I encounter these H1-B visa recipients and their families every day
“The truth is that it’s just cheap labor for corporations who line the pockets of Congress.”
Who’d have thought it possible....
The American workers need to learn useful skills to compete.
That’s another thing Trump should end.
The linked article does not mention the specific details of the OPT “work visa.”
(1) OPT is a thinly camouflaged expansion of the H-1B program.
(2) OPT is actually a part of the standard student visa for foreign students. It allows foreign STEM graduates from USA colleges to stay and work in the USA for 36 months after graduation.
(3) OPT is subsidized by USA taxpayers. OPT workers, and their employers, do not pay Social Security or Medicare taxes, even though OPT workers are competing directly against home grown American STEM graduates for the same jobs.
(4) When Trump came into office, the number of OPT workers was below 250,000. Trump has increased OPT workers to more than 300,000.
My past job went to India in 2003. For me I got lucky and got a much better paying job. The ISP company I use to work for went from 5 million customers to 900,000 (probably much smaller) then got bought out a few years ago.
Often the H1-B college and work history is a fraud.
H1-B is a fraud - I work in consulting, some are smart but most can’t speak business English.
To work in China, you need to apply for a Z-visa. This visa is a rigorous selection process that [1] determines whether or not you have the skills that would benefit China, and [2] Whether or not the companies that hire you will not displace Chinese citizens.
Essentially, there are a number of things that they do, and all are interesting. Some key points of note and offered for your consideration...
[1] Minimum wages for a foreigner to work in China must be 4x that of a local Chinese worker in the same field.
[2] Criminal background check, and a point system that determines a person’s value.
[3] Constant monitoring and registration requirements similar to that of which America has for sex offenders.
To work in China, you must be an “expert”. This is a a process that determines your value compared to local Chinese. The role of the Chinese government is to ensure the social stability of the nation, and that the Chinese people and their interests are always put first.
Why can’t the United States do the same?
Everybody always focuses on Tech. It goes much deeper than Tech. I can tell you the banking industry is just chocked full of cheap H1b visa holders who undercut Americans on wages and who take the place of what should be Americans in those roles.
There is a very easy solution to the H-1B visa problem.
I would let businesses have as many H-1B visas as they want. At a cost of 1 million dollars per visa. Renewable yearly.
How many low wage foreigners will they hire then? For that matter, how many high wage foreigners will they hire?
I saw several buildings in Redmond go from 60% American to 60% Indian in 4 years. Thousands and thousands.
Thank you so much for posting this—The victims’ stories are
very sad, moving, and yet all too common.
in silicon valley the operative metric now seems to be cost per line of code, regardless of other considerations. concerns about quality and experience seem to fall by the wayside. software management is still in its infancy. how many lines can you code by tomorrow? by friday evening? saturday midnight? sunday midnight? next sunday midnight?
all the while, be aware that h1-b new hires are arriving in your area by unending droves, day in and day out, year in and year out. why should a company keep you when they can easily and legally lay you off and hire an h1-b for half the cost? one third of the cost? someone who barely speaks engrish, can’t quit because their entire family lives in a mud hut in their home country, much less sue you for discrimination?
this is not your textbook software engineering environment with everyone bushy-tailed and rosy-cheeked and pinball machines in the dining cafeterias chanting lofty mantras about doing no harm or saving the rain forest while delivering the promised post-industrial nirvana. in practice, it is more like a fire ant hill and only those prepared to fight for decades at a very visceral level can keep their job until they retire. one wrong step and they are out of a job, in which case they are instantly in competition with h1-bs who can be offered the same job at 1/3 of the cost or less. h1-bs can be patient. they know the score. one of them, or one of their colleagues, is likely to get your job. in the current environment, all they need do is to be patient for a while...
in the silicon valley suburbs, entire neighborhoods of caucasian people have been replaced by indians and chinese. the caucasians go back to iowa, or sell their home equity and move to grass valley or phoenix or someplace like minden. the retail stores and clubs are full of the same. the silicon valley of 40 years ago is totally gone (although likewise that replaced an earlier local farming culture which is now not even remembered by anyone now).
removing h1-b would force companies to hire americans. there is a hidden reserve of unemployed americans who can do these jobs. what is lacking is the corporate morality to employ american. this has been subverted by the almighty quarterly report and polician subceptibility to corruption by silicon valley corporations.
imho.
I am 75. Of the natural born Americans on the project I watch, many are older, like me. (It seems to be the young ones who lack the educations, although they have degrees and a couple years of “experience”, probably warming a chair.)
I have seen no age discrimination in GA.
I have commented on FR elsewhere about dysfunctions in the HR departments of some big employers.
1987-2012 I got a steady stream of recruiters seeking me to apply for IT jobs in Chicago and Chicagoland. 2012 the bottom dropped out of the job market.
I just got an email from a recruiter for a job in Chicago...the first in a long time. Pre2012 no week was less than 5 and most weeks were 20 and 30. Post 2012 it was more like 5 per year.
Post 2012 I get a lot of Chicago recruiters with jobs in TX, FL, NC and GA; not Chicagoland.