Comment by Bucephalus355 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Bucephalus355 | Hacker News Reader

H1-B employees and American Workers have both been abused by corporations in the US.

I have seen this first hand how many people trying to get a junior software development job with decent background experience get the “ladder of opportunity” shoved down the second they try to approach it.

I work for one of the Big 4 Consulting companies. Three months ago I met a random barista at a coffee shop who said they wanted to get into software development. I remember thinking “sure whatever”. A month later I was really impressed by their progress. A month after that with even more progress I said I’d hire him because I easily could give him 15-20 hours of extra work that he could do for my team. I said the typical Freelancer hourly rate is to take the yearly salary, divide it by 2, and then that’s the hourly rate. So assuming he would make 80k entry level, hourly rate is $40. This person person just started to cry, loudly and emotionally, when I said that. He said he’d never though he’d make that kind of money in his life. Keep in mind this person had a college degree and was 29. My dad was the kind of person who would never cry, and I try to be like that too, but it was really hard not too at that point.

There are two major sectors relying on H1-B employees - companies whose product is some core tech (mainly in Silicon Valley and Seattle) and companies whose core product is outsourcing & consulting fees. The abuse disproportionately happens with the latter as it’s built into the business model - difference between money billed to clients and money paid out to employees is all pure margin.

The question is how to encourage the former type while discouraging the latter.

To me a priority queue based on salary makes sense - Facebook or Microsoft are likely to shell out $150,000+ a year for an employee they want, a consulting body shop would not.

It also makes sense for the federal government who stands to collect more income tax from higher salaries.

Another way is to require companies to offer green card sponsorship for any employee that asks. Sweat shops that use H1B to hire cheap labor are not going to invest in that kind of thing, especially since the end result is that they have less leverage over the employee.

Sponsoring a green card does not necessarily mean the employee will receive it anytime soon.

Because of country-of-birth quotas, an individual can be approved for a skilled employment based green card but have to wait many decades, potentially over a century, to receive one.

Making it much faster to receive an employment-based green card once approved is the core problem that needs to be solved.

I'm well aware - I went through that process myself.

What I'm saying is that it can still be a useful filter - companies that abuse H-1B likely won't sponsor them for green cards at all.

The priority queue sounds like a great idea. But, certain factors (COL of area, pay discrepancies between CS and other branches and lower pay in some challenges jobs (JPL)) must be taken into account.

To add to that, in the valley I’ve worked alongside H-1Bs whose main job was quotidian SQL queries —nothing one could claim we had a dearth of local talent for. I’m not denigrating the work, it’s honest work, just that it’s hardly the case for an H-1B.

Curious, what kind of companies were these?

In my experience in the valley, almost all of the h1b's I have worked with are the smartest people I know from top colleges.

This is a dumb question. How do you get into freelance work? What skills are needed?

I'd love to hear a follow up to the story!

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