H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colleges over American grads

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/01/25/h-1b-oracle-favored-hiring-foreign-graduates-of-u-s-colleges-over-american-grads-feds-allege

by hanging • 7 years ago

391 249 7 years ago

mercurynews.com

reaperducer• 7 years ago

Slightly off-topic, but there's something about H-1B abuse that the vast majority of people in the SV bubble don't realize. H-1B appears to hurt the poor.

No, I'm not talking about struggling coders in India who dream of a life in Seattle. I'm talking about the really hand-to-mouth poor who apparently rely on seasonal H-1B visas to feed their families.

For example, there was a report on Radio New Zealand this week about how dirt-poor Samoans can't get H-1B's to go to American Samoa to work in its last fish cannery because all of the American visas have been slurped up by the mainland tech industry.

I know H-1B's are supposed to be for specialists, and according to Wikipedia: "A specialty occupation requires the application of specialized knowledge and a bachelor's degree or the equivalent of work experience."

But I suspect that the "specialist" requirement is lifted for U.S. territories so they can get the workers they need. There are a great number of mainland labor rules that are relaxed, voided, or otherwise not valid in U.S. territories, so I wonder if this is one of them.

Anyway, something to ponder.

hanging• 7 years ago

Agriculture (including aquaculture) work visas are a different category:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-2A_visa

netsa• 7 years ago

So, How do you think of the billionaire?

mykowebhn• 7 years ago

Granted that H-1B visas should ostensibly be filled only for positions where it is difficult to find qualified American citizens or permanent residents, but in all honesty are the Department of Labor's allegations really that surprising?

In the Bay Area, qualified job candidates are so scarce that it's quite common for citizens/permanent-residents to change jobs frequently. H1-B candidates are attractive for companies because it is harder for them to switch jobs. Companies can lock these employees for longer, and they can pay them less.

Rather than going after the companies, shouldn't we be focusing on fixing the H-1B visa process instead? It almost seems like the government has set up a broken process for companies to take advantage of, and instead of fixing things, they blame the companies.

wuxb• 7 years ago

So an obvious solution would be allowing H1B holders to freely change jobs, even with gaps. Accordingly, the employers won't be able to lock the visa holders. Then there will be fair competition that makes sense. But anyway the big companies don't want to lose the "lock" so it would be hard to change.

untog3• 7 years ago

Clarification in case any H1B holders are reading: you absolutely can transfer your H1B visa, though I think a break of more than 30 days would be a violation.

The trick is when you H1B employer also offers to sponsor your green card. That isn't transferrable, and if you're from certain countries (like India) it can take up to ten years to get one.

yholio4• 7 years ago

Seems like such a simple issue to fix: the only condition for getting a specialist visa should be to find an employer willing to pay a specialist salary, say above 150K. Doctors included, I see no reason to protect them from competition. Hop jobs at will but need to maintain within 85% of that level.

If a company can't find workers, it should pay more up until a level that puts the competitiveness of the economy under question. Below that level, it's the citizen's right to a fair salary without labour dumping from a poor country. Above that level, it's everybody's right to fairly priced services without professional rents.

tejaswiy3• 7 years ago

Needs to be adjusted for cost of living, salary changes over time by profession (Tech salaries are in a bubble rn. which makes 150k reasonable by bay area standards, but they may go significantly up / down in the future) which is complicated enough but there's edge cases like Universities / Non profits etc. that can't pay salaries to compete with the private sector but people work there anyway because of passion.

baby3• 7 years ago

This is such a one-sided point of view. Imagine that you're immigrating to a country, and after a few years you get fire, or you want to take a sabbatical, or you want to change industry for a lower paying job.

Now under your rules you cannot do that. What do you do? You've created your life in the US, you have friends, perhaps a girlfriend, maybe even a house. Now you have to leave?

geofft12• 7 years ago

Here's a simpler proposal: anyone from anywhere can come here and take any job. If you leave your job, voluntarily or not, you have 90 days (up from the current grace period of 60 and strict rule of 0) to find another job. If you've been here for a few years you can apply for citizenship, independent of your employer.

The primary objection to this is crowding out the labor market, to which I'd say: protectionism doesn't work. If there are people in another country willing to do the same job for cheaper, the invisible hand will figure out how to move the jobs there, perhaps through competition. Fighting the free market isn't going to work: figure out how to work within it. (For instance, offer a UBI for citizens only.)

smb06• 7 years ago

One big problem with restricting to salaries above 150k is that you’ve disqualified anyone who may be early in their career. Not many who are below a mid-level career role will get that kind of salary.

What does that affect? All undergraduate students coming to the U.S. who spend $$$ on a 4 year college degree here and then try to find a job. You’ve just wiped that demographic out because they won’t get 150k salary.

Why would they be inclined to come to the US and spend all that money on an education here? They won’t.

And if the best talent doesn’t come here to compete intellectually with Americans in a classroom then Americans lose.

H1Bs comprise a big chunk of people who come here, get an education here, prove their competence and make the American economy grow.

You won’t get them to come here with a high salary cap like 150k.

vowelless6• 7 years ago

When I was on an h1b, I was making around 60k in the middle of the country, working for an amazing startup where we were ramen profitable. My skill set was highly specialized for the job. However, I couldn’t be a founder due to my visa status and we couldn’t pay each other even basic salaries. But we did some pretty amazing stuff for DARPA, DOD, and eventually some commercial enterprises.

You would price out people like me and make it virtually impossible for me to become a citizen eventually. But maybe that is by design and I don’t mind that opinion. All countries have nativist subsets of society so it is just a normal, natural stance.

