I work in the European branch from such a multinational company. We regularly get people from Eastern Europe or Asia who were hired for the main US office, but could not get an H1B visa. These people are supposed to stay with us until they get their visa for the US, but they quite often decide to stay forever. And so, our office is growing…
Donald Trump dumps on Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg
US presidential candidate Donald Trump has called for major reforms to the United States' skilled labour and set himself up in opposition to Mark Zuckerberg. Trump singled out Zuckerberg with the release of his immigration reform policy that, among other things, details a plan to build a wall between the United States and …
COMMENTS
-
-
Tuesday 18th August 2015 09:14 GMT Bob Vistakin
Hairstyles to "disguise" baldness: The Elephant in the Room
Ahh, for years the undisputed king has been the Bobby Charlton brushover, but alas the remaining wisps have all fluttered off now leaving this new magnificent combover specimen to Trump them all.
-
Tuesday 18th August 2015 13:01 GMT g e
Mind you
Most of the papers I've seen reported by El Reg that emanate from, say, MIT have 'immigrant' surnames on all that excellent work which is, presumably, advancing US interests.... Not that they're not necessarily x-generation of such but they ain't come from 'round here, so to speak.
Merely an observation. Cake / Eating conflicts?
-
-
Tuesday 18th August 2015 07:19 GMT Mephistro
"...details a plan to build a wall between the United States and Mexico."
I'd love to see that wall built, if only to see how well American economy does without
slavecheap/illegal workers. In the end it would probably be good for Mexico and the rest of Latin America.The cost of building, maintaining and manning such a pharaonic infrastructure would be an added bonus.
-
Tuesday 18th August 2015 07:25 GMT AndyS
Re: "...details a plan to build a wall between the United States and Mexico."
A true Republican project. Oppose spending on all infrastructure (that's Socialism, after all) and government expansion (that's practically Communism), unless the project happens to be a short-sighted, contradictory, xenophobic, fear-led isolationist insult to your closest neighbours. Then, hey, where's the cheque-book?
-
-
Tuesday 18th August 2015 22:32 GMT SinceYouAsked
Re: "...details a plan to build a wall between the United States and Mexico."
But as the Great Wall of China and Hadrian Wall... it did slow it down or at least mitigate it.
The problem isn't the migration.. it is the size and the refusal to let/encourage them to integrate into the culture they want to be a part of.
A society MUST have a single set of values and must be able to effectively communicate if they want to be able to effectively and efficiently function to create a real nation state.
That some US citizens don't want to turn the US into UAE or Saudi Arabia where more expats live than native citizens, or into that long established country of Belgium (that hasn't been able to protect itself in the last 200 years), might validate that xenophobia DOES protect a society. Let's see how Sweden does with over 12% of their residents born outside of Sweden.
-
Wednesday 26th August 2015 09:18 GMT Afernie
Re: "...details a plan to build a wall between the United States and Mexico."
"But as the Great Wall of China and Hadrian Wall... it did slow it down or at least mitigate it."
Those walls were never built to stop immigration, they were built to say "look what we can do" and the same is true of the Donald.
-
-
-
-
This post has been deleted by its author
-
Tuesday 18th August 2015 15:02 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: "...details a plan to build a wall between the United States and Mexico."
"I'd love to see that wall built, if only to see how well American economy does without slave cheap/illegal workers."
God, not this tired old argument again. I guess the western world only came out of the stone age when mass 20th century immigration started, right? Before that the supermarkets were empty of staff, no one cleaned the streets or emptied the rubbish or drove the buses etc etc blah fucking blah.
Meanwhile, back in the real world: Immigrants caused a massive drop in low end working wages which a lot of working class people simply can't live on if they have a mortgage to pay and a family to support and DON'T want to live a dozen to a fucking room in some fleapit!
-
Tuesday 18th August 2015 16:52 GMT Just Enough
Re: "...details a plan to build a wall between the United States and Mexico."
"Immigrants caused a massive drop in low end working wages"
And the companies paying those wages were just innocent by-standers to the whole thing. It was the immigrants that tricked them! "Give us low wages!" they cried. "Keep the profits for yourselves and don't ask us any questions!" they demanded. What is a company to do to defend itself from that kind of pressure??
