H1B Visa Debate

I always see a lot of people arguing that H1bs are taking away jobs from qualified Americans by willing to work long hours and work cheaper. That may be true, but in my brief exposure to the tech industry it does not feel true because the salaries and perks are so high, it doesn’t seem like tech companies are exploiting workers and hiring “cheap H1b labour”.A lot of my batch (all H1b masters) when to Meta and Amazon. All of them were paid 200k+ right out of masters, one was even paid 430k. So

The H-1B issue is a complicated one. On the one hand, we want the US to have the best talent, and on the other you want American workers to have a better shot at American jobs, and not to have wages suppressed by cheaper foreign labor. H-1Bs are supposed to fill talent gaps, but seem to be overwhelmingly used to pay lower-than-market wages to foreign workers when you could easily hire an American - if you were offering more money. Despite the law stating that they must be offered above average w

The main problem with this idea is that high skilled labor is conflated with h1B labor. The H1B system is completely abused by big outsourcing companies like Infosys, HCL,TCS and Wipro. The proof of this abuse is that the average salary from these workers is much lower from non-outsourced H1Bs e.g. microsoft workers on H1Bs.For example, a few years Disney theme parks laid off all of their IT staff and immediately replaced them with HCL H1B workers for lower cost. Clearly in this case H1Bs wer

The problem is H1B employees cannot switch jobs easily, and so have greater trouble negotiating raises or seeking other opportunities that are a better fit for them. Employers take advantage of this and offer lower salaries. It's this property of the H1B program that results to decreases salaries among holders, which in turn results in lower salaries across the industry (since a citizen or permanent resident has to consider market rate). If anything, citizens should support increased mobili

There are two kinds of H1B petitions:1. Genuine candidates: I'm going to quote the extreme, people like Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai, Vinod Khosla etc. came to the US on H1B and there are a lot of other "superstars" on H1B or naturalized citizens. More practically, there are thousands of other talented people from all countries who work on H1B. So the argument that H1B should be done away with is absurd, unless the US doesn't care about staying atop of the technology secto

A lot of consultancy firms abuse this system, BUT: not all H1Bs are "cheap labor". If you are not American and want to work in a tech company in the US, you don't have much choice: 99% of the time, you have to get an H-1B.I once got a position in a very interesting startup in Palo Alto (with a salary significantly above average in the region), and the company was thrilled to have me join them (because there really is a shortage of candidates in my field)... until we learned tha

H1-B leaves as an indentured servant?I am working in the US under a temporary work visa, and by no means Im enslaved or abused. I have a market competitive wage for my skills, and have the most engaging and rewarding job i ever found as a software engineer other than personal projects.In fact, It's a huge effort and sacrifice to move to the US for work, leaving friends and family behind. US is not qatar, i can always leave whenever I want and work in argentina.Increasing the number

In context of tech, H1B is great for the money people in the US and India. It suppresses wages in both countries and is a powerful plum for employee “loyalty”. There’s a whole industry of companies stoking the pipeline of cheap labor and corrupting the hiring process.In big dollar markets, the program is used more for special skills. But when a big bank or government contractor needs marginally skilled people onshore, they open an office in Nowhere, Arizona, and have a hard time finding J2EE

Many of the people who are against H1B are missing the bigger picture.1. H1B employers pay wages based on the numbers Department of Labor provides them.2. Labor department contains a la carte of titles available for the same job to choose from. Employers generally chose a title with lower wages. Programming Analysts and Software Engineers do essentially the same job with upto 50K spread in wages.3. The limit on H1B works against American Employers who usually pay much higher wages than

pretty much this. its why there was a lot of h1b visa abuse. top 0.01% doesnt want to pay a lot for tech workers but the demand is high, so increase the supply of tech workers.