Tech companie use the H-1B visa program at a time of mass layoffs

https://www.epi.org/blog/tech-and-outsourcing-companies-continue-to-exploit-the-h-1b-visa-program-at-a-time-of-mass-layoffs-the-top-30-h-1b-employers-hired-34000-new-h-1b-workers-in-2022-and-laid-off-at-least-85000-workers/

by gadders • 3 years ago

62 48 3 years ago

epi.org

umeshunni2• 3 years ago

Pointless article, considering that companies that hired in early 2022 (since H1B petitions are due in March) could have done layoffs later in 2022 and in 2023.

The totals are especially misleading, given that most of the H1Bs issued are for outsourcing companies, which by definition, have no US layoffs.

avidiax• 3 years ago

What I would like to see for the H-1B program:

* No more points, education requirements, etc. Application acceptance is sorted by total-comp for a minimum 2 year contract, highest wins. Bar is set at the 90th percentile, no more quotas.

* Once they are in, from day 1 they can leave their contract at any time, and they have 1 year to find any job that has at least 80% of the total comp. New company has no paperwork to file.

* No more country based green card quotas or backlogs. If they've been in the US in good standing for N years, they get the card.

This system would mean that employers actually have to provide great working conditions and compensation to H-1B's, which preserves the working conditions for local workers. It removes the "2nd class" treatment of what are very valuable additions to the country.

throwntoday• 3 years ago

H1-B should be only allowed in circumstances where foreigners are paid the same wage as their American counterparts, and the employer should have to front a sizeable fee to bring them in to disincentivize replacing American workers and incentivize training Americans instead.

It's absurd that every other nation is allowed to prioritize the employment of their own people but the US should just bring foreigners in to do the job for less. H1-B is a total scam as it stands.

podric• 3 years ago

H-1Bs actually tend to get paid higher wages than their American counterparts as per this 2017 Glassdoor study: https://www.glassdoor.com/research/h1b-workers/

thatfrenchguy2• 3 years ago

Folks on H1B/L-1 tend to be paid more

rhaway84773• 3 years ago

H-1B employees are required to be paid what similar employees in the specific geographic area are paid or at least as much as similar non H1B employees within the same company are paid.

I’m not sure where this idea that H1B employees are underpaid comes from. When you consider the wage requirements, and the fact that a company is required to cover most of the costs of the H1B process, an H1B worker almost certainly costs more to the company than a non H1B worker, with additional risks (such as their visa being declined at any point requiring the company to spend potentially tens of thousands of dollars in lawyer fees to intervene).

The one advantage that H1B workwrs provide companies vs non H1B employees is that they cannot switch jobs easily, because the constant renewals mean they would need to justify the expenses to each new company, and many companies simply do not accept H1Bs because of the costs and complications involved.

The difficulty in moving jobs is also evidence of the fact that companies arent just dying to hire H1Bs for the sweet low wages.

Edit: What’s actually absurd is that the US has the highest wages in the world by far for industries in which H1B employees can work, and people think that this is bringing down their wages. Oh, also the people who do think this have absolutely no idea about how the program works, what costs are involved, how employers actually think about hiring an H1B worker (avoid unless absolutely necessary), and how much H1B workers contribute to the economy.

They also can’t seem to make the obvious connection that if the H1B program didn’t exist, the people doing those jobs wouldn’t stop existing. They would go back to their countries where they will do the same work at a fraction of the salary they were being paid in the US and still enjoy a dramatically higher standard of living. As opposed to being paid more than their colleagues, while paying US taxes and receiving absolutely 0 benefits from the government.

Every H1B employee paid taxes to fund the government handing out free money to Americans over COVID. 0 H1B employees received a penny from that money even as their American colleagues who did the same work, and paid the same taxes, got hundreds of dollars back.

jutrewag• 3 years ago

It’s the reason we’re so entrepreneurial. Four out of ten unicorns are started by first gen immigrants originally on the H1B with Indians leading the pack and Israel in second.

It not absurd, they’re the reason we have over half our jobs. Your thinking is too short term and ultimately very destructive.

gadders2• 3 years ago

Agreed. Foreign labour visas should be for hiring the tech-equivalent of Lionel Messi/Serena Williams/Kobe Bryant (pick your sport). 99% of the time it's just used to get someone to write CRUD apps for 60% of what you would need to pay a local hire.

diebeforei4852• 3 years ago

Application acceptance is sorted by total-comp

Trump implemented this but the courts rolled it back because of a technicality. The secretary of the department hadn't yet been confirmed by Congress, or something.

seattle_spring• 3 years ago

Source? I'd like to read more about that.

booleandilemma• 3 years ago

I would like to see the H-1B program abolished.

