
Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs - patrickg_zill
http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/FACEBOOK-IMMIGRATION/010031Q63Y3/index.html
======
davidw
These threads always have a great mix of:

* Subtle racism.

* Zero-sum thinking.

* Specifically, the lump of labor fallacy.

* People not realizing that code is about the easiest thing in the world to ship back and forth between different countries: if a company is hell-bent on being cheap, they'll outsource rather than bring someone in.

* A stunning lack of perspective on the benefits that immigrants bring to the economy and culture.

* A lack of historical perspective in a country founded by immigrants. There were 0 restrictions prior to 1860-something, and then it was something racist to keep the Chinese out.

* General fuzziness in terms of economic thinking. "let's have an auction for the 10113 spots the government makes available!" \- without thinking that 10113 is some magic number some bureaucrat made up with little to no relationship to the real world.

This continues to be my go-to article as one of the better takes on
immigration: [http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-optimal-
number...](http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-optimal-number-of-
immigrants.html)

~~~
knucklesandwich
It's incredibly weird when I find myself agreeing with someone on the right.
This article is filled with lots of bullshit "its just econ 101" neoliberal
cliches (and uses the beloved tactic of the right that "everything I dislike
is soviet central planning and a perversion of this clearly natural and non-
synthetic notion of a totally free market"). None of that is necessary to what
is fundamentally an argument that should rest on moral principles. I prefer
this version of the argument: [https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/03/the-case-
for-open-borders...](https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/03/the-case-for-open-
borders/)

~~~
davidw
I'm not really a right-wing guy either, but I think anyone can agree that the
current "magic numbers" involved in H1-B visas are very much central planning
at its worst.

~~~
knucklesandwich
It's a failure of policy to be sure, but it's not as though planning is really
at fault here, just as open borders isn't really a market solution (even
though the implication that it is somehow worms its way into this argument). A
market solution would be to use the government to perpetuate scarcity of visa
slots and enforce property rights around a visa, and allow visa holders to
sell or trade their visa rights. As a corollary, the problem with immigration
is not inefficient allocation of slots caused by planning, its that we have
immigration limits to begin with.

It's a neoliberal trope to try to work markets into every social problem, but
this is really an issue concerning ethics and justice, not allocation.

------
NotSammyHagar
I wish every one of these stories would talk about that there are at least a
couple of different kinds of h1b's. Facebook mostly or only has employees
doing real, original work. But companies like Tata just are hiring for basic,
mostly non-creative IT work. The second category (I think) is much more likely
to lead to displacement of native workers. It's at least much more
questionable. But h1b's at Microsoft or Google of Facebook are doing real
creative work. We need to somehow change H1B to account for this. You can see
it reflected in the data, where the average pay of the worker indicates
whether is the 'creative category where we would like to hire all we can', or
whether its in the more it-like programmer.

Maybe I should add a disclaimer that although I haven't worked at facebook, I
worked at some of the other large comps similar to facebook and have seen this
difference.

~~~
Buge
The obvious way to make H1B work for the high end software engineers is to
approve applicants based on highest paid applicant first, instead of via a
random lottery.

It's fairly clear to me that this would be beneficial for the long term
success of the United States. It's unclear to me what it would do to short
term salaries for highly paid software engineers. Would it lower their
salaries due to an increase in supply of very talented software engineers, or
would it raise their salaries as companies get into bidding wars over H1B
visas.

~~~
psykotic
> The obvious way to make H1B work for the high end software engineers is to
> approve applicants based on highest paid applicant first, instead of via a
> random lottery.

This would grant a massive advantage to companies like Google and Facebook
over smaller companies, and more generally to geographic locales and parts of
the industry with higher pay. In terms of economic and competitive impact for
those companies and for Silicon Valley, it's hard to think of anything that
could have greater impact. They already have an inherent advantage when it
comes to hiring due to their financial firepower.

~~~
kcorbitt
...and that financial firepower, and resulting ability to outbid everybody
else, comes because they're using their workers more productively than anybody
else. Successful companies _should_ be able to command the best, most scarce
resources -- that's just efficient asset allocation, and is the entire point
of the free market.

~~~
jldugger
Well, it's not entirely efficient allocation, if you take the daring leap to
assume that rents in certain areas are not totally subject to free market
forces. I know a number of people who suggest they take home more by working
in the Midwest metros than they would in equivalent jobs in the West Coast
hubs.

It's possible that living in a high cost West Coast metro area is itself some
sort of benefit, or at least better in ways we can't deduce by salary means
alone. One alternative would be to keep the existing lottery system, and
simply allow visa holders more latitude to switch employers. At which point
any firms flooding the lottery with underpaid and underqualified applicants
would see themselves out the door.

~~~
legolas2412
Well, that solves the issue of worker exploitation.

But it won't address the America first arguments, neither the rampant abuse by
service companies. If TCS sees attrition rates go from 1% to 40%. Wouldn't
they just put 66% more applications (40% of 166 = 66). There is no
disincentive to not flood the visas. Also, if candidates are underqualified,
they aren't going to switch at all.

There is no reason to keep lottery system at all, maybe normalize by
geographical location, years of experience and field of work. But it is
absolutely insane to put it down to lottery and incentivize companies to flood
applications.

As a personal example, I am a PhD student on a F1, but I'd prefer other
countries than the uncertainty of H1B and then painful decades long GC
application. Further, there aren't as many jobs for PhDs. If I was a bachelors
degree holder though, I'd have a ton more candidate employers to make the risk
palatable.

------
calvinbhai
Those abusing H1b visas are companies that are usually brought in to replace
aging workforce. H-1b visa holders have very limited job portability, which
lets the employer abuse the system.

