[HN Gopher] Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa ...
___________________________________________________________________
Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program
requiring higher pay
Author : grej
Score : 229 points
Date : 2020-10-06 21:13 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| x87678r wrote:
| > Under the changes, an applicant must have a college degree in
| the specific field in which he or she is looking to work. A
| software developer, for example, wouldn't be awarded an H-1B visa
| if that person has a degree in electrical engineering.
|
| As an EE, that is rough.
| fizwhiz wrote:
| Yikes. I would have been unemployed by that measure because I
| work as a SWE without a CS degree.
| ketzo wrote:
| You and many others. My first mentor was a cognitive science
| major, and she was the person every developer on the team
| went to for help.
|
| This is one of those policy decisions that I guess might
| sound reasonable on the outside, but has absolutely no
| bearing on reality.
| throwaway49872 wrote:
| This is deeply ironic given that an number of the best software
| engineers I know have EE degrees.
| Will_Do wrote:
| > Under the new rule, the required wage level for entry-level
| workers would rise to the 45th percentile of their profession's
| distribution, from the current requirement of the 17th
| percentile. The requirement for the highest-skilled workers would
| rise to the 95th percentile, from the 67th percentile.
|
| This is pretty abstract and probably the most important detail.
| How much would a software engineer have to make to qualify? I'd
| figure it'd have to be at ~200k if it's 95th percentile. A number
| high enough and it truly would be for only highly skilled, hard
| to find software talent, rather than just labor cost cutting.
| Does anyone have concrete numbers?
| jedberg wrote:
| Credit where credit is due, this is a good move. The H1B program
| has been abused for a long time. It sounds like these changes
| should help make it too expensive for the fraudulent abuse to
| continue.
| Bukhmanizer wrote:
| I hit the paywall, so I can't tell whether it's explained in
| the article, but are they planning on fixing other H1B related
| issues?
|
| It's great if the program is abused less, but there are a ton
| of other problems with the work visa programs in the US.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| This is a great move. The current H1B program made no sense at
| all.
|
| If I wanted to hire: A smart graduate from EPFL, Polytechnique
| or ETH Zurich who interned at CERN and has contributed to the
| Linux kernel for a software engineering job at a unicorn
| startup or
|
| A grad from a second tier "technical college" in India with a
| visa refusal rate of ~90% for a job doing manual UI testing and
| QA for a body shop
|
| my only path forward is H1. They'll both be listed as "computer
| related occupations" and apply for the same visa in the same
| quota. Does that makes any sense to anyone?
| dmode wrote:
| The changes has nothing to do with the problem you are trying
| to address
| tlear wrote:
| In the new wage rules one will not be cost effective at
| all. It changes everything
| dmode wrote:
| That's not true at all. The engineer from India will
| simply be re-classified to L1 with a reduced wage
| requirement. While the grad student will require a much
| higher wage requirement. In the end it will actually turn
| out worse for someone trying to hire the engineer from
| Switzerland
| ianmobbs wrote:
| The changes described in the article do not change your
| hypothetical whatsoever.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| It does indirectly.
|
| Hiring for the later will hopefully cease to be cost
| effective. But the former should still be worth it.
| ianmobbs wrote:
| Why do you care whether or not it's cost effective to
| hire a foreign UI tester? That has zero correlation with
| whether or not its cost effective to hire someone with
| experience at CERN. Your hypothetical lists 2 different
| profiles that would be hired for vastly different jobs,
| and it seems like you only care that one of them is
| fucked over - is it just a strawman for racism? Can you
| point to any actual examples of CERN interns being passed
| over in favor of foreign UI testers?
| api wrote:
| Fair trade policy has consistently been the _one thing_ on
| which I agree with the Trump presidency.
|
| It hasn't been enough to outweigh all the other absolutely
| horrible stuff, but it is one thing.
|
| I am concerned that Biden will return us to the old days of
| "free" trade that allows corporations to import totalitarianism
| via near-slave or even actual slave (see Uyghur prisoners and
| forced labor) wage arbitrage to crush domestic wages and
| liquidate the middle class. This isn't even getting into the
| export of environmental destruction ("out of sight out of
| mind") or the export of American technological expertise to
| unfriendly totalitarian states.
|
| H1B programs can be shady this way too. It's not as shady as
| actual slave labor or near-slave sweatshops, but there is
| certainly a serious power imbalance when your employer can pay
| you sub-standard wages and threaten to cause you to be deported
| if you don't keep your head down.
| ponker wrote:
| If he had spent four years on trade instead of being a moron
| on Twitter I might be voting for him this month.
| jedberg wrote:
| > I am concerned that Biden will return us to the old days of
| "free" trade
|
| Based on his latest rhetoric, he seems to have adopted
| Sanders's views on trade, which is mostly protectionist.
| perfectbeeing wrote:
| This undecided voter would appreciate the gesture of you
| sharing with me some examples of the "other absolutely
| horrible stuff".
| nrmitchi wrote:
| I'll give you that, but it seems like a much simpler solution
| would have just been improving the flexibility for an H1B
| worker to be allowed to work at any employer for the term of
| their status.
|
| If an employer used an H1B in order to hire a foreign worker
| and then under pay them, the worker would just get another job
| that pays market rate, without the work status concern. Without
| the artificial control over the employee, H1B fraud, in this
| manner, wouldn't be worth it.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > under pay them, the worker would just get another job that
| pays market rate
|
| Then the employer would go back to the H1B well, underpay
| another worker for 6 months until the worker bailed, go back
| to the well, lather, rinse, repeat.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| Applications for an H1B open up in April, IIRC are accepted
| for a short period of time, and are not actually granted
| until October.
|
| That is 6 months, plus a couple thousand dollars minimum,
| to try to get an H1B status for someone you want to hire.
|
| If an employer is knowingly expecting the person they hire
| to bail after 6 months, they won't go through the process.
| systematical wrote:
| Six months of development is barely useful for most
| companies. It can take 3 months before a developer is
| reasonably efficient. Learning the codebase, culture, and
| business logic takes time in most cases.
| jzymbaluk wrote:
| This is right. The answer that's best for the economy is to
| allow more immigration, not less (especially skilled
| immigration). This move will just make it more dificult for
| the average company to sponsor H1B workers
| booleandilemma wrote:
| Serious question: wouldn't that be leaving less jobs open
| for Americans?
|
| As an American myself, I want to see my fellow Americans
| getting good jobs over people from other countries.
| addicted wrote:
| Those jobs will flee the US. What has happened over the
| last few years is that many of those jobs have flown to
| Canada. And that's just with talking about making things
| slightly difficult, and not succeeding in actually
| changing rules.
|
| I don't understand how people can go through this
| pandemic, where at least 50% of the people on this site
| are of the view that we can all work from wherever we
| want all time, and think that a company who is willing to
| pay 90k to hire somebody in the US, will not be willing
| to pay half that to hire that same person in Bangalore or
| Kiev instead.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| I'm not an American, but I fully understand your point.
|
| Let me provide some background. If you already know this,
| my apologies.
|
| The process of getting an H1B is not the employer picking
| up the phone and ordering "1 H1B for delivery please".
|
| It involves applying at the beginning of April, being
| entered into a lottery, and you find out if you "won"
| (and your application is looked at) around the end of
| March. IIRC it is ~30% that your application is even
| looked at.
|
| At this point, you're out legal and processing fees (at
| least a couple thousand), and likely more if USCIS wants
| more evidence that the position qualifies, or that the
| individual being sponsored is eligible. As a side note,
| this is often why job descriptions have degree
| requirements and such, even if they will hire people
| without a degree. If a similar job at the same company
| doesn't "need" a degree, it will be much more difficult
| to get a work status for, even if the requirement bar is
| actually quite high.
|
| After this, assuming you actually get your status, you
| don't "get" it until the beginning of October.
|
| It's now cost your employer 6 months of lead time, a
| legal process, thousands of dollars, and uncertainty
| throughout to know if they even _could_ hire someone.
|
| It is not _easy_ to get an H1B.
|
| If you have 2 equally qualified people, who will make the
| same amount of money (which is what market rates are, see
| my initial suggestion above), then any reasonable
| employer is going to go with the candidate that they can
| hire the next week, rather than going through the H1B
| process.
| claudeganon wrote:
| > then any reasonable employer is going to go with the
| candidate that they can hire the next week, rather than
| going through the H1B process.
|
| Except in industries that have high turnover, like
| technology and fashion. There, H1Bs are abused by
| companies who don't want to compete for talent at market
| rates and instead can lock in foreign workers. It makes
| more sense to hire the foreign worker specifically
| because they can prevent them from leaving. Illegal
| threats and intimidation of H1B workers is more common
| than you think.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| You're right. My initial comment that spawned this thread
| addressed exactly this. I'm copying it here for
| reference, because it is pretty high up the thread at
| this point:
|
| """
|
| I'll give you that, but it seems like a much simpler
| solution would have just been improving the flexibility
| for an H1B worker to be allowed to work at any employer
| for the term of their status.
|
| If an employer used an H1B in order to hire a foreign
| worker and then under pay them, the worker would just get
| another job that pays market rate, without the work
| status concern. Without the artificial control over the
| employee, H1B fraud, in this manner, wouldn't be worth
| it.
|
| """
| addicted wrote:
| If that is the case isn't the simple solution to
| eliminate the mechanisms that allow employers to threaten
| the employees instead of increasing the burden on the
| employee and therefore the power the employer has on
| them?
|
| Stop tying the H1B visa to an employer, and the entire
| basis of fraud that you have outlined disappears.
| 4763382973 wrote:
| Low skill immigration hurts the poor. When economists talk
| about it having a neutral impact they are referring to 4-5
| year time scales which is different from having zero
| consequences. Most poor people are not in a comfortable
| enough position for it to be ethical to tell them "just
| deal with it" without offering some kind of support.
| dartdartdart wrote:
| I agree, American is built on the hard work of immigrants.
| We need to allow more immigrants, especially highly skilled
| workers
| mc32 wrote:
| Why not make companies sponsor underprivileged kids who
| need the opportunity just as much but don't get as much
| consideration?
