
H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms - rbanffy
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21716630-not-good-argument-against-them-h-1b-visas-do-mainly-go-indian-outsourcing?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/immigrationofthelegalsorth1bvisasdomainlygotoindianoutsourcingfirms
======
zzleeper
I went through the entire comment thread and feel like you guys are missing a
lot of the H1B benefits by focusing just on tech and the effect of the Indian
consultancies.

Most PhDs, specially in STEM, math, stats, econ, etc. are not American. And
almost all of them end up with a H1B visa at some point if they remain in the
US.

It might be lottery based if you go to work at any firm, or quota-free if it
is in academia/nonprofits/govt, but it's still through H1B.

Now, what happens if you kill the H1B?

1) Applications from qualified foreigners to US PhDs drop a lot, because they
know they won't be able to find a US-based job. 2) Every firm that does R&D,
from Boeing to Amazon, will lose out on a large pool of very skilled workers,
that are very hard to replace (how easy is it to replace a CS PhD working on
LIDARs for self driving cars?)

All in all, I don't think critics understand this side of the value of the H1B
to the US. Every year, you guys take some of the best engineers and
researchers across the world, and move them to very useful roles in the US
economy.

Disclaimer: I'm currently in an H1B, and would like to think my work
contributes to the US. So reading all this makes me a bit sad (and unwelcome).

~~~
dmitrygr
Thing is, nobody wants that effect. We want the PhDs. What we do not want it
companies that bring in cheap barely-qualified labour for cost-cutting. This
hurts the people brought in (they are stuck in bad jobs with bad pay and no
way out). This hurts the local workers who cost too much compared to this
effectively-slave-labour.

The hard part changing the rules such that PhDs and other productive uses of
H1B do not suffer, but the companies exploiting the rules for slave labour do.

I assure you nobody wants to make you feel unwelcome. In fact we are happy to
have you here.

~~~
clairity
"This hurts the people brought in (they are stuck in bad jobs with bad pay and
no way out)."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i agree with everything you said except for this part. many of the indian
workers are still better off economically than they might otherwise be, even
if they are not as well off as their american counterparts.

in any case, we should let every person seeking higher education in the US
work indefinitely in this country, not just PhDs. in fact, anyone who wants to
work hard should be allowed in. all such workers will accrue a net economic
benefit, as the new workers will generate more value than they consume.

the problem with this (playing my own devil's advocate) is that it neglects to
account for the status disruption it generates for the incumbent workers. the
current H1B visa program happens to account for this by it effectively being
indentured servitude, which limits the status of these foreign workers. i
don't like this fact, but i believe it's why the H1B visa program is actually
palatable in the US.

~~~
rajathagasthya
> in any case, we should let every person seeking higher education in the US
> work indefinitely in this country

This is the discussion that's always missing whenever H1B is discussed
anywhere. It always gets hijacked by Indian IT companies abusing the system.
Does the administration have a plan on how to deal with students who get their
degrees from US universities, who also seek H1Bs to work? If they don't make
this distinction and club every applicant together, I can assure you US
universities will become extremely unattractive to foreign students. Guess who
benefits then? Not the US.

~~~
hiram112
> Guess who benefits then? Not the US.

If demand at US universities goes down, they might just have to reduce prices.

Yeah that would certainly suck for the millions of recent college grads
working gig jobs, indebted with tens of thousands of dollars.

~~~
an_account
Actually the opposite at many public universities. "Out of state" and
international students subsidize in state students because they pay far
greater tuition.

~~~
johnnyb9
I have trouble believing students are paying less tuition because there is a
greater demand from international students. If anything, the tuition would be
higher. That international students are more profitable doesn't change the
value of the degree or what everyone else is willing to pay for it.

~~~
wcummings
Foreign students pay full tuition, domestic students rarely do. Simple as
that. This applies to public and private schools. Universities deliberately
recruit international students for this reason.

I think parent is right, no international students likely means higher tuition
for everyone else. If you're in doubt, ask someone who works in admissions, I
expect they'll tell you the same thing.

~~~
johnnyb9
My point is that international students may "subsidize" the university, but in
practice this should have very little to do with what the university would
charge its students (they are not "subsidizing" the domestic students).
Implicit in your assumption is that tuition uses cost-based pricing which I
find hard to believe. Admittedly this is all conjecture on my part but I don't
find that line of reasoning persuasive.

~~~
wcummings
Students that pay full freight absolutely subsidize those who don't, and a
_lot_ of the people who can afford full tuition are foreign.

[http://blogs.wgbh.org/on-campus/2014/6/17/international-
enro...](http://blogs.wgbh.org/on-campus/2014/6/17/international-enrollment/)

------
molyss
"Given that the unemployment rate for college graduates sits at 2.5%, it is
fair to say that most native workers displaced by H-1Bs land on their feet."

That's completely ignoring the fact that if you have cheaper workers, you end
up being underpaid and/or doing a job you'd rather not be doing. Unemployment
rate alone don't tell the whole story, and failing to acknowledge that sounds
like poor/partial journalism to me

~~~
inlinefordecade
To me it appears TCS and Infosys are being made the fall guys to keep the
existing system of Indentured servitude in place for another decade or more.

[edit:] Real villain is Microsoft, which has the largest lobbyists machine
among the software companies in D.C. to make sure they are able to keep their
indenture servants for as many years as possible.

~~~
usernametbd
Why is Microsoft villain? Does it provide its H1B employees below market
salary? Genuinely asking as I've seen H1B employees at MS paid a huge salary,
equal to their citizen counterparts, and also they've been freely jumping
companies to get an even bigger pay raise.

~~~
int_19h
As an ex-H1B MSFT employee, there are a few data points I can share.

First, to the best of my knowledge, my salary was not lower than that of my
colleagues with citizenship at any point. Nor did I get fewer perks, formally
or informally (ability to take days off as and when needed etc).

Second, my H1B status was never used as leverage when talking about raises,
amount of time spent at work, and so on. I was never pressured to work more
"or else".

