[cudgy]

This has been going on for decades and everyone in the industry knows it. Articles like these are simply propaganda to make it seem like something‘s being done about the issue.

The system is and has been completely broken and, like most of the immigration policy in the US, it is a façade with the sole purpose of providing cheap labor for US corporations. There are plentiful capable US engineers available to be hired without the need for any of these programs other than the most exclusive programs for the top 0.1% of talent in the world.

The same tired old argument is made in the unskilled immigration space as well. Companies scream that there’s no availability of workers to build houses, operate restaurants, tend farms, clean facilities, drive trucks, or virtually any other job.

Does anyone wonder why the current administration is targeting the immigrants themselves and not the employers that hire them? They know that by targeting the immigrants it looks like they’re doing something, when really they are doing little to stem the problem. This whole problem largely goes away if employers are targeted directly for abusing the system, but it will never happen because cheap labor for corporations is the true driver.

[aadhavans]

> There are plentiful capable US engineers available to be hired

An anecdote, for what it's worth:

My brother graduated from Berkeley last year (CS/Math), and has absolutely struggled to find jobs. His friends have struggled; everyone he's talked to has struggled.

Meanwhile, job postings in the Indian job market (we're both Americans, but are Indian by origin so we tend to keep up with things there) are damn-near overflowing. It's a frustrating position to be in, and it doesn't look like the current administration is going to fix anything.

[JumpCrisscross]

> job postings in the Indian job market (we're both Americans, but are Indian by origin so we tend to keep up with things there) are damn-near overflowing

The wild part is there is a market between Indian wages and American wages for the H-1Bs.

[JumpCrisscross]

> There are plentiful capable US engineers available to be hired without the need for any of these programs other than the most exclusive programs for the top 0.1% of talent in the world

Yes for engineers, no for a lot of low-level work. The role of AI is being overstated. But there is a cap to IT salaries given remote working’s impact on the relative cost of offshoring.

> Does anyone wonder why the current administration is targeting the immigrants themselves and not the employers that hire them?

Absolutely. That said, the American consumer probably isn’t ready for the cost of food where everyone in the supply chain is paid a minimum wage and full benefits. (Counterfactual: the Netherlands.)

[DrillShopper]

> Companies scream that there’s no availability of workers to build houses, operate restaurants, tend farms, clean facilities, drive trucks, or virtually any other job.

If I hear the phrase "nobody wants to work anymore" I'm going to toss my cookies because a friend of mine just graduated with her CS undergrad, with prior management experience in an IT setting, and devops experience working through university and she is getting no interviews. Nor are many in her graduating class.

[porridgeraisin]

> plentiful capable

I heard from a top executive at one of the FAANGs that they are only able to fill 40-50% of their workforce from local hiring.

But, FAANG don't really hire the "visa mill" L1-A immigrants, it's usually H1-B folks that have a m.s/phd in some american university.

[cudgy]

MS/PHD to do what? Almost all of those jobs are just basic programming positions updating websites, writing crud apps, internal tools, devops, cloud deployment, and other run of the mill typical programming tasks.

We all know the reality of these jobs requires very little (if any) of a masters or PhD level education.

Furthermore, FAANG is laying people off not hiring.

[porridgeraisin]

MS is done mainly to get access to the US job market. Of course some of them do use it to get into more sophisticated work.

Also, they're hiring in some divisions, firing in many divisions.

[DrillShopper]

With all of the profits they're bringing in they could certainly train up people like the old industrial titans of the mid-20th century.

[absolutelastone]

They don't even need to go to that extreme. Probably a majority of their qualified applicants are screened out via their leetcode and high-stress interviews. They tell congress they can't find capable employees then tell applicants they only hire the best of the best.

[porridgeraisin]

Yeah that's true. But I'm not sure how the costs for that will work out at scale considering software is a high attrition industry with career advancements done mostly through lateral movement.

[DrillShopper]

> software is a high attrition industry with career advancements done mostly through lateral movement

If employees invest in training up employees (and more than just the standard HR pablum anybody who isn't a complete sociopath already know and the sociopaths spend their time trying to game all of the parts of the system) then the incentive will be to retain them else they will have to go through that training from scratch again on whomever they hire.

If you give people a place to work where they don't constantly feel like they're fighting fires, where they're not always begging for a raise, and where they're at an office designed to cater to the needs of employees rather than employers then you'd be surprised how long most workers will stay there.

[TeaBrain]

>Articles like these are simply propaganda to make it seem like something‘s being done about the issue.

What are you referring to? The post's article is about federal lawsuits filed by former TCS employees under the False Claims Act and the subsequent investigation into the practice of fraudulently abusing L-1A visas. A couple of the lawsuits were mentioned as being promptly dismissed, with one currently being appealed. The article is not portraying the state of affairs as if the issues in the system are being dealt with, but is showing that for the most part, nothing is currently being done to stop the abuse.

[linuxftw]

Corporations exploiting cheap labor is a bipartisan issue in the US. There doesn't seem to be any knobs that can be turned to go after corporations for exploiting cheap but legal immigrant labor. What can any administration do? "You didn't break the law, but we don't like you" isn't going to stand up in court.

What the current administration is trying to do that WILL impact corporations is raise tariffs. This will raise the cost of production overseas and on-shore some business, which will increase the demand for labor domestically.

Many people argue that this will cause inflation. I don't think it will. Consumers cannot pay with more money than they have. If some country in Asia wants to sell their wares for $10 usd, and the consumer only wants to pay $9, guess what? They're only getting $9 for the goods.

Many countries are promising reciprocal tariffs, though that's what the current administration is attempting to impose. This is also great for Americans. That means corporations have to sell goods overseas for less, meaning there is less competition for their products, which means Americans can buy for less. Corporations will HAVE to accept lower margins.

It would be great if a bill could be passed to completely eliminate all white-collar immigration. We have enough talent in this country, and the other countries need it more.

[DrillShopper]

Make companies pay 50% of the salary of someone on an H1B or other such work visa as an excise tax. You can spin this as reducing the debt and creating jobs for Americans. You'll see that practice dry up pretty quick.

Of course then they'll move more heavily to offshoring/remote, but at least then they're being honest that it was never about finding talent but suppressing wages.