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| Start a company and see how much it costs to sponsor some
| uneducated kid.
|
| You have good intentions towards the kids, but some
| communist intentions towards business owners. Let them
| decide how to spend their money. It's their money.
| acituan wrote:
| Because a good chunk of immigrants _are_ underpriviliged
| kids of the world, when you compare the GDP levels of
| their home countries to the US.
|
| That and US doesn't need to pay a dime for them
| developing their skills while getting to skim the cream
| of the crop.
| [deleted]
| rbultje wrote:
| Because educating underprivileged kids takes up to 20
| years(school, college, potential post-grad studies),
| whereas the H1B worker can start immediately. H1B workers
| also typically have several years experience in the
| specific position where they're being considered. You
| need both.
| mc32 wrote:
| Some H1Bs are talented, many, many copy paste.
|
| Yes it takes years to develop talent. It's not easy. But
| these are the same companies who throw money to the wind
| for the purpose of empty virtue signaling and making some
| connected politicos happy. Why not devote that money to
| real causes that actually provide hope for kids rather
| than fill the pockets of people who know how to shake
| corps down?
| xt00 wrote:
| An important dynamic very little talked about is the fact
| that in the majority of industrialized countries within a
| very short time populations will be decreasing. The battle
| of the future will be who can bring in a continual stream
| of people to keep the economy growing. So various countries
| will likely be battling for highly skilled workers in the
| future. So the challenge with more immigration is that you
| have to have some robust level of job creation and growth
| for the existing people in the country because otherwise
| you will have a combination of a broken system (people come
| to the country and get a job, but then their kids never get
| jobs, or they lose their job and cant get another one), or
| people will resent the people who are getting jobs, or
| people will come to the country and then end up leaving. So
| lots of bad outcomes if you don't actually set things up in
| a good way. Countries like Germany have a really strong
| system of vocational jobs, apprenticeships, career ladders,
| etc so there is a sense that the local people have some
| career trajectory, so somebody else having some level of
| success after arriving in their country is not bothering
| them. Of course that's not universally true, but definitely
| people will be resentful in a particular area if tons of
| new people show up and have tons of success while they
| struggle to get off square one..
| dkhenry wrote:
| H1B employee's can work at any employer for the term of their
| status. The employee only has to transfer the visa to the new
| employer. I have done this for multiple employee's on H1B's
| its nothing like getting a new H1B for someone on OPT or
| getting a new H1B for an oversea's employee
| jedberg wrote:
| I agree 100% with you. My view is even more extreme, I think
| we should allow anyone who passes a criminal background check
| to be able to get a work visa, with no quotas.
|
| But barring that pipe dream, this seems like a good interim
| step.
| marta_morena_29 wrote:
| And that's why you are luckily not in charge ;).
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| Wouldn't that cause a large displacement of the existing
| labor force and significantly drive down wages?
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Maybe, but I find it hard to square the idea that someone
| capable of and willing to do my job for less money
| shouldn't have the opportunity to better their prospects
| at the expense of mine.
| mrkurt wrote:
| This is the intuitive belief, but the research doesn't
| really prove that: https://www.cato.org/cato-
| journal/fall-2017/does-immigration...
|
| There are studies showing a slight decrease in wages,
| studies showing a slight increase in wages, and studies
| showing nothing conclusive. There's basically not enough
| scientific consensus to use for decision making, which
| means it's more a moral choice than an economic one.
| kbenson wrote:
| It depends. Short term and long term there's a lot of
| shuffling that would happen until it settled into an
| equilibrium (Maybe. On the other hand maybe it would be
| extremely sensitive to global issues). Those people all
| need food and housing and need to buy goods and services,
| so it's not like you're obsoleting an existing person's
| job, you're adding demand as you add supply. Whether one
| _eventually_ outweighs the other is dependent on many
| factors.
|
| That said, I would assume that short term increased
| supply would lead to a tighter job market.
| Retric wrote:
| The problem beyond simple policy choices is
| infrastructure takes time to build. If hypothetically
| 100,000 people show up in NYC tomorrow there is some
| slack that might accommodate them. But, how do you scale
| the transportation network to handle even just 1 million
| extra people in NYC? Now extend that to every other part
| of the country.
|
| Sure that seems unlikely, but when millions of people are
| willing to become undocumented immigrants, it's likely a
| more open policy would see dramatically larger influxes.
| Especially in response to local events like civil wars.
| Really, just raising the caps by say 10% every year gets
| the same result without the chaos.
| 6338363363 wrote:
| The only real change you would need is to eliminate
| birthright citizenship to avoid birth tourism. The rest
| is a CoL problem which is mostly a blue state problem
| because they like pretty policies over effective
| policies. Housing's cheap to build, oil is cheap, and
| farming is easy if you don't hate industry. The only
| thing that would need help to prevent scarcity initially
| is probably internet availability. After that just use
| some of the increased tax revenue to provide support for
| struggling citizens.
| dheera wrote:
| Personally I think there's a middle ground that's very
| important, which is that I think anyone who received a
| university degree in the US and passes the background check
| should be able to get an unrestricted work visa.
|
| The US should want to _keep_ the talent it selects and
| trains. These are people who build the economy, generate
| IP, and create jobs in the long run. Not only that, but
| these people who have spent 4+ years in the US university
| education system are extremely well-adapted to life in the
| US and will thrive at making the US a better place.
|
| (Yes there's OPT, but it's not long enough and doesn't
| provide a path to permanent residency.)
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| _anyone who received a university degree in the US_
|
| No. No. No. That would mean that anyone from the
| University of Oxford would be out until he got himself a
| masters degree from the Christian College of Lost Hope,
| AR. There are far too many paid masters degrees around
| already that serve exactly that purpose and that are good
| for no one except the useless college.
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| There is a lot of political science research that speaks to
| growing xenophobia when immigration is unleashed. I
| understand the sentiment--I'm very pro-immigration--but
| with respect to domestic policy my primary goal is
| stability and faith in government.
|
| Personally, I like how my country, Canada, does it. Points
| based system that rewards multiple factors, including
| skills, employability, and fluency in English and French. A
| large, sensible limit and a separate target for refugees.
| Some affordances for family reunification, but
| fundamentally economically and societally stable.
| runarberg wrote:
| I actually think that anyone--regardless of criminal
| background; as long as they've paid for their past crimes--
| should be allowed to live and work wherever they want, no
| quotas, no visas, no restrictions.
|
| But barring that pipe dream, yours seems like an acceptable
| interim step.
| dudul wrote:
| How would you avoid seeing 500M indians/Chinese landing in
| America on the very next day?
|
| I think there is a middle ground between the disaster that
| are immigration laws today, and full open borders.
| 14 wrote:
| Well could it be dependent on employment and housing
| availability? Are there 500m jobs that need filling? If
| not then they would not be able to apply. If there was a
| flood of people coming the housing market would see a
| shortage so again these people would need somewhere to
| stay before being granted a VISA. I don't think unlimited
| necessarily mean without restrictions.
| desert_boi wrote:
| > housing availability
|
| The real bottleneck in most American metros is more
| people than not loath density and want a garage and a
| yard. Without changing that, or finding a way to make it
| work, it's hard for the States to absorb people.
| jedberg wrote:
| You would still have to have a job lined up to get a work
| visa. So there would need to be 500M new jobs.
|
| If our economy grew by 500M new jobs, that would be
| unequivocally good. Those 500M people would be paying
| taxes, buying goods and services, paying for housing,
| etc.
| throwqrm wrote:
| [idea retracted; proposed a tax-based solution but maybe
| too distracting]
| 6338363363 wrote:
| People have a choice of where they want to go for work.
| If you tax them so hard that anywhere else is better then
| you may as well have simply not bothered pretending like
| you wanted it to be easier for them to come at all.
| wu_tang_chris wrote:
| So government slaves, basically?
| throwqrm wrote:
| That wasn't my intent but I think I might retract the
| idea.
| chii wrote:
| I am against taxation without representation. If it
| require "balancing out" (via taxation), then it wasn't a
| workable system in the first place.
| belltaco wrote:
| I guess the idea would be that the employers are taxed,
| not the employee. Also, H1Bs are already taxed all the
| regular taxes even if they return to their country before
| they could use Medicare or gather enough SS credits.
| AlexTWithBeard wrote:
| A side question: should representation without taxation
| be allowed?
| jedberg wrote:
| We actually already tax immigrants more than citizens.
| They pay the same taxes we do but don't qualify for all
| the deductions, and pay into social security and medicare
| even though they can't get those benefits.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| The best thing to do would be to treat them like local
| workers -- increased pay AND increased flexibility. This will
| help retain the best overseas workers in the US.
|
| Even better would be a _salary auction_ where US companies
| get to auction (higher and higher salaries for the best
| overseas workers.) The highest auction rates would fill the
| quota first. Overseas workers win bigtime. Companies seeking
| talent also win. Local workers win as well. Companies trying
| to underpay lose.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| The problem with this is that H1Bs are not just for
| software engineering jobs. Other professions that qualify
| are things like accountants, or health care workers.
|
| If it was a straight up "who pays the most", then the
| software industry (mostly FAANG) would end up with 80k H1Bs
| per year, and other industries would still not be able to
| hire for jobs they can't fill locally.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| The H1B system is supposed to be for shortages. In a real
| economic shortage, prices are supposed to go up. If
| salaries are not going up, it is not a real shortage.
|
| I think there is a shortage, so I'm proposing increasing
| salaries. Accounting firms are not competing with tech
| firms necessarily, they are competing with the market for
| accountants (lots of accountants go into other fields
| because they cant find work at a suitable rate.) Their
| business model should not be to underpay workers, it
| should be to pay workers high enough to attract them and
| charge customers appropriately.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| > Accounting firms are not competing with tech firms
| necessarily, they are competing with the market for
| accountants
|
| Yes, I'm not disagreeing with this. However if you put
| ALL H1Bs in a single pool, and they go to the highest
| bidder across all industries, then yes, accounting firms
| are competing with tech firms.
