U.S. Senator blasts Microsoft's H-1B push as it lays off 18,000 workers

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9249837/U.S._Senator_blasts_Microsoft_s_H_1B_push_as_it_lays_off_18_000_workers

by Element_ • 12 years ago

147 114 12 years ago

bavcyc• 12 years ago

Along those lines, the census agency says most STEM graduates do not work in STEM fields: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/07/10/cens...

waps• 12 years ago

Anyone who is smart enough to calculate the differential of equations is smart enough to see there's little money in those jobs.

You see this in practice. STEM graduates do 3 things, in my experience. Work in management, work in IT, and work in academia. I wouldn't count on any of having up-to-date science knowledge except the academic ones.

hga• 12 years ago

Plenty of them with serious math chops, such as MIT EECS graduates, become quants in Wall Street and the like, at least for a while.

jandrewrogers• 12 years ago

There are an enormous variety of STEM degrees, particularly the "science" part, that have little economic value relative to the number of people with degrees produced e.g. marine biology. In many of these STEM fields the expected wage is essentially lower middle class because the supply of graduates greatly outstrips jobs.

Not everyone with a STEM degree is a computer scientist or an engineer. If you are one of the countless thousands of people with a low-value science degree then not only are there few jobs at any pay scale but you will likely make more money doing something else in any case.

wfjackson• 12 years ago

Aren't 12,000 of the 18,000 mostly overseas jobs at Nokia Devices in Finland? And 6000 doesn't seem that high based on the churn at most big tech companies between people leaving, layoffs and firings.

And it's kinda funny that Satya would've himself been on a work visa when he worked at Sun or at Microsoft, perhaps the senator is implying that poor Ballmer shouldn't have been laid off and replaced with a foreign worker? :)

Looks like a flamebait headline and article by the same guy at ComputerWorld who seems to be on a crusade against H1B, as part of a personal crusade or for page views (these articles seems to invariably make it to the Slashdot front page).

https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=computerworld+h...

DanielBMarkham• 12 years ago

I've been thinking about this subject for a few years now. Like many HN'ers, I work deep inside the tech industry. I'm also fortunate enough to have watched the operations of dozens of different companies.

I think the real problem here is that the tech industry does not know how to manage their workers. I'm not talking about managing projects, or how to coach or train. I mean the whole thing. The technology sector of the economy has no idea of exactly how many workers, in what configuration, it needs for accomplishing any job.

Weird situation, I know. But where that leaves us is a lot of "open" job positions that are little more than unfulfilled wishes. Sure would be nice to have another 40 guys on the helpdesk. Would that be as nice as 10 more developers? Who knows? Or -- we've got that big government project coming up, so we'll need at least 500 IT workers. Why do we need it? Who knows? It's a big project. It should have a lot of people on it, right?

The implications of this is that there's a huge downward pressure on wages. People want a certain number of tech workers, but there's no market pressure to hire them or even to lay them off if they've hired too many. They just want a certain number. So what they really want is really cheap, disposable workers that they can easily swap in and out as the political winds inside a company changes. The U.S. labor market isn't really geared for that.

ntakasaki2• 12 years ago

I think the real problem here is that the tech industry does not know how to manage their workers

It's not just the tech industry, almost all companies struggle to measure productivity, especially as a comparative measure. People like salesmen do have defined metrics like sales, but it's harder to do that for people in HR and Accounting, for example.

cpher2• 12 years ago

That's usually because sales, engineering, etc are "profit" centers, while HR/Accounting/Reception are "cost" centers. One group produces while the other consumes. So, it's really comparing apples to oranges.

001sky• 12 years ago

* disposable workers that they can easily swap in and out as the political winds inside a company changes*

This is a very underestimated point. most hiring is not about skill or productivity. But about building a political base within an organization.

In some areas, this means hiring friends, fraternity brothers, or members of some other in/niche chohort. In other areas it means hiring people of a different stripe. It also shows up in HR very often as the term "head count", which an asset quota that is horstraded amongst managers. Headcount brings with it both momentum and inertia. And is a favorite tool useful for building subtle forms of leverage in an organization.

