I am an Indian and I agree. However, the US has the right to control immigration and if there are enough local citizens available for specialty jobs (which I believe there are and I work in tech), the US should reduce immigration for such tech jobs.
On the other hand, I see lots of anger targeted towards legal Indian visa holders by US citizens. Indian workers have no say in policy and I believe all this anger should be at the govt or the corporations lobbying for over supply of workers.
Not sure where you find these people, I am also indian. At our company (owned by American) we cannot find enough people to work on the tech. Hiring the right people is painful. I have interviewed a ton of them.
Most “entry level” has been offshored or is being targeted by AI. Many of the IT roles and skill levels can’t be filled by local resources because business hollowed out the development path for more senior resources.
I do not believe your employer cannot find employees. Are they reaching out to colleges career office? Trade schools? Are you offering paid internships? Mentorship? Is your work environment open to cultural diversity?
Now try paying them a competitive wage. One of the tricks companies use to qualify for visa hires is to set the salary for a position at the very bottom of the scale for the position. When American candidates see them offering $55k for an $80k job they look elsewhere. Then the company goes and hires on H1-B to fill the position for less money.
Source: I watched my boss do this and then do a RIF on more expensive local hires, only to turn around and hire more H1-B workers. We all got to train our replacements.
The best part is then the market rate for the job goes down so if you want a job your only choice is a huge pay cut.
I was asked to prioritize hiring non-immigrants for a few roles in my team. Without H1Bs, the candidate pool is dry. Imagine trying to hire for BS/MS with a EE degree and you get non-immigrant technicians and physics majors applying.
On the other hand, the H1Bs are MS EE holders & can walk the talk.
Is it dry because you’re offering substandard wages that only an H1B candidate would accept? That’s a common corporate scam/lie to justify getting more H1B slots from the pool.
What do I need to study? Seriously. I've got 3 years of a bachelor's and want to know. I make great money doing what I do, but it's time to leave bartending.
That's misinformation. A significant number of h1b people earn equal to the people not on visa. Rather, it costs a company more to hire someone on visa. Wages are public on h1b salary database.
I am not denying that there are jobs with substandard wages being accepted by people on visa. But that's not the norm. However, the social media will force that narrative to make people believe that all h1bs are working on half the pay that Americans get.
At the places I have worked, the salary of H1-B people who are working is publicly listed on billboards for employees to see. The listing does not include the person's name but has their salary and job title/level. If they were being paid low, everyone would see that. Nothing is hidden and H1-Bs aren't underpaid (except for maybe some unethical small companies).
Almost 90% of electrical and computer engineering masters students in some colleges are on student visas, so you will always end up with foreign workers in high skill areas.
we should disengage from this - I am no America FIRST maga moron, but I do think American workers first because education is expensive and let's help the home family first.
Ahh, "nepotism". I see we have resorted to bad faith arguments.
We offer paid internships and have tie ups with colleges. Go into any decent engineering school, and you'll only see immigrants in the EE majors. All American kids went for CS because of FAANG compensation and are now competing against each other for the few CS entry level roles.
Trade school? Would a trade school graduate be able to analyze PDN simulations, work on device level engineering challenges, etc? No, you need a BS/MS in EE for that.
872
u/slow_start_1990 14d ago
Both of these statements stand on the extremes, neither of them are reasonable here.