Third, Microsoft fully sponsored my green card application, including all
direct and indirect filing and legal fees. They were clearly interested in
getting me off H1B status as soon as possible.

This is an anecdote. However, all people I know in MS who are or were on H1B
have similar experiences. All either have green cards by now, or are in the
process of obtaining them, with very few _willing_ exceptions (as in, people
who voluntarily decided to not apply, despite all the prodding to do so).

~~~
FooBarJmp
As a manager in MSFT. I can assure you that salaries aren't any different for
H1B versus Citizens. I myself had a hard time find great native talents that I
ended up hiring quite a few Canadians.

~~~
humanrebar
This thread has many comments that either ignore or are unaware of the basic
economics of the situation. The contention isn't that H1Bs are paid
differently. The argument is that a market with 50k more H1B engineers will
result in a lower salary for a U.S. resident with that skill set.

In other words, if people with that skill set were more scarce, compensation
would be higher and eventually more U.S. residents would be attracted into to
the field.

There may be good points against that contention, but this thread is mostly
talking past it.

~~~
int_19h
> The contention isn't that H1Bs are paid differently.

Actually, that is exactly the contention for many. Even if you look at other
comments on this story, there are numerous claims that H1Bs are paid less.

Which is true - most H1Bs (the ones employed by "consulting" shops) are indeed
paid significantly under the market, because of the leverage their employers
have over them making it hard for them to negotiate for better salaries.

Your point is valid, but it's neither the most significant effect of the H1B
program, nor the one that's most obviously unfair. More people competing _on
equal terms_ is a very different proposition.

------
l3m0ndr0p
Regardless of where these jobs are going, H1-Bs are used for the cheap labor,
not the best skills. This system has been abused especially by the financial
services corporations.

First hand experience: If you have an open request to hire, you are required
to first look to one of the few outsourcing firms we have a contract with. You
cannot post the job for external until you have searched for the "best" person
within their ranks. The "Best" being somebody super cheap & not qualified, but
they assure us that person will learn on the job. I'd rather hire a full time
College or High school graduate from the USA at a reasonable cost, train &
maybe they will stay for the duration, but I know I'll get great work out of
that person, better than the outsourced person.

America is being scammed by the our own American Corporations. I've seen too
many people lose their jobs because of outsourcing & they didn't fall back on
their feet.

I'd like to see the next Steve Jobs, Bill Gates come out of providing good
paying jobs to US Citizens.

~~~
nullnilvoid
Agreed. The current system has been abused by Indian out-sourcing companies
such as TCS, Infosys. The vast majority of highly skilled workers cannot get
H-1B visas at all.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
As abhorrent as the situation is, the body shops are only taking advantage of
a legal windfall that American corporate greed has lobbied for. The system has
been rigged. You can't completely blame the actors taking advantage of it.

~~~
s73ver
"You can't completely blame the actors taking advantage of it."

Why not? Are they not run by adults? Are those adults not capable of taking
responsibility for their own actions?

~~~
mi100hael
Technically they are legally (and arguably morally) obligated to act in the
best interests of the business on behalf of the shareholders who own it. It's
up to the govt. and the market to define what falls under "best interests."

~~~
s73ver
I would fail to see how that duty would mean they'd have to do dishonest or
immoral things.

------
ta78637
Article's concluding sentences: "Reducing the number of visas for TCS and its
brethren would probably result in them shifting work to India. A better change
would be to end the rule whereby H-1B recipients must stay with the company
that sponsored them. For within their ranks may lurk the next Elon Musk or
Sergey Brin."

Personally I find this line of thought (cliche?) frustrating. Not just because
apparently us proles should be making our policy decisions based merely on
whether we just might get to bask in some future billionaire's magnificence,
but also because, isn't this a somewhat empirically testable proposition? That
is, how many Musk-like or Brin-like individuals have come through TCS or Wipro
or Infosys on a H-1B so far?

~~~
prasadjoglekar
The H1 visa prohibits all paid work except for the sponsoring employer. This
lock-in is precisely what makes these visas lucrative to TCS etc. Removing the
lack of mobility will remove a big perverse incentive.

~~~
pm90
While it is a big incentive for sure, I wouldn't be so quick to dismissive it
as the _main_ incentive. A lot of the people who are "indentured servants" (as
the people here like to say) are not really the kind of people who would "jump
ship". In fact, the selection process is already such that only the really
pliant ones are sent to the US.

Which makes me doubt whether this step would make any difference to the
problem of H1B abuse. However, it _would_ make a HUGE difference for those who
are not abusing the system.

Disclosure: I'm on an H1B visa. Of course I want it to be easier to change
employer. Who doesn't? Its like a fundamental right.

~~~
aangjie
> In fact, the selection process is already such that only the really pliant
> ones are sent to the US. Indian working in India. Can second that. I used to
> work for the Big Blue in India, it's the yes-guys that got the visa
> processing approval from managers.

------
an_cap
Suppose we lived in an America in which if a black person wanted to work in
the tech industry they had to get a special license from the federal
government called the H-1Black license. Nobody here on HN would then be
discussing if companies were abusing the H-1Black system or whether H-1Black
workers were being paid less than the going market rate.

A minimally decent person would notice that the obviously correct thing to do
would be to remove the requirement that blacks get an H-1Black license before
being allowed to work. The ethical intuition that leads to this conclusion, I
think, is that one shouldn't be discriminated against based on one's
circumstances at birth. Everybody (at least on HN) seems to agree that if an
employer is willing to hire me, third parties (i.e. other people who also
wanted the same job) shouldn't be allowed to prevent the employer from hiring
me just because I was born the wrong race or the wrong gender. But people seem
to think that if I were born on the wrong side of the border then its totally
fine for third parties to demand preferential treatment.