Its useful to be aware of these dynamics in places like startups and politics because they exist there, too.

icebraining2• 12 years ago

"U.S. Senator accuses Microsoft of not treating workers as the generic cogs they are"

"'When I go down to the market to get some workers, I always check the label', says the Senator, 'it's our patriotic duty to acquire locally produced workers'"

drdeadringer• 12 years ago

The locally-produced workers also must be fresh.

Organic might be nice for a few more decades, but let's not discriminate against our upcoming robot overlords too much.

srameshc• 12 years ago

A large pool of H1B quota is being misused for sure. Instead of those mediocre or low tech workers, if more highly skilled workers are let in, I guess it would be better and we can manage with current allotted quotas.

_delirium• 12 years ago

I've long wondered why they don't allocate the slots (however many are politically palatable) via some kind of bidding system, e.g. highest-salary-filled-first, instead of the current first-come-first-served system. There is a "prevailing wage" requirement, intended to ensure that H1B is used to bring in workers where there's a shortage, not merely to undercut wages. But that's hard to police. And there is a more market-oriented way of allocating the slots to where genuine shortages exist: look at revealed preferences in the form of how much companies are willing to pay for a worker. If a company is willing to offer $150k to an H1B worker, I'm willing to believe there is actually a shortage of that person's skills. If they're only willing to offer $60k, I'm less convinced this offer is filling a skill that suffers from a major national shortage.

pooper• 12 years ago

I really like this idea. It is a shame that H1B workers get 60k for a job that I'd take at 85k and the company's justification is that it costs them 25k to process the visa or what not. That cost should not be computed into someone's compensation!

walshemj3• 12 years ago

Maybe make H1B applicable only to direct hires no contracting via a third party body shop - also reduce a companys H1B allowance by the number of redundancy's in the previous year

drpgq• 12 years ago

I wonder if any H-1B workers would have been among those laid off by Microsoft.

keithpeter• 12 years ago

According to the minimicrosoft[1] blog comments, yes they have.

UK perspective: absolutely no chance of visas for people outwith EU if you are in a redundancy situation locally. Endof. I'm surprised this could even be happening.

Disclaimer: I live in a 50:50 city, in a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood where the 'recent immigrants' are Polish.

[1] http://minimsft.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/18000-microsoft-jobs-...

walshemj3• 12 years ago

Not sure what you mean here. I think that Finish ex nokia workers could work in the UK/EU if they have a job offer Finland is a member of the EEA area.

eyeareque• 12 years ago

Why hire local talent when you can get a foreigner who will work for cheaper? (Not to mention the foriegner will also work under the shadow of having to go back to their country if they get fired..)

While there might be a good argument for this, I've never seen proof that it was not being abused.

lgleason7• 12 years ago

very very true.

lgleason7• 12 years ago

Raising the H1B cap has everything to do with creating downward pressure on wages. There are plenty of tech workers, but not enough cheap ones. Lots of companies also want experts in specific technologies instead of getting a good generalist who can learn quickly.

If you are in tech in the US and don't mind making less money for what you do keep supporting legislation for more H1B's. Just don't complain when you become a commodity, are required to dress "business casual" and cannot work remotely. The reason it is good to work in tech is because companies have incentives to make it a good place for you to work.

If your skills are something that is easy to find those benefits will go away. Most companies are not going to give you these benefits out of the goodness of their heart in today's environment. If they did then the average Wal-Mart worker would be making a lot more and have much better benefits.

cynicalkane5• 12 years ago

As a left-libertarian it always disappoints me to see this attitude. But political opinions have always been about incentives, always about expressing your position in an in-group, and it's amusing in a depressing sort of way to see how peoples' political philosophies switch when their interests are at stake. In particular, it seems to be common among hackers to be very libertarian except when they feel threatened in their jobs, then you hear them talk about unions and protectionism and regulation and so on.

I think it's very selfish to oppose H1B visas. America is wealthy compared to almost everywhere, and phenomenally wealthy compared to many of the places these H1B workers come from. Furthermore, the best thing for the US in the long run is to import as many smart people as it can. The best thing for us in the long run is to import as many smart people as we can. There are economists who dispute increasing immigration, but there is to my knowledge no serious argument against importing smart people.