I hate knowing that every H-1B employee I see is filling a job that an American could have had.

epylar2• 3 years ago

Why is it necessarily always better that an American has a job in the US vs a non-American?

tsuujin• 3 years ago

I would like to see the H-1B program dramatically expanded; because the people I have worked with who are using the program have been, without exception, fantastic additions to the team who brought unique and important ways of thinking with them.

stopping3• 3 years ago

The whole point of work visas is to address situations when there aren't enough qualified domestic workers for the open positions that are available. It's economically favorable to fill a position with a qualified foreign national than it is to just leave it open.

thatfrenchguy2• 3 years ago

If you’ve ever been on the hiring committee at a tech company, you would know this is complete nonsense. We look for qualified candidates for years before we can find them, and immigrants working in tech probably pay more in taxes in a decade than most Americans in their lifetime.

If anything, the H-1B program should be augmented, and employment-based green cards should not be linked to how nice your employer is.

cyanydeez• 3 years ago

Eh people say the same about farm labor and illegal immigrants.

It makes far more sense to enforce basic employment laws than pretend employers aren't willfully negligent in their hiring practices

runnerup2• 3 years ago

This is what an auction system would fix. If you cap the number of visas and make every employer bid on them, then the only visas will be for people making >$500,000/year.

Those people are exactly what any red-blooded American should want immigrating here, lest we alienate them so that they go back to China and start the Jet Propulsion Laboratory there.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qian_Xuesen

Protectionism, Xenophobia and/or Racism actually costs a LOT economically. We’re much more affluent when we attract and retain the greatest talent in the world rather than block them from working here.

umeshunni2• 3 years ago

That requires an overhaul of the American education system to focus more on STEM and technical skills. What you're seeing is, however, a continuous regression to lower standards in Math and Science education.

two_in_one• 3 years ago

How about illegal emigrants getting free medical care, while Americans cannot afford? Everything is relative, I'd rather see more high skilled, law abiding immigrants. It's better for the country in general, and especially these days, when IT is a battleground.

ecdavis• 3 years ago

What you're arguing for are more accessible immigrant visas ("green cards").

AFAIK there is nothing currently stopping a US company from hiring a person, sponsoring them for an immigrant visa, and then waiting for that immigrant visa to be issued before the person relocates to the US. The main issue with this approach is that it takes many years for immigrant visas to be issued and companies want people to relocate right away. If an individual could use a current I-140 to get an infinitely-renewable non-immigrant visa I feel like that would resolve most complaints that we see about the H-1B here on HN.

If the H-1B visa was changed like you describe above I think it would leave a gap in available US non-immigrant visas. I think that gap would end up being filled by a new type of non-immigrant visa functionally very similar to the current H-1B. The H-1B visa serves an important purpose[0] which has been wildly distorted by tech companies using them for permanent employees on the pathway to permanent residency.

[0] Its intention was to provide US firms unable to find specialist workers locally with a means to fill vacancies with temporary workers.

hayst4ck• 3 years ago

I think you have a very simple idea of immigration as a financial transaction, but haven't put in a lot of thought towards cultural harmony or that when you "import" a person their culture comes with them.

What is the purpose of an H1-B? How does the H1-B holder benefit, how does the company benefit, and how do the citizens in the US benefit? What is the cost to US citizens, the cost to companies, and the cost to the H1-B holder? What are risks of the H1-B program?

How would you compare and contrast the import of serf/slave/unprotected/under-the-table labor, unskilled labor, skilled labor, and capitalist "labor"?

Application acceptance is sorted by total-comp for a minimum 2 year contract, highest wins.

How might this be gamed?

No more country based green card quotas or backlogs.

Why do you think this policy is in place? Do you think assimilation is important?

Are there elements of other cultures you do not like? Do you like the caste system? Do you like Gaunxi? Do you like islam? If war were to break out over Taiwan, do you trust Chinese? How do you feel about foreigners owning property? How do you feel about foreigners being a landlord? How do you feel about going to a restaurant in your own country and not seeing any English? How do you feel about going to a restaurant and the server not speaking any English? How would you feel about immigrants not going through public education? How do you feel about groups of co-workers speaking their own language to each-other and generally not being a part of the greater company/community?

I am not asking all these questions out of a sense of xenophobia, nor am I asking them because I think they have an obvious answer. I consider myself a deeply liberal person and I am a little dis-comforted by some of those.

