Preferring to hire people from already in your own country would be patriotic rather than isolationist. That's not xenophobia though because there's no irrational or intense fear of foreigners. That is unless "xenophobia" has been perverted to now mean anything that isn't hardcore globalist.
Well you have culture first of all, bringing in people from different cultures can lead to animosity and interpersonal conflict at times. Not to mention divise social groups that can occur when you hire alot from one particular country.
That and language, I have worked with devs and testers who just didn't have a great grasp on the english language which lead to a lot of frustration on both sides as we probably used half our jira comments clarifying/confirming what the other person meant.
I meant anyone already in the country and legally permitted to work, not the country you were born in.
One objective reason to favor hiring a candidate living locally over one abroad is effective communication. The less local a candidate is, the greater the chance of poor communication due to increasingly diverging dialects and cultures and a lack of knowledge about the local culture.
> I meant anyone already in the country and legally permitted to work, not the country you were born in.
Ah, fair enough, I guess the reason is to "avoid the process of bringing someone from abroad". Sounds pragmatic enough to me.
> One objective reason to favor hiring a candidate living locally over one abroad is effective communication. The less local a candidate is, the greater the chance of poor communication due to increasingly diverging dialects and cultures and a lack of knowledge about the local culture.
You have just contradicted yourself; but let's bite: Even if this looks reasonable to you, it's nowhere near the problem you think it is and most of the times far outweighed by the other reasons you had to choose a non-locally-born-or-raised candidate.
It also decreases diversity, which studies show is an advantage and not just a nicety.
> You have just contradicted yourself; but let's bite: Even if this looks reasonable to you, it's nowhere near the problem you think it is and most of the times far outweighed by the other reasons you had to choose a non-locally-born-or-raised candidate.
I listed that was a reason, not the only reason. Skill sets being equal, the candidate with a knowledge of the local culture will likely be the better candidate. That's not saying choose the local candidate solely because he is local. I fail to see how it's contradictory. I think we're talking about two subtlety different things. I'm talking about where someone currently resides, not where that person was born or raised.
> It also decreases diversity, which studies show is an advantage and not just a nicety.
I'm pretty sure you meant "increases diversity" because that's the popular trend. I've never comprehended why the "diversity" attribute magically makes a candidate superior. Typically, "diversity" superficially targets ethnic diversity rather than diversity in expertise, experience, or thought. Granted, those aren't mutually exclusive but they're not mutually inclusive either.
> I listed that was a reason, not the only reason. Skill sets being equal, the candidate with a knowledge of the local culture will likely be the better candidate.
Why is it better to know the local culture? E.g. would a local 65 year old be a better or worse culture fit than a 25 year from Canada?
> That's not saying choose the local candidate solely because he is local. I fail to see how it's contradictory. I think we're talking about two subtlety different things. I'm talking about where someone currently resides, not where that person was born or raised.
The problem is you haven't given a pragmatic reason why it's better to hire a local person. Well, in fall fairness that's not fully true, you might have implied less hassle during the hiring process (the remote person has to move locally, find a place, might need more time to settle due to that).
> I'm pretty sure you meant "increases diversity" because that's the popular trend.
I meant decreases, then I've meant that diversity is an advantage as per several studies. I'm sorry it was not clear.
I am the one referencing objective reasons, not sure why would you precisely call me out as a trend follower though.
> I've never comprehended why the "diversity" attribute magically makes a candidate superior. Typically, "diversity" superficially targets ethnic diversity rather than diversity in expertise, experience, or thought. Granted, those aren't mutually exclusive but they're not mutually inclusive either.
It's interesting that I keep seeing this "diversity of thought" mantra more and more often. I am seriously asking: Where did you get it from? I mean, it starts to look like a meme, so I wonder if it's on purpose.
Anyway, back to the point: What do you think diversity brings? And what do you think we refer to with "diversity"? For me it is:
- Different age
- Different gender
- Different socioeconomic background
- And any other thing that would've exposed you to different challenges in life: Your skin colour, your country of origin, your native language, where did you study, your level of studies, etc
Bringing e.g. more women or people from a different ethnic background to the team is a sure way to increase your so-called "diversity of thought". These people have probably faced different challenges than you did. Now if you want to hire someone that looks like you, grew in the same part of town, studied at the same place, had a similar socioeconomic background while growing up... Your chances of getting very similar points of view are very high.
