Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

Wait, this isn't clear to me. Are the interviewees citizens? So you're interviewing citizens to prove that there aren't any who can fill your jobs but even when they clearly could fill the job you don't hire them? Seems like the requirement of proving "there are or aren’t any residents or citizens that can fill the job" is going to be near impossible for the government to enforce

Hence why there are so many h1bs.

At the last startup I worked at, our CTO was on a visa.

To satisfy the "no one in the US can fill the CTO role", they took out an advertisement in a San Francisco newspaper classifieds so they had evidence that they attempted to find a US citizen / permanent resident CTO.

Obviously there were no applicants.

It is. Best case scenario H1Bs allow companies to avoid training citizens. Worst case (and most common) H1Bs are more exploitable labor compared to citizens.

H1Bs etc just suppress citizens wages and increase profits of capital holders. There’s a very very tiny % that actually aren’t replaceable domestically.

> Seems like the requirement of proving "there are or aren’t any residents or citizens that can fill the job" is going to be near impossible for the government to enforce

Correct. It's pure theatre.

Yes, h1b hiring practices have been shady at best for atleast a decade. For everyone that just doesn’t want to fire a coworker there is someone taking advantage of cheap labor that is easier to control under the threat of deportation.

The h1b program is supposed to be for people at the top of their field so they can skip the normal visa line, but it is commonly used to save money through exploitation.

A long time ago I read an hn comment that suggested h1b visas should go to the highest paying jobs, with the logic being that if they are such a rare talent they should probably be getting paid more.

This has been going on for decades. My first job out of university was at a dotcom consultancy with over 90% of software engineers there on H1B visas. The company was not at all shy about the fact that they only hired citizens/permanent residents if they had no other choice. I was hired because I had experience with a particular obscure RTOS that they couldn't find anyone on a visa who could do the work on a project they already told a client we were experts in.

Our VP of Software Engineering (here on a visa himself) stood right next to my desk telling one of our programmers not to worry about his visa expiring because they'd post his job for 24 hours on the company website, accept resumes for one week, and then declare the job unfillable by local talent so he could get his visa renewed. This was in 2000 and this type of thing has been practiced openly and with no fear of there ever being any consequences for violating both the letter and spirit of the law regarding using labor visas.

These threads end up fire hosed with people claiming hiring visa holders over citizens and permanent residents doesn't happen nor does it push down wages. They know these are lies and have been lies for decades. But since there are no consequences, legally or socially, it continues to be the default behavior. This in turn warps local talent development as more and more kids see that there's little reason to go into a career field where the government and business openly collude to disadvantage locals in favor of visa labor.

CTO actually makes sense for an h1b though, it’s a high paying job that can depend greatly on the technical and creative skills of the individual and how they mesh with the company.

The problem is when it’s someone pumping out code, or doing tech support for half the cost of the local competition.

> The h1b program is supposed to be for people at the top of their field so they can skip the normal visa line, but it is commonly used to save money through exploitation.

Incorrect - such people already qualify for green cards under the "alien of extraordinary ability" criterion. At least in theory, anyway.

There is no "normal visa line" btw, unless you mean the green card diversity lottery, which people from eg. India and China don't even qualify for.

> A long time ago I read an hn comment that suggested h1b visas should go to the highest paying jobs, with the logic being that if they are such a rare talent they should probably be getting paid more.

This is in principle a good idea although I suspect that if actually implemented employers would figure out how to game the system just as they do now.

> Seems like the requirement of proving "there are or aren’t any residents or citizens that can fill the job" is going to be near impossible for the government to enforce

It's extremely easy to enforce with taxes that ensure the company is paying at least 1X0% of the highest market rate for the position. If they don't find an alternative to paying it is a necessary hire.

You’re right, I was a bit hyperbolic there. Though it is supposed to be for skilled jobs that a capable american is not available to do.