Historically, america has attracted the best minds. Historically. But maybe now the populace believes the natives need to be protected from outside competition so that they can improve. Fair enough.

tziki• 7 years ago

That's a very IT/bay area specific view. You can be well respected with a long career in many industries and not make 150k.

my_username_is_2• 7 years ago

I think there should be a monthly allocation of visas that can be issued, and companies are allowed to bid on the salary that they would pay the worker. Each month, the highest salaries get visas issued. If they don't bid enough, their candidate doesn't get in. If companies really need these specialists, they should pay them enough to secure a visa in a market-based system. I suspect this would create upward pressure on the salaries of these visa workers and prevent some of the abuse that we see today

renholder2• 7 years ago

the only condition for getting a specialist visa should be to find an employer willing to pay a specialist salary

Countries in Europe do precisely this but take it slightly further. Take Ireland[0] and Sweden[1], for prime examples. For those of you who don't want to read the links: The company has to have a minimum salary (oft above the standard cost of living) for the employee to obtain (and retain) the permit.

(On an aside, in Sweden, they go a step further in that the contract must also be approved by the relevant union that company has agreements with.)

[0] https://dbei.gov.ie/en/What-We-Do/Workplace-and-Skills/Emplo...

[1] https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/Private-individuals/...

marcinzm3• 7 years ago

The problem is that there's two very different things achieved by the H1B process:

a) Getting talented entry-level employees who graduate from US schools to stay in the US

b) Getting talented experienced employees to move to the US

The H1B is actually rather bad for b) due to the long processing time (6 months) during which a candidate cannot work in the US and high chance of not winning the lottery. Revamping the O1 visa makes more sense for that case. So that leaves a) for which salary requirements based around experienced employees make little sense.

conanbatt• 7 years ago

you could multiply the h1b quota by 10 and it would fill out.

blitmap• 7 years ago

I see 3 things here:

1) Qualified job candidates are scarce? Just... what? The only difference between here and there is when people lie and say they're qualified, the company is willing to pass this lie on to the government to say "the qualified candidates are over there". There are people who can do the work, and there are companies who want to pay less in total compensation. I feel like my entire generation was raised on a CS/SE pathway. How are there no qualified candidates? What decade will we be fit do to the work? Maybe I'll move to the third world and get rehired back. That's the entry-level job.

2) H-1B is not an loophole to get "loyal" employees. Again, you keep employees with competitive wages & benefits.

3) Companies should be shamed as much as the government for an exploitable process. The government must change for the people it serves. Companies can be dissolved if they're not supporting the area they base themselves out of (and benefit from).

ip26• 7 years ago

WRT #2 it's certainly not supposed to be that way. But if an H-1B worker quits, they have something like two weeks to find a new job or else be deported on the spot. In other news, mysteriously, H-1B workers tend not to quit even faced with low wages and poor conditions.

austincheney• 7 years ago

I love discussions about hiring and immigration. People always focus on their idea of what others should do while ignoring all the data and the reality at present. When you see otherwise rational people ignore data, focus on unqualified conclusions, and opinionated targets their bias is laid bare. Regardless of what you believe is the right answer what does the hiring data actually say?

toast0• 7 years ago

The process could (and probably should) be adjusted, but the intent of h-1b is clear that it is to fill positions that are not fillable with local talent at prevailing wages.

If companies aren't really looking for local talent, or aren't really paying prevailing wages, they have been defrauding the government, and hurting the labor market. When large scale abusers of h-1b are prevented from getting future visas, it gives room for other companies to use the visas, and hopefully they follow the rules.

diogenescynic6• 7 years ago

If you can’t find applicants, you’re just not paying enough. Pay more.

an_cap5• 7 years ago

Why is it not okay to discriminate on the basis of your skin color at birth but okay to discriminate on the basis of which side of a border you were born in? Surely, there would a lot of outrage in HN if someone said - "Granted that H1-Black visas should ostensibly be filled only for positions where it is difficult to find qualified whites"?

DoofusOfDeath3• 7 years ago

I suppose it depends on whether or not you consider it morally acceptable for a country to prioritize the prosperity of its own citizens over that of non-citizens.

I.e., whom does a country's government serve?

alkibiades4• 7 years ago

because countries look out for their citizens. not everyone in the world. Why not ship the entire population of india and china and all of africa into the US? im sure they'd all like jobs and by your logic they are entitled to it over the citizens of the US.

patrickg_zill• 7 years ago

Let us know your experience with going on an Israeli forum and saying the same thing re Jewish immigration.

Then go to a Ghana forum and critique the right of return law for any black people who want to emigrate to Ghana.

leereeves• 7 years ago

That's a reasonable argument; we should think it through to the conclusion. In a more general form the argument is:

Given that certain forms of discrimination are unacceptable, why is okay for any group to discriminate against any other group? Why is it ok for a nation to enforce borders, a company to keep the proceeds of a new idea to themselves, or for a wealthy family to favor their own children?

Many people have asked that and tried to create systems that forbid such discrimination. Unfortunately the result is always disaster. It's simply so counter to human nature that it cannot be imposed without a totalitarian government and the problems that come with totalitarianism are far worse than the problems of inequality that come with freedom.

But perhaps a moral person should still seek to follow such a policy of their own volition? That might be viable, if dealing only with other people who follow a similar policy. But how many people are willing to work for such a system, rather than merely using "equality" as an argument only when it serves their own self interests? How many are willing to make the sacrifice when it's their turn to do the dirty job, to work hard without keeping the proceeds, to share their home with strangers, to fight criminals and tyrants with nothing to gain for themselves?

That's an empirical question and many experiments have been conducted on communes, kibbutzim, ashrams, etc. Experience has shown that the answer is: far too few to make such a system viable. Even voluntary societies of this type are plagued by freeloaders and cliques, and must impose borders to prevent being overrun by outsiders.

So while it certainly seems like a good moral position, and has seemed so to many, many people throughout history, it simply fails to work in practice, over and over and over again.

dominotw• 7 years ago

Why is it not okay to discriminate on the basis of your skin color at birth but okay to discriminate on the basis of which side of a border you were born in?

Same reason you take care of your own kids first. Would that imply that you are discriminating against kids that aren't yours?

blahblahblogger• 7 years ago

H1-B candidates are attractive for companies because it is harder for them to switch jobs. Companies can lock these employees for longer, and they can pay them less.

