
Uber receives more foreign-worker visas as it lays off hundreds of employees - masonic
https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/10/17/h-1b-uber-snatches-up-more-foreign-worker-visas-as-it-lays-off-hundreds-of-employees/
======
vsskanth
These H1Bs might be for renewal of 3 yr extensions, transfer from another
employer or a first time H1B selected through lottery. The article doesn't
mention the spread. Usually you have to dig deeper into USCIS data to
differentiate. Since Indians have to be on H1B forever, it will look like a
company is filing more H1Bs every year while in reality they are just
maintaining visa status for their existing employees.

There are staffing and consulting service companies out there that exploit
H1Bs for profit but I don't believe uber is one of them or the type that uses
H1 to save money.

~~~
dmode
You are 100% accurate. This publication has no idea how visas work but
constantly publishes click bait article to trigger the outrage machine

~~~
gundmc
Can you share some of your examples of Mercury News "publishing click bait
articles to trigger the outrage machine"?

I've found them to be pretty even-kiltered overall, but am always happy to
reevaluate my impression.

~~~
akhosravian
Uber snatches up more foreign-worker visas as it lays off hundreds of
employees

------
arugulum
Reposting my quick immigration quiz:

1\. An international student graduates at the top of their class in Stanford
in CS, and goes to work for a tech company. What visa do they use?

The correct answer is F1 (OPT) for one year, with OPT STEM extension for 2
extra years, while they apply for H-1B. If they weren't a STEM major,
regardless of their actual role, they have a single year to apply for H-1B,
with a ~30% chance of success, before being asked to leave the country.
Regardless of their qualifications.

2\. Instead of going to a tech company, they work for a year in a tech firm,
then go to MIT for CS grad school. They perform excellently, having many
publications under their name, doing several industry internships at
Microsoft/Google labs. They then get accepted to a tenure track Assistant
Professor position at Columbia. What visa do they apply for?

Still H-1B.

I say this because I think most Americans don't have a good idea of how widely
H-1B applies. To repeat the caricature of "H-1Bs" being majority underpaid
indentured slaves whose employers manipulate salary paperwork while hanging
the threat of revoking their visa sponsorship every other week is laughable,
if not downright insulting.

~~~
jmpman
That’s why H1Bs need to be bid on, and the generated revenue should go to fund
STEM scholarships for US citizens.

~~~
rubyn00bie
That would be quite literally horrible for everyone involved.

The price would skyrocket and the market would be completely out of balance...
this would then have at least two horrible effects:

1\. The top 500 corporations become gatekeepers to citizenship, as they outbid
_everyone_ else for the H1-Bs, they then use their stash of H1-Bs to drive the
price of wages down for US citizens...

E.g. "A doctor wants YOUR job, brah. Are you a doctor? NO. I only pay doctors
the TOP SALARY. Take your $[shit wage] or leave it"

2\. It would force highly-skilled people who have immigrated here, learned
from our best systems, integrated into our communities and live, to be
completely, mind-boggling enslaved by their corporate overlords... OR give up
the lives and loves they've built, take all the knowledge they've gotten, and
GTFO.

E.g. "Well if you don't show up 7 days a week for a menial job, FRIEND, it'll
effect your review and you could lose citizenship if you lose your job. NO ONE
ELSE WILL HIRE YOU."

I could not imagine a worse system if I tried.

~~~
jmpman
If the H1Bs are bid up by the Fortune 500 companies, then the US citizens will
be cheaper in comparison. It will ensure that the BEST from around the world
are given a chance in the US, not entry level IT workers.

As for the indentured slave mentality, I’ve seen that today, even in companies
where it’s against policy for the H1B to work more than 40 hours a week.

As a US Citizen, I can’t imagine a better system. Our underprivileged citizens
will be provided a subsidized education and when they graduate, they will be
cheaper to employ than the H1Bs.

~~~
jogjayr
> It will ensure that the BEST from around the world are given a chance in the
> US

There's already a visa for that - it's called the O visa.[1] The H-1B is for
specialty occupations.[2]

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_visa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_visa)

2\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa)

~~~
jmpman
From earlier in the thread, someone pointed out that graduates from elite
colleges are also ultimately competing for H1B slots against Infosys type body
shop IT people. There’s no reason American citizens can’t perform the body
shop type IT work.