If the H1b employee had full work authorization similar to a green card holder
(give a 6 year full work auth to every H1b holder, and his/her spouse), then
there wont be a question of enslaved H-1b employees trying to grab whatever
peanuts thrown by these abusive companies.

H1b numbers can be very misleading, because a bigger number of high skilled
immigrants (except Indians and Chinese) can skip the who H-1b hell and go
directly to getting an EAD (full work authorization).

Better way to solve this problem, is to remove the concept of H1b, have very
stringent L1 visas (even these are abused a lot), and give instant green cards
to anyone who secures a job in US after graduating from a US university.

~~~
mcbruiser3
>> give instant green cards to anyone who secures a job in US after graduating
from a US university.

sure but PhDs and special skills only

------
ronreiter
What people don't realize is that once the H1B program will be modified to
take out companies like Tata and Infosys from the lottery, Facebook will have
MORE H1B employees, not less.

~~~
FT_intern
I have no problem with that really. There are thousands of H1B's that are much
more talented than 95% of American software engineers and they tend to be at
the unicorns and the well paying big companies like FB/Google

~~~
gragas
There are also thousands of Americans that are much more talented than 95% of
H1Bs.

------
delbel
The h1b program is out of control. We've got Americans who need jobs. I've had
a big corporate job where they had us train our h1b and then laid us off. I've
also worked for H1B's in America who hired me through upwork. They would
outsource their job to me, that's pretty messed up when you fully think that
out.

~~~
outworlder
> I've had a big corporate job where they had us train our h1b and then laid
> us off

This is indeed ridiculous. But how often does that happen? More specifically,
how many companies go to the trouble of hiring H1B workers in lieu of local
workers and then make the current workers train the replacements?

if the worker being trained was actually a contractor for one of those big
indian IT companies, then it makes more sense.

~~~
reaperducer
Happened to me last year, too. And it's not just big companies. In my case it
was a firm with only about 30 employees. But outsourcing (in my case to India)
has become so easy that companies of almost any size can do it.

~~~
davidw
H1B is someone coming here, not outsourcing. Fewer H1B's probably means more
outsourcing, for companies who are just looking at cutting costs and not
looking at quality a lot. Not that there aren't great people to outsource work
to, but we all know the kind of company we're talking about that isn't seeking
that.

------
sandworm101
Relevant test case for reforms:

"The job categories covered under the new employer liaison service include
civil and mechanical engineers, plumbers, electricians, carpenters,
construction millwrights and heavy equipment mechanics. Under the 24-month
pilot program, those job categories will be placed on a "refusal to process"
list within the temporary foreign worker program."

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-bans-
hiring-f...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-bans-hiring-
foreign-workers-for-29-high-skilled-jobs-1.4075684)

(Canadian provinces have some control over immigration, to the chagrin of
American "states rights" proponents who can only dream of the possibilities.)

------
MR4D
The salary tab seems to say that FB isn't having trouble finding programmers
in the US - it's having trouble finding GREAT programmers, while Wipro, et al
just want a cheap body.

Huge difference. Nothing to see here, move along.

------
ganfortran
Well, they are paying their employee good money, which is one way to justify
the use of H1B, the really high skilled worker, at least in terms of market
value.

Companies like Tata and Infosys are the real problems here, not only for
locals, but for other people who apply for H1B as well. Some actions are
largely overdue.

------
jordache
I have worked with some truly facepalm level of stupid H1Bs. I am sure we can
find the same level of stupid here in the U.S. For these scenarios, I would
much prefer u.s. citizens.

------
nsnick
Sounds like it is time for Facebook to buy some congressmen.

~~~
trendia
Buying congressmen is expensive. Maybe instead, Facebook can just slowly take
over the news industry and then control what people see.

~~~
steveax
Naw, it's actually pretty cheap, with a great ROI

[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/01/06/144737864/forge...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/01/06/144737864/forget-
stocks-or-bonds-invest-in-a-lobbyist)

------
knucklesandwich
Cool, seeing lots of garbage opinions in this thread. Either H1Bs are bad
because they create greater competition with people who aren't American
citizens, or if you got fired from a job that replaced you with someone on an
H1B you must be a bad worker.

Haven't seen a single comment in here acknowledging that our immigration
policy exists solely to benefit the wealthy (the wealthiest immigrants, or the
ones with the most marketable skills and the wealthiest employers who often
choose to exploit their immigrant employees via the precarity of immigration
status created by an H1B). It would be great if people started having the
conversation that we can have a mutually beneficial policy if we expedite
citizenship for foreign born workers and actually work to build labor power in
our industry instead of adopting nativist rhetoric or attempting to justify
the various ways in which workers in tech are marginalized.

------
static_noise
I don't see what makes workers born in America more important than workers
born in any other country. Everybody should get the same chances.

~~~
YR372zm87
As an American, workers born in the USA are more important to me.

I care more about my neighbor's employment status, safety, and happiness than
the family down the street. I care more about the guy down the street than the
family across town... etc etc etc... I care more about some family in some US
state that I'll never visit than a family over in India.

The closer they are to me, the more their success and problems will affect me
either directly through interaction or indirectly through taxes or how they're
likely to vote for something crazy in a future election out of desperation.

Local people even on a national level should get better chances if for no
other reason than they've been here hopefully contributing to our system
longer and they should be first to get some benefit out of it.

~~~
jordache
but these h1b holders live in your town, and possibly your next door neighbor.

gotcha!

~~~
YR372zm87
I care less about them than they natives they displaced by getting visas
handed out for reasons other than their intended purpose.

I know my next door neighbors. Not H1B holders.

Don't be an troll.

~~~
aanm1988
Your neighbors could be H-1B holders.

I can respect the economic arguments for it, even if I often disagree with
them. This is just... not racist but it's about as foul in it's own way.