This is ultimately what it's about.

I work as a software engineer in the Bay Area and the number of H1Bs doing the same grunt work coding that I do is astounding. H1Bs were supposed to be for some sort of super specialized work no?

Beldin• 7 years ago

That's why a higher salary should be mandatory. Eg. 140% of a "normal" salary for that function.

It would make companies be more serious about looking for talent elsewhere - such as in their own country.

pramttl• 7 years ago

A talented (foreign) friend of mine had the opportunity to switch to a better, higher paid role but due to the effort involved, the risk and the pause in H1B premium processing just hung on to his current role.

The H1B program itself is not a problem and in-fact is a big positive contributor to the US economy; but it definitely has issues like the one you highlighted (e.g. harder for employees to switch jobs) that should be addressed by the government to make it more viable.

baby3• 7 years ago

I tried to get the H1B twice, couldn't get it through the lottery, so I had to move out of the US for a year and a half while I was waiting for the green card. The process is so backward.

commandlinefan• 7 years ago

I can’t help but wonder if a lot of the indignities that we tolerate (open-plan offices, unpaid overtime) aren’t worse because there are so many people in our industry unable to fight against them.

whack3• 7 years ago

"H1-B candidates are attractive for companies because it is harder for them to switch jobs"

The extent to which this is true, is severely overestimated. Both by citizens and by the h1b holders themselves. I have a close friend who has switched companies 4 times while on a h1b, and it was a breeze.

https://www.prideimmigration.com/can-you-change-jobs-h1b-vis...

The only complicating factors are Trump-era changes such as suspension of premium processing and greater risk of rejections. Combined, these do have a chilling effect on job transfers, which ironically leads to h1b abuses like mentioned in the article. But even then, these are easily surmountable hurdles.

3xblah• 7 years ago

How would you suggest they fix the process?

The practice of hiring someone "because it is harder for them to switch jobs" so the company "can lock these employees for longer" and "can pay them less" sounds like unlawful wage discrimination.

If the existence of a governmental program helps a company in pursuing an unlawful practice should that be relevant in determining the wrongfulness of the practice?

That seems like a very weak argument.

It seems reasonable that a company should see the program as intended to make H1-B candidates attractive because of their skills, not because it will be "harder for them to switch jobs" and the company can "lock" them for longer and "pay them less".

If there are citizens or permanent residents that have the same skills then what legitimate reason exists why companies should be filling them with H1-B candidates instead?

geebee• 7 years ago

You did just discuss the difficulty of finding qualified workers without mentioning salary. Yes, talented software developers are scarce at 50k. They even appear to be scarce at 150k/yr. To me, that doesn't signify a shortage, it signifies that employers asked the market for engineers at a particular price point, and the market said no. This isn't a shortage, it's the market's answer, it's the rational decision of people who have freedom to choose their profession in response to market signals, personal preferences, and costs.

The entire point of the H1B visa is to create a pool or workers who are not free to choose their professional path, but are allowed to live in the US only under the work conditions determined by their employer.

wickrom• 7 years ago

With the recent articles doing rounds about the feds Looking into Oracle paying minorities and women less, this seems part of the scheme to basically get lower wage workers under H1B who they know will work like minions for long hours because their visas are tied to the job. It's a pretty standard way of gaming the H1B. Oracle is no different.

kolbe• 7 years ago

Disparate outcomes do not imply disparate treatment. Maybe the real reason that Oracle favored hiring Asian students is that they are more talented than domestic alternatives?

bdcravens• 7 years ago

In order to not abuse the h1b visa, they would have had to establish that there is no available local talent per an objective standard.

known• 7 years ago

Last year it was discussed in https://qz.com/889524/the-us-says-oracle-is-encouraging-indi...

objektif• 7 years ago

I am sure locking in employees played a part in their decision. However, I have to point out that foreign graduates, especially from China are preferred in my profession due to their strong technical background. Its kind of how things evolved over time. So a similiar thing might be going on here.

synaesthesisx• 7 years ago

Makes sense - they can guarantee employee loyalty by locking them down, and can probably pay them less too. It's no wonder Oracle abused this.

jorblumesea• 7 years ago

It's really not hard to see why, H1B have none of the bargaining power and all of the risk. Especially for a shady company like oracle it's just pure exploitation going on here.

1024core• 7 years ago

A simple solution to the H1B "cheap workers" problem is to sort applications by (descending) order of salary, and pick the top 65K as authorized by Congress.

enraged_camel• 7 years ago

And have basically all H1Bs go to Silicon Valley/Seattle/NYC tech companies?

(You really should think things through before suggesting them as solutions, especially when the problems are complex.)

loosescrews• 7 years ago

Why can't companies in other locations pay competitively?

temp43584• 7 years ago

There is so much hate for the H1-B visa, but let me play devil's advocate. US "lax" (not really) immigration policy improves the image of America/American companies abroad.

If US starts tightening immigration laws, US companies will start outsourcing their work (which they have already started). If they start to clamp down on outsourcing, countries like India have no incentive to let US to freely use their market. They would simply follow china's method and restrict entry to all foreign players. If US follows US first policy in everything, the third-world already suspicious of western countries will only see this as west's new imperial ambitions.

Software is easy to replicate, specially by people which have already worked in Google, Facebook, etc. People in third world already have expertise to set up the competition to US companies. All that is stopping them is competition from US companies.

US being the becon of freedom and hope the world is a net good for US and US businesses according to me.

diogenescynic6• 7 years ago

That’s a fake threat. If they could outsource the work and pay less they already would. They aren’t keeping the jobs in America for their health...

Go do it then.

temp43584• 7 years ago

Currently Top Talent in those countries want to move abroad to earn more and have a better standard of living. If they see no way out, they have stay in their countries and then US companies will have access to top talent for cheaper.

