US Bars Microsoft, Adobe, and Major IT Firms From Green Card Program (techcrunch.com) 202
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The Trump administration is suspending Microsoft, Adobe, and several other technology companies from a program that helps skilled foreign workers obtain permanent residency in the United States, accusing the companies of fraud. "Our message to Microsoft is: You're a great American company, but you've got to hire great American workers," U.S. Vice President JD Vance said in a news conference on Thursday, Reuters reported.
The other firms being suspended from the program include Capgemini, Cognizant, HCL, Infosys, Tata, and Wipro. Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling said the government would not accept any new or pending permanent labor certification applications involving these companies. H-1B visas are designed for highly skilled positions that employers may struggle to fill with qualified U.S. workers. Tech companies are among the largest users of the program, with nearly three-quarters of approved visas going to workers from India, according to The Associated Press.
Vance also said during the news conference that the administration would investigate nine universities, including Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, over allegations they're abusing a program that allows international students to come to the U.S. and were using the program to undermine wages for American workers. "We believe in the strength and talent of the American workforce," a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement. "That is why the vast majority of Microsoft employees in the United States are Americans. We look forward to providing the Administration with additional information. For example, of the approximately 6,000 H-1B visa applications we submitted in the last fiscal year, 80% percent were to extend or change the status of existing Microsoft employees."
"These were not to hire new people. The remaining filings for new employees were for individuals already legally in the United States who decided to come work for us, and they equal only 1% of our U.S. workforce. They are not new arrivals to our country."
The other firms being suspended from the program include Capgemini, Cognizant, HCL, Infosys, Tata, and Wipro. Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling said the government would not accept any new or pending permanent labor certification applications involving these companies. H-1B visas are designed for highly skilled positions that employers may struggle to fill with qualified U.S. workers. Tech companies are among the largest users of the program, with nearly three-quarters of approved visas going to workers from India, according to The Associated Press.
Vance also said during the news conference that the administration would investigate nine universities, including Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, over allegations they're abusing a program that allows international students to come to the U.S. and were using the program to undermine wages for American workers. "We believe in the strength and talent of the American workforce," a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement. "That is why the vast majority of Microsoft employees in the United States are Americans. We look forward to providing the Administration with additional information. For example, of the approximately 6,000 H-1B visa applications we submitted in the last fiscal year, 80% percent were to extend or change the status of existing Microsoft employees."
"These were not to hire new people. The remaining filings for new employees were for individuals already legally in the United States who decided to come work for us, and they equal only 1% of our U.S. workforce. They are not new arrivals to our country."
Excellent Move (Score:5, Interesting)
The fraud of firing 6000 workers and immediately hiring 6000 H-1Bs was too in your face.
The Dept of Labor did the right thing by suspending Microsoft from the PERM program.
Re: Excellent Move (Score:4, Interesting)
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How was it not fraud?
H1B is/was intended for worker shortages: for roles you couldn't fill domestically. It was not supposed to decrease the wage of the role, but (in theory) keep it at parity. It was always a ruse, but that was the premise.
If you're firing people and then hiring others at a fraction of the pay, you're literally abusing it. You've applied under false premise. That's fraud.
Re: Excellent Move (Score:5, Interesting)
Literally every company that uses H1B, abuses H1B.
A few years ago, my company had to renew sponsorship for one of our H1B developers. They really wanted to keep the guy (and he *was* good at his job). As part of the process, we had to post the position and then "prove" that we couldn't find anyone in the US to fill it. The job posting was created to itemize the exact skillset this developer had, and the exact job duties this developer did. Any candidate that didn't meet the requirements *exactly* was rejected.
This kind of stuff happens all the time.
Re: Excellent Move (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Excellent Move (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure I'd call it "fraud" per se. Companies usually comply with the letter of the law, just not the spirit.
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It's all in the definition of "qualified". If a company defines "qualified" as a person who has the exact characteristics of the H1B person they want to hire (or keep), then they are keeping the letter of the law, even if not the spirit. The law cannot mandate how wide or narrow the "qualifications" must be, leaving a nice big loophole for companies to walk through. Using a loophole does not by itself constitute fraud.