Again, there is to my knowledge no economist, who anyone takes seriously, who would say "The USA needs to import fewer tech workers". It's a gain for everyone except the worker being "replaced", and that's a fallacy anyway because the economic pie is not zero-sum.

bicknergseng3• 12 years ago

There are probably not a ton of people here who would disagree with the phrase "the USA needs more tech workers." There are probably quite a few who disagree with the phrase "the USA needs more tech workers at the expense of its current tech workers."

Do you see the difference? If MS, Google, Cisco et al want to import workers, they should be paying them the same amount as their American counterparts, rather than pulling them in to be temp workers and lay off higher cost employees.

jquery2• 12 years ago

It's not depressing to see people's political attitudes change with more experience and in response to life experience and new realities. It's actually quite refreshing. You should be far more worried about the opposite, someone who uses ideology as a mental shortcut.

In particular, it seems to be common among hackers to be very libertarian except when they feel threatened in their jobs, then you hear them talk about unions and protectionism and regulation and so on.

It seems you are in favor of open borders and ascribing extremist views--non-sovereignty of nation-states--to those who simply might not toe the liberal party line.

Again, there is to my knowledge no economist, who anyone takes seriously, who would say "The USA needs to import fewer tech workers".

Since when did economists have tech worker interests in mind? All bow down at the altar of GDP, everyone else can burn.

crdoconnor6• 12 years ago

As a left-libertarian it always disappoints me to see this attitude. But political opinions have always been about incentives, always about expressing your position in an in-group, and it's amusing in a depressing sort of way to see how peoples' political philosophies switch when their interests are at stake. In particular, it seems to be common among hackers to be very libertarian except when they feel threatened in their jobs, then you hear them talk about unions and protectionism and regulation and so on.

H1-Bs are the very antithesis of freedom, which is apparently what libertarianism is about (I have my doubts its supposed adherents sometimes).

Giving corporations the near instant legal ability to revoke your immigration status (this is what H1Bs are) reduces you to a state of semi-chattel worker. In turn THAT pressures the wages of other workers down.

It's ENTIRELY consistent with libertarian views to oppose H1-Bs and the companies that push for them if they're pressuring your wages down. It's not an anti-foreigner view. That's not EVEN an anti-immigrant view. It's an anti "letting companies dictate the right of ANYBODY to stay in the country" view.

If tech companies OR you want more skilled tech workers they should lobby for more green cards or shut the fuck up.

Of course, what they really want is more easily controlled tech workers. That is, tech workers they have under their thumb. Tech workers they can say "I need you to work late tonight... unless you'd like to be on a flight back to your home country next week that is."

I think it's very selfish to oppose H1B visas.

Don't call yourself a libertarian then.

Use the phrase 'anti-freedom corporatist apologist' or something.

lkrubner• 12 years ago

There are 2 mistakes in your post. First this:

"I think it's very selfish to oppose H1B visas. America is wealthy compared to almost everywhere, and phenomenally wealthy compared to many of the places these H1B workers come from."

Your reasoning applies to immigration, not to H1B visas. If America is wealthy and should share its wealth with others, then it should have open borders. H1B visas bring in foreign workers on a temporary basis, tie them to a specific job, and therefore leave them in a precarious situation, unable to demand pay increases. If you believe that America should share its wealth via immigration, then you should be fighting for a more generous availability of green cards, not H1B visas.

About this:

"The downvote button is not a disagree button. If I'm wrong, tell me why."

Paul Graham has specifically said that the downvote button can be used to express disagreement.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

"I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness. It only becomes abuse when people resort to karma bombing: downvoting a lot of comments by one user without reading them in order to subtract maximum karma. Fortunately we now have several levels of software to protect against that."

hellgas00• 12 years ago

If you believe that the government should be manipulating immigration rates to interfere with the costs of labor in a 'free' labor market you really shouldn't call yourself a libertarian.

curiousDog3• 12 years ago

Agree with the downward pressure point. Personally, i think its a good thing. American companies (including start-ups) now have a larger pool of talent to hire from without paying Wall street salaries. However, I disagree that H1Bs are somehow cheaper. I was paid the same wage as my American counter-parts when I was at AMZN.

jquery2• 12 years ago

Agree with both points. H1Bs get paid the same as citizens yet still have downward pressure on wages.