For example, US is the best destination for doing a Ph.D. currently and ph.D. students then work in US. If US stops them from working here, they will go back work and form competitors.

China has already shown that this is achievable.

m0zg2• 7 years ago

Posted this elsewhere, but as a former H1B here's what should be done to end abuse:

1. Award a fixed pool of H1Bs to qualified applicants with the highest wage in the offer (and monitor that this wage is in fact being paid). This should be easy to pass if your representatives in congress are in fact _your_ representatives. The president will sign this immediately, since he was the one who proposed it in the first place.

2. Establish at least 6 month grace period if the H1B person leaves the sponsoring company to go work elsewhere. Currently if you leave (or are laid off/fired) you have to GTFO within 2 weeks, so people endure abuse and low wages for years until they get a green card.

There. There's your solution. No need to do anything else, guaranteed to work. It should not be possible to hire foreign workers into entry level positions at all.

vowelless6• 7 years ago

It should not be possible to hire foreign workers into entry level positions at all.

And with that, you perhaps got rid of a (imo) very useful subset of potential future Americans: ones who went to college and graduate school in the US.

This group went through it’s formative years in the United States. They are deeply imbibed in the culture and eventually start identifying with it. However, if they can’t get an entry level job, they now have to leave the country to go back to where they came from (or some other alternative like Canada / Australia). Instead, you would rather be bringing in 30 year olds from foreign nations who are unlikely to change and adopt America as much as someone who moved here at 18 would; and who have formed habits more suited to their nation than to the US.

But as I mentioned above, perhaps this is desireable.

rbanffy5• 7 years ago

go back to where they came from

That's not really a nice thing to say.

airstrike3• 7 years ago

1. Award a fixed pool of H1Bs to qualified applicants with the highest wage in the offer

There is no reason for a fixed pool to exist, and it's not easy to rank applicants by wage given significant disparities in cost of living depending on geography

m0zg2• 7 years ago

It blows my mind how, at the same time, the same people can argue in favor of "equality", and in favor of importing unlimited amounts of cheap labor to depress the wages of people who need money the most. It just doesn't compute, at all. And I'm perfectly fine with high cost of living areas getting all the H1Bs. Those areas also happen to have some of the highest tax rates in the country, so the US benefits.

d--b• 7 years ago

What's everyone so angry about?

Having been through H1B, I think the system is designed fairly well. It's extremely hard to figure out whether a particular hire required a foreign worker. And, in doubt, the US in general always sides with what's easier for companies. So, in doubt, immigration will consider that there is more harm done if a company doesn't get the worker they need than if a US citizen's job is taken by a foreigner. And probably even more so in tech, where jobs are allegedly plenty.

As with everything some companies will exploit it, which is forbidden, but then they get outed, and then they get sanctions, and abuse is reduced...

raz32dust3• 7 years ago

"then they get sanctions, and abuse is reduced.."

Sure, but how about fixing the deeper issues that caused the problem? I agree H1B works well, but I also think it can be made better. Both statements can be true.

baby3• 7 years ago

Having been through H1B the system is not designed fairly. I tried twice and failed the lottery. So I had to go through a green card process that took a year and a half. Such a waste of time and a lot of moving around countries.

zachguo• 7 years ago

Maybe it's my own sample bias. Aren't graduates in top CS schools largely international students?

likeabbas• 7 years ago

You may be correct, but possibly for the wrong reasons that you are are inferring.

The University of California lost a lawsuit in which they were accused of preferring international students to in-state and out-of-state students because the international students could afford the higher tuitions. UC has several of the top CS schools in the nation.

It's possible that the we could could replace many of those accepted with US students, but it would take a major audit of the university systems to find out.

ozfive• 7 years ago

Looks like Oracle blew the party for the rest of the big companies that are most likely doing the same. Party foul Larry Ellingson.

baybal2• 7 years ago

The problem of the system is that US left close to nothing to regular work visas. The premise that only "high end" companies are deserving to be let hiring cheap workforce is wrong.

In reality, it seemed to me, that pretty much any "white collar" job was passing H1B invariably of the salary, but even very high skill requirement "blue collar" jobs were denied by default.

This is my experience from the time one of my past employers tried to make a final assembly plant for electronics in Washington state. It was very hard to find well educated assembly line workers. The company ended hiring fresh master degrees grads to simply do assembly from knockdown kits for 70k, but even they were not up to the task.

That business was scrapped in the end.

asenna• 7 years ago

Can't believe this is only recently getting attention. It's not just Oracle, it's common knowledge how the same thing has been happening in several large corps. I know from the inside because Deloitte came in and scooped up our entire foreign students batch on graduating (Pennsylvania). Same thing happened the next year as well. Many of my friends still work there.

I remember there was a fire drill that took place in their campus in Harrisburg, and my friend sent me a pic he took when the entire campus was out - You could've mistaken it for a campus in Bangalore or Pune. There's definitely some preference they're giving to foreign nationals (specially from India). Please note, I'm an Indian national myself working in the US.

sonnyblarney• 7 years ago

It's had 'attention' for a while - it's just a very hard thing to prove.

Moreover, the investigation has a political sensitivity that could create bad headlines, so it needs the right environment to happen.

Thousionced1989• 7 years ago

As a foreigner with an American degree, I find this news unsurprising. In fact, I had wondered why some companies were seemingly reluctant to fill in the H1B paperwork, considering these workers are probably more loyal than their citizen / permanent resident counterparts.

As for me, the lack of proper immigration avenues in practice was one of the reasons leading me out of the country, this despite the higher salaries, having adopted the “American way of life” during my stay, and my many friends in the country. I found it bizarre, for lack of a better word, that a country would welcome people for 4 or more years of highly specialised education and training (F1, J1) and yet so few alternatives would be offered later for working (basically, the H1B programme, and the O programme, the latter not being a path to permanent residence).

I believe the current system mostly benefits the employer by making it difficult to switch jobs, and that this causes a real depression in salaries or working conditions.

As an aside, and an example of this depression, during my stay I was only allowed to work campus jobs(1). Even though my work was voluntary (i.e., I did not _need_ to work to remain in the country), I wanted to because I thought it would help me gain experience and I found a technically relevant position. But, because I had to work on campus, I was making significantly less than I would have made outside.

Edited: formatting

(1) There are some exceptions to this for things like internships, unforeseen financial hardship, etc.

sgjohnson• 7 years ago

You could fix all of the problems with the US immigration system by abolishing the welfare state and opening up the borders.

I love America and I’d move there in an instant if I’d get a chance, but I’ve got too much dignity to go thru the US immigration system and put myself in a limbo for many years.

Maybe when I’ll qualify for EB2 NIW.

jhwang52• 7 years ago

For most people, green card process takes about 2 years, not many years.

petilon4• 7 years ago

America is the most powerful nation in the world today not because it has the most number of people, but because it has the best and the brightest, gathered from around the world.

There are 4x as many geniuses in China as in the US. This is not because they are superior genetically. This is simply because the population of China is 4x that of USA. If one in 1,000,000 people are geniuses, then China must have 4x more geniuses than the US. That's a threat to the US. If our economy is to remain strong and if we are to remain a superpower we should invite the smartest of the Chinese to immigrate to the US.

Abuse of H1B must be stopped. It is not intended as a mechanism for undercutting American workers. But the baby should not be thrown out with the bathwater. We should expand the H1B system and make it easier for immigrants to become citizens, while at the same time preventing abuse.

jazzyk2• 7 years ago

Legal and controlled immigration is absolutely beneficial for the US overall.

But targeting specific industries is unfair - the software industry has been the main target, lowering the income levels respective to other, protected professions (physicians, etc.), or business executives.

Since people in the trades like plumbers or electricians do not fall under the umbrella of "importing the best & brightest", their hourly rates have been going up steadily (for self-employed people).

flowerlad2• 7 years ago

software industry has been the main target, lowering the income levels respective to other, protected professions

I don’t see software engineers suffering. Starting salary in FAANG conpanies is $120K to $250K. That’s better than doctors when you factor in years of education.

GeoffKnauth2• 7 years ago

In rural America, we have been importing doctors from other parts of the world because we don't have enough American doctors who want to serve outside the big cities and high-paid specialties.

behindmyscreen• 7 years ago

Changing the H1B visa to let holders change companies easily would be a good start at removing the pay disparity and incentive to not hire qualified US workers.

ece• 7 years ago

Letting them be promoted within a job would be a good start too.

If reforms like this happened, the incentive for companies to abuse the system would go down. Setting up fake staffing companies would still be a problem, but catching immigration/employment fraud is a different problem and should be resourced appropriately.

duaoebg• 7 years ago

That’s not why America is the most powerful. To sum it up “cheap credit.” No other place will give you access to money so cheaply.

sremani• 7 years ago

Capital accumulation is the right word.

adventured• 7 years ago

If cheap credit made countries powerful, Japan would be the most powerful country in world history. They've had access to among the cheapest rates of credit for two decades, a time in which their economic output has gone nowhere.

Cheap credit helps one party and harms another within a country. It doesn't make a nation powerful. Technology, invention, scientific output, universities, capital for investment, scale, production / manufacturing, attractiveness to foreign talent and investment, modestly sane regulatory and tax policies, strong protections for property rights, ease of establishing and doing business, ease of trade, etc. Those are a few of the things that help to make a nation powerful. Those are things the US has either been the leader in or one of the leaders for the last century plus.

Much of Western Europe has had cheaper borrowing than the US for many years now, including in real-estate, corporate borrowing and at the government level. It didn't spur a great boom and increase their power. At best it has helped them tread water, which is all it did for Japan.

ausjke• 7 years ago

As far as I know, while Chinese students are way more than India students in USA, Indian H1B holders are about 4~5 times more than Chinese. In short, the vast majority(about 50+%) H1Bs are taken by India, Chinese is about 10%.

Indians abuses the system severely by setting up phony staffing companies and do fake multiple filings on h1b application, etc.

There is a saying, that if an Indian becomes a manager, soon all his department becomes Indians, which really stands out among all other races. I will not be surprised someday they will be sued for not following equal job rights.

jhwang52• 7 years ago

This. I have observed this at FAANG as well as wouldn't be surprised if that's what happened at Oracle. Would explain the data anyways.

namelezz2• 7 years ago

if an Indian becomes a manager, soon all his department becomes Indians

It can get worse. "Woman was told she’d be fired if she didn’t marry boss’s Indian relative so he could immigrate here" - [0]

0 - https://www.surreynowleader.com/news/judge-annuls-hairdresse...

petilon4• 7 years ago

English language proficiency is the reason Indians are doing better than Chinese.

screye4• 7 years ago

Indians abuses the system severely by setting up phony staffing companies and do fake multiple filings on h1b application, etc.

Most Indians I know, hate this H1B abuse as much as Americans. (maybe even more. I have seen people spout some genuine hate towards it) It ruins the reputation of most Indians in Masters programs at well regarded R1 universities (most people at such programs, get proper full time roles to my knowledge)

There is a saying, that if an Indian becomes a manager, soon all his department becomes Indians, which really stands out among all other races. I will not be surprised someday they will be sued for not following equal job rights.

haven't seen enough teams here to refute this claim. Hope it ain't so, but knowing Indians, I wouldn't be that surprised if some Indian managers did behave in such a manner.

petilon4• 7 years ago

There is a saying, that if an Indian becomes a manager, soon all his department becomes Indians, which really stands out among all other races.

That's nonsense. Indians aren't one race. Indians are multiracial themselves. There are dark-skinned Indians that are mistaken for African American, and there are light skinned Indians that are mistaken for Italian Americans. The states of India are like countries of Europe in that each state has its own language: Gujarathi, Tamil, Kannada, Bengali etc.

slimshady94• 7 years ago

As far as I know, while Chinese students are way more than India students in USA, Indian H1B holders are about 4~5 times more than Chinese

Source?

vishnugupta• 7 years ago

if an Indian becomes a manager, soon all his department becomes Indians

This exact phenomenon plays out in India as well at a more granular level and across all job families and public/private sector companies. The more you zoom in more granular it gets.