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Re: Excellent Move (Score:4, Insightful)
Because the whole process is stupid. If the company really wants to keep/hire a specific person, they shouldn't have to jump through hoops to do so. But if the only way to keep that person legally hired is to abuse a stupid system already in place, then so be it.
America is a 25% functional unemployment (Score:2, Interesting)
And I could care less about innovation in this country. All that means is who owns the patents and it's not going to be me owning the patents so why the fuck would I care? I still have to pay the license
Re:America is a 25% functional unemployment (Score:4, Informative)
That means one quarter of working adults cannot support themselves.
Huh? No, it doesn't mean that. Though the system is stupid, that does not mean a quarter of working adults cannot support themselves. What it does mean, is that wages are lower than they would otherwise have been. Those people who get beat out by H1B applicants, can still get jobs, they just can't get them for as much money as they could, if the H1B people weren't competing for them.
And what on earth do patents have to do with anything? To get a patent, you have to apply for them, paying all the legal fees. Patents have very little to do with innovation, and everything to do with litigation. A patent is only valuable to the extent that you are willing to sue to protect it. It does not mean you invented something useful. It just means you filed the paperwork and paid the fees.
I applaud you for getting through an entire post without mentioning the word "billionaire." Bravo!
Re:America is a 25% functional unemployment (Score:4)
From my math, once you account for inflation, Silicon Valley (and broader tech industry) compensation has declined about 23-30% since 2000, relative to the national average. I know multiple companies where it's basically been flat since 2012, particularly for support roles - $90-100k then is only making $105-110k now in the same roles (with some of the same people, granted, but also new blood).
Considering how many foreigners from specific countries I see in places like Omaha, NE, I'm pretty sure it's not just a problem in Silicon Valley.
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Not to mention EEOC.
Not sure how that works at someplace like M$, but out here in the real world, an employer has to hire certain percentages of people based on the ethnicity of the area the company is in. So, even though you're than qualified to mop floors at a hospital and take out the trash, they have to hire Jose to meet EEOC rules.
Not to mention how lawsuit happy everyone is now... if they hire me instead of Jose, Jose could get a lawyer and scream that their hiring me over him was a racial thing, and
Re:America is a 25% functional unemployment (Score:4)
Everything you said is a lie, fed to you by right-wing media to stoke your fears and paranoia so you will vote Republican no matter how much their policies hurt you.
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Well... more than a quarter of Americans voted for a government that is against their own interests. Or just Google "funny things Americans say". How many Flat Earthers?
But even most of those 40 million are not stupid, they may indeed not be skilled in the very narrow band of skills most H1B are looking for. I don't think many H1B are looking for skilled graphic artists, teachers or musicians. so these people aren't a 1:1 match for the work visas.
But that ALSO means that what MS et al pulled here IS some ki
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So, you agree with the basic idea, and hate the people who put forward the idea, at the same time... hmm.
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My defense? Did you take my post as defending the practice? Not at all, you completely misunderstood. No, it's completely indefensible.
Re: Excellent Move (Score:2)
it's worse than that. they used to abuse h1b equally. now it's basically hiring only from one country
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The oldest trick in the book. I learned quickly not to bother applying for jobs at universities with overly specific job requirements, because these are almost always just designed to hire a specific graduate to continue previously unpaid research whilst getting around public service (australian universities are usually govt owned) laws that require new jobs be advertised. Its a technical
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This happens all the time for positions that don't have H1Bs. It's not unique to hiring and retaining H1Bs. Any business, institution or government agency that wants to fill a position and is required to publicly post a position has probably done this if they already have a specific candidate in mind.
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Granted, it's almost never enforced, which is what most of us in IT have been screaming about for decades.
And I may just need to buy a lottery ticket tonight while dodging flying pigs, because the current administration has managed to hit "stopped o'
Excellent Solicitation (Score:5, Insightful)
That might be true, except everyone who has been paying attention knows that all they have to do is buy enough Trumpcoins and the problem will dry up and blow away without fanfare.
Don't even have to do that (Score:3, Informative)
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That might be true, except everyone who has been paying attention knows that all they have to do is buy enough Trumpcoins and the problem will dry up and blow away without fanfare.
Is Trumpcoins still a thing? I just assumed the ballroom was overbudget.
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The fraud of firing 6000 workers and immediately hiring 6000 H-1Bs was too in your face.
Except that isn't what happened. So you're both wrong and stupid.
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But it *doesn't* solve anything. If that is the person they want to hire, and a VISA is the only thing preventing them from being hired, then tough shit. If you want to reform the H1B program, I'm all for it. But this isn't that and it's stupid to pretend that it is.
Re:Excellent Move, includes universities (Score:3)
@USLaborIG: "I am announcing a historic investigation into the J-1 visa fraud involving nine major American universities — Pit, Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Brown, UC Davis, Caltech, Arizona State, and MIT. Subpoenas have been served; investigations are underway."
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Pure capitalism.
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The fraud of firing 6000 workers and immediately hiring 6000 H-1Bs was too in your face.
The Dept of Labor did the right thing by suspending Microsoft from the PERM program.
Oh, you think this is about doing the right thing... the US government... the current US government? I mean it's cute that you believe that.
Adobe, MS, et al. are being targetted because they've got deep pockets. A few million given to the right orange madman and this problem goes away. They don't even have to do it in secret any more.
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The fraud of firing 6000 workers and immediately hiring 6000 H-1Bs was too in your face.
Except that according to the summary above, that did not happen:
...of the approximately 6,000 H-1B visa applications [Microsoft] submitted in the last fiscal year, 80% percent were to extend or change the status of existing Microsoft employees.
I did watch Shady Vance's speech, in which he accused Microsoft of laying off 9,000 American workers and replacing them with 6,000 H1Bs.... but like they say "How do you know when a politician is lying? His lips are moving." (especially true just before an election)
I do agree with cutting off the flow of H1Bs to the outsourcing companies (WIPRO, TATA, etc.). They have long manipulated the system.
As far as the University students, they annou
Uncalled for (Score:5, Insightful)
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As much as I despise a lot of what this current administration is doing, we still have to acknowledge when they do something right. With the facts currently at hand this seems like they are doing the right thing here and I encourage them to do more right things!
What still remains to be seen is whether Microsoft will announce some sort of investment and then this issue goes away. These tactics are pretty common these days. We no longer enforce antitrust laws regardless of who's in power, so it is no mystery
Re: Uncalled for (Score:5, Interesting)
The fact is they blocked several companies, but didn't lower the number of visas being issued. So what they are doing is redistributing who gets visas (which smacks of favoritism and corruption), without actually lowering the number of jobs taken by non-US citizens. This is a favor to the companies that will be granted the newly available visas. It will be revealing to see who gets them.
Re: Uncalled for (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact is they blocked several companies, but didn't lower the number of visas being issued. So what they are doing is redistributing who gets visas (which smacks of favoritism and corruption)
Except they are excluding the companies found abusing the system, in turn leaving the companies complying with the rules alone. Complying with the H1B program as enacted by Congress is neither favoritism nor corruption. Quite the opposite actually.
Re: Uncalled for (Score:4, Interesting)
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The fact is they blocked several companies, but didn't lower the number of visas being issued. So what they are doing is redistributing who gets visas (which smacks of favoritism and corruption)
Except they are excluding the companies found abusing the system, in turn leaving the companies complying with the rules alone. Complying with the H1B program as enacted by Congress is neither favoritism nor corruption. Quite the opposite actually.
None of that matters. They will just hire their H1Bs through Tata or some other body shop. This is just more favoritism and graft.
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The other firms being suspended from the program include Capgemini, Cognizant, HCL, Infosys, Tata, and Wipro.
. Might be a little harder to hire the H1-B's through tata than it used to be. I'll be curious to see how this impacts these major contracting firms that have really abused the system.
