If there's a demand for certain roles, which clearly seems to be the case, what difference does it make where the people filling those roles comes from?
Most of the people who are interested in moving to the US, as expat workers, are mostly from India. Let's break this down piece by piece:
1. Canadians have TN visas, so they prefer to use that since there is no lottery for that and it's a simple process of taking your offer letter and have CBP stamp a 3-year TN visa. Even though it is not dual intent, people can and do apply for green cards on TN status since for Canadians the wait times are current and they can get a green card before they need to renew their TN visa.
2. Australians have E-3, so that is what they will use.
3. The Chinese use H1B's but the numbers have dropped as more Chinese prefer to stay in China or return there after their foreign education since a lot of big Chinese tech companies have sprung up.
4. Europeans either do not want to move to the US, they sometimes don't try to have a prospective employer sponsor for H1b visas since a lot of them seem to believe that Indians have a monopoly on those visas.
You're left with mostly Indians, most of who study STEM subjects in college, overwhelmingly come to the US for studies and then hop on to work visas post-graduation. Most of the highest paying tech employers in India are American companies even then many Indians still want to move to the US since there are still a lot of socio-political and quality of life issues in India.
Take all these points and that's how so many H1B's go to Indians.
Because all else being equal, that skew shouldn't exist. There is nothing inherent to Indian people (or any other people) making them better at these jobs, so there is value to understanding why their numbers are so high. And by value, I mean value to US citizens. It could show us how we can improve within the country, or it could expose fraud in the system. Or a mix of both.
> There is nothing inherent to Indian people (or any other people) making them better at these jobs, so there is value to understanding why their numbers are so high.
Their numbers are so high simply because they represent almost a fifth of humanity - there are almost as many Indians as there are people in Europe, South & Central America put together.
This is just obviously and factually wrong. Even average age differs greatly between countries. Why would they have the same degrees/skills/value? You just want to chop down the forest because trees are different heights - you're optimizing for nothing based on nothing.
So what about Basketball ? Should there be more whites ? Is that skewed by design ? Have you ever thought about the various factors behind why a certain group dominates certain fields or you just think it is unfair and on purpose ?
It's funny that you bring up sports, because one of the hot topics in the sports world right now is that there should be less whites in many positions, from coaching to ownership.
It's supposed to be accepted as fact that if there are a lot of non-whites somewhere, it's simply because they're better. But if there are a lot of whites somewhere, it's because of racism.
You didn't answer my question though and deflected. I am not talking about whites being discriminated (thats a separate topic). I am discussing the "skewed" comment you made. Why do you think Basketball has less whites ? Let me add a few more. Why do you think a lot of Gas Stations are owned by Asians ? Why do you think a lot of Landscapers are hispanics/Latinos/South Americans ?
>>>> Let me flip your question too: why do you think it matters?
Sure, it matters because there are tens of millions of black, hispanic, and latino US citizens -- numerous with CS/STEM degrees -- who cannot get into FAANGs. Many end up in retail or as best buy tech squad reps or tmobile store salespersons.
Yet we're told that someone from a foreign country is a better candidate for these FAANG jobs. In my experience, half the foreign workers cannot even speak english legibly.
Do Americans and the US Government owe at least some chance to local citizens who are being passed over for jobs generation after generation?
Surely there must be something the profit driven FAANG companies are seeing that they prefer hiring broken English speaking Indians over American hispanics/blacks with tech degrees?
With FAANG companies it is not as much profit driven as much as it is that they get an employee who will have to work harder than others due to keeping their visa, and will stay for longer at least until their green card processing is complete and they have their I-140.
> Sure, it matters because there are tens of millions of black, hispanic, and latino US citizens -- numerous with CS/STEM degrees -- who cannot get into FAANGs.
FAANGs aren't discriminating against black, hispanic and latino US citizens. If someone can't get into FAANG its not because of their "race" or "citizenship", it's because they can't pass the hiring bar -- whether hiring is broken is another question, but hiring isn't biased against blacks latinos and hispanics.
> Many end up in retail or as best buy tech squad reps or tmobile store salespersons.
This comparison is disingenuous. Had you said they therefore have to work in the government sector as software engineers, I'd say you might have a point. But your comment reads as: "because they can't get a job as at FAANG they work at t-mobile as salespeople.
The US government is supposed to first and foremost take care of US citizens, not just allow them to be pushed out of jobs because corporations would rather import cheap labor.
In the tech labor market (as per the post) the labor simply isn't available. We don't generally see American software engineers languishing and unable to find jobs.
I guarantee that the like of Microsystems, Google, and Amazon were not paying the poster a pittance.
>We don't generally see American software engineers languishing and unable to find jobs.
That was me from 2016 to 2018. Trust me, there are weirdos like me out there in the country that can't get a job. I decided to go all in on this exciting tech stack called Ruby on Rails. I heard all the cool kids were doing it. Spend all my life savings trying to get in on the action. What I didn't realize is that they were all unemployed......as a result I don't think Matz is so nice.
I'm ok now, wasting my life writing one line of code a day on software that does not make one lick of difference in this world (and no its not in ruby on rails): The American dream™
Not sure who you hang out with, but black, hispanic, and latino US citizens have a very hard time getting jobs despite having software engineering degrees. They end up in GS-5 equivalent military tech "careers" or crappy geek squad jobs.
If you have friends in each of these categories who are skilled, I’ll interview them. Job is onsite in San Francisco. Interview is leetcode style plus software design.
Since it isn’t based primarily on past experience, it won’t matter that they haven’t had opportunity if they do have the skills.
I’m in HFT. Only hire people I’d consider capable and I’m comfortable with our interview process. If they knock the interview off the hook they’ll be in. Let me know.
Nobody wants to work for your crappy startup. What you are asking for requires a lot of sacrifice and investment (living in an overpriced dump called SF, leetcode interviews, dealing with people like you) for not enough benefits hence thats why you rely on outside "help".
I agree with your first statement. I've never felt threatened by imported cheap labor in my role though. I think our immigration laws should protect US citizens but what they seem to be doing is allowing companies to hire people for cheap but not giving a very good path for those people to become US citizens even though they're contributing to US companies and the US economy as a whole.
If you're worried about losing your job to cheap labor that's an issue with our immigration system not a problem with immigration in general. You should be asking yourself why companies are allowed to pay non-US citizens less for the same jobs we're doing.
I, personally, have zero fear of being replaced by cheap labor. I've climbed high enough in what I do and I know how valuable my skillset is. But I see it all over the place, and it still concerns me.
> You should be asking yourself why companies are allowed to pay non-US citizens less for the same jobs we're doing.
I would ask myself this, but I know the answer. It's because these companies have our lawmakers in their pockets. That is the problem that really needs to be solved, which would take care of this and many other issues.
Do you agree that should be weighted by the need of the country to remain competitive, say in the hypothetically scenario where we came to the conclusion that the average american is lazy, and that that's the core reason why immigrants replace them?
The entire reason we have this system is so that the country can remain competitive, which is an important and valid reason. But it was never meant to be what it has become, which is just a way to import cheap labor. It needs to get back to what it was supposed to be, which is a way to bring in highly-skilled labor that simply can't be found in the US, at the same pay US citizens would receive.
The country shouldn’t act in the interests of the “country” but rather in the interests of its citizens. “Replacing” the citizens (sounds a little genocidal) is not in the citizens best interests.
