Many of the posts and comments here seem to suggest or openly state that big tech companies support the H1B visa program because of ‘cheap labor’. Is this really the perception or is it a preferred demeaning rhetoric that just flatter’s the commentators thinking? Ask as we all know that highly skilled engineers at big tech don’t get paid any less than market rate and yet this rhetoric is repeated again and again.
Imagine pay of American engineers if there was no H1B. FYI I am on H1B.
Ha ha. No need to imagine , just look at history 70 years back. America couldn’t be the America without immigrants and H1B specially in this technical industry
These companies would be in Vancouver, Dublin, Bengaluru, London, etc. if there were no H1b. There is no way that they would pay more than what they already do. There would not be enough tech people here so Silicon Valley would be somewhere else
Yep cheap
I guess the public anger is towards body shops like Infosys and TCS. They pay just above the minimum H1b wage. Their employees are smelly, uncultured, code monkeys who play blame games and cannot think outside the box. They do average techie work that can be done by American citizens. On the other hand, the smart H1bs who work at Google or Apple get paid market rate and we need smart people like them in this country.
I never worked for body shops and have been severely disadvantaged by them, that is stuck in a long GC queue because of them. But I believe the what is said and thought about them is again another rhetoric. Why do ppl believe that the work they do is what an average tech American can do ? Where do you see average tech American jobless in this market ? These ppl do some unpleasant jobs in some unpleasant remote places which an average tech American would never do. And so that you ppl know there is another class of worker who are paid even less called H2b workers, mainly farm workers. I was talking to a citizen who owns these farmers and he said without these h2b workers, lot of agricultural output, meat industry output in US would go down. Until more Americans decide to do tech or hard work there is demand for these jobs. All these demands cannot be met by only high salaries because eventually US businesses will also have to compete in the global world. Yes, there are some abuse of these visas I agree, but these are so systemic and there for about 25yrs now. Nobody wants to change them because in bigger picture they are needed and working positively for US. So I don’t think it is fair to say H1b is for high wage earner only, it is legal for anyone/any job that can meet LCA requirements. I am just by how high tech H1bs like us fight against the rhetoric against us, but then aid to the rhetoric against others! (Sums up today’s political climate where everyone thinks they are right and are distressed by another group)
That’s what I would have imagined too. But it’s consistently thrown out there while discussing Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook which surprises me. I can understand the resentment. I, as an immigrant now citizen, didn’t think much of the Obama era H4 EADs. That said the sheer vitriol not based on facts (vitriol never is I suppose) always catches me by surprise.
H1Bs generally make the same except the Indians and Chinese who get stuck in green card hell. But even then they should make more at even MS than the market rate
There is an inch of truth to it about Infosys and TCS type companies and their long history of visa abuse. It's definitely not true for the mainstream tech companies, nor for doctors, mbas, or other high skilled people who come here on the h1b. I do think that there is a chance their earning potential could be stifled a bit, simply because they cannot change easily, and not because companies systematically under pay them. We all know best way to get a quick pay bump is a new job.
The cost savings for the employer comes from lower RSUs (not matched against market so far as I know), and because you can get more hours out of them, and give fewer rewards and raises and promotions, assign less desirable work, and still have high retention. This is especially true with green card sponsorship, both making the employer happy enough to do it, and difficulties changing jobs after the application is processing. I'm a US native, but I want to see equal treatment for H1B's, particularly giving them green cards faster and loosening the 6 weeks to find a new job rule. Abuse of our colleagues undermines everyone's rights and treatment. I would like to see a simple H1B lottery based on TC only, highest wins. That would decimate the body shops.
Your concern for us has not gone unnoticed. Thank you. ♡
The truth of the matter is no decently skilled native born engineer is struggling to find a job. The people who’ve actually lost their jobs are high school graduates doing IT/sysadmin jobs that have been eliminated due to the rise of devops/cloud. Trust me, if these folks were actually hireable, tech cos would pounce on them because they’d be cheaper than H1Bs. H1B is just a boogeyman for these folks, just like Mexicans in the case of farm labor.
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I have used that argument in the past but i didnt usually mean cheap as in price, but rather cheap as in shitty work. Since then I've gotten to know a lot more people on Visa and realized that they are just like people not here on a visa-some are good and some are bad. There is the stereotype of the Indian tech worker who is is awful at their job and i think we use the argument that they are cheap to justify why our bosses keep hiring them.
Who would pay $150k for year for shitty work? Also even the visa H1B definition is skilled worker. Wake up buddy before it’s too late.
Curious. How does a shitty tech work stay on after a couple of years of bad performance review? And again, how does a shitty worker continue to grow? There are L7s at Amazon and high Principle band width at MS earning upward of 400k TC on H1B (eventually moving on to GC and citizenship). These are the only type of H1B I know to be honest. Who are these cheap tech workers- comp or skill