E.g., South Indian manager prefers South Indian reportees, a manager in Karnataka prefers someone from his caste, and so on.

I wonder if it's an Asian specific phenomenon. Where family, regional, clans etc., affiliation trumps meritocracy. I've heard similar stories in Indonesia too where relatives or those from same islands are given preferential treatment by the bosses.

tooltalk4• 7 years ago

In my 20 years in IT and finance, I've always had a fair number of Indian coworkers, though mostly American-born or raised and US-educated. Some of my best buddies come from that pool. A couple of interesting points to note about my last two jobs though: the first was a small startup in NYC with ~15 employees, founded by two Americans. They had zero Indian employee! I mean there was one Indian-American guy, but he was gone as soon I joined. A lot of talented young folks, but they lost most of them and they eventually went to Canada and Eastern Europe for new blood.

My second was a ERP startup also in NYC much bigger than the first and fits your narrative -- the founder was Indian-American[?], a Princeton and HBS graduate, who had made a wad load of money in outsourcing business. Most of the principles reporting directly to him were also Indians who had worked at Cognizant and Infosys previously and whose technical or management skills were ..umm.. not very good or non-existence. The company still hired mostly H1Bs straight from India and Indians graduated from well-known US universities. They hired a lot of kids with advanced degrees, but who weren't clearly from top of the crop -- for lack of better words -- or passionate about their chosen field. Some were good, but many questionable. There were also new recruits with a master in CS (from US univ) could barely write a single line of code and had to be trained to perform monkey work from clean slate.

drawkbox4• 7 years ago

America is the most powerful nation in the world today not because it has the most number of people, but because it has the best and the brightest, gathered from around the world.

I agree, there is a non-quota limited O visa for temporary workers for the best and brightest [1].

> The O-1 nonimmigrant visa is for the individual who possesses extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics, or who has a demonstrated record of extraordinary achievement in the motion picture or television industry and has been recognized nationally or internationally for those achievements.

H-1B is also required for jobs that can't be filled but is definitely being abused.

The best and brightest from around the world can ALWAYS get in with no limit with the O visa [2].

> There is a misconception about the H-1B program that it was designed to allow companies to import workers with unique talents. There has long been a visa program for exactly that purpose. The O (for outstanding) visa program is for importing geniuses and nothing else. Interestingly enough, the O visa program has no quotas.

The H-1B abuse is more a situation where large companies are abusing it to lower labor costs and wages while owning employees. It will never affect the best and brightest from working in the US by getting an O visa though.

[1] https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-worker...

[2] https://www.cringely.com/2012/10/23/what-americans-dont-know...

screye4• 7 years ago

I agree, there is a non-quota limited O visa for temporary workers for the best and brightest

Just saying, the requirements of the O visa are usually very unreasonable.

An application must satisfy 3 of the below requirements:

1. Receipt of nationally or internationally recognized prizes or awards for excellence in the field of endeavor

2. Membership in associations in the field for which classification is sought which require outstanding achievements, as judged by recognized national or international experts in the field

3. Published material in professional or major trade publications, newspapers or other major media about the beneficiary and the beneficiary’s work in the field for which classification is sought

4. Original scientific, scholarly, or business-related contributions of major significance in the field

5. Authorship of scholarly articles in professional journals or other major media in the field for which classification is sought

6. A high salary or other remuneration for services as evidenced by contracts or other reliable evidence Participation on a panel, or individually, as a judge of the work of others in the same or in a field of specialization allied to that field for which classification is sought Employment in a critical or essential capacity for organizations and establishments that have a distinguished reputation

Afaik, this would usually put a person in the domain of top PhD student or professor. I doubt any masters/undergrad would be able to qualify for such a requirement. A PhD isn't for everyone, and IMO isn't always positively correlated with intelligence. (in that many of the smartest people have no intention of going into research /academia).

The kind of people from India who would qualify for the O-1 would usually be in the 99.99th percentile. At that point we aren't just talking about the smartest people. These people go beyond that. (at least in CS, where PhDs are very competitive)

porpoisely• 7 years ago

We are the most powerful nation on earth because of our immense resources, geographic diversity, access to almost every major ocean and lack of powerful enemies on our border. Geography is destiny. Having the most arable land, having exploited the most oil, having access to the pacific, atlantic, arctic, etc and the ability to develop in peace due to having much weaker nations on our border is why we are a superpower.

The idea that we are the greatest nation because we have the best and brightest from around the world is simply not true. If it was true, our immigration policy would be based on IQ today.

China can't be a superpower because they are hemmed in by Russia to the north, India to the south, US/Japan/Korea alliance in the east and Iran/Central Asia/Middle East to the west.

If it is true that number of "geniuses" makes a nation the most powerful in the world, the most powerful nations would have been china and india. We know that's not the case. So your theory contradicts itself.

analog31• 7 years ago

I agree, with one tiny quibble. My emphasis would not be about gathering people per se, but about educating them. OF course, tolerance of immigrants is key to keeping our doors open for students from overseas. Our higher education system, embattled as it is, remains the envy of the world.

TheBobinator• 7 years ago

When someone confuses a temporary work permit used to bring in scarce foreign labor to fill gaps in the labor market, with a permanent work permit that brings geniuses to the united states to live their lives, ignoring everything that goes in between including family, politics, and motivation.

