| There are really two different types of H-1B employees: those who've studied at a US university but are foreign citizens, and workers brought in from outside the country directly to fill a position. There is very little distinction made in the public discourse about the difference between these two categories of employees, but they are very different. The overwhelming majority of H-1Bs directly employed at large American companies will be of the first type: they came to the US to study or at an early age, and were hired while they were already in the US. These employees are likely to be treated identically with American citizen employees and paid exactly the same in the same roles. They are not "cheap foreign labor" -- they are employees who just happen to be foreign citizens. They are very mobile because their skills are in high demand, and other employers are more than eager to transfer their visas over. However (and this is where the rhetoric comes in), the majority of H-1B visas go to outsourcing/offshoring companies that bring in workers by the thousands to fill mostly lower-end positions in IT or back office departments at American companies. These workers fit all the H-1B stereotypes: low-paid, bound to a single company, living 10 to an apartment etc. There are significant violations and gray areas in the way these workers are brought in and paid. The problem is that both sides of the H-1B debate do not define which group of workers they are talking about. Google, Microsoft etc are correct when they say that they do not want more H-1Bs for cheaper labor. In the employee pool they are looking at (foreign citizens already in the US), this is true: they pay all employees identically irrespective of whether they are foreign or US citizens. The opponents of more H-1Bs are also correct when they say that H-1Bs are being used for cheaper labor: the types of employees that offshoring companies bring in are indeed being chosen because they are willing to work for lower wages than workers already in the US. The solution is clear: have separate visa categories for employees brought in directly from outside the US, and foreign citizens who are already in the country. Make it as easy as possible for the latter group to stay in the country, through a quicker green card process or other methods; at the same time, have higher scrutiny for the separate category of visas that apply to foreign workers brought in directly from outside. It sometimes amazes me that even on a relatively knowledgeable forum like HN, this distinction isn't made often or at all. |