U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

Re:U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers by briandear on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @09:57PM (#19041894)

When H1s are used to displace American workers at a lower cost, I am not sure “cheering all immigrants” is warranted. Some, but definitely not all. The Disney firings happened. And it has happened in many other places that aren’t as famous. When Disney has H1s displacing Americans who were already doing the job, that isn’t a “shortage,” which is the single purpose for which H1B was created.

I am not disputing the value of some H1Bs, but “cheering” for all of them? No way.

Also Sergey and Elon were not H1Bs. Including them in a discussion of H1Bs is intellectually dishonest, neither one was an H1B but instead entered the US via other programs — programs that aren’t under serious debate.

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Re:U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers by fake124 on Thursday January 31, 2019 @02:28AM (#19043108)

I was one of those Disney employees laid off in 2015 and there were no "shortages", they just wanted to save money. A few months later they wanted to do the same at their ABC unit. They told employees they were laid off and gave them a date and then walked it back because of the bad press.

https://aknextphase.com/disneys-wild-it-ride/

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Re:U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers by fake124 on Thursday January 31, 2019 @02:31AM (#19043120)

Southern California Edison (SCE) also did the same thing as Disney. Abused the H1B and L2 program fired american workers and replaced them with foreign contractors.

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Re:U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers by boron1006 on Thursday January 31, 2019 @12:52AM (#19042696)

Just curious, what program did Elon Musk enter? I think he has said he entered with an H1B previously: https://www.quora.com/Did-Elon-Musk-have-legal-authorization...

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Re:U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers by niyazpk on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @10:03PM (#19041926)

I am wondering how not having H1B could have helped the Disney employees though. If Disney wants to cut costs and hire cheaper labor (presumably why they hired H1Bs? I don't know), they could as well move the jobs offshore. Now the US is losing out on much more than just the jobs. What am I missing here?

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Re:U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers by maximente on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @10:27PM (#19042049)

the whole idea of "just moving the jobs offshore" doesn't really come out to be as simple as you have equated here. there's often time zone differences, cultural difference, a simple inability to do work (e.g. anything requiring access to physical infrastructure, any client-facing meetings, etc.)

it's not like you can flip a switch and get a fully functioning setup, even with something like development.

we've seen this charade with foxconn, amazon, etc. turns out that the whole "highest bidder competitions" turn out to be not-so-thinly veiled con jobs where basically everyone but the corp loses aside from some marginal people like property holders.

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Re:U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers by niyazpk on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @10:29PM (#19042060)

I was under the impression that Amazon has a large portion of its engineering talent outside the US.

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Re:U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers by sudosteph on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @11:56PM (#19042467)

Who told you that? That was not my experience at all working there a few years back. Even for global teams like AWS engineering support, the US offices easily tripled the international ones in number of engineers.

I knew exactly one team based in Germany, but that was only because AWS acquired that product and team.

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Re:U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers by maximente on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @10:36PM (#19042092)

that's a pretty nice red herring you've introduced there my friend!

you haven't addressed any of the points i've brought up, but instead introduced a very tangential (possibly true) fact.

reflect for a moment on what i've said above. you are introducing a dichotomy that isn't accurate and justifying it by saying "something is better than nothing", which is the same corporate rationale for having a .000001% tax rate, states going crazy to attract huge companies, and so forth.

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Re:U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers by treis on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @10:15PM (#19041986)

The options aren't immigrants or offshore. Yes, some jobs will be lost to offshore but some won't. From the perspective of American workers, even if 90% go offshore it's better than 100% going to immigrants.

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