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but new companies that contract to those companies will get the visa's so MS never has to show layoffs and hire H1s, just contracted employees. double bonus good times for MS
Re: Uncalled for (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Uncalled for (Score:5, Interesting)
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Correct. And this is not just unique to the US. In Canada we've been making an even lower tier joke, that Tim Hortons has been abusing the temporary foreign worker program. We all know that Tata and Wipro are absolutely abusing it.
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I know this is the internet, but the parent's statement does not deserve such an insult. Asking why a company would claim to have issues finding employees while they are simultaneously laying off employees, which is contradictory, is a reasonable question. Holding companies accountable, that use programs like this seemingly for their own benefit at the expense of Americans in the labor pool, benefits everyone.
Having trouble finding employees at the same time as laying off other employees is not necessarily contradictory, unless said workers have the same skills and experience.
One theoretical example - due to automating and streamlining internal processes, you could have too mqny support staff while at the same time having a demand for experienced developers. Or a transport company 100+ years ago transitioning to lorries wouldn't need as many horse support staff as they have, while trying to recruit mechanics.
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> unless said workers have the same skills and experience.
At Microsoft, its usually the hypocritical scenario.
There were very few specialized dev roles at Microsoft. Either you're thought to be smart enough and adaptable enough to work on whatever you're told to do, or, you aren't hired.
Exceptions would be "face characters" - unique individuals with unique contributions; people slashdot might have heard of. But those are far less than 1% of the company.
When you are cutting staff by thousands and hiring
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That may be true, but it's irrelevant.
They'll 500 500+ Americans from Division A while hiring 500 Indians to Division B.
And then the next quarter, it's fire 500 from Division B (all Americans, mostly white men), and then hire 500 Indians into Division A - because they had a shortage, don't you know.
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Asking why a company would claim to have issues finding employees while they are simultaneously laying off employees, which is contradictory, is a reasonable question.
Humans are not fungible. We may all be cogs in the machine to our corporate overlords, but you cannot simply swap a person into a different job. We have different skills and abilities.
H1B and skill shortage (Score:3)
1. Company 'cannot find' qualified highly skilled workers
2. Company imports a worker or hires a graduate student as a H1B
3. H1B worker is 'indentured servitude' employed for 3 years at just under market wages
4. Company still claims 'critical shortage' of skilled workers
If there is such a critical shortage of skilled workers, the the H1B employee's total wages and cost should be much higher than employing a US citizen.
Supply and demand, right?
We know that this is wage suppression.
I've seen it first hand at t
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Good old time when we were worried about the government being infiltrated...
Trump really did a number on all those movies and tv shows.
You were worried about foreign agents ? How cute, try the entire government being made of the most stupid, sycophant, corrupt, fascist morons you could think of. Now realize your imagination limits, you can't imagine enough stupid, it's ten times worse at least.
Did you know if we stop trading with a country we have 1 billion deficit against, we are richer by 1 billion ? Math
Re: The lesser of the two fuckups offered (Score:2)
I don't even need to post as AC to recognize that. it's as if they wanted to make sure.
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Re:Excellent Move (Score:5, Informative)
I was a dev lead at Microsoft. I believe I was asked to support immigration fraud.
I had an employee on a VISA. He was in a junior level role.
The immigration attorney asked me to verify that the job requirements for his job were:
- masters degree
- expertise in python
- (a few other things)
He had a masters degree. He had the other things on the list.
Problem was, the job he actually had was an entry level dev job. It was the exact job I got hired in at at the beginning of my career. For the level/job he was at, a 4 year degree is normal. Python (or any other specific language) is not needed.
So i said "no, that's not right. You don't need this, or this, or that"
And the immigration attorney was like "OH! My mistake! It sounds like this is more of an entry level position! Well, I guess based on what you've told me, we cannot sponsor the Greencard process for this employee at this time"
I had no idea that's what was going on or what was at stake when I answered the question. My employee wasnt mad at me - he quit MS and transferred to Google - who promised to push through his Greencard process. He said once he got done at Google he looked forward to working for me again at Microsoft some day.
