H-1B visa holders are among the highest paid workers in the United States

[IronLionZion]

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/work/h-1b-visa-holders-are-among-the-highest-paid-workers-in-the-united-states/articleshow/90801291.cms

H-1B visa holders are among the highest paid workers in the United States, with their wages being in the 90th percentile of all wages in the country.

This means that H-1B workers receive paycheques that are in the top 10 percent of US earners, American think tank Cato Institute has found in a recent study.

According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the median wage for H-1B worker in 2021 was about $108,000.

Compare this to the median wage for all US workers in 2021 - $45,760.

H-1B wage growth has exceeded the growth for all US workers. From 2003 to 2021, the nominal median H-1B wage grew 52%, while the nominal median for all US workers grew just 39%, Cato noted.

This is the first time since DHS started reporting H-1B wages in 2003 that H-1B wages have surged above the 90th percentile.

Haven't seen many H-1B articles posted here since we started having a labor shortage. Hmmm... Maybe it's not the cheap labor that people want to believe it is. There could be some other factors involved.

On the flip, this is a tremendous time to be job searching. My inbox is filled each day with recruiters who need a US citizen and won't say anything else about the job.

[milestogo]

1. The H-1B workers I have known make tons of money.

[Fla Dem]

15. I worked for a large corporate business in the 80's and 90's. They were using H-1B workers

They were using H-1B workers from India then for programming and systems work.

[milestogo]

17. They still are.

And they go from on H1-B position to the next. There are tons of Indian recruiters who work exclusively on this.

[Fla Dem]

18. Yes, my point was this has been going on for a long time, Nothing new.

[AngryOldDem]

22. Yep. Ex was laid off from a few IT jobs because of H-1B in the '90s.

For him, it crippled his future earnings potential hugely. Furthermore, it was stipulated that if he wanted his severance, he had to stay and train his replacement. His beef wasn’t so much with the workers than with the contracting firms that got the bulk of the money by bringing these programmers on. (That may not be the case now.)

Damn. I still get red-hot angry thinking about this because this really, really hurt my family back in the day.

That program was grossly abused.

[honest.abe]

2. Tech/IT jobs are well paid and apparently we dont have enough qualified people here to take them.

Also, it does appear not enough young college bound Americans are choosing STEM majors. I dont know why but its a serious troubling trend.

[Baitball Blogger]

3. There are qualified people here in this country.

Talk to them to find out why the Visa holders are sought out.

[IronLionZion]

5. I'm not even slightly qualified at all

their contract requires one US Citizen and I'm a US Citizen of similar ancestral heritage of the H-1Bs. Seriously, that's all. IT services contracting is the most nonsensical industry.

There are cultural reasons why it's mostly visa holders instead of Americans. Contracting life goes against everything Americans believe in.

[Baitball Blogger]

6. This is probably a good case of supporting USA employees.

But, again, the IT and software programmers in this country should have a chance to pitch in and tell their side. I know we need to support other countries where we can, but I don't think that the reason for hiring Visa holders is a valid on.

[Johnny2X2X]

8. We do not have enough qualified tech workers in this country

Work in aerospace engineering, there simply aren't enough bodies to do all of the work. We absolutely must farm work out to Mexican and Indian engineering firms to even run our business right now.

There are virtually no engineers out of work right now and ones who want to change positions have a long list of companies to pick and choose from. We're losing engineers on the regular who are getting $40,000+ more over their current salaries to switch companies.

And as someone who managers projects that are forced to use labor from other countries, the engineering is excellent, there are very capable engineers in other countries, in some ways superior to the average engineer here in the US. STEM needs to be the focus in primary and secondary education or our economy is going to be at a severe disadvantage going forward.

[IronLionZion]

10. It's true about engineering

Asian and some European and other countries are teaching math and science in high school at a level Americans won't get until college. So they've got a big head start in some ways.

[Fla Dem]

13. The Tech gap ....

FORTUNE
The tech talent gap is a self-inflicted wound

BY JULIE ELBERFELD January 20, 2022 8:10 AM EST

As labor shortages continue to plague the U.S. economy, wages are beginning to rise for the most in-demand positions. The tech industry is facing one of the most acute talent gaps.

https://fortune.com/2022/01/20/the-tech-talent-gap-is-a-self-inflicted-wound-labor-shortage-hr-recruitment-great-resignation-julie-elberfeld/

IT Workers Will Be Hard to Find and Keep in 2022

By Nicole Lewis
December 13, 2021

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/technology/pages/it-workers-will-be-hard-find-keep-2022.aspx

The tech worker shortage is about to become an even bigger problem for everyone 

March 4, 2022

.....skip
Why is there a shortage of tech workers?
The shortage of tech talent is not new. More than 50% of CEOs expressed their concern over the lack of digital talent over 10 years ago. Hell, by 2019, 79% were kind of worried. In essence, what the pandemic did is make the skills gap a lot wider.