Wall street salaries are never going to happen. Look at computer science enrollment by American students. Surprise, people respond to incentives. Turns out Americans are willing to program.

pandaman5• 12 years ago

I am curious how do you know that. The H1B's wage is public record but what about your American counter-parts?

The whole "H1Bs are getting the same salary" is very popular but I have not seen it supported by anything. It also seems contradictory to common sense since H1B's have the lowest bargaining power of all possible workers. How can they manage to negotiate salaries on the same level as Americans?

PS. I had been on H1B too. My salary doubled in about 2 years after getting GC (I had to stay a bit more than .5 year with the company that made my GC).

walshemj3• 12 years ago

Why do you think that wage deflation is a good thing for the workers and the society they live and work in?

Look at the damage that deflation did to japans economy.

jahewson3• 12 years ago

There are plenty of tech workers, but not enough cheap ones.

Then there are not enough tech workers: supply and demand.

Lots of companies also want experts in specific technologies instead of getting a good generalist who can learn quickly.

Then there are not enough experts either, though you try to blame this on the companies: how cheeky of them to hire more knowledgable people!

aikah2• 12 years ago

Then there are not enough tech workers: supply and demand.

No,artificial increase of supply through government intervention to drive down wages. It's a bit like "reverse protectionism",but at the expense of local workers. But hey i'm sure if you could own slaves you'd still be bragging about "supply and demand".

badman_ting• 12 years ago

Yup, it's about labor costs.

mavelikara2• 12 years ago

There are good reasons to believe that raising the number of H-1Bs create a downward pressure on wages. Yet, as cynicalkane mentions here, there are good reasons to believe that letting more smart people work on tech is beneficial for almost everyone involved.

The solution, IMO, is to try remove causes of wage depreciation due to H-1Bs. Right now, tying the petition (and GC) to the employer is the primary cause for this. Opposing this, instead of a blanket disapproval of H-1B program as a whole, looks to be a more tactically sounder approach. The employers who are asking for H-1Bs as a form of cheap labour will oppose this, showing their true colors. But those employers who are genuinely seeking smart employees should have no problems with it.

freyr2• 12 years ago

It's in the best interest of a nation to welcome the best and brightest workers with open arms. H-1B visas are a very bad approach towards that goal.

The H-1B program, in its current form, suppresses wages because employees have no leverage or bargaining power with their employer. The visa is held by the employer, and if the employer wishes to terminate the visa, the employee may face immediate deportation. If employees had some more flexibility in changing jobs, the power balance wouldn't be so one-sided.

On a side note, there's a question as to whether the H-1B visas are actually being used by employers to attract top talent, since the majority of H-1B visa applications are for the lowest wage bracket. Also, from U.S. News and World Report:

"Between 2007 and 2009, Accenture hired nearly 1,400 H-1Bs, yet during that same time it sponsored a mere [2 percent] of its H-1Bs for permanent residence. Clearly, many employers choose the H-1B program for cheaper temporary labor rather than permanent immigration."

Cherian_Abraham• 12 years ago

Chengannur :)

krschultz2• 12 years ago

Adding a bunch of smart, hardworking, educated, ambition people to society is always going to be a net-win, even if it puts a little downward pressure on wages.

However, I don't equate H-1Bs with permanent immigration. There are limitations on duration of stay, what happens with your spouse/family, switching employers, etc etc. That really doesn't lend itself to people moving their whole family to the US and buying into becoming permanent residents. If all we get out of the H-1B program is downward pressure and wages and people that will come for 5 years, make a bunch of money, go home and not come back, then I am against the H-1B program.

Note that I 100% put the blame for this situation on the US immigration policy and not the people that are H-1B holders. I am sure most of them would love to get a green card or even become a US citizen, but for some reason we've gone from 'Give me your tired poor huddled masses' to 'Oh you have a masters degree in an engineering degree and want to move here to start a business? Too bad!'.

bsder• 12 years ago

there are good reasons to believe that letting more smart people work on tech is beneficial for almost everyone involved.

Exactly, so let them. Employer is responsible and liable for the H1-B security check, and, if it passes, in one year the H1-B converts to a green card.

