Apple's Ability to Hire Foreign Workers May Be Impacted by Trump Overhaul of Work-Visa Programs

[PracticalMac]

Why ?

Compared to the entire budget, the amount dedicated to tech research is small. Paying more for tech workers will cost them very little percentage wise out of the total budget.

For Apple to compete internationally it needs international workers.
Those workers will need to spend some time in US for trainig and work.

And sure Apple could set up centers in other countries to do this, but then it is money spent in other countries and not in US.

 

[inhalexhale1]

Depends, if you use high-skilled workers (example being people educated at US colleges), then this is a hinderance. Only 85k workers per year? Quite low, more so in the STEM degrees which almost no US Citizen likes to study or drops out off.

This is a great point, and is something that is neglected by most. America needs to incentivize people to pursue education that leads to careers that are in demand. Perhaps limiting financial aid, scholarships, etc. to these types of degrees would create more interest.

 

[blacktape242]

You need to ask the liberals why it would be such a bad thing. Same as over here they seem to hate their own country,.

I know, i just don't get it....

 

[Gasu E.]

Hey Apple!

Stop acting so entitled to things and stop treating the visa program as an affirmative action program.

There are plenty of qualified US Citizens who are ready to work. You just choose not to hire them.

"Plenty"= how many? How many US citizens with degrees in computer science or engineering have been unwillingly unemployed for more than three months?

 

[usarioclave]

If they put a bounty on reporting H1B abuse people would report H1B abuse. It'd be open season on body shops.

 

[konqueror4u]

Fair enough. But, you were exactly the type of person the H1-B program was designed for, in theory. However, the vast majority of H1-B visas are abused. They are grabbed up by outsourcing firms and a few very large corporations; IBM being notorious for this. And here's how the abuse goes: they bring in new graduates, fresh from India, for example; have them shadow an American worker for some time, learning his job; then send them back to India and fire the American.

Currently, the H1-B is designed to be entirely corporate driven. H1-B via holders can only work for the company that gets them the visa. That sounds as though it is "keeping down immigration", but in fact it works against AMERICAN workers. The H1-B workers are essentially slaves who have no wage bargaining power; therefore they are much cheaper than American workers. Why wouldn't a corporation prefer that?

The H1-B program would be much better if it were re-purposed to be more about attracting high skilled foreign workers to American and increasing the pool of top talent. All or some of it could be replaced by such things as:

- Work permits for new STEM graduates of American universities. We train the top foreign talent in our best universities; and rightfully so, since the top talent is what keeps these universities great. But why don't we retain it? A total waste.

- Easily-obtained visas and work permits for foreigners with advanced STEM degrees from top foreign universities. These should NOT be tied to a specific company.

- Some flexibility of H1-B visas to move with the worker, even if s/he switches to another company.

As you say, we don't have enough native-born STEM talent. STEM workers in general are critical, because each STEM worker creates a whole bunch of supporting jobs. If you have the primary STEM workers elsewhere, the supporting jobs move as well. So it is worth bringing in additional STEM workers for their overall beneficial impact on the job market and economy.

Agree with you but why you are against bringing experienced highly skilled professionals? Corporations hire lot of talent overseas and make them work at their facilities for years before bringing them to US. I think bringing experienced talent is required by the companies for their survival in global markets. Otherwise they will loose the experienced talent to competitors which will effect them globally.

 

[Plutonius]

"Plenty"= how many? How many US citizens with degrees in computer science or engineering have been unwillingly unemployed for more than three months?

Going on a year here but age discrimination does exist.

 

[Phil in ocala]

Canada has a policy - you cannot hire a foreign worker if you can find existing employees in Canada. Up until Harper, not sure if its been reversed but foreign workers must be paid the same as a resident. Foreign workers cannot be used to decrease the salary.

I don't see a problem with this.

Mind you, there were ways around this.

____________________________________________
This guy has not been in office a month and is causing all kinds of disruption....this is the beginning of a Fascist Government that rules by Executive Orders...same as Berlin in 1933...no difference.
[doublepost=1485794817][/doublepost]The NYSE has responded to Trump by a 200 point fall. That says it
all.

 

[wizard]

Hallelujah! It's about time, the H1B program is abused mercilessly by pretty much every tech company to replace American workers with cheap foreign labor. I bet those Disney employees who had to train their Indian replacements before being let go are dancing in the streets.

Exactly. The H1B program needs to die completely. It is a tool used by big corporations to lower the standard of living for everybody in this country.

 

[Gasu E.]

For me as a German, that is great news, because it means that companies like Apple will open or expand sites in other countries instead of trying to bring the people to the US. I currently work for an American tech company in Germany, and I know how difficult it is for managers in the US to find the right skill set there. In our "sister team" in the US, there are two Americans out of about 20 people.

And when I worked in the US myself (on H-1) about a decade ago, it was the same. I don't think any Americans ever applied when we had job openings. And by the way, I never felt exploited. On the contrary. My salary was really great. STEM simply isn't popular in the US anymore.

As a German, your experience would not be typical for the H1-B program. A small percentage of the H1-B program does end up supporting the acquisition of top talent, vs. cheap talent. Cheap talent is invariably recruited from low wage countries. If you are German, no one was hiring you here because they were trying to get you on the cheap.

 

[Plutonius]

Agree with you but why you are against bringing experienced highly skilled professionals? Corporations hire lot of talent overseas and make them work at their facilities for years before bringing them to US. I think bringing experienced talent is required by the companies for their survival in global markets. Otherwise they will loose the experienced talent to competitors which will effect them globally.

That's why they came up with the H1-B and that's how it's supposed to work.

Right now, there is just H1-B abuse with companies trying to save money by replacing US workers.

 

[konqueror4u]

That's why they came up with the H1-B and that's how it's supposed to work.

Right now, there is just H1-B abuse with companies trying to save money by replacing US workers.

So if they cannot find cheaper talent here. They might choose to outsource right are we fine with that? Are we ready loose both on the taxes and the indirect jobs created by them?

 

[Gasu E.]

____________________________________________
This guy has not been in office a month and is causing all kinds of disruption....this is the beginning of a Fascist Government that rules by Executive Orders...same as Berlin in 1933...no difference.
[doublepost=1485794817][/doublepost]The NYSE has responded to Trump by a 200 point fall. That says it
all.

Well, the stock market had been rising since the election, on the strength of his promise to cut taxes and regulation, and increase spending.

However, the markets were assuming he was rational enough to introduce change gradually. Abrupt changes are disruptive and can cause severe problems to markets and the economy in the short run, and even in the medium term if they are disruptive enough.

Now, the craziness of Trump's handling of immigration-- without any phase-in period, without thought of the consequences for people in flight, without any consideration of the ramifications from friendly countries, without thought to impacted families, with miscommunication to the agencies (particularly for green card holders); without any plan for doing this additional vetting; without all the leadership in place to manage these new programs-- well, this makes a lot of people wonder whether he has much of a clue about the economy, how large organizations run, and business in general (outside of the peculiarities of his own real estate development business). It's okay to have limited knowledge (hey, so did Ronald Reagan); but you at least need to surround yourself with knowledgable people, and LISTEN to them. Otherwise, there's chaos. And the markets HATE chaos.

 

[Plutonius]

So if they cannot find cheaper talent here. They might choose to outsource right are we fine with that?

Outsourcing will occur but it's not a long term solution. Eliminating H1-B abuse will bring back US tech.

The US tech worker is a national resource. We already lost our manufacturing base. Let's not lose our technical base too.

I think there should be some H1-B to fill in as the program was originally defined although the H1-B abuse needs to be stopped.

 

[jkcerda]

are there not enough qualified AMERICAN workers that Apple can hire?

 

[Gasu E.]

So if they cannot find cheaper talent here. They might choose to outsource right are we fine with that? Are we ready loose both on the taxes and the indirect jobs created by them?

I think you are missing the point of the counterarguments. Most people here favor a program for bringing in ESSENTIAL foreign talent. They are just not interested in a program that is used primarily to bring in CHEAPER talent to replace existing talent. And that's mostly what H1-B has become today.

 

[jeffg819]

I once saw a mandatory HB1 posting in the back of a break room taped to the least visible wall in the room. Whether the company did this on purpose or one of its employees, it said the same thing to me.

 

[Plutonius]

Well, the stock market had been rising since the election, on the strength of his promise to cut taxes and regulation, and increase spending.

However, the markets were assuming he was rational enough to introduce change gradually. Abrupt changes are disruptive and can cause severe problems to markets and the economy in the short run, and even in the medium term if they are disruptive enough.

