As a former H1B, I would like to point out that there are two types of H1B candidates: ones who got a degree here or are switching a job from an outsourcing company and seeking a American employer and the ones who are placed as a part of a larger team by an outsourcing company. The former are a part of a self-selected pool of risk takers. If you are a running a start-up, you are better off with the them as they have the mental toughness to withstand risk.
Bodyshoppers - Faux consulting companies that recruit H1B workers from overseas with promises of a life in the US and a Green Card and place the "consultants" at US corporations to fill developer positions. Usually while they are paid the "market" rate as per DOL guidelines the companies sometimes deduct "fees" from the salary for the first year or so giving the candidate not much to live on. The green card never materializes and the candidate is usually threatened with having to pay back all the fees if they leave. Some are really good candidates who come into the US this way and usually jump ship as soon as they can if they can find a US company to sponsor the H1B. There has been a crack down on this over the last several years so body shopping isn't as common as it used to be.
Outsourcers - Companies who specialize in transferring work development overseas. "Consultants" come to the US on a H1B for year or so to learn the process and systems then head back overseas to setup the development team offshore. Was very in vogue a few years ago but seems to have slowed down as more companies realized it doesn't work as well as advertised.
The third category is companies who genually are seeking the best candidate for the position and cannot find anybody locally. Really these companies should be sponsoring the candidate for a EB1, EB2, or EB3 green card however the process takes too much time (1-2 years+) and doesn't give the company as much leverage over the candidate as bringing them in on a H1B. If you are coming in on a H1B these are the companies you want to work for, but make sure you get any promises for Green Card sponsorship in writing otherwise it probably won't happen.
Err, and then there are the people from outside the US that have applied for a job with an American company in the usual manner, have been selected as the best candidate for the position, then need a way to legally relocate to the USA and do the job...
That's usually not how it works. I can only tell from my experience on what happens in Inida, but you usually apply for a "consulting" company which is basically a front for a shop that takes 30-50% cut in the developer pay by sponsoring them a H1 and sending them out to companies that need developers. A part of this is faking the number of years of experience they have on their resume, completely faking the technical expertise etc.
US govt. has kinda caught up to this and is rejecting many H1Bs that were sponsored by consulting companies now. So make of that what you will.
I don't have any evidence that you're not correct in general, but that's certainly not how it always works. I (British) worked for six years for Apple under the program (2001-2007), and there H1 holders - from all over the world - were treated (and hired) in exactly the same way as US employees. They just want to hire the best candidate.
Go after the abuses of the program, yes, but it's not fair to many good, valuable people in the USA on visas like this to imply (and you may not be trying to imply this, but it's the impression many people come away with) that it's all abuse.
48% of H1-B holders are from India, and another 10% are from China. IMO, it should be illegal to hire them in a capacity where they are "consultants" in a shop. This would shut down the vast majority of the abuses in the system.
I'd be the last to argue, though, that the US immigration system is a good one. It seems to tolerate any number of unskilled illegal migrants on one end, but pretty effectively bar educated, skill migration on the other. I'm no economist, but that intuitively seems to be the wrongly skewed to me.
I've come to the conclusion that the H1B operates in two parallel universes that have almost nothing to do with each other. On one side, you have companies like Apple and Google, trying to hire very talented people, often graduates of top American universities. They see it as absurd that the US would keep these workers out, and they have a point. I also believe that these companies treat their H1B workers more or less the same way they treat their US Citizen workers. There is a slight difference, of course, in that the greater restrictions on mobility do have an influence on wage negotiations and so forth, even when both parties are acting in "good faith." But all in all, when you look at this first universe, you wonder why people are complaining about the visa - in fact, it's so baffling that you start to wonder if the complainers are just "xenophobes".
On the other extreme, you have extremely abusive "body shops" where employers think nothing of threatening to revoke a visa to manipulate a worker. I think that many people who work for the first universe were a little shocked to discover that the biggest recipients of the H1B visa are generally overseas outsourcing companies.
If you're interested in reading more about serious abuses of the system, I'd recommend reading some of Ron Hira's work (a public policy professor at Rochester) - he did an interview on NPR a while back where he discussed some of the really outrageous cases (some H1B recipients were paid less than $9/hr and met the "prevailing wage" requirement... how on earth can this be happening with a visa designed to remedy shortages of "critical, highly skilled and educated workers"? And how is it that google is running out of visas when we're allocating them to companies paying such low wages!)
It's fubar. The US badly needs a solution, but there are so many competing interests that it's difficult to find a common ground. There is some outright xenophobia. There are people who don't really like immigration, and want to limit it wherever they can. There are companies that want to lay off their entire IT department and replace it with non-citizen workers who can't negotiate their wages. There are engineers who feel positive about immigration in general but resent a specific program specifically brings in more engineer, on the grounds that there is no greater a "shortage" in engineering than any other field, at least when you consider wage growth. There are people who support very liberal immigration policies and figure more is better. There are people who think it's crazy to tell graduates of top STEM programs that they aren't allowed to stay. Some people say that we should staple a green card to every graduate degree in a STEM field (but interesting, not to every law degree or MBA, degrees that are more popular with Americans...)
Unfortunately, the result is stalemate and a program that nobody likes, but everyone uses, because how else are you going to do this You work with the system you have.
My own opinion is that we should make every effort to keep and attract top talent to the US in all fields, but we also need to be aware that the market distortions of visas targeting specific types of workers can, if we're not careful, end up deterring Americans from entering specific fields (creating a self-enforcing cycle of "shortages"). I think we can balance this with good legislation (and the countries that "solve" it will have a big competitive advantage over everyone else), but it's a tall order considering the many angry and conflicting interests around this issue.
Oh, no way. I'm a H1B holder myself, but I'm just saying that there is a LOT of abuse of the visa going on.
I have some amount of sympathy for the consulting companies as well. I've seen cases where my friends got CS degrees from University of Pennsylvania, who I know are very good, but can't find a job right out of college. (The day your degree is done, the US policy is to kick you out unless you get an intern with some company or a H1B sponsorship. No grace period.). At this point, you're forced to go to the consultancies, get trained in whatever enterprisey tech stack, fake your resume and then accept whatever ridiculous terms the companies throw at you, work for them for a couple of years and move on once you have your foot in the door.
So.. all I'm saying is the policy needs some change .. I'm just agreeing with my parent that it needs to be easier for grads from US universities.
A significant portion of the program is abuse. If you look at the total number of H1Bs issued (several Million), vs the the number of H1Bs working in "top 100 or 1000" companies like Apple, Google, MS, AMZN etc, what remains is the vast majority who got H1Bs through body shops or out sourcing companies.
Many H1B holders start with shady companies but eventually move to better places. Not sure if that's always a good thing.
Agreed. And they also belong in the former category -- they are taking a risk and moving from away from their comfort zone.
My point was H1B candidates of the former type have self-selected themselves into a pool of skilled risk takers and could perhaps be an asset for a start-up. But your mileage will vary.
As for the latter category, you are not really hiring an employee ; you are merely hiring a vendor . Buyer beware !
