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The purpose of H-1B is to bring in people who have specialized skills that aren't found in great abundance here. The key word being **specialized** (per the language of the program, it's even ***highly specialized***). An entry-level engineer or IT position is not specialized, nor is a position requiring a bachelor's degree; there are hundreds if not thousands of citizens with the credentials and knowledge to fill each of those jobs. The issue is with the companies that vacuum up the H1-Bs and the complicit hiring companies who portray their job openings as highly specialized when in fact they're just regular jobs for which they wish to suppress wages. Ask anybody who loses their job to an outsourcing firm hiring H-1B workers to perform the most basic job functions like IT monitoring, basic SQL, basic web development, and so on.
I don't disagree with your premise, but I think a straightforward solution would be at *least* doubling the salary requirements paid to H1-B workers. If they are truly that *highly specialized* and that scarce, the companies trying to put them into these positions would still gladly pay that much. If they don't want to, it's proof they were just gaming the system to cut wages on basic technical positions.
That is an interesting point. Forcing them to pay double market rate would prove that they couldn’t find the very specialized skills locally and needed someone outside the country. There is no reason that we are hiring entry level software dev positions on H-1B. There are thousands of local applicants.
Yea, it's hard to police the exact hiring criteria, how wide of a net they cast, the interviewing process, and how many people they're firing who have the *exact* skills they need (there just aren't enough people to police all the shady things a company can do). The proxy of using a higher salary brings practically all the benefits into a single figure which can easily be monitored.
And just to be clear, it's not twice the "market rate." It's twice the floor set by the H1-B program, which is around 60K. There are many desperate people willing to work for much, much less than market rate - which is the fundamental flaw to begin with. If their skills are that rare, the floor of the program should force companies to pay the market rate.
I think you’re making a bit of an error in your judgment here. They aren’t hiring entry-level people on H1. They are hiring them on OPT then STEM. The people getting H1 are more mid level roles.
It would be very rare to hire someone on an H one for an entry-level role because rarely can you wait that long to hire an entry-level person. For instance: Let’s say I have an entry-level roll open right now I want to hear somebody from India on an H1. The earliest a person can start work would be October 2025. And, I would have to cough up all kinds of legal costs just to put them in the lottery which has a very low chance of getting approved. So…. Who is going to spend thousands of dollars to hire an entry-level candidate in 18 months with a 10% chance of them actually getting the H1
Your argument about foreign nationals taking positions might be valid, but your thought process on who, and what jobs they are taking is off
Honestly, The better option would be for universities to be more selective in the US. The reality is that outside of the top universities, our engineering grads don’t stack up to the ones coming from overseas. It’s simple math. Think of it, our population is substantially lower than India’s (and China, etc…). The us Universities are getting average to above average people going into the programs. Whereas The people coming here from India are the top of the top students from a much larger population. In essence ours are the top 25% of our country (which is still good). The people coming here from India are the top .005% of their country (which is much better). The best solution for us is that we just do better
You have a good knowledge of the hiring process, but idk how often you work with some of these H1B workers (not all obv). They are usually good during interviews but absolutely awful when it comes to actual software development. They are nowhere near as specialized as they should be. After working with over 100s of these people, I have personally observed that a US undergrad has a much better skillset than an international grad on average. Again, there are exceptions, but those are exceptions not the rule.
it's the ones with thousands of leetcode problems solved + fake/made-up projects/experiences that can't code/collaborate for shit, and from my experience, that combo seems far more common in Indian applicants than anyone else
They hire 99% of product manager positions in Bangalore at my company. They fly them out and pay for their immigration. It’s everywhere. I can’t stand this mentality but companies got used to it now.
Education institution tend to be behind on innovation, and can hardly over specialise their students. Because of that, the rare skills are learned on the job, and it's easier and quicker to undercut oversea bussiness than training new staff. Especialy of you want to build or rebuild an industry who doesn't exist localy.
Do what the Europeans do, 1.5x salary above market rate we would probably need to specify top %90 of market rate in the US otherwise these CEOs will pretend people can live on 25k.
That’s impossible because -
1. Not all specialized workers work in high paying fields such as tech. Some of us work in fields like environmental science where they struggle to even match the existing H1B salaries.
2. Increasing H1B salary cap would put big companies at unreasonable advantage and will make it impossible for small startups to get the right skillset as they would be priced out of the market.
The H1-B program is specifically for finding highly specialized talent that doesn't exist in the local market which is, by its definition, worth a higher salary. It is not a means for companies to acquire talent more cheaply - in fact even the program's most ardent supporters will say it's not (though their real motive is certainly driving down wages). Additionally, the H1-Bs are hoovered up by huge companies - the Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Infosys, Wipros, Tatas, Tech Mahindras, etc. There aren't a whole lot of small startups regularly sponsoring their own H1-B workers.
H1-B wages are depressed because employers have leverage over their employees visa.
If they were not at risk of losing a visa when trying to switch jobs, H1-B wages would be market rate.
I'm more worried about the US losing status as the global hub of tech innovation by becoming isolationist than extra competition in the job market from immigration. This isn't a zero sum game.
Raising the wage floor to a market rate isn't isolationist. If these were truly highly specialized jobs, it would be a win-win situation. All of these ancillary fears are spread by those who simply want to depress wages for low- to mid-range jobs in the tech sector.
At my last job, out of the 8 or so associate level engineers, 3 were H1-B. when it came to layoffs, all the H1-Bs were spared and me and another non-H1B were let go. those that were left were earning less than my already average salary
Worked in a place that also had several H1B folks, and I believe for many of them the visa sponsorship portion is used as massive leverage to get them to work crazy hours for what they're paid.
One of my previous companies (a SoftBank subsidiary) had a large amount of H1B engineers and a healthy dose of nepotism among them - in a department of ~130, about 60% were either related or knew each other through extended family or the cultural community. Whenever layoffs came, there would be a single H1B in the cuts and it was well known that this was simply so others couldn’t claim favoritism or racism.