No, this is backwards

CTO is not such an exceptional role that you can convince me that a company couldn't find a single person in America who would be qualified to take it

It's also a highly sought after role, so people would generally be willing to relocate for a role like that

H1Bs are designed to fill labour shortages, where your local labour market is saturated and you are struggling to find local talent or attract talent from further away, so you can import workers

Using a visa designed to fill labour shortages for an executive position like CTO is frankly an abuse of the system

The requirement you mention is for filing a green card application.

If I find a good citizen, I don’t file the application, that’s the law. But the employee does have h1b or OPT and is still allowed to work in the US, nothing wrong with that. If the government wants to stop giving those out workplaces will adapt

The requirement to pay market rate already exists and it's very easily gamed, eg. by under-leveling people or hiring them in under a related (but lower paid) role that doesn't reflect their actual responsibilities.

Well, it's been shady for at least 2.5 decades.

> The h1b program is supposed to be for people at the top of their field so they can skip the normal visa line

H1B is the normal visa line.

> These threads end up fire hosed with people claiming hiring visa holders over citizens and permanent residents

They apparently also get fire-hosed with comments on the horrors of H1B hiring in a thread that is on green card application rules, i.e., all youb commenters on H1B did not even read the GP post. Those rules require advertising for a filled position, but don't require firing the current holder when you find a good candidate.

This used to be fairly common for H1B roles of any level - I don't find it surprising almost no one wants to fire a colleague ultimately, so doing whatever you could to reduce the number of applicants while still paying lip service to the rules is the logical outcome, rightly or wrongly.

For what its worth, towards end of 2010s USCIS were starting to clamp down on this and were being a lot stricter about the job being advertised appropriately for the role (you submit evidence of the advertisement during the PERM process).

> The h1b program is supposed to be for people at the top of their field so they can skip the normal visa line, but it is commonly used to save money through exploitation.

This is false. O-1 is the visa for the "people at the top of their field". H-1B is for regular employees.

A tell for fake firms in my local newspaper is they ask for a snail mail resume. These appear to me to be more like shell companies submitting multiple H1Bs as far as I can tell though, not legit firms saying they cannot hire any US.

But arguably any labor shortage can be fixed by just having way higher wages.

Like if Google is struggling to hire L3 entry level engineers, can't they just offer $1 million/year salary? Then of course they will get the people they want.

To me, the point of H-1B and similar programs isn't "we can't get the individual staff we need". It's rather that at a society-wide level, having more software engineers at an overall lower salary can be more beneficial to the country than fewer engineers at a higher salary. And I feel that the success of Silicon Valley kind of shows this: if we didn't have any immigrants to the US, maybe the salaries would have been higher, but there is simply no chance SV would have reached the scale it has.

> It's rather that at a society-wide level, having more software engineers at an overall lower salary can be more beneficial to the country than fewer engineers at a higher salary.

Beneficial to owners of capital in said country. Not so beneficial to non owners of capital (also usually labor sellers) in said country.

After reading it a few times my understanding is this:

An H1B job holder applies for a green card. OP then must interview to prove the role can't be filled by a citizen. An interviewee knocks it out of the park, failing the check and so the green card application is denied. However the person holding the job is still legally allowed to work for 2-3 years in their H1B. So they're kept on for that long even though the check failed for the green card.

> Though it is supposed to be for skilled jobs that a capable american is not available to do.

No it's not. The H-1B program has no requirement for a labor market test (i.e. showing that there is no citizen that can do the job). The Immigration and Nationality Act, which is the source of the H-1B program, does not have such a requirement. The only big requirements are that the job require a degree (except for fashion models) and that it pays the prevailing wage.

the grandparent comment states that they were interviewing for a position that was held by a green card applicant, not h1b visa holder.

>But arguably any labor shortage can be fixed by just having way higher wages.

