
Companies lay off thousands, then demand immigration reform for new labor - pointillistic
http://washingtonexaminer.com/companies-lay-off-thousands-then-demand-immigration-reform-for-new-labor/article/2535595
======
grecy
I'm an Australian who recently became a Canadian Permanent Resident using a
"sponsorship" process not unlike the H-1B. I've also had a few work visas for
the USA, and applied for a H-1B (The rules changed before it could even be
looked at).

I personally think the idea of bringing in foreign labor is a very bad thing
for the sponsoring country.

For example, where I live in Canada has a very high cost of living (very far
North), but stupidly the minimum wage is lower than other parts of Canada.
Many local businesses pay $14-$18 / hr as a starting wage for menial jobs,
even though minimum is legally ~$10/hr, because otherwise nobody would do the
the job up here.

When Walmart, McDonald's, KFC, Canadian Tire, etc. (who all have a pre-
approved process with the govt. BTW) want to hire someone cheap, they just
bring in a foreigner from a second world country. Those foreigners live 20 to
a house and make $10/hr. They can't work anywhere else, and if they quit they
are deported. So those business can bring down the overall standard of living
here by paying less than an average Canadian would actually be willing to do
the job for.

If supply/demand was allowed to run it's natural course, those companies would
have to pay a little more ($14-$18/hr), their profits would go down a little,
but Canadians would be employed and the overall standard of living would not
decrease.

Make no mistake about it, bringing in foreigners lowers the quality of life
for the original citizens, and only helps increase corporate profits.

(Yes, I know I'm not supposed to bite the hand that feeds me, but I think I
have a good perspective on the situation, given that it just happened to me)

~~~
zeteo
>I'm an Australian who recently became a Canadian Permanent Resident using a
"sponsorship" process [...] Make no mistake about it, bringing in foreigners
lowers the quality of life for the original citizens, and only helps increase
corporate profits.

Beyond the hypocritical aspects of your argument ("the ladder I used is too
easy to climb, take it away now"), you're also leaving out a few minor
benefits that accrue to "original" citizens in your scenario:

1\. Increased profits help shareholders.

2\. Profits are subject to tax, and increased tax receipts fund more public
programs.

3\. Lower costs are at least partially passed to customers.

So it's not as simplistic as you make it sound. Also maybe it's just me, but
saying things like "those foreigners live 20 to a house" sounds rather
xenophobic.

~~~
grecy
> Beyond the hypocritical aspects of your argument ("this ladder I used is too
> easy to climb, take it away now"),

Absolutely, no doubt. I'm very aware that's what I am saying, but yes, that is
what I am saying. (hence the don't bite the hand that feeds me comment)

> 1\. Increased profits help shareholders.

So the rich people get richer. Not what the world needs.

> 2\. Profits are subject to tax, and increased tax receipts fund more public
> programs.

Not for the big companies that get around it with off-shore stuff (apple,
google, walmart, etc. etc.)

> 3\. Lower costs are at least partially passed to customers.

Do we need more cheap stuff (Walmart) or higher paying jobs for everyone?

> Also maybe it's just me, but saying things like "those foreigners live 20 to
> a house" sounds rather xenophobic.

I agree it does, but the fact is it's true. Being an immigrant here myself, I
go to the weekly immigrant social night, and tons of my friends are those '20
to a house' people I speak of. The cost of living up here is so high it's
impossible to live on $10/hr., which is why no Canadian will do the job and
where this mess comes from. The truth hurts sometimes.

~~~
bqe
Who are you to decide what the world does and does not need?

This is a very complicated issue and it's not useful to speak in such sweeping
generalizations.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Who are you to decide what the world does and does not need?

Presumably a citizen of a democratic state, with the responsibility to oversee
and manage its government, including, _inter alia_ , deciding which ends it
should serve.

------
malandrew
I'm wondering what would be the pros and cons of having an immigration bill
that functions on a tit-for-tat basis like the following:

    
    
        Your company gets one H-1B visa for your company for each 
        unemployed American that you retrain and employ. The catch 
        is that the American you retrain and employ must be out of 
        work 6 months or longer. If an American worker you retrain 
        and employ doesn't work out, you can fire them, but only 
        after you have replaced them with another out-of-work 
        American.
    

Another interesting approach is to make companies inelligible for H-1B visas
for a probationary period following any layoffs in excess of X number of
employees or Y percent of your workforce. e.g. if you layoff 1000 employees or
more than 5% of your workforce, you cannot receive any H-1B visas for 1 year
following the termination of the last of the 1000 employees. The only
exception I can see conceded here would be the divestiture of an entire
business unit from soup to nuts (as opposed to a layoff comprised of a general
workforce reduction across all business units)

The main thing I want to see fixed in the H-1B process is making it easier for
H1-B holders to change jobs after about 1 year of employment with the original
sponsor. Right now H-1B visas are like handcuffs that leave the H-1B holder in
a position akin to that of an indentured servant.