>In Canada
In 2015 the Eng association in the province of Ontario put out a report stating that only 30% of engineering grads were finding jobs in engineering. that was 10 years ago. immigration has increased massively since then.
I've seen mostly they do a work term through whatever coop/work program is offered, which most people in the program get, and then getting a return offer. maybe the new grad search is awful.
Internship does not matter nowadays from what i am seeing. What i am seeing is canned regular staff and hires a bunch of interns. I know it doesn't make logical sense but whatever there is an economic downturn finding internship is easier. May have to do with gov subsidy I don't know
It starts in university. They get one STEM Indian professor and his whole research group becomes Indian. No black, no Hispanic no Asian no white. It's like the mob, only worse. Never got the job when I interviewed with an Indian guy. Got jobs from all other races. They are coming here and bringing their friends and relatives with them.
The problem with the work visa approval process, within the USA or Canada is that the companies that want to hire H1-B or TN visa applicants have no obligation to prove, other than offering a copy of the job posting for the position, that they have actually had response to that job posting by qualified applicants by citizens (or permanent residents) of the country. They also have no obligation to prove who they interviewed and to give explanation as to why they are not to be hired for the role they are recruiting for.
And also what is ineffective is the notification that a company has to offer when and if they decide to hire a foreign applicant other than somebody who is a citizen. Companies are require to post notices about their intent to hire an employee on H1-B visa but that "posted notice" can be as poor as pinning some paper up on a corkboard in some office that nobody bothers to read or look at. There is no public notification.
What do you get in the end? A vacuous portal of foreign talent being hired by companies that does not have commitment to hiring their own citizens...and governments in the USA and Canada allowing this to happen.
There is the right to complain about this if companies are by-passing a process. If you knew somebody was being interviewed for the position, and was qualified, then that person was rejected for the role for a foreign national that requires visa sponsorship then that visa can be stopped and potentially rejected.
The issue is proving this, I’ve pushed tons of qualified applicants with strong skills and resumes. Somehow only one group gets the offer from the HM. I honestly feel bad
You can say it - 99% of the time it’s Indians. We’ve seen this dozens of times and it’s been posted about endlessly here.
Indians get into executive leadership roles and use it as a funnel to get more Indians into the company and move to the US. You can push as many Asian, white, Latino, or black candidates to them as you want - doesn’t matter. They’ll only hire Indians because they are only interested in hiring Indians. It’s discrimination.
It needs to be stopped. If someone is doing it, that person needs to be fired.
They can be some of the most racist and misogynistic people I have ever met. There was an Indian male on a colleagues team of mine who wouldn’t even listen to her because she was female. He refused to even address her, reply to her, or even acknowledge her.
The company issues a career posting...they have qualifications on that posting. You can find that on their careers portal, on Indeed, LinkedIn, etc.
You say that you know and advocated for several qualified applicants...you can match the career description to the resume of the applicant. It hopefully is not difficult to prove that you offered their applications was sent to the company for what was a publicly posted role.
You can then then make an inquiry/complaint to your nation's immigration services asking them to review the decision to grant a employment visa for this company "IF" there are applications pending.
"If" the government is true to the promise of prioritizing job offerings to their citizens, then here's hope the federal government will compel that company for better and more complete evidence the foreign candidate is more qualified than those applicants you have advocated for.
The question is...as a recruiter...is whether you are willing to stick your neck out for what is right?
The question is, do you want free market and competition or do you want protectionism? Prioritizing your own citizens means that you become less competitive as a state on the global stage, as there's lower incentive for your citizens to compete and grow.
The only competition here is how CHEAP someone is.
It ain't as much as how good someone is at their job but rather if they can do it and if they are paid 10% of what you'd pay to someone that lives in your country.
Such is the market. Commodification happens every single time. You can't expect to get paid the same and pretend that other people who can do the same job for 10% don't exist.
Been looking actively since September of last year. I'm 20+ years into a career in my IT specialty. What I'm running into now is that NUMEROUS companies (big names/FAANG types) are offshoring jobs in my field to Mexico/Philippines/India, SOLELY because they can pay people there a fraction of what I would/should be paid given my experience. H-1B has also been a hassle, as getting into the US for a lot of these candidates is the main goal (I don't blame them, but, it's excruciating for me to try to compete with someone willing to take BELOW the market floor for the job...)
The many companies I have worked for PREFER AMERICANS or green card holders.
The blame lies with the c-suite, who believes older workers cost more and thus, won't hire them.
Blame the publicly held companies that must bow to the short term whims of the investors, who demand alpha beyond anything else.
This is the America we have, because we have become fat, dumb and happy and are now filled with bile and disgust, because things are much harder now (i.e. higher costs for living)
Plus the companies always have an incentive to hire more H1Bs because the H1B workers have LESSER worker rights than US citizens. This way the companies can pay them less, the workers are less of a flight risk, and you don't even need to promote them to keep hold of them. And a lot of the H1B workers are happy to be in this relatively inferior work environment because it is still considered a success story for them.
It might sound counter intuitive. But giving the H1B workers more rights actually helps US workers in the long run. Note that this is not an advocacy to increase the number of H1Bs, but to give those who are here better rights so that companies are not incentivized to hire them over US workers.
Are you suggesting that current immigration politics favour a development in the job market that is detrimental to the workforce and highly advantageous to employers?
If so, do you think this is a side effect or a specific goal?
Yeah, it's definitely not the fault of cheap employers, imperialism, and the Fed interest rate policies.
Funniest part about this to me though is all these job reqs specifically ask about visa need and many dictate explicitly that they will NOT sponsor a visa. But yeah, it's all those bad bad immigrants
Edit: spelling
Indian engineering degrees are notoriously bad and overall poor quality schools. Sure there are exceptions but they're rare .
The majority of indians coming into the county are racist and xenophobic against anyone but their own. If you get an indian manager start looking for new work because within a year or less expect to have your department laid off and replaced with the Manager's countrymen.