In the long term perhaps, but not in the short term. Bidding wars over an inadequate supply of suitably-skilled labour are good for those workers, but they aren't good for the economy or society as a whole.

the person applying for the green card already works for the interviewing company. the job opening is THAT green card applicant's job requirements.

the lawyer/law firm handling the green card application process has to prove that there are no US citizens who are qualified to do the job.

if there were qualified applicants for the job, then the green card applicant won't be given a green card, I assume. But that green card applicant is already working in the country via some other visa, so there is no job opening to fill typically.

the current person in the job is performing well, otherwise, why would you be trying to get a green card for them?

i've never heard of any green card applicant getting denied a green card due to a qualified US citizen applicant.

huh I thought the “good faith steps to recruit U.S. workers” part was for every company, but apparently it’s only for certain companies receiving money or who have already got in trouble.

I would have been more against it if I realized that.

America is a big country. There will always be someone capable of doing the job if you take price out of the equation.

I get that people like semantically and logically simple ideas, but the world doesn't reflect that.

Cost is an inherent part of the H1B program

The labor market test is usually required to upgrade to an employment-based green card from a H-1B, though, hence the frequent confusion.

It's not so binary. Economic growth and prosperity does benefit a broad swath of society.

>> But arguably any labor shortage can be fixed by just having way higher wages.

Yes, like a lot of immigration, it is entirely about wage suppression to benefit owners and shareholders.

real firms do this too.

Pick up a local newspaper that is not well known.

If the labor market test yields a candidate, the petition isn't filed. So there is formally no rejection from the USCIS. But application processes fail at this step all the time.

Yeah. To be clear I think it's fair to be critical of the current shape of the H-1B program (personally, I think the way it's used by outsourcing companies is pretty bad).

But there's a logical fallacy in these discussions in which people criticize the current H-1B program for not being compliant with some made-up version of what the H-1B program is. If you don't like the current program, the solution is not "we need to do what the law says" because in fact the current program is 100% compliant with the law. The solution is to change the law.

It is 100% required for employment-based green card from a H1B. Anyone that has gone through this process knows this as their own job had to be posted to several job posting sites and each and ever candidate had to be reviewed and discounted in some ways (my company added crap to the posting such that it was simply impossible for someone to be as qualified for the job as me unless they sat next to me and did what I did for 5+ years…)

You explained it perfectly. I’d never lie, if I interviewed someone comparable the process ends immediately internally. But the employee (who is still an amazing employee, exceeds, promotions, Etc) is not fired

btw the actual couch used by Marie Antionette is now on display at the San Francisco Legion of Honor.. a very expensive couch! at least a dozen people must have benefited economically from that couch.

They most certainly did! However, that is a pretty tortured comparison if that was the case.

I think I would be harder to make such a cynical zing about the net benefit of allowing 10,000 doctors to immigrate.

That’s true, but in reality, the US chains the engineers and doctors with the specter of losing their visa and arduous paperwork over their head so that they are coerced into selling their labor at an even lower price.

I'm the first to admit it isn't perfect, but that doesn't mean there is no net benefit. hundreds of thousands of people are paid market wages on H1B visas and many get green cards. On balance, this is good for consumers and citizens.

I feel like people have a gut reaction to injustice and harm where they want to trash the whole system, not realizing that would be an even greater injustice and harm.

It is a counterproductive distraction to real change and improvement. It just scratches the emotional itch of moral outrage and superiority.

For non-workers the benefits outweigh the disadvantages, while for workers the disadvantages outweigh the benefits.

If your income is from owning capital or from real estate value increase or from government benefits, then anything that can reduce the price of things you want to buy is a benefit. This is a large part of the population.

If your income is from working and producing goods and services, then getting paid less is a negative that is far worse than the positive from cheaper things.

Many people have their foot in both camps. Their main source of income is from their real estate appreciating in value, while working is just a means to pay off the old mortgage so that they soon can get a new cash out by mortgaging at a higher value.

It's very much also economic warfare waged by the elderly against the young. The elderly own almost all capital and are interested in increasing it. Keeping the young as poor as possible is excellent for them, so as to keep them from being a threat to their wealth and power.

> But arguably any labor shortage can be fixed by just having way higher wages

Not even remotely true, outside of unskilled labour work

> Like if Google is struggling to hire L3 entry level engineers, can't they just offer $1 million/year salary?

