
IBM: The cost difference is too great for business not to look for H1B workers - dsr_
http://cis.org/miano/ibm-cost-difference-too-great-business-not-look-h-1b-workers
======
greggman
If there's a smoking gun for IBM great, fine $$$$$$$ IBM. But my personal
anecdotal experience is that the companies I've worked for pay the same for
HB-1 vs local. They don't look at it as trying to find cheap employees. They
look at as trying to find qualified employees anywhere, world wide.

Companies I've worked for, Virgin Games (run by a British immigrant), Shiny
Entertainment (also run by a British immigrant and seemed like > 50%
foreigners). Naughty Dog had at least 5 or 6 foreigners of 30 employees when I
was there. The owner even made a point of showing us the first hire's salary
and asking us if we knew any locals that were qualified for the job that
wanted the job so that he was sure he was above the law.

A few years later that hire went on to co-found Ready At Dawn which was
founded by 3 immigrants. I have no idea how many of their employees are
foreign.

I have seen one company, Interplay, abuse their power over a foreign employee
by threatening to pull their visa support for him before if he didn't do X (I
think X was stop some un-work related outside music activity). He ended up
marrying his local GF and then got the hell out of that company.

The company I currently work for, as far as can tell, has a similar position.
We'll hire anyone that applies that can convince us they can do the job.
Finding them is hard. There may be tons of qualified people but either they
aren't applying, they can't write a resume that makes it look like they're
qualified, or they can't convince us in the interview that they are qualified.

~~~
rada
The H1B issue is not simply salary as measured in absolute numbers. Naked
salary numbers may be the visible tip of the iceberg but there are bigger
issues to consider.

1\. Most H1B workers are under 30, and most unemployed American programmers
are over 35. This is by far the biggest part of the iceberg, made invisible by
the fact that these people drop out of statistics.

2\. Visa handcuffs are not slavery per say, but close enough. (If you think
that's an overly dramatic statement, you are probably not an immigrant from
some place you _really_ don't want to be, like me, or someone whose family
will quite literally starve if you don't send them money). People endure
getting beat up by their husbands for 5 years straight for the sake of a green
card, so there is no doubt they will endure long working hours and much more.

3\. The whole "shortage of IT talent" hysteria is way overblown when you look
at the actual numbers. Just one example, latest DICE salary report:

<http://media.dice.com/report/2012-2011-dice-salary-survey/>

Contrast the opening sentence:

 _Technology professionals enjoyed their largest annual salary growth since
2008, according to the 2012-2011 Salary Survey from Dice, the leading career
site for technology and engineering professionals._

... with the actual numbers:

 _After two straight years of wages remaining nearly flat, tech professionals
on average garnered salary increases of more than two percent, boosting their
average annual wage to $81,327 from $79,384 in 2010._

So, let's see. While the inflation is chugging along at ~3% per year, we get 2
flat years, followed by a 1% increase? So basically, we make _less_ money each
year?

Is the tech industry an economic miracle? Are programmers the one must-have
product whose prices get _lower_ when it's in short supply and the buyers have
pockets full of cash? Or is there a simpler explanation?

~~~
notlisted
Guys, consider the source, really... it's one of those rightwing 'newspeak'
organizations
[http://americasvoiceonline.org/research/background_briefing_...](http://americasvoiceonline.org/research/background_briefing_mark_krikorian_cis/)

Secondly, though L1 visas do not have a prevailing wage, they DO look at the
wage and if it's much lower the L1 visa is NOT granted. Also note that L1
visas are ONLY granted to people who have already worked with the company for
several years and need to have been in a managerial capacity for at least 1
year out of the preceding 3 years.

As @rada indicated, the cost savings aspect alluded to are more often than not
the result of lower age ranges and NOT just from wage discrimination.

Also note that if salaries are lower than what one would expect, it's because
the prevailing wage number is lower than one might expect, simply because is
is defined as the median wage for that position across the STATE, which would
explain why prevailing wages are often much lower that what's "prevailing" in
metro areas like NYC. (disclosure: IANAL, and I'm not 100% sure this is still
the case, but I think it is)

One more thing to realize is that H1B workers and L1 workers PAY TAXES in the
USA, BUT have NO rights to unemployment if they lose their job, nor to
retirement benefits later in life etc. UNLESS they make it to the 40 points
limit. At 3-4 points a year, this will typically take 10+ years and thus makes
it near impossible with max. duration of visas, even if you 'stack' L1 and H1B
(years on L1 add towards 6 year maximum of H1B). In short: the H1B workers
fill the coffers of all non-visa workers without the option to withdraw their
contribution in the future, unless they become citizens or marry a US spouse.
Note that even if they do 8naturalize or marry, they'll need to get to this 40
point level to obtain retirement benefits. Can't find a link, but have the
notifications from the social security administration in my files somewhere.

I'll be honest: I would not wish an H1B job on my worst enemy. I consider it
modern-day slavery because you are beholden to your employer. These days it's
not as bad as in the early 2000's, where you were forced to leave within 10
days of losing your job, but it's still not an easy or secure life.

Finally, a nice little overview comparing H1B and L1:
[http://www.immihelp.com/l1-visa/l1-visa-h1b-visa-
comparison....](http://www.immihelp.com/l1-visa/l1-visa-h1b-visa-
comparison.html)

~~~
rada
I am very confused. My source is a Dice salaries survey, and to refute said
source, you link to a website trashing some guy named Mark Krikorian? Did you
reply to my comment by mistake?

(1) Your link is to America's Voice, a Washington DC-based pro-immigration
lobby organization, hardly an objective source:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas_Voice_(lobby)>

~~~
notlisted
Sorry, I did. Read to the bottom of the page, re-read your post, hit reply.

The hardcore pro-immigration site I link to is to indicate that the "non-
partisan" CIS is not non-partisan, which would be obvious too if you look at
the CIS site which quotes mainly fox news segments. I don't necessarily agree
with anything else they state.

------
grecy
I'm currently involved with immigrating to Canada as a skilled worker, and
I've previously worked in the US on multiple J1 visas, and applied for a H1B.

My take on all of this is that bringing in foreigners in this way destroys the
whole supply and demand setup of jobs and employees.

As an example, let's say company A wants to hire a salaried employee for $x.
After 6 months of not finding anyone, they should offer more money, etc. until
eventually someone is found. If this is across the country for a given
profession, then more students will be educated in that field, and the supply
of employees will match the demand that has grown and salaries will go up and
down in relation to how well the supply matches the demand.

With programs like the H1B and similar, when Company A doesn't find an
employee for $x, they don't have to offer more money, they just bring in
someone from overseas. In this way Company A is getting employees for less
than the supply/demand equation says it should be able to in their local
country.