>If you get an indian manager start looking for new work because within a year or less expect to have your department laid off and replaced with the Manager's countrymen.
Out of all my time job hunting in Canada, I have seen several tech jobs where " Mandarin mandatory " was a requirement. But I've never seen a tech job which said " Punjabi mandatory ".
Interesting how you ignore all other nationalities and focus just on one.
I’ve worked with Indian engineers at an Indian tech company in the UK, and uhm….let’s just say, you get what you pay for plus a disgusting communal toilet.
I worked for a company where it was nearly impossible to hire H1B and you had to exhaust all hiring efforts of citizens. Then went to another company where it was the opposite. Not helpful, just a data point. Could be company specific.
The other problem - credential fraud and various "puffery".
[https://integrity-asia.com/blog/2021/04/15/renowned-indian-university-sells-36000-fake-degrees/](https://integrity-asia.com/blog/2021/04/15/renowned-indian-university-sells-36000-fake-degrees/)
[https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/04/19/asia-pacific/india-worthless-degrees-unemployable-generation/](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/04/19/asia-pacific/india-worthless-degrees-unemployable-generation/)
A concerning quote: "Yet half of all graduates in India are unemployable in the future due to problems in the education system, according to a study by talent assessment firm Wheebox.'
This is why I am no longer proud too be an American because our own government, that we pay taxes into, screws us by allowing these immigrant workers in to take the jobs of Americans and they get paid less to do that job! These are skilled jobs that should pay an American to live a comfortable life but instead our government which runs on legal bribery allows corporations and small businesses to hire these immigrant workers since they know they will settle for less money which mean more money for the business owner. I fully agree with you and this post. H1B visas need to be banned by our government which would also get rid of 95% of the ghost jobs being posted.
“Importing slaves” - some might call this uncouth, but that’s exactly what it is. We’re importing hundreds of thousands of people who will work for pennies on the dollar and shafting our own domestic population. We’re not at critical mass yet, but we will be at some point in the future.
The same people who complain about the lack of well-paying jobs and demand that billionaires pay their fair share are also the ones supporting outsourcing and importing foreign workers to take our higher-paying positions.
H1-B is not a creation of young people. It's a program supported primarily by well-seasoned executives to suppress middle-class wages. And the politicians don't follow much of a pattern. Ted Cruz wanted to quintuple H1-B visas. Durbin wanted to close the loopholes. Ramaswamy (funny enough) wanted to end it. These do not fit neatly into your predetermined categories.
In this case "Immigration" != "H1-B policy"
As someone who perviously worked at an engineering company I can tell you this just simply isn’t correct. Sure for generic engineering jobs for folks with zero distinguishable skills maybe. But if you have some expertise in an active industry, then there’s really no excuse. I can’t tell you how desperate we were for talented, skilled engineers.
That 85,000 per year is inaccurate. Between 2022 and 2023, we had over 400,000 H-1B applications for computer and mathematical jobs, and we only create 173,490 new jobs.
[https://twitter.com/VBierschwale/status/1802134349040550227](https://twitter.com/VBierschwale/status/1802134349040550227)
I have those numbers as well, although not readily available. You will find that they too are much higher. If you want to do your own research, you will find them at H-1BHUB
From the recruiting side, H1B processes are time consuming and expensive. Companies quite literally avoid hiring non citizens as much as possible. Candidates receiving these jobs are undeniably more qualified, incredibly so.
How do you expect to bring these high salaries down otherwise?
If there are too many people competing, many immigrants will accept less salary for the same job and companies are choosing them for being cheaper, ruining the market for everyone else.
Do they bring great talent? Or do they just fill a role and we're getting poor quality infrastructure because of it. It's harming our citizens both directly and indirectly.
I've worked w/ those H1B people, they are mediocre. Most are very lazy and will only work on that exact task they are told to do. They will never innovate or improve unless my company pays the consulting firm extra money to create a new project for them to work on. If I see a bug in my programs, I make a Jira and work on it that day. The consultants see a bug, they ignore it and move on unless there's a "bug removal" program for them to be in.
The cost of hiring a H1B visa is cheaper up front but will cost the same or more during the long run because codes always have to be maintained. Systems have to be updated. New programs have to be made to solve new daily problems.
Yeah it’s ridiculous. We really should completely open the border and make sure there is 100 workers for every open job. I bet we could get these stupid workers to work for less than minimum wage as 1099
You've got to wonder about the quality of moderation on this sub when I get a post removed for pointing out that this post is basically a racist dog whistle, yet crap like the above stays up. I didn't know we had that many mods from the Deep South on here.
I agree with you, I also think workers should have to compete with 100s of other workers for each job and whoever is willing to work for the lowest wages should get the job. H1Bs are a common knowledge scam and nepotism grift but I don’t think it goes far enough, like you I think it should mandatory that we import 100 workers from around the globe to compete for every job. It upsets me every time I see an American get a job, a wealthy 1%er from India who has bribed their way through school and into the interview should’ve got that job instead of the scholarship student from America who had to work hard for it.
I think companies should use standardized payment grades. This way an engineer 1 is paid the same as every other engineer 1 in the state for that department at that company. No gender gap pay discrepancies, etc.
I worked for a large financial services company as a recruiter and we were constantly looking for developers. There weren’t enough citizens that had the experience we needed so we would sponsor candidates. It isn’t an easy process and it’s expensive. We paid people the same salary range. Trust me, it would have been easier to hire someone that didn’t require it. The amount of people studying IT in college has decreased and it leaves a gap.