So you tell me what you think was going on.
I think I was supposed to rubberstamp Microsoft immigration fraud, and I accidentally didn't, because I tried to accurately answer the question I was actually asked.
But look at how the lawyer responded. "Oh, shoot, what a silly mistake - nevermind!".
So no matter how I responded, he has plausible deniability. And if I had said, "yes, these are the required skills", nobody would have known otherwise.
I was gutted that I had ruined things for my employee without realizing it. The fact that he wasn't furious with me surprised me. To him, it was all a transaction. He wanted a Greencard; so he was going to go where he could get it - no hard feelings.
It's all transactional.
Re: Excellent Move (Score:4, Informative)
Google officially laid off tens of thousands and hired the same amount.. but not H1B, just in India. which is legal afaik, but it's the same idea - we just call it off shoring in this case.
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It was the exact job I got hired in at at the beginning of my career
When was the beginning of your career? I'm not saying this wasn't fraud, but things change. Our hiring standards now are such that there is no way I would get the graduate position I got at my current employer. In fact we are hiring people with higher qualifications than I had 10 years into my career. I would have probably answered what you did, and I would have been wrong.
The qualifications themselves are worthless, but that's beside the point. We now expect graduates to have masters degrees and experience
Re:Excellent Move (Score:5, Informative)
Sure.
That was not the case here.
Microsoft did not require masters degrees for entry level dev jobs.
It's common for Indian/Chinese folks to _have_ masters degrees, because going to the US for graduate school is a common "first step" in the process to get their feet on US soil - F1 student visas.
The way it typically works for an Indian or Chinese software engineer to get into Microsoft (or any of the majors, I assume)
- get 4 year degree (real or fake) back home
- get accepted to US grad school; get student VISA (F1)
- do grad school
- look for US company that will sponsor/supply an H1-B slot
- get OPT status for STEM (up to 3 yr extension of residence permit w/ industry work authorization)
- start at new company under H1-B status
- start the Greencard process
This is the normal path.
Now, here is what is structurally fraudulent about this.
1) The F1 visa is intended for students who plan to leave when they are done. It is not intended to be the on-ramp into the US labor force.
2) the OPT extension to the F1 VISA is not intended to be a long term resident work permit. They max out at 3 years for software people
3) Greencard sponsorship in this scenario is supposed to be downstream of the assertion that there is no human being already in America willing/able to do the work.
From a company POV
The converion rate from OPT to H1B varies; the # of H1B lottery slots are fixed, and people who run out their OPT clock without securing an H1-B lottery slot are allegedly supposed to go home.
The corps know that. So the OPT period essentially turns out to be a "no risk try out" where the company gets to see who is productive and supplicant.
This continues once someone has an H1B; that person knows that the moment they lose their job, they have n days to find a different H1B slot before they are subject to a removal order.
An H1B friend explained it to me: as long as he's on H1B, he never says no to working late; he never says no to taking the extra incident case, he never says no.
So he wants a Greencard for safety/security reasons; so he can stop being as much of an indentured servant.
The colleges love this system because F1 students can be charged full price to attend. The companies love this because they get indentured servants with a tryout period. And because they have an infinite supply of young 3rd world labor who is fighting over the scraps of available slots, which causes dramatic wage suppression.
When they find a gem, they can move forward with a fraudulent PERM claim and start the greencard sponsorhsip process.
There may be other things going on here. If you've been in the industry long enough, you may have come across the claim that "indians hire indians", and then if you look back at all the teams you've been on, the claim appears to fit the observed data.
(which is not to say that the claim is _true_... just that my experiences don't refute it)
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I think I was supposed to rubberstamp Microsoft immigration fraud, and I accidentally didn't, because I tried to accurately answer the question I was actually asked.
What you have is called integrity. Immigration fraud hurts everyone earning a salary by suppressing wages, this includes new immigrants that get sponsored.
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I will say that at the company where I was in charge of immigration, I not only filed as soon as eligible but I actually paid for family green cards where applicable (which were much faster and more likely of success) and people actually stuck around after getting their green cards because they felt gratitude instead of exhaustion and anger at the end of the process.
