Foreign STEM Workers in USA with Visas 8

[Tunalover]

I went on a job interview recently for an engineering position. When I was led through the "sea of cubicles" (but with low walls so you can see everybody) I noticed probably 75% of the workers appearing to be of central asian decent. Of course I don't have a problem with people from this part of the world and many of them could have been US citizens (I'm a caucasian born in the USA). But when I was offered the job the pay was substantially lower than at my current position. I made an appointment with the HR manager to discuss the offer. When I met with her in her office I noticed lots of paperwork on her desk having to with US H1B visas. She didn't budge from the salary offering in that meeting. A salary negotiation never took off the following week and I declined the offer.

It then clicked with me. All that H1B visa paperwork on her desk (sloppy of her to leave it on her desk for others to see) could mean the company sponsors many non-citizens with H1B visas and pays them less than US citizens. Not only that, these workers are always skating on thin ice because, with the stroke of a pen, the company could revoke their sponsorship. Of course they will always be on their best behavior and put forward their best effort so they can further their chances to immigrate!

Are non-citizens taking away STEM jobs from US workers!? It sure looked that way at this company!

Tunalover

 

[dvd]

The pisser in the H1-B visa story is that there are unfortunate applicant/interviewee's out there getting hopes up/nervous for an interview that's only purpose is to justify the hiring of someone else. Got to prove that there is no one out there capable from the US. It is dishonest and it sucks.

 

[BigInch]

justify the hiring of someone else the (H1-B visa) applicant

Reaction to change doesn't stop it

 

[SomptingGuy]

Lawyers' games. They (charge us to) write the rules, (charge us to) play the games, reap the rewards. A different species from us.

Steve

 

[GregLocock]

Well to be fair the committee setting the noise standards for vehicles was largely made up of engineers who worked at consultancies who would make your car quieter, in the eighties, in the UK.



Cheers

Greg Locock


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[davefitz]

It is all very rational and logical. If a company lobbies for more H1b visas, they can sponsor and receive more qualified H1b employees from overseas. It lowers their overhead, and they have a temporarily dedicated and dependent employee who can be relied upon ( until they get a green card).

As soon as the H1B worker gets an official green card, he will quit the low paying job and jump ship to higher position in another company, leaving room for the next H1b applicant to replace him. And the cycle repeats itself.

The employer's normal defense against attacks from US resident engineers is that there are insufficient qualified US applicants due to the poor level of STEM training in the US educational system, but the huge $$ savings is the real rationale. Regarding the response of the elected representatives, when was the last time you personally hired a lobbyist to present your case to your elected rep? You get exactly what you pay for, so do not act surprised .

To reinforce the repetitive cycle, the teachers unions are adamantly against any measure that forces them off their butts and actually teach useful math, schience and computer skills to the US students, as the teaching techniques used by the overseas schools , while effective, are considered to be stifling to the student's "creativity" and self esteem.

"...when logic, and proportion, have fallen, sloppy dead..." Grace Slick

 

[HamburgerHelper]

I am surprised that there doesn't exist large contracting firms that employ and sponsor the H1-B employees. It would seem like it would be in the best interest for a H1B to work for a sponsoring contracting firm rather than an a company direct, who will abuse will abuse the power they hold due to being the sponsor. It seems like ,too, that there would be a lot more interest in the h1b employees services since the client no longer has to deal with sponsorship paper work.


Davefitz,

U.S. public schooling is excellent. We are very competitive with any nation, and near the top once you removing failing inner city schools from your data. Inner city schools fail for reasons that are independent of the school itself. Parent's are hammered with the belief that more money always needs to be spent on education and for districts that do have issues, that money is the fix. No one though wants to talk about how parental involvement and having books at home are the stronger indicators than anything that occurs at school for predicting a student's academic success.


Global grade: How do U.S. students compare?

http://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/u-s-students-compare/

"Students in Massachusetts, one of the highest performing states, are on par with students in Japan in math.
In science, students in Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wisconsin are behind students in Singapore and Taiwan only, but are equal to or ahead of students in the other 45 countries in the TIMSS.

Students in the District of Columbia had the lowest math scores in the U.S., putting them behind students in 29 countries, but ahead of 14 countries.

Students in Alabama, a low-performing state, do better in math and science than students in most foreign countries."



A program in Harlem is pushing hard this idea of parental involvement. The idea came from when they were trying to help adults be successful, they were already too far behind for that one thing to get them over that hump. So, instead they just devoted their resources to trying to get the kids from the start on the right track. The results from the program are showing that the kids that were part of the program are tracking similarly to "rich" kids in the suburbs. That in itself is the real and cheap solution but it is very difficult to get parents to take parenting advice. Here is a hour long segment on "This American Life" about the Harlem Children's Zone project. (

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/364/going-big).