What’s worse is that when the recession hits, the H1B will still be employed
while US citizens will be looking for jobs. The H1B system doesn’t get rid of
H1Bs fast enough when the economy tanks. Maybe the bid price should include a
multiple that is reindexed each year based upon the US Citizen unemployment in
that field. Example - Initial bid is $50k/year. The H1B is hired, and for two
years, the employer pays $50k, until in the third year, when the recession
hit, and software developer unemployment rises to 8%, then the tax increases
to 75k, causing the employer to get rid of their H1B and to hire a US citizen.

~~~
dmode
No company will hire a person, even a Nobel laureate if they have to pay 50k
in taxes for that person. Do you understand global mobility? That person will
simply be hired in Canada or Europe. Then there will be a ripple effect as
there will be no labor market for immigrants, naturally there won’t be a
higher education market for international students, and the US won’t have a
thriving labor market. Which means companies have to expand in countries with
an accessible labor market

~~~
jmpman
A company would pay $50k in a heartbeat for a Nobel laureate. Companies are
already regularly paying $75k for an H1B with a questionable degree straight
from India. Currently, does the H1B get all $75k? Not if hired through a body
shop like Infosys/TCS. You can think of those body shops as a tax. Why would
companies care if the tax is going to the US Government or Infosys/TCS?

$50k is just an example. This tax would be bid on. If a software engineer is
really needed, then their employee could bid a large amount, say $50K, and
likely be certain to obtain an H1B. If another engineer’s skill is less in
demand, maybe the company bids $5k.

Is a tax going to shift the mobility? How much are engineers making in India?
(US salary - Indians Salary) = Tax opportunity. Or (US Salary - Canadian
Salary) = Tax opportunity. In either of those cases, that Tax opportunity is
quite large.

By having a bidding process for the H1B, there’s a quantifiable signal for US
Citizens to see and for politicians to act upon. It’s no longer just
Zuckerberg and Satya endlessly pushing for greater H1B quotas, as the
politicians would be trying to maximize tax revenue to pay for their “free”
college.

Additionally, the US will no longer be getting new engineers with questionable
skills to tackle a SQL migration project, we will he getting all the MIT
graduates who are currently leaving for Canada and Europe. We will be getting
all the graduates from all the elite schools. And those software quality jobs
currently being filled by the least skilled new engineers? Within 4 years,
there will be a flood of domestic STEM graduates to fill those jobs.

------
taurath
Something that is bugging me about my company - we have a hard time hiring
people, because we’re almost but not quite competitive on pay. And we see H1B
notices go up in the boardroom. I can’t help but think if we were better
competitive on pay we would not have a problem hiring - were not doing the
most complicated thing in the world.

~~~
overcast
If you're not doing the most complicated thing in the world, why would they
have to be competitive with pay?

~~~
hysan
Well depends on who you are targeting. The messaging from most companies is
that they want the best of the best even from those who aren't doing the most
complicated things in the world. If you target that population of developers,
be prepared to also pay at the same level. Otherwise, lower the bar and be
willing to accept that the only people you'll be able to hire and retain are
those that aren't at the very top of your candidate list. It's that level of
self-reflection and nuance that is often missing from management at these
companies.

------
vzaliva
The assumption that they are hiring H1B employees to save money does not hold
the water. It is a condition of H1B visa approval for the company to offer a
competitive wage. The company must advertise a similar position and offer an
H1B employee a salary in the market range.

As someone who was on H1B once myself, I find articles like this as a
disturbing example of anti-immigration hysteria which is quite common in
current political climate in the US. "Indians/Mexicans are coming for your
jobs!" For people who really think this is the case, I suggest comparing size
of the US job market and H1B visa cap. The amount of H1B holder is relatively
small.

As someone who lives in the Bay Area, I know the demand for qualified
engineers and I am pretty sure all the good engineers of 300 people they laid
of will be snatched by other companies immediately.

~~~
amiga_500
People on visas cannot get raises. And they can't refuse to work late.

