I am not on Twitter or X or whatever it's called these days...but this does clear up a rather baffling conversation I had with my Indian son-in-law. I was wondering why he was bringing up Zac from "Saved By The Bell"!
My other son-in-law is a data scientist who has been job hunting (unsuccessfully) for months - he has also experienced the ghosting from 98% of the jobs he has applied for.
I'd be surprised that Musk would need cheap labor...Spacex is not allowed to hire foreigners ( and at the same time punished for not doing it) and soon he'll have robots...
I was general manager in a company in the United States for a year ( I am from Europe) twenty-five years ago.
My workforce was 5 Americans, 55 Mexicans...I couldn't get any Americans to work in the jobs the Mexicans did...although with the hours we did, the pay was very high, so high that they earned more than I, who was on a fixed amount salary...
Had almost no problems with the Mexicans, but constantly with 3 of the 5 Americans...
The only black American working for us threatened to quit if I ever hired another black worker...he didn't want any trouble...
Thanks. I almost didn’t publish it. Musk is (quite rightly) the recipient of enormous amounts of gratitude for buying Twitter, which makes criticizing him at all an invitation to headaches. But this one really matters. As someone commented on Notes — H-1B visas are the open borders for the middle class.
In the America that I grew up in, anyone could be criticized. Sadly, the cancel culture has made that almost an impossibility. Being excellent in one task seems to effectively preclude being taken to task in another.
Thank you for writing this Holly! I was trying to figure out what this was all about, but didn’t want to spend hours on Twitter/X trying to get to the bottom of it. It would be great if the folks at the top could read this. I think they would benefit from your perspective.
One would think that there is a great opportunity available for someone to hire unused domestic talent. However, one would have to first hire test makers to assure that any talent filtering was for an iron-clad "Bona Fide Occupational Qualification; BFOQ". But once that hurdle was cleared (a pretty high hurdle) it would be smooth sailing. Except for promotional opportunities. And brain drain. Still, there are minor league baseball teams with owners other than those of the affiliated major league team (or, at least there used to be). So, if things are as bad as portrayed, the situation is ripe for a change; indeed, a profitable change. That, and for some qui tam actions.
Lots of interesting points and information and a very intriguing discussion. This sadly matches the experiences of myself and my son in the job market recently. Even though we are in not as technical fields as you Holly, we both noticed a very high number of what had to be fake job postings (no one was ever contacted or hired that we could determine). Want to work as a commission only sales rep or drive a home delivery truck for a grocery store? Sure thing, but only for low pay and few benefits. The things that saved us were our US Citizenship, college degrees (real ones) and ability to get (or in my case renew) a security clearance (non-citizens are not eligible except in specific circumstances, which is why Space X has to hire US citizens). That led me back to being an Army contractor and my son to join the Army. The combination of events you discuss is distorting the job market and pulverizing the hopes of some of my nephews and nieces. This has to change and I concur with your points on the O-1 and H-1B programs and how hard it will be to change things.
I've found that the Search on X is very fragile unless tight date-time bounds are given. Seems weird; but whatever. Once you know, you know.
Also, here's a short thread I posted this morning comparing results from the (strong-g testing) 2023 Putnam Math Contest against the (weak g-testing) 2024 Canadian Senior Math Contest. These vary in their g-testing because the C.S.M.C. is curriculum-based while the Putnam is not.
As a proxy, I used (my best estimate of) "names not obviously East Asian". Yes, there's all sorts of problems with that, but it was the best I had. The upshot is that of the top Putnam competitors, 25% had "names not obviously East Asian", while only 3% of the top C.S.M.C. competitors did. I read that as Ramaswamy's "cultural issues" fading, rather strongly, as we move away from curriculum coverage into the real world.
The pro sports team analogy Musk makes cuts both ways. I suspect to a lot of people this comes across as more of a labor/revenue dispute between the owners and the players of a single team rather than helping your team beat another team.
I never had bad Indian colleagues and have even by hired by Indians. Though my first job did end up with my department becoming almost all Indian after getting an Indian manager… though that was because she hired new people rather than firing existing ones. Everyone was competent though.
What I found frustrating and later vindicating about this twitter drama was people claiming h1bs make the same as Americans so it can’t be about cheap labor. You can literally look up their salaries online!
I did that when applying for a job, having bought the lie, and found out later I was VERY underpaid. Like, after I quit I was friends with the (now former) HR lady and she told me how much I could have asked for. It was still a step up from my previous job but it was a shocker how little adherence to the law is attempted.
Oh also Amazon definitely abuses h1bs. My Indian friend worked there and they wouldn’t let her code. They tried to use her as a sacrifice to AWS’s policy of cutting the lowest performers. Like, it got bad enough that she asked if I was open to marriage.
Oh and the caste shit is hilarious. Virtually everyone is Brahmin or the equivalent elsewhere in India but they all say caste doesn’t matter.
It is interesting that you again mentioned your (mis)Fortune 500 experience, which anecdote highlights the cultural difference with Southeast Asian women’s deference to men.