Now, the craziness of Trump's handling of immigration-- without any phase-in period, without thought of the consequences for people in flight, without any consideration of the ramifications from friendly countries, without thought to impacted families, with miscommunication to the agencies (particularly for green card holders); without any plan for doing this additional vetting; without all the leadership in place to manage these new programs-- well, this makes a lot of people wonder whether he has much of a clue about the economy, how large organizations run, and business in general (outside of the peculiarities of his own real estate development business). It's okay to have limited knowledge (hey, so did Ronald Reagan); but you at least need to surround yourself with knowledgable people, and LISTEN to them. Otherwise, there's chaos. And the markets HATE chaos.

I think everyone will agree that the phase in was terrible .

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

I think the missing point here is, if Apple has to fill a large portion of their openings with people living in India, they will move managers their and hire less people here. It's important for teams to be together. They would just move the people who are from here to a different country to work. One where they can have a diverse group without government interference. Guess who with miss out on the taxes paid by the workers?

I’m all for whatever is going to decrease the Bay Area population. The tech industry has decimated the cost of living and local culture. For all the liberal values the tech industry claims to have they really have their head in the dirt when it comes to economics, especially what is right in their face on a daily basis. This is probably why Facebook built an apartment campus so their employees don’t have to mix with the commoners they are constantly displacing.

 

[Plutonius]

are there not enough qualified AMERICAN workers that Apple can hire?

Is the first qualification that you have to be liberal ? If so, there were plenty at the marches.

 

[usarioclave]

Will this drive outsourcing? I doubt it. We outsource a bunch of development functions to India, and there are/can be severe communication problems between teams. For projects where fluidity is important outsourcing would be very difficult to do.

H1B workers by definition are supposed to be high-skill high-talent, not worker bees.

Also what needs to be implemented a B1-bounty program. A lot of Indian firms bring people in on B1s and rotate them through a contract; another body-shopping trick. That should probably go.

For the L1, that probably needs to be paid the "prevailing internal wage" i.e.: if you L1 someone into the US they need to be paid the same as someone at their job level or the equivalent, using the closest MSA to HQ as a baseline.

 

[jerryk]

Going on a year here but age discrimination does exist.

Would some from India that was your age have a job when you do not? I doubt it. Age discrimination is real, but occurs regardless of where someone comes from.
[doublepost=1485796274][/doublepost]

I’m all for whatever is going to decrease the Bay Area population. The tech industry has decimated the cost of living and local culture. For all the liberal values the tech industry claims to have they really have their head in the dirt when it comes to economics, especially what is right in their face on a daily basis. This is probably why Facebook built an apartment campus so their employees don’t have to mix with the commoners they are constantly displacing.

Facebook is trying to provide employees with housing at a reasonable cost. It is a golden handcuff, not to isolate them from others.

 

[neutralguy]

Why? There are plenty of Americans at Apple.

Shouldn't the main issue for hiring somebody be qualification, especially if there is no equivalent American?

The cloak of "safety" has been draped over everything to justify dumb procedures.
Unfortunately "safety" is not achievable and all bogus, as we know criminals do not follow laws and thus will always be many steps ahead of government.
Terrorists have nothing that has to happen within a specific time frame. They can plan for a long time before they hit.

They may already be here and you can add the easily brainwashed and easily converted haters.

Clearly the danger to all of it is religion. Bad deeds in the name of religion have a long history and go back into ancient times. Just watch The Mission or follow the history of crusades.

Sadly humans have not evolved past emotional treatment of religion.

Why you think that an immigrant is entitled to a job in Apple more than American?

 

[Gasu E.]

For Apple to compete internationally it needs international workers.
Those workers will need to spend some time in US for trainig and work.

That's very naive. My company has a very large and successful Bangalore R&D center, and almost no one was trained in the US.

There are some exceptions, but all of them are Director level or above. Yes, it's essential for the senior managers to have an understanding of the US ways of business. But the workers and first level supervisors have no US experience, and don't need it. A task is a task.

Now, if you are trying to off-shore an existing job, then it makes sense for a foreigner to come over, shadow an existing employee, and have them take over that job. But that's not supposed to be the point of the H1-B.

 

[neutralguy]

And watch the rates for US people double overnight and then the skilled poole will be exhausted so multi-nationals will just move the whole team/teams/departments/sites abroad.
That means less money being spent in a locality which hurts the local economy.
the only winners are the foreign economies.

Never gonna happen!