Echoing what @ucbalumnus said (covered in other threads before), there are fundamentally two sets of H1-B visa holders:
bottom-feeders like Wipro, Tata, and Infosys do it to allow companies to do IT on the cheap. Ultimately, it's counter-productive as they end up with horrible employees who build horrible systems. One poster noted that Microsoft might use the bottom-feeders as contractors for their internal IT. This is a fair point but I expect that's insignificant as a percentage of total spend. To put it in perspective, a few years ago Microsoft's online services division routinely lost about 3/4 of a billion dollars per quarter!
places like Microsoft, Google, or Amazon are hiring them into their product development organizations. These employees are in a fundamentally different position where there's little incentive to hire on the cheap when you're trying to take a high-quality product or service to market.
Regarding ways to prevent H1B abuse, I think various strategies would be worth considering:
only allow a company a maximum percentage of non-citizen and non-greencard employees (I'm guessing L1 visas could be even more easily abused). I'm not a lawyer so I've no idea if this is legal or even practical but it would deal with two things: sham companies that exist to game the program and it adjusts for the size of a company. Microsoft needs more H1Bs than someplace like Uber does.
predicate a company's eligibility for H1Bs based on the number of granted permanent visas they've sponsored. If you look at H1B visas as a "try before you buy" and we want the best to stay beyond their six years, you'll reward companies who have the organizational capability to set people up for immigration success. Since the permanent visa process is expensive, it aligns with the program's goals as companies will choose wisely on the employees they'll sponsor. Likewise, it adjusts the cost model for the bottom feeders I listed above.
If I was an academic economist studying academia, I’d research how (if?) visa preferences (EB3 vs EB2) distort the academic market for graduate students. Specifically, I’d want to know the answer to the following question: what would happen to STEM graduate student enrollment if there weren’t significant immigration benefits to finishing up a Master’s and/or PhD program from a US university.
The same (to a slight less extent) could be said about H-1Bs working here in US. With the immigration visa as a carrot hanging in front of them, these H-1Bs are willing to go to the extreme to do whatever the boss asks them to do. They will not leave for the next N years. The managers at many levels at many US companies just “love” them. They love them so much that they will often take the jobs from employesss with the US citizenship and turn around and give the jobs to them. This is especially true for those managers who are not particular good at engineering (e.g., they got promoted way too fast and became managers and did not have many years working as engineers.) Reason? An H-1B unlikely “steals” his management job - unlike a fellow American coworker.l may do so.
Another thing: occasionally a globalized company may have an overseas design center which becomes larger and larger, and the counterpart division in the US becomes smaller and smaller. Then the overseas site has their own managers. Whenever some of these managers come to the US for a business meeting, you could see many US-based managers bend forward and backward to “please” these overseas managers (taking them out to dinners, etc.) Why? They have more engineering resources (and as turbo93 said: their engineers are more likely willing to work almost 50% longer than US’s counterpart, and they work for less pay – the MBA-type business leaders here just love them.)
Well, the ACR21 (allowing H1B’s to change jobs) has done much to create chaos in the picture :). Overall, tho, the chance of a vanilla decent skilled Wipro/Infosys type H1B peon scoring a Green Card like we did 30 years ago is remote - there is no expectation of the employer going thru all the trouble to get Labor Certification and the like. So you know you have your 6 years H1B stint in Cleveland or Louisville and that’s that. Apartment, used Honda, Washington DC trips, Niagara Falls trips, and $50k a year, $60k if you’re lucky. Not a bad life but not a way to make money as well.
I would not blame H1B for this - I would blame corporate greed. In 1985 I was working in the Detroit area and there were temporary workers there - paid Indian wages plus a cost of living allowance (read: 4 to a 2 bedroom apartment plus a wreck of a used car). That went on till the mid 90’s. It wasn’t common but since there was little telecom between here and there working remote was near impossible. Meanwhile, the Indians I worked with were all getting Green Cards, but had India degrees from prestigious schools (IIT, IIM, etc) plus MS/PhD from US prestigious schools. I made some great friendships with them and they have achieved career success I could only dream about. That’s what the H1 program envisioned, but the moment it was opened up to the masses (H1B) it was curtains.