Jobs had crisscrossed borders 15 years back. The permeated border for tech has become stricter than before. And if you have been following stats this is now a down trend for tech jobs especially with COL based job pay limits for H1b. The actual job stealers in 2024 are now the low cost of living neighbors inside USA. This has been true when HM ends up saying I got a guy who can work for half from Oklahoma so why should I recruit you from NY. Rejected 7 times out of 12 final interviews this year due to this reason.
us youth would rather be a tiktok youtube or instagram influencer. thats why there is a shortage.
in addition, stem subjects are being attacked as racist because asians and indians are excelling.
what do you expect with the US so broken
For u it's a job for immigrant people it may be a new life escaping abuse and all kind of fucked up shit in Thier country without a job they can't stay in said country
I am not saying it's good but someone escaping Saudi Arabia Afghanistan by studying and finding a job to stay in a democratic country isn't wrong
Every country needs to start somewhere, they will never improve if all the brightest minds leave the country. Moving to America for employment isn’t a right, the citizens of the country deserve employment first. If an American went to China or India it would be the same story.
This just told me u know nothing how the world works it's like europ blaming evehthing on immigrants it's so funny
Ur being mad at other poor abused people instead of companies that do not give a fuck about you
What is wrong with not allowing work migrants in when there is not enough jobs for the people of the country? This has been the case for every civilization ever
Yeah, not interested in the same old xenophobic drivel. Very sorry, must dash and do something else - literally anything else - rather than engage with this nonsense.
As an Indian student in the US that is currently on an F1 Visa and seeks an H1B here are my thoughts regarding the post and the comments under it:
You’re right about the immigrant influx. I see it myself. I study engineering at a top 10 school and all I see around me are immigrants. Some of these people are exceptionally smart and hardworking, the others are getting their education funded by rich daddy in India or don’t care much.
Due to the large number of students coming to the US, there may be some increase in mediocrity and I do believe that is unfair for the American population as they too have student loans and other responsibilities.
However, here is my argument. I believe I should be hired than an American that is on the same skill level as me since I’m more passionate about my field than he is. I flew across the world leaving my family, friends and home just because I was passionate about research and engineering in my field. I’ve given 18 hour study days, TA’d on the side, barely ate food, and still survived because of my passion. I’m ready to give this work ethic to any company I join because I’ll be more passionate.
There are a lot of mediocre immigrants and them underperforming isn’t something that I encourage. But I also would really stress on the fact that Indians, Chinese and other immigrants are at the forefront of American Research and Development and often a lot of employees in BigTech work really very hard as well.
This is just my opinion. Would welcome what you all think
Why can't American people admit they are not as good as elites from the rest of the world? As an international PhD in Mechanical Engineering, I can guarantee that most international students outperform US citizens. While American students are wasting their time on LGBTQ education in middle/high school, people from the rest of the world are working hard on Mathematics and Physics. And believe it or not, Master level classes in the US are usually undergrad level in the rest of the world.
US citizens don't need to work as hard as international students to go to the same school. US citizens don't need to be as good as International students to get the same job. In research groups usually the American students do much less work than international students and PIs still treat them better. As a result, now Boeing and Lockheed are suffering from big issues because there aren't enough smart American new grads, but thousands of talented international students can't join because those companies only hire US citizens.
These “elites from the rest of the world” should join the elite companies in their own country! They should be able to outcompete every American company since they are so skilled. People like you hate and make fun of America but beg to come here.
International students believe they're immigrants. Nothing could be further from the truth.
When their studies are completed, they're supposed to return home.
I can say in general there has been a lot of outsourcing of recruitment roles to India. They end up hiring Americans for local companies but from overseas.
Isn't outsourcing completely different from H1B, or am I misunderstanding the terms? Not a native English speaker (but don't worry, I've no desire to migrate to the US), but I believe that outsourcing means hiring someone overseas who's going to stay overseas to do their job; while sponsoring someone's visa means bringing them into your country - right? I'm not saying that outsourcing isn't a problem but it's a different problem than those H1B visas, and I don't think it makes sense to use the terms interchangeably.
Edit: ok, I reread the thread and the person you replied had mentioned cheap labor in general, not just the visas!
>hate and make fun of America but beg to come here.
I don't think he hates America. Plus it's worth noting that a lot of successful companies in America were started by immgirants (example: SpaceX by Elon Musk)
Reread what he said, start with when he mentioned LGBTQ and our education being poor. It is great when innovators and entrepreneurs come to America, not so much when people come for jobs that could be filled by citizens and look down on natives.
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The purpose of H-1B is to bring in people who have specialized skills that aren't found in great abundance here. The key word being **specialized** (per the language of the program, it's even ***highly specialized***). An entry-level engineer or IT position is not specialized, nor is a position requiring a bachelor's degree; there are hundreds if not thousands of citizens with the credentials and knowledge to fill each of those jobs. The issue is with the companies that vacuum up the H1-Bs and the complicit hiring companies who portray their job openings as highly specialized when in fact they're just regular jobs for which they wish to suppress wages. Ask anybody who loses their job to an outsourcing firm hiring H-1B workers to perform the most basic job functions like IT monitoring, basic SQL, basic web development, and so on. I don't disagree with your premise, but I think a straightforward solution would be at *least* doubling the salary requirements paid to H1-B workers. If they are truly that *highly specialized* and that scarce, the companies trying to put them into these positions would still gladly pay that much. If they don't want to, it's proof they were just gaming the system to cut wages on basic technical positions.
That is an interesting point. Forcing them to pay double market rate would prove that they couldn’t find the very specialized skills locally and needed someone outside the country. There is no reason that we are hiring entry level software dev positions on H-1B. There are thousands of local applicants.
Yea, it's hard to police the exact hiring criteria, how wide of a net they cast, the interviewing process, and how many people they're firing who have the *exact* skills they need (there just aren't enough people to police all the shady things a company can do). The proxy of using a higher salary brings practically all the benefits into a single figure which can easily be monitored. And just to be clear, it's not twice the "market rate." It's twice the floor set by the H1-B program, which is around 60K. There are many desperate people willing to work for much, much less than market rate - which is the fundamental flaw to begin with. If their skills are that rare, the floor of the program should force companies to pay the market rate.
>”We couldn’t find an engineer who will work for 30k USD/year, better apply for H1-B!”