| gwd wrote:
| > accounting firms are competing with tech firms.
|
| I think GP's point is that that's the way it's supposed
| to be. The shortage of accountants could be due to some
| combination of:
|
| 1. There are not enough people with the physical / mental
| / psychological capability to be accountants in the US
|
| 2. People with the physical / mental / psychological
| capability to be accountants are choosing other jobs;
| perhaps because they pay better, or are more fun, or have
| better work/life balance, or whatever.
|
| #1 is a reason to steal^W import capable people from
| other countries; but I doubt very much that's the source
| of accounting's problems. It's almost certainly #2. In
| which case, if accounting firms want more accountants,
| they should make the job more attractive: pay more, have
| better hours, etc.
| chii wrote:
| but it does not need to be single pool for auctions to
| work - each category of work could have their own
| individual auction.
| jojobas wrote:
| There's no such thing as "can't fill locally", there's
| "can't fill locally right now".
|
| The sacrifice to the "right now" bit is immense, it
| destroys incentive to learn pretty much anything.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| When you're trying to hire someone, "right now" is
| important. If I want to hire a nurse, and there are no
| nurses available, I can't afford to wait 4 years for
| someone to train as a nurse to be available for me to
| hire.
|
| If I just keep offering to pay more, then yes, I will
| eventually be able to hire a nurse that was previously
| employed somewhere else, but now _that_ person needs to
| hire a nurse. No matter how many times you go around this
| circle, there are not enough nurses for everyone to hire.
|
| That is a shortage. A shortage doesn't typically come
| with the asterisk of "but if I wait long enough then
| maybe there won't be".
| jojobas wrote:
| While that is true, ignoring the fact that H1B destroys
| the feedback between shortage and supply is just as bad.
|
| Possible solutions are:
|
| -Require the hirer to contribute to scholarship funding
| in the area of work
|
| - Limit H1B to 75th percentile in salary terms.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| > - Limit H1B to 75th percentile in salary terms.
|
| Do you mean, cap the amount of money a company is allowed
| to pay someone on an H1B? The entire change of rules here
| is because companies were _not_ paying market rate.
| Requiring them to not pay market rate defeats the purpose
| here entirely.
|
| If you mean require that companies pay _at least_ the
| 75th percentile, then yes, I believe that is what the
| action that this entire thread is about is going.
|
| I would also disagree that H1B destroys the feedback loop
| of jobs being needed. I don't believe the number of H1Bs
| issued is any where near large enough to disrupt an
| entire industry.
| edoceo wrote:
| Seems like you assume a finite number of nurses. If the
| pay keeps going up, then new candidate will appear, not
| immediately but, pretty soon. Market forces and all that.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| > I can't afford to wait 4 years for someone to train as
| a nurse to be available for me to hire
|
| From my comment. Nurses require training. I did not
| assume a finite number of nurses. If I am sick and need a
| nurse, I need one _right now_. There not being enough of
| them is a shortage. It may not be a shortage in the
| future, but right now, it is.
| Lammy wrote:
| What profession doesn't require training or experience to
| do well? I wouldn't hire someone who had never built a
| house before even if I wanted one built _right now_.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| You're right, you would look outside of your country's
| talent pool to try to find someone qualified to do it for
| you.
|
| Or are you suggesting that you would wait around and be
| homeless for 4 years until someone local built up enough
| training and experience in order to build your house? If
| you're going to suggest that you would wait and "live
| somewhere else", I would point out that people who are
| trying to hire, for example, nurses, often don't have
| that luxury. If they wait 4 years, they'll be dead.
|
| No one is suggesting that high skill work status are used
| for people with no training or experience; they
| explicitly require training and/or experience in order to
| qualify. If think you're proving my point; if you need to
| hire someone right now, and there is no one available
| locally to do it right now, then there is a shortage, and
| you need to look outside of your local market.
| addicted wrote:
| So you have an auction, and you're capping the number of
| people.
|
| A hybrid monster that takes the worst of both a private
| market (heavily benefiting the richest incumbents) and
| government regulations (broad and non targeted rules).
| jsnk wrote:
| This will elevate the income of low paying H1B workers, but
| also decrease the income of average paid American workers. If
| the market has an abundance of low paying workers, the market
| overall will pay workers lower.
| reissbaker wrote:
| The higher pay seems like an overall positive change to reduce
| the prevalence of "body shops" and so that H1-Bs aren't an easy
| way for companies to lower overall pay rate. I'm not sure that
| narrowing degree qualifications is a win; high-skill
| immigration is a significant boon to America's economy, and I
| think ability to do the work, and American company willingness
| to pay above-rate salaries (legally mandated now to 95th
| percentile for the highest-skill work) ought to be enough
| signal, and having a particular degree is not as useful a
| measure at that point. I know plenty of people who are
| incredibly qualified in terms of industry experience who don't
| have advanced degrees.
|
| I've been pretty impressed with Taiwan's Gold Card work visa
| program, where you either need certain educational achievement
| qualifications, or need to be a highly-paid employee in
| specific fields -- but not both. And it's not tied to a
| specific employer, which I think helps negotiation (and thus
| also helps domestic workers, by raising labor prices). I wish
| America's immigration program worked more like that -- specific
| quibbles about what exactly the rate should be aside; Taiwan's
| is certainly too low to use for the US -- since I think
| encouraging high-skill immigration would help much more than it
| would hurt: high-skill immigrants tend to generate more jobs,
| and also tend to pay more in taxes than the services they
| receive, meaning it's a win-win where immigrants can get the
| jobs they want in the country they want to be in and Americans
| end up with more jobs available and more government services
| per (American) tax dollar spent.
| dmode wrote:
| This is not. As with anything in the Trump admin, this is not
| well thought out and just focused on election based xenophobic
| messaging. The people who can game the system, can easily do
| that. However, many people who really benefit from H1B will be
| shafted. For example, doctors and nurses in rural areas. H1
| also is a path for many engineers, doctors, and phds to enter
| the workforce. With blanket higher salary requirements, it will
| just deny a path to the job market for many international
| students graduating from Ivy league universities. Also, this
| benefits FAANGs, and if you are a startup looking to hire
| someone on H1B, forget about it.
| cactus2093 wrote:
| Genuine question, what type of fraudulent abuse are you
| referring to? I see this vaguely mentioned a lot without much
| to back it up, but I'm open to the idea that it happens.
|
| From my own anecdotal experience, I'll admit I have found the
| rules to be a little ridiculous. Company needs to post a sign
| in the office advertising the role to any Americans, wait a
| certain amount of time, and only then can offer it to an H1-B
| candidate. Of course nobody was following the spirit of those
| rules, but I wouldn't call that fraudulent abuse. These were
| companies that needed hires and had a genuinely hard time
| finding people that would pass our interviews and then accept
| our offers. We really didn't discriminate at all in the hiring
| panels between American and H1-B candidates (I think we were
| probably supposed to discriminate more than we did, and
| supposed to explicitly prefer Americans?), and it had nothing
| to do with saving money on salaries.
|
| I recognize that the Bay Area tech boom is very unusual in how
| competitive it is (was?), but H1-Bs are technical visas and
| it's often tech companies that get the blame for abusing the
| system.
| pwinnski wrote:
| The abuse I've seen most often is that companies hire H1B
| workers and then contract them out to other companies, and
| the H1B worker can't change employers, and gets to watch most
| of what their time is billed for go to the original
| contracting company which often misleads the people about
| what they'll find when they arrive.
|
| The worker ends up with very few choices, and the companies
| at which the workers are working are likely overpaying for
| what they're getting. The only one _truly_ happy is the
| "placement" company that holds the workers' contracts.
| matz1 wrote:
| I don't think this is a good move, it will encourage remote
| work/outsource more.
| koluna wrote:
| Which... can already be done today?
| matz1 wrote:
| yes but this will further encourage it.
| koluna wrote:
| If someone is keen on cost-cutting through outsourcing,
| they already don't have an incentive to bring someone in
| and pay benefits. This is a false narrative.
| matz1 wrote:
| it possible that someone keen on cost-cutting through
| outsourcing but didn't do it because it still affordable
| enough to bring someone in but now with the higher cost
| to bring someone in, they will chose to outsource
| instead.
| pdxandi wrote:
| I share your concern. It feels like this will make it harder
| for immigrants to find work and incentive outsourcing.
| notJim wrote:
| > The H1B program has been abused for a long time
|
| What's the abuse?
| IvyMike wrote:
| There's lots of articles if you google for "h1b visa abuse",
| but this will get you started:
| https://www.infoworld.com/article/3004501/proof-
| that-h-1b-vi...
