I am in the software industry.
There is a lot of ignorance about H1-Bs. There are a lot of people ignorant about high tech and the labor shortage. They need to learn the facts before advocating policies that would harm our high tech industries.
H1-Bs go mostly to software engineers/developers who have at least a bachelor’s degree, most likely in a engineering major. They do not go to the lower skilled jobs like testing, customer support or IT. These aren’t leaf-blowers they are brining in. They are scarce, incredibly talented people.
There aren’t enough Americans capable of doing those highly skilled jobs. Very few people are capable of programming at the level needed by today’s high tech companies. It’s like baseball: companies need engineers at the major league or at least AAA level. Software is hard and complicated. People who are not qualified are worse than useless — they introduce bugs into your code and make projects much more difficult (or impossible) to accomplish.
Americans who can develop software are making incredible amounts of money. 22-year-old college graduates with CS degrees from the top American Universities are making $100k+. Some in their mid-30s are in the $300k-plus range.
The Labor Department makes companies jump through hoops to make sure the applicants are needed, that they are making market wages and they aren’t putting Americans out of work. They are not low-paid.
I can’t say it strongly enough: There is a huge, huge, gigantic, monstrous shortage of people who are capable of developing software well.
Bringing in the smartest, most talented people from all over the world to help our software companies is a good thing. They allow our companies to build products and technology they otherwise would not be able to do because of the lack of capable people.
By allowing companies to do more, they create more jobs for Americans.
Without H1-Bs we would limit the size of high tech companies and what they could do. They would be less competitive in the world market. China is already becoming more and more competitive in software. They will pass us in five years if we handcuffed our companies.
Do we want many of the smartest people in the industry to work for our companies or do we want them to stay home and compete against us?
Hardware Engineering and validation has been devastated by H1b since ‘98.
I saw people forced to train in people from Costa Rica ONLY because they were cheap.
The manager who was forced by the corporation to set it up was one of the finest people I know.
She eventually was forced out of the company rather than put up with it anymore.
I myself left three years ago rather than put up with the nonsense and games.
Software simply hasn’t been touched ...yet.
“They [the H1-B’s] are scarce, incredibly talented people.”
Then why do they have to trained by the soon-to-be-terminated?
Could not disagree with you more. Kill the H1-B and wages will rise. Yes they are good now - so what. They will rise to the point that American workers start pouring in and the market will stabilize.
I own a software company and I do hire overseas workers (about half my staff) in order to compete. I don’t hire H1-B.
I was hiring this last week and received resumes and talked with workers in a DC company that are being replaced by H1B. And, just like the article, are being forced to train their replacements in order to get their severance packages. Sickening.
The H1-B needs to die immediately and wages need to rise to their real levels. I’m sorry but I see a real problem when some mid-level manager gets $250k a year to sit on his ass and drink coffee but we think $100k is too much for a coder and want to depress their wages by importing cheap labor.
In addition to the H1-B dying, I would like to see a 50% tariff on outsourcing overseas. Yes, I would have to pay more. But so would all of my domestic competitors so it’s all the same to me. Overseas competitors tend to be uniformly incompetent and come with serious security risks so they don’t worry me.
Let the market speak. Let labor get paid what they should get paid. No artificial government interference at any part of the scale. Let’s MAGA.
Well, when they come here they must be "sponsored" or go back home (assuming they don't "overstay"). That need for sponsorship effectively makes them indentured servants.
If they were free to quit and move to any other job without sponsorship, they would likely command even higher pay than they already do. But that would defeat the purpose of the H1-B program, which is — indentured servitude.
I'll compete with free workers; been doing it for a long time now. And my being a citizen does help with some clients (such as the feds) who have restrictions on the people they can hire. But slave labor is dirty pool.
I can only reply with my son’s experience.
He is an ABD (all but dissertation) in a physical chemistry Ph.D. program who is very strong in scientific programming and large databases. For reasons that are irrelevant here, he “mastered out” of the Ph.D. program.
In his first job, he was in an “H1B shop.” It was for CGG, a French-owned company, whose Houston-based division did subsea geologic surveys for the oil industry. He was there for two years before they let him go, after oil dropped from $100 to $25/bbl, and they were in deep trouble. (Eventually he got a much better development job for a startup that melded chemical, optical, and programming skills, but that’s beside the point).
The way he told it, at CGG they preferred H1B’s, because they could work them 70 or more hours per week. The reason is that they had to hold a US job for 3 or 4 years to get their green cards. In the meantime, they were near-slaves. If they lost the job, they had to leave.
So, in his department, his managers and many of his co-workers were either Chinese or Indian. All of the non-managers made roughly 65K per year, which is the minimum amount per the H1B program for people at the degree level. That level of pay was pretty good when the program was originated, but is now entry-level for people with Master’s or Ph.D. degrees.... and it hasn’t been changed since 1989.