I’ve probably worked with at least 100 people on H-1B’s, and only know of two that eventually left the US. People who get them fully intend to stay in the US permanently. The six year limit is so easy to get around that it’s practically meaningless.
My understanding is that H-1B is a dual intent visa according to the current law. It is legal for an H-1B holder to seek the permanent residence while on H-1B.
Several decades ago, I believe most H-1Bs would eventually become permanent residents. It is somewhat strange to me that many H-1Bs do not change their status to the permanent resident status, if this is indeed the case now.
Something new in the recent years is that many companies have many of their H-1B workers who may work as contractors in the same company’s building while they are really employees of another company.
I guess this may be the new normal at many US work places where there are many H-1B contractors. This may be considered as a more productive, easier-to-manage business model by many business leaders today, especially those CEOs who needs to run a company for 4-5 years and enriches themselves greatly and never need to work a single day for the rest of his life – this is the case even when the financial condition of the company really does not become better. As long as they do not run the company to the ground, they win. In my life time, I worked in two companies who had 3 of such CEOs. None of them really revived the company. (To their credits, two of them sort of “tricked” the investment community but they all have the best lawyers to protect them. Their skills in this area really shine, and this is why the board members handsomely reward them – or they reward each other? What they do could affect the performance of the investment of your retirement account – both 401K and pension funds, I think.)
I’ve never seen H-1B’s separated out from other workers. though I can imagine it happens with the big Indian companies that take on whole projects for a customer.
As for limiting the Offshoring Companies from snatching up the H1Bs. I like the idea of only having people with American Graduate degrees getting them.
I think an Audit committee made up of veteran tech workers could be very beneficial. They could be used to prevent companies from going through loop holes. This could be used to weed out H1B’s based on ‘purple squirrel’ job postings. It could be used to ‘choke out’ outsourcing companies.
Also, we could let companies bid on H1Bs. This could increase the prevailing wage.
We could lower the number of H1Bs and reallocate them to startup visas, green card, and special academic visas.
IMHO, we need an organization out there fighting for tech worker rights. Possibly even a union. I would happily donate if something existed.
I think graduate or undergraduate degree-holders from US universities should have priority for most H1Bs. As for exceptional people wih foreign degrees and experience, I doubt they’re the majority but there shouldn’t be a cap on them obviously - but H1B isn’t about exceptional internationals (there are O, I, P visas for those), it’s about specialized knowledge. And that knowledge ISN’T just tech - someone with understanding of the inner workings in Myanmar will be invaluable for an import/export company specializing in specific timber types for instance… each company knows that they need and internationals can bring with them linguistic and cultural knowledge that’s hard to beat if the student is well-integrated into US society and is thus both bilingual and bicultural.
Anything that restricts/limits the number of H1Bs given to offshoring companies is welcome in my opinion.
^yes, I saw that.
These offshoring companies “buy” or “take” whole batches of H1Bs and use them for other purpose than what the visa is meant for. (I’ve wondered why those in charge of training their replacements don’t “train them wrong” BTW?)
H1Bs should not be requested as batches - those indicate mass needs which shouldn’t require H1BS (H1Bs are for unique needs and meant for individuals filling that need). Mass needs should mean mass hiring, not mass layoffs on US soil.
EVERYBODY loses out with that abuse of the system by a handful of offshoring companies.
American workers, American taxpayers, American companies, the American economy that can’t use actual individuals who deserve the H1Bs and for whom these visas are meant but not provided.
Companies that have found INDIVIDUAL, US-TRAINED students they’d want to employ for specific purposes can’t hire them, even if it hurts their company, because those offshoring companies have taken whole batches of them (for people who won’t contribute to the US economy, unlike the individual internationals we trained and whom we need in our companies, paying taxes here.) Students who have a legit job offer can’t take it, even if it complements their studies - they go and get hired by our competitors (Canada loves to “poach” on US soil right now, because of the H1B mess which prevents qualified internationals from working there.)
Highly qualified, highly productive people who have adopted our values and way of life - the very type of immigrants we want - are turned away to profit companies that abuse the system AND lay off American workers because of it.
Why hasn’t that loophole been closed so that H1Bs actually benefit those it was intended for, and aren’t abused by offshoring companies that want to lay off workers!!!