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| A majority of H1B visas are currently issued to relatively
| low paying consulting firms, who are then hired by big
| enterprises in place of their more expensive technical
| employees. This isn't supposed to be legal - you're not
| allowed to hire H1B employees if an equally qualified
| American could have filled their role - but due to the
| specifics of how the program is administered you can often
| pull it off with that kind of arms-length deal.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| You're bound to the employer that sponsors your visa. Lose
| your job? You're effectively deported.
|
| Your employer has... well, a power imbalance over you, to put
| it nicely.
|
| I'm not sure how the proposed changes will play out for
| American workers. Theoretically, treating H1B workers better
| could benefit American workers: there is less incentive to
| callously replace them with underpaid H1B workers. On the
| other hand, American workers will face increased competition,
| it seems to me.
| menage wrote:
| If you can find another employer to take over the
| sponsorship, you can transfer (without having to deal with
| the visa quota gantlet).
| Lammy wrote:
| > Your employer has... well, a power imbalance over you, to
| put it nicely.
|
| I can't help but think of this any time I see an HN comment
| about some questionable surveillance-ad-tech, usually
| saying that engineers should just refuse to build that
| stuff.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| "Body shops" like Infosys and Tata Consulting that import
| thousands of H1Bs under borderline fraudulent applications,
| and then underpay these employees.
|
| Just a random link, but the contours of the problem:
|
| https://www.epi.org/blog/new-data-infosys-tata-
| abuse-h-1b-pr...
| jopsen wrote:
| Will an executive order (which I assume this is) actually make
| any difference?
|
| Doesn't it take an act of congress to make any serious headway
| here?
|
| Personally, I was an H1B a 4.5 years before Trump convinced it
| was time to leave. I was in the bay area and handsomely
| overpaid. I have no personal experience of it being abused, but
| I'm obviously privileged, having worked at reputable tech
| companies and coming from reasonable wealthy european country.
| (I was never as scared of loosing job or healthcare as my
| American co-workers, because I would just move home, and have
| access to healthcare if I lost my job)
|
| But I will say, that the lottery aspect of the H1B adds a lot
| of uncertainty that might discourage me from living in SF
| again. So lifting the caps and/or stemming abuse might be a
| good idea.
| jedberg wrote:
| This is a rule in the Federal Register. So it's basically
| like law. It's essentially how the executive is interpreting
| the laws that congress has passed.
|
| There is a rule that says a new President can automatically
| overturn all rules made in the last 90 days of the previous
| administration, but we're before that deadline, so this is
| pretty much a done deal.
|
| If the next admin wanted to change this, they have to go
| through the long and arduous rule making process again.
| arcticbull wrote:
| It's pretty amazing to me how anti-immigrant America is, for a
| country built on immigration, but I suppose it's always been that
| way. Benjamin Franklin hated the Germans in the 1750s [1].
|
| For perspective, Canada, a country 1/10th the size of the US,
| brings in 30,000 refugees each year. The US brings in 18,000.
| This means Canada brings in 25X the number of refugees per capita
| than the US does.
|
| Canada, a country 1/10th the size of the US, brings in 300,000
| new immigrants each year. The US brings in 366,000. This means
| Canada brings in ~10X the number of new immigrants per capita
| than the US does. [2]
|
| [edit] This rate has been consistent since 1992.
|
| [edit] I originally stated the US brings in 140,000 immigrants
| per year, this was a mistake, my cursory search led me to the cap
| on employment based green cards, not total. By Immigrants I
| include green cards per year, as everyone else is by definition a
| non-immigrant. It is my understanding the Canadian number is the
| same category.
|
| Blanket requiring additional pay for H-1Bs seems fine, but leaves
| startups in a difficult spot where they're unable to bring in the
| same level of foreign talent that bigger companies are, as, of
| course these rules do not take into account equity based
| compensation. As it stands, 4 out of 5 H-1B holders make more
| than average Americans.
|
| The process of bringing in H-1Bs is already so expensive, arduous
| and wasteful that companies aren't going to be bringing in huge
| quantities of "US replacement" labor. I certainly wouldn't if I
| were in charge of hiring.
|
| [1] https://qz.com/904933/a-history-of-american-anti-
| immigrant-b...
|
| [2] https://www.boundless.com/immigration-resources/how-to-
| read-...
| smhost wrote:
| For most of America's history, immigration meant indigenous
| genocide and the slave trade. Maybe there was some small window
| when immigration was a net positive, but that window has been
| closing for while now.
| newfriend wrote:
| Super woke! Wait til you hear about the history of literally
| every country on Earth.
| smhost wrote:
| "every other country is just as bad, therefore this bad
| thing is good, actually"
| newfriend wrote:
| "Every country has a troubled history, but I will only
| call out the USA for some reason"
| smhost wrote:
| because this post is about american immigration. i'm
| specifically challenging a comment that implies that
| immigration has been good for america.
| [deleted]
| dahdum wrote:
| > Canada, a country 1/10th the size of the US, brings in
| 300,000 new immigrants each year. The US brings in 140,000.
| This means Canada brings in 20X the number of new immigrants
| per capita than the US does.
|
| The US had 1.8 million new immigrants (legal and otherwise) in
| 2016 and ~13% of the population is foreign born. Canada exceeds
| that (~21%) but nothing like the 20X rate you're claiming.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Immigrants are defined in US law as green card holders.
| dahdum wrote:
| ~1.2 million green cards were issued in 2016, with the rest
| of the 1.8 million immigrants being undocumented. I'm not
| sure what data you're looking at?
| arcticbull wrote:
| The INA allocates 140,000 visas annually for all five
| employment-based LPR categories. 226,000 are available
| for family based migration. [3, 4]
|
| I was likely neglecting the Immediate Relatives of US
| Citizens? Is that un-capped?
|
| [1] https://www.stilt.com/blog/2020/03/visa-bulletin/
|
| [2] https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-
| analysis/immigratio...
|
| [3] https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R45447
|
| [4] https://www.congress.gov/116/crec/2020/05/12/modified
| /CREC-2...
|
| And also, 2017 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, Table
| 6, "Persons Obtaining Lawful Permanent Resident Status by
| Type and Major Class of Admission," Department of
| Homeland Security.
| dahdum wrote:
| There's the problem, you're comparing the overall
| immigration numbers for Canada to just the capped
| employment portion for the US. In addition, Canada isn't
| as accepting of illegal immigration (estimates of 35-120k
| in total there now), while the US adds 600k+ yearly.
|
| > Immediate family of U.S. citizens. U.S. citizens can
| sponsor their spouses, unmarried children under age 21,
| and parents for a green card. This category does not have
| annual numerical limits.
|
| > Family-sponsored preference visas. There are 226,000
| green cards reserved each year for other categories of
| relatives. U.S. citizens can sponsor adult children and
| siblings, while green-card holders can sponsor their
| spouses and unmarried minor or adult children.
|
| > The Employment Route. There are 140,000 green cards
| available each year for immigrants in five employment-
| based categories (formally known as "preferences").
|
| https://www.migrationpolicy.org/content/explainer-how-us-
| leg...
| arcticbull wrote:
| The Canadian numbers are number of new permanent
| residents, excluding migrant workers, which would be H-1B
| types in the US.
|
| The US number is also the number of new permanent
| residents, however if my mistake was in fact that I
| excluded immediate family of citizens, then the number is
| 5X, not 10X. However, still, dramatic. I'll have to dig
| in more to make sure that's what I did.
| x87678r wrote:
| How many of those Canadian immigrants move to the US as soon as
| they can? I've seen a bunch.
| frequentnapper wrote:
| As a canadian immigrant, I'm actually against the ramping up of
| so much immigration because we do not have the infrastructure
| to support it. I liked the slow and steady pace of quality over
| quantity before liberals came into power.
| kazinator wrote:
| When, maybe over a year after the incident, it somehow came
| to light that it was a Syrian refugee who murdered a 13-year-
| old girl in Burnaby, BC's Central Park, the media swept the
| whole thing was swept under the rug almost like it never
| happened.
| arcticbull wrote:
| It wasn't much lower in the past -- the number's been
| hovering around the high 2xx,000 to low 3xx,000 per year
| since 1992, and immigration per year as a percentage of the
| population has remained around 1% that entire time, according
| to IRCC and statcan. [1]
|
| The real issue is that Canada's birth rate is 1.4 children
| per woman on average. This means within a generation the
| population would be reduced to 2/3. With a points-based
| immigration program, the country is able to be selective
| about who it brings in.
|
| I find blanket statements like "the infrastructure can't
| support it" pretty weak sauce without citations, especially
| as more folks in the country means more economic
| productivity, which means more taxes, which means more money
| to throw at, you guessed it, infrastructure.
|
| [1] https://www.cicnews.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/03/Levels-Pl...
| frequentnapper wrote:
| Right, in the long term it would be beneficial, but the
| infrastructure takes time to build up. Most immigrants
| understandably crowd in either Vancouver, Toronto or a
| couple of other big cities because that's where the
| opportunities are. Not sure where you live, but the food
| and rent have gone up dramatically in these cities. Forget
| about being able to afford buying a house or an apartment
| even if you've been responsibly saving up. The commute
| before covid was killer. I don't understand this off-hand
| dismissal of concerns because I don't have citations.
| cmdshiftf4 wrote:
| >The real issue is that Canada's birth rate is 1.4 children
| per woman on average. This means within a generation the
| population would be reduced to 2/3. With a points-based
| immigration program, the country is able to be selective
| about who it brings in.
|
| And instead of supporting the native Canadian population in
| having more children themselves, Canada, like most of the
| modern West, simply opted to replace them over time via
| migration.
| arcticbull wrote:
| > And instead of supporting the native Canadian
| population in having more children themselves, Canada,
| like most of the modern West, simply opted to replace
| them over time via migration.
|
| This doesn't make sense. The country already incentivizes
| child birth, and provides socialized medicine. You can't
| _make_ people have children.
|
| The reality is that as a country becomes more developed,
| it's birth rate plunges. There's a strong negative
| correlation between income, development and birth rate.
| [1] This is not an east-vs-west thing, it applies the
| world over.
|
| In developed countries, women do not want to have more
| children, and you can't make them. So, you allow
| immigration
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility
| koluna wrote:
| If you are going to call out "infrastructure to support it",
| care to elaborate and maybe throw in some numbers?
| core-questions wrote:
| It's about _carrying capacity_, not "infrastructure". We
| can only absorb people at some maximum rate and still have
| a chance of bringing them on board with hard-fought
| Canadian cultural values, getting them up to speed with our
| official languages, and integrating them into local
| communities. Past that rate, the tendency is for newcomers
| to seek out people who are from their home country and
| speak their language. This creates insular bubbles of
| culture and damages any effort to actually create a
| cohesive whole.
|
| Multiculturalism in Canada is different than in America.
| Here, there's something bigger for us to assimilate to that
| actually still holds value as a construct; a greater
| Canadian archetype that has done extremely well as a common
| point for newcomers to converge on for the past few
| decades. However, it would be easy to exceed the rate at
| which this is workable, and end up with a fractured country
| where people retain their entire original identity and
| never "become Canadian". This is a legitimate concern for
| people that love the country created by people who are
| Canadian through and through and want to see some of our
| lesser-known values (such as anticorruption, engineering
| quality, sustainability, etc) continue to propagate.
| koluna wrote:
| OK, so where exactly has this NOT worked? Where is this
| huge number of people that just aren't adjusted to the
| "Canadian lifestyle"?
| frequentnapper wrote:
| Thank you for explaining it so well. Like I said I am not
| against immigration as I myself am one. I would just like
| our government to be mindful about the challenges it
| poses as well and adjust the rate based on how much we
| are able to take in at any given point without stressing
| out the system and making life worse for people already
| here.
| malandrew wrote:
| There's a lot to be said for a slow steady pace. Society's
| relationship with politics tends to be oscillatory. If you
| push too hard in one direction (liberal or conservative),
| things swing back the other way and you end up with two steps
| forward, one step back and a loss of power for your team.
|
| A more productive approach would be to set the cruise control
| just left of center and not get greedy. If you do that and
| simultaneously monitor and manage externalities of policies
| you see as progress, you'll probably see more mileage.
|
| The complete lack of concern for externalities of policies
| and disregard for second and third order effects is why I've
| largely abandoned supporting most democrat positions. It's
| gotten so destructive that I'd rather stick with the devil I
| know than the devil I don't. And I would rather avoid
| oscillating between which devil has power since it's at the
| point in the reversal of political direction that the worst
| authoritarian abuses from either side happen.
| SECProto wrote:
| Immigration to Canada has stayed very consistent over the
| last 20 years, check the wiki article [1] for details. It's
| not political (well, the rhetoric is political. The actual
| policies and statistics are not.)
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Canada
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| It's a shame you're getting downvoted so heavily for such a
| reasonable position to take.
| cmdshiftf4 wrote:
| If you're expecting HN, in all its "rational glory", to be
| anything but extremely pro-migration to the West when most
| of the users' are likely either 1st or 2nd generation
| migrants to the West themselves, then you're very naive.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| You can still be pro-migration while disagreeing with the
| pace of it - despite what the downvotes imply.
| victor106 wrote:
| I am all for immigration, but not at the expense of suppressing
| wages for anyone. That money that was suppressed (indirectly)
| goes to the pockets of the C suite and contributes to income
| equality. What is wrong in addressing one of the reasons
| contributing to income equality?
|
| > Canada, a country 1/10th the size of the US, brings in
| 300,000 new immigrants each year. The US brings in 366,000.
| This means Canada brings in ~10X the number of new immigrants
| per capita than the US does.
|
| I love Canada, would move there in a heartbeat, but the he IT
| salaries in Canada are pitiful compared to the US. Maybe one of
| the reasons?
| arcticbull wrote:
| Canada has much lower income inequality than the US, so it
| seems like the increased immigration rates are not the
| reason.
| vmception wrote:
| The H1Bs rules were outdated.
|
| Startups in the 1980s had the same challenge because the H1B
| minimum salary was a really good salary then, average salaries
| just rose, lets do that part again.
| berryjerry wrote:
| The thing to remember about US immigration is that most
| immigrants simply over stay their visa. The US may bring less
| immigrants over but there is a reason you can press 2 for
| Spanish on nearly every single companies help line.
| arcticbull wrote:
| > The thing to remember about US immigration is that most
| immigrants simply over stay their visa.
|
| That is patently false.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| > there is a reason you can press 2 for Spanish on nearly
| every single companies help line
|
| 1. If you're trying to imply that the majority of people who
| speak spanish in the US are illegal immigrants from Mexico, I
| suspect that you're highly wrong on that.
|
| 2. I'm sure there are many people on tourist visa's who over
| stay. I'm sure there are many less people who came over on
| H1B's who overstay. H1B has a path forward (no matter how bad
| that path is), which allows you to still work at your career.
| You can't group every type of visa together to make broad
| claims like that.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar.
| Especially not on classic flamewar topics like immigration,
| nationality, and race.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| core-questions wrote:
| > This means Canada brings in 25X the number of refugees per
| capita than the US does.
|
| > This means Canada brings in 20X the number of new immigrants
| per capita than the US does.
|
| You assert this as though it's just automatically a good thing
| with no actual analysis as to the impact on Canadians. What
| happens to the cultural cohesion, wages, and living standards
| of Canadians when immigration is at such a rapid pace? Is this
| not a factor? Or is the sheer availability of cheap,
| undercutting labour just a natural capitalist good that we
| should accept regardless of the hard to measure, intangible
| impacts?
| zo1 wrote:
| It's just one of those things that's assumed as good and not
| to be questioned, not even with reasonable and genuine
| discourse.
| koluna wrote:
| Canada is selective about immigrants (they have a points
| system), so all the things you call out are accounted for in
| their model - they bring in those their country needs. And
| from what I see from down south, they benefit a lot from it.
| drpgq wrote:
| With housing prices in Canada now it's terrible to be
| young. As a landlord it is working great for me when I can
| get $2000 a month for an apartment in Hamilton.
| koluna wrote:
| How is that related to immigration?
| arcticbull wrote:
| The rate has been consistent since at least 1992.
|
| The wealth and income inequality in Canada is much lower than
| in the US.
|
| The standard of living in Canada is just as high as the US.
| Canada's Human Development Index is .922, 13th globally. The
| US HDI is .920, so a hair lower. 45% of the Canadian
| population lives in 6 of the 35 most livable cities in the
| world.
|
| "Social cohesion" doesn't come up, it's not an issue.
| [deleted]
| mastazi wrote:
| FWIW I am an immigrant myself (in Australia) and I am in favour
| of strict regulation. Skilled migration schemes should bring in
| skilled people, I've seen many people migrating on a skilled
| visa only to end up making a living as taxi drivers.
| kazinator wrote:
| Some people ending up as taxi drivers actually have skills;
| their skilled visa isn't based on lies. They are just not
| able to continue in their field in the new country for
| whatever reason. Their accreditation is not recognized, or
| they don't interview well or whatever. Meanwhile, there are
| bills to pay.
| jwagenet wrote:
| > of course these rules do not take into account equity based
| compensation
|
| I would not consider startup equity equitable to salary
| compensation.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| First of all, I'm pretty sure the US accepts way, way more
| immigrants than that. Also, how is it anti immigration to ask
| employers to pay H1Bs a competitive wage? Yes the process is
| expensive, but so what? If you really needed H1Bs, you'd be
| willing to foot the bill. The program shouldn't be used to get
| access to cheap labor & it shouldn't be used to save money.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| The immigration quotas in Canada are simply out of control.
|
| Almost every week on this forum I see Canadians whining about
| low wages in Software.... in a market that's more or less
| flooded with cheap labor!
| arcticbull wrote:
| Immigration quotas have remained constant at about 1% of the
| population per year since 1992.
|
| Low wages in software compared to the US for sure, but that's
| in part because Canada has very low income and wealth
| inequality compared to the US. Most people make a living
| wage, and there's not a huge spread.
|
| The US ranks near the bottom of the world in income
| inequality [1]. Canada's GINI coefficient was 33.8 in 2018 vs
| the US of 43.4. This puts America at 51st in the world (lower
| being worse) vs Canada's 107th.
|
| [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/09
| /ma...
| jsnk wrote:
| The issues of income inequality, most people making a
| living wage are non-sequiturs to the argument that says if
| you have an ample supply of cheap labour, the wage goes
| down.
| koluna wrote:
| Mind sharing some numbers? This is a patently false
| statement. Wages in Canada might be lower, but that is
| because they get a number of other social benefits, such as
| healthcare, that gets paid through taxes taken from said
| wages.
| gruez wrote:
| >Wages in Canada might be lower, but that is because they
| get a number of other social benefits, such as healthcare,
| that gets paid through taxes taken from said wages.
|
| Not really. They (and most other developed countries)
| simply pay less of their GDP towards healthcare.
| koluna wrote:
| That is... the opposite of what Canada does? Healthcare
| there is not uber-funded, but also not necessarily
| strapped for cash.
| gruez wrote:
| I'm not implying that Canada (or other developed
| countries) are cheaping out on healthcare. I'm only
| pointing out that your initial claim (that the
| differences in pay can be accounted for because of the
| various taxes paid) isn't true, or at least isn't telling
| the whole story.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| But gross wages are also lower here. If anything almost
| everyone I've came across here in Canada talks about their
| salary using the gross amount. So not only are wages
| employers advertise pretty low already, they are usually
| pretax too.
|
| Unless there's something more that is taken from wages that
| isn't shown on paychecks. Which would be weird considering
| that paycheck stubs usually have a full breakdown of where
| your money went and how much taxes were taken.
| koluna wrote:
| Everyone I talk to in the States also talks about their
| salaries in gross amounts, not post-tax (same applies for
| business advertising jobs).
|
| Canada in general has much lower income inequality, which
| is an a-OK trade off for slightly lower wages, as long as
| basic needs are covered.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Do you have a reference? The numbers I'm familiar with have the
| US adding over a million new permanent residents each year (htt
| ps://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/immigra...).
| (Good numbers for "immigration" are hard to find because
| programs such as H1B aren't legally considered immigration.)
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| > Blanket requiring additional pay for H-1Bs seems fine, but
| leaves startups in a difficult spot where they're unable to
| bring in the same level of foreign talent that bigger companies
| are, as, of course these rules do not take into account equity
| based compensation.
|
| That's fine by me. For the vast majority of startups, the
| equity compensation should be considered worthless anyways.
|
| > As it stands, 4 out of 5 H-1B holders make more than average
| Americans.
|
| The average American doesn't work in a job for which an H-1B
| would even be permitted, so I'm not sure what this point means?
| I'd expect everyone in an H-1B position to be making more than
| the _average_ American.
|
| > The process of bringing in H-1Bs is already so expensive,
| arduous and wasteful that companies aren't going to be bringing
| in huge quantities of "US replacement" labor. I certainly
| wouldn't if I were in charge of hiring.
|
| It's expensive, yes, but it's still a very small amount
| compared to their overall compensation and benefits. If your
| entire staff is on visas maybe you'd have a bad time, sure, but
| otherwise it's usually a drop in the bucket.
|
| The real joke is that H-1B is still a lottery, and in the time
| it takes people to get theirs, they might reconsider living
| somewhere else, like Canada.
| grumple wrote:
| Refugees != immigrants. The US admits over 1M immigrants per
| year. [1] We have the largest immigrant population of any
| nation in the world and it isn't even close (our immigrant
| population is larger than the total population of most
| countries) at over 50 million immigrants (current population
| not born in the US). [2]
|
| The rest of your comment is incorrect because of this
| misunderstanding, so I'll give you a break. And I'll also give
| you a break for accepting current Trump policies as standard
| American policies.
|
| 1.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_Stat...
|
| 2.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d...