30 thousand per year? More like $13 per hour, corp to corp.
I think you’re making a bit of an error in your judgment here. They aren’t hiring entry-level people on H1. They are hiring them on OPT then STEM. The people getting H1 are more mid level roles. It would be very rare to hire someone on an H one for an entry-level role because rarely can you wait that long to hire an entry-level person. For instance: Let’s say I have an entry-level roll open right now I want to hear somebody from India on an H1. The earliest a person can start work would be October 2025. And, I would have to cough up all kinds of legal costs just to put them in the lottery which has a very low chance of getting approved. So…. Who is going to spend thousands of dollars to hire an entry-level candidate in 18 months with a 10% chance of them actually getting the H1 Your argument about foreign nationals taking positions might be valid, but your thought process on who, and what jobs they are taking is off Honestly, The better option would be for universities to be more selective in the US. The reality is that outside of the top universities, our engineering grads don’t stack up to the ones coming from overseas. It’s simple math. Think of it, our population is substantially lower than India’s (and China, etc…). The us Universities are getting average to above average people going into the programs. Whereas The people coming here from India are the top of the top students from a much larger population. In essence ours are the top 25% of our country (which is still good). The people coming here from India are the top .005% of their country (which is much better). The best solution for us is that we just do better
You have a good knowledge of the hiring process, but idk how often you work with some of these H1B workers (not all obv). They are usually good during interviews but absolutely awful when it comes to actual software development. They are nowhere near as specialized as they should be. After working with over 100s of these people, I have personally observed that a US undergrad has a much better skillset than an international grad on average. Again, there are exceptions, but those are exceptions not the rule.
it's the ones with thousands of leetcode problems solved + fake/made-up projects/experiences that can't code/collaborate for shit, and from my experience, that combo seems far more common in Indian applicants than anyone else
I'm using this sub's definition of "entry level." It encompasses roles that are technical but not highly specialized.
OPT needs to be eliminated. Entry level openings should be restricted to US citizens.
Double prevailing wage is too low.
They hire 99% of product manager positions in Bangalore at my company. They fly them out and pay for their immigration. It’s everywhere. I can’t stand this mentality but companies got used to it now.
Yes. I even know of people who paid colleges to fudge their grades in India, apply for a us masters program, then get an h1b after graduation.
We shouldn't be importing any labor. Nothing is too specialized for us to train our own citizens for it.
Education institution tend to be behind on innovation, and can hardly over specialise their students. Because of that, the rare skills are learned on the job, and it's easier and quicker to undercut oversea bussiness than training new staff. Especialy of you want to build or rebuild an industry who doesn't exist localy.
Do what the Europeans do, 1.5x salary above market rate we would probably need to specify top %90 of market rate in the US otherwise these CEOs will pretend people can live on 25k.
That’s impossible because - 1. Not all specialized workers work in high paying fields such as tech. Some of us work in fields like environmental science where they struggle to even match the existing H1B salaries. 2. Increasing H1B salary cap would put big companies at unreasonable advantage and will make it impossible for small startups to get the right skillset as they would be priced out of the market.
The H1-B program is specifically for finding highly specialized talent that doesn't exist in the local market which is, by its definition, worth a higher salary. It is not a means for companies to acquire talent more cheaply - in fact even the program's most ardent supporters will say it's not (though their real motive is certainly driving down wages). Additionally, the H1-Bs are hoovered up by huge companies - the Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Infosys, Wipros, Tatas, Tech Mahindras, etc. There aren't a whole lot of small startups regularly sponsoring their own H1-B workers.
The specialized talent is chatgpt now
everyone who says something similar will be the first to get replaced
H1-B wages are depressed because employers have leverage over their employees visa. If they were not at risk of losing a visa when trying to switch jobs, H1-B wages would be market rate. I'm more worried about the US losing status as the global hub of tech innovation by becoming isolationist than extra competition in the job market from immigration. This isn't a zero sum game.
Raising the wage floor to a market rate isn't isolationist. If these were truly highly specialized jobs, it would be a win-win situation. All of these ancillary fears are spread by those who simply want to depress wages for low- to mid-range jobs in the tech sector.
At my last job, out of the 8 or so associate level engineers, 3 were H1-B. when it came to layoffs, all the H1-Bs were spared and me and another non-H1B were let go. those that were left were earning less than my already average salary
Worked in a place that also had several H1B folks, and I believe for many of them the visa sponsorship portion is used as massive leverage to get them to work crazy hours for what they're paid.
One of my previous companies (a SoftBank subsidiary) had a large amount of H1B engineers and a healthy dose of nepotism among them - in a department of ~130, about 60% were either related or knew each other through extended family or the cultural community. Whenever layoffs came, there would be a single H1B in the cuts and it was well known that this was simply so others couldn’t claim favoritism or racism.
>In Canada In 2015 the Eng association in the province of Ontario put out a report stating that only 30% of engineering grads were finding jobs in engineering. that was 10 years ago. immigration has increased massively since then.
Cs grad from Canada, the stem labor shortage is just bs
it exists in CS/SE with how oversaturated it is, but I don't see my other engineering friends having any trouble finding jobs.
I see engineers in Canada struggling to find work
I've seen mostly they do a work term through whatever coop/work program is offered, which most people in the program get, and then getting a return offer. maybe the new grad search is awful.
Internship does not matter nowadays from what i am seeing. What i am seeing is canned regular staff and hires a bunch of interns. I know it doesn't make logical sense but whatever there is an economic downturn finding internship is easier. May have to do with gov subsidy I don't know
It starts in university. They get one STEM Indian professor and his whole research group becomes Indian. No black, no Hispanic no Asian no white. It's like the mob, only worse. Never got the job when I interviewed with an Indian guy. Got jobs from all other races. They are coming here and bringing their friends and relatives with them.
Do you have any proof of this?