 

[KENAT]

" am surprised that there doesn't exist large contracting firms that employ and sponsor the H1-B employees."

These companies do exist - see my post about the 'Disney' kind of situation.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judy-frankel/insourcing-american-lose-_b_11173074.html

(note - this was just one of the first Google searches that came up I'm not commenting on the journalistic validity etc. of the article or source. I first learned about this case elsewhere)

"It would seem like it would be in the best interest for a H1B to work for a sponsoring contracting firm rather than an a company direct, who will abuse will abuse the power they hold due to being the sponsor."

I'd guess the contracting firm will be just as inclined to treat the immigrant as an indentured servant.

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[SandCounter]

IRstuff's comment really opened my eyes in regard to the push for students to take up STEM careers as a supply-side play to reduce engineering wages. Now it's making me think about this huge push for women in STEM. I'm thinking of one particular oil company which if you read their advertisements, you would think that STEM and women are synonymous. Suddenly this claim that women make 77% of what a man makes in the same position makes an abundance of corporate sense: an opportunity to reduce engineering costs by 23%.

I used to count sand. Now I don't count at all.

 

[FoxRox]

HamburgerHelper, Excellent points and excellent article. Rarely have I read an article on education seemingly so free of an agenda.

Finland likely does have a few things right that we need to emulate, particularly the emphasis on teacher education and increased "prestige" (if you will) for the profession.

However, the point in the article that really stuck out to me was the (usually omitted) recognition of the relative homogeneity of the Finnish population. The same is true across Scandinavia, which I would argue has made several other issues besides education much easier for them to deal with. Socialized health care, for example, is often pointed out as a great success in Scandinavian countries. Social programs, in general, work better when you can depend on a natural solidarity among the vast majority of citizens. The "common good" is much easier to define and promote when everyone agrees what it is. Contrast that with the U.S. where significant portions of the population view other significant portions as their enemy - such an unfortunate thing.

Culture has a huge impact on education. Finland has (more or less) one culture, in which they have instilled a great value for education. The U.S. has dozens of unique and widely varying cultures. Some value education very highly. Some do not. Trying to change or remake a culture is very difficult, and efforts to do so (or even the mention that there is a problem) are viewed as wrong and usually racist. Culture is not seen as something to be molded. It is supposed to be preserved and left to evolve however it will. I tend to share this value, as the alternative amounts to something like Fascism. Cultural changes must come from internal pressure, not external. So, what is to be done? My answer - on a national level - nothing. The feds have nothing to offer but money, which has proven mostly ineffective. Improvements must come from local efforts. People within any given culture who see a need for change must be the standard bearers for that change. There are many people and groups in the U.S. already doing this, but it is an uphill battle.

P.S. Sorry to not address the original topic. I don't have anything to add, but that article was too interesting to pass up.

 

[IRstuff]

I generally try to avoid paranoid thoughts, but the whole STEM and licensure push really tingles my spidey-sense.

It should be interesting to see if Trump's "America First" applies to curtailing the abuse of the H1B system. Note that the H1B abuse is not really new; there were H1B abuses back in when I worked in Silicon Valley in the 80s. The only difference was that the abuse was more or less limited to tech companies.

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[IRstuff]

Also note that Microsoft, having its fingerprints all over the changes in the H1B process is unsurprising; software is still one of the areas where engineers command (relatively) huge salaries.

Given the high premium companies are paying for software engineers, it's one of the few disciplines that might actually have a relative shortage of qualified workers, but that might also be that they're looking for the cream of the cream, so one has to wonder what the rest of the crop is doing.

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[BigInch]

This is going to be interesting to see what happens there. America First is a corporate benefit. If it works, expect an increase in HB-1 visas. It's cheaper than hiring you guys.

Reaction to change doesn't stop it

 

[FoxRox]

For the record, Trump started out during the primary very anti-H1B, but has since toned it back. There will probably be some action, but no one knows what (like every other issue).

I'm not putting this up because I completely agree with it. It is an opinion piece and partially anecdotal, but it is relevant to both the education and the H1B discussion. I found it quite interesting.

https://www.quora.com/How-will-the-H1-B-visa-process-change-due-to-a-Trump-presidency

 

[KENAT]

FoxRox That article assumes the H1-B program is working how it's nominally meant to be working.

I think the point many here are saying is that there are incidents where the H1-B program appears to be getting abused.

I doubt there are many, if any, posters above who think no smart immigrants should be allowed to come to the US.