This means Company A makes bigger profits, and people inside the given country
are now earning a lower wage than they otherwise should be if Company A had to
raise salaries because of a lack of supply of employees for the demand in the
given field.

Here in Canada it happens all the time. All the big players (McDonalds, Wal-
Mart, KFC, etc.) have an agreement with the govt. where they don't even have
to go through the process to hire a foreign worker, it's automatically rubber
stamped. When they can't find a local to work for minimum wage, they just
bring in a foreigner to do it. So now even though there is not a supply of
Canadians willing to work at KFC for minimum wage, KFC can fill those
positions, have higher profits, and there are thousands (millions?) of people
living in Canada with a standard of living below that which the average
Canadian will accept. In my town tehre are lots of foreigners living 10 to a
house because they don't earn enough money to do it any other way.

This is not a good thing for a country, or the people in it. It is a good
thing for the big companies that now make bigger profits, thanks to being able
to get employees at a lower salary.

~~~
jlgreco
The problem is that reality is _messy_. There are a lot of factors that gunk
up a good theory. Higher demand can lead to higher wages if we restrict
immigration, but if American students raw out of highschool are not thinking 5
to 10 years into their future when they pick a major, supply is not going to
jump like the growing industry needs it to.

The issue is compounded when popular media artificially lowers the level of
"glamor" in the industry. Shows like The Big Bang Theory are entertaining, but
I don't think many people watch them and say _"that is what I want to be a
part of"_.

Now, of course individual companies can spike their salaries and pull in
talented programmers, but I think most of those will be cannibalized from
other companies. If supply is dwindling then raising wages can work for
_individual_ companies, but not I think for the industry as a whole.

~~~
grecy
> If supply is dwindling then raising wages can work for individual companies,
> but not I think for the industry as a whole.

It's interesting you look at this from the perspective of benefiting the
companies. My discussion was about the lack of benefit to the employees and
people in the country in general.

> supply is not going to jump like the growing industry needs it to.

Industry only needs supply to jump fast so that profits can jump fast. Let's
face it, if Apple can't get enough Software Engineers fast enough, iOS 7 might
be delayed and profits might be reduced, but they're not going to fail because
they can't get enough good employees fast enough.

The approach of bringing in foreigners absolutely supports faster growth for
the companies, and higher profits for the companies, but it's not doing
anything to help employees or the people in that country on the whole.

Is it really worth lowering the overall wages and standard of living of people
in your own country so that the companies can make higher profits faster?

~~~
Evbn
...and so people born on other pieces of dirt can have higher standard of
living...

~~~
grecy
Absolutely that's a consequence.

Have you spent any time in developing and undeveloped countries? Do you have
any idea what would happen to your life if we averaged out the standard of
living across all countries?

After living in Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, etc for years, I honestly believe the
majority of people in the developed world would die if they were forced to
live like that.

------
rayiner
Tech companies and their approach to labor is just sickening. They complain
constantly that we don't let in enough H1B's. Are they offering to indemnify
the government in case they need healthcare, unemployment; their children need
public education, etc? They complain constantly that the publicly funded
universities don't graduate enough STEM graduates to meet their needs. Think
about that--they complain with no hint of irony that the public doesn't train
enough workers for them at the public expense!

And let's not even start on collusion to keep down salaries, non-competes and
other bullshit.

~~~
ark15
H1Bs residing in the US pay the same tax (including social security and
medicare) as the citizens.(so if their kids need public education, they are
also paying for it in a way)

H1Bs are _not_ entitled to unemployment benefits (or any form of government
sponsored healthcare). In fact, technically, they are supposed to leave the
country the same day they are fired otherwise they are illegally staying.

~~~
rayiner
H1-B is a big step towards green card status for many people, and green card
holders are entitled to all of these things.

~~~
akiselev
After having paid the taxes with no safety net, the constant risk of
deportation hanging over their heads, aaand a ridiculous green card process
that can take a decade or more. (My parents are a biophysicist working for
NASA and a mechE working for a printer company and it took us FOURTEEN YEARS).

14 years of taxes is quite a bit at an effective 35% rate without the promise
of social security of any kind.

~~~
rayiner
I'm not justifying the H1-B system. I'm justifying our country's exercise of
controls on immigration.

~~~
akiselev
The situation is almost exactly the same across our entire immigration system,
the H1-B Visa is no exception.

Only in rare cases do immigrants not pay the same taxes (through bidirectional
tax treaties) and most of them don't receive the same benefits, if any.

~~~
rayiner
The point isn't whether immigrants pay the same taxes. The point is that
society makes certain commitments to everyone who lives in the US, and
everyone who lives in the US makes certain reciprocal commitments to the
society. A society legitimately controls immigration into the country by
virtue of those reciprocal commitments.

At a most fundamental level, a nation is a group of people who commit to
protect each other in case of attack. If you're in the US, we'll protect you
from foreign invaders whether you're a citizen, legal resident, or H1-B
holder. Because we make that commitment, we get to decide who crosses our
borders. We get to decide based on whatever factors we want whether we want to
let someone emigrate.

~~~
akiselev
"H1-B is a big step towards green card status for many people, and green card
holders are entitled to all of these things."

No that is the point. With this statement you are justifying the fact that
Visa holders don't receive the same commitments as PRs and citizens because
they may or may not receive a GC in the future. Many H1-Bs have to leave the
US before they even get a chance to get a GC (all the while paying their taxes
and not receiving much of the benefits).

This makes them second class citizens.

------
btilly
Here is my modest proposal for how to handle the H1B issue.

In order to hire an H1B worker, you have to post a significant bond. The
worker arrives and has a fixed number of years in the USA. Once the worker
arrives, the worker has absolutely no legal obligation to the hiring company.

In other words rather than ask companies to swear up and down that they can't
find American workers, while they have every incentive to lie, make the
company prove with its actions that there are no Americans available. And
rather than believe the company when it says that they are paying the market
rate, let it prove it by paying the worker enough that the worker does not
immediately jump ship to a competitor who _will_ pay the prevailing market
rate.

Of course nobody wants to see a system like that, because the current system
is all about getting companies cheap labor while hypocritically pretending
that this isn't what the system is about.

~~~
prostoalex
You just described H1B transfers.

~~~
btilly
No I did not.

H1B transfers require the new employer to go through a significant amount of
paperwork, and have all of the usual lags that anything to do with the
government does. As a result the requirement to deal with this is a
significant impediment for changing jobs. Particularly for very small
employers that may not have people dedicated for this kind of paperwork.

What I'm describing is, "Oh, you're in the country on a valid visa? Come work
for us tomorrow, at the same rate under the same rules that a US citizen
faces!"

