[vsskanth]

Reposting my response from a different thread:

Every time you file an H1B Visa, you pay something called a ACWIA Fee (“American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act of 1998”). For employers who have between 1-25 full-time workers, the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act fee is $750. For employers with 26 or more full-time employees, the fee is $1,500. [1] This fee was established to fund training and education programs administered by the Department of Labor.

As of 2018, there were 420K active H1B visas in the USA. These people need to renew their visas every 3 years (most are Indians and they can never become PR in their lifetime). So that means 300-630 million USD is being added to this fund on a recurring basis over a 3 year period.

I wonder where all that money went.

[1] https://www.immi-usa.com/h1b-visa-processing-fees-2016/

[runawaybottle]

Free college I guess.

Oh wait...

That’s a very interesting thing, I had no idea. So a sensible thing to do would be to increase that fee substantially and have it go straight to subsidizing degree programs that aren’t creating enough home grown talent.

In other words, the company should expect to pay close to market rate per H1B plus the fee.

We remove the incentives to abuse the program for cost reduction, and straight up use the fees to fund college.

That brings me to some weird job posts that I keep seeing for some large bank. The role was for ‘Specialist’ developer, and I wonder if it really is some specialist role that they can’t fill in a major city (seemed like typical web developer stuff).

Shrugs, say it ain’t so, would hate to know that’s how it’s being gamed.

[OzzyB]

That's a good idea, but alas I fear such a proposal would be deemed too... umm nationalistic or something... better to have local talent pay through the nose for their qualifications so that they can then compete on the global market with folks that don't have such debt.

[fredfoobar]

It's easy to paint the "other" as the enemy and rail against them for your troubles. In reality, the problem is much closer at home.

[triceratops]

> such a proposal would be deemed too... umm nationalistic or something

I think you meant "socialist".

[OzzyB]

To be honest with you, I have no fucking idea anymore.

[fredfoobar]

> In other words, the company should expect to pay close to market rate per H1B plus the fee.

what's different now? they're legally required to do both as of now.

Are you telling me that the H1-B that is hired doesn't do any work and free-loading off the American economy without paying any taxes (like Social Security, which they don't get to access).

Could you share what that job posting was? I'd love to look at it, if you suspect a violation, you should report it.

[runawaybottle]

I’m not implying anything about the actual workers.

I’m mostly being suspicious of corporations that have over 50% of their staff as h1bs or off shore. I feel that’s probably set up that way for one of the common reasons in business ($$$$).

Just trying to learn how the math works out. I have no doubt Google is hiring the very best worldwide, but I have sincere suspicions that your average enterprise found a way to keep tech costs down by using these loopholes.

Also to your last point, this is something no one can prove. How am I going to prove that a company can hire that talent locally? They’ll just say they met with candidates and they weren’t up to snuff. You can’t prove anything in that situation, all you can really do is look at the numbers from a bird’s eye view and see that hey, over half your staff is world class rare talent apparently.

[fredfoobar]

> Also to your last point, this is something no one can prove. How am I going to prove that a company can hire that talent locally? They’ll just say they met with candidates and they weren’t up to snuff. You can’t prove anything in that situation, all you can really do is look at the numbers from a bird’s eye view and see that hey, over half your staff is world class rare talent apparently.

So, you're telling me that they're gonna pay the same amount they'd pay for a local employee PLUS the H1-B overhead, just to hire a foreign worker?

Put yourself in the shoes of the employer, what are you to gain from this? (hint: it sure isn't monetary)

To me, what you mention seems like veiled xenophobia, I hope I'm wrong.

Posting this again from another thread: > Employers must attest to the Department of Labor that they will pay wages to the H-1B nonimmigrant workers that are at least equal to the actual wage paid by the employer to other workers with similar experience and qualifications for the job in question, or the prevailing wage for the occupation in the area of intended employment – whichever is greater.

source: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/immigration/h1b

[runawaybottle]

> So, you're telling me that they're gonna pay the same amount they'd pay for a local employee PLUS the H1-B overhead, just to hire a foreign worker?

For the most part, sure, it should be cost prohibitive. I think companies should go out and find the best talent, they should try to do it locally, and if they can’t, paying the little overhead is nothing when you realize you just filled the role with world class talent.

It seems odd to have cost be a factor when you are basically saying you had to search the world to fill the role.

I personally don’t believe most companies need to scour the world to fill most roles. For those that do, they won’t scoff at the price. This will at least eliminate the arbitrage that is rampant in the global economy.

[fredfoobar]

Most of the companies you speak of are multi-national companies providing their services world-wide, why should google, a service that is offered to the whole world ONLY have employees who're born in America, while their service is used across the world?

Lets be honest, a country's wealth is determined by how widespread the customer base is for the goods and services that originate within it. Economies of a majority of countries aren't closed loops, they're built on trade, selling goods and services that the rest of the world would pay a premium for would make it wealthy.

Considering that, it's only fitting that they would want to hire world-class talent.

[pstrateman]

That's 1-2 USD per person in the US.

The couch cushions maybe?

[fredfoobar]

Those employees pay taxes. They pay into the Social Security which they can't access.

edit: literally, do the math, 420K+ active H1-Bs, they should be at least making upwards of 70K per year, tax revenues should be upwards of a few billion dollars every year.