I don't think there is any kind of loyalty or gratitude to be expected on any side. If they stayed after their greencard process was done, it was probably because you were an ok-ish or better place to work.
Satya must worship the royal anus (Score:5, Insightful)
Sam Altman is a grifter himself and knew how to play this.
And now that we know communism is actually defined as anti-bigotry and has nothing to do with the means of production, I guess it is not communist to take ownership in Intel.
But Satya won't pucker up for Piggie. And so Microsoft gets to be the face of an attempt to gin up anti-Indian bigotry before the midterms.
Welcome to the land of the free and the home of the brave.
It's just for show (Score:5, Interesting)
The only way to stop the abuse is to completely shut down all of the programs. Americans cannot and will not do nuance. If we were capable of nuance as a people Donald j Trump wouldn't be president.
I'm open to other suggestions but I have yet to hear a single one that is both viable and actually works. And in a country with 25% functional unemployment you can't keep flooding the job market with cheap labor. People are going to look for a solutions and when the left and the center don't have any then the fascists are going to step up. They aren't actually going to solve the problem but they will end democracy by promising to solve it.
Except they don't + H1Bs make local jobs valuable (Score:2)
Large companies hire these guys through contractors not directly. So this will have absolutely no impact on your ability to get a job in IT. The only way to stop the abuse is to completely shut down all of the programs. Americans cannot and will not do nuance. If we were capable of nuance as a people Donald j Trump wouldn't be president. I'm open to other suggestions but I have yet to hear a single one that is both viable and actually works. And in a country with 25% functional unemployment you can't keep flooding the job market with cheap labor. People are going to look for a solutions and when the left and the center don't have any then the fascists are going to step up. They aren't actually going to solve the problem but they will end democracy by promising to solve it.
OK, you don't work in software. Good tech companies don't outsource core development. They hire in house. They also have a huge presence in every country they'd hire from. Microsoft can just as easily open an office in India, Poland, or anywhere else. All the major players are the same. They outsource things like cleaning the office, sometimes some shitty work they don't want to do, like content moderation, they might outsource printer maintenance or helpdesk operations. However, the H1Bs are usually
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Labor in Europe isn't cheap.
If you want cheap labor you need to go to Africa. But it won't be good.
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Labor in Europe isn't cheap.
That's not wrong for being plain wrong, but for being a wrong blanket statement.
"Labor in Europe" is a range from Germany to eastern Bulgaria or southern Italy. You may not get Africa-cheap or India cheap, but not everywhere is expensive.
Bulgaria is cheaper than Seattle/SF (Score:3)
Labor in Europe isn't cheap.
If you want cheap labor you need to go to Africa. But it won't be good.
As someone already stated, Europe is huge. Not everything is London or Zurich. They have backwater villages and cousin-fucker countries, like most regions. Many companies open offices in Eastern Europe to tap into the talent pool. Also a highly skilled Polish engineer is cheaper than a shitty one from anywhere else in the word, no matter their wage. The cost of an engineer is a factor of productivity and salary, not just salary. Everyone who outsourced to India discovered this. Anyone in India with a
Re:Except they don't + H1Bs make local jobs valuab (Score:5, Informative)
>OK, you don't work in software. Good tech companies don't outsource core development. They hire in house.
I was a software engineer at Microsoft for 22 years.
For all 22 of those years, Microsoft had core developers on every product who were not Microsoft employees.
You may want to look up the "permatemps" lawsuit from the early 00s. Microsoft had so many permanant contractor "non employees" that they were succesfully sued for the practice.
Microsoft has all kinds of legal sub-structures and "at a distance" legal entities for various employment arbitrage reasons. The technical talent of the people is not a determining factor in whether someone is a contractor, vendor, or full time employee.... Or if they are employed at an overseas subsidiary or domestically here in the USA.
And Microsoft plays a LOT of games with hiring/employment laws.