~~~
dmode
Do you have references to back this up ? Or did you just make it up ?

~~~
2OEH8eoCRo0
No raises because many cannot afford to quit and lose the visa and be
extradited. Can't refuse to work late or they can be fired and lose the visa
and be extradited.

~~~
dmode
Why would anyone be extradited ? Did they violate some international law ?

~~~
Frost1x
OP likely meant deported due to lapse of valid citizenship status, not
extradited.

The spirit of what was stated is correct. H-1B workers have very low
employment mobility and employers know and leverage this as much as they can.

~~~
dmode
Completely incorrect. H1 employees in SV have a lot of mobility as there are
hundreds of thousands of jobs available that sponsor your visa. And your visa
can be transferred under 15 days. You don’t even have to quit your previous
employer before your approval in place. SV companies have 20-40% attrition
rate and a large portion of that is H1 employees moving around

------
triceratops
They offer one likely non-sinister explanation right in the article:

“The software engineer market, it’s so saturated with H-1Bs that some of the
people who are laid off are almost inevitably H-1Bs and some of the people
that are being hired are inevitably H-1Bs,” Bier said. “I don’t read into it
anything like this is obviously job displacement.”

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
That whole "it doesn't look like job replacement" is completely ludicrous,
because math.

H-1B exists _solely_ because industry says they can't find needed talent. If
you've just had a huge number of layoffs of said talent, you should be getting
0 H-1Bs.

~~~
dmode
There is no legal requirement like that. H1 has a simple rule - that you
should have a degree and work on a field that USCIS considers specialized.
Comp engineering is one of them

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
I'm not talking about any legal requirement. Two things:

1\. I'm simply refuting the ludicrous-on-its-face idea that if you _just_ laid
off hundreds of highly paid technical employees, that then hiring double the
amount of H-1B's the following year, claiming you are not "displacing any
American workers" is total BS.

2\. Regardless of the letter of the law, certainly the _political_
justification of why the US should have the H-1B program at all, which is
argued by all the SV lobbying groups, is that the US needs workers in
specialized fields because there aren't enough US workers.

Also, FWIW, I believe H-1B is a horrible program because it really only
benefits the companies while basically allowing the visa holders to be treated
like slaves. I'd be much more in favor of a simple "skilled occupations"
global lottery that _wasn 't_ tied to any specific employer, with stronger
protections to ensure visa holders aren't underpaid.

~~~
dmode
First of all, we need to get facts correct. They didn't lay off one year and
increase H1b the next year. They had a total approval of 299 visas in 2019.
Which means, some of them were approved in Jan and others may have been
approved in October. The article deliberately obfuscates that to generate
clicks.

Second, let's take a hypothetical situation. Let's Uber has a US citizen who
is a poor performer, and a H1 employee who is a rock star. Let's say both make
$300K. Are you suggesting that Uber should layoff the rockstar first simply
based on national origin ?

------
dmode
Dumbest headline ever. I sincerely wish people would stop voting this
clickbait rag Mercury News in Hacker News. It says Uber received 299 approvals
for the year. First, this is a miniscule number. Second, H1b approval is
rolling. So I assume they would have gotten these approvals throughout the
year. But the article, with its ignorance goes on to claim that it is unclear
when they will start. That makes no sense. Finally, they don’t make any
mention of comp.Pretty sure these are at least >$200k per position

~~~
djsumdog
> Uber received 299 approvals for the year. First, this is a miniscule number.

That is NOT a small number. They obviously won't be able to fill all of them,
but 300 people is larger than the entire IT departments of some relatively
large tech companies I've worked for. I realize Uber is global and there is a
lot of infrastructure there, but I still don't see how this is a small number
at all.

~~~
belltaco
It also counts extensions. Some of those could be someone who got their first
visa in 2009 when Uber started and is still going through extensions because
of the country based limits on green cards that disadvantage people born in
large countries.

------
aSplash0fDerp
With the number of CS degrees produced from China and India alone each year,
the evolution of slave labor is going to make the H-1B horror stories from the
90's to the present sound like fairy tales.

~~~
bruceb
Quantity doesn't equal quality.

~~~
Bubbadoo
Both, the Indian and Chinese universities emphasize rote learning over problem
solving. Essentially, the memorize the subject matter.