Can someone explain the logic to me? Why is it not okay to discriminate on the
basis of race or gender but okay to discriminate on the basis of
citizenship/country of birth? Would it be okay if NYC started requiring people
outside New York to obtain a highly scarce license to be able to work in NYC?
Could whites start requiring non-whites to obtain a license?

~~~
aaronblohowiak
People expect their government to protect them from people of other nations in
matters of physical and economic security. h1-B workers at Tata etc drive down
wages.

Globally, labor isn't scarce. If there were a true global labor pool, wages in
USA would be further depressed.

People have no intrinsic right to immigrate into the country of their choice
(they do have a right to leave their country if another will take them,
however..)

~~~
thewhitetulip
This is funny/ridiculous, after all US and the West was busy shoving
Globalization down everyone else's throats just few decades ago and now every
wants to reverse Globalization. This should be a case study, which I know
won't ever happen!

~~~
arjie
It's not going to get a case study because it's been extensively studied
already.

An easy to understand introduction is to look at the Stolper Samuelson
theorem.

This isn't a recent development. It precedes the existence of the United
States as a nation. Textiles in the U.K., mill workers. It's been done before.

Protectionism is often just a straight subsidy from whichever society is being
protectionist to the members which are being protected.

Or, as people on the Internet are prone to saying: if you can't compete,
legislate. If you're somehow losing your job to Infosys, you can't be that
good. Real loss for society occurs when a good candidate can't get into the US
because Wipro took all the visas.

~~~
thewhitetulip
I did not understand a word you said, the western nations shoved down
globalization by force or threats during the start of 2000 and the very same
nations are now "banning visas", I guess now they know how it feels. Divine
retribution, the circle would be complete if Scotland would breakway from UK.

~~~
arjie
I was over summarising because I didn't want to write a long comment. It looks
like I did a poor job responding as a result and wrote the sort of comment I
can't stand.

Anyway, my point was that protectionism and free trade have been fighting a
war for centuries. It is not true that this won't be studied. It will and has
been. Because it's nothing special and new. This is garden variety
protectionism.

------
idaw
I'm intrigued between the contrast of a sanctuary city, like Los Angeles, and
various tech companies in LA hiring H1B employees.

My roommate's on an H1B but he can't just quit his tech job and work on a
startup, despite having a few hundred thousand dollars in the bank and being a
very successful developer.

Yet there are organizations like Define American, whose founder is an
undocumented worker, encouraging people to give sanctuary to people who live
here illegally. In 2015, LA allowed undocumented workers to get driver's
licenses and 800,000 were issued. There's something like 2-2.5 million people
living here illegally.

I have compassion for those who arrived here illegally and have families and
lives. And I hope we can find some solution to fixing that problem. But it
seems incredibly unfair that we make it hard for smart people to come and work
in the US. If you can qualify initially for an H1B visa, I feel like you
should be granted a green card with a path to citizenship. I

~~~
yks
H-1Bs are law-abiding people and therefore the easiest immigrant group to
attack, unlike illegals they will leave when told so.

~~~
DrJokepu
H-1B visa holders are not immigrants as the H-1B is not an immigrant visa.

~~~
xtreme
It's a dual-intent visa. Which means H1B holders are allowed to apply for a
green card (permanent residence) and continue to hold the H1B. This is unlike
non-immigrant visas like F1, which you will lose the moment you apply for a
green card.

~~~
DrJokepu
Simply because they are allowed to have immigrant intent they don't become
immigrants. They become immigrants when their status is adjusted to legal
permanent resident or they are issued an immigrant visa and admitted with it.

I'm not just making this up, these are terms that are very clearly defined by
the Immigration and Nationality Act.

------
bwang29
For those in the thread who struggled for H1B's chance of winning, I'd
recommend considering an O1 visa - I think the requirement is slightly lower
to apply than previous years, and O1 doesn't have a lottery process.

I've stayed in the US as a collage student, then graduate student from a top
university then starting my company for a total of 9 years. I lost the H1B
lottery twice and have been on F1 then F1-OPT, then F1-OPT-STEM_EXT in the
first 8 years. I recently successfully converted into an O1 this year,
therefore finally bypassing the H1B lottery. I consider the O1 visa a life
saver but not everyone is that lucky to be able to apply. Now the thing is, my
O1 visa is a single-entry visa, meaning I have to stay in US for 3 years until
it expires and I can't leave the country otherwise I can never come back to
this country again.

Edit: Obviously someone found out that O1 is single entry for Chinese
nationals, and it might not be the case for most other nationals.

~~~
iraphael
What happens after the O1 expires? It's a non-immigrant visa right? I'm
assuming it doesn't mean you get a green card after 3 years, correct?

~~~
the_mitsuhiko
You can try to apply for an EB1

------
virtuabhi
A few questions.

Is "free" trade possible without "free" labor mobility? Currently, 11 of the
top 15 tech companies in India are American. For most of the multinational US
companies, India (not EU, not China) is the biggest consumer (after US) or
growth region. So how many Indians should be employed by the American
companies (both tech and non-tech) active in Indian market? Should Indians be
working on localization only or on the core technology? It seems to me, at
current H-1B levels, the balance is heavily skewed towards trade rather than
labor mobility.

Also how does H-1B decrease the salaries of Americans? H-1B makes American
companies more competitive. And they are able to sell products in more
markets. A cut in free labor mobility will lead to cut in free trade from the
other side. Imagine you are a startup founder. You go to a VC and tell him/her
that you plan to hire only natives and sell only in the local market. Do you
think you will get any funds from the VC? If yes, then will you get more funds
(and more revenue and salary) if your startup hires at the best talent/cost
and is able to sell all around the world? The point being that there is a
reason that as software engineer you earn 150k in US, not 40-70k as earned by
software engineers in other developed countries.

And then there are studies showing that each H-1B creates 2-5 jobs in the US
(some studies quote a much higher number...)

Isn't this an example of win-win?

------
weirdstuff
On these more controversial political threads: How are certain accounts
instantaneously downvoted to dead on HN, within single-digit seconds? Seems
automated but entirely too hard to tell.

For example, l3m0ndr0p (yeah, I'm totally him/her) made an "America first"
type of comment. I know that doesn't play well with a lot of HNers, but seeing
it instantly downvoted to dead was weird, too.

I know there's a left-ish bias here, I'm a bit left, but this feels different.