~~~
masklinn
> Right now H-1B visas are like handcuffs that leave the H-1B holder in a
> position akin to that of an indentured servant.

Which is why it'll never change, as the companies with clout sure as hell
wouldn't want H-1B to be anything else.

~~~
netc
There is so much misinformation flying around. Most H1B can change job in 3
months or so. Many do.

~~~
rbanffy
IIRC, the second company must get another H1B for the worker.

------
pg
This article embodies a sleight of hand: it assumes that the jobs the
companies want to hire immigrants to fill are the same ones they've laid
people off from. Is there any evidence that is the case?

~~~
Jayschwa
Even if it were the case, does it matter? Competition is becoming increasingly
globalized. I don't think that's inherently a bad thing. Protectionism in the
form of onerous immigration regulations is a losing battle and only delays the
inevitable.

~~~
gaius
The question is really, what is a government for? If it is not to look out for
the best interests of citizens, why are they paying its taxes snd obeying its
laws? It is not protectionism at all to level the playing field, America was
built on immigration, but the H1B is indentured servitude.

~~~
WalterBright
Preventing the importation of labor is not going to solve the problem. All it
does is cause the company to move operations offshore. If that was made
illegal, then foreign owned companies would then outcompete domestic
companies. I suppose you could then put a tariff wall around the country, but
historically that hasn't worked out well (Smoot-Hawley).

The thing is, you cannot wish or legislate away the existence of skilled labor
from outside the country.

~~~
zpk
" All it does is cause the company to move operations offshore."

If this worked, then we wouldn't be having this visa discussion.

------
tn13
If American government is serious about protecting the interests of American
workforce; implement the following simple rule.

1\. Let H1B be independent of the employer. Current H1B rules are modern day
equivalent of bonded labor. Let a person obtain H1B from the employer for the
first time, after that make it independent of the employer. For example a
person on H1B may resign on day 1 and simply join another American company.

Remove all the nonsense about salary limits and so on.

~~~
sologoub
You'd have to include some form of protection for the employer on the expenses
associated with H1B process, otherwise it's not really worth the risk -
imagine if you paid say $15k for the filing and waited 6 months. Then the
person you hired comes in and asks for a 20% raise or he/she walks on day 1.

~~~
tn13
No. Employer should not get any protection at all. That is the whole point.
Consider the scenario. 1\. You hire a person for 100k, file H1B for her. On
the first day of her job she asks for 20% raise. 2\. You say "you are fired"
to her. There are two cases here: \- She walks out searching for a job. She
does not find a job which pays here more than 100k, she comes back to you and
beg to be taken back. (Remember that she is likely to know her self worth and
hence will not leave the job in first place if she knows that no one else can
pay her more than 100k).

\- She walks out searching for a job, she finds a job that pays 120k. This
means you hired her because you found her "cheaper" than American
counterparts. So you are penalized. Hence next time you wont hire a employee
worth $120k for $100k. You will prefer a $120k American girl over $100k Indian
girl.

~~~
sologoub
Well, if you want to kill the H1B program completely, sure.

However, if the idea is to have it survive and, dare I say it, be used for the
beneficial purpose of bringing vital new blood to the country's workforce
instead of being a cheap source of labor, then employers need strong incentive
to spend the money needed to get someone into US without fear that they will
simply walk off.

It's not what I want as a US employee (my self-interest is to have as few
people of the same skill as possible in order to command highest salary), but
it is something that would be needed in order to get some sort of a chance at
having such rules pass.

------
rayiner
Increased immigration is just another one of the public subsidies to which
corporations think they're entitled.

The demand for subsidies is easy to see with oil companies, who lobby for tax
breaks and for the U.S. government to fight foreign wars to maintain their
access to foreign oil sources.

However the basic dynamics are present in the tech industry too. How often do
tech companies talk about the need to produce more STEM graduates? Throwing
aside the warm fuzzy ideas attached to public education, this is a naked
demand for subsidy: train more workers for our industry at the public expense.

Increased immigration is in the same vein. It would be expensive to retrain
all those expensive workers (this goes to pg's point elsewhere), so better to
let India and China subsidize the education, and the U.S. subsidize the
process of acculturating and integrating the new immigrants.

I'll offer a potentially controversial statement: immigration policy should
have nothing to do with transient labor demands. It is simply an orthogonal
issue. Immigration is deeply and inextricably tied up in questions about
culture and acculturation, democracy and the composition of the body politic,
the long-term, sustainable, growth of the population, etc. Immigration limits
and the countries from which we take immigrations should be based solely on
those issues.

Immigration limits and targets should not be based on what particular
industries want as labor inputs. That's a sop, that's a subsidy. That's the
public undertaking an obligation in order to subsidize private profits. It's a
long-term fix to a temporary problem. This is not an opposition to
immigration, mind you, but rather an opposition to the criteria being used to
evaluate how much immigration we should have.

