

Long-Prized H-1B Visas Lose Cachet - ubasu
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704810504576307342275841586.html

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maxklein
I will say something: Just from perception, the U.S does not feel attractive
anymore as a place to work in. Americans are whining constantly online about
how terrible their country is, on my recent visit I was shocked at how
dilapidated the place looks compared to europe, the value of the dollar is
falling rapidly, and there is this undercurrent of anti-immigrant sentiment
that is broadcasted via the media.

In the past the U.S felt like the open and powerful place where everything can
be achieved, but now it no longer feels that way. So many new countries are
now nimble and growing with markets opening up - while the U.S is going
exactly the other way. It's restricting and shrinking, markets are getting
closed.

Worst of all, with the weak dollar, earning money in the U.S doesn't get you a
lot of money to send home anymore.

~~~
endtwist
I just want to point out that you're making a gross over-generalization by
saying that you were "shocked at how dilapidated the place looks" as though it
were a 250 sq. foot (~23 m^2) apartment. The continental US is _3,794,101 sq.
miles_ (9,826,676 km^2) and some of it is bound to look "dilapidated," but not
nearly the entirety.

~~~
maxklein
Well San Francisco, which is the tech mecca, looks pretty dilapidated.

~~~
d_r
San Francisco is a beautiful city that for some reason is not incredibly well-
kept. I'm not sure if I feel that way because of the not-too-friendly
homeless, or the overall look of being worn out in some parts like Market
Street.

I'm from New York and frequently travel to China, both of which obviously have
"old" spots. For some reason, "old" there for me evokes the feeling of
appreciation for history, while the San Francisco "old" makes me sad.

~~~
geebee
I agree... kind of. Not all of SF feels dilapidated, and not all old parts
make me depressed. Kind of depends. I've lived here my whole life (almost 40
years now, sheesh), and some parts have gotten more interesting. The
embarcadero has gotten much more appealing. The decision to not rebuild the
old freeway was a good one - now there's a long bayside path from the restored
ferry building past the new ballpark (one of the nicest in the country, I
think), and then finally down past the new UCSF biomed campus (which will be
producing some mind blowing work). This will be a pretty incredible new
neighborhood. I also think that crissy field is a more appealing place than it
was when I was a kid, and the long walk from the presidio (fort point under
the bridge through fort mason contains "old stuff" that is very evocative).

Market Street around civic center is appalling, and it spills over into Powell
street and the Embarcadero near market enough that those spots are clearly
tarnished, especially in the eyes of visitors. But pretty much every corner of
the city suffers from blight - the new Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park
or the De Young may sparkle (a little too much for my taste), but the appeal
of the park is diminished by the presence of a large homeless population
(including stray pit bulls). Maybe these things are more noticeably to
newcomers now?

While it may seem a little facile to blame too much on one problem, I don't
think you can understate how severe an impact the "hardcore homeless"
population has had on SF. Not only does it create blight, it's also a big
drain on our finances. SF is in a tough spot here. It's a liberal city that
has friendlier homeless policies, but unfortunately, that makes us a magnet.

As for New York... lived there for only 6 months, but Mahnattan is truly a
vibrant place. I was at Columbia, and I'd say I was hit up for spare change
about as often as I am in SF, though. This was in the mid 90s, maybe it's
cleaned up better than SF since then, haven't really been back.

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_debug_
To me, it's interesting that almost no discussion of the H-1B touches on
another topic that is widely discussed, too, but in it's own mindspace : the
U.S. is now a scary place. The eager use of tasers by the police and the
presence of the TSA goons on trains and buses in addition to airports add
unpleasant possibilities to the anti-immigrant sentiment (not to mention the
moral questions about the whole War on Terror, Guantanamo, etc;). I have never
heard of instances of immigrants getting tased just for looking different, for
example, but these are things to consider when immigrating to a new country :
are they friendly, are they peaceful? Do I want to be associated with them? Am
I that unhappy in my own situation that I really need to go to such a place?

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mtviewdave
>They cite former H-1B holders such as Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun
Microsystems, and Vinod Dham, an engineer behind Intel Corp.'s Pentium chip,
as proof of its value.

The H-1B was created in 1990. According to Wikipedia, Dham started at NCR in
Ohio in 1977, so I doubt he ever had one. Sun was founded in 1982, so Khosla
couldn't have had an H-1B either.

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jerrya
<http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/h1b.html>

Professor Norm Matloff's H-1B Web Page

Overview:

The H-1B work visa is fundamentally about cheap labor.

Though the tech industry lobbyists portray H-1B as a remedy for labor
shortages and as a means of hiring "the best and the brightest" from around
the world (which I strongly support), the vast majority are ordinary people
doing ordinary work. Instead of being about talent, H-1B is about cheap labor.

Employers accrue Type I wage savings by paying H-1Bs less than comparable
Americans (U.S. citizens and permanent residents). Employers accrue Type II
wage savings by hiring younger, thus cheaper, H-1Bs in lieu of older, thus
more expensive (age 35+) Americans. Both types of wage savings are fully
LEGAL, due to loopholes in the law and regulations. The problem is NOT one of
lack of enforcement. Use of H-1B for cheap labor extends across the industry
including the large mainstream firms., facilitated by the nation's top
immigration law firms. It does NOT occur primarily in the Indian " body
shops," and it DOES occur in the hiring of international students from U.S.
university campuses. The underpayment of H-1Bs is well-established fact, not
rumor, anecdote or ideology. It has been confirmed by two congressionally-
commissioned reports, and a number of academic studies, in both statistical
and qualitative analyses.

Even former software industry entrepreneur CEO Vivek Wadhwa, now a defender of
foreign worker programs, has confessed,

I know from my experience as a tech CEO that H-1Bs are cheaper than domestic
hires. Technically, these workers are supposed to be paid a "prevailing wage,"
but this mechanism is riddled with loopholes. Wadhwa has also stated

I was one of the first [CEOs] to use H-1B visas to bring workers to the U.S.A.
Why did I do that? Because it was cheaper.

~~~
microarchitect
Interesting page, but this part is a bit hard to believe:

    
    
      There is no tech labor shortage. No study, other than those sponsored by the industry, has
      ever shown a shortage. Wages, both for new graduates and established professionals, have 
      been flat or falling in the engineering and programming fields (adjusted for inflation). 
      Employers hire only a tiny fraction of those who apply. HR departments routinely exclude CVs 
      of applicants they deem "too expensive"--those that are over age 35. (So managers never see 
      these CVs, and mistakenly believe there are no applicants.)
    

The argument about ageism might well be true. However, I don't think it's
going to be easy to find high quality software engineers, especially if you
exclude the all the foreign students graduating from the top-25 or so CS
programs in the country

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nickthedart
I think that the web has made the "dark side" of H1B more widely known. H1B
holders often feel like indentured servants. There are many stories of people
who slaved away for years while trying to get a Green Card but didn't get one
in the end. Also , post 9-11, with the associated paranoia and security
hassles, living a plane flight away from your extended family, especially in
the US, would seem far less attractive. Its a pity because there are some
great tech opportunities in the US right now. My solution would be , the US
needs a better tech visa program where people have a chance to stay in the US
on a more equal footing with Americans (and thereby become employers
themselves, which helps Americans too). Also the US needs to stop treating
every normal innocent visitor like they're a potential threat of some kind.

------
singular
Personally I've always been put off by the perceived (let me know if I've got
this wrong) ease with which American companies can get rid of you, and the
short notice they can give you (2 weeks is what I've heard) - here in the UK
the law is heavily weighted towards the employee.

~~~
yardie
The short notice can be even shorter than that, real-time. 2-weeks is just a
courtesy. But I've been on the other end where it didn't takes months of
negotiation to get work. In the past this wasn't a problem there was enough
work for everyone, but with globalization, outsourcing, and automation the
scales have tipped greatly in favor of the employer.

The UK is only slightly better in labor law. A lot of the UK companies have
learned a lot from the former colony. If they can't fire you outright they'll
just get more creative (ie. We caught you using the office copier to make
flyers for your football league, fired for abusing company resources). My
wife's company (big UK company) is in a protracted labor dispute with the
unions. So what do they do? Find exagerated reasons to get union leaders
fired. Of course unions have lawyers, but the company can keep it in court
longer than the union can pay its lawyers.

~~~
singular
Ouch that's terrible. I guess there are always ways around things... I had
always assumed you were protected.

I guess that, no matter how protected you think you in the eyes of the law,
being a wage-earner is more of a risk it seems to be.

~~~
idiopathic
It _is_ scary, and they _will_ fire you. That scared me a lot. My first job
was with the US Federal Government (I was a scientist at NIH) who had nicer
terms, plus a reputation of not being able to fire egregiously bad employees.

But then I switched to the private sector and I have since seen that company
fire lots of people quickly. To be fair, none of those fired quickly were H1B
holders, and the US citizens who were fired were given very generous severance
payments (this is a management consultancy that knows former employees are
future customers).

My advice is to accept it, and then feel liberated by it. The same contract
allowed me to leave my employer without feeling guilty, which is exactly what
I did when I wanted to start my own company.

For me, the turning point was when I wanted to have a family. I just found the
idea of being forced to leave the country when your employer does not want to
sponsor you anymore too awful, especially as I had experienced it as a child
when my father had a UK university do the same thing to him. We had 1 month to
pack everything and leave the country.

