Trump Administration Plans Changes to H1B Visa Program

[infinitemeridian]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/n...tool/97240588/

India's information technology (IT) sector will face temporary setback to move workers from India to the US with the bill introduced in the US House of Representatives that mandates minimum wages of H1B visa holders at $130,000, double the current limit.

The High-Skilled Integrity and Fairness Act of 2017 introduced by California Congressman Zoe Lofgren prioritises market-based allocation of visas to those companies willing to pay 200% of a wage calculated by survey, eliminates the category of lowest pay, and raises the salary level at which H1B dependent employer are exempt from non-displacement and recruitment attestation requirements to greater than $130,000.

This is more than double of the current H1B minimum wage of $60,000 which was established in 1989 and since then has remained unchanged.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, sure, it sounds nice to emphasize getting these companies to hire American workers, but then again, are there actually enough American workers to fill the void this will leave? Will companies just up and leave to greener pastures?

[NED funded]

Isn't this what we want? More skilled immigration? I mean, why restrict it.

[mikeakanice]

This is actually a very good move. H1B Visas have been abused by American companies for years now. From silicon Valley high tech jobs to low unskilled jobs like Disney who is bringing in workers for unskilled jobs just so they can pay them less using H1B Visas. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judy-f..._11173074.html
The assumption that there aren't enough educated people in the United States is absurd to me, especially considering that much of India is poor and basic schooling is not a given like in the United States. It comes down to one thing for these companies and that's money. It's one of the few things I am happy Donald Trump got elected. These American companies have been profiting from the expense of the American people for far too long.

[Crissi]

I'd be more sympathetic if many places weren't shooting for the moon, then going outside of US when SHOCKINGLY, they cant find anyone. Or they replace American workers with non American.

There is an abuse of the system going on, and it needs to get fixed. Wether this does anything to help that, will wait and see.

[mikeakanice]

I'd be more sympathetic if many places weren't shooting for the moon, then going outside of US when SHOCKINGLY, they cant find anyone. Or they replace American workers with non American.

There is an abuse of the system going on, and it needs to get fixed. Wether this does anything to help that, will wait and see.

Agree 100%. If an American can reasonably fullfill the position than the job should go to the American first. No reason why these companies should continue to benefit from the benefits they get for being an American company yet screwing over the Americans who give them these breaks. Particularly now with the absurd tax break Trump is dead set on giving them.

[Crissi]

Agree 100%. If an American can reasonably fullfill the position than the job should go to the American first. No reason why these companies should continue to benefit from the benefits they get for being an American company yet screwing over the Americans who give them these breaks.

Hilariously, I took a job (well tech Im an intern...) from an Indian dude at my company because my dad has invested in me and thus I can do the job quicker and better, with less downtime due to time zones. I think that's gonna need to happen more from the employers end. Invest in your employees when they;re starting out, rather than looking for an already made guy for a quick buck.

[infinitemeridian]

This is actually a very good move. H1B Visas have been abused by American companies for years now. From silicon Valley high tech jobs to low unskilled jobs like Disney who is bringing in workers for unskilled jobs just so they can pay them less using H1B Visas. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judy-f..._11173074.html
The assumption that there aren't enough educated people in the United States is absurd to me, especially considering that much of India is poor and basic schooling is not a given like in the United States. It comes down to one thing for these companies and that's money. It's one of the few things I am happy Donald Trump got elected. These American companies have been profiting from the expense of the American people for far too long.

The demand for programmer/IT specialists (who make up the bulk of these visa applicants I believe) far outstrips the US supply. There aren't enough programmers in the US alone.

[mikeakanice]

The demand for programmer/IT specialists (who make up the bulk of these visa applicants I believe) far outstrips the US supply. There aren't enough programmers in the US alone.

I'd like some solid statistics backing that up. Mind you this isn't a Company but a public university in California which makes it in my mind more shameful.
http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechc...oving-to-india

In San Francisco, companies will pay six-figure salaries to entry-level tech workers from all over the world. So this might come as a surprise: A public university there is laying off some of its own IT staff and sending their jobs to a contractor with headquarters in India.

Until recently, Hank Nguyen's daughter wanted to follow in his footsteps and work in tech. Last spring, she was accepted into the University of California system.

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"She was inclined to take computer science and engineering," Nguyen says.

But then the letters started arriving. The first was a hefty tuition bill. At about the same time, Nguyen got a layoff notice.

His employer, the University of California San Francisco, or UCSF, was outsourcing his job. Nguyen was stunned.

How would he pay for his daughter's education? Would there be tech jobs for her when she graduates?

"I'm unsure about everything now," Nguyen says. "And she's unsure as well."

Nguyen came to the U.S. from Vietnam. He thought tech would provide a stable, middle class life. So he learned how to do backend IT work, to handle servers and keep networks running.


Enlarge this image
Hank Nguyen is being laid off from his IT job at the University of California San Francisco. Now Nguyen and several dozen other employees at UCSF are training their outsourced replacements.
Sam Harnett/KQED
Now, Nguyen and several dozen others at UCSF are training their replacements.

"I'm speechless," Nguyen says. "How can they do this to us?"

UCSF has 565 full-time workers focused on core IT services. It is cutting nearly 100 IT jobs, full-time workers, contractors and unfilled positions.

UCSF spokeswoman Barbara French says the university can save $30 million over five years by outsourcing the work, "looking at what everybody else we're competing against is doing."

The school is also a hospital, and many hospitals have already outsourced lots of IT. French says UCSF provides around $130 million in charity care for the poor. To continue doing that, she says, the school has to focus on more specialized tech work related to patients and research.

"That belongs to us, and we need to be on top of it and grow it," French says.

This strategy might be good for the bottom line, but it means fewer American jobs, says Ron Hira, a professor of public policy at Howard University. The kind of back-end IT work UCSF is outsourcing accounts for the bulk of computer jobs, says Hira — way more than programming at Google or Facebook, for example.

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"This is the bread-and-butter of the computer industry," he says. "This is going to be in every type of organization all across the country."

Hira says that nationally much of the work has already been shipped overseas. What's really scary, he says, is that it's hard to know how many IT jobs America has lost. Hira says the government doesn't track it. To get an idea, he gathers numbers on IT workers abroad. He estimates as many as 1.5 million foreign workers are now doing IT jobs for American companies.

"It's a silent destruction of really important innovation, high-wage — really the knowledge-based economy jobs that we're supposed to be moving into," Hira says.

Many of the jobs are being outsourced through multinational contractors. UCSF is working with a company called HCL. The contract covers all 10 University of California schools and that means it could potentially endanger thousands of IT jobs.

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These contractors use H1-B visas to send a few foreign workers into U.S. companies. They learn how the IT systems operate and then ship the work to large teams abroad, where labor is cheap — cheaper to hire than Hank Nguyen. He has done this kind of work for 30 years.

"I try my best to have my American dream," he says. Nguyen can't understand why a public university system that trains the tech workers of tomorrow would lay off the tech workers of today.

"Many, many kids nowadays, younger like my daughter, [are] looking into that field, but they feel uncertain," he says.

Nguyen will be out of a job at the end of February. And right now, he's looking for some way to pay for his daughter's education.
---
That was just from the first google search I did on I.T outsourcing


Here is another about Cengage outsourcing http://www.computerworld.com/article...-to-india.html

[Deleted]

I'd be more sympathetic if many places weren't shooting for the moon, then going outside of US when SHOCKINGLY, they cant find anyone. Or they replace American workers with non American.

Sometimes theres a lack of specialists in one branch which just cant be filled by local people. And sometimes, local people just dont want to do jobs for the low salary. First was being fixed by high skilled non-american people who were allowed to live in america temporarily, second was fixed by low salary workers mainly from mexico.

Take a guess how much damage will be done when

a) you dont have highly skilled people for jobs anymore

and

b) dont find anyone who wants to do the bad paid jobs

I will help you here.

a) means, the quality of work will suffer, and your products will become less competetive as they cant keep high standards

b) means, that a lot of everyday work will not be done or either cost a lot more. Think about the idea you would have to pay 4 times as much for getting jobs like that done

All of that leads to higher costs and lower quality, which means america is going to become less competetive. Which also means that everything is going to become way more expensive.

[mikeakanice]

Sometimes theres a lack of specialists in one branch which just cant be filled by local people. And sometimes, local people just dont want to do jobs for the low salary. First was being fixed by high skilled non-american people who were allowed to live in america temporarily, second was fixed by low salary workers mainly from mexico.

Take a guess how much damage will be done when

a) you dont have highly skilled people for jobs anymore

and

b) dont find anyone who wants to do the bad paid jobs

I will help you here.

a) means, the quality of work will suffer, and your products will become less competetive as they cant keep high standards

b) means, that a lot of everyday work will not be done or either cost a lot more. Think about the idea you would have to pay 4 times as much for getting jobs like that done

All of that leads to higher costs and lower quality, which means america is going to become less competetive. Which also means that everything is going to become way more expensive.

You should look at my two links which were done a few seconds just with a quick google search and then look at Disney who is bringing in people on H1B visas to replace workers at their themeparks who can and do want to work there. It's all about cutting costs and now it's being done to those peoples faces.

----
b) means, that a lot of everyday work will not be done or either cost a lot more. Think about the idea you would have to pay 4 times as much for getting jobs like that done
----
So basically you're saying it's okay if they bring China to the United States. That's absurd. From my understanding talking to alot of Trump supporters this was the big reason they voted for him. So he'd stop letting people fuck them over. It's taught in basic business 101 that companies have a responsibility to the people in the country they are based in. This is not okay.

