Some of these requirements are so ridiculous that they create the need for everyone to do what Vance is accusing Microsoft of.
Many companies fulfill the intent of the law. They run a real hiring process — where they advertise online and interview people with work authorization/citizens and people who would require sponsorship.
But if someone requiring sponsorship was the best candidate for the job, then they have to run an additional “fake” process that fulfills these requirements, since no one actually hires tech workers from the newspaper.
Considering how many of these adds have more than a hundred of local applicants, and still end up hiring people that are not from North America it is quite clear they do not intend to follow the intent of the law.
Let's be honest they want a captive workforce that depends upon them to stay in the USA and build a life.
There has to be a better way to does not make them captive, and allows Americans to be the first ones, and even after that the priority should be people in North America, even International students.
But the fact they keep hiring mostly and overwhelmingly people from the same five countries that are desperate to come to the USA is an indication these companies are profiting formt he desperation of people.
> Considering how many of these adds have more than a hundred of local applicants, and still end up hiring people that are not from North America it is quite clear they do not intend to follow the intent of the law.
You’re assuming without evidence that for any given job, that there will be qualified Americans willing to perform that job who aren’t already happily employed. You haven’t established that.
Hell, ask restaurateurs. They frequently have difficult hiring qualified local labor, too, even though the bar isn’t nearly as high as for a technologist, in major cities.
You're arguing in poor faith. Microsoft has laid off thousands of workers this year alone. As has nearly every large tech company.
There's no shortage of qualified US tech workers. Microsoft and many other tech companies (cough Accenture cough) abuse this system. They want workers who cannot easily get jobs with another company due to the visa system and will take the lowest of wages.
> Microsoft has laid off thousands of workers this year alone.
If I lay off experienced buggy whip makers because the market for horse-drawn buggies is shrinking, and I need to hire experienced aluminum workers instead to meet my customers' demands, it doesn't necessarily mean I can hire the buggy whip makers back for that job. Labor is not necessarily substitutable like that. Not even software developers.
It's also worth noting that companies often use layoffs as a way to efficiently trim the worst-performing labor cohort. They don't do it because they want to hire cheaper labor; it's because they want to let these workers go without the overhead of going through the formal termination process for each one individually.
> There's no shortage of qualified US tech workers.
This statement is so broad it's difficult to evaluate. There might be plenty of US tech workers, and there might be a surplus of US tech workers qualified for some job, but it doesn't necessarily mean they are qualified for the specific job openings.
Speaking from my own experience, my team is hiring several senior SREs, and we're not seeing a flood of qualified candidates. We get a flood of resumes, but the signal to noise ratio is low. The candidates' CVs claim the requisite qualifications, but when we actually evaluate the candidates for role fit, we are finding that their actual skills aren't those we need for success in these roles.
Humans tend not to be fungible.
> You’re assuming without evidence that for any given job, that there will be qualified Americans willing to perform that job who aren’t already happily employed.
You can offer them more money, better work/life balance, a more fulfilling job, etc. When the government allows the hiring of foreign workers on visas, it's tilting the playing field in favor of employers. Why offer a better wage when you can just cry to the government and get an indentured servant at a discount?
Exceptional talent is a different argument - most H1bs are average at best. Claiming to be unable to hire for an entry or mid-level software engineer job is absurd.
> You can offer them more money, better work/life balance, a more fulfilling job, etc.
If the qualified workers are already fully employed, how will this result in more of them in the short term?
> Why offer a better wage when you can just cry to the government and get an indentured servant at a discount?
The law requires H1B workers be paid the prevailing wage (20 CFR 655.731), and studies indicate that they're paid pretty close to the average wage (https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w34793/w347...) -- well within the statistical band. If we keep in mind that half of all citizens holding a particular job are paid below the average wage, too, then perhaps the hue and cry over pay is overblown.
If employers can't pay the market wage, they can't afford a worker. This is what drives productivity gains for the economy. Inefficient business models die off and are replaced by businesses that can use labor more effectively.
I don't see how this squares with my comment that these workers are being paid within the market wage band.
> requirements are so ridiculous that they create the need
It's the other way around. The "need" creates the ridiculous requirements. Companies get the laws they want and the laws they want are those that give them an excuse to do what they want to do.
Is that really the intent of the law? From here it looks like the intent is to favor citizens to people who would require sponsorship, but a hiring process that selects the best candidate from a single set of citizen and foreign candidates doesn't do that.