~~~
Jayschwa
> Increased immigration is just another one of the public subsidies to which
> corporations think they're entitled.

Removal of an artificial barrier isn't a subsidy.

~~~
rayiner
First: selective removal of a barrier that applies to everyone is indeed a
form of subsidy. I highly doubt American companies are asking for completely
open borders, allowing citizenship to anyone who can physically make it to the
U.S. Instead they want us to keep most people out, but let in specific people
that help their specific bottom lines.

Second: immigration limits are not an artificial barrier. One of the basic
purposes of a government is to establish and defend borders. Allowing
immigration is an affirmative action on the part of the existing citizenship
of a country to admit new members into its fold. It's an affirmative action to
not just admit those new members, but to integrate them culturally, allow them
to participate in the public life of the country, and allow them a voice in
political affairs that affect all citizens, new and old. It's a commitment to
defending them in case of attack and extending to them and their progeny, in
perpetuity, the essential privileges of being a citizen of the country.

~~~
dragonwriter
> immigration limits are not an artificial barrier. One of the basic purposes
> of a government is to establish and defend borders.

Even if one accepts the second sentence, for the sake of argument, it in no
way supports the first. Even if it might support the claim that immigration
limits are a policy reasonably related to a "basic purpose" of government, it
doesn't in any way challenge the idea that they are still an "artificial
barrier".

~~~
rayiner
Say the government allowed the big banks to skim a little off the top of each
account, legally. Since governments are artificial constructs, and the
property rights they create are artificial constructs, you could say: "well
that's not a subsidy or special favor, it's just the lifting of an artificial
barrier." That's right in a narrow technical sense, but not a very useful use
of the word "artificial."

Rather, because enforcing property rights are deeply intertwined with the
purpose of government as we understand them today, it's more sensible to think
of those barriers as not being artificial but rather naturally implied by the
existence of government.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Say the government allowed the big banks to skim a little off the top of
> each account, legally. Since governments are artificial constructs, and the
> property rights they create are artificial constructs, you could say: "well
> that's not a subsidy or special favor, it's just the lifting of an
> artificial barrier." That's right in a narrow technical sense

No, its not, but the ways that it is wrong have nothing to do with the
"artificial barrier" issue:

Well, I could accurately say its the lifting of an artificial barrier, sure.

I couldn't accurately say its not a _special favor_ , since its a privilege
granted to select entities in particular circumstances, nor could I accurately
say that its not a subsidy, since it is directing resources currently held by
one group and allowing them to be used by another.

The fact that its an "artificial barrier" is irrelevant to whether it is in
other categories that are not mutually exclusive with "artificial barrier".

> Rather, because enforcing property rights are deeply intertwined with the
> purpose of government as we understand them today, it's more sensible to
> think of those barriers as not being artificial but rather naturally implied
> by the existence of government.

No, its _better_ to address issues like "special favor" or "subsidy" that are
completely orthogonal to the "artificial barrier" categorization without
reference to that irrelevant categorization.

If you want to make the case that the specific immigration limits currently in
use are an _appropriate use of government power_ , its probably better to do
that than to argue about whether they are (as they clearly are) an artificial
barrier to the free movement of people and free commerce.

------
kailuowang
The H1B visa actually requires that the immigrant applicant being paid no less
than American employees for the same type of position. Of course there could
be loopholes, but the high cost of going through the immigration process
currently places immigrants in a disadvantaged position in terms of financial
costs to employers.

If you believe in free market, this is unhealthy to the economy. American
companies should be paying duties to country through tax, not hiring
discrimination against nationality.

~~~
malandrew

        "the immigrant applicant being paid no less than American 
        employees for the same type of position"
    

AFAIK it's very common to manipulate the immigrant employee's job title to get
around paying them the same as an American equivalent.

~~~
_delirium
Yes, it's common in game companies to hire people with strong engineering
experience into basically QA positions, where they—surprise—end up "helping
out" on stuff above their pay grade.

A way of avoiding this would just to be to have an absolute salary threshold.
Say, all H1B job offers must have an $100k+ salary. That would allocate them
to the parts of the economy where workers are _actually_ severely lacking, and
valuable enough to the companies that they're willing to pay premium prices to
get them. Alternately, make it a bidding system instead of a fixed number:
there are 50,000, or 100,000, or whatever H1B visas, and they go to the
companies that offer the highest salaries (thus indicating the highest
demand).

If you claim that there is a lack of workers in an area but you aren't willing
to pay more than $60k, then I'm going to be skeptical about just how much of a
critical skills shortage there is.

~~~
jacalata
I agree. I was pretty surprised to see H1B applications for salaries of
$25,000 in this post yesterday -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6361656](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6361656).

------
quaffapint
Just at a time when ... "The income gap between America's richest 1% and the
rest of the country widened to a record last year. The top 1% of US earners
collected 19.3% of household income in 2012, their largest share in Internal
Revenue Service figures going back a century."

Apparently they want more - no surprises there.

------
kingmanaz
First they came for the janitors...

[http://www.vdare.com/print/17686](http://www.vdare.com/print/17686)

------
mynameishere
Well, if the philosopher kings at _The Cheesecake Factory_ say so, I guess we
have no choice.

More workers and more customers both raise the price of assets. The same
Walmart that served 25,000 people in an area will do even better serving
30,000. That's the basic thinking, though at some point it will break down and
hurt (almost) everyone, not just workers and customers.

------
abhiv
There are really two different types of H-1B employees: those who've studied
at a US university but are foreign citizens, and workers brought in from
outside the country directly to fill a position.

There is very little distinction made in the public discourse about the
difference between these two categories of employees, but they are very
different.

The overwhelming majority of H-1Bs directly employed at large American
companies will be of the first type: they came to the US to study or at an
early age, and were hired while they were already in the US. These employees
are likely to be treated identically with American citizen employees and paid
exactly the same in the same roles. They are not "cheap foreign labor" \--
they are employees who just happen to be foreign citizens. They are very
mobile because their skills are in high demand, and other employers are more
than eager to transfer their visas over.

 _However_ (and this is where the rhetoric comes in), the majority of H-1B
visas go to outsourcing/offshoring companies that bring in workers by the
thousands to fill mostly lower-end positions in IT or back office departments
at American companies. These workers fit all the H-1B stereotypes: low-paid,
bound to a single company, living 10 to an apartment etc. There are
significant violations and gray areas in the way these workers are brought in
and paid.

The problem is that both sides of the H-1B debate do not define which group of
workers they are talking about.

Google, Microsoft etc are correct when they say that they do not want more
H-1Bs for cheaper labor. In the employee pool they are looking at (foreign
citizens already in the US), this is true: they pay all employees identically
irrespective of whether they are foreign or US citizens.

The opponents of more H-1Bs are _also_ correct when they say that H-1Bs are
being used for cheaper labor: the types of employees that offshoring companies
bring in are indeed being chosen because they are willing to work for lower
wages than workers already in the US.

The solution is clear: have separate visa categories for employees brought in
directly from outside the US, and foreign citizens who are already in the
country. Make it as easy as possible for the latter group to stay in the
country, through a quicker green card process or other methods; at the same
time, have higher scrutiny for the separate category of visas that apply to
foreign workers brought in directly from outside.

It sometimes amazes me that even on a relatively knowledgeable forum like HN,
this distinction isn't made often or at all.

~~~
potatote
Thanks for pointing this out. There is a huge difference between two pools of
H-1B labor

------
diego
_" It is difficult to understand how these companies can feel justified in
demanding the importation of cheap labor with a straight face at a time when
tens of millions of Americans are unemployed," writes the Center for
Immigration Studies_

Maybe the Center for Immigration Studies should fire the person who finds this
difficult to understand. If they have a hard time hiring a replacement who
does understand it, they should be open to hiring someone on an H1B visa.

------
openforce
The number of layoffs the article mentions is worldwide numbers. Not just
inside US. H1b employees are cheaper, decently trained. A lot of companies
favor such employees which add to the local workforce which in turn means
shipping less jobs to India and China.

------
huherto
Why do companies use the H1B process if they can use the Green card process?
Is it just that they have more control over the employee? Or the process is
actually easier or cheaper?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Why do companies use the H1B process if they can use the Green card process?

The immigrant visa ("Green Card") process for employment-based categories, as
for family-based categories, uses both global and per-country limits which
apply after candidates are qualified (including having a sponsoring employer!)
but limit the rate at which visas are granted, which means that for countries
from which there are the most qualified applicants in many categories face the
longest delays from the date they become qualified to the date they actually
are granted a visa. The most oversubscribed source for employment-based
immigration, India, has categories in which the delay is _10 years_ , and
there are certain categories where the delay for _any_ country is over 3
years. (And this is still better than family-based immigration, where the
longest waitlist country/category combination is 23 years!)

------
tenpoundhammer
Competitive == Cheap