~~~
neilk
I've been through an H1-B transfer myself, the lawyers didn't seem to think it
was a big deal. From application to acceptance I don't think it was even a
week.

I think if your idea was implemented there would be little change in H1-B
mobility. Fact is, a foreign worker just has fewer options in the host country
for lots of reasons and paperwork is the least of it. The foreign worker
probably has no professional reputation outside their own company. Their
degree and experience may not be understood or respected. Worst thing is that
you're not allowed to have any significant period of unemployment - and even
in the cases where you can, family and friends unlikely to be able to help you
through a rough situation.

~~~
btilly
As you may or may not be aware, I'm personally aware of you and value your
opinion significantly more than an average HN commenter.

Therefore let me just say that one of the reasons that I would suggest the
bond from the initial company is to cover the potential government obligation
in the case of a significant period of unemployment. Does this not seem to be
an important difference? If not, then it would seem that the H1-B status is
not as different from a regular citizen as I thought, and employers of H1-B
visa holders do not have as much control as I thought that they did.

~~~
prostoalex
After losing the job, H1-B holder is supposed to find a new job or go home
within the grace period of 90 days. There's no "significant period of
unemployment". Where are you getting your facts from?

~~~
btilly
If you re-read that, the possibility of a significant period of employment is
part of my suggestion, and is supposed to be a difference from the current
status quo. Therefore I'm aware that this is not how things currently work.

------
jrockway
I don't think this is discrimination against Americans: it's just
discrimination against people who price themselves higher. H1-B workers are
glad to be in the US and are willing to accept substantially less cash
compensation as a result. Americans already have US citizenship and want to be
paid in money. Companies don't like spending money but the government allows
them to spend "citizenship points" on employees instead, so they do and here
we are. (And, you can threaten employees you don't like with deportation,
which is much scarier and perhaps more motivating than "you're laid off and
will have to collect unemployement while waiting for your new job to start.
remember to get out of bed for a few hours a day so you don't get bedsores!"
It certainly prevents people from asking for raises, equity, etc.)

Ultimately, you get what you pay for. The problem is that the market hasn't
figured this out yet, since good programmers are so few and far between that
most programming-related projects fail anyway. If you're going to fail, you
might as well fail with cheap labor that won't talk back instead of with
expensive labor mixed with cheap labor, right?

~~~
Evbn
What you describe is illegal. H1B's are required to be paid the same as
American peers.

~~~
jrockway
As the article implies, the law is ignored.

Where I worked, there was a massive pay disparity among non-immigrant workers.
People hired out of college would be making $45,000 a year, while people that
had been at the company for a few years and hired away from a well-paying job
would be making $150,000 a year. (Raises were basically given via counter-
offer matches, as far as I could tell.) There's then plenty of leeway to pay
your H1Bs $60,000 a year, which is a rather low programmer's salary, while
still paying _some_ Americans less.

I think the key loophole is that you have to pay a certain average amount
based on region and job code, but that region includes the suburbs and rural
areas and the job code includes all of "senior architect" and "test engineer
intern". So you can pay someone a "suburbs" salary instead of a city salary,
and pay them a non-financial-services-firm salary even though they work for an
investment bank, and then pay them like the lowest-level "computer programmer"
American regardless of their job responsibilities.

Anyway, if my previous employer's goal was to attract the best talent by
paying great salaries, they failed. I still have nightmares about the time I
had to explain to someone with "10 years of experience" what an array was. (He
wrote something like: if day == 0: return "Monday" elif day == 1: return
"Tuesday". But I digress.)

------
blrgeek
Please consider the following two points. What's the difference between them?

1\. The US pushed free-market + lower tariffs for imports of products into
other countries. This lead to lower production in those countries, replaced by
imports from the US. Leading to lower employment in many cases. [Today that's
replaced with imports from China]

2\. Other countries export 'services' to the US, in the form of BPOs/KPOs, or
H1Bs. This leads to lower production of services in the US, resulting in lower
employment in the US.

On the face of it, both are similar. Except one affects workers in the US and
the other affects workers in the third-world.

So to balance free-trade, why not free-labor?

I would appreciate thoughtful replies on why free-trade and free-labor are not
two sides of the same coin.

~~~
debacle
Corporations are using free trade to introduce foreign-made goods at huge
margins, while at the same time trying to prevent consumers from practicing
price arbitrage.

If corporations were not artificially inflating the cost of living for the US
consumer (through the cost of medicine, software, textbooks, food, clothing,
etc), then there would be no issue with an open labor market.

But the corporations want to have their cake and eat it to. Free-trade means
we get to sell you foreign-made goods at higher margins. Free-labor means we
get to hire foreign workers are lower cost. Neither of things things are good
for the US consumer, only the US corporation.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_artificially inflating the cost of living for the US consumer (through the
cost of medicine, software, textbooks, food, clothing, etc),_

Could you explain this in more detail?

~~~
patmcguire
It's like the senior discount on a grander scale. Your typical old person on a
fixed income can pay less than someone still working, so you split the market
into two segments and do a pricing strategy that gives maximum profit in both
- you keep the high margin on the young but increase the quantity the old can
afford more than the price cut. You keep people from moving between the
segmented markets by setting an age break.

Same goes for the international vs. the American market - there's no way
you're going to be able to charge $150 for a textbook, $200 for a Windows
license, or thousands a month for HIV meds in Africa and get any reasonable
number of customers. Since the marginal cost of both is low, companies can cut
their prices to close to the amount it costs them to make a unit and make it
up on the massively increased volume.

Any time you segment a market like this you have to keep it apart somehow.
Sometimes it's natural - a senior discount seems fair and few will make false
claims of being elderly - but sometimes it's not. Clearly everyone in the US
would prefer to pay 95% less for their medication than they are, but the
pharmaceuticals wouldn't like it and probably wouldn't be able to survive on
that. So they make it very difficult to do any kind of arbitrage.

If you're an individual you can probably get away with it with a lot of effort
(I got a lot of Indian textbooks (Identical to US versions) because I was
desperate and put a lot of work into finding someone who wouldn't refuse to
ship to the US.) If you try to break the segmentation on any kind of scale
you'll get a legal smackdown. Maybe it's completely legal, but it's hard to
prove, and the possible losses are so great most companies will go to war over
this.

I guess that the irony is that third-world wages are allowed to compete more
often than third-world prices. Maybe there's something valid to that - if HIV
meds cost everywhere what they cost in the cheapest country, then there would
be no new ones, or at least an end to wildly cheaper versions - but that's the
grievance.

(Don't know if third-world is the right term, so let me just say when I say
that I mean "places significantly less economically developed than America")

~~~
Evbn
Nowhere does your long post explain anything about "artificial inflation",
only market pricing.

~~~
usaar333
The artificial inflation comes from it being illegal to import say medicine
across borders.

------
joseflavio
A very simple solution used here in Europe is that the VISA does not tie you
up with the employer! This was the employer has all the expenses and work to
bring you but if your wage is not competitive you can just leave the company
and enter in another one who pays you the market price. The problem in USA is
that the foreigners are totally under the control of the hiring company, so
sure you create an artificial lower-wage group.