Even better, the H1-B cap gets cleaned out so new people can come in every year. Good solution, no?

So, why don't we hear this? Because H1-B's aren't about filling jobs, they're about downward pressure on wages.

lgleason7• 12 years ago

If you removed the downward pressure incentive on wages you would have few people that would be against the H1B's. The trick is how.

SomeCallMeTim4• 12 years ago

As a computing specialist who makes a very generous income from a large US employer, I am an expert in a specific technology. I've also been in the position of trying to hire developers with similar skill sets. As a result, I might bring a slightly different perspective.

I am a US citizen. As you point out, I don't need to dress "business casual" and I can (and do) work remotely, and the pay is good.

But in some specialties, developers are scarce in the US. They're probably also scarce worldwide, but the greater wages available here could entice them to immigrate.

In my niche in particular it's hard to find good developers for anything like reasonable wages. And in my specialty, it's not possible for a typical "generalist" to just hop in and learn quickly; for what I do, you'd need a broad background in C, C++, cross-platform issues, Windows, Android NDK, and Unix-ish development environments, as well as real-time/game experience. Someone missing any of those would have a steep learning curve.

I hear stories of developers making $500k+ per year, or getting job offers worth millions. At that level, then yes, I think we could stand to see a bit of downward pressure on salaries. I'm not quite there myself, though at my salary's current rate of growth I could see hitting that threshold in ten years or less.

That said, I do actually agree that H1B workers are often illegally used to pay below-market salaries. [1] I don't know how to combat this other than through better monitoring and stronger enforcement of the law. (For example, if an employer is found to be paying less than they should, forcing them to retroactively pay the difference in wages+penalties to any affected employees would be a strong motivator to pay them enough.)

Currently, H1B workers need to be paid 100% of the "prevailing wage"; maybe a higher threshold like 110% (or pick a number that makes sense) would convince critics that these workers are really hard to find in the US? Because if you can't find someone locally for 110% of the "prevailing wage" then that's a compelling argument that they aren't here.

[1] "Employers affirm in the labor condition application that the wage offered to the applicant is at least as high as that paid by the employer for the same type of job, and the number equals or exceeds the prevailing wage for the job in the same geographical area" http://www.immihelp.com/visas/h1b/h1b-visa-requirements.html

[edit] added comment about "hire a generalist" not being good enough

sdenton4• 12 years ago

There's far less emphasis on in-house training for specific skills than there once was. My mother, for anecdata, came out of a computer science program in the mid eighties with her education financed by her employer. Companies today don't see employees as long-term investments, and that's one of the prime reasons for the lack of people with the specific skills that those companies need. Highly specific skill sets aren't really encouraged by the academic system, and as a result people with your specific skill set on the job market become a proverbial dropped twenty dollar bill: you'll never find one because someone else has already snapped it up.

Of course, treating workers as long-termers means changing the incentives. The current set of incentives are oriented around cheap perks to lure in new workers, rather than the more expensive measures necessary to keep people around for the long haul, like pay raises to keep salaries industry-competitive or other serious rewards for long term service. (one could imagine a partially paid sabbatical year or something...)

humanrebar• 12 years ago

I hear stories of developers making $500k+ per year, or getting job offers worth millions. At that level, then yes, I think we could stand to see a bit of downward pressure on salaries.

Why? If some developer jobs are as hard as brain surgery, why shouldn't those developers be paid as much as brain surgeons?

Not capping wages also encourages employers to rethink their employment strategies. Maybe that sort of employee should be promoted to partner. Or maybe longer-term contracts should be signed to so that employers can expect a reasonable payback from helping the employee over the learning curve. Or maybe they can rethink their development process to allow more remote workers (thereby increasing the talent pool to draw from).

If developers are scarce, the solution is to allow wages to rise and let the businesses figure out how to compensate.

Daishiman2• 12 years ago

At that level, then yes, I think we could stand to see a bit of downward pressure on salaries.

Why??

If you're a lawyer specializing in sovereign debt restructuring and charge $2000 an hour, we don't hear about downward salary pressure.

I've never heard anyone complaining that petroleum engineers are too expensive, even if it takes them a Master's degree and an extremely costly speciality to understand their profession.