They can, but that won't suddenly make more people who are qualified for L3 entry level engineering positions to sprout into existence

It may cause people to re-skill to try and chase those positions.

It probably will have engineers from their competitors come to work for them

But then their competitors are in the same position facing a labour shortage. The shortage hasn't gone away!

I do not want to "trash the whole system", but when I see laws crafted specifically and solely to depress labor prices, it is reasonable to get emotional and feel morally superior. Why else would we give work authorization to a person, but then restrict them to a single employer such as with H1-B?

See also lower minimum wages and separate labor standards for poorer Mexican immigrants in agriculture, not to mention the complete lack of requirement for employers to ensure legal work authorization, and complete lack of consequences for employers that employ people without work authorization.

Workers aren't monolithic.

I'll be the first to admit that the disadvantages outweigh the benefits for specific workers. NAFTA sucked for autoworkers. H1B visas suck for IT and software workers.

I think other types of workers benefit more than the portrait you paint, and not just the capital owners.

Unless you are a utilitarian (I'm not), I agree there is a valid debate on how much policy should disadvantage a small group for "the greater good".

> Why else would we give work authorization to a person, but then restrict them to a single employer such as with H1-B?

H1B visas are not restricted to a single employer. The catch is that the new employer is required to demonstrate the new role is valid for H1B work.

This is a control to make sure that H1-B visa holders are not underpaid or doing abusing the system.

It is a genuinely tough problem. You could decouple the H1B visa from the employer position, but then you have people entering for one type of work at market rate, and doing any type of work and undercutting salaries.

The whole employer requirement is an attempt to protect native workers. Letting H1B workers enter decoupled from a job and salary requirement would be much better for employers. They could pay them minimum wage and hire them into any role they want.

Im curious to hear ideas for how it could be structured that is better. Im sure there are options. Maybe the workers themselves could submit the info for change of employment, but I dont know how they would prove the work is at prevailing wage.

I've been programming since the early 90's, and back then pretty much all my coworkers were other US citizens. I started to notice a shift toward the mid 90's and then, by the late 90's, they were practically all Indians on H1B visas. Nobody from Russia, China, El Salvador, Brazil, Japan, Botswana, Ethiopia or even Bangladesh or Pakistan - virtually every programmer I met was an Indian citizen in the US on an H1B visa. I saw this across ten employers in two different states. Every tech conference I went to, regardless of city, was full of Indian citizens with heavy accents, and me.

There's a prevailing belief that US employers prefer H1B visa holders because they'll work cheaper and not complain about poor working conditions but if that's true... why computer programmers, specifically? Why are there _any_ Americans in the organization? Surely the product owners, project managers, scrum masters, HR staff, janitors, facilities maintenance, receptionists, directors, VPs and CEOs could be filled cheaper and less complainier by an H1B visa holder too?

I have yet to find a plausible explanation why specifically computer programming (and no other career) is dominated specifically by Indian citizens (and no other nationality).

There's no premium financing proper adversarial regulatory agency there. If the IRS is not taking its special ~30% of 300+ workers salaries there's a best effort by a regulatory body that's viewed as a waste of tax payer money if it just checks a few technicalities.

This is an excellent point and a real litmus test. If there really were a labor shortage companies would be providing training programs to build that labor force.

Instead they post job descriptions so niche only a liar could technically qualify.

Fist - it is not companies' responsibility to train anyone. It is not their business.

Second - H1b are exploitable, because the system allows it.

H1b has demonstrably not suppressed software engineering wages at all.

Non-competes, have - on the other hand.

Nope, it's not 100% required, there are exceptions for certain job categories like nursing and there's also the extraordinary ability exception.

(Not trying to be pedantic but US immigration law is full of random loopholes and people who qualify for them, or might be able to qualify with a bit of work, often aren't aware.)

I should have been more clear - I am talking about IT/Dev/… jobs, not other professions.