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cloudhead
Maybe if they removed the irrational restrictions and complications around it,
they would have more talent coming in the country. Most startups can't afford
to go through the H-1B process, and many candidates just don't meet the
criteria (4 years of school or 12 years combined experience).

~~~
psykotic
> Most startups can't afford to go through the H-1B process, and many
> candidates just don't meet the criteria (4 years of school or 12 years
> combined experience).

If you're a garage-level startup then $10,000 in legal fees to hire an
employee might sound like a lot. Otherwise I see it as a cheap bargain if you
are truly bringing on talent otherwise lacking domestically, which is the
H-1B's nominal charter. As for not meeting the requirements, I'm an example of
someone who did not and got an O-1 instead. It's a lot harder but still
absolutely doable if the candidate has enough demonstrable accomplishments and
acclaim to his or her name.

The time sink of going through the process is probably the bigger issue for a
typical fast-moving startup.

~~~
cloudhead
Yea, when I said "afford it" I meant in time and money, which are both scarce
in the startup space.

I was unaware of the possibility of an O-1 until the H-1B process failed for
me, it was brought to my attention only recently..

It's good to know it's an option. Would you be willing to disclose some of the
strategies you used to get the O-1? It seems very much geared towards
traditional sciences and old media from looking at the criteria.

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jerrya
Companies say they need H1-B visas because they can't find capable workers
locally. At the same time, the same companies usually force all applicants to
submit resumes online to a central HR service, where the HR department is
usually completely unqualified to determine on any but the grossest levels who
is qualified and who is not.

I say any company that wants an H1-B visa worker at location X must have a way
for applicants to turn in a resume at location X and be seen by a hiring
manager at location X.

If they are not willing to do that, than they are not serious when they
complain they can't find competent local workers.

~~~
yardie
Its just a ruse. They are required by law to post a that position, and then
after "exhausting all options" only then can they recruit an H1B candidate.

If you see a position that has some outlandish requirements (10+ years of C#)
than you can be sure it's a jon post for a candidate they already had in mind
but were legally required to list.

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mavelikara
My comment at WSJ:

A few people running staffing firms had gotten into legal trouble recently.
The staffing industry (a.k.a. "bodyshops", "desi consultancies" etc) overall
are facing some serious heat from the USCIS and DOL this year. In my opinion,
this is a huge factor contributing to the slow uptake of H-1B visas this year.

Most discussions of H-1B employers surround two broad categories: 1) Big name
tech firms in US - Microsoft, Google, Cisco etc 2) Indian outsourcing
companies - Infosys, Wipro, TCS, Cognizant etc

But the third important category of users are these staffing companies. They
try to stay under the radar clinging on to the coat tails of Indian
outsourcing companies by claiming to have big operations in India. But most of
these firms have minimal, if any, presence in India. They are easy to identify
too - their websites will have stock photographs of busy-looking professionals
in business suits hunched over laptops, vacuous white papers on
methodologies/delivery models/management frameworks, me-too vision statements
etc.

A few of these - Peri Soft, Worldwide, Vision Systems - have recently gotten
into trouble with DOL; some of the business owners have even spent time behind
the bars lately. This has had a chilling effect on the staffing industry,
reducing the mad rush to get an H-1B petition filed on 1st April. The economy
still not recovering also adds to the hesitation, but I think the firm
enforcement actions of DOL, USCIS etc have been an equal contributor.

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ktsmith
The numbers that USCIS is publishing can be seen here:
[http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f...](http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=4b7cdd1d5fd37210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=73566811264a3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD)

edit: Those numbers show the applications accepted, not the number received.

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learner4life
There is some truth to this. I am an H1-B visa holder who due to a lawyer mess
up has been forced to file under the EB-3 category. Despite me being a
productive body to my company as well as assimilating into the local culture,
I am seeing at least a 10 year wait before I can switch companies or jobs or
start a company. While I am at a reasonably stable company, I have the same
problems everyone has at reasonably stable companies, that of an entrenched
upper management with not much scope of growth. I am seriously considering
moving back to India to be able to start a company. H1B's were lucrative 15
years ago for smart people as the number of opportunities were low at home. It
no longer is true and smart people are unwilling to pay the culture and
emotional costs it takes to make a move to an alien culture.

~~~
DenisM
You can switch jobs on H1B, and you can switch jobs while waiting for the
green card. Talk to a lawyer.

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meow
Could it not just be explained in terms of dollar value (actual and projected)
instead of harping about missed out talent.. Since most of the companies that
take in H1-B applicants operate globally, their cost of recruiting employees
locally could have gone down (due to depressed job market and low attrition
rates) making local recruiting much easier. In simpler words thanks to the fed
printing press, local workforce might be becoming more competitive :)