Where we’re at right now: according to a survey from TalentLMS and Workable, 72% of tech employees in the US are considering leaving their jobs in the next year. About 40% of them say that limited opportunities for career progression play a role. Other common reasons include non-flexible work hours, a lack of remote working options, feeling under-appreciated, and a toxic work environment. A whopping 85% said they felt their company focused more on attracting new talent than investing in existing staff. Unsurprisingly perhaps, 58% said they were suffering from burnout.

More.....
https://www.sherweb.com/blog/partner/the-tech-worker-shortage/

[honest.abe]

20. Not from my experience.

Im an IT manager and we have a very hard time filling IT openings with qualified people. We dont usually go the H1B route simply because its complicated and we can get by with a few unfilled spots. Also, my wife is in construction engineering and her company is always lacking qualified engineers. They often have to go H1B to get people.

My wife graduated from Univ of Maryland about 5 years ago with Masters of Engineering. She told me her classmates were almost entirely non-Americans. So the situation is probably going to get worse.

[Johnny2X2X]

28. India is the awakening giant

The sheer volume of engineers they are putting out is mind boggling. Their economy is going to probably pass ours not long after China's does. To have that many engineers innovating and creating new technology in an economy is going to be exciting, if the US is smart we can position ourselves to benefit from Chinese and Indian innovation.

In the US, a 4 year engineering degree right now is a ticket to success. Even barely competent engineers are getting paid. More highly experienced and skilled engineers can shop around right now and make really high salaries.

We lost one of our best engineers to a competitor last year, they nearly doubled her salary and gave her a $100,000 signing bonus. Now this was a special case of an industry expert who is very well known, but that's the type of stuff that is happening for top engineers right now.

And Work from Home has escalated the competition. We're in West Michigan, because of WFH we now have to worry about companies from all over the country poaching our best people with bigger salaries and the option to remain living in West Michigan. Furthermore, we now can look for engineers across the country and with work from home not require them to relocate their families. And we're also seeing some of our older employees moving to warmer climates and keeping their jobs here while working from home.

[honest.abe]

29. No doubt.

Also China is sending massive numbers of students to high tech Universities all over the US. This next generation of Indian and Chinese STEM students are going to dominate high tech industries in this country. Its already happening but its going to get much worse unless American students pick it up dramatically.

[Johnny2X2X]

30. There is no real trend of increasing STEM grads in the US

So we'll fall behind, but that doesn't spell doom, we still have an economy built on innovation, and we can still benefit from technologies developed in other countries. But to succeed in those economies, a STEM background is going to be a near necessity.

Our schools need to push STEM harder, but parents do too. Foster math learning as soon as possible, push your kids into those areas, it's the surest path to an upper middleclass lifestyle for them. I see friends and family pushing their talented mathematician kids into other fields that don't have as bright a future for them. Don't let your kids get left behind, I know it's harder for a lot of kids, but STEM is the way for many more of them to get ahead than are currently doing.

[Samrob]

16. We have plenty of well qualified people who just don't get these jobs because of racism.

I have worked with a lot of the H Visa folks and they are well connected to relatives and friends already here and working in the government. Most are not any smarter then the men and women I graduated with from college. Some are even far less qualified and proficient in their area of expertise. They get jobs with short interviews and not much vetting. The medical and science agencies are the biggest culprits of this abuse. Major countries involved: India, Israel, Korea, Japan, Russia, France, Australia. Quite a few have relatives already working here. They very often get tax breaks and promotions over the US citizens who spend a year or more training them...some training them to take their jobs after training. It's a terrible injustice that the power brokers ignore or abuse.

[honest.abe]

21. ..

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=16652452

[AngryOldDem]

23. That is a tired, old argument.

[honest.abe]

24. Not an argument.. a fact from my experience.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=16652452

Perhaps with other companies it may be different.

[AngryOldDem]

27. It is different. I lived it.

[Beastly Boy]

4. Whoever believes that H1B labor is cheap, has no clue about H1B Program.

The H-1B program applies to employers seeking to hire nonimmigrant aliens as workers in specialty occupations or as fashion models of distinguished merit and ability. A specialty occupation is one that requires the application of a body of highly specialized knowledge and the attainment of at least a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent.

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/immigration/h1b

Specialty occupations. Highly specialized knowledge. Merit and ability. A minimum of Bachelors degree. And Economic Times is comparing this to the median wage for all US workers? How ridiculous is that?

Did they even bother to compare H1B wages to the median wages of Americans with specialized knowledge in specialty occupations with a minimum of Bachelor's degree to their credit?

I smell a whiff of xenophobia in that article.

[LeftInTX]

7. The article appeared in an Indian newspaper

economictimes.indiatimes.com/


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economic_Times

The Economic Times is an Indian English-language business-focused daily newspaper. It is owned by The Times Group. The Economic Times began publication in 1961. As of 2012, it is the world's second-most widely read English-language business newspaper, after The Wall Street Journal,[4] with a readership of over 800,000. It is published simultaneously from 14 cities: Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Chandigarh, Pune, Indore, and Bhopal. Its main content is based on the Indian economy, international finance, share prices, prices of commodities as well as other matters related to finance. This newspaper is published by Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. The founding editor of the paper when it was launched in 1961 was P. S. Hariharan. The current editor of The Economic Times is Bodhisattva Ganguli.[5]

[Beastly Boy]

14. Still, a pretty ignorant and misleading comparison.

And it was obviously meant for English speaking audiences, predominantly in the US. And since the number of H1B visas is limited to about 65,000 annually, I doubt that H1B visa holders from India are the intended audience. Besides, the article is being cited, read and commented on an American online forum, where the article's origins hardly matter.

[IronLionZion]

9. Companies are betting on people having no clue about the program

They know that just about *all* the abuses of the program are done by the practice of non-IT companies contracting their IT to services firms. Americans don't want to be contractors so they hire visa holders.

It's a great visa for specialized medical, science, or education experts. Trump has already cut the number for less educated workers which is where a lot of the IT contracting abuse came from.

[Sympthsical]

11. You have to keep in mind how often they're used in tech

Yes, tech workers make quite a bit of money compared to other professions, but remember that they're paying those H1-Bs less than they would have to pay American tech workers.

$108,000 ain't a lot of money in Silicon Valley.

[IronLionZion]

19. It's even less if you have to move across the country every few months

with not even one penny of reimbursement. Can you imagine a company telling you tomorrow you're going to report to a client site in a different American city and you have to figure out how to get there and pay for it yourself? Pay lease breakage, pack up your stuff, pull your kids out of school, spouse has to quit their job, you're all moving or they'll stay and you have to be separated for a few months.

Americans aren't raised that way. It's like the military except with no assistance. US military families move often but don't even see a bill.

[Amishman]

12. It's more complicated than that, i'm in software development

H1B's are heavily concentrated in high paying roles and industries, so it is a very different sampling than any other labor pool.

The appeal to employers is having essentially an indentured servant. Since that H1B worker's presence in the US is tied to their job, it gives the employer total power. I've seen (and left) companies that moved towards heavy use of H1B visa holders. Why? Those workers will put up with working evening and weekends all the time, and other factors that would cause most employees to find another job. The company can abuse H1B's without worrying about them quitting.

The premise of the H1B program is to fill jobs that cannot be filled by someone already in the US. This is absolutely not the case in practice, I could count on one hand the number of times I've seen an opening that couldn't be filled normally if we really tried and were willing to pay appropriately.

[AngryOldDem]

26. This describes the programmers my ex worked with to a T.

Several workers would stay in one small apartment (paid for by the contracting firm? don’t remember) near the office and would commute together — like being owned by the company store.

Further, while some were quite skilled, others weren’t and caused coding issues that had to be debugged and cleaned up — unnecessary time-waste. The language barrier often didn’t help either.

They were a source of cheap labor, and you will never convince me otherwise. You can’t say there is a “shortage” when you’re laying off the very employees they’re replacing.

Companies were equal opportunity abusers with the H-1B program.

[IronLionZion]

25. Any DUers looking for jobs in IT

just put US CITIZEN at the top of your profile on LinkedIn, Monster, Dice, etc. and see what happens. You might get more recruiters contacting you than you know what to do with. Fewer H-1Bs want these jobs these days so there is a labor shortage for many IT jobs, especially the ones where you have to be onsite.

Contracting firms care less about your qualifications than you might expect. They have billets to fill or they lose revenue.