------
ilaksh
It seems like the issue is that this is just a systemic abuse, so it's easy to
say "everyone else is doing it".

I have a feeling the reason it is tolerated is because some people are
genuinely uncertain about what the right thing to do is. In other words, there
are business people in government who are saying to themselves, "well, if
foreign workers are willing to do the same jobs for less money in exchange for
being able to move to a wealthy country, who are we to stop them?"

So I think that side of it needs to be out in the open because I have a
feeling a lot of people feel very strongly the other way. And just leaving it
as a sort of lax policy without discussion is probably not going to be ideal
for anyone.

------
rshnotsecure
I recently worked at a major retailer who has offices in the Bay Area.

Part of the role involved migrating the ERP and ATS system, which had
employees, salary, details etc.

In the building I was in, which had incredible developers btw some of the best
I’ve ever seen (and despite working on a legacy system!)...209 out of 209 were
H1-B’s. Our consulting team at the time was about 20, and 19/20 of the team
were H1-B’s.

The really sad part about it was as we were leaving, they were establishing a
training program for junior H1-B’s with liberal arts degrees to learn
programming. I have no idea how they got the visa licenses for those folks.

At the same time, they were the best people I ever worked with. But it’s not a
sustainable way to run an economy.

~~~
s_Hogg
I thought the H-1B was supposed to be a lottery, how is any company having
this much "good fortune"?

~~~
giovannibonetti
Well, the article mentions how many visas were approved, not how many were
requested. Maybe there were many more that were requested, so that even with
the lottery they got a huge number of accepted requests.

~~~
semerda
Right, and here’s the dirty part of this process... some applications are
under hiring agencies that later push those approved to the likes of Uber who
might have maxed out their own allocations.

~~~
dmode
This is extraordinarily wrong. There are no allocations. Lottery only happens
for first time H1 workers. But the number represented here includes first
times, renewals, transfers. etc. There is no concept of allocations

------
tyingq
Specialization is crazy rampant these days. I can't, for example, afford most
of our "cloud architect" or "security architect" candidates. Most of them are
asking for bigger numbers than I make, two levels above. Maybe time to ask for
a raise? :)

~~~
bsder
> I can't, for example, afford most of our "cloud architect" or "security
> architect" candidates.

First, you can generally read "architect" as "waste of oxygen" on most
software resumes. I have known 4 people who were _actually_ good "architects",
and none of them put it on their resume.

Second, perhaps you should _grow_ those people in house, hmmmm?

Third, be prepared for those people to leave when they get better than the
"architects" you are seeing.

> Maybe time to ask for a raise?

Probably. But if you're one of the principals in a startup, you understand
silly things like "cashflow" and "bankruptcy".

~~~
tyingq
I totally get your view, but stand by my team. "Architect" deserves the
skeptisicm, but if you're doing the right thing, it does add a ton of value. I
concede that there are "architecture orgs" that drain more value than they
add. Basically, we are "city planners", which is needed, and useful if done
the right way.

------
democracy
Of course, it is money saving and also visa people are "yes men" which is good
for a corporation. My generous Amazon offer had 1 day notification if they
fire me, 10 days to leave the country and i will have to pay back all their
expenses (rellocation etc).

------
confidantlake
There are so many people graduating college in cs that are spending more than
year without being able to job in the best economy in living memory. The idea
that we need h1bs is ludicrous. They are brought in to suppress wages and for
companies to able to get away with poor working conditions.

------
throwaway_45
Just tax the employer 1x on H1b workers salary. If employee gets 100k then
government gets a 100k. That will probably solve the h1b problem quickly. If
employer truly believes this person is that valuable they will have no problem
paying the tax.

~~~
dmode
Yeah, that would nicely solve the problem by moving even more jobs to another
country.

------
throwaway-asdhj
Looking at the numbers they give, they're probably talking about base pay
without RSUs. Uber, like most tech companies, pays senior engineers
proportionally higher quantities of stock than junior engineers, so they can
fire low performers before their vesting cliff without losing as much money.
The total pay for L5s on visas and for L5s in general is 50/50 cash and RSUs,
while L3s are more like 30/70.

It's surprising that Ron Hira is questioning why the pay packages are close
together. If he's studying the use of tech H1Bs he should know that their
actual income will be much higher than the number written on the LCA.

------
tempsy
H1Bs are basically modern day wage slaves.

Anyone who thinks the technical interview process is based on merit/technical
proficiency alone needs a very big wake up call.

