Nonresident aliens don't have to pay FICA taxes until the H1B is approved. So when you first get out of school you're on your OPT or whatever, that's like 7.65% savings for the employer (and for you too) until your application goes through. Not much for you but probably a nice little pick up for Google or Microsoft.

And if you were not available there would be less competition for the job and the salary may have to be more. It doesn't mean that H1 jobs are never paid well. It means that US employers are able to keep salaries lower than they would otherwise be if H1's were more restricted.

I find it interesting that there are several people on here arguing in favor of H1's.

Their argument centers around low pay for skilled workers and bad hours being the norm. Which is what you are able to do to people with few options.

H1's were originally conceived to cover specific skills that were not otherwise available in a US worker. It was not meant to allow large employers to get blanket visas for large numbers of workers and then farm out cheap , temporary IT workers.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

That argument could be true except for the fact that i get a higher salary than many of my american same level peers. So based on your argument an h1b should be dragging average salary down and not up. Im not saying that companies dont take advantage of h1bs to get cheaper labor, they totally do. What im saying is that this program isnt as black and white as many people make it out to be. There should be a space for qualified individuals that add value to a company and come from a different country. Its dumb to think that top multinational companies dont operate globally. Today i can work here and tomorrow i could get sent to europe or asia offices to work. If youre telling me that a company pays a graduate from a top business school less because they are international you are totally wrong. Now if you want to argue about companies bringing people for 60k a year to the usa to program then you might have a point.

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2x Deca-Ironman World Cup (10 Ironmans in 10 days), 2x Quintuple Ironman World Cup (5 Ironmans in 5 days), Ultraman, Ultra Marathoner, and I once did an Ironman.

Im sure this is totally the reason companies hire H1bs, to take advantage of this break for the 2 months youre on opt before your h1b kicks in on october 1st. Or if they dont put you on h1b and you stay on opt it expires after 1 year and then the company can go and incur in all the severance costs for getting rid of you then spend the recruitment fees and bonuses to hire someone new out of school to put on opt for 1 year and save whatever % you mentioned. This 7.65% sounds like an amazing motivator to hire non resident aliens right out of school (even if its real as im not familiar with it).

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2x Deca-Ironman World Cup (10 Ironmans in 10 days), 2x Quintuple Ironman World Cup (5 Ironmans in 5 days), Ultraman, Ultra Marathoner, and I once did an Ironman.

I think you are correct and that is exactly the point. They don't want to end the program, just limit it/control it better so that those who are recieving h1b visas are qualified individuals that couldn't be replaced via US workers. If a company could hire a US worker to do your job (at the same level that you do) for the same salary you recieve, then what is the reason for you getting that visa?

I'm sure it isn't the only reason but I'm sure it's not something that's lost on the beancounters. My company got a full year out of my OPT as I started my well paid gig right out of school before I became a resident. Multiply the few thousand bucks by a thousand of us in my class and you've got several million per year. That's decidedly not chump change even for a publicly traded megacorp.

I think the argument others are making is based on something different anyway. An H1B is less likely to negotiate since he/she wants to stay and work here pretty much no matter what. I sure as shit fit that mold. I took the first job that was available. Granted, it was a good one and I got paid the same as my citizen brethren but if they'd offered me 10% less I'd have taken it anyway. I'm much more picky now (and not on an H1B anymore anyway) but I was definitely not in a position to be so back then. I'd guess I was a more typical applicant than perhaps you were. It's really only up to the hiring company whether they will act on this and keep downward pressure on wages or not.

Good luck to you all!

I think we can all agree that this is a very complex subject. You don't want to place US citizens at a disadvantage but you want to take advantage of international human capital in a globalized economy. I just hope that any upcoming reforms are better thought out than Trumpcare was.

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2x Deca-Ironman World Cup (10 Ironmans in 10 days), 2x Quintuple Ironman World Cup (5 Ironmans in 5 days), Ultraman, Ultra Marathoner, and I once did an Ironman.

I find it interesting that there are several people on here arguing in opposition to H-1B's.

Absolutely! I don't have very high hopes for nuance and thoughtful solutions from this administration, though. Perhaps except the Gorsuch nomination the rest of the stuff coming out of the White House has been very slapdash and inconsistent with much of what our dear leader has campaigned on.

Especially with the free trade crowd. Isn't this the revolution Reagan wanted?

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_____
TEAM HD
Each day is what you make of it so make it the best day possible.

I am most certainly arguing against H1's as they are presently being administered.

Having a lottery and allowing contracting companies to get blanket approvals for multiple lower and mid level IT jobs at once is not what they were designed for. The idea is to get talent not currently available in the US. The plan is not to undercut entry level IT applicants.

ETA - and my editor made a mistake, there should not have been a period there, it should have been a compound sentence incorporating the next sentence. I have fired my US editor and for now on my posts will first go to Bangalore before being posted.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

I sure the government will be perfectly fair and efficient in managing these visas.