The arguments that you made, and that companies like Google and Microsoft make, that there aren’t enough skilled US programs at the $150K or so level, may in fact be true. But, as the program is now operated, there are many H1B shops who almost exclusively hire at the 65 to 70K level, and flog the help mercilessly for extended hours.
The net effect is that entry-level (and these are high entry positions) Americans have to compete with near-slave labor. Americans are being strongly discouraged from entering the STEM field by this layer of desperate and mistreated H1B’s. Moreover, within an abusive H1B shop, if you’re an American, you’re a foreigner in your own country. Good luck getting promoted when your manager can promote one of his countrymen.
You’re lying.
There’s not a single shred of proof to substantiate what you are saying.
Were this the case, they’d be adding to current employment roles, not firing with the proviso of training their replacements.
As such, the H1-B visa program not only needs to end, we need to go in reverse and rescind those currently holding those visas. In addition, the cost of ACTUALLY bringing on an H1-B needs to be far, far higher, with a stipulation that current in-department headcounts cannot decrease for 24 months after bringing on an H1-B.
H1-Bs also need to be ‘First Out’. Outsourcing should also come with it hefty fees for guaranteed severances and a law against retraining as a precondition of severance.
I’m all for outsourcing when you can’t handle the amount of work coming over the doorstep. However, they need to be first out when that flow slows down.
If your leadership decides to poison pill a division to let folks go so they can hire in another division, they should be hit with a tariff so big their heads spin as a result.
I’d also lower the bar to lawsuits coming from highly reviewed workers filing suit against employers. Anybody with 8 years experience and ratings on average of ‘meets’ or higher, or the equivalent, will automatically find federal venue and a presumption of substantiation of claim with 3x damages attaching.
After the reindeer games of the 90s and 2000s, I’m ready to start going to guns on boards that put up with this crap too. Personal liability for fraud at the BOD level will attach, as will conspiracy to commit fraud.
Do your job at the board level, actually police your C-suite, and life will be jake.
So many people out of homes, so many families destroyed, and so much capital transferring from the middle class to the upper class in the last 20 years from control fraud that I have no more stomach for this.
I owned a software company, and we never, ever had an issue finding talent. I’ve also managed teams of Indians on projects and its like doing it all by yourself during the day, with them undoing it all by themselves at night.
As such, sir, you’re likely in some sort of lobbying or management capacity with someone with an interest in perpetrating what can only be called control fraud and theft of intellectual property - using qualified people to train unqualified people for the purpose of firing them without cause.
We used to kill people for stealing horses. What should we do to a guy who makes you train your unqualified replacement for stealing your job?
The question of our times.
Absolutely not true. They are bringing in droves of no-nothing grunts. I have seen it with my very eyes. I'm talking about people who need to google how to use the 'nslookup' command.
“Do we want many of the smartest people in the industry to work for our companies or do we want them to stay home and compete against us?”
I agree with you on many of your points.
Here’s my problem with H1B visas ... they are exploited to reduce cost by deadbeats. I’ve seen it myself. It makes me sick.
If you want to get the corruption out of the H1B program, simply eliminate the clause that makes the H1B holder a slave to the company that sponsors their visa. Bring the H1B holder into the country on the company’s dime, have the visa holder agree to work for the sponsor for a year (or whatever) w/o the penalty of having to reimburse moving expenses, and let the free market dictate what the H1B visa holder can earn. If the H1B holder can find another sponsor willing to pay them more, let the visa holder jump ship and pay the hiring company back for the moving expenses -OR- the current employer can pay more and convince the holder to stay.
I’ve been in this industry for 20 years now. It sickens me to see the H1B program abused by disgusting people that preach socialism, but blow their ill gotten gains on the backs of underpaid people not unlike a Soviet portrayal of a “Captialist Pig” :-).
The H1B visa as it exists distorts the market when they’re used by deadbeats. I am all for bringing in the best and brightest from all parts of the world ... hell, the young people in this industry keep me on my toes and make me a better engineer :-) ... but when that program is abused by filth and keeps people’s earning potential in the gutter, the program needs to be called out for what it is and it needs repaired.
RE: H1-Bs go mostly to software engineers/developers who have at least a bachelor’s degree, most likely in a engineering major.
If this were so, then why does the University of California have to tell their IT folks to train their replacements and then fire these almost 80 experienced IT employees after that?
Pure BS.
20 years doing SAP business analyst FUNCTIONAL work, a field that needs NO heavy rare technical visas.
The real crime is that many if not half or more of the visas are for jobs that are not rare or technical.
It needs to die.
I’ve seen scores of American citizens that could do my work passed up due to the greed of cheap labor corporations.
Shameful.
The American workers are out there. American corporations want the labor cheap and they don’t want to train Americans. I’ quit my current job and do nothing but train Americans the day that program is ended.
The program needs to go away and a new pro-Americans program needs to start.
Do you know that universities and Community Colleges advice students to study psychology instead of CS or EE in last couple decades. I would like some one to verify that.
Liar. Lemme guess, you work for a body shop getting a cut off the top.