While there certainly are companies whose business model is to get cheap workforce from India or China on H1B (just take a look at H1B stats), there is something I don't get. Where and how this pay inequality for local vs. imported workforce manifests for more desirable companies like Google or Facebook?
As a student outside United States I had a chance to do internships in the US several times (on J1 visa), and as I am finishing my degree soon, it was natural for me to try and get a job there. My observation is that the salary and benefits I was offered at Google, Microsoft and Facebook wasn't much different than if I was American - if any, it was even slightly higher than what they pay American new grads (data based on talking with American peers and reading Quora posts). My non-American friends who also got a job in the US also didn't complain about getting lower than their American peers. Thus, should I expect fewer bonuses/pay raises? Smaller chance to get promotion? Less desirable project?
An important point is that H1Bs basically increase the supply of talented engineers. So even though they're being paid salaries equivalent to their American peers at MSFT/GOOG, without them, the Americans would be making a lot more. With a shortage of engineers, who knows, may be the starting salary would've been $200k instead of $100k. I personally think this is a good thing and keeps America competitive. But some would argue otherwise.
The problem is that H1B's increase the supply of indentured engineers.
The solution is to convert H1Bs to Green Cards much faster. That way all the engineers are competing on a level playing field.
I actually like having more foreign engineers as long as they have green cards. Engineers tend to create companies and a need for more engineers. We all win.
What is the basis of your assertion? There are at least 250,000 H1B workers in the USA. Do you seem to suggest this is true across the board? In my experience in most 'good' companies (e.g. Texas Instruments that is discussed in the article), such exploitation doesn't occur, based on the anecdotal evidence that I've heard.
These companies typically exploit their workers with lower pay and threats to send them home if they don't play ball. Or are employing people to offshore jobs.
The "good" companies that use H-1Bs are a fairly small percentage of the number of visas issued.
One cannot complain about the 'bad' companies being 'unfair'. It is a consequence of globalization. If, say, Indian_Software_Company A can do the IT overhaul of US_Retailer B at a price point cheaper than US_Software_Company C, then in a non-protectionist world, nothing should prevent Indian_Software_Company A from getting the contract. I am not a software engineer, so I do not know if Indian_Software_Company A is cheaper and better than the other, but such a practice is consistent with modern trade.
Now, in the context of TI, which is a typical 'good company', complaining about H1B doesn't make much sense. In all likelihood, a H1B TI engineer is paid as much or more than a US citizen/permanent resident TI engineer. In fact demonstrating fair wages is a fundeamental requirement for H1B applications.
Unfortunately, there is a lot hypocrisy in the criticism of 'foreign workers' in public conversations in America. The same voices in favor of capitalism also want protectionism in labor. It is likely that this hypocrisy (or confusion) underlies the political disillusionment of the TI engineer's wife [1].
In a non-protectionist world there would be free movement of labor and so there would be nothing stopping say a US or European developer moving overseas to follow the work if that it what they desired. Sadly this is not the case so off-shoring is equally as protectionist which is where a lot of the criticism comes from.
Globalization as currently implemented simply moves work to where it is cheaper as protectionist immigration policies in most cases prevent skilled labor from following the jobs. That sadly is the reality of modern trade.
> In fact demonstrating fair wages is a fundamental
> requirement for H1B applications.
The fact is that there are enough loopholes in this requirement to drive a truck through and enforcement is weak. And the companies that exploit this know that.
> In a non-protectionist world there would be free movement of labor and so there would be nothing stopping say a US or European developer moving overseas to follow the work if that it what they desired. Sadly this is not the case so off-shoring is equally as protectionist which is where a lot of the criticism comes from.
Would like to disagree. An American passport allows you to work from, pretty much most other OECD countries in the world. So, if Singapore has a better job market for techies than the US, nothing prevents one from relocating. But in my experience, American citizens are, on average, more reluctant to relocate even between US states, than immigrants. Indians or Chinese leave their families and relocate 10000 miles to live and work in the US. But most Americans I've met aren't as eager to relocate to say, Singapore (or even jump from one coast to the other or to the mid-west), even if prospects for jobs are better.
Last I checked non-Singapore citizens and Permanent Residents need an Employment Pass (EP) to work as a skilled worker in Singapore and such a pass must be applied for by the employer. So under that scenario you need a visa and sponsorship by an employer. There is a new system called PEP which does not require sponsorship by the employer, but has additional requirements in terms of base salary and restrictions on employment, but again it still counts as requiring a visa.
So having "just an American passport" does not allow you work in a country like Singapore without applying for a visa. While the Singapore system might be more flexible than other such as the US, it certainly is not "free movement of labor".
> Would like to disagree. An American passport allows you to work from, pretty much most other OECD countries in the world. So, if Singapore has a better job market for techies than the US, nothing prevents one from relocating.
Even if a US passport allowed you to work from "pretty much most other OECD countries" (which I'm pretty sure is itself false by any reasonable standard for "pretty much most"), Singapore is not a member state of the OECD.
As a student outside United States I had a chance to do internships in the US several times (on J1 visa), and as I am finishing my degree soon, it was natural for me to try and get a job there. My observation is that the salary and benefits I was offered at Google, Microsoft and Facebook wasn't much different than if I was American - if any, it was even slightly higher than what they pay American new grads (data based on talking with American peers and reading Quora posts). My non-American friends who also got a job in the US also didn't complain about getting lower than their American peers. Thus, should I expect fewer bonuses/pay raises? Smaller chance to get promotion? Less desirable project?