The H1B worker isn't competing with the average Joe, he's competing with the Joe who's qualified to do the job, but didn't get it because the employer preferred someone with no leverage who can be easily controlled and underpaid.
do you know how expensive is to bring someone on an H1B? the relocation itself is >50k. The salary has to be in the same range as the other workers in the same position. It’s literally more expensive to hire someone on an H1b. why would big tech so this if average Joe is qualified and could do the Job?
50K seems incredibly high for a relocation. Do you have a source on that? What are the expenses that add up to that amount?
All that aside, that's a one-time cost. H1B workers can be kept in limbo for years, since employers can apply for their green cards (or not) at their discretion.
> The salary has to be in the same range as the other workers in the same position
What constitutes "the same position"? Call the H1B a "systems analyst" instead of a "software engineer", and voila, you've got a much lower paid position, even if the job duties are the same in practice.
> why would big tech so this if average Joe is qualified and could do the Job?
I'm not a fan of arguments of the form "why did X do Y if Z?" because answering them requires knowing unknowable motives and other factors that your opponent couldn't possibly be privy to. But since we're using those arguments, I've got one for you: If H1Bs are more expensive, why did Disney famously lay off huge numbers of IT workers and make them train their H1B replacements in the process? Kind of hard to argue that they couldn't find suitable American workers when they were already working there.
that’s how much the relocation cost for me 15 years ago. it’s basically bringing in all your stuff + paperwork + housing etc. i remember it because it was reported come tax time.
to be fair, this was Microsoft but still it was 50% of what my yearly base salary was at that time.
> It’s literally more expensive to hire someone on an H1b.
I am highly skeptical of this claim as well as the fact that relocation is paid for average H1B worker. Your experience might be typical for top paying SV tech companies but not the local municipal state government that is hiring H1Bs for manual GUI testing.
In any case, most H1B workers are hired multiple levels below their experience level so companies are paying less for more experience. And given that your average Indian H1B cannot jump to another job for many years due to the GC/EAD queue, they are typically coerced into putting way more hours than Americans workers that understand labor laws so companies are still profiting off of the wage/hr imbalance after the initial fixed relocation cost.
