Thread regarding Microsoft Corp. layoffs

The H-1B hires were not hired because there weren't qualified engineers available.

I worked with H-1B engineers with multiple Fortune 100 companies in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. They were hired for two reasons that had nothing to do with being "qualified":

They were cheap.

They were willing to work 100+ hours a week. (Making them even cheaper.)

The reason they would work such long hours is that they generally were not married, had no children and no social life in the U.S. They had nothing to to but work.

I watched the proliferation of H-1B engineers drive American engineers completely out of entire departments. The companies mostly had peer-rankings of employees. The most productive employees were considered the most valuable.

The American employees with lives and families outside of work couldn't match the sheer number of hours worked by the foreign employees. Even working 70 hours a week, they were unable to work hard enough to match those working 30+ hours more a week. If there were 5 H-1B employees in a group of 10, invariably the engineers unable to put in the sheer number of hours (the American engineers) would be driven out of the group.

The H-1B hires were not hired because there weren't qualified engineers available. They were hired for one reason only - they were cheaper than U.S. engineers.

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| 2331 views | | 6 replies (last January 14, 2016) | Reply
Post ID: @OP+DRBaile

6 replies (most recent on top)

I am not wrong

You're absolutely wrong. A company pays around 20-30k per #H1B filed. Also H1Bs have the same salaries as US workers at least at MS where the salary for a given title is usually non-negotiable. H1Bs are actually more expensive than US workers and that's why many smaller companies don't hire H1Bs simply because they can't afford the cost.

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Post ID: @1Aomk+DRBaile

Trump will fix this.

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Post ID: @1gxjy+DRBaile

You're absolutely wrong. A company pays around 20-30k per H1B filed. Also H1Bs have the same salaries as US workers at least at MS where the salary for a given title is usually non-negotiable. H1Bs are actually more expensive than US workers and that's why many smaller companies don't hire H1Bs simply because they can't afford the cost.

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Post ID: @Jfx6+DRBaile

Agree! I know for sure few engineers get as low as 15k in their respective countries, come here and ready to pay for as low as 50k. This affects the entire market dynamics. Skillwise, most of them are below average.

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Post ID: @HH3y+DRBaile

Trump 2016

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Post ID: @gaOp+DRBaile

Some H1Bs are incredibly skilled and articulate, most of them are not. That's the issue with the program. It was designed to bring in the best and the brightest, with Infosys, Tata & Co leading the charge, it turned into a low paid IT worker trafficking program

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Post ID: @bDtg+DRBaile

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