-
Tuesday 18th August 2015 18:23 GMT Mephistro
Re: "...details a plan to build a wall between the United States and Mexico." (@ Boltar)
"God, not this tired old argument again."
Which argument? That the Big Wall will only worsen things? I'd like to hear your counter-argument.
Fact is, the US govt. seems to agree with me, as they are doing zilch -aside from some hand waving - regarding the issue. Which measures should they take, you'll ask?
First the switch: lots and lots of surprise inspections in the areas where illegal workers are more common, e.g. construction, agriculture, domestic service... . with big fines/prison terms for illegal employers. Remember, in most cases the "illegals" are the victims here.
Then the carrot: helping the development of the countries where the illegals originate, both economically and politically, so as to prevent people from wanting to escape the terrible conditions in said countries.
Instead, what the US does is spending trillions in stopping perhaps a 20% of illegal immigrants -so as to appease the voters-, milking the origin countries off most of their natural riches and capital, and directly promoting criminal/dodgy/corrupt regimes in said countries to facilitate the above said plundering of natural resources.
I think that the main reason for this sad state of affairs is that in the US the main objective is private profit. The current status quo allows the government to put pressure on salaries -with all the consequences you list in your comment and then some more- while keeping the public happy " 'cause something is being done".
In short: the US economy is designed to depend on very low wages/living standards for a big % of the population, and, sadly this won't change by itself, even if you reduce illegal immigration to zero, as other means will be used to keep salaries down (e.g. more economic meltdowns).
-
-
-
This post has been deleted by its author
-
Tuesday 18th August 2015 08:15 GMT Roq D. Kasba
Re: Good for Trump
Ah, the closed system view of a multinational. Every bit as likely is that facebook/<whoever> would just keep a token US presence and offshore the whole damn lot to <wherever>. This isn't grain fields, this is not geographically tied. Make it hard for a business to compete on home turf (where it pays taxes), and that makes other places more attractive - and then they get some of that tax money instead. It is better for you (guessing you're American) to keep the country's tech economy vibrant.
What happens to the West Coast if Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and all their friends decide to close operations in USA and move to Ireland or Antigua or Poland as a main hub? The Internet won't really know or care, most of The Internet don't even use these services or at least do so in their native languages. If you move the offices 50 or 5000 miles, as long as the lights stay on, nobody cares.
-
Tuesday 18th August 2015 13:58 GMT DJSpuddyLizard
Re: Good for Trump
What happens to the West Coast if Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and all their friends decide to close operations in USA and move to Ireland or Antigua or Poland as a main hub
OK, why haven't they already done so?
It much be MUCH cheaper for them to operate in India NOW than it is in the U.S.A, so why don't they do that already? I mean - businesses try to reduce costs, right?
-
Tuesday 18th August 2015 14:23 GMT Slx
Re: Good for Trump
India is a very extreme example and is very much a developing country with all the problems and lifestyle issues that causes.
There isn't a whole lot of difference between Ireland, The UK, Canada, even Australia and NZ vs basing in most of the U.S. They're very similar, English speaking, business friendly locations. Some suburban tech park in Dublin, Cork, Toronto, Edmonton, Vancouver, London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Auckland, Wellington, Sydney etc etc etc could just as easily be suburban Boston. Seattle, San Fran.
The bigger cities like London etc offer everything NYC or LA offer and the smaller ones offer a nice balance of lifestyle a bit more like Boston or Cupertino.
In the case of Britian, Ireland and Canada you've also got places with a lot of connectivity, perfect locations for recruitment and not too dissimilar to American lifestyles.
They're all actually top destinations to emigrate too.
Irish and British citizenship also open up the whole EU to potential immigrants which is a big selling point, if you've high skills.
Couple that with heavily subsidied or entirely free 3rd level education for your kids (anywhere in Europe) pretty rock solid social supports etc etc, politically relatively liberal outlooks on issues like gay rights etc etc and much lower violent crime.
He's really setting himself up for causing offshoring to Western Europe and Canada etc.
-
Tuesday 18th August 2015 22:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Good for Trump
He's really setting himself up for causing offshoring to Western Europe and Canada etc.
