[mseebach]

So, what's being proposed here is a tax on fairly rich people who can't vote. For "should", it shouldn't cost anything, or, at least, not more than a turist visa (I think ETSA is something like $14).

There is some sense in the idea that the native population should be protected against unfair competition, but there is no evidence that this is the issue - Microsoft (and many other tech companies) legitimately can't fill these jobs, so there's literally no downside to opening the floodgates [of eligible H1-Bs].

[wheelerwj]

i don't know how they can't fill these jobs. There are 12 million people out of work, you telling me MS can't figure out a win-win solution?

[mseebach]

Let's see. At 6000 positions and 12 million out of work, you only need to skim off the top 0.05% of the workless to fill these position. Since Microsoft is willing to pay $10k for the visa alone, that is, not including other recruitment expenses, surely you can charge a fee of $10,000 for each referral, and make a total killing as a recruitment agent for Microsoft.

In other words: basic economics disagrees with your assertion.

[wheelerwj]

how did you arrive at that? are you implying that if it was feasible it would be done already?

Microsoft could invest 40-50k a year into people who qualify for retraining either in house or at local universities and still come out ahead.

[JumpCrisscross]

This implies it would be profitable for you to loan these people $40 to $50k to get this training and then (a) profit off the loans and (b) turn around and sell the finished product (the upgraded workforce) to Microsoft. It's the logic of subprime houses for subprime people (or, more sensitively, the diamond in the rough mindset).

[mseebach]

> are you implying that if it was feasible it would be done already?

You brought up the fact that there are 12 million workless, as a counter to Microsoft's desire to hire H1-B labor. If that's not to suggest they could fill those positions, what's the relevancy?

> Microsoft could invest 40-50k a year into people who qualify for retraining either in house or at local universities and still come out ahead.

Uhm, 40-50k a year is more expensive than full-time Harvard tuition. That does change the argument a little bit.

[wheelerwj]

cool, so MS can send 6000 people to harvard for a CS degree while having them work on some menial code/internship in the mean time.

[mseebach]

Yes, that's at least 12 times more expensive then the $10k.

[gaius]

There's a number missing from your calculations: the cash value to an unscrupulous employer of having an employee who is utterly beholden to them in the way an H1B is but a citizen/resident alien is not.

[lusr]

You've nailed it. As a highly skilled foreigner who's looking to emigrate, most employment visas in the countries I've looked at effectively force you to become a slave to the company sponsoring you for at least 5 years before you can even begin claiming residence status; the H-1B visa is one such visa [1].

Whilst that may be okay if you're in your early 20s or from a country with very limited options, for an older person with greater skills living a relatively good life (e.g. a high-level contractor in South Africa) it's not particularly appealing as the cost-benefit analysis isn't very positive.

Ironically, these are probably precisely the people you want emigrating to your country - people with a proven track record who are ready to settle down and want to create a future for their immediate family, spending and investing everything they earned in the same country -- not young people who have nothing to lose and will probably send the bulk of their earnings back out of the country to their families in poorer nations, and who will potentially bring the rest of their (non-skilled) family in on family visa arrangements. (Of course this is somewhat a generalization, but I think on average it holds true.)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa#Criticisms_of_the_pro...

[mseebach]

From the link:

Historically, H-1B holders have sometimes been described as indentured servants, and while the comparison is no longer as compelling, it had more validity prior to the passage of American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act of 2000.

And in the section on American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act of 2000:

Because of AC21, the H-1B employee is free to change jobs if they have an I-485 application pending for six months and an approved I-140, if the position they are moving to is substantially comparable to their current position. In some cases, if those labor certifications are withdrawn and replaced with PERM applications, processing times will improve, but the person will also lose their favorable priority date. In those cases, employers' incentive to attempt to lock in H-1B employees to a job by offering a green card is reduced, because the employer bears the high legal costs and fees associated with labor certification and I-140 processing, but the H-1B employee is still free to change jobs.

[lusr]

An I-485 is "Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status". You can only apply for an I-485 after 5 years of residency. That means after 5.5 years you may freely change jobs - to a similar position. For those 5.5 years you're still vulnerable to discriminatory treatment. I'm not sure if "similar position" means you could form your own company.

If I were 21 again - no brainer. Unfortunately I'm nearly 30 and would be setting myself backwards if I did it now. It makes more sense to spend time establishing myself locally and using that to put myself into a more favourable negotiating position with a sponsor in the future with respect to emigration. Alternatively I may choose a country with more sensible emigration policies (e.g. Australia, UK if they reinstate their highly skilled migrant quota) and then the US loses out.

[beedogs]

You're the first one to hit on the real reason: these workers are stuck with Microsoft as an employer for years. If they quit, they have to leave the country.

This basically buys Microsoft six thousand wage slaves, in the very most literal sense of the term.

[gaius]

The H1B system is a textbook case study in regulatory capture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

[mseebach]

Read my reply to lusr. Your use of the word "literal" isn't exactly warranted.

[mseebach]

For certain values of "utterly". The willingness and ability to sponsor H1-Bs is the norm, rather than the exception, in larger tech companies.