If we're playing the all-out capitalist game, then as a salaried employee you should go for all the leverage you've got, because your employers are doing the same through these and similar maneuvers.

jakejake• 12 years ago

The part about being a commodity, wearing business casual and not working remote is something that I experienced early in my career. So my thoughts and fears of that time keep me motivated. All of us in tech right now are pretty lucky, but I suspect there are people in the industry that never experienced groveling for a job or having to toe the line. The idea of having to put on a tie or show up at exactly 9am is simply laughable! But, were the balance to change I have no doubt that is what we will all be doing. I've been enjoying the ride as much as anybody, but I'm sometimes surprised it's lasted even this long.

Though I don't really agree with keeping the ride going by blocking immigration. I'm just not ready to join up with the "they took our jobs" crowd, even though it my be in my own, selfish interest. It doesn't seem that having an artificial shortage of workers is ultimately a good thing.

lgleason7• 12 years ago

I remember those days and am really hoping that we don't end up back in that situation. Even as recently as 5 years ago I saw a shop that did exactly that in the gift card space here in the US. They were notorious for their semi business dress code, crazy hours, uncompetitive pay, culture of fear and had more H1B's than any other place I had ever seen.

If anybody spoke up or didn't tow the line they were fired. I took a short term contract there during the peak of the recession and quickly moved on to something else, but the H1B's had no choice. Because of the economy a lot of Americans stayed because it wasn't obvious that there were other choices to them given the recession.

When I was a kid my dad told me that in this capitalistic society, in business expect people to treat you the way they can afford to treat you. In the case of this company they could afford to tread you poorly at that point in time and they did. Was it wrong, yes. But if you are a commodity that has no options but to either get fired or shut up and tow the line more companies than not will treat you that way.

H1B's are basically another form of indentured servitude the way they are currently implemented in the US. I'm not sure how to change that, but increasing their numbers is not the answer and is only going to make thing worse for everyone.

winter_blue5• 12 years ago

No one seems to realize how hard it is to immigrate to the United States. If you don't have a close relative (parent, sibling, or child) and are not fleeing persecution, it is quite incredibly hard to immigrate to the United States.

The pathway to a green card (permanent residency), for nearly everyone else (i.e. skilled immigrants) involves getting an H-1B or L-1 first, and then asking their employer to sponsor them for permanent residency.

So when I hear anti-H1B rants, what I'm hearing is hatred towards immigrants and immigration in general, that seem to be coming from people who have forgotten their own heritage.

toomuchtodo• 12 years ago

So when I hear anti-H1B rants, what I'm hearing is dirty filthy immigrant hatred coming from people who have forgotten their own heritage.

I don't think that's the case at all. I think its workers who have seen the job situation get progressively worse in the US over the last few decades, and are trying all avenues to prevent it from getting worse (in this case, depressed wages).

If workers had more protections (as it is in other developed/first world countries, for example), I don't think you'd see such a strong backlash against H-1B visas.

maxerickson2• 12 years ago

The H-1B is explicitly temporary. It might be a way to get your feet on the ground here, but it simply is not intended to be part of a path to citizenship.

ak2172• 12 years ago

This isn't a zero sum game for you and the H-1B visa holders. The H-1B and other skilled labor visas select for individuals who are intelligent, mobile, and entrepreneurial.

Those individuals and their families are here temporarily unless they can secure a green card (a tremendously difficult process that requires limiting their employment choices, handicapping them in their earning potential compared to you). Most Americans expressing your sentiment have no idea how much hassle immigrants have to go through in this process or every time they cross the border.

Historically, the United States has relied on this enrichment process to invigorate its economy with not just cheap migrant labor, but cheap entrepreneurial, technological, and scientific expertise. Many countries have suffered severe brain drain at the hands of the US precisely because of H-1B and other immigration policies. The US owes its technological and scientific leadership in many, many sectors to these skilled immigrants, who had to come here to get the environment they could thrive in. Their potential would have been wasted elsewhere.

Look around you. Many of the companies that constitute your labor market are built by people who took a chance and risked everything to move to the States, or people who moved here as their children. They helped the technology industry and the US as a whole to innovate its way out of the anti-utopia you describe, and will continue to play a key role in our worldwide technological leadership. They deserve to be here.

winter_blue5• 12 years ago

Most Americans expressing your sentiment have no idea how much hassle immigrants have to go through in this process or every time they cross the border.