And again, please spend some time researching the different studies, there are several by reputable sources. Apparently it is a fact that diversity is an advantage.
When every country on the planet hasn't open borders, the US can too. Until then, we will manage and judge who gets to come here. End of story. Calling it xenophobia is meaningless here, unless you're characterizing every country on the planet that way, in which case your comment has no teeth.
Compared to communism, this "free market" is like a shiny, golden, heavenly angel of salvation.
But, what we are talking about here is government policy. We have a government and it makes rules. There are other governments and they make rules too. Since that's the system we have, we need to analyze and balance what's right, and what works.
The statistical expectation from the dataset that you link to is $86,328.67 [1]. I no nothing about US salaries, but I don't consider this value a competitive salary. Therefore, I believe the premise of the article is statically correct. Citing a few example with large salaries (Apple, Google, ...) is misleading.
Only looking at the mean does not tell the whole story. Not all companies pay their H1Bs peanuts which is what this article seems to imply.
$86K might might not be competitive for the HN crowd with their inflated egos, but it's quite high for a number that includes other industries and regions.
Tell the average American to guess what underpaid is, they're likely going to guess lower 86K. You got to wonder why these rants don't like to cite any actual numbers.
The main issue is that all of the stats are brought down by TCS/TechM/Infosys and other body shops that pay just over the 60k cutoff. The average for H1-B actual software engineers is likely around $100k in SV, maybe a tad higher as you usually don't relocate people from abroad unless they are really good.
86K may not be a competitive salary in heart of SV but it's damn competitive in the US, and around the world.
Unless you are living in NYC/SV your cost of living in the US is lower, you tax burden is lower.
86K$ is more than the vast majority of highly paid developers in Europe get.
I don't understand why Amazon/Google paying 50-60K Euros in Germany or even lower than that in other EU countries with a tax burden of nearly 50% of income is fine by some guy from India coming and working for 85K+ in the US is somehow exploitation.
Do companies take advantage of the fact that they relocate people from effectively developing nations and pay them below market rates, sure, that's business but honestly do you think anyone complains? The average indian developer with 5-10 years of experience earns between 350-500K RS a year, with the 350-400K being more common this is about 5500-6000$.
If you think that the cost of living in India is so low that it can offset the discrepancy in income then you clearly haven't spent much time in India.
Some employers might abuse H1B too much, some might even do illegal things with it, but that's the case those things are illegal, just offering a lower than average salary isn't illegal, it's not even amoral.
The point is not that is 86K is low. In fact it is an interesting salary if you consider all salaries in the US among all jobs. The point is that it is lower than US software engineer average salary. This leads to wage compression for the local population whom or their parent have been paying taxes hence the prosperity and attractiveness of the US.
Nobody says that the fault is with the Visa holder who happily work for less than average wage. The problem is with companies exploiting this law which was designed to attract best talents who wouldn't work for less than average because they know their worth.
As a foreigner, I say this is not fair to local population (including those immigrant after they obtain their permanent residency) whose wages are kept low by companies who abuse these laws.
As a side note, I've lived both in San Diego and Berlin for a short period. It's true, in Germany total deduction of salary can go as high as 40 percent. But you get full health care coverage, child care, paternity and maternity leave, free university for your children and good public transport and infrastructure. This also covers unemployment and disability insurance plus the pension.
In contrast in California, one pays as high as 33% tax rate and get a fraction of these services.
I wouldn't be tempted to change my 60K euros Berlin salary with 110K $ San Diego salary. I would have a much better life quality in Berlin.
Even if companies are paying the same as local workers, there is still the issue of the employer having so much power over the worker.
Normally jobs are a two way relationship, with either party being able to back out if things are working out. With H1B's, the employee is a lot more tied down to the company.
Don't forget the TN visa. Those Canadians are stealing American jobs. Really surprised that everyone likes to complain about the H1B/L1 but not the TN visa.
Totally agree with you. H1b visa combined with the green card backlogs are meant to systematically keep immigration of Indians and Chinese citizens disproportionately low.
Many countries have agreements with US that allow their citizens to work without the hassle of h-1b
Sadly, because of the clout Indian outsourcing firms have in filing the number of h1b applications, most people think Indian outsourcing firms are steeling jobs.