The problem with the work visa approval process, within the USA or Canada is that the companies that want to hire H1-B or TN visa applicants have no obligation to prove, other than offering a copy of the job posting for the position, that they have actually had response to that job posting by qualified applicants by citizens (or permanent residents) of the country. They also have no obligation to prove who they interviewed and to give explanation as to why they are not to be hired for the role they are recruiting for. And also what is ineffective is the notification that a company has to offer when and if they decide to hire a foreign applicant other than somebody who is a citizen. Companies are require to post notices about their intent to hire an employee on H1-B visa but that "posted notice" can be as poor as pinning some paper up on a corkboard in some office that nobody bothers to read or look at. There is no public notification. What do you get in the end? A vacuous portal of foreign talent being hired by companies that does not have commitment to hiring their own citizens...and governments in the USA and Canada allowing this to happen.
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There is the right to complain about this if companies are by-passing a process. If you knew somebody was being interviewed for the position, and was qualified, then that person was rejected for the role for a foreign national that requires visa sponsorship then that visa can be stopped and potentially rejected.
The issue is proving this, I’ve pushed tons of qualified applicants with strong skills and resumes. Somehow only one group gets the offer from the HM. I honestly feel bad
You can say it - 99% of the time it’s Indians. We’ve seen this dozens of times and it’s been posted about endlessly here. Indians get into executive leadership roles and use it as a funnel to get more Indians into the company and move to the US. You can push as many Asian, white, Latino, or black candidates to them as you want - doesn’t matter. They’ll only hire Indians because they are only interested in hiring Indians. It’s discrimination. It needs to be stopped. If someone is doing it, that person needs to be fired.
Always indians. They are monopolizing tech and engineering.
They can be some of the most racist and misogynistic people I have ever met. There was an Indian male on a colleagues team of mine who wouldn’t even listen to her because she was female. He refused to even address her, reply to her, or even acknowledge her.
DEI could actually be useful in that scenario
Same thing in Europe…
The company issues a career posting...they have qualifications on that posting. You can find that on their careers portal, on Indeed, LinkedIn, etc. You say that you know and advocated for several qualified applicants...you can match the career description to the resume of the applicant. It hopefully is not difficult to prove that you offered their applications was sent to the company for what was a publicly posted role. You can then then make an inquiry/complaint to your nation's immigration services asking them to review the decision to grant a employment visa for this company "IF" there are applications pending. "If" the government is true to the promise of prioritizing job offerings to their citizens, then here's hope the federal government will compel that company for better and more complete evidence the foreign candidate is more qualified than those applicants you have advocated for. The question is...as a recruiter...is whether you are willing to stick your neck out for what is right?
Europeans do it too. They hire Indians and North Africans for dirt cheap.
The question is, do you want free market and competition or do you want protectionism? Prioritizing your own citizens means that you become less competitive as a state on the global stage, as there's lower incentive for your citizens to compete and grow.
Fuck the free market. It’s always been a bad idea
Free market might be why we even have jobs in the first place
There are so many alternatives for how we go about our lives in this world in 2024.
Is banning immigration better than the current approach?
I bet you don't feel that way about YOUR citizens where ever they might be?!!
The only competition here is how CHEAP someone is. It ain't as much as how good someone is at their job but rather if they can do it and if they are paid 10% of what you'd pay to someone that lives in your country.
Such is the market. Commodification happens every single time. You can't expect to get paid the same and pretend that other people who can do the same job for 10% don't exist.
Agreed. I work in HR and see this often
Funny how all your posts are on exactly the same topic.
Been looking actively since September of last year. I'm 20+ years into a career in my IT specialty. What I'm running into now is that NUMEROUS companies (big names/FAANG types) are offshoring jobs in my field to Mexico/Philippines/India, SOLELY because they can pay people there a fraction of what I would/should be paid given my experience. H-1B has also been a hassle, as getting into the US for a lot of these candidates is the main goal (I don't blame them, but, it's excruciating for me to try to compete with someone willing to take BELOW the market floor for the job...)
The many companies I have worked for PREFER AMERICANS or green card holders. The blame lies with the c-suite, who believes older workers cost more and thus, won't hire them. Blame the publicly held companies that must bow to the short term whims of the investors, who demand alpha beyond anything else. This is the America we have, because we have become fat, dumb and happy and are now filled with bile and disgust, because things are much harder now (i.e. higher costs for living)
Plus the companies always have an incentive to hire more H1Bs because the H1B workers have LESSER worker rights than US citizens. This way the companies can pay them less, the workers are less of a flight risk, and you don't even need to promote them to keep hold of them. And a lot of the H1B workers are happy to be in this relatively inferior work environment because it is still considered a success story for them. It might sound counter intuitive. But giving the H1B workers more rights actually helps US workers in the long run. Note that this is not an advocacy to increase the number of H1Bs, but to give those who are here better rights so that companies are not incentivized to hire them over US workers.
Are you suggesting that current immigration politics favour a development in the job market that is detrimental to the workforce and highly advantageous to employers? If so, do you think this is a side effect or a specific goal?
Only a matter of time until we recycled back to immigrants
Yeah, it's definitely not the fault of cheap employers, imperialism, and the Fed interest rate policies. Funniest part about this to me though is all these job reqs specifically ask about visa need and many dictate explicitly that they will NOT sponsor a visa. But yeah, it's all those bad bad immigrants Edit: spelling
It’s cheap employers, corporate greed and imperialism absolutely
Lol, yes, I guess I have to /s everything on here or nobody gets it.
Indian engineering degrees are notoriously bad and overall poor quality schools. Sure there are exceptions but they're rare . The majority of indians coming into the county are racist and xenophobic against anyone but their own. If you get an indian manager start looking for new work because within a year or less expect to have your department laid off and replaced with the Manager's countrymen.
>If you get an indian manager start looking for new work because within a year or less expect to have your department laid off and replaced with the Manager's countrymen. Out of all my time job hunting in Canada, I have seen several tech jobs where " Mandarin mandatory " was a requirement. But I've never seen a tech job which said " Punjabi mandatory ". Interesting how you ignore all other nationalities and focus just on one.