Exactly. Most Americans don't seem to know how incredibly hard it is to immigrate to this country. They think it's as easy today as it was for their ancestors who came here a hundred years or so ago.

The fact is, if you are not seeking refugee or asylee status, and if don't have close family (a parent, sibling, or child) in the US, it is incredibly fucking hard to immigrate here.

Most of the rest of the immigrants, in the Employment-Based Green Card quotas go through a process that starts with them entering the U.S. on an H-1B or an L-1, and then doing work of such high quality that the employer may be persuaded into going through the arduous process of securing him/her a green card.

In my opinion what we're seeing here is just the plain old anti-immigrant fear mongering that been around since a very long time -- except that instead of bitching about Irish laborers pushing down wages in the low-income segment, it's about how smart, highly-skilled, college-educated immigrants are "destroying" the American economy and culture.

On one level, it's stupid -- because these people actually contribute to the economy. On another level, it's plain old die-hard racism cloaked in a fable about job-theft. If you disagree on the race part, just run through some comment threads on this topic, and invariably there are many whose concerns have more to do with the fact that the would-be immigrant is of Indian (or some other foreign) heritage, rather than their claim about how he or she "stole" their job...

ntakasaki2• 12 years ago

If they did then the average Wal-Mart worker would be making a lot more and have much better benefits.

But tech people seem quite okay with buying things made in China, and third world countries. When was the last time someone bought a router that was 40% more expensive but made in the USA? How many of the people who upvoted your comment made it the top comment ever check for a Made in USA sticker for their clothes or furniture even if it was expensive? Screw the low skilled compatriots so that you can afford higher spec MacBook and a Starbucks coffee, right?

Google/Motorola learnt the above lesson very fast with the Moto X which was assembled in the US and now that facility is closed because of bad sales inspite of a big advertising campaign.

So tech workers take full advantage of everything else becoming a commodity and now want to prevent the global tech labor supply affecting their already comparatively high wages so that computing/software stays expensive for the rest of society?

Next up, restrict open source software and remote work from other countries so that there is more work for tech workers and wages stay high?

Won't artificially high salaries affect startups, where a few thousand bucks can easily kill a promising startup that needs time to grow?

Restricting H1B visas will increase offshoring, which means the folks won't be paying local taxes in the US including State Unemployment, Social Security and Medicare taxes(they're not eligible for benefits though).

lgleason7• 12 years ago

Be it right or wrong it would be nearly impossible to buy many products if you only bought ones that are made in the United States.

I don't think that many people would argue for restricting open source software.....except for some risk averse enterprise types.

"Won't artificially high salaries affect startups, where a few thousand bucks can easily kill a promising startup that needs time to grow?"

Keep in mind that this would not just affect an engineers salary with a startup, but also their equity grant which will probably equal a lower ownership in the company.

With offshoring, if it was going to actually have an effect on salaries it would, but more jobs are still kept in US and/or same time-zone.

jarsin• 12 years ago

"Restricting H1B visas will increase offshoring"

Actually something I have seen twice now and heard about being a common occurrence is H1-B people come here. Get sent home eventually after they are all trained up by the company.

Then they obtain an offshore contract with the company and any of there other contacts they made while they were here.

So its a big win for the company because they get someone offshore that is trained in their ways and now that they are offshore they work for even less than when they were here.

bodyfour4• 12 years ago

As far as I can tell, programming talent is distributed evenly all over the world. So why does the US have such a large software industry? Because a lot of the top talent worldwide wants to come here and work. Places like Silicon Valley have a far-outsized share of the top 5% of talent.

That's the single reason our industry can command high wages -- you can certainly hire overseas developers cheaper but it's hard to find the same kind of talent concentrations our tech centers have. Even though you need to pay way more to hire in the US (and remember, software is an industry where people are your big cost) companies still find it worthwhile to build things here.

For those of us who are US citizens, this is a bonanza. There is a huge, highly-compensated industry in our back yard. And we're already allowed to work anywhere we want in it, no years of paperwork needed. We're not even forced to move oceans away from our families or work in a second language.