When someone appears to be unbelievably naieve, they are often trying to sell you something. Either you're a foreigner who wants to convince us you're worth it, or you're a a corporate plant.

tagrun2• 7 years ago

You're not making much sense to me. How can the genius ratio in the US and China can be the same if US kept importing the "best and the brightest, gathered from around the world", assuming that Chinese "are not superior genetically"?

syntaxing• 7 years ago

This super prevalent in manufacturing related jobs too. It's funny how the rhetoric is to save our manufacturing nowadays when we give a crap ton of IP to countries like India with the process. The sad part is, I've seen a lot of unqualified people fill up these H-1B positions and then we'll have to train them. By the time they can start doing some real work from us training, their visa coincidentally runs out and this process repeats. We literally pay relatively high wage to train India's engineers. Yet managers turn a blind eye because it helps them balance their numbers.

testrr952• 7 years ago

I will tell you what they do in India

In 2015, I got a call from Oracle India and interviews were arranged and I got hired into Oracle India. It was my first job change.

Before to that, I used to work as a contractor for one of the US companies via one of the services company in India.

Oracle offered me way less than what they are offering to other engineers in the same BU, for the same value generated.

Reason Oracle told me that, since I am coming from a lower salary band, Oracle is still giving a reasonable high pay hike. I argued back IN WRITING that still it is way less than ( lesser than 1/3) of Oracle generally pays.

Oracle said to me, Ok, we will raise your salary in the first pay review which happens. I asked clearly and concisely, what they mean by review, they said you will be in the band.

I left Oracle in 2018.

They never met their promise. Few of my financial aspirations were burned down, trauma different.

They = [ recruiter, director, vp, hr, ceo's office, legal ]

During all the time at Oracle, I knocked many doors, all of them simply said "Oracle never committed in writing, a phone call means there is a miscommunication ", hence I do not stand a case.

It is not Indian Director which simply reneged from the bargain, it was the US director, US legal team, which simply reneged.

Escalating to Safra's office also did not help.

Oracle is full with corrupt directors who simply trick Oracle's own rules to cheat the potential hires and trick them to get a lower paying offer.

This was done my director of SW dev in US but I was an India employee.

flowerlad2• 7 years ago

If you accepted a job offer based on verbal promises as opposed to written then you only have yourself to blame. Learn your lesson and move on.

xaybey• 7 years ago

Why are you blaming the victim? Also, have you ever succeeded in getting clauses added to a megacorp's written offer?

testrr952• 7 years ago

I told you Sir, It was my first job change. I did not knew the tricks of the trade.

Yes, I have myself to blame because I trusted the people involved in hiring from one of the top 5 tech companies in the world. Id did not occur to me that I am being played upon.

However, If you had noticed, I mentioned I argued with hiring team [ PM, director, recruiter] IN WRITING BEFORE JOINING THE COMPANY. I still have those emails. As a response to those they used to call on phone, NOT reply in writing. It was evident to me that they are calling back because they have read the emails. I forgot to take the same thing in writing, because I trusted them.

So, Yes I joined them because of verbal promises, but the emails do exist still, in my mailbox, where I have asked them in band pay, before joining.

Initially when I approached the company's authorities they said " I am making this stuff up", but when I showed them emails from my mailbox, they switched to "since you do not have replies, ... .. .. you do not stand a case"

fucking_tragedy• 7 years ago

No, when someone scams or lies to another person, the scammer or liar is at fault.

The lesson here is that Oracle isn't to be trusted, because they will lie to and scam their hires.

There are plenty of companies and people that have scruples and will honor verbal agreements.

cptskippy• 7 years ago

Top teir software companies might claim the H-1B program allows them to hire the best and brightest from around the world, but that's not how everyone else uses the program. It allows consulting/contracting firms to hire low wage tech workers who are desperate to stay in the US and lock them into a form of indentured servitude because the road to a green card or citizenship is now a decade long journey and changing your job effectively restarts that journey.

drawkbox4• 7 years ago

Top tier software companies might claim the H-1B program allows them to hire the best and brightest from around the world, but that's not how everyone else uses the program.

I am fine with immigration as it is a feature of a good system which people want to join, the US should attract the best and people looking to contribute, but it is obvious the H-1B system is rigged and bad for pretty much all but large companies in many cases. I have known many H-1Bs and I feel bad for their situation when they want to leave a company or feel locked in. The moment H-1Bs can work at other companies other than the sponsor, all that becomes more market priced via competition and will improve pay and discourage the H-1B abusers just looking for low wage ownership of workers.

If companies REALLY wanted to hire the best and brightest from around the US and the world, remote development would be bigger and more widespread to the US and around the world. But as with most things, companies use it to own people rather than compete fairly or pay market rates. Remote development can be a cost savings and make companies more robust to employee/worker life changes over time rather than need employees to live near the company. Companies that abuse H-1Bs would rather have employees on site that they can lock into lower wages and control more.

There is also the O visa that would really mean they want to hire the best from around the world [1][2]. But ultimately companies that abuse H-1B just want to lower wages and lock in their workers. Cringely in 2012 wrote this:

H-1B isn’t the only way for foreigners to work in America. They can work to some extent on student visas and, in fact, many student visas are eventually converted to H-1B for those who have a job and want to stay but maybe not immigrate.
There is a misconception about the H-1B program that it was designed to allow companies to import workers with unique talents. There has long been a visa program for exactly that purpose. The O (for outstanding) visa program is for importing geniuses and nothing else. Interestingly enough, the O visa program has no quotas. So when Bill Gates complained about not being able to import enough top technical people for Microsoft, he wasn’t talking about geniuses, just normal coders.
I don’t want to pick on just Microsoft here, but I happen to know the company well and have written over the years about its technical recruiting procedures. Microsoft has a rigorous recruitment and vetting process. So does Google, Apple — you name the company. All of these companies will take as many of O visa candidates as they can get, but there just aren’t that many who qualify, which is why quotas aren’t required.
So when Microsoft — or Boeing, for that matter — says a limitation on H-1B visas is keeping them from getting top talent, they don’t mean it in the way that they imply. If a prospective employee is really top talent — the kind of engineer who can truly do things others simply can’t — there isn’t much keeping the company from hiring that person under the O visa program.
H-1B visas are about journeyman techies and nothing else.

