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Comment by hluska | Hacker News Reader

PG said:

The anti-immigration people have to invent some explanation to account for all the effort technology companies have expended trying to make immigration easier. So they claim it's because they want to drive down salaries. But if you talk to startups, you find practically every one over a certain size has gone through legal contortions to get programmers into the US, where they then paid them the same as they'd have paid an American. Why would they go to extra trouble to get programmers for the same price? The only explanation is that they're telling the truth: there are just not enough great programmers to go around.

There is nothing in this article to contradict what PG said - I'd love to see some well reasoned counter-arguments, but I don't see any in this article. In fact, I get the sense that the author has no idea what Y Combinator even does.

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The issue, as I see it, is that startups account for a pitiable number of the overall H1B Visa count. For that matter, engineering powerhouses in general account for a small number of H1B Visa use.

The majority of the visas are snatched up by multinational consulting firms that are trying to import their foreign labor for domestic work. Firms like Wipro, Infosys and Tata.

Here are the numbers: http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2014-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx

I would propose two changes to the current regime in order to make it easier to bring top-tier talent abroad into the country.

1) Impose tougher strictures on pay requirements. This program is supposed to be used to bring in top performers. Top performers should be paid commensurately. As such, this imported labor should be paid a significant multiple of the prevailing wage, say 1.5. This has the added benefit of reducing Visa demand by firms that are simply using the program as a method to funnel their foreign workforce into the country.

2) Impose tougher checks on employee responsibilities. That is, ensure that employees aren't being taken advantage of and are in fact doing the work they were hired to do. Many people are being abused in the current H1B system by being paid below market value, as their actual responsibilities far outweigh the advertised responsibilities. Other H1B holders are promised fake jobs and essentially 'rented out' after they arrive in the country (http://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/Silicon-Valleys-Bod...).

Excellent comment and thanks for the resources!

> Why would they go to extra trouble to get programmers for the same price? The only explanation is that they're telling the truth: there are just not enough great programmers to go around.

Only if you believe this part. I have another possible answer: Because they'd have to pay even more for the local talent without the option to get more programmers for the same price.

This is probably relevant to the topic:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1375082

If they can get a 22,000% return on lobbying for tax breaks, how much of a return can they get for lobbying on labor access?

> So they claim it's because they want to drive down salaries. But if you talk to startups, you find practically every one over a certain size has gone through legal contortions to get programmers into the US, where they then paid them the same as they'd have paid an American.

An attempt by companies to drive down salaries does not mean that individual companies will not pay individual foreign engineers the same as they would an American. This is about the overall employment market. The idea is that overall, if companies are allowed to freely hire anyone they want, then the supply of engineers will go up. This will drive down, in the long run, what average engineers are being paid.

There is nothing in this article to contradict what PG said

He wasn't trying to contradict him on that point, from what I can see. What he's saying is that he can't trust the process of relocating workers into the US to get the best talent and to not drive down wages.

In fact, he proposes: Pay more to hire programmers and tech types away from your competitors.

This is one way to improve working conditions for people already in the US.

It is not necessary for companies to under-pay immigrants in order to reduce labor costs through expanded immigration. Just bringing in more programmers of any kind at any cost will increase supply of labor without increasing demand for same.

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