[NED funded]

Most of them came through H1-B. If I was a company I would surely hire them over the fresh grad student.

[Crissi]

Most of them came through H1-B. If I was a company I would surely hire them over the fresh grad student.

and that ends up harming the grad students who do go into the STEM fields. How are we ever supposed to get the stupid experience if people prefer HIB people that already have the exp?

[Deleted]

You should look at my two links which were done a few seconds just with a quick google search and then look at Disney who is bringing in people on H1B visas to replace workers at their themeparks who can and do want to work there. It's all about cutting costs and now it's being done to those peoples faces.

It is not only about cutting costs but also the fact you dont have specialists available whenever you need them from the local market. Your special example is one bad apple in thousand good apples.

[infinitemeridian]

I'd like some solid statistics backing that up.

https://research.googleblog.com/2015...eline-and.html

Even if we are able to sustain a positive growth in graduation rates over the next 7 years, we will only fill 30-40% of the available jobs.

“By 2022, the computer and mathematical occupations group is expected to yield more than 1.3 million job openings. However, unlike in most occupational groups, more job openings will stem from growth than from the need to replace workers who change occupations or leave the labor force.

More than 3 in 4 of these 1.3M jobs will require at least a Bachelor’s degree in CS or an Information Technology (IT) area. With our current production of only 16,000 CS undergraduates per year, we are way off the mark. ”

http://www.geekwire.com/2014/analysi...ion-explosion/

When asked about the workplace demand for computer programmers coming out of college, Partovi shared the image above. The numbers are a bit staggering — the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts there will be 1 million more jobs than students in just six years.

This is a critical issue not just for universities but for many companies. Robin Andrulevich, a veteran recruiter and the Director of Talent at Madrona Venture Group, said that while there are certainly more computer science graduates than there were five years ago, it’s not enough.

“It still does not meet the demand of today’s employers,” she said.

Partovi notes that in Washington state, there are 27 times more open jobs than there are graduates.

[Deleted]

Most of them came through H1-B. If I was a company I would surely hire them over the fresh grad student.

Which also is about having more experience. Surely companies want experienced people over fresh students.

And there is nothing wrong about that. The "local students" should try to find entry jobs first and not those of seniors.

[mikeakanice]

It is not only about cutting costs but also the fact you dont have specialists available whenever you need them from the local market. Your special example is one bad apple in thousand good apples.

That was just two links. Plus the Disney which is doing to hundreds of its employees. And those were just from the top 2 posts from a quick google search on outsourcing and h1b visas. I'm sure if I were thorough I could find many more but on forums where conversations get lost or turn to something else so quickly that option is rarely so easy.

[callipygoustp]

LOL @ $130k. That's going to result in some major changes in my neighborhood if it goes through.

[Crissi]

Sometimes theres a lack of specialists in one branch which just cant be filled by local people. And sometimes, local people just dont want to do jobs for the low salary. First was being fixed by high skilled non-american people who were allowed to live in america temporarily, second was fixed by low salary workers mainly from mexico.

Take a guess how much damage will be done when

a) you dont have highly skilled people for jobs anymore

and

b) dont find anyone who wants to do the bad paid jobs

I will help you here.

a) means, the quality of work will suffer, and your products will become less competetive as they cant keep high standards

b) means, that a lot of everyday work will not be done or either cost a lot more. Think about the idea you would have to pay 4 times as much for getting jobs like that done

All of that leads to higher costs and lower quality, which means america is going to become less competetive. Which also means that everything is going to become way more expensive.

Theres still the requirement that you can hire as long as you've been able to prove you've looked for AMerican workers first. If a company absolutely cant find anyone with reasonable req, they can still go get people outside. This just encourages internal investment. If you dont invest internally and just import people, at some point your're gonna collapse when the natives just cant get the work anymore.

AKA there's a middle ground between not hiring at all, and only bringing in immigrants because of sky high expectations.

- - - Updated - - -

Which also is about having more experience. Surely companies want experienced people over fresh students.

And there is nothing wrong about that. The "local students" should try to find entry jobs first and not those of seniors.

Wanna explain how students get exp then? Especially when internships can just be replaced with low cost H1B instead?

and Ive looke dat entry level. "entry level" is now also requiring experience. Its insane.

[Deleted]

Great!

Buy American, hire American.

[Deleted]

Theres still the requirement that you can hire as long as you've been able to prove you've looked for AMerican workers first.

The market asks for skilled workers and cares a shit about the idea they have to be "american". If you want to get the position where skill is needed, become skilled. At the job market it is about abilities and experience, and not about if you come from the US of A.

Wanna explain how students get exp then? Especially when internships can just be replaced with low cost H1B instead?

They surely will not gain experience if noone is left to learn them as the skilled people have been banned from america.