For instance, Microsoft had (has?) a large Vancouver development shop because, as I understand it:
1) its faster to get Chinese/Indian nationals into Canada than it is to get them into the USA
2) Vancouver is just up the road from Redmond, so easy to come down to Redmond for in-person meetings once in a while
3) It's very fast, legally to get people from Canada to the USA
So It was an open secret that MS would hire foreigners into the Vancouver office and park them there for, IIRC, 1 year, before moving them into the US.
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I was a software engineer at Microsoft for 22 years.
So you're saying you were hired in house as the GP asserted?
Microsoft had core developers on every product who were not Microsoft employees.
That's not the question. Now point to a product that was only managed via contractors and you may have a nice counterpoint. The contractors on core products make up only a subset of the employees. Microsoft very much still do employ people directly, you even emphasised that claim yourself.
contractor != outsourced (Score:3)
MS is using H1Bs to keep development at their main sites, like Seattle. The commenter stated that they could just contract it through an outsourcing firm, like Tata.
Ironically the H1Bs are helping the locals more than hurting as it makes you valua
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Good tech companies don't outsource core development.
Are the good tech companies in the room with us? Why don't you name some for us?
Less Sanctimous Answer: You're using their stuff (Score:2)
Good tech companies don't outsource core development.
Are the good tech companies in the room with us? Why don't you name some for us?
If you're using their product, it's done in-house. The only software firms that outsource core development probably shouldn't be called software firms. You know I meant good in the sense of engineering, not virtues. Cool quip, though.
Re:It's just for show (Score:4, Informative)
The other firms being suspended from the program include Capgemini, Cognizant, HCL, Infosys, Tata, and Wipro.
Those are the contractors.
I'm open to other suggestions but I have yet to hear a single one that is both viable and actually works.
I don't really oppose H1b, but arrest one CEO who is hiring people illegally, and this will stop.
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No one is doing anything illegal here (and even if they were it would be impossible to pin it on the CEO unless they directly stated to do that). The problem is that the intent of the law isn't followed. The letter of the law however very much is which is why these companies were very much getting their visas issued in the first place.
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No one is doing anything illegal here
They are doing illegal things. They know that qualified candidates exist, but conduct the search intentionally in such a way that candidate will not be found.
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I don't really oppose H1b, but arrest one CEO who is hiring people illegally, and this will stop.
You don't even have to go that far. Disbar a few corporate lawyers filing immigration paperwork and that will likely solve the problem. Corporate people commit the fraud because they have near certainty of not being held accountable. Change that and immigration fraud at scale goes away.
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they will end democracy
Inexplicable use of the future tense.
Instead (Score:4, Insightful)
Been there done that! (Score:4, Interesting)
20 years ago there was a big push to outsource to India; following IBM and others. What stopped it? Well you can't legally do much of anything to them. You can protect yourself legally if you import the workers and you can likely abuse them more too. I've seen corps in my state get burned by Indian firms who realized they did all the work and got little money; they didn't need their owners, just a US marketing dept. and compete against their exploiter... cheaper. Hell, during the housing collapse, some of the contractors turned around and bought their "owners" then laid off most those useless rent seekers.
Maybe they will realize they can make US workers relocate abroad for lower pay and still be able to sue them? (as long as they are contractors.)
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2 reasons that usually doesn't happen unless you are a very large company.
1.Offices cost money to lease and staff with the necessary recruiters, HR, and other support employees.
2. Employment laws tend to protect the employee better in most of the rest of the world, unless you are in a poor and very small country. The USA is known for it's "business friendly" employment laws and is an outlier when compared to the rest of the world.
I worked for a Fortune 500 who had offices in India, but they could absorb the
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What stopped it?
Your entire post begged the question. This practice never stopped.
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There's a reason these companies brought thousands of H1bs to the US despite it being much more expensive to do so, instead of just hiring the same amazing people and keeping them offshore. You can ask those companies why. But one reason is the efficiency of working with them locally is worth the expense. So they might employ them in their home country, but will likely find an American worker who is just as skilled.