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| > Canada, a country 1/10th the size of the US, brings in
| 300,000 new immigrants each year. The US brings in 140,000.
| This means Canada brings in 20X the number of new immigrants
| per capita than the US does.
|
| Actually, "more than 1 million immigrants arrive in the U.S.
| each year. In 2018, the top country of origin for new
| immigrants coming into the U.S. was China, with 149,000 people,
| followed by India (129,000), Mexico (120,000) and the
| Philippines (46,000)."
|
| Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/20/key-
| finding...
| arcticbull wrote:
| Those are non-immigrants, guest workers or temporary workers.
| Immigrants are defined, in US law, a green card holders.
| Congress caps the number of green cards to be issued at
| 366,000 (140,000 for employment based green cards) per year.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| This is incorrect. A green card holder is a "permanent
| resident". But that's not where the line is for being
| considered an "immigrant". Someone on an H1B without a
| green card is still an immigrant. As are temporary workers
| (for example on an agricultural visa).
| arcticbull wrote:
| "The term is often used generally to refer to aliens
| residing in the United States, but its specific legal
| meaning is any legal alien in the United States other
| than those in the specified class of nonimmigrant aliens
| such as temporary visitors for pleasure or students.
| Immigrant is also used synonymously with lawful permanent
| resident."
|
| As this article was about US immigration, I was using the
| US immigration definition of an immigrant, which is
| roughly speaking, a green card holder.
|
| H-1Bs are considered non-immigrants, although it is a
| dual-intent class meaning they are allowed to possess
| _immigrant intent_ for immigration purposes.
|
| https://www.ncsl.org/research/immigration/common-
| immigration...
| [deleted]
| newfriend wrote:
| Your numbers are wrong [1].
|
| > The United States has more immigrants than any other country
| in the world. Today, more than 40 million people living in the
| U.S. were born in another country, accounting for about one-
| fifth of the world's migrants.
|
| > The U.S. foreign-born population reached a record 44.8
| million in 2018.
|
| > More than 1 million immigrants arrive in the U.S. each year.
|
| What amazes me is how much hate the US gets for being one of
| the most generous countries on Earth.
|
| The US has changed since the 19th century, when we needed
| endless amounts of unskilled labor. Things are much different
| today, and the H1-B Visa has been abused for decades.
|
| > The process of bringing in H-1Bs is already so expensive,
| arduous and wasteful that companies aren't going to be bringing
| in huge quantities of "US replacement" labor. I certainly
| wouldn't if I were in charge of hiring.
|
| Good. It sounds like it's _somewhat_ serving it 's purpose.
| Hopefully these changes will improve it more.
|
| https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/20/key-finding...
| vincentmarle wrote:
| > What amazes me is how much hate the US gets for being one
| of the most generous countries on Earth.
|
| Well, "generous" is a big word. There's not much handed to
| you when you move to the US, you'll have to work hard for
| your money, like everyone else. If you want to know what
| generous looks like, try talking with an immigrant in Europe.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Let's get some terminology right.
|
| Immigrants are defined in US law as lawful permanent
| residents, i.e. green card holders. Congress caps the number
| of green cards issued at 366,000 per year. Therefore, the
| number of new immigrants to the US each year is 366,000. The
| 140,000 number I initially used incorrectly was the number of
| employment based green cards as compared to family based.
| I've updated the math.
|
| Everyone else is a non-immigrant, and not relevant to my
| numbers.
|
| > The U.S. foreign-born population reached a record 44.8
| million in 2018.
|
| The immigrant and descendent of immigrant population of the
| US is roughly 100%, because there are only 5 million native
| Americans in the US.
|
| > What amazes me is how much hate the US gets for being one
| of the most generous countries on Earth.
|
| Canada brings in 25X per capita the number of refugees and
| 10X per capita the number of new lawful permanent resident.
|
| You're simply mistaken.
| newfriend wrote:
| Unfortunately your smug reply is wrong, as I said before.
|
| From: https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-
| statistics/yearbook/2018/tab...
|
| _Table 1. Persons Obtaining Lawful Permanent Resident
| Status: Fiscal Years 1820 to 2018_
|
| Year Number
|
| 2018 1,096,611
|
| 2017 1,127,167
|
| 2016 1,183,505
|
| This also obviously doesn't even count the number of
| illegal aliens coming here every year.
|
| > The immigrant and descendent of immigrant population of
| the US is roughly 100%, because there are only 5 million
| native Americans in the US.
|
| Native Americans came from elsewhere at some point too, I
| suppose they are immigrants also according to your
| meaningless definition.
|
| Forgive me if I don't care about the per-capita number of
| refugees in Canada.
|
| You are the one who is mistaken.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Where are you getting the 140k new immigrants each year number
| from? Wikipedia says: "According to the 2016 Yearbook of
| Immigration Statistics, the United States admitted a total of
| 1.18 million legal immigrants (618k new arrivals, 565k status
| adjustments) in 2016"
|
| And refugees are only one type of immigrant. Should illegal
| immigrants count as refugees, since many frequently claim to be
| fleeing violence, even if they don't get officially declared as
| a refugee by the US? If so, that means the US admits closer to
| 500,000 refugees per year.
| gok wrote:
| > Canada, a country 1/10th the size of the US, brings in
| 300,000 new immigrants each year. The US brings in 140,000.
|
| I don't know what definition of "brings in" you are using, but
| around 1.1 million people obtain permanent legal resident
| status per year in the US. By this metric your Canada numbers
| are about right (a bit low, around 340,000 in 2019).
|
| Perhaps you're looking at purely comparing Canada's Temporary
| Foreign Worker Program with just H-1Bs? If so those numbers are
| still a bit off -- there were around 190,000 H-1Bs issued in
| 2019 -- but also that's only a small sliver of all temporary
| foreign work visas issued in the US (there are again over a
| million per year).
|
| Canada does admit many more immigrants per capita and generally
| has a much better immigration system but the numerical
| difference is not quite as huge as you say.
| arcticbull wrote:
| I'd love to understand where the gap is.
|
| I believe the cap on the number of green cards issued per
| year is 366,000 -- 140,000 of which are employment based. [1]
| Is mistook the latter for the former and have updated my post
| to reflect.
|
| Similarly Canada's 300,000-ish per year number is also the
| number of new permanent residents admitted per year. [2]
|
| My goal was to track immigration, i.e. becoming permanent
| residents, not temporary migrant workers, including those
| under H-1B.
|
| [1] https://www.boundless.com/immigration-resources/how-to-
| read-...
|
| [2] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canada-to-
| admi...
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| Your data for the US is far off every source I can find. Per
| the UN, ~20% of all immigrants globally reside in the US.
|
| On an annual basis:
|
| The US brings in 100-200k refugees. Total immigration is
| 1.0-1.1M. The US grants citizenship to 700-800k immigrants.
| arcticbull wrote:
| The data I provided for you is per capita.
|
| The US has set a target cap of 18,000 refugees next year [1]
| vs Canada's now world-leading (per capita) 28-33,000 [2]
|
| You are correct that I was off re: 140,000 (that's the quota
| for employment based green cards), the number is 366,000
| total and I have edited my post to reflect. This is based on
| the total number of green cards available, as they are the
| only "immigrant" visa. Every other class is considered to be
| non-immigrants -- temporary workers, or visitors.
|
| However, the fact 20% of the world's immigrants reside in
| America doesn't mean nearly as much on a per capita basis.
|
| [1] https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/26/politics/refugee-cap-
| historic...
|
| [2] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/19/canada-
| now-...
| djrogers wrote:
| I'm not sure you're using the term 'per capita' in the way
| it's intended or normally understood. If Canada allowed
| 28-33000 refugees per capita, that would effectively mean
| every person in the world could move to Canada.
| arcticbull wrote:
| My multipliers were per capita. Canada brings in 2X the
| US refugee count per year in absolute numbers, but is
| 1/10th the size, so ~20X per capita migration rate of
| refugees. Napkin numbers of course.
|
| My parenthetical section indicated that Canada's numbers
| are world-leading per capita, not in absolute numbers.
|
| Apologies if that was unclear.
| grumple wrote:
| > However, the fact 20% of the world's immigrants reside in
| America doesn't mean nearly as much on a per capita basis.
|
| What? We have 5% of the world's population and 20% of its
| immigrants, 4 times second place, but that's not enough for
| you? Wild moving of the goalposts.
| arcticbull wrote:
| I have not moved the goalposts. I never mentioned the
| total number of immigrants already in the country. That
| number is pretty close to 98.4% of course, since the
| number of First Nations or Native Americans is 5 million.
| Everything in my post is focused on the _rate_ of new
| immigrants per year.
| [deleted]
| rayiner wrote:
| The US receives half a million undocumented immigrants per
| year; Canada receives almost none. Plus another 1.2 million
| legal immigrants.
| [deleted]
| gruez wrote:
| >The process of bringing in H-1Bs is already so expensive,
| arduous and wasteful that companies aren't going to be bringing
| in huge quantities of "US replacement" labor. I certainly
| wouldn't if I were in charge of hiring.
|
| _You_ might not be, but there are certainly companies where
| H-1Bs are their bread and butter[1]. Taking Cognizant as an
| example:
|
| * their wikipedia page says "The company has 281,200[2]
| employees globally, of which over 150,000 are in India", which
| means there are at most 131,200 US employees
|
| * in the year 2017 they brought in 28,908 H-1B workers. This
| works out to 22% of the US workforce. If we include 2016 as
| well that works out to 38% of the US workforce.
|
| * the figures above are conservative estimates. We probably
| overestimated their US workforce and underestimated their H-1B
| population (we've only looked at 2 years of visas, but H1-B
| visas are good for up to 6 years).