Oracle though, will literally do anything to save a penny and the last thing on Oracle's list is developer pay and developer usability/user experience. Oracle tools and systems are a nightmare and Oracle is only sold in on the golf courses from top down. Oracle is still in legacy licensing land. Oracle sees developers as nothing but resources to extract value from then discard. Oracle == IBM == SAP and all those are not developer or employee/contractor/worker friendly systems and all of them do the same gaming of H-1B systems just like the TCS, Infosys and Cognizant type companies of the world.

[1] https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-worker...

[2] https://www.cringely.com/2012/10/23/what-americans-dont-know...

newshorts3• 7 years ago

H-1B coupled with the vendor contractor model are IMO the root causes of downward pressure on wages. Neoliberalism at its finest.

oracle_anon_29• 7 years ago

Hiring manager at Oracle here- Oracle is very balkanized, different business units have different practices and policies, so I can only speak (unofficially) about the one I am part of.

Whenever I have openings for junior positions, I get flooded with resumes from men and women with degress at universities in China and India, and only a very small fraction from people educated entirely in the US. My personal speculation is that younger software engineers in the US would rather not work at a company that is perceived to be a dinosaur, and is definitely not as sexy as other FAANGs or startups. People who want to be H1-B sponsored have fewer options, and I think Oracle's name isn't as tainted in China or India.

Also, for the (unofficial) record, the women and those with H1-B visas (incl women with H1-B visas) on my team are paid the same as US born men on my team with similar experience.

tagrun2• 7 years ago

Oracle has deeper problems than just being a dinosaur.

newshorts3• 7 years ago

Well of course. Is anyone surprised by visa abuse? It’s clear that tech companies are all for the program, why do you think that is? Equality?

aiisahik• 7 years ago

I think there are two cures for this issue:

1. Expose the pay disparity at Oracle and other companies so candidates know ahead of time what they are getting themselves into.

2. Make it easier for any H1B employee to get a job at a different company if they have the ability and desire.

I am on this visa called the E-3 which is almost identical to the H1B except:

- No annual cap

- No 6 year limit

- Only available to Australian nationals

I have never had any trouble finding a tech job despite being an asian foreigner. My pay has varied from 60k - 180k and the companies i've worked at have varied from multi-nationals to 3 person startup.

High Minimum salaries would disadvantage startups and companies in smaller cities.

Here's how to fix the h1B

- No hard annual cap

- No 6 year limit

- For any company that hires more than 10 H1B hires, the average salary of h1b employees should not be lower than the average salary of non-h1b employees.

- Additionally, for large companies (say > 10,000 employees) the average salary of h1b employees of a certain level of seniority should not be lower than the average salary of non-h1b employees of that same seniority.

This will give companies more certainty that a potential H1B hire would be approved, providing H1B candidates more job mobility. It would also prevent larger companies from abusing this system.

En_gr_Student• 7 years ago

Duh! It is 1/3 the cost (bullshit aside) for someone from a culture of hunger, hard work, desperation, and oppression. That makes them easy to work very hard, unlikely for them to push back, and so they have superior output for 1/3 the price. There is no book-cooking megacorp in the US that doesn't prefer H1b to citizens with the same qualifications. Not one.

A "competitive" work schedule in China is 9-9-6, or 9am to 9pm for 6 days a week. That means "normal" is a 72 hour work-week plus commute. A 40-hour work week, is comparatively cake. The 72 hour work-week is 80% increase over a 40 hour work-week. The HR ghouls say imagine salaried employees being glad to work 80% more hours, including nights or weekend hours, for the same pay: amazing; sold!

The book-cooking for h1b is intense, but after talking personally with a dozen or so folks, they really do only take home about 1/3 to 1/2 what their peers do. There is bs about job duties, titles, responsibilities, but that is just folks trying to pay the lowest price for a commodity worker. I've seen several fortune 100 companies say they prefer "low cost geo's" as much as h1b so that gives a second population with similar pricing. It is open knowledge that engineers in Malaysia, India, or Costa Rica are paid 1/3 of US wages for what is, as far as HR can tell, the same job. They do the same job, and get a lot lower wages for it.

When someone was bullied as a child, they are easier to bully as an adult. Stupid/evil/inept bosses love employees who they can abuse without pushback. Folks from cultures of oppression aren't going to report safety issues to safety folks. They aren't going to report managerial violations to those who police managers. They are non-reporting victims. The HR ghouls see them as "don't make waves" or "get along" and the hiring managers see them as "easy prey". In grad school there were prof's who wouldn't let overseas grad students get even a short break to attend their own mothers funeral, and those guys got away with it. That is "liberal academia" and not the underbelly of corporate/industrial America. Think about what that means for bully-bosses in the workplace.

It isn't going to change unless the value of the commodity can be forced into a competitive market, where the price will go toward actual parity, and the rate of preference will go to parity with citizens. Until that, h1b is the lottery where the only way to lose is not to play.

There is one and only one solution, and it is a lottery. If it becomes an auction, then the h1b prices will double or triple - that is to day they will go up to parity for US wages for the same job.

chenpengcheng• 7 years ago

Remove the caps. Let us change job easily. Give green cardright away. Make immigration suck less.

john4534243• 7 years ago

There is another loop hole other than H1B. Do your post graduate in the US and you will get hired easily. Its common among indians who can afford post graduate study in US.

Friedduck• 7 years ago

I don’t know if my experience in the mid-2000s is unique. A company I worked for laid off thousands of American workers and replaced them with H-1B and off-shore labor.

Many (most?) of the H-1B workers were utterly unqualified. Right out of school, inexperienced, and some just hopeless. The impact beyond the obvious was anyone pursuing a tech career at that company found alternate work.

The lesson was not lost. They learned that they could be replaced at any time by much cheaper global labor.

So I wonder if some of the scarcity in the tech labor market isn’t due to this perception.

H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colleges over American grads

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