Though I agree that eliminating H1Bs is foolish, it would hardly be the catalyst that causes silicon valley to move to the silicon roundabout. There are already more than enough good reasons to move to Western Europe that something else must be dissuading these companies from considering it.
-
Wednesday 19th August 2015 00:25 GMT SinceYouAsked
Re: Good for Trump
No US based company really wants to base it's R&D and major headcount in Western Europe. That is legal and financial suicide. Name ONE major Hi Tech (Computer/Network) that has centered its development in Europe and has any world wide presence. (Minor IBM and HP sites don't count) all product development (or what is left of it) is mostly in the US)
Selling IP to Ireland based company so that it can do business with China/India and avoid US taxes is very different than having to do with the BS of the French employment laws.
-
-
-
-
Tuesday 18th August 2015 18:41 GMT john80224
Re: Good for Trump
Reality probably lies somewhere in between. Were it so interchangeable to move wholesale, most of the companies most likely would have done so. Those that are in the US appear to have some reason to do so. Would shutting down the supply be a nudge towards leaving? Yes. Would it force all to? Of course not. Footprint sizes may change geography, but none of us can do much more than theorize to what extent.
There's a balance to be reached and I'm not suggesting we close down all immigration, but using the visa system as a way to discriminate against and cause domestic workers lose interest in supposedly critical fields is not going to bode well for the US in the long.
-
-
Tuesday 18th August 2015 11:54 GMT Simon 11
Re: Good for Trump
WTF?!?
Neither you, nor Trump appear to know what you're on about. From the US Gov website (http://www.dol.gov/compliance/topics/wages-foreign-workers.htm):
H-1B and H-1B1 Specialty (Professional) Workers must be paid the higher of the prevailing wage (average wage paid to similarly employed workers in the occupation in the area of employment) or the actual wage paid by the firm to workers with similar skills and qualifications.
The only way to use H-1B visas to import cheaper foreign labour is to actually break the existing law. Changing this law in the ways suggested by Trump wont stop companies already breaking it from breaking it.
80% of visas being filled by people in level 1 or 2 just means most visas are being used to fill entry level jobs (or that companies are again breaking the law and lying through their teeth to get cheap foreign labour, which law changes won't stop).
Assuming the majority of visas are honestly obtained and filled, there is absolutely no reason to prefer foreign workers over local workers, as they cost the same (in fact probably more, as the companies would generally pay relocation costs, cover the cost of obtaining the visa, etc).
Assuming the majority of visas are fraudulent scams companies are using to cheat locals out of jobs by hiring cheap foreign labour, then changing the law is useless. Laws don't work without enforcement.
-
Tuesday 18th August 2015 12:45 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Good for Trump
Here's the way it *actually* works (based on experience of actually sponsoring overseas tech workers from overseas and not being able to get H1-B visas for them.
1. All of the H1-B visas are snatched up by a small number of multinationals before small tech companies ever get to apply.TCS, Wipro, SingTel, IBM Global, etc each have teams of lawyers who file tens of thousands of applications in advance.
2. The law is written to say the H1-B visa holders must not undercut salaries. Although this is a reason that US companies keep salary data secret, it is very clear these workers are paid a fraction of prevailing rates. This tends not to be true for workers from ANZ and Europe, but the vast majority of H1-Bs are from India at this time, some from China and Russia and these are definitely underpaid
3. Job "openings" and requirements are created and posted to only apply to the pre-selected pool of overseas "applicants" Requirements range from the usual recruiter b/s - i.e. ten+ years experience in docker and ruby to more overt "must be fluent in Urdu and Punjabi as well as English and have experience in java, SQL, and HTML" or "requires experience on <specific set of esoteric technologies> used on last Wipro project".
We ended up having to sponsor green cards directly because the pool of H1-Bs is unavailable to us, The law is broken, politicians don't really care because they get money from tech companies. The Indian workers suffer because they are essentially indentured servants who are underpaid for the work they are doing. Big companies who hire TCS, Wipro, and IGS think they are saving money but actually get shafted so much on other fees they are still paying $200/hour each for a team with minimal skills and poor communication.