Also, his comments on 'H1B immigrants create American jobs' seems to miss the part where manufacture of the 'widget' may well not be in the US, and many of the logistics etc. jobs are also quite likly to be out of the US.

He's essentially following the script that the big tech companies etc. came up with.

As to his comments about the dire state of education in the US (see HamburgerHelpers 24 Jan 17 15:09 post for another view on that) I'd like to bring up something alluded to above by Maui regarding Graduate school.

Based on some of the foreign Phd grads of US schools who've come to work here on H1B I find it hard to believe they are so exceptional that US students couldn't have take their place at grad school. I've certainly seen articles about US students not wanting to study STEM subjects etc. but I'm thinking this is definitely an area for consideration.

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[HamburgerHelper]

Don't buy any of it for a second. If you put a nominal fee of like 10-15k a year on every H1B worker to be used to offset something like U.S. tuition, the whole program would come to almost a full stop. And for a real shortage for experts, 10-15k a year is peanuts.

I honestly have never worked with one H1B employee that I would consider irreplaceable. At best, it might be work to find or retrain a replacement. At worst, they can't find anyone that will work for the salary they are offering. These super expert H1-B employees, I have not met one. Very competent ones?. Yes. Some super genius that can only be found half way around the world? Not one. I might even say too that both our economies are being damaged by the program. It is to our benefit for developing nations to develop. This isn't a zero sum game.

 

[IRstuff]

Opinionated, definitely, and he doesn't really prove his thesis, except by anecdote. Facebook, who would ostensibly fit into the examples given, hires LOTS of American graduates, but they come at a premium, with 6-figure salaries, stock options, free food, etc. And that's the counterpoint to his thesis, could the H1B slots he's described be filled by Americans at the same salaries or could they be filled at all? He throws out India as an example, but India has about 4 times the population of the US, so software, in particular, is burgeoning discipline, mainly because the cost of entry is quite low. So, it's no wonder than India can export high quality graduates, particularly given that their home turf is not yet on the same playing field, when looked at its totality. India is still competing mostly on cost, and with their vast population and the advent of companies like Udemy, they've made software education quite widely available. Now, given that India's CS graduates are probably proportionally more than the US, no Indian University shows up in Facebook's internal listing of programmers' alma maters; there's Stanford, Berkeley, CMU, etc., and there's a few Chinese schools, but no Indian schools.

If the floodgates were completely open, no doubt that high quality programmers could flood the US and drop those pesky salaries down by 50% and allow companies to not offer those other expensive perks; just consider that Facebook's Menlo Park campus has something like 4 large cafeterias and close to a dozen smaller speciality eateries like a ramen house, BBQ, pizza, dessert, etc. Their largest cafeteria has enough counter space to handle 8 simultaneous lines of hungry people. They've got valet parking, on-site gym, nurse, car and bike repair, etc. All this expense is because high caliber programmers are scarce, but easily 80% of their workforce are still US graduates.

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[FoxRox]

Good points all! I could scarcely be less knowledgeable on the H1B subject, hence the attempt at research. The hyperbole about ultra-educated geniuses being exclusively non-American should have been a dead giveaway of BS, I suppose.

 

[berkshire]

It would appear that this never changes, 48 years ago I nearly fell into the same trap , I was offered a job in the USA by an agency running job fairs in the UK. The hook was that I would earn twice what I was making in the UK ,I would go over on an H1 visa with a return ticket guaranteed at the end of two years. For a young lad this was a fantastic opportunity I jumped at it. A couple of things went wrong with this, that I did not know at the time gave me a better chance of living and working in the USA. First the agency came back and told me there were no more H1 visas that year, but they could send me on a full immigrant visa. "Ok how long will that take?" the reply was 3 months, so I told them to go ahead. This dragged week by week into 2 years, the original company lost interest, but the agency found another company. So you guessed it I ended up with a sleezy company that did not want to pay any money. However there was one major difference, I did not have an H1 visa, and I could walk out. 6 months later I did just that, to a much better company.
B.E.

You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.

 

[IRstuff]

Possibly some relief on the H1B issue:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/us-visa-re...paign=rss&utm_content=/rss/yahoous&yptr=yahoo

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[KENAT]

Well at least someone is singing our song.

Not sure if single $130,000 minimum H1B wage across the entire country for all types of employer is quite the fix.

$130k might be a reasonable value for the bay area software types (or maybe on the low side even for some) but seems a bit high for some industries in other locals.

Certainly the current $60k appears low though.

Of course, if you try to adjust the value by Zip code & industry sector etc. then it suddenly gets really messy and most likely creates lots of wiggle room for HR depts to work with.

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