I have Chinese friends (well, friends of fiends) on H1-B's that defend China's imprisonment of Hong Kong protestors, the idea that America Caused those protests, the idea that China should control Taiwan, the idea that Uygher genocide is American propaganda, that even if it isn't, it is not justified to question it because America genocided the Native Americans, think America is an evil colonial empire who caused Russia's war of aggression on Ukraine, and buy property to rent out to other people. As liberal as I am, I really would prefer those people not to be in America.

fsociety• 3 years ago

As a liberal how do you feel about hardcore conservatives? Are there no “out groups” of Americans within your own country who scare the shit out of you? If there are, what is the difference between them and a Chinese or Russian person? Regardless of your intent, it is a fear of the foreign and the effect they may have on your way of living.

UncleEntity• 3 years ago

How do you feel about going to a restaurant in your own country and not seeing any English? How do you feel about going to a restaurant and the server not speaking any English?

There was a Ranch Market down the street from where I used to live in Phoenix where they didn’t even pretend they were located in the US — everything, and I mean everything, was in Spanish.

Which I didn’t mind too much as they had pretty good prices and I know enough Spanish to not starve to death. The deli was actually really good.

There was another Ranch Market that specialized in Chinese food. Never ventured into that one because I knew if they had Lucky Cats I’d have a Lucky Cat. Talked to one random guy who’s wife (think he said she was Vietnamese) would go there to buy live fish and other Asian delectables.

trafficante• 3 years ago

There’s certainly some room for improvement along the “cultural assimilation” lines you mentioned - but in historical context, I’m not too worried as the second generation seems thoroughly “Americanized”, for better or for worse.

Canada is the country that needs to be looking at pumping the brakes soon; they’re talking some wild immigration numbers given the size of their native-born population.

I think it’ll be fascinating to see how Canada comes out the other side of the “homogenous to multi-cultural” rapid immigration pipeline that the United States has been (badly) traversing since 1965.

But I’m mostly concerned about the apparent “reverse assimilation” happening throughout IT. I’ve personally witnessed multiple departments clearly adopt de facto racially discriminatory hiring practices that apparently can go beyond race into caste dynamics - I lack the cultural knowledge to determine the truth of the “won’t hire below a certain caste” thing, but have had multiple India-born acquaintances bring it up in unrelated casual conversation.

Edit: fwiw, I happen to agree with several of your Chinese dude’s example opinions - but I get what you’re saying as far as the whole “why are you even here if you feel that way?”

refurb5• 3 years ago

We already have that (or similar) with other visas like O-1 or the EB-1 green card.

8note• 3 years ago

I think people outside of tech should be able to get h1-b visas.

Not every industry is paying tech workers wages, and places should still get librarians and nurses even if tech is willing to pay more

paxys2• 3 years ago

If librarians and nurses are really such critical high demand jobs then they should be paying Americans more for them rather than importing them from China and India for pennies. There is zero shortage of either if you are willing to pay more than the equivalent of minimum wage.

tadfisher• 3 years ago

The authors go to great lengths to insinuate, but not state outright, that these firms are replacing those laid-off workers with H1-B visa holders. They do this because the data is insufficient to draw said conclusion.

This data does exist for at least the top two firms discussed, because both Google and Meta are subject to the WARN Act and must provide public notice of the actual count of terminated employees broken out by job title, and the USCIS by necessity holds these records per-employee and -employer.

The argument for H-1B reform is compelling enough on its own merits, so it's unfortunate that "firm X laid off M people and hired Y people through H-1B" point is being used here. After all, these same firms hired more non-H-1B than they did H-1B employees during the same period.

refurb5• 3 years ago

Exactly.

Employees aren't necessarily interchangeable.

You might have too many sales people and do a layoff, but need to bring in an H1-B to do data analysis.

gadders2• 3 years ago

I think if the company applies (or bulk applies) for H1B visas, part of the form should ask them to confirm that none of the laid-off roles are being replaced by H1B staff. That should be conditional on the granting of visas.

stuaxo• 3 years ago

Well, colour me shocked. /s

theshadowmonkey• 3 years ago

This is a wrong comparison. Most of the layoffs were in departments that H1B visa holders are not hired traditionally. Orgs like marketing and recruiting were disproportionally affected compared to engineering which hires the majority of H1B visa holders. The article is just trying to sensationalize while its business as normal in most places.

paxys2• 3 years ago

Most H-1B visas are filed for existing employees, and each of them has to try multiple times due to the lottery. So if Google is filing an application in 2023 it doesn't mean they hired the worker last month, but rather probably anywhere around 2020-2022. The layoff has nothing to do with it.

Tech companie use the H-1B visa program at a time of mass layoffs

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