~~~
tziki
H1B salaries must be at least as high as the average salary for that
profession in the area. How is above average salary 'wage slavery'?

~~~
tempsy
No...usually they fall in the bottom quartile as far as total compensation
goes. That is exactly why companies like hiring them.

The "slave" part of it is that they are totally dependent on the company in
the sense that they will be kicked out of the country if they don't follow
orders, which usually means being overworked and underpaid.

~~~
tziki
>No...usually they fall in the bottom quartile as far as total compensation
goes.

That's simply not true. I suggest you familiarize yourself with H1B more.

~~~
tempsy
Really? It is well-known that H1Bs earn less because they have zero leverage
when it comes to negotiating.

Why else would Uber, and other tech firms, like hiring them?

~~~
tziki
I don't think you're listening. It's the law that companies hiring H1B workers
must pay at least the average wage of the profession in the area. What are the
sources on your claim that the companies are breaking that law?

~~~
tempsy
The average wage of a SWE in an area could be the bottom decile of wages at a
“big tech” co like Uber. That’s what I’m saying.

~~~
tziki
You're still not providing any sources.

------
emufeshie
There are two different things at play here. Uber firing people and Uber
hiring people on H1b. Both are extremely common practices in all big
companies. Unless Uber fired local employees and hired H1bs to replace them
for lower pay, I don't see an issue here.

------
thallavajhula
This is a spammy website. Why is this on the front page of HN?!

------
semerda
Clever & greedy strategy. H1Bs are often paid a lower salary with 0 stock
options. H1Bs are brainwashed into thinking this is their breakout. Grass is
greener nonsense. Locked in by H1B from jumping ship. Even if a company agrees
to a Green Card they often tie the employee for few more years through payback
of fees should they exit early. At will employment can’t exempt one from this.
It’s a dirty process and most stay quiet in fear of having their visa
terminated.

~~~
baby
0 stocks? Source?

~~~
rockinghigh
They made it up. I got stock options and RSUs at multiple companies while on
H1B. It may happen but it’s not the norm.

------
Havoc
All this is just noise.

Globalized world. You can throw some visa restrictions in the path of that
tornado but it won't stop it. Profit seeking companies will always gravitate
towards optimizing quality per unit of cost.

The solution isn't more complex regulation...the solution is become more
competitive globally. It's the only way to win - anything else...regulations,
rules, red tape...people with incentive will find a way to circumvent.

~~~
ThomPete
Blue collar workers cant be more competitive than the cost of living supports.

------
bsder
Really, we need a general rule of "Lay people off and your access to H1-B's is
blocked for 5 years." You get to keep the H1-B's you have, but no more.

~~~
vinay427
Good luck retraining people from some arbitrary department to fill the role of
a PhD researcher, for example, on very short notice. Workers have specific
qualifications so they are not freely transferrable.

~~~
bsder
Tough. If you really need an H1-B, then apparently you had best not lay off
those people, hmmmm?

The calculation is up to the people in charge. Suspending H1-Bs simply tips
the cost benefit ratio.

~~~
vinay427
I was under the impression that your idea would more naturally fix the problem
of some H1B holders being underpaid and preferred over citizens/PRs. It seems
like you actually meant it to be punitive targeting any company that uses
H1Bs.

~~~
bsder
It's a bit of both--frontend and backend.

Part of it is do you _REALLY_ need that H1-B in preference to a domestic
worker since any layoff you incur will block your access to that pipeline for
the next (n) years. That is a calculation at hiring--aka frontend.

Then, once you _have_ employed an H1-B, you're going to have some reticence to
pull the layoff lever as that will now block your H1-B pipeline. That is a
calculation at layoff--aka backend.

If your H1-B's are actually, genuinely valuable, the calculations are a
business decision. If, however, you are using H1-B's to displace workers and
then lay them off, that's going to grind to a halt really quickly.

------
valley-green
Ah so this is why I can’t find work as a SWE