The H1B/L1's etc that you would send home? Guess what -- they will be competing against you anyway, just sitting in a different country. There won't be any H1B rules requiring pay equity with US citizens, and many of those countries have lower costs overall. They will be providing more downward pressure on US wages, not less. Plus they won't even be paying US taxes any more.

The idea that by driving the world's top talent out of the country will mean that US programmers will be living like kings is a silly myth. All it would demonstrate is how mobile those jobs are. If you wanted to keep working in your field, maybe you'd have to become the emigrant.

But I know that ultimately I'm just wasting keystrokes here. The anti-H1B bias in our industry just seems to grow and grow. People think that Silicon Valley and similar places are some naturally occurring money geyser -- if only we just put a "natives-only" sign on it we'd keep it all for ourselves. (And it goes without saying that by "natives" they're perversely talking about people whose great-grandparents immigrated from Europe) I think the endgame is that the US tech industry will eventually die, and programming wages will mostly equalize with the third world. The tighter you grab it, the faster it runs through your fingers.

Personally if I ran immigration policy it would be completely the opposite -- if you're a high-achieving STEM graduate with a US company dying to hire you I would hand you a passport before you had the chance to change your mind. It's so much better for the US when smart people are benefiting our economy, not competing against it.

kordless• 12 years ago

Just wait till the guy's seat gets replaced by an app written by one of those H1B holders he'd like to ban from the country at the ripe age of 23.

mountbob• 12 years ago

1) If it was the same in OTHER PROFESSIONS then I'd be ok - but it's not. Professionals licensed to practice in their country cannot immigrate and practice here - they end up resorting to things like becoming cab drivers etc (not that there's anything wrong with being a cab driver - but if you went to university for a solid profession then it's not a good result). Allow accountants, doctors, lawyers accredited in their countries to come and be able to become licensed here and push down their wages for the rest of us, then we can talk. This keeps supply in their field down and their wages up.

2) These visas do not incentivize corporations to RETRAIN their employees. Yes the specific technology changes but the ability to understand how to interact, program, maintain, etc do not (in relation).

3) Is AGEISM a management or a worker problem? Sure, it's up to the worker to keep up to date, but I've seen plenty of examples where ageism is more a problem of the industry. Somebody who is 40+, has a CompSci degree, worked in the industry for 15-20 years, gained wisdom is somehow worthless because they don't know the exact specific technology.

These visas are a bandaid to a problem that tech corporations themselves created. They don't retrain their valuable workers with outdated skills and instead look to foreign countries for a quick-fix out of their mess.

Keep up the high wages and you'll continue to see an increase in CompSci enrollment. Then pay to retrain your (good) employees for the latest technology and you'll keep them. Corporations have options, they're just more motivated at the H1-B candy then something that benefits everyone.

mrsharpoblunto• 12 years ago

As someone going through the US immigration process at the moment, the real issue as far as immigration reform goes should not be raising the H-1B cap, but rather fixing the insane greencard backlog. At the moment its pretty common for people to have to spend over a decade waiting in a legal limbo with an uncertain future.

In addition to this, requiring companies to sponsor greencards for all H1-B workers would go a long way toward stopping those who are simply looking for cheap captive labour and would leave the pool open to those companies who are legitimately looking for skilled workers in good faith.

htormey• 12 years ago

As someone working in the US on a H1B I am against raising the cap. Instead I think this visa should be replaced with one that can not be used by consulting companies and offers a short clear path to a green card.

The main problem is that the majority of people on this visa are being used as tools to drive down US wages. These are the people working for consulting shops in the middle of no where making below market wages while being forced to do mind numbing work.

It is very hard for someone in a situation like this to switch jobs. Their is also no incentive for their employers to sponsor them for a green card until they absolutely have to. It's not uncommon to find people spending close to a decade being one step away from being deported.

I want immigration reform not the perpetuation of a half baked visa that favors big companies and allows immigrants to be easily exploited. In summary I think talented people should be encouraged to work in the US but on an equal footing to everyone else. Raising the H1B cap is not immigration reform.

U.S. Senator blasts Microsoft's H-1B push as it lays off 18,000 workers

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