-
Tuesday 18th August 2015 18:00 GMT phil dude
Re: Good for Trump
You forgot to mention there are (were?) quotas proportional to countries from which applicants come from.
Therefore if you are Western European the quota is small , but the proportion of Western Europeans taking the visa spots is proportionately lower.
If you are Chinese, Indian or Mexican you are competing against oversubscription....
This is my understanding of the system, but google will find you real data.
I was an "Extraordinary Alien" and given a 10 year visa prior to my GC, so I feel sure my experiences are not representative...
P.
-
-
Wednesday 19th August 2015 00:25 GMT SinceYouAsked
Re: Good for Trump
Simon 11,
I'm so sorry that you think you will get a true understanding of how things REALLY work from a United States government site.
As to "breaking the law", well, all you have to do is to post a job with such exacting job specification that one can not clear the qualification filter or at least imagine being paid $60K when the offer finally comes. The secret is mapping a Job Description into a salary level. "Looking for a Staff Engineer to solve World Hunger". Then HR looks to source from a company or an employee that came in India, that has the "perfect" candidate. Viola, you have passed the 3 micron hurdle to a H1B visa request. A 2 year experienced Indian will pass the hurdle. The hiring manager has no choice as the Job Description, as approved, places a lower limit on salary.
If there are 100K visas / year, how the hell do you think anyone in the US Government is going to do any REAL vetting. Do you really think that they have the man power? Good grief, VA employees lie on documents, IRS employees use their power for their own political reasons, NSA employees use their data banks to track ex-girl friends. The Department of Justice can't/won't prosecute any of them. Do you really think they they are going to go after MSFT, Cisco, FB for H1B violations. The Department of Homeland Security is too busy feeling up attractive women.men and stealing from searched baggage to worry about some imported employee.
A simple answer is:. if the company or any of it subsidiaries have had any layoffs within the US, they can NOT get any more H1B visas until they get back up to their original end count. (Yeah.. an accountant doesn't equal a programmer doesn't equal an admin.. but you know what I mean.) Cisco, MSFT, IBM, Dell, ... all of them, have had massive layoffs over the last 5 years.
-
Wednesday 19th August 2015 11:41 GMT Simon 11
Re: Good for Trump
@SinceYouAsked
I'm not suggesting the government website is how things really work. I'm merely pointing out there are the rules to prevent these visas from being mis-used in the manner described by Trump. 'Fixing' this by changing the law won't prevent companies already breaking the rules from breaking the rules. As I said, laws are useless without enforcement.
@LucreLout
Your friend is entitled to be paid at the higher rate of either the prevailing wage for people doing the same job in the same area (regardless of qualification), or of the wage people of comparable skills and qualifications in the same company employed for the same reason.
Note that this isn't about how much a qualification is worth, it is about whether a qualification is recognised (you are either qualified or not qualified). If the job spec requires a qualification, then the company absolutely recognises that your friends qualifications are comparable to the qualifications of others doing the same role and therefore they are breaking the law by not paying your friend as per the rules outlined for the H-1B visa. The only way I can think of around this is to not require a qualification in the job spec and to officially not recognise qualifications from countries other than the US (though they could still land in hot water, as the US government may formally recognise qualifications that your friend holds).
-
-
Wednesday 19th August 2015 09:14 GMT LucreLout
Re: Good for Trump
@Simon11
the actual wage paid by the firm to workers with similar skills and qualifications.
How they work around that is they value degrees from American colleges at whatever rate, and degrees from the rest of the world at zip.
I'm not suggesting it is right or wrong, only that it is legal and it does happen (I have a friend & colleague moved to NY on H1B and this is exactly the reason he gets paid less than the prevailing rate among the merkins).
-
-
-
Tuesday 18th August 2015 09:54 GMT disgruntled yank
with an answer
Dignifying Donald Trump would be a reach even for somebody with Zuckerberg's billions. (And now I think of it, dignifying anyone isn't really what Facebook is about, is it?) I doubt that there are many H1B visas held by the kitchen and cleaning crews of various Trump-branded properties, but I wonder whether everyone employed there is a citizen or otherwise has legal status.
-
Tuesday 18th August 2015 10:18 GMT David Roberts
Surely he doesn't mean that?