~~~
mikestew
Some accounts are dead on arrival due to previous posts. Though in digging
through the comments of the account you reference, I can't find anything
egregious, so I vouched for the comment.

Personally, I would like to see HN quit the juvenile, passive-aggressive
shadow ban. If for no other reason than it seems it is buggy at times, and
banning accounts that don't need it. But I don't make the rules.

~~~
cryptarch
It's a security by obscurity thing, right? Let the spammers think they're
being seen but ignored?

I don't really feel an obligation to not speak about it though, I didn't
choose to get showdead privileges and never heard anything about it.

~~~
red_hairing
spammers? or dissidents?

------
ouesp
H1B as I see it.

American corporations want to make profit year over year. (The announcing the
quarterly or annual reports ? )

IT jobs has a tradition of being highly paid. When the revenues are less, the
course of action is to cut the expenses and hence the salaries. So if a
corporation want to make profit, they can hire workers with the minimum lawful
wage. Indian bodyshops are catering to that demand. Its that simple.

Cutting salaries or firing American workers will lead to PR nightmare. So
American companies hire bodyshops or majorly Indian IT outsourcing companies
like TCS or Infosys to do the IT jobs.

Most enterprise IT do not need high skills. ( I mean who wants to know about
data structures or Big O to make a CRUD application or write queries ? ). So a
major chunk of Indian IT workers fit in that category.

So American enterprises get the work done at a cheaper rate in India or
through the H1B worker. So no firing or salary cuts for the American worker.

Fire an H1B worker, he will keep silent and go back to his country if he is a
fulltime worker. If he is from a bodyshop, he will be deployed to another
location in the US. No PR nightmare for the corporate company.

In a nutshell:

Indian outsourcing firms are only here because American corporations want more
profit and revenues are not that great. Stop being greedy and outsourcing will
end, that includes H1B too.

~~~
794CD01
And by "stop being greedy" you mean overpay people to do work because of
qualifications that are not applicable to the job, or because they happen to
be American? Why should anyone do that?

------
vmarsy
Related, Trump's executive order from today which mentions H-1Bs :
[https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-
office/2017/04/18/presi...](https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-
office/2017/04/18/presidential-executive-order-buy-american-and-hire-american)

And a quote from the NYT article[1]:

“This does nothing,” said Senator Charles Schumer of New York, the Democratic
leader. “Like all the other executive orders, it’s just words — he’s calling
for new studies. It’s not going to fix the problem. It’s not going to create a
single job.”

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/us/politics/executive-
ord...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/us/politics/executive-order-hire-
buy-american-h1b-visa-trump.html)

~~~
gragas
>Like all the other executive orders, it’s just words

The hypocrisy here is truly disgusting. One moment, executive orders are the
end of the world. The next moment, they don't mean anything at all.

If a person can't see past this man's partisanship, then they are hopeless;
when reason and logic are out the window, it's over.

For those who want evidence from the mouth of Chuck Schumer himself [1]:

>Schumer said that he called Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly on
Saturday "to urge the administration to rescind these anti-American executive
actions that will do absolutely nothing to improve our safety."

>"In fact, they will do the opposite. We have a long and proud tradition of
accepting refugees who seek safety in the United States, after a long and
thorough vetting process. That tradition should continue," he said.

>“These executive orders were mean-spirited and un-American in their origin,
and implemented in a way that has caused chaos and confusion across the
country. They will only serve to embolden and inspire those around the globe
who would do us harm. They must be reversed, immediately," Schumer added.

It's like politicians aren't even _pretending_ anymore. The thing that kills
me is that people actually _buy this stuff_. Maybe Chuck is right about the
executive order on immigration. Maybe he's right that executive orders do
nothing at all. But he's definitely not right about both things.

1\. [http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/316711-schumer-
ca...](http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/316711-schumer-calls-for-
trump-admin-to-rescind-refugee-order)

~~~
wtf_is_up
The only purpose Schumer and Pelosi serve in Washington is to sling mud at
every single thing the administration does. It makes no difference what it is
or where they stood prior.

~~~
guelo
The same purpose that the opposition party had during the last 8 years.

------
anupshinde
The article concludes with a great suggestion: "A better change would be to
end the rule whereby H-1B recipients must stay with the company that sponsored
them"

Its the companies like TCS that get the profits while kind-of-abusing their
H1B employees who get stuck for 5-10 years because they want to pursue the
American dream

1\. Increase the minimum salary a bit - but not too much - you don't want to
kill startups

2\. Remove the H1B restriction on changing employers

3\. Impose a rule to make sure that the employer does restrict movement by
imposing any other policy.

4\. Let those H1Bs stay in the country, without a job, for max 6 months. This
will allow them to circumvent certain irrevocable binding policies from
previous employer

5\. Also ensure that the H1B employee movement is not restricted by company's
policies in other countries. If they want to - make them pay 100K minimum.
Example: If TCS is not able to create an employee-binding policy in US, it
certainly will do it back home in India.

EDIT: PS: Even as an Indian, I would love to see some blanket H1B restrictions
imposed on Indian IT companies, for a multitude of good reasons (for India). I
believe that short term pain is necessary for India to get big gains.
Unfortunately, this is not something Indian govt can do at the moment.

~~~
jitix
H1B employees can already change jobs. However there are some caveats around
the time interval between jobs so (4) would be great.

------
adrr
Easiest solution is to inflation adjust min salary of $60,000 set back in 1989
and have the limit follow inflation. Lawmakers have this tendency to not build
in inflation adjustments(eg: AMT tax limit,min wage) which causes lot issues
down the road.

~~~
wsha
Or give the visas to the jobs with the highest 85,000 salaries instead of
using a lottery.

~~~
anarazel
So H1Bs would end up only working in NYC, Bay Area etc and only for the big
players. Not good either.