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa#Top_H-1B_employers_b...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognizant
| [deleted]
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| > Under the new rule, the required wage level for entry-level
| workers would rise to the 45th percentile of their profession's
| distribution, from the current requirement of the 17th
| percentile. The requirement for the highest-skilled workers would
| rise to the 95th percentile, from the 67th percentile.
|
| Looks like there's going to be a lot of new entry level guest
| workers as existing visa holders get shuffled around. It'll be
| interesting to see if the wage distribution stays lopsided once
| the situation stabilizes. If the program is fulfilling its
| intended goals, they should match their domestic coworkers in the
| same age brackets.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| >The Trump administration announced an overhaul of the H-1B visa
| program for high-skilled foreign workers that will require
| employers to pay H-1B workers significantly higher wages, narrow
| the types of degrees that could qualify an applicant, and shorten
| the length of visas for certain contract workers.
|
| This seems like a great move. It corrects the incentives to hire
| foreign workers over domestic workers, and also ensures that
| foreign workers aren't abused with lower wages due to their
| immigration status.
| Cherian_Abraham wrote:
| " Because those required wage increases take effect this week,
| existing H-1B holders looking to renew their visas might not
| qualify unless their employers raise their salaries accordingly."
|
| This is really bad. Families are going to get told to leave. I'm
| surprised that there is no discussion on this thread about the
| impact to people who haven't done anything wrong.
| curiousllama wrote:
| Oof, here's the catch. This is bad.
|
| A non-retroactive raise of the wage scale isn't bad per se - it
| cuts down a lot of the incentive to flood the system, and
| prioritizes employees who will add the most value.
|
| But I have a sneaking suspicion that this surprise kick-out is
| a feature, not a bug.
| kingnight wrote:
| I find this really sad. Knowing a lot of people who work in the
| US who aren't citizens and have more and more been stressed
| about their access to return home and back for a variety of
| reasons, this just adds to a pile of depressing realities
| people in America are facing.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > I'm surprised that there is no discussion on this thread
| about the impact to people who haven't done anything wrong.
|
| Existing H-1B holders should clearly be grandfathered in, but
| those aren't the only people who have done nothing wrong. What
| about the would-be future H-1B holders who would have benefited
| from working while making less than the new requirements? In
| other words, the vast majority of people who are going to be
| affected by these new rules.
| muzaffarpur wrote:
| That's not the kind of families HN cares about. Only the right
| kind /s.
| fernandotakai wrote:
| let's be honest, HN does not care about H1B workers.
|
| i've seen so many damn comments saying shit like "only low
| skill indians come here on h1b". it got to a point where i
| couldn't discern between right wing "they took our jobs".
| nicoburns wrote:
| Eh. I think that's a little unfair on us HNers. I have seen
| comments like that. But I've also seen a lot of comments
| about how the H1b visas should be more flexible and widely
| available so as to give visa holders more freedom.
| belltaco wrote:
| Not just that but this is likely to backfire. Since remote work
| has become acceptable and they already know the ins and outs of
| the job, many of these folks losing their visa will just be
| allowed to work remotely from India. This means the US economy
| will lose all the taxes and local expenditure in the economy
| like rent, food, utilities, cars, home sales, etc. etc. And if
| that works out, the next hire may just be directly hired in
| India itself.
|
| There is already a small industry in Canada where a company
| takes a few % of the billing rate in order to sponsor and hold
| a Canadian visa for people who lost their H1B visas due to
| inconsistent rejections, but whose employer is willing to allow
| them to work from Canada. This moves a lot of money to Canada.
| [deleted]
| Rapzid wrote:
| Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this just in reference to
| legislation introduced recently that has has to, but has not,
| pass through congress?
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Well it seems as if all parties will be better off in the long
| term if this gets implemented correctly. It certainly would
| reduce many of the bad incentives in the immigration system.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| > "America's immigration laws should put American workers first,"
|
| Quotes like these irk the heck out of me. American workers is a
| subset of the populace and no, they should not be prioritized
| over other competing groups. For example, American Business
| owners, American Retirees, American disabled folks...
|
| It's a lot less about the specifics of this article/case and more
| about how the "Jobs" aim has become impossible to balance
|
| EDIT: If you're going to downvote then leave a rebuttal to the
| point. Why should Immigration laws (or any law for that matter)
| focus on a subset of Americans?
| chairmanwow1 wrote:
| Overall, I really support these changes.
|
| However, this piece really struck me as a big mistake:
|
| "Under the changes, an applicant must have a college degree in
| the specific field in which he or she is looking to work. A
| software developer, for example, wouldn't be awarded an H-1B visa
| if that person has a degree in electrical engineering."
|
| Some of the best software engineers I know are graduate degree
| holders from neuroscience, biophysics, EE, and more. This might
| be a distinction that is only relevant in software engineering,
| but my intuition is that other fields will feel the sting of this
| decision.
| sushshshsh wrote:
| I would absolutely speculate that this requirement was made to
| block many good candidates. After all, the point of a visa
| system is to constrict the pool of potential candidates anyway.
| xenospn wrote:
| Simple. List multiple jobs requiring "electrical engineer" or
| "data scientist" and pool all applicants together for a
| single position.
| AlexTWithBeard wrote:
| Will they keep recognizing equivalent experience in lieu of
| formal education?
| kichik wrote:
| Have they removed the 3 years of experience for each missing
| degree year exception?
| [deleted]
| hoot wrote:
| I share the same experience. The most talented software
| developers that I've worked with have just about all been EE's.
| On the flip side, I've also met some terrible software
| developers who were also EE's.
| cm2187 wrote:
| That's going to be interesting for people who studied
| humanities.
|
| In banking, you have even more diverse backgrounds than
| software development.
| haolez wrote:
| Useless policy. This will only create a market for schools with
| easy-to-obtain degrees.
| ponker wrote:
| Maybe Trump's Hail Mary for his re-election is... governing?
| fizwhiz wrote:
| > Under the new rule, the required wage level for entry-level
| workers would rise to the 45th percentile of their profession's
| distribution, from the current requirement of the 17th
| percentile. The requirement for the highest-skilled workers would
| rise to the 95th percentile, from the 67th percentile.
|
| If you've got an undergraduate degree in CS looking for work as a
| SWE does that mean you'll need to get paid at p95? Won't this
| isolate all employment opportunities to places like the Bay Area
| at companies that pay a high base-salary (no equity counted)?
| paxys wrote:
| While I'm in favor of the move, wages are just a band-aid fix.
| The core of the problem is that the premise of the H1B visa
| itself - extraordinary skill that cannot be found in the US - is
| complete bullshit. Everyone participating in the program
| (including the government) knows this, and yet they have to do
| the entire song and dance of years long approval processes, fake
| job listings, RFEs and whatnot.
|
| Fix the real problem, and salaries will take care of themselves.
|
| Another problem with simply raising the salary bar is that there
| are actually professions (especially in healthcare) that
| genuinely have a talent/supply gap. A small hospital in the
| midwest, however, isn't going to be able to compete with a
| hotshot SF startup with unlimited venture funding to throw at
| foreign hires.
| eldavido wrote:
| Yes and no.
|
| Most companies I see using H1-Bs are startups looking for
| people to get technical work done as cheaply as possible. These
| are the same people who give employees 0.1% of a series A
| company and whine about how there's a "skill shortage".
|
| When in truth, there is no "shortage" -- it's just that
| software engineering is one of the only (somewhat) high-end
| careers subject to absolutely no credentialing whatsoever,
| meaning, if you can get someone here (to the US) and they can
| do the work, great, they're hired.
|
| Contrast this to the absurd coddling present in other
| professions. Doctors, dentists, lawyers, architects, etc. have
| _massive_ barriers keeping people out, competition down, and in
| the end, prices of their services up.
|
| It blows my mind what middling lawyers can charge: $300/hr or
| more for mediocre law work for my California HOA. These people
| have zero side projects, don't study a minute out of work, and
| work strict 8-hour days, with the expectation of earning
| $250k/yr or more mid-career. This is what the cream of the crop
| in our field earns (Google SWEs making 350k or so). The cream
| of the crop for layers make millions/year at places like
| Cravath or Orrick billing $1000/hr or more. Even my wife, an
| architect, is now billing out at $250/hr.
|
| It blows my mind how underpaid software developers are, given
| how difficult the work, and the working conditions are,
| compared to other similarly demanding fields in terms of
| professional education, and raw intellectual horsepower
| required to do the job. A typical H1-B can be productive a few
| months after a good software education anywhere in the world,
| assuming they speak passable English. My best friend's sister-
| in-law, an Indian dentist, had to retake the last year of
| dental school before she could touch a single tooth in the US.
|
| The biggest winners from the H1-B regime are high-skilled
| professionals in the US. Low-end labor doesn't care about any
| of this. They work for cash, and still pay sales and property
| tax (through rent) just like the rest of us, and all for
| absolutely zero government benefits.
| cromwellian wrote:
| Really? What if you need a bunch of translation/localization
| work done. America has a shortage of people who are bilingually
| fluent and have the engineering skill, in many of the needed
| cultures and languages.
|
| Do you think companies are going to go to war bidding up
| salaries for a tiny number of qualified American candidates who
| can do this work, or are they going to outsource to overseas
| firms that can do the work?
|
| So then the question is, do you want this work being done here,
| in America, paying taxes here, or do you want some consulting
| company in Asia or Eastern Europe to get the money?
| mastazi wrote:
| It's not "extraordinary skill that cannot be found in the US"
| though, it's for skills for which there is a shortage in your
| market, similar to the subclass 189 visa here in Australia.
|
| When you say "extraordinary skill" you are probably thinking
| about the O-1 visa (which is similar to the Australian subclass
| 124).
| tyre wrote:
| I take it you've never tried to hire experienced software
| engineers. The supply is significantly below demand.
| eldavido wrote:
| At what cost? $50/hr?
