Apple agrees to $25M settlement with US over hiring of immigrants(reuters.com)
reuters.com
Apple agrees to $25M settlement with US over hiring of immigrants
https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-agrees-25-million-settlement-with-us-over-hiring-immigrants-2023-11-09/
60 comments
This is just a driveby legal shakedown. The requirement for PERM/greencard application is to prove there was sufficient effort to hire an US citizen first. The standard practice is post a ad matching the applicants qualification on local papers first. I went through the process twice at two different companies since I left the first one before PERM was completed. Apple just happened to be a juice target here. The real culprit is the backward immigration system designed to pacify voters.
> The real culprit is the backward immigration system designed to pacify voters.
Shouldn’t any immigration system actualize the will of the voters?
Shouldn’t any immigration system actualize the will of the voters?
The voters are pandered to, no sane policy can survive the senate.
The reality is that without immigration, this work will just shift to India, full stop. Visa sponsorship is a plum that benefits the outsourcer in their recruitment.
The current system very much benefits the US. Work visa holders pay taxes, support the local economy, and navigate a difficult journey to a green card and citizenship.
When you let populists rile up “the voters”, you get what’s happened in agriculture. Long standing seasonal migration get harder, and the farming moves to Mexico. We let the packinghouse unions get busted, and now there’s an environmental disaster in feed lots and rural facilities.
The reality is that without immigration, this work will just shift to India, full stop. Visa sponsorship is a plum that benefits the outsourcer in their recruitment.
The current system very much benefits the US. Work visa holders pay taxes, support the local economy, and navigate a difficult journey to a green card and citizenship.
When you let populists rile up “the voters”, you get what’s happened in agriculture. Long standing seasonal migration get harder, and the farming moves to Mexico. We let the packinghouse unions get busted, and now there’s an environmental disaster in feed lots and rural facilities.
> The current system very much benefits the US. Work visa holders pay taxes, support the local economy, and navigate a difficult journey to a green card and citizenship.
And they take jobs from locals, and increase the labor supply which can decrease wages. More people also exacerbates an undersupplied housing market. There are pros and cons to immigration. But yes, let’s just dismiss the concerns of those rubes and force them to do what you want.
And they take jobs from locals, and increase the labor supply which can decrease wages. More people also exacerbates an undersupplied housing market. There are pros and cons to immigration. But yes, let’s just dismiss the concerns of those rubes and force them to do what you want.
It's an open question whether they take jobs from the locals. If they can't work in the US, then the same person can just work outside the US.
Considering the percentage of immigrants/foreigners in Silicon Valley, it can be easily argued that its success was entirely due to the ease of foreign workers being able to work in the same location. If it was somewhere else that was more attractive, then who knows, Hong Kong could have been the alternate world Silicon Valley.
Considering the percentage of immigrants/foreigners in Silicon Valley, it can be easily argued that its success was entirely due to the ease of foreign workers being able to work in the same location. If it was somewhere else that was more attractive, then who knows, Hong Kong could have been the alternate world Silicon Valley.
>It's an open question whether they take jobs from the locals. If they can't work in the US, then the same person can just work outside the US.
Such an underrated point. The workers aren't independent farmowners. They're low-paid employees of massive corporate farms that own that land. We utilize an incredibly small fraction of our land capable of growing crops and we use excess as a diplomatic tool for US hegemony. I just don't understand this distaste for immigrants. Let them in and we're all better off. They even pay into SS and never pull out a dime and all they get is pseudopatriots at the wall cosplaying and directing hate towards them, despite allowing them in being a net benefit to all of us.
Such an underrated point. The workers aren't independent farmowners. They're low-paid employees of massive corporate farms that own that land. We utilize an incredibly small fraction of our land capable of growing crops and we use excess as a diplomatic tool for US hegemony. I just don't understand this distaste for immigrants. Let them in and we're all better off. They even pay into SS and never pull out a dime and all they get is pseudopatriots at the wall cosplaying and directing hate towards them, despite allowing them in being a net benefit to all of us.
Doesn’t that just mean we need high tariffs on foreign Internet services? The US invented the Internet at a time when the foreign-born share population of the US was at a century-long low. The US can clearly provide its own software services with domestic workers.
Indeed, it’s not clear to me how these foreign workers are benefitting local economies. Profits from tech companies seem to be accruing to the elites. If you take a middle class California family from 1980, are they and their kids better off due to the immigration-fueled rise of Silicon Valley? Or did all the profits go to the elites and tech salaries just force the kids to move away from their family to Tennessee or Texas?
Indeed, it’s not clear to me how these foreign workers are benefitting local economies. Profits from tech companies seem to be accruing to the elites. If you take a middle class California family from 1980, are they and their kids better off due to the immigration-fueled rise of Silicon Valley? Or did all the profits go to the elites and tech salaries just force the kids to move away from their family to Tennessee or Texas?
> Profits from tech companies seem to be accruing to the elites.
Is this not the problem that needs to be addressed. Looks like the rich and media have successfully made a scapegoat out of immigrants when the actual problem is the money accuring to the elites and government inefficieny in improving housing supply.
Is this not the problem that needs to be addressed. Looks like the rich and media have successfully made a scapegoat out of immigrants when the actual problem is the money accuring to the elites and government inefficieny in improving housing supply.
Immigration exacerbates that problem structurally, by introