first" has restricted
economic freedom for Americans. Tariffs make it more costly for American
importers to do business, and restrictions on immigrations deprive American
firms of the freedom to hire the most qualified candidate.

It is incredibly ironic that anyone views these moves to restrict freedom as
beneficial to "America". They simply create small advantages for some at the
expense of everyone else.

~~~
pm90
If you read the comments in this forum, you will immediately see how he gets
support for these myopic actions. Everything from reneging from international
treaties and institutions to long term policies that have been shown to
benefit the country are axed for short term political gain at the polls. And
the people, even on this forum, are duped by it.

------
automated_toast
I for one am ecstatic about this. I want _less_ competition for my role, not
more. It is hard to compete when the top 5% of every other economy comes in
and crowds me out.

~~~
ActsJuvenile
Doctors vs Software Engineers are very interesting case studies in my eyes.

AMA (American Medical Association) has successfully lobbied congress to cap
residencies at 100K a year, essentially restricting supply. Foreign doctors
have to go through a gauntlet of exams, tests, and licenses that keeps market
from being flooded with cheaper talent and diluting local doctor salaries.

Software Engineers have failed to unite like this, so the MS+FAANGs and
consulting companies have lobbied for free flow of cheap labor under the guise
of innovation. There are no board certifications, no licensing exams, and no
restrictions on supply. This is why software salaries have been artificially
suppressed for two decades.

~~~
nine_zeros
> Doctors vs Software Engineers are very interesting case studies in my eyes.

Actually, this is a great example. By restricting medical professionals,
medical wages went high. Great for them!

But for the rest of America, this SUCKS. Medical expenses are through the
roof, care cannot be had without selling all your money and often, specialist
shortages mean appointments can be had only 3 months later. The lack of
liquidity of healthcare professionals has made American healthcare the WORST
in the developed world.

And this is in cities. Healthcare in rural America is pathetic.

Thanks for bringing to the fore how America has forever destroyed lives for
the rest by trying to advantage the few.

~~~
vsskanth
Oddly, many of those immigrant healthcare professionals who put in the time to
complete residency, get certified and take up jobs in under-served rural areas
are on H1B visas.

------
qppo
The largest H1-B visa sponsors are Cognizant, Tata, Wipro, Infosys, and
Deloitte. None of those scream "innovation" to me. The system absolutely needs
reform, and I think most people can agree with that.

But that said, blanket bans on immigration by the white supremacists and
nationalists currently running our government and deciding our immigration are
probably not designed to help America or innovation either.

The whole H1-B ban feels like something the admin could throw to their
supporters without making too much noise in the press, because it affects very
few voters and we have more pressing economic problems than the tech labor
shortage.

~~~
pentae
I wasn't aware that our government was currently being run by white
supremacists. Do you have a source?

~~~
akuchling
[https://www.npr.org/2019/11/26/783047584/leaked-emails-
fuel-...](https://www.npr.org/2019/11/26/783047584/leaked-emails-fuel-calls-
for-stephen-miller-to-leave-white-house)

"For almost three decades, Jared Taylor has been publishing his ideas about
race at the American Renaissance magazine and now at a website called AmRen,
which is considered a mouthpiece for white supremacist ideology. ... The
website is not well-known outside white nationalist circles — but it found an
audience in White House adviser Stephen Miller."

~~~
slowmotiony
So Stephen Miller is a white supremacist now? He must be hiding it pretty
well, since I've heard through hundreds of hours of his podcast with Raheem
Kasam and he has never said anything remotely racist.

~~~
tomjakubowski
Stephen Miller, the one working in the White House, doesn't host any podcast.
You are thinking of Jason Miller.

~~~
slowmotiony
You're right, sorry about that one.

------
automated_toast
Most H-1B to green card conversions are never really offered as competitive
jobs. The job postings are so ludicrously specific that they are targeted to
that one exact person. Plus, the pay is _always_ lower.

If we can't do the job ourselves, we shouldn't have the job.

~~~
chabons
Do you have a source for that "the pay is always lower" comment? As far as I
know, visa status doesn't affect compensation for employees in the same full-
time role at FAANG + Microsoft, though I only have direct experience with one
of these companies.

~~~
adrr
All the h1b salary data is public. If you search any of the Faang companies,
the salaries seem in line with market rates. I would also love to see a study
that shows otherwise.

~~~
automated_toast
Is the salary public or also the stock options?

~~~
chabons
I don't think the stock options would be public, since it's discretionary at
most companies, and varies from person to person. Anecdotal as it is, from my
experience at Microsoft the stock sign-on and annual bonus don't correlate
with visa status.

------
umvi
There are 2 sides to every coin.

It can be frustrating/demoralizing to American software developers as well,
when they go to interview for a job, to see they are competing with an
absolute flood of Indian and Chinese H1Bs. Then, when all of your interviewers
are Chinese and Indian as well and you don't get the job, you sort of feel
like the victim of favoritism and that you've been pushed out of your own
country's industry by foreign nationals.

~~~
christiansakai
Well if you don't perform well on interviews then why expect we hand the job
to you?

These Indians, Chinese, Russians, Brazilian developers are more willing to
grind Leetcode and study until insanity (solving 300 Leetcode problems is not
uncommon) and will kill majority of interviews out there.

They came here to study hard, from 3rd world countries, and they did it.

Study hard, work hard, be smart, and we welcome you to the arena.

Oh and by the way, this is not about race, because I've found plenty US born
Chinese devs that suck and lazy.

~~~
6DM
Let's be honest, after passing through ridiculous interview questions and
being hired I am frequently disappointed at what's on the other side. I have
nothing against foreigners and wish them the best. H1B's are routinely abused
and this in turn creates a toxic environment. This only makes the code quality
worse as devs rush, creating even more technical debt as they go. Maybe they
killed themselves to get here, but I'm not seeing sterling results in their
work.

~~~
tartoran
Unfortunately, on average they are seen as cheap replaceable work with no
resort to taking abuse. However, amongst them there are quite a few very
talented developers. If the system worked properly they would be able to
select them better. I work with quite a few H1Bs and the experience has been
quite pleasing. However, I can see the abuse they take, the unpaid overtime
they put in, because they can’t say no. That may spoil our market and we would
soon need to fall in line with them.

------
president
While Andrew Ng is devastated that an H1B worker and their family has to pack
their bags and return to their home country, one American worker will have the
opportunity to enter the job market and feed his/her family.

EDIT: Unfortunately, we find ourselves in a situation where many engineers on
HN are H1B workers themselves or start-up owners/affiliates who benefit and
profit off of H1B workers so it's obvious that I'm against the tide here. For
all the haters, tell me why my company needed to hire a large group of QA
engineers to do manual GUI testing when this does not really require much more
than a high school GED, if even. Honestly, look deeply past the corporate
lobbyist agendas and your own personal biases and tell me H1B policies are not
effectively a ploy to get around cheap labor. Yes, they are great when used
properly to find rare and top talent but anybody who has worked in the
industry knows this is rarely the case.

~~~
fzeroracer
The lump of labour fallacy is just that, a fallacy.

~~~
president
Yes, in a vacuum. It ignores the fact that at a given point of time, there are
only a limited number of jobs in the market.

~~~
fzeroracer
No, you've managed to completely misinterpret how the lump of labor fallacy
works and fell for the fallacy again.

Job demand is elastic. If tomorrow X of all immigrants who held a job in the
US left, that doesn't mean X jobs open up. You're losing X customers and Y
investors where Y is a subset of X. Jobs are not a zero-sum game and H1B does
not exist just to take away jobs because inevitably some of those people will
go on to create _more_ jobs and companies in the US.

Again, I will repeat: The lump of labor fallacy is a fallacy for a reason.

~~~
president
You're straying away from the point and overcomplicating things. When a
company has an open position and it is filled by an H1B worker, an American
worker has lost that opportunity. That's zero sum. Whether or not H1B workers
are going to go on to create more jobs has no bearing. You could say the same
thing about the American worker that lost that job opportunity.

You realize that just because something is named a "fallacy" doesn't mean it
is one. Economists have bias too and are often employed/used by lobbyists to
sway analysis.

------
anticonformist
Since I'm disagreeing with the majority here: I have nothing but love and
respect for people of all countries. I also happen to disagree with the
groupthink on the H1B for reasons that have nothing to do with being bigoted.

1\. The H1B is unethical because it intentionally brain-drains countries.

Why is it good for the U.S. to take the most educated (and wealthy) foreigners
from their countries? Doesn't this hurt these countries?

2\. The H1B is unethical because it advantages large corporations and rich
immigrants over small businesses and locals.

Small companies can't generally hire using H1B, so they lose out on the scam.
The immigrants are disproportionately the wealthiest people from their
countries. By buying expensive educations, their parents are buying them
access to the U.S. Rich corporations helping rich people by exploiting others.

3\. The H1B is unethical because companies commit fraud using it without
consequence.

It's an open secret in the tech world that the H1B (and other visas) are being
used to lower costs (through lower salaries, increasing supply, and coerced
retention) and not to hire for roles that could not otherwise be filled by
locals. This is fraud and yet there is little to no enforcement.

99% of the H1B jobs could all be filled locally. It would just drive up costs
for large corporations like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Tesla.

~~~
rantwasp
> 99% of the H1B jobs could all be filled locally

that’s a bold claim. do you have a any sources to back that up?

also, just because someone that is only interested in the financial aspect
does a bootcamp, does not mean that they can immediately ramp up and do the
work someone else has a formal education in and has been doing for 10 years.
that’s not how life works.