~~~
CriticalSection
I guess they'll just have to settle for (horrors!) American workers.

~~~
anarazel
Meh. If H1B were reshaped to actually be for specialist workers as it was
intended (at least by some), then that's a lot easier said than done. I got to
the US on a temporary work visa (not H1B because of loosing the lottery), and
I'd find positions for somebody with my and a bunch of other specializations
several times over.

By auctioning based on salary you're preferring areas with absurd costs of
living - which is a) not where you necessarily need to get more people making
the problem worse b) reinforcing economic inequality between areas of the
country.

If there's a company needing some specialist somewhere with a saner cost of
living, and they tried to find such a specialist, offering above market wages,
what exactly is the benefit of not them having to pay twice or thrice the
effective salary of somebody in SF/NYC?

~~~
int_19h
You can always adjust salaries for cost of living in the area to have a more
apples to apples comparison.

------
exabrial
I'm totally fine with H1B Visa reform. Companies have abused it to pay
qualified individuals far less than the average market wage.

~~~
flamedoge
People raising issue about minimum wage not being high enough don't realize
this but the end-effect is that H-1Bs will just fill the low end of the
spectrum because the visa itself is on the table no matter what. And maybe
that's okay with some, but do realize what effect this is having in the market
pool. Americans who are being paid near the minimum wage will most surely be
affected.

------
asdf32fsdf
Makes sense. Three of my cousins are working in the US on H-1B visas. None of
them have a technical degree. They do manual software testing. They can do
those jobs in India or someone in Alabama can do them. There's no reason to
import unskilled labor.

------
jiraaya
Any argument that looks at job creation in isolation is next to worthless.
Such an argument leads to conclusions like "we need visa reforms to ensure
that only really skilled people get through". Skill based criteria are almost
always absurd. I'm pretty sure that in a country as large as the United
states, there's a good chance that you'd find enough number of skilled people
in all domains. So the obvious factor which drives companies to recruit
foreign workers is the cost of labour. That begs the question: "why are
natives not okay to work at the salary levels of immigrant workers?". There
could be two reasons: either their liabilities are greater, or it is that
prevailing culture that discourages US natives to work at lower salaries".
From that perspective, the natural way forward for the US government should be
try and reduce the liabilities of the natives. Why cant they make education
cheaper and more accessible? What can they do to reduce the price of housing?
How do you reduce the cost of transportation?

IMHO blaming immigrants/the companies that hire them is not productive.
Businesses try to maximize their profits; that's given. They aren't hiring
immigrants through benevolence towards immigrants or aversion towards natives.
The US should fix their social problems before blaming the
immigrants/corporations.

~~~
HillaryBriss
> ... try and reduce the liabilities of the natives ...

i would add medical care to that list

------
kartickv
Thought experiment: suppose the US decided to ban people who aren't permanent
residents from working in jobs with minimal potential for creativity, and
which are rote in nature: taxi and bus drivers, delivery people, gardeners,
waiters, security guards, cashiers, barbers, people running a restaurant or a
barbershop, etc.

Simultaneously, jobs with a potential for creativity — tech, artists,
entrepreneurs, lawyers, and so on — would have unlimited open borders, perhaps
with a minimum salary requirement of $100K, say. If you have a job offer that
meets these requirements, a visa can be denied only if the government can
provide a reason, like a criminal record or terrorist links or having
committed fraud. Otherwise, the US govt would be required to let you in.

This will have the effect of safeguarding local jobs where it's hard to
imagine creativity or skills making a difference to the outcome, while having
an open market in areas where creativity and skills make all the difference.

I'm using the US as an example, but the principle would apply to all rich
countries, or even all countries, if you consider Bangladeshis moving to
India, for example.

------
TP4Cornholio
"Given that the unemployment rate for college graduates sits at 2.5%, it is
fair to say that most native workers displaced by H-1Bs land on their feet."

Working at starbucks with a huge debt load is landing on your feet?

~~~
nirav72
Do those Starbucks workers have a technical background? If yes and they're
still working for starbuck wages, then there is something wrong.

~~~
ryandrake
I think that's the point--something is very wrong here. Plenty of U.S. people
have technical backgrounds who are under-employed and/or have abandoned the
field due to low job prospects.

------
jcriddle4
unemployment rate ... 2.5%. This study has 5.6% unemployment and __under
__employment at 12.6%

[http://www.epi.org/publication/class-
of-2016/](http://www.epi.org/publication/class-of-2016/)

~~~
nandemo
The article is talking about college graduates in general. The study you
linked to is about _young_ college graduates (age 21 to 24).

~~~
HeavenBanned
I graduated in 2011 with a non-STEM degree, and I still don't have a job. I
won't be employed until 2020 at this rate (in pursuit of a C.S. M.S.). The
"job numbers" after the Great Derecession are lies. Pure lies. The
unemployment rate is probably more closer to 25%. You can't survive in this
economy if it's not STEM. A lot of people here defending the H1-Bs sadly. One
guy said "if you can't compete in this economy get another job"...seriously?
That's what you're going to say to your compatriot? Get a job in a different
field after slaving for a decade in under and non-employment? That's how we
view each other? As obstacles to further a company's bottom line?

We should unequivocally be "America First". Period. Especially after a great
depression like we just had. Maybe when we're prosperous and on-top again
economically, we can lax the rules. But when shit hits the fan one should
generally keep the doors closed.

------
wsxcde
Although Infosys and the like apply for a lot of H1Bs, they make very very few
(we're talking double-digit numbers) successful applications for green cards.
This means most of these people on H1Bs for the consulting companies are
actually going back home.