That's what bigger, more bureaucratic government is known to be good for. Right?

having read through the thread, hoping to educate myself, it seems like a number of people who are actually in the position of needing to hire hi-tech jobs believe the H1-B visa is what keeps their companies inside the U.S.

i often wonder why this program isn't bringing in more doctors, because it's almost impossible to find primary care physicians who're taking new patients.

but i wonder what you think, because you are the OP. has your mind been changed?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I'm not well informed on the medical personnel supply, but I suspect that the lack of PCP's is due their being better options for most physicians....health care reform issues and all. Better pay and working conditions, and plenty of opportunity, in other specialties.

I think high-tech companies, including the one I work for, could do more to encourage American students to get into STEM. We've been working on it - there are many very visible programs that my company is known for and I suspect you've seen them in the news. But the numbers show we've got a long ways to go. Other high tech companies are not really doing their share here, in my opinion.

This is where we need reform. Keep the visa's, but find a way to get more American students competing for those jobs.

"is due their being better options for most physicians"

exactly! which creates a shortage. which i have had acute difficulty with myself. my gastro told me to get a primary care physician. i had to play hell finding one who'd take new patients. which drastically reduces choice.

"Keep the visa's, but find a way to get more American students competing for those jobs."

how about stop advocating against common core, for starters? companies can't find equipped people out of college. colleges can't find equipped students out of high school. this is going to be a big ship to turn.

in the meantime based just on what i'm reading on this thread, either we bring equipped and willing people here to do the work or the companies are going to outsource the work or just domicile their companies abroad.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

No, it's more that their training is not recognized in the US, so even if they were practicing in their home country, they would need, at a minimum, go through a US residency program. And those programs have limited availability/slots.

This. In 2014, one third of all H1Bs went to thirteen contracting companies. Most of that third went to consulting companies that are not even based in the U.S. They are based in India. These are not companies applying for an H1B for a specific position. They file mass applications then take the third who get picked by the lottery.

Trump's idea of holding an auction is a great idea. It would fix the problem. The other idea of setting a minimum salary seems hard to implement given the variation in salary across the country;

And the life of a resident sucks dick. This is second hand knowledge from friends living it. Why would a 30 year old doctor who is already living a pretty decent life in say...the Czech Republic, working as a full doc making eastern European doctor wages sign up for several years of shit work for low wages? Yeah, they'd probably make more as an eventual PCP in Connecticut than a cardiologist in eastern europe. But if they go through the purgatory of residency then they may as well become a specialist also, right? And we're back to square one on PCPs. This is more the AMA protecting their home turf than a visa issue.

Yep, and at cost of the American People.

Isn't that great?

I also want to add, that the qualification level of admitted H1-B workers has been dropping...not as fast as that of domestic applicants, but dropping.

We are fucked.

As others said. Residency sucks, all doctors go through it, primary care or specialty care. Either go through primary care residency and make good money or go through specialty care and make 2x-3x that of a primary care doc. Which is why PAs and NPs are becoming very popular.

"in the meantime based just on what i'm reading on this thread, either we bring equipped and willing people here to do the work or the companies are going to outsource the work or just domicile their companies abroad. "

I think their needs to be a two pronged approach. Double the H1B limit to $120k and provide companies tax incentives to develop talent.

Howard University campus to open at Google’s headquarters

I have a friend who was a hiring manager for a tech company in the bay area. She went to India to discuss hiring needs with Tata & Wipro. Training for the US $60k/yr job is 3 months in India. With the right incentives, we can do this in the US. Stop subsidizing other industries and start investing in American workers. These are real jobs with futures for young people.


Back to the original post........If Obama's true intentions were to help the disadvantaged, I'm still not clear why he not only wouldn't consider this but publicly fought against it.

Fought against what? A free market? A growing economy? By and large, American engineers/scientists aren't considered a disadvantaged class. To the extent that a group can plausibly claim to be unfairly victimized, their position may get traction, but still it must be weighed against other goals and principles. No one that I know of is opting out of technical fields because of H-1B visas.

We do have a disadvantaged class that are currently not engineers. These folks need entry level jobs in a career path that isn't coal or manufacturing. See my link above. Provide incentives to companies to start training programs in colleges to encourage these folks to consider careers in engineering.

The current training for entry level $60k jobs in India (via Wipro & Tata) before they get sent to the US is 3 months.

Seems like an easy sell for everyone except Indian employment agencies, yes?

Sure, sounds great (Google-Howard U. collaboration)! However, that has virtually nothing to do with H-1B's. There are plenty of high-paying technical jobs, and I support an large number of changes to higher education to fill that need. You are simply being protectionist, however much you wish to ignore that.

"You are simply being protectionist, however much you wish to ignore that. "


If trying to lift up my fellow American is protectionist, then I proudly and publicly label myself protectionist.


Maybe you're not American? In which case I get why you wouldn't care.