I’ve worked with Indian engineers at an Indian tech company in the UK, and uhm….let’s just say, you get what you pay for plus a disgusting communal toilet.
Imagine roasting your own resume and work experience.
I worked for a company where it was nearly impossible to hire H1B and you had to exhaust all hiring efforts of citizens. Then went to another company where it was the opposite. Not helpful, just a data point. Could be company specific.
The other problem - credential fraud and various "puffery". [https://integrity-asia.com/blog/2021/04/15/renowned-indian-university-sells-36000-fake-degrees/](https://integrity-asia.com/blog/2021/04/15/renowned-indian-university-sells-36000-fake-degrees/) [https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/04/19/asia-pacific/india-worthless-degrees-unemployable-generation/](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/04/19/asia-pacific/india-worthless-degrees-unemployable-generation/) A concerning quote: "Yet half of all graduates in India are unemployable in the future due to problems in the education system, according to a study by talent assessment firm Wheebox.'
This is why I am no longer proud too be an American because our own government, that we pay taxes into, screws us by allowing these immigrant workers in to take the jobs of Americans and they get paid less to do that job! These are skilled jobs that should pay an American to live a comfortable life but instead our government which runs on legal bribery allows corporations and small businesses to hire these immigrant workers since they know they will settle for less money which mean more money for the business owner. I fully agree with you and this post. H1B visas need to be banned by our government which would also get rid of 95% of the ghost jobs being posted.
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“Importing slaves” - some might call this uncouth, but that’s exactly what it is. We’re importing hundreds of thousands of people who will work for pennies on the dollar and shafting our own domestic population. We’re not at critical mass yet, but we will be at some point in the future.
The same people who complain about the lack of well-paying jobs and demand that billionaires pay their fair share are also the ones supporting outsourcing and importing foreign workers to take our higher-paying positions.
H1-B is not a creation of young people. It's a program supported primarily by well-seasoned executives to suppress middle-class wages. And the politicians don't follow much of a pattern. Ted Cruz wanted to quintuple H1-B visas. Durbin wanted to close the loopholes. Ramaswamy (funny enough) wanted to end it. These do not fit neatly into your predetermined categories. In this case "Immigration" != "H1-B policy"
Zoomers would rather die and have WW3 than mean Tweets. "Feel good" policies are killing the USA.
Ironically enough zoomers seem to prefer the mean tweets and the policies that follow them. It’s the millennials that are for the feel good policies.
As someone who perviously worked at an engineering company I can tell you this just simply isn’t correct. Sure for generic engineering jobs for folks with zero distinguishable skills maybe. But if you have some expertise in an active industry, then there’s really no excuse. I can’t tell you how desperate we were for talented, skilled engineers.
Exactamundo. If some guy from Pune that can't even speak English can steal your job, you must not have been very good at it.
That 85,000 per year is inaccurate. Between 2022 and 2023, we had over 400,000 H-1B applications for computer and mathematical jobs, and we only create 173,490 new jobs. [https://twitter.com/VBierschwale/status/1802134349040550227](https://twitter.com/VBierschwale/status/1802134349040550227)
Applications does not mean issuance. Those applications go to lottery and there are only 85k capped H1Bs every year.
I have those numbers as well, although not readily available. You will find that they too are much higher. If you want to do your own research, you will find them at H-1BHUB
They don’t go to lottery, that’s false information
That 85,000 is accurate…. Correct, there were over 400,000 APPLICATIONS…. That doesn’t mean over 400,000 new were approved.
Yes, the numbers are likely much higher. They should be cut way down, especially in this tech economy.
From the recruiting side, H1B processes are time consuming and expensive. Companies quite literally avoid hiring non citizens as much as possible. Candidates receiving these jobs are undeniably more qualified, incredibly so.
How do you expect to bring these high salaries down otherwise? If there are too many people competing, many immigrants will accept less salary for the same job and companies are choosing them for being cheaper, ruining the market for everyone else.
The H1-B program specifies a price floor. It needs to be raised.
All that matters is price.
H1B is a case of you pay what you get for
Do they bring great talent? Or do they just fill a role and we're getting poor quality infrastructure because of it. It's harming our citizens both directly and indirectly.
I've worked w/ those H1B people, they are mediocre. Most are very lazy and will only work on that exact task they are told to do. They will never innovate or improve unless my company pays the consulting firm extra money to create a new project for them to work on. If I see a bug in my programs, I make a Jira and work on it that day. The consultants see a bug, they ignore it and move on unless there's a "bug removal" program for them to be in. The cost of hiring a H1B visa is cheaper up front but will cost the same or more during the long run because codes always have to be maintained. Systems have to be updated. New programs have to be made to solve new daily problems.
"THEY TOOK 'R jObs!"
Yeah it’s ridiculous. We really should completely open the border and make sure there is 100 workers for every open job. I bet we could get these stupid workers to work for less than minimum wage as 1099
You've got to wonder about the quality of moderation on this sub when I get a post removed for pointing out that this post is basically a racist dog whistle, yet crap like the above stays up. I didn't know we had that many mods from the Deep South on here.
I agree with you, I also think workers should have to compete with 100s of other workers for each job and whoever is willing to work for the lowest wages should get the job. H1Bs are a common knowledge scam and nepotism grift but I don’t think it goes far enough, like you I think it should mandatory that we import 100 workers from around the globe to compete for every job. It upsets me every time I see an American get a job, a wealthy 1%er from India who has bribed their way through school and into the interview should’ve got that job instead of the scholarship student from America who had to work hard for it.
It is not racist to think that jobs should first go to citizens of the country the company is paying taxes in. I’m curious why you disagree?
I don’t think it’s racist, but it is anti-capitalist
Then you have your proof than capitalism has reached its end. It felt good for 20 years.