Which means that Infosys, TCS and the like are contributing a rotating pool of
about ~30k-40k "migrant" software labor consisting of individuals who live in
the US for a maximum of a couple of years. Could this be the reason why
Americans wages are depressed? Well, let's run the numbers. There are 3.6
million software developers in the US. 40k is an insignificant fraction of
that. So no. That's not it.

~~~
FooBarJmp
Let's examine your math. So this year there were 86,000 visas for 2017 that
last for 3 years. So that means by 2020, if the visa limit stays at 86,000,
there will be 258,000 H1Bs, of course this assumes that H1Bs were created in
2017, we are ignoring all those that came before. Let's NOT ignore those and
look at the below link -

[http://insights.dice.com/2013/05/14/how-
nearly-800000-h-1b-w...](http://insights.dice.com/2013/05/14/how-
nearly-800000-h-1b-workers-came-to-work-in-the-u-s/)

Yes, in 2013, it was 775,957. So by now, let's say it's closer to 1.2 million.
That's a third of all software developers in the USA.

So Yes! This is exactly the reason that American wages are depressed in the
job markets that H1Bs work in.

~~~
wsxcde
You can't stay for more than 6 years on an H1B unless your employer files a
PERM application, has that approved, and then you/your employer files an
I-140, and that is also approved. In other words, if your employer never filed
a PERM, or never had one approved, you have to leave after a maximum of 6
years.

Green card applications for Indians (and to a lesser extent Chinese and
Mexicans) are backed up for decades. So you're looking at people who filed
PERMs in the last decade and are still waiting for green cards. They're
allowed to stay on the H1B, which is why we have 800k people on H1Bs today.
But these people are not working for Infosys, they're working for Google and
Microsoft.

The 86,000 number contains 20,000 visas allocated to people who have graduate
degrees from US universities. I don't think any of these folks are working for
Indian consulting firms. So that leaves about 66,000 visas and 40,000 of
those, at most, go the consulting firms. I did make an error in my math, which
is not accounting for the fact you can stay for 6 years on this visa.
Anecdotally, I know that most people of these people leave after about 2-3
years, when their "project" ends. But anyway, let's assume the worst case. You
may have 240,000 people in the US on an H1B and working for an Indian tech
consulting firm. That is still a small fraction of 3.6 million.

~~~
FooBarJmp
You should really look at TCS/WIPRO/InfoSys employees, or talk to them, it
would really enlighten you.

240,000 is way more than your initial 40,000, yet you still say it's a small
fraction.

So many articles say differently. I guess they could be all wrong.
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2016/04/14/how-the-
salari...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2016/04/14/how-the-salaries-of-
software-engineers-have-evolved-over-the-past-20-years/#72a5de871cbf)

~~~
wsxcde
Yes, it is 6.67%. That is literally the definition of a small fraction. And
that is assuming a gross overestimate of 240k employees for Indian consulting
firms in the US. Exact numbers are hard to get but here are some more facts:
Infosys had a total of 23,594 employees in the US for 2016. TCS in 2012-13 had
a total of only 21,830 employees outside India. With the two biggest H1B
employers out of the way, I don't see how you're going to support your claim
that there are 700k employees of Indian consulting firms on H1Bs in the US. It
is simply not possible.

I have plenty of friends who work for Infosys and TCS. None of my friends even
applied for a green card and they all went back to India after a couple of
years here at the most. Many postings in the US at these companies last only
9-12 months. And neither TCS nor Infosys have any interest whatsoever in
helping people immigrate to the US. (You need an employer to file a PERM
application if you want a green card. A green card is required if you want to
stay here more than 6 years.) That is the exact opposite of what they want to
do.

The article you've mentioned says nothing about H1Bs. Outsourcing is not going
to go away even if you eliminate H1Bs. And yes, all these articles making
noise about this epidemic of H1Bs are in fact wrong. They're written by a
bunch of poorly-informed Americans who wouldn't know the difference between an
I-140 and an I-20. And their goal is to just generate clickbait to cater to
nativist sentiment in the US. There's a lot of conservatives who emphatically
don't want more Indians in this country. But they know they'll never win if
they argue that they don't want Google and Microsoft employees here. So
instead they've come up with this nonsense about Infosys and TCS stealing
American jobs.

------
jondubois
>> For within their ranks may lurk the next Elon Musk or Sergey Brin.

Just because Elon and Sergey are one in a hundred million in terms of wealth,
it doesn't mean that they're also one in a hundred million in terms of talent.
In fact, that's extremely unlikely statistically.

I think that Elon and Sergey are in the top 0.1% of the population in terms of
talent. This is a good ratio but when you look at it this way, you understand
that there are a lot of people who are qualified to be the next Elon or Sergey
and the fear that a few select individuals will "miss out" on their rightful
position on the Forbes list (based purely on skill/merit) is ridiculous.

------
khare_ashwini
I did some analysis on the number of applications for H1B, E-3, and PERM to
contrast outsourcing firms and other firms in terms of count and wages:
[http://ashwinikhare.in/tech-firms-guest-visa/](http://ashwinikhare.in/tech-
firms-guest-visa/)