Nobody so far has posted a costed engineering design for such a wall, nor the personpower needed to police it 24 x 7 x 365/6. Built and run by immigrant labour?
Perhaps he should look at East Germany where they could only afford a wall for a small part of the border. The rest was machine guns and land mines.
Or is this perhaps the real long term plan?
-
Tuesday 18th August 2015 11:07 GMT Voland's right hand
Err... factually incorrect
The visa is also highly prized by technology professionals around the world because it allows entry as a temporary worker along with one's spouse and children.
H1B specifies a house-slave requirement for the spouse for the duration or until a green card is obtained. So it is valued amidst candidate immigrants from 3rd world countries where that is the normal condition of the spouse (with an optional full body burk-ha as an accessory).
It is not valued amidst proper professionals as their wives are likely to be professionals too. L1, O1 - we are talking. These allow the spouse to remain a professional instead of being taught a lesson in Puritan Family Values for the next 7 years. H1B - forget that idea.
I for once agree with Trump. The requirements for O1 are not that onerous. If there is a need for talent to be imported - satisfy them to import it.
-
Tuesday 18th August 2015 15:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
Proud to be British!
trump
(trʌmp)
n
1. (Instruments) a trumpet or the sound produced by one
2. (Ecclesiastical Terms) the last trump the final trumpet call that according to the belief of some will awaken and raise the dead on the Day of Judgment
vb
3. (Music, other) (intr) to produce a sound upon or as if upon the trumpet
4. (Music, other) (tr) to proclaim or announce with or as if with a fanfare
5. (intr) Brit to expel intestinal gas through the anus
-
Tuesday 18th August 2015 15:50 GMT orly_andico
The vast majority of H1B's are obtained by the Indian outsourcing body shops.
http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2014-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx
1 Infosys 32,379 $76,494
2 Tata Consultancy Services 8,785 $66,113
3 Wipro 6,733 $69,953
4 Deloitte Consulting 6,123 $99,062
5 IBM 5,839 $87,789
6 Accenture 5,099 $70,878
7 Larsen & Toubro Infotech 4,380 $59,933
8 Microsoft 3,911 $113,408
9 Hcl America 3,012 $81,376
10 Satyam Computer Services 2,249 $73,374
There's something really wrong when Infosys snaps up fully a third of the H1B allocation. And 6 of the top 10 sponsors are Indian body shops.
-
Friday 28th August 2015 15:54 GMT Anonymous Coward
Yes, but...
http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2014-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx
the site says "The salary is the average salary of all proffered salary on LCA or Form 9035. Sometimes the visa sponsors(employers) does not enter a specific salary, but a salary range. Our algorithm uses the middle point of the range to calculate the average salary."
That means the average salaries could be MUCH lower. If they specify a $20K to $120K range, for example.
-
-
Tuesday 18th August 2015 17:25 GMT martinusher
He's a loudmouth but he's right
H1 visas are supposed to be for "persons of outstanding merit in the arts and sciences" -- that is, people with significant qualifications and professional experience. They are not designed for entry level jobs and the fact that the majority are issued to Indian contracting companies suggests that there's something not quite right going on here. The inference is collusion/corruption.
How this labor is used is abusive. Locally the electricity utility, Southern California Edison, is laying off their IT staff and replacing them by Indians hired through the usual outsourcing firms. Employees of Edison are required to train their replacements (or not get any severance package, that's the lever). This is not only blatant abuse of the H-1 visa, its also illegal since one of the conditions of getting such a visa is that you're not displacing an American worker (or proposing to pay them significantly under the going rate). I know this because I came to the US 30 years ago on an H-1 -- but that was an 'honest' one -- postgraduate degree, significant work experience and so on.
-
Tuesday 18th August 2015 21:15 GMT Stevie
Bah!
"Requirement to hire American workers first"
When I applied for my H1-B that was indeed the requirement. It had to be demonstrated that no American who was qualified for the job was willing to do it before I could be hired.
Of course, I was working on what eventually boiled down - via a series of subcontractors - to a Government contract, where the rules are often tighter. Hell, I had to undergo an FBI background check to get a building pass.