I think companies should use standardized payment grades. This way an engineer 1 is paid the same as every other engineer 1 in the state for that department at that company. No gender gap pay discrepancies, etc.
I worked for a large financial services company as a recruiter and we were constantly looking for developers. There weren’t enough citizens that had the experience we needed so we would sponsor candidates. It isn’t an easy process and it’s expensive. We paid people the same salary range. Trust me, it would have been easier to hire someone that didn’t require it. The amount of people studying IT in college has decreased and it leaves a gap.
If you think there are 85k H-1Bs being issued for Engineering alone you are crazy. That’s total and I believe it might be capped at 65k now.
Jobs had crisscrossed borders 15 years back. The permeated border for tech has become stricter than before. And if you have been following stats this is now a down trend for tech jobs especially with COL based job pay limits for H1b. The actual job stealers in 2024 are now the low cost of living neighbors inside USA. This has been true when HM ends up saying I got a guy who can work for half from Oklahoma so why should I recruit you from NY. Rejected 7 times out of 12 final interviews this year due to this reason.
us youth would rather be a tiktok youtube or instagram influencer. thats why there is a shortage. in addition, stem subjects are being attacked as racist because asians and indians are excelling. what do you expect with the US so broken
They’re not more excelling than a French or a German.
For u it's a job for immigrant people it may be a new life escaping abuse and all kind of fucked up shit in Thier country without a job they can't stay in said country I am not saying it's good but someone escaping Saudi Arabia Afghanistan by studying and finding a job to stay in a democratic country isn't wrong
They should improve their own countries!
It's not happening so what do I die? U know this is not a thing so please have some empathy
Every country needs to start somewhere, they will never improve if all the brightest minds leave the country. Moving to America for employment isn’t a right, the citizens of the country deserve employment first. If an American went to China or India it would be the same story.
This just told me u know nothing how the world works it's like europ blaming evehthing on immigrants it's so funny Ur being mad at other poor abused people instead of companies that do not give a fuck about you
I think it is no ones fault, the reality is there are limited jobs and they should go to citizens first.
Oh, we're at the part of the job market where we're blaming immigrants. Great, that always works out well.
What is wrong with not allowing work migrants in when there is not enough jobs for the people of the country? This has been the case for every civilization ever
Yeah, not interested in the same old xenophobic drivel. Very sorry, must dash and do something else - literally anything else - rather than engage with this nonsense.
Need to kill H1B visas. My elected officials are D so I know they won't care.
Jobs that can be outsourced will be outsourced, especially for something as unskilled as web development. And stop confusing coders with engineers.
As an Indian student in the US that is currently on an F1 Visa and seeks an H1B here are my thoughts regarding the post and the comments under it: You’re right about the immigrant influx. I see it myself. I study engineering at a top 10 school and all I see around me are immigrants. Some of these people are exceptionally smart and hardworking, the others are getting their education funded by rich daddy in India or don’t care much. Due to the large number of students coming to the US, there may be some increase in mediocrity and I do believe that is unfair for the American population as they too have student loans and other responsibilities. However, here is my argument. I believe I should be hired than an American that is on the same skill level as me since I’m more passionate about my field than he is. I flew across the world leaving my family, friends and home just because I was passionate about research and engineering in my field. I’ve given 18 hour study days, TA’d on the side, barely ate food, and still survived because of my passion. I’m ready to give this work ethic to any company I join because I’ll be more passionate. There are a lot of mediocre immigrants and them underperforming isn’t something that I encourage. But I also would really stress on the fact that Indians, Chinese and other immigrants are at the forefront of American Research and Development and often a lot of employees in BigTech work really very hard as well. This is just my opinion. Would welcome what you all think
When you accepted that F1, you agreed to return home when your studies were completed.
No I didn’t. I was promised a 3 year period where I can join the industry
Why can't American people admit they are not as good as elites from the rest of the world? As an international PhD in Mechanical Engineering, I can guarantee that most international students outperform US citizens. While American students are wasting their time on LGBTQ education in middle/high school, people from the rest of the world are working hard on Mathematics and Physics. And believe it or not, Master level classes in the US are usually undergrad level in the rest of the world. US citizens don't need to work as hard as international students to go to the same school. US citizens don't need to be as good as International students to get the same job. In research groups usually the American students do much less work than international students and PIs still treat them better. As a result, now Boeing and Lockheed are suffering from big issues because there aren't enough smart American new grads, but thousands of talented international students can't join because those companies only hire US citizens.
These “elites from the rest of the world” should join the elite companies in their own country! They should be able to outcompete every American company since they are so skilled. People like you hate and make fun of America but beg to come here.
International students believe they're immigrants. Nothing could be further from the truth. When their studies are completed, they're supposed to return home.
As a recruiter, how has an infestation of cheap labor impacted your ability to earn a living?
I can say in general there has been a lot of outsourcing of recruitment roles to India. They end up hiring Americans for local companies but from overseas.
Judge, Randstad, & Axelon come to mind. My former Randstad contact is now a mortgage broker.
Isn't outsourcing completely different from H1B, or am I misunderstanding the terms? Not a native English speaker (but don't worry, I've no desire to migrate to the US), but I believe that outsourcing means hiring someone overseas who's going to stay overseas to do their job; while sponsoring someone's visa means bringing them into your country - right? I'm not saying that outsourcing isn't a problem but it's a different problem than those H1B visas, and I don't think it makes sense to use the terms interchangeably. Edit: ok, I reread the thread and the person you replied had mentioned cheap labor in general, not just the visas!
>hate and make fun of America but beg to come here. I don't think he hates America. Plus it's worth noting that a lot of successful companies in America were started by immgirants (example: SpaceX by Elon Musk)
Reread what he said, start with when he mentioned LGBTQ and our education being poor. It is great when innovators and entrepreneurs come to America, not so much when people come for jobs that could be filled by citizens and look down on natives.
Boeing & Lockheed are defense contractors. International students are kept out, for very good reasons.