All this data is out there and is released by Department of Labor every year

~~~
amonette
Your unicorn chart is identical to that for the public companies - could you
update it?

------
argentinaIT
You should also be looking at B1 visas. Argentina's Globant (NYSE:GLOB) paid
$1 Million to settle allegations of visa fraud days ago. The largest number of
B1 visa applicants in the Argentina US Embassy come from employees of that
company (and IBM and others too).

source: [https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndtx/pr/information-
technology-...](https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndtx/pr/information-technology-
firm-pays-1-million-settle-allegations-visa-fraud)

------
jitix
IMO one of the easiest ways to tackle the entire issue around H1B visas is to
remove or separate the category where a visa is sponsored by company A for
someone working as a contractor in company B. This arrangement is the major
cause of the scenario where American workers are replaced by people on H1Bs.

If there is genuine skill shortage then the company in need of the said skill
can hire the engineers directly instead of going through a middleman whose
business model relies entirely on keeping wages low.

------
101islands
I've been deeply involved in this for 17 years so my thoughts - H1Bs have to
go thru some agony for 5 years or till they get Green Cards. But all of my
friends who landed on H1B in Year 2000 are doing great in 10-15 years now
owning multiple homes and many running own businesses. You should also take
into account that H1Bs do not carry heavy Student debt like American students
do. They get inexpensive education abroad and start working the day they land
in USA. They also share accommodation and save money in case they have to go
back to home country. I've also worked for a decade with Indian outsourcing
companies and understand their business model. As businesses responsible for
creating shareholder wealth, they run for profits under existing legal
framework and even IBM, Accenture, Deloitte, Cap Gemini and other large
Multinational consulting firms employ hundreds of thousands of employees in
India and bring them to USA on H1B visas in similar business models. H1B
reform is important but even more important is to train US students in new
technologies. I'm a naturalized US citizen living in San Jose for 17 years. My
son is in high school in San Jose and by the time he is ready for college, the
4 year college cost will be $200K. I think that needs to be addressed along
with H1B reform. We need to lower entry barrier for US students to get into
Science and technology by making college more affordable. Additionally, the
H1B is not the only competition for US tech jobs. Tech workers around the
world working at $15 to $25 per hour are a bigger competition. But I feel
training US workers in tech and reducing college costs should be a priority of
current administration.

------
diebir
Of course they ought to just increase the number of H1-B visas... They have
always been a drop in the bucket on the technology market, even in the worst
times (2001 and 2009). These are the future immigrants that we want in the US,
highly educated, driven, mobile upwards and ready to buy a house. If you can't
find a job or compete with H1-Bs in this economy you probably should consider
another occupation. I work for a unicorn, and on on the inside we are 80%
foreign born, most started as H1-B.

The whole narrative of low skilled and cheap foreign H1-Bs taking American
jobs exists somewhere in a parallel universe. In reality, it is hard to find
even simply qualified people, regardless of their origin.

So, stop whining and leave H1-B alone, or better increase the cap, like the
article suggests. The real danger is your job simply going overseas and being
done remotely.

~~~
tenpoundhammer
I've worked for 2 fortune 500 companies that have brought in multiple low
payed H1-b visas instead of hiring at the standard US rate. As an engineer I
was part of the hiring process. All of the candidates at both places ended up
being far less qualified than Wipro claimed and did a terrible job.

So it definitely happens, I'd say it happens a lot.

There are also great H1-b hires like the one I'm working with right now. He is
incredibly skilled. He also cant work for another company unless he reapplies
so he's stuck.

~~~
ouesp
If his I-140 is approved, make sure he wont lose his line in the long long
queue for the greencard. ( 10 years ). Switching H1B is not that easy as it
sounds. It comes with its own set of complications depending on what stage you
are in for the process of greencard.

heck ! ask him to apply Canada express entry and forget H1B. There are good IT
in Canada too if he is skilled enough.

------
alistproducer2
I work for a large company that used to outsource all of it's IT to a large
contractor. Almost all of the applications and code I've worked with that was
done by the outsourcing company was substandard crap. Obviously over
complicated to support large (profitable) estimates.

From my experience working with a lot of tech immigrants, I can say that
compared to the native population, they seem about the same in terms of
competency. The only issue is the language thing. In tech (especially at large
companies), so much of what you do is communicating with others and not having
a good command of the English language can make an otherwise capable dev a lot
less so.

If I were hiring, I would never consider a person that didn't have a good
command of English unless they were really a rock star in something that
didn't require much communication.

~~~
jitix
As a former employee with TCS (India) I can say that most of the development
work is done with an intention to make the client coming back for
improvements, maintenance, fixes, etc.

------
tyingq
Funny when a news headline isn't news at all. How long has this been true? 15
years? More?

------
somberi
Couple of questions.

1\. Who decides this is an abuse?

2\. What is being abused? The possibility of a visa being earmarked for "High
skill" being used for "low cost low skill jobs"?

3\. If the companies that do have a need for high skill, what is preventing
them from "rushing to the queue"?

4\. Is it that Indian companies have learnt the ropes of how to get a H1 visa
(which has its own calendars, short open-and-close gates)? Is it that hard
for, say a Google to replicate and act on this knowledge?

I am an Indian, who had been on H1 work visa early in my career, and was
mostly engaged in the the R&D end of the tech world than say Manual QA.

~~~
Rumudiez
Just to explain another perspective, since you're asking: some people feel
there are a lot of H-1B visas out there for people who are only doing trivial,
entry level work, or even have misleading job titles – not exactly whom many
would consider "specialists."

------
MarkMc
Why doesn't Germany have the same problem with their 'blue card' which is even
more generous than the H1B visa?

For an IT graduate, a German blue card only requires a minimum salary of
€39,624. Workers can switch jobs easily and there is no lottery - if you have
a degree and a job you are pretty much guaranteed a blue card.

There is a language barrier, but my guess is that's not a big problem. There
should be plenty of Indian graduates willing to learn German for a year if it
leads to a 500% increase in salary.

~~~
xtreme
Language barrier is a bigger deal that you might think. One "advantage" Indian
nationals have is that they learn English as a second language from childhood,
and many schools and most colleges use English for instructions and in
textbooks. This is a big motivator for emigrating Indians to choose the US.

Also, US has won the mindshare as _the_ country to immigrate to. It is due to
a combination of being the biggest economy, having the largest tech industry
and research universities, and the "American Dream" being sold in the media.

Objectively, I would rate Canada and Australia as being more favorable
destinations for most potential immigrants. But I must admit that ultimately I
chose the US as well. But my reasons were slightly different, I fell in love
with the national parks, the interstate highways, and the US constitution
(especially the 1st, 2nd, and the 4th amendments).

~~~
dboreham
Also: In-n-out Burger.

------
qaq
I am always confused by all the it hurts job market for local candidates thing
as it relates to tech jobs. There is huge amount of unfilled positions. The
company I am at has many hundreds of open positions that they can not fill
with qualified people regardless of their visa/citizenship and I am pretty
sure this is not a unique situation. The pay rate is also same regardless of
visa status to the best of my knowledge.