I for one have not run into an Indian developer who was so good that you couldn't find an Ame
From experience (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of smart folks from India working on these named companies. Yes, it is disheartening to spend months of your time writing knowledge base articles, documents and train your replacement. Been there, done that. Meanwhile, others have ways away to be considered for a junior role yet rock a much higher title on their signatures. Exactly as some born and raised here.
The obvious outcome: companies will start eliminating positions on US soil and hire even more positions from thei
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I don't disagree with much of what you said BUT it stands to reason that it's already the case that companies could outsource. Instead, they've chosen to go through the complex process of bringing H1B visa workers to the US.
I know in my company (which has a huge office in India) that they find it harder to keep high-performing Indian workers over there than it is here. The high-performing ones switch companies frequently.
So I'm not sure what the calculus looks like but it might be the case that H1B >
Lazy reporting (Score:5, Interesting)
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Well a significant portion of H1-B immigration occurs due to the pathway to a Greencard it provides. There's a very small subset of people who relocate across the globe without a path to permanent residency, and they typically chase contracts and projects and aren't directly employed by the companies themselves.
gee so Indian managers have to hire americans? (Score:2)
Re:gee so managers have to hire americans? (Score:2)
Re: gee so managers have to hire americans? (Score:2)
The only slashdot interface which is not hopelessly broken is classic on desktop
H1B and Perm were dangerous legal fiction (Score:2)
Giving out work visas for some vague supply gap was always a bad idea with perverse incentives. Compounding it with the PERM fiction for green cards, even worse.
Democrats should have implemented immigration registry reform while they could.
What has Disney been up to? (Score:2)
What has Disney been up to since being in the spotlight for this stuff over 10 years ago? "Hey we've eliminated your position so we need to let you go but we want you to train your replacement (who just happens to be a lower paid H-1B)".
https://it.slashdot.org/story/... [slashdot.org]
https://politics.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
https://politics.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
https://slashdot.org/index2.pl... [slashdot.org]
Re: What has Disney been up to? (Score:2)
GOOD! (Score:3)
I worked for HCL (Score:2)
Why nobody remembers 60K (Score:2)
What about IBM, Disney, and HP? (Score:2)
MS and Adobe are a good start, but my understanding is that on numerous occasions, IBM, Disney, and HP too (IIRC) have had their employees train their H1-B replacements before laying them off, so what about them?
My suspicion is that if they weren't included, it's because their people came to some shady arrangements with people close to the Trump administration. It honestly would be pretty shocking if that weren't the case, because--over and over--it's been demonstrated that this admin is coin-operated in th
Overdue, but also lopsided (Score:2)
After diving into the details seems the retriction is on Microsoft and others, but i didnt see this hit being taken by Oracle. I guess all that sucking up to Trump really did pay off.
PERM, not H-1B (Score:3)
These companies are being suspended from filing PERM applications to sponsor someone for a green card, i.e. permanent work and residence authorization. Once a worker has a green card they no longer require sponsorship from a specific employer
Note that to sponsor a PERM application the employer has to re-advertise the position *the worker already fills* and they are required to *re-apply for the job they already hold*. This does not affect new hires since they are not eligible for PERM anyway.
These are not applications of H-1B temporary visas. Every comment about H-1B visas is off-topic.
Note that the effect of this suspension will be to *increase* the demand for H-1B from those companies, since any employee seeking permanent residency will jump ship at the first opportunity. Once again, the greatest obstacle to this administration achieving its aims is itself.
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If H1B were really about skilled foreigners filling gaps that can't be filled otherwise, their salaries would be high relative to US citizens.
How so? If there were a limited number of such jobs and a large candidate pool and every successful candidate got a visa without restrictions fairly and honestly, simple "supply and demand" predict exactly the opposite.
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"Heard about the Amazon Warehouses in Canada? Full of Indian Workers!"
Telling us we have to work while sending all the work to other countries so more profit can be made to get even more control is just a predictable step on the path to fascism, as it breeds desperation. It helps to own a newspaper you can use to tell people it's raining while you piss on them.