| pavanky wrote:
| I am on H1B (bay area last 4 years, Atlanta 6 years) and my
| total compensation is significantly higher than that.
| diggernet wrote:
| Perhaps that view says more about the hiring process than it
| does about the available labor pool.
| vkdelta wrote:
| Without reading the whole IFR, what would be the minimum pay for
| h1b holder? Will it make harder for entry level F1 OPT students?
| pavanky wrote:
| I think this can potentially affect startups who may want to
| hire H1bs at a lower than prevailing wage for their area(even
| if they are paying their American colleagues the same amount).
|
| Other than that, the biggest issue might be to IT consulting
| companies (mostly based in India) that tend to have their
| employees work at a lower rate than tech companies.
| throwaway777888 wrote:
| Can't wait to hear leftists cry about how racist this is.
| sjg007 wrote:
| I mean they will pay H1bs higher but still doesn't make a company
| pay a us citizen higher. Maybe it will open up space for lawsuits
| based equivalent responsibilities and help the equal pay for
| equal movement. Even excluding H1bs we know there are people
| doing the exact same work for vastly different
| nerdface wrote:
| H1Bs usually require the employer to prove they couldn't find
| someone within the country.
| drewbug wrote:
| I don't think that's true.
| sjg007 wrote:
| Why not? Seems entirely plausible.
| sjg007 wrote:
| Well yes, theoretically, but I imagine there are plenty of
| ways to game the system.
| victor106 wrote:
| I finally agree with something this administration is doing.
|
| This is a solid move.
|
| H1B has been/is being abused by all companies (big and small) for
| a number of years at the cost of not only American workers but
| also the visa holders. The only ones benefiting are the companies
| that sponsor H1B visas by suppressing wages for everyone.
|
| I just hope the new administration don't role back these changes.
| Typically when a new administration comes in they have a
| "throwing the baby with the bath water" mentality. I hope they
| realize the things that the previous administration did which
| makes sense and keeps them
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > I finally agree with something this administration is doing.
|
| As they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
| guitarbill wrote:
| exactly. although there's more than one way to fix this. one
| controversial idea, but in line with capitalism is to just give
| (highly) skilled immigrants permanent residency (other
| countries do this already, and the H-1B process is also pretty
| rigorous). why? because right now with e.g. the H-1B, your
| employer has to petition for a green card. as you've said, it
| costs a lot of money to sponsor an H-1B. a reason some bad-
| faith companies do this is because they know the H-1B employee
| is tied to them (although an H-1B transfer is not too
| difficult). imagine if it was easier for visa holders to switch
| employees? i'm not holding my breath though.
|
| in any case, having H-1B be a lottery was always weird. i just
| hope this doesn't impact any existing H-1B holders :(
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/N3uMd
| spurgu wrote:
| Or https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome
| findjashua wrote:
| this doesn't work for wsj, ft etc - archive.is does
| ra7 wrote:
| Not sure about Chrome, but that extension works on Firefox
| for me for WSJ.
| greatwave1 wrote:
| I'm working on a dashboard to track H1B visa hiring and salary
| data at https://www.quiverquant.com/sources/visas
|
| Right now you can use it to see the biggest H1B employers and
| their median salaries for workers on visa. Open to any
| suggestions on how to make it more useful!
| notJim wrote:
| The new rule is that H1B workers need to earn higher salaries
| relative to the distribution of salaries in their profession. The
| worker must make the 45th percentile wage, where previously it
| was 17th. Won't this primarily hurt people early in their career,
| or does it also take into account experience level?
| mamon wrote:
| I think this is by design. You don't want to issue visas to
| "people early in their career" - those jobs should go to
| Americans first. You only hire from abroad if there really is a
| shortage of specialists in some profession, and you want those
| professionals to prove their worth in their home country first,
| before allowing them to the US.
| muzaffarpur wrote:
| It's not gonna take a long time before, most of the tech jobs
| move to Canada/rest of world. Why should someone hire entry/mid
| level engineer in usa, if they can hire at same price much senior
| engineer in same time zone? After successful taste of work from
| home, things have changed a lot. Unfortunately, now USA have not
| much to offer (rising healthcare cost, continuous
| degradation/humiliation of non white immigrants, rising
| intolerance of society, high cost of education etc). Let's see
| how it works out!
| airstrike wrote:
| Link to DHS press release:
| https://www.dhs.gov/news/2020/10/06/department-homeland-secu...
|
| Probably a better link than the WSJ submission - even though I'm
| a subscriber, I want the facts, and the facts seem to be hard to
| find
|
| As a matter of fact, I still haven't found the actual "interim
| final rule" (an oxymoron if I've ever seen one), so if anyone has
| a link, I'd be immensely grateful
|
| EDIT: Here's the unpublished ruling in PDF: https://public-
| inspection.federalregister.gov/2020-22347.pdf
|
| One paragraph I was keen on knowing more about - and which seems
| pretty uncontroversial:
|
| > Under this new rule, the petitioner will have the burden of
| demonstrating that there is a direct relationship between the
| required degree in a specific specialty (in other words, the
| degree field(s) that would qualify someone for the position) and
| the duties of the position. In many cases, the relationship will
| be clear and relatively easy to establish. For example, it should
| not be difficult to establish that a required medical degree is
| directly correlated to the duties of a physician. Similarly, a
| direct relationship may be established between the duties of a
| lawyer and a required law degree, and the duties of an architect
| and a required architecture degree. In other cases, the direct
| relationship may be less readily apparent, and the petitioner may
| have to explain and provide documentation to meet its burden of
| demonstrating the relationship. To establish a direct
| relationship, the petitioner would need to provide information
| regarding the course(s) of study associated with the required
| degree, or its equivalent, and the duties of the proffered
| position, and demonstrate the connection between the course of
| study and the duties and responsibilities of the position
| dboreham wrote:
| I had high hopes for the "Executive Summary".
| guitarbill wrote:
| This was already the case, they would ask for a request for
| evidence (RFE) how the degree was related. This is annoying if
| you e.g. studied maths and then started working in IT.
| swyx wrote:
| how much higher wages are we talking? skimmed the ruling and
| didnt see anything.
| tcarn wrote:
| I can't believe I'm actually agreeing with something this
| administration is doing...
| gotoeleven wrote:
| Im just curious, what actual policies / actions has this
| administration taken that you most disagree with?
| tux1968 wrote:
| His prison reform was a good thing and not commended enough.
| impalallama wrote:
| If your talking about the First Step Act that was a
| bipartisan bill that passed in the Senate unanimously. Semi
| props for embracing it, but this gets into a bigger issue of
| whether an administration can take credit for the bills
| passed underneath them.
| rayiner wrote:
| Trump's (and Jared Kushner's) role was much more active
| than just signing it after the fact:
| https://time.com/5486560/prison-reform-jared-kushner-kim-
| kar...
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| There's polarizing issues, but actually a lot of issues I find
| myself agreeing with lately. Anti-war sentiment is a big one (I
| love hearing about troop draw downs in Iraq and Afghanistan and
| Syria).
|
| And Trump accuses the IC community of unconstitutional spying
| on politicians and Americans, the same thing technorati have
| been saying (at least until 2016, when it became cool to trust
| the FBI and CIA).
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Even a broken clock is right twice a day
| anonytrary wrote:
| Misuse of analogy. This analogy says that inaction eventually
| is the right thing to do. This is action.
| Strilanc wrote:
| Even a clock running backwards at triple speed is right
| eight times a day.
| flyinglizard wrote:
| I'm sure this administration's policies on China will find many
| fans around here.
| cblum wrote:
| _raises hand_
|
| Oh yeah. It's the _one_ thing I can agree with them on.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Also, Trump's criminal justice reform in the First Step Act.
| paxys wrote:
| Good rhetoric, half-assed and ineffective implementation.
| curiousllama wrote:
| I really, really want to like this move.
|
| I've written on HN before that the Trump admin's revealed
| immigration preference is, in effect, "as few immigrants as
| possible" [1]. Every past move this administration has made with
| regard to visas has been ill-advised and badly executed (imo).
| That they solved problem 1 (ill-advised) does not mean they've
| solved problem 2 (badly executed).
|
| In that light, I can't help but think this is just another RFE
| hole: "you studied math and cs, and now want to work as a data
| scientist? That's not closely enough related" or "quantitative
| economics is not STEM, even though 12/15 required courses were
| math, stats, and CS, and we previously approved the program"
| (both objections I've heard raised in the past year, _before_
| this new emphasis on degree-job relatedness).
|
| This isn't a bad policy - it may be good, even! - but I hope it
| gets implemented by the next administration.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23760337
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > "you studied math and cs, and now want to work as a data
| scientist? That's not closely enough related"
|
| This could be trivially avoided by simply aggregating the job
| posting requirements for similar positions or doing any sort of
| survey of the qualifications and education of currently
| employed highly paid data scientists.
| dognotdog wrote:
| Is it only me, or does this sound pretty empty? Except for
| narrowing of the `specialty occupation` moniker, all the rest
| seem like things that are already part of the H1-B program?
| flowerlad wrote:
| Requiring competitive wages is a good move. They should also have
| allowed H1B holders to switch to a different employer without
| requiring a new visa. Along with that they should also have
| increased the number of H1B visas available.
|
| Currently many strong developers are being hired into Amazon and
| Microsoft but being positioned in Vancouver BC (a Canadian city a
| couple of hours from Seattle) [1]. These developers take American
| jobs but pay taxes to Canada, and contribute to Canadian economy
| instead of American.
|
| [1] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/industry-
| news/prope...
| vsskanth wrote:
| You need to pass laws for all that. Even this regulation
| surviving legal challenges is doubtful.
| dmode wrote:
| Offering competitive wages has always been part of H1
| requirement
| notJim wrote:
| I feel like rather than pitting immigrants against native born
| workers, and trying to come up with the perfect arcane rule, we
| should have sectoral bargaining where the workers could negotiate
| pay standards directly with their employers. Then it wouldn't
| matter where someone is from, because they'd be covered by that
| contract, and the government could get out of the way of the
| labor market.
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