~~~
varjag
This is simply not true, throughout most of Europe your work permit is tied to
your employment until you qualify for permanent residence permit (typically
after 3 years).

~~~
flog
Is this a recent thing?

I'm in the UK under a Tier 1 (a points based, highly skilled migrants visa)
and can work almost without restriction (I can't be a doctor or professional
sports person).

Even under the working holiday maker there were no restrictions to your
employer.

~~~
sturadnidge
The Tier 1 was a different, independent visa - I think varjag is referring to
the UK work permit system which works as described (except for the time
length, which used to be 5 years but is now only 2 years) and has been that
way for many years.

The Tier 1 doesn't actually exist anymore, basically the only way you can work
in the UK without EU citizenship or an ancestry visa is via a sponsored visa.

In fact the rules just changed recently for the worse - if you are working in
the UK under a sponsored visa, the time no longer counts towards settlement.
Under the old work permit system, you were still tied to a company but at
least after 5 years you could apply for indefinite leave to remain (which is
exactly what i did a few months ago).

I don't know why anyone in their right mind would work in the UK with (a) the
inability to easily change employers and (b) the inability to settle after X
number of years. Obviously not a problem for EU citizens or ancestry visa
holders, but for the rest of us...

~~~
varjag
It's obviously a populist move; making life complicated to skilled workers is
perhaps the worst way to fight illegal migration. I've been to the UK last
year for friends wedding; obtaining even a visitor visa was a humiliating
process only a cavity search short from prison experience.

So many people in EU/EEC somehow hold this idea that getting residence in
their country is as easy as simply applying for it: probably the outcome of
public debate where some points of view are very selective and simplistic.

~~~
46Bit
I'm from the UK, and despite having interests in government I paid little
attention to our immigration process until I started to look into that of the
USA.

The problem is simple to sum up: highly skilled workers aren't going to sneak
across the Channel Tunnel/Rio Grande very often. They'll stick to as-legal-as-
possible means because generally they're respectable tradesmen, who've
invested a lot of time/money in their skills and want to use them as best as
they can.

Unfortunately, these government-encouraged means of immigration/foreign-
workers are the easiest things to stop. Hence an 'immigration clampdown to
save the jobs of the natives' really consists of blocking the vast majority of
the foreigners you might actually want to move to your country.

~~~
Tsagadai
You basically summarized the entire immigration debate in one post. Well done.

I think it should be required for anyone arguing immigration policy from
either position to go through an immigration system first. When you experience
the hoops you need to go through to get into a country you begin to understand
why making it harder only negatively impacts the people your country wants.

------
Spooky23
All of the arguments in this thread are true. In areas where specialized
knowledge is required, H-1B visas give you access to the global labor pool.
You need that access because there may be only a few hundred of these
specialists globally.

IMO, the big abuse of foreign workers takes place in big enterprise
environments.

So bank X or government agency Y hires IGS or some other contractor to do
something to some ancient COBOL application or monstrous J2EE thing. They go
out and recruit from a body shop, or from IGS India if you pay extra. They
justify using guest workers by submitting one of those classified ad style
"compliance advertisements" in InformationWeek magazine.

I've worked at places that required disclosure of employee compensation -- the
body shops that specialize in filling those drone titles bill $35-45/hr, and
pay the workers 40-60% less, depending on the number of subcontractor layers.
A US FTE is paid $40-55/hr inclusive of benefits, and a contractor anywhere
from 40-60% more.

~~~
incision
My anecdotal experience working in that kind of "big enterprise environment"
as an occasional COTR agrees with this 100%.

------
fxm4139
I find this extremely hard to believe. I completed two internships at IBM in
my undergrad years when I was here on an F1 visa (international student visa).
While I was on my F1 visa, I was making more than a lot of my American
counterparts and lesser than others who were doing internships as well. The
only things that factored into pay were the number of credits you completed in
college, and whether you were a returning employee. Nothing else.

I worked for IBM for almost 12 months before I got out of undergrad. There
were 4 hiring managers and a senior VP in a hardware unit who was personally
vouching for me. Yet, IBM didn't hire me because they were ridiculously
careful with hiring H1-B visas because of a snafu they had in the early 80s
when the immigration dept cracked down on them. At least IBMs engineering
divisions were only hiring H1B folks only if you had 2 years of experience
with a Bachelors, or a Masters. I was extremely pissed at the time because I
felt like I had more credibility based on merit and my time at IBM than many
other interns who were getting offers left and right after spending most of
their time playing counterstrike in the labs. They were being ridiculously
paranoid about sticking with the books on this one. And sure enough, after I
got my Masters I did have and continue to be able to get offers from IBM.

Like some folks said, this probably has to do with third parties who place
folks at IBM. Keep in mind, I'm not trying to support them (I'm still sour
about my undergrad days and not getting a job purely based on immigration
status), but I'm just refuting the whole point about IBM hiring H1B folks just
to save money. Just ask around your H1B friends who work at Fortune 100
companies (I'm sure most of you have many). The only ones that I've heard of
doing shady things with H1B candidates are small consulting shops and third
party staffers.

~~~
mbesto
IBM has nearly a half million employees. I would suspect that their stance on
visas is not _completely_ consistent across all areas of the business. For
example, I would only have to assume that GTS is much more inclined to go for
H1B folks than say, GBS.

------
fennecfoxen
Tough economics questions: To what extent would these people still be willing
to work for cheap if we let them immigrate and become legitimate Americans
with a simple, easy process? Are they just willing to work for less in
general, or is there a pattern of monopsonistic exploitation or other similar
exploitation due to the legal process surrounding the H1-B process and how it
is attached to an employer sponsor? If the latter, how can we procure evidence
and measure the effect?

~~~
deskamess
I think the freedom aspect is critical in any policy change. The 'freedom', or
lack thereof, is tied to what the sponsoring employer controls - the green
card process. I would propose something along the lines of:

1) If a person receives an H1-B he/she is free to work for anyone they want
[Open Work Permit]. This kicks in immediately - no waiting period. On a job
change the H1-B holder sends a job change notice to USCIS. This freedom
applies for the duration of the H1-B which I think should be extended from 3
to 5 years.

    
    
      COMBINED WITH:
    

2) Some process to migrate smoothly from H1-B to green card. _Perhaps_ you get
a green card if you can show employment in your field ("Information
Technology" for example, rather than something title specific like 'software
developer') for a total of 4 years. No additional job related procedures
required - just the usual security and medical clearances.

Will a company sponsor someone on H1-B if the risk of the candidate changing
jobs is high? Would they be better off hiring and training local candidates?

~~~
hapless
1.) Your H-1B isn't tied to your employer except during the
application/renewal process. The rest of the time you're free to move around.
However, every prospective employer will want to know about your visa status,
and that new employer will have to work on your H-1B renewal. You're at the
same negotiating disadvantage, because you only _really_ compete with other
H-1B holders.

2.) There already exist smooth processes to move from an H-1B to a green card.
Unfortunately, that's usually tied to your employer. Changing jobs may restart
the clock on you.

~~~
notlisted
Re point #1) this is definitely new. This was NOT the case during the first
bubble in 2000/2001, when H1B holders were forbidden to solicit new
employment. Slavery was alive and well then.

Also, contrary to popular belief, there is NO grace period after losing ones
job. If you are on an H1B, you have to find another H1B job and file for a
change or extension while 'IN STATUS', or at least have the new employer apply
for a temporary I-129 work permit( _).

Note: Some say the explosion of outsourcing to India after the first bubble
was actually a result of hordes of South Asians, familiar with the US business
climate, who were fired and sent back to India, resulting in a humongous
braindrain.

(_) [http://www.murthy.com/2012/09/18/h1b-layoff-strategy-when-
ch...](http://www.murthy.com/2012/09/18/h1b-layoff-strategy-when-
changing-h1b-employer/)

------
realrocker
This sort of thing is also harmful for native IT development for an
outsourcing destination such as India. Since the motive of work channeled to
India is simply cheaper costs, good software engineers have a limited run. One
of the direct fallout is time-based promotions instead of merit-based. Some
salient points: a) Average entry salary(0 years exp.) for an IT worker is
about $6k. After applying PPP(purchasing power parity) of
2.9(source:[http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/columns/harish-d...](http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/columns/harish-
damodaran/article1540678.ece\)it) amounts to $18k. In the US the average is
about $60-65k ([http://www.whatsalary.com/us/salary/SOFTWARE-
ENGINEER-T6812....](http://www.whatsalary.com/us/salary/SOFTWARE-
ENGINEER-T6812.htm)). TLDR:Entry level, India($18k after PPP) vs USA($60-65k).

b) Why is the above data relevant to this discussion?

H1B is a red herring basically saying, "Look we tried looking for locals
alright. They are just not qualified. Look at the Indians we got, they work
all the time." I don't think the 800-900 workers IBM imports translate to a
huge savings compared to 100,000+ workers it employs in India. While in India,
the H1B is a carrot for workers to continue slogging on.

c) How is it bad for India?

It's bad for India for exactly the same reasons. There is no desperation for
innovation as a software job is easily available. This is also the reason
India has not produced even a single Google or a Nokia.

Recently I was offered a contract job. I quoted the global market rate(after
applying PPP). The response I got back was shocking and humiliating.

"India's GDP is $3700. Why is your quotation so high?"

I apologized for earning more than India's GDP and refused.

~~~
eru
If the carrot makes more people invest in skills than actually leave the
country, India will easily profit. Also the ones who leave often send
remittance, and may one day come back with new skills.

> This is also the reason India has not produced even a single Google or a
> Nokia.

There are other things wrong with India (and Nokia nowadays, too).

~~~
realrocker
800 carrots for 100,000+, thus a red herring.

I believe desperation for innovation is the key factor though.

------
makmanalp
disclaimer: It's possible that I end up being an H-1B worker eventually, I'm a
foreigner working in the US, and I'm working on a website that helps people
like me.

> H-1B workers are cheaper than Americans — "and the cost difference is too
> great" for IBM not to look for foreign workers first. The H-1B statutes are
> designed to allow employers to legally pay H-1B workers less than Americans
> and IBM (and a lot of others) is taking full advantage.

This is interesting, because the H-1B process costs about 5k in processing and
lawyer fees, plus an additional 2kish fee for larger companies.

In addition to this, companies are required to pay the prevailing wage for
that profession and location to foreign workers, so that they can not undercut
Americans (or at least that was what was intended).

Prevailing wages are determined by the Dept of Labor, the same guys who set
minimum wages. Unless this data is way off-base, H-1B workers are _by
definition_ not cheaper than the average worker.

What I see as being likelier is that H-1B workers are an easy-to-hire pool of
workers (the average H-1B worker is super happy to get a job / visa), who are
willing to work hard for just above prevailing wage.

Not to mention that if there is a lack of supply of american workers who are
working for around prevailing wage (because they already have jobs and can't
be hired), it's easier to hire people from abroad than to wait until those
workers are available or more workers come in.

P.S. The CIS is known for its slightly odd conservative stance on immigration,
which is something like "we don't want foreigners to come in if they can
compete with Americans (who were also immigrants), but otherwise we're pro-
immigration (under these very stringent requirements)"

\---------------------

edit: Now that I think about it, it's likelier that a ton of these workers
come in L-1 visas. These are for intra-company transfers for multinationals.
These have no prevailing wage requirements. So IBM india can hire a worker and
move them over here for the same wage. And it still allows dual-intent, so you
can eventually get a green card via L-1.

~~~
_delirium
_In addition to this, companies are required to pay the prevailing wage for
that profession and location to foreign workers, so that they can not undercut
Americans (or at least that was what was intended)._

I have no idea how prevalent it is, but the mechanism I've heard for getting
around these rules is to hire someone at a lower title than what they're
qualified for, and then pay them the prevailing wage for _that_ position, with
the informal expectation that they'll do higher-level work in actuality (if
for no other reason than to avoid boredom). For example, you hire someone at a
game company into a QA position, but they're actually a graphics programmer,
and once they're hired they sort of start doing more graphics programming even
though it's not in their job description.

~~~
makmanalp
This makes sense. But the company can get into pretty big trouble for doing
that.

The nicest punishment is that they will be marked a willful violator and have
to provide additional documentation for each H-1B. Or they can get debarred
from getting H-1Bs. This makes no strategic sense for H-1B heavy companies.

~~~
Evbn
There is no enforcement, though.

------
jbooth
If your job is to put butts in seats so you can bill for them, yeah.

If your job is to deliver products, you'll find you get what you pay for, I
work with some guys who maybe make 10k less than they could because of their
immigration status but it's not a difference between 150k and 60k or
something.