~~~
s73ver
But what's your pay rate relative to other tech companies?

I have to ask, every time someone says they have lots of open positions and
says they can't find qualified people: Why would someone want to come work at
your company? I do not ask this to be snarky or mean, I sincerely ask. Because
you need to know the answer to that question, and know it in the context of
there being other companies around that probably also provide the things that
you're going to say.

~~~
qaq
I am not the owner I am just a dev, I think glassdoor puts an avg for Senior
in 130 +/\- range (north VA) which seems to be +/\- right especially
considering they are flexible about remote work, there is also stock signup
bonus which prob varies. To my knowledge the pay rate is not tied to visa
status the work is pretty cool. I have no clue whar others have to do with
this my comment was about people complaining they can not get a job because of
H1Bs.

------
andreasklinger
Imo a easy solution - unless i am mistaken - please explain me where i am
wrong:

Make it simple for H1B holder to switch jobs[1]

Wouldn't this lead to non-locked in H1B holders acting naturally on the market
=> being not more interesting that comparably expensive locals => skillset
decides

[1]: i know that you can transfer a H1B visa and it's not crazy complicated -
but thinking even easier than that.

------
gumby
H-1s are hard to bring in if you're a startup. On one hand, that's as it
should be (the country is insane not to give preference to locals) but on the
other hand is painful (since not everybody locally has the needed skills).

And it's impossible if you have non-tech requirements (like the native foreign
language teachers we tried to bring in when I was on the school board -- the
allotment ran out in October yet teachers are recruited in march-may to start
in August).

With emotions so high it's hard to say "the big consultancies are abusing /
destroying H-1" without people thinking you're saying either "H-1 is bad for
America" or "I'm a troglodyte who hates H-1". H-1 is pretty good for all
concerned, actually, if you follow the rules.

Note (not really a disclaimer): despite saying, which I believe, that the big
consultancies are abusing H-1, I have friends at Infosys, Tata, Birla etc.

------
revanth1108
Well, I am currently on F1 student visa. I have done my internship at
Blackberry as a Security R&D Intern I was offered a full time position for
Information Security Analyst. But I couldn't get that offered position because
I don't have a GC or Citizen ship. Recently, I have interviewed for Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory for a CSE1 role The duration of the role is for a
year. I am with in my opt. Unfortunately, I was rejected after giving the
onsite Interview. I guess that is because of my visa status. I strongly
believe that there should be a reform in the H1B visa rules. The priority
should be given to American citizens then for GC then for students who
graduated from US Universities. I believe if they implemented this then there
won't be any H1 abuse by Indian corporations.

~~~
chrisper
I am on F1 as well and I can agree that finding a job is hard on that visa.
But I don't care anymore since I am leaving soon anyway :)

------
calvinbhai
Looks like an article written in haste. Doesn't seem to be making any point.

H-1b recipients will be mostly Indian because India born immigrants have no
option of diversity lottery or direct F1 to EAD (through a green card
application thats started well before graduating).

------
taurussai
If the government decides that the companies can hire people with the highest
skill or the highest pay, it will be very hard for startups to hire H1Bs (or
founders to get H1B visas). If a new system is being put into place hopefully
it takes into consideration factors such as size of company, location/cost of
living etc

~~~
walshemj
Why should start-ups get a free ride and tax payer subsidized employees.

If a start-up isn't economic without underpaying then it does not deserve to
exist and is wasting capital.

------
havetocharge
My belief, that US is a nation that benefits from immigration stops the day
that I receive my immigration status.

------
arwhatever
Why not just index H-1B allotments according to unemployment rate + career
field + geographic region?

------
nunez
Wouldn't new regulations defining classes of applicants and the maximum number
of H1-B applications they can submit address this?

------
AdamN
The whole visa system should be abolished and anybody that can afford a plane
ticket should be allowed to live and work in the US.

------
known
Inevitable since [https://qz.com/889524](https://qz.com/889524)

------
oh_sigh
Dang, why does the title lack the 'do' that the article title has? The do is
an important word.

------
urbanxs
As a european there is almost 0 chance of going In the us. H1B go to indians,
low paid jobs to mexicans. I dont mind either of them, but allowing europeans
in would be less discriminatory.

~~~
praneshp
I can get why Americans are pissed off by H1Bs going to Indians. Why are you
pissed off? You go through the same lottery process as Indians, no?

I would think that there is a percentage of the spots going to people who put
in multiple applications, but that affects everyone equally (and that sort of
fraud is an equal opportunity employer).

~~~
egourlao
The applications aren't made by people, but by companies willing to employ a
foreign worker. To apply for an H-1B visa, you must have a company ready to
employ you and to sponsor you.

Indian outsourcing companies flood the applications with Indian nationals,
because there is an enormous demand in India (AFAIK). On the other side,
Europeans usually don't apply to outsourcing companies, but to tech companies
themselves - for whom it is expensive and uncertain (will they get a visa? in
how much time?) to make an offer to an European worker. So visas don't exactly
go to Indians because they're Indian, they go to Indians because they benefit
from (but also, are victim of) the outsourcing companies system - whereas an
European worker has to convince an employer to go through the uncertain visa
process to hire him/her.

Most tech folks I know over here pretty much gave up on getting hired in the
US until things quiet down, or change in their favour - especially since the
express lane system was shut down.

------
s73ver
I can't say I'll be sad seeing these places have a harder time getting H-1B
visas. As long as those companies that do actually need top talent and are
willing to pay for it can get them, sounds like everything will be fine.

------
moultano
Appending the subtitle of the article ("That is not a good argument against
them") to the title would more accurately describe it.

~~~
anqh4
I don't see how changing the title from a fact to a fact + an opinion would
make it more accurate

~~~
cfraenkel
Particularly when the body of the article also makes no attempt to argue for
them either. The best it can muster is a weak recommendation to end the rule
where H1B's are forced to stay with the sponsoring company.