This registers with an observation I read elsewhere, that two parent families in the US expect a family/work balance—40 hours of work a week or less so that dads can share responsibilities such as taking a child to activities. Persons here on H1B willingly work longer hours on their low pay making them even more economical to hire.
More anecdotal observations: In my corporate career, I was very fortunate to work in a company led by strong women, while my sisters had very different experiences in the military and at a university hospital in the South led by “MDeities.” I am beyond grateful that as a single mother I was able to meet such child rearing responsibilities as after school activities while rising to VP because of my company’s leadership. My career did require that I work from home almost every night after bedtime because of the explicit expectation that “we work till the work is done.”
Great article and explanation. I am on X again after the election and couldn’t make heads or tails of the arguments. I am not in an industry that hires H-1Bs. We have lots of PhDs and engineers in chemistry, but most come from local universities that have good chemistry programs. Plus the company pays very well.
You put too much stock in the idea of these things being well-understood and acted on rationally. Employees can be completely worthless but if they’re not white males, they improve diversity metrics and ESG scores. And in a company with hundreds of thousands of employees and multiple redundant layers of management, these things are only quantifiable if someone wants them to be — which is pretty rare.
A much bigger percentage than before Covid, so the problem is getting worse comparatively. And based on my email, which is overflowing with people thanking me and telling me that it's much worse than I even know, this kind of thing happens even at much smaller companies. A lot of companies appear to be making the calculation that kept the employees who I write about in part one of my series employed.
I'm not going to debate this any further. I'm done replying to you. Have a nice day.
(In the NY/NJ area in the early aughts) A former neighbor of mine from India had that HB1 visa, worked in tech for one of the large banks, counting the days to when he could be ‘free’ to work at a wage he deserved for a company that didn’t work him to the ground. He and his wife were well aware he was being exploited. But he had a young family, saved his money, bided his time, bought a house and moved to an area with a better school system. I wish him well, hope he eventually got citizenship. His kids have a chance.
I am not on Twitter or X or whatever it's called these days...but this does clear up a rather baffling conversation I had with my Indian son-in-law. I was wondering why he was bringing up Zac from "Saved By The Bell"!
My other son-in-law is a data scientist who has been job hunting (unsuccessfully) for months - he has also experienced the ghosting from 98% of the jobs he has applied for.
It’s not him. It’s really bad out there, which makes the “Americans R Dumb” stuff extra annoying, especially coming from Musk.
I'd be surprised that Musk would need cheap labor...Spacex is not allowed to hire foreigners ( and at the same time punished for not doing it) and soon he'll have robots...
I was general manager in a company in the United States for a year ( I am from Europe) twenty-five years ago.
My workforce was 5 Americans, 55 Mexicans...I couldn't get any Americans to work in the jobs the Mexicans did...although with the hours we did, the pay was very high, so high that they earned more than I, who was on a fixed amount salary...
Had almost no problems with the Mexicans, but constantly with 3 of the 5 Americans...
The only black American working for us threatened to quit if I ever hired another black worker...he didn't want any trouble...
Look up Tesla on the H-1B site.
This is just what was needed to explain to me what the Latest Thing was, and what's really going on.
Thanks. I almost didn’t publish it. Musk is (quite rightly) the recipient of enormous amounts of gratitude for buying Twitter, which makes criticizing him at all an invitation to headaches. But this one really matters. As someone commented on Notes — H-1B visas are the open borders for the middle class.
In the America that I grew up in, anyone could be criticized. Sadly, the cancel culture has made that almost an impossibility. Being excellent in one task seems to effectively preclude being taken to task in another.
If this attitude continues, we're screwed.
Was about to write something similar.
Thank you for writing this Holly! I was trying to figure out what this was all about, but didn’t want to spend hours on Twitter/X trying to get to the bottom of it. It would be great if the folks at the top could read this. I think they would benefit from your perspective.
One would think that there is a great opportunity available for someone to hire unused domestic talent. However, one would have to first hire test makers to assure that any talent filtering was for an iron-clad "Bona Fide Occupational Qualification; BFOQ". But once that hurdle was cleared (a pretty high hurdle) it would be smooth sailing. Except for promotional opportunities. And brain drain. Still, there are minor league baseball teams with owners other than those of the affiliated major league team (or, at least there used to be). So, if things are as bad as portrayed, the situation is ripe for a change; indeed, a profitable change. That, and for some qui tam actions.
Lots of interesting points and information and a very intriguing discussion. This sadly matches the experiences of myself and my son in the job market recently. Even though we are in not as technical fields as you Holly, we both noticed a very high number of what had to be fake job postings (no one was ever contacted or hired that we could determine). Want to work as a commission only sales rep or drive a home delivery truck for a grocery store? Sure thing, but only for low pay and few benefits. The things that saved us were our US Citizenship, college degrees (real ones) and ability to get (or in my case renew) a security clearance (non-citizens are not eligible except in specific circumstances, which is why Space X has to hire US citizens). That led me back to being an Army contractor and my son to join the Army. The combination of events you discuss is distorting the job market and pulverizing the hopes of some of my nephews and nieces. This has to change and I concur with your points on the O-1 and H-1B programs and how hard it will be to change things.