~~~
jhartmann
Depends on the place and where the H1-B is from. I have seen situations where
H1-B works make half of the American worker. One tactic I have seen is that
the American companies tend to basically lock in the workers by paying legal
fees and dangle the green card sponsorship carat. The H1-B individuals
typically will put up with this for the chance at perm residency. While not
all of them, make no mistake there is a real new indentured servant class.

------
kamakazizuru
the biggest flaw in this articles - which mind you isn`t backed up with any
sort of proof that serves to validate his allegations of IBM being the number
one "misuser" nor can we be really sure this email exchange is for real.. Is
the assumption that Landed Resources come on H1B - thats plain wrong. The
difference between H1B & landed resources is that H1B employees can work in
the US and get paid above a certain level. Landed resources are those who get
visas for projects through their companies and head to the US to work on these
projects while still getting their salary at home. Its important to understand
and acknowledge this difference since H1B is a way for good people who are
needed to get employed - and mixing it up with a loophole that allows easy
intra company transfers or extended project visits only serves to tarnish its
image.

~~~
raverbashing
Most likely an L1 visa then?

------
jhartmann
Absolutely horrible state of affairs, I understand that because of the
economic incentive that this will and does happen all the time.

I feel that the only way to stop this is to take away the economic incentive
to hire foreign workers. If there was a tax that required the difference
between market for the position to be paid to state and federal government we
would solve this problem overnight.

I also think part of this problem is the general attitude that business has
that everyone is generally a replaceable cog in a machine. Don't get me wrong
I have meet and worked with H1-B holders that were superstars, but many of
them are not perfect candidates and end up costing more in productivity and
efficiency then a Grade A local engineer. A ninja developer can be 20x more
productive then someone who is not if you believe the hype, I think companies
should focus on getting the right people then just thinking about the people
who are cheap. While the ninja might still be an H1-B, we should have a level
playing field where the best guy wins. Its better for the company overall, but
unfortunately many people are too shortsighted to see that.

~~~
geebee
I'm generally suspicious of any visa program specifically designed to address
"shortages" of workers in particular fields/professions. I wouldn't have a
problem with a points system for general, skilled immigration though.

However, that appears to be unlikely at this moment. If I had to tinker with
the system, I'd say that the two biggest problems are 1) the visa gives the
employer too much control over the employee's right to reside in the US, and
2) the "prevailing wage" requirement isn't effective.

The "indentured" problem is easily solved, just award the visa directly to the
employee with full rights to reside in the US for the duration of the visa.

The "prevailing wage" problem is a little more complicated. The first big
problem is that this requirements is easily circumvented. At my organization,
there are different salary tiers for programmers. It would be trivial to hire
an expert at a lower level and claim you are paying the prevailing wage.

A more fundamental problem is that even an honest attempt to pay the
"prevailing wage" can still lead to wage stagnation across the field.
Generally, when a "shortage" occurs, wages rise and new people are attracted
to the field. One reason for the "shortage" of software developers is that US
citizens with the talent do this can find equal or greater wages with better
career stability in other fields.

Wages need to rise to draw them back into software, but if employers are able
to use visas to pay "market rate", this increase may not happen - or if it
does, the rate of increase may be diminished.

To solve this, I'd instead use a pay index that includes fields outside of
programming, and set a high floor for visas. For instance, you might decide
that 120K+ a year is the minimum salary allowable for an H1B (necessary, not
sufficient). I know many employers will object vehemently to this, but keep in
mind, they are arguing for a specialized visa that bypasses the normal
immigration system, justified by the claim that these are highly educated,
critical workers that employers can't find at any price. Hard to believe that
these highly educated workers are really so hard to find if you object to
paying 2/3 of what a 24 year old out of a top law school would earn (yes, I
know, that's only the top law grads, but nobody is claiming that there's a
shortage of middle tier law grads, we're talking about a shortage of critical,
highly educated workers.

------
EricDeb
As a recent STEM graduate (Masters in CS), what irks me is the relentless
focus on job experience. I don't even get interviews for jobs requiring a high
school/GED equivalence + 3 years of experience. There seems to be little faith
in our STEM programs among tech recruiters/companies.

~~~
randomdata
I don't think it is lack of faith, just the fact that college was never meant
to be vocational training in the first place. While it is an amazing
achievement for you, I'm sure, it doesn't mean much to the rest of us.

Additionally, it is so easy to gain experience in this industry, just take a
month or two to publish your own application and watch the job offers start
rolling in, I would imagine these companies consider not having any a bit of
red flag. Maybe you can put some of the code you wrote while in school up on
GitHub or something to demonstrate that you actually really do have
experience? (it doesn't necessarily had to have been for-profit to still count
as experience)

Hopefully this doesn't come off sounding harsh, just trying to provide some
perspective.

~~~
EricDeb
I definitely agree. It just seems that if these companies and recruiters were
really that desperate they would consider a Master's in CS as even a second-
tier substitute, or at least someone who could ramp up quickly.

~~~
randomdata
I feel the reality is that there really is not a shortage of programmers in
general, just a shortage of programmers who have extensive experience in
technology X, Y, or Z that is presently in demand. If a company has to fall
back on "second-teir" talent, I expect the pool is vast and the competition is
stiff. I'm not sure where to find data to back that up, unfortunately, but the
anecdotes I see do support it.

My bet is that even if, say, you spent many years writing Ruby on Rails
applications and you are the best there is at it, you still wouldn't get a
call back for a job writing telephone systems in Erlang, even if you have
enough experience and ability to quickly get up to speed to do the job well.

This seems like also a good explanation for the sharp decline in over-35
programmers. The technologies they grew up on are no longer in fashion, so
they are, in general, relegated back to lower-teir talent pools and have to
struggle to find work along with everyone else.

------
wes-exp
An interesting point here is that the _client_ was asking for an immigrant
hire. Here we have a conflict between human nature and the law. It is human
nature for Americans to _perceive_ immigrant hires as cheaper. It doesn't
matter if pay is actually the same or not. For someone looking to minimize
labor costs, an immigrant hire has a better "brand" when it comes to price.

Here's a thought experiment. Suppose hypothetical Product X was mandated by
law to sell at the same price no matter what the store. Now suppose this fact
was not widely known and not even rigorously enforced. Some people would
insist on buying Product X at Wal-Mart because they _perceive_ Wal-Mart's
prices to be cheaper. It doesn't matter if the prices are actually the same,
or not.

The upshot is that some people with hiring power will insist on getting some
of that "cheap immigrant labor" whether it actually exists or not. I have no
doubt that this harms American workers' pay.

------
gkamal
After reading the section below from the WTO site I can't understand how such
a practice of discriminating against foreign workers is compatible with free
trade espoused and taken advantage of by developed countries. Protectionism in
terms of differential pricing of goods in many cases to protect local
industries and jobs is considered against free trade. This to me seems like a
very opportunistic interpretation of free trade.

[http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/fact2_e.h...](http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/fact2_e.htm)
2\. National treatment: Treating foreigners and locals equally Imported and
locally-produced goods should be treated equally — at least after the foreign
goods have entered the market. The same should apply to foreign and domestic
services, and to foreign and local trademarks, copyrights and patents. This
principle of “national treatment” (giving others the same treatment as one’s
own nationals) is also found in all the three main WTO agreements (Article 3
of GATT, Article 17 of GATS and Article 3 of TRIPS), although once again the
principle is handled slightly differently in each of these.

National treatment only applies once a product, service or item of
intellectual property has entered the market. Therefore, charging customs duty
on an import is not a violation of national treatment even if locally-produced
products are not charged an equivalent tax.

P.S : I am from India, I have no intention now (or ever before) of emigrating
to find better opportunities. So this comment is not borne out of any
bitterness. It is out of genuine curiosity to know why this point of view is
rarely mentioned in any such debate.

~~~
001sky
_Protectionism in terms of differential pricing of goods in many cases to
protect local industries and jobs is considered against free trade_

\-- People have associated liabilities, (human rights, etc) unlike goods
(unecumbered economic assets).

That is why there is not free-trade in people. Goods do not come with the need
for educating, healthcare, housing etc. The thrust of your argument is
correct, in that yes this is a form of protectionism. But its more an issue of
_political economy_ than economics in the narrow sense. The narrow sense
economic argument is, therefore, arguably misplaced in this context. Its
conclusions do not follow.[1]

But it's not a bad question, and certainly one that deserves a good answer and
careful consideration at all levels. Hope this helps.

___________________

[1] Think of similar narrow-scope-argument: why don't we buy/sell _people_
like commodities? Instead, we find it politically acceptavle to have a market
for ony the _labour_. Etcs.

~~~
gkamal
Thanks. I appreciate the difference and understand the need for taking other
things into consideration for allowing immigration.

But most of the arguments made in this thread and other similar debates - the
main point is about the economics associated with it. By not allowing
companies to pay lower wages to foreign workers the wages of the local market
is being protected.

In the short term bringing down the wages would be unfair to the employees in
the local market - as they have probably paid a higher price to acquire
education, healthcare, housing etc. But in the longer term those
inefficiencies would also get addressed.

The same argument applies to opening up the markets for goods and services. In
the short term the local producers of goods are subjected to competition which
will result in many of them going out of business which indirectly effects the
people employed by them.

~~~
001sky
Again, these are good points. As i like to say, there are two kinds of
_political economy_.

1) <Political Policy> that supports the Economy (in general);and

2) <Economic Policy> that has been _Politicised_ to supports a particular
group of people

Nations are always looking out for themselves, but then so too are politicians
(and their $supporters). =D

It is usefull, though, to seperate them. In that sense, the default logic of
economics in a politicised argument should not (IMHO) be deferred to [just
because]. It should be viewed as critically as a political policy (ie Art, not
'Science'...its not objective etc). And also debated thus and put into
perspective also.

That's why many debates on immigration, etc get so far off track and/or are
difficult to conclude with much progress. Folks conflating the two ideas and
the standards of judgement, performance, opportunity cost, etc.

__________

On the substance of your point:

 _By not allowing companies to pay lower wages to foreign workers the wages of
the local market is being protected._

The answer is yes, it is being protected. But this is a normal thing. Also
what is being protected is the political Atom of <citizenship>. This is not
something that should, in general, be commoditized. Thus, the "permeability"
of the body politic (at the level of citizenry) is a legitimate debate, but
its a political one, not a one-dimensional one in terms of wages/pricing etc.

So, to advance the debate, the question needs to be reframed a bit: what is
the optimum level of social-permeability desired to grant title: citizen (or:
greencarde, etc) for a nation state? And the you have to address issues of
other kinds.

For example, do you care more about well to do foreigners than your less well-
off existing compatriots? This is sort of an empathy argument (vs.
efficiency). And in part its a longer term argument (are citizens more
efficient working with some safety net underneath them?)/etc.

Right now in the usa, "merit" is not really a big goal of immigration policy.
Can't say I agree with this, but the policy was revised to be more about
human-right/family etc. So, if you are an immigrant general labororer US
citizen it might be you get your cousin a greencard. But a regular no-strings
PhD in astrophysics or whateve is not at any advantage vs the cousin of the
general labourer (in fact just the opposite).

But family and the like is the ultimate sort of _political_ argument. On the
one hand, its very emotional (for those involved). And on the other hand,
their are very specific special interests at play (important, process wise).
So, you can see this is not something just totally possible to ignore,
intellectually or practically.

Each country is different, though, in these ideas. Places like Australia have
been know to offer more open merit-based immigration. Canada too, I believe.

------
kevinprince
US immigration is completely broken.

I went to college and graduated in the US on a J1 visa, I paid my fees and
when I worked I paid my federal, state taxes + my social security
contributions. After graduation I left the US as obviously it makes sense to
take my money, teach me skills and then tell me to leave?

Why are graduates not being allowed to stay ?

I want to move to the US, pay taxes and generally be a good citizen.

My main two options are:

\- Marry an american girl (not as simple as it sounds, takes a long time) \-
H1B which has a route to citizenship over 10 years

Sadly as this article shows H1B is being abused and with the cap being filled
quickly every year its very hard to get one.

What happened to the country built on immigration?

~~~
cpeterso
> _I went to college and graduated in the US on a J1 visa, I paid my fees and
> when I worked I paid my federal, state taxes + my social security
> contributions. After graduation I left the US as obviously it makes sense to
> take my money, teach me skills and then tell me to leave?_

I think the US should encourage smart people stay in the country by fast-
tracking the citizenship process for graduates with J1 visas. H1Bs might be
good for short-term corporate profits, but increasing the number of smart
people who have roots in the US is good for the country's long-term health.
Reverse brain drain with more brains. :)

------
th0ma5
I heard a stat that US IT unemployment is -3% (note the negative) so perhaps a
step back from the idea this is outright deliberate fraud it's perhaps more a
symptom of this long running state of the pool of available candidates?

------
tosseraccount
Norm Matloff discusses the issues on H-1B
<http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b.html>

___

Bottom Line: there is no labor shortage and there's no need for special
targeting of technology jobs.

------
jhuckestein
I'm surprised none of the top-comments has mentioned that this causes problems
for startups legitimately trying to hire the best people they can find
globally.

On of the many things USCIS doesn't understand about young (pre series-A)
startups is that the compensation is often a mix of equity and a below market
salary that is bumped up significantly upon raising money.

My lawyer tells me that H-1B denials have been piling up in the last few
months. Perhaps it is the USCIS response to practices like the one described
in the article.

------
arkem
If you're wondering if H-1b (and E-3) workers are paid less than American
workers you can find out for yourself. The US Government publishes the
employer, location, title, and salary of every H-1b application (whether
accepted or declined). It's also a good source of information about how much
large tech companies are paying for new hires this year.

<http://www.flcdatacenter.com/> (also available from data.gov)

~~~
steverb
Definitely paid much less in my area then. By about half.

------
001sky
_In addition to this, companies are required to pay the prevailing wage for
that profession and location to foreign workers_

Part of the game, then, is keeping market prices low/stable by managing
shortage. I think this is being overlooked. Lots of H1B coming in will keep
prices from rising, by impacting the depth of market at the Bid/Ask. Sort of
Econ 101. So the "cost difference" can also be understood as the difference in
higher base-costs being avoided. =/

------
btipling
From a pure market perspective, doesn't the regulation actually attempt to
force a pricing inefficiency? If there are international candidates willing to
work for less, why doesn't the average salary drop for local workers to the
point where they also become competitive?

------
fijal
I love how websites like this have a headline on the top saying "Low
immigration". So, leaving the contents of the article completely aside, it's
clear they'll only present evidence that supports their worldview and their
worldview will not be influenced by any data whatsoever. That does not make it
correct or incorrect, but the approach is flawed.

From my very personal experience, large companies _may_ save some money, but
in the first place, they're willing to deal with the burden of H1Bs. Small
companies I chatted with were mostly (but not always) "OMFG, H1B, no, we don't
have that much time and money" irrelevant to the experience.

------
nsoldiac
Setting the issue of worker treatment aside for a sec, what IBM and it's many
clients are doing is a wide-known shady practice that's been around for a long
time - hourly rate dilution. Dilution as in mixing different elements (hourly
rates in this case) to lower the concentration of something. Customer love it,
IBM loves it (when they can pay close to nothing for their H1B workers - and
they do) and american workers rarely actually find out. Frighteningly close to
a perfect white-collar crime. EVERYONE in consulting does this, small and big.
There's no "American IT Workers Union" so this is not going away anytime soon.

------
anuraj
The alternative is massively shipping jobs out to India, and be clear, jobs
once moved out are not coming back. H1Bs stay back in the country and spend a
portion of their income in the country, thus helping local economy. IBM
already employs more than a third of their work force in India, so does
accenture, oracle etc. The fact is capital is free to move in search of cheap
labor; if labor is not accorded the same flexibility, regional imbalances will
soon surface wreaking the local economy. Just like what happened when
manufacturing shifted to China.

------
scdoshi
Doesn't anyone else feel that the solution should be enforcing equal pay and
removing loopholes that allow the cost difference to exist rather than
reducing or controlling H1-B visas?

That would automatically make it (or at least bring it closer to) a merit
based system rather than a cost benefit.

------
tlogan
As far as I know, these kind of abuses happen only in "consulting body shops":
where they need to fill up number of workers working on a contract. But since
IBM is now pretty much consulting company I see how they have incentive to
cheat on H1B and L1.

------
honeybooboo
How can h1b employees be cheaper ? Arent they required by law to get the same
amount of pay as american counterparts ? I think IBM would be breaking the
rule of not paying them the legally required amount or circumventing that.

~~~
Nowyouknow
They're taken advantage of when it comes down to deciding a salary. It's a
situation where an H1B has to take the lowball offer, or leave it and be
completely screwed.

~~~
honeybooboo
The problem here is that H1b people are being preferred over others because
its is assumed that they are being paid less. There are laws to not let this
happen.

The lowball offer if it is not prevailing wage is illegal. They are not
allowed to work for less (there is a specific clause just for this) , just
like other employees. And if the lowball offer is not less it aint no lowball
offer.

../i am the queen of everything.

------
cientifico
I was thinking on going to SF after several offers, but if I am going to
participate in making a country richer, after this kind of things, I will not
do it on America.

(Of course I am sarcastic, but hope you get the point).

------
EdM
What is this sentence saying? I've read it five times and it makes no sense to
me:

"The median percentage for companies showing up as customers of companies
making foreign-workers-only advertisements was 1 percent"

------
dev_jim
Maybe IBM is just a shitty company, but finance doesn't work this way. All the
H1-B holders I know make a lot of money and have freely switched jobs multiple
times.

------
PureSin
As a Canadian who will be going to work in the US through a TN Visa. I wonder
if Canadian hires are also seen as a "cheaper" alternative to hiring locally.

~~~
ktom
the class of status (TN) is less important than the mindset of your new
employer.

No visa class requires you to be paid under market (some even require that you
are paid a wage comparable to an american)

If an employer is trying to "maximize profits" through non-american workers,
they will do it regardless of what status you hold.

If an employer is simply trying to find the somebody to "do the job"
regardless of status or citizenship then it is unlikely you will experience
any difference in treatment.

On a personal note, I had been on a TN for 2.5 years and was paid at (or
slightly above) market rate for the entirety of the time.

At no time did my employer seek to use my TN as a way of leveraging down my
pay. We hired quite a few americans as well (half a dozen or so, it was a
small company).

If we could have found more qualified candidates, we probably would have hired
more (american or not, we scoured github for candidates as this tended to
provide the best candidates. since github user profiles generally do not
provide citizenship information, we had to be open to hiring local or possibly
non local if we found somebody who looked promising).

~~~
goatforce5
I worked in the US on an E3 Visa, which is pretty much like a H1B that is only
available to Australians.

As I understand it, both of those require you to be paid at least the
'prevailing wage', and before the job is offered to you:

"This Form ETA-9035 needs to be posted in “two conspicuous locations” at the
work site for 10 consecutive days where the H-1B (or H-1B1, or E-3)
nonimmigrant will be employed. You must post the entire LCA, including the
instructions and the portion containing information on the prevailing and
offered wages."

<http://www.jackson-hertogs.com/jh/faq/10509.pdf>

ie, your employer has to post the fact that they're going to employ someone at
a certain wage within the office.

That leads to fun times when your visa is up for renewal and the company is
obliged to tell everyone what your wage is.

In my case I believe I was being paid more than some of my roughly-equivalent
colleagues and there was some concern that the posting might ruffle some
feathers. When I decided i'd had enough of the US and that it was time to move
on I was told to pick anywhere in the world and my employer would pay to move
me there and set me up so I could keep working for them. I was the complete
opposite of an exploited foreign worker.

------
eru
Wow, I hadn't expected so much anti-immigration sentiment on HN.

All those people worrying about foreigners taking their jobs and decreasing
their wages..