> H1B visas suck for IT and software workers.

H1b only sucks for short sighted people. Places like India would in any case have more software engineers available, than the US. Moving and hiring best of Indian engineers in the US kept teams operating in the US from being offshored wholesale.

Software isn't a car, doesn't require physical transportation.

An understaffed team in the US would be worth less than an offshore team with offshoring overhead.

Sure, I benefit that a washing machine costs $600 instead of $6000. That benefit is small in comparison with if my yearly income would be double. In almost all possible scenarios, higher wages are better than cheaper goods. You cannot improve your economic situation by purchasing cheap consumer goods, but you can do it with higher income.

1. India has ~130 million English speakers, second only to United States.

2. IIT.

3. Culture matters, both on the recruitment side and demand side. Indian outsourcing built a pipeline decades ago so it's now a well understood career path in India.

4. Non-technical positions tend to require greater social competencies in the hiring/customer culture. US programmers already complain about the cultural tendencies of their Indian colleagues. The social and political aspects of other careers are less amenable to dropping in a rando with limited understanding of the culture.

> Best case scenario H1Bs allow companies to avoid training citizens.

Best for who? Companies should train their workforce. Or get kicked out of the market, meaning that they should get kicked out of the nation.

Computer programming is easily verifiable, the code works or it doesnt. so you dont need good english, and your education doesnt really matter since either you write working code or you dont. its also a massive cost on businesses. theres like a thousand reasons

Sure, but $600 washing machines for 300 million Americans is a hell of a lot more benefit than your one income.

And double yearly income for 150 million working Americans is a hell lot more benefit for them than the $600 washing machine.

I am an individual not a corporation, our interest don't align in this manner.

> H1b has demonstrably not suppressed software engineering wages at all.

That's simply impossible; it's basic economics.

The lump of labor fallacy is usually covered in “basic economics” classes. There are multiplier effects from clustering of certain types of skilled workers. This increases overall demand and thus overall compensation for everyone in the market.

This is why ending the H1B program like posters propose here would be profoundly stupid - if companies can’t staff their teams here, they will staff them elsewhere, and either stop hiring here or close up shop entirely. This will lower salaries and increase unemployment in the relevant fields.

You already see this in microcosm due to real estate costs serving as a brake on internal migration, many companies have moved all net new hiring out of the Bay Area.

Now admit too many foreign workers at too low wages and you will hit diminishing returns, but we are way short of that point, especially if we can manage to curb abuses of the existing program.

Not sure if it’s still the case but extraordinary ability green cards used to be surprisingly easy to get for software engineers! Get your name on a patent (not as hard as you think, companies love adding to their IP portfolio), get accepted to do a couple of conference talks, and you’re most of the way there. Or so I was told a few years ago by someone trying this route.

Indeed. And we should absolute pick that if we are presented with those two options.

They are saying that your individual salary would be lower without the additional talent.

All market effects are exponential. Of course a doubled salary is unrealistic, but not ridiculous. The generation of people who are elderly today, had more than double the salary of anybody who is a worker today. Yes, they had more expensive consumer goods, but they could instead afford the important things: land, houses, vehicles and have a surplus to invest.

not to dispute but rather to refine.. go to a third order effect. Imagine that Injustice is remedied (somehow involving policy), negotiations with the growing remedy system rely on growth of remedy so cleverly take advantage of the shared desire for remedy and easy public political speech win of emphasizing remedy, such that negotiations then stretch out the timeline, and add a tax, and some supervisory positions with regulatory oversight in yet another group, to be fair.. the remedy system is less remedy and more frameworks.. the Iron Law of Bureaucracy sets in.. other noise or inefficiencies or internal contradictions, grow.

Private companies play their part in implementing this remedy of Injustice and Good Policy, yet private companies exist to profit first and foremost. Management practices of labor have a sordid history, going way back.. A worker in a private company with a lottery work permit must play out the life under management in that company, whatever that may be.. And that management will also change, not always for the better.

Now its 2024.....