If you check the h1b site, you’ll see that there are many non-technical roles despite h1b specifically not supposed to be for those roles.
Which makes the whole thing just as big a crock as Holly stated. 😲
Excellent essay Holly. Please consider publishing it in the Vermont Daily Chronicle.
Here's Elon's tweet:
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1871978282289082585
I've found that the Search on X is very fragile unless tight date-time bounds are given. Seems weird; but whatever. Once you know, you know.
Also, here's a short thread I posted this morning comparing results from the (strong-g testing) 2023 Putnam Math Contest against the (weak g-testing) 2024 Canadian Senior Math Contest. These vary in their g-testing because the C.S.M.C. is curriculum-based while the Putnam is not.
As a proxy, I used (my best estimate of) "names not obviously East Asian". Yes, there's all sorts of problems with that, but it was the best I had. The upshot is that of the top Putnam competitors, 25% had "names not obviously East Asian", while only 3% of the top C.S.M.C. competitors did. I read that as Ramaswamy's "cultural issues" fading, rather strongly, as we move away from curriculum coverage into the real world.
https://x.com/pgeerkens/status/1872684606073221426
Thank you! Edited appropriately.
That’s an old problem. See Richard Feynman’s essay on education in Brazil. https://v.cx/2010/04/feynman-brazil-education
Yes, that's likely who and where I first got the germ of the idea from, nearly 40 years ago now.
One of the best things about Substack is getting informed opinions on things like this from people who have direct experience with them.
Great piece.
The pro sports team analogy Musk makes cuts both ways. I suspect to a lot of people this comes across as more of a labor/revenue dispute between the owners and the players of a single team rather than helping your team beat another team.
It’s also a terrible analogy. I suspect most people are a hell of a lot more loyal to their country than to a friggin’ sports team.
I never had bad Indian colleagues and have even by hired by Indians. Though my first job did end up with my department becoming almost all Indian after getting an Indian manager… though that was because she hired new people rather than firing existing ones. Everyone was competent though.
What I found frustrating and later vindicating about this twitter drama was people claiming h1bs make the same as Americans so it can’t be about cheap labor. You can literally look up their salaries online!
I did that when applying for a job, having bought the lie, and found out later I was VERY underpaid. Like, after I quit I was friends with the (now former) HR lady and she told me how much I could have asked for. It was still a step up from my previous job but it was a shocker how little adherence to the law is attempted.
Oh also Amazon definitely abuses h1bs. My Indian friend worked there and they wouldn’t let her code. They tried to use her as a sacrifice to AWS’s policy of cutting the lowest performers. Like, it got bad enough that she asked if I was open to marriage.
Oh and the caste shit is hilarious. Virtually everyone is Brahmin or the equivalent elsewhere in India but they all say caste doesn’t matter.
It is interesting that you again mentioned your (mis)Fortune 500 experience, which anecdote highlights the cultural difference with Southeast Asian women’s deference to men.
This registers with an observation I read elsewhere, that two parent families in the US expect a family/work balance—40 hours of work a week or less so that dads can share responsibilities such as taking a child to activities. Persons here on H1B willingly work longer hours on their low pay making them even more economical to hire.
More anecdotal observations: In my corporate career, I was very fortunate to work in a company led by strong women, while my sisters had very different experiences in the military and at a university hospital in the South led by “MDeities.” I am beyond grateful that as a single mother I was able to meet such child rearing responsibilities as after school activities while rising to VP because of my company’s leadership. My career did require that I work from home almost every night after bedtime because of the explicit expectation that “we work till the work is done.”
Very well written. Lots to think about. Thank you.
Great article and explanation. I am on X again after the election and couldn’t make heads or tails of the arguments. I am not in an industry that hires H-1Bs. We have lots of PhDs and engineers in chemistry, but most come from local universities that have good chemistry programs. Plus the company pays very well.
I would think that if too many H1B hires are worthless the net savings would be negative.
You put too much stock in the idea of these things being well-understood and acted on rationally. Employees can be completely worthless but if they’re not white males, they improve diversity metrics and ESG scores. And in a company with hundreds of thousands of employees and multiple redundant layers of management, these things are only quantifiable if someone wants them to be — which is pretty rare.
How many companies are that large?
A much bigger percentage than before Covid, so the problem is getting worse comparatively. And based on my email, which is overflowing with people thanking me and telling me that it's much worse than I even know, this kind of thing happens even at much smaller companies. A lot of companies appear to be making the calculation that kept the employees who I write about in part one of my series employed.
I'm not going to debate this any further. I'm done replying to you. Have a nice day.
I don’t dispute that the problem exists. I wonder about its extent.
(In the NY/NJ area in the early aughts) A former neighbor of mine from India had that HB1 visa, worked in tech for one of the large banks, counting the days to when he could be ‘free’ to work at a wage he deserved for a company that didn’t work him to the ground. He and his wife were well aware he was being exploited. But he had a young family, saved his money, bided his time, bought a house and moved to an area with a better school system. I wish him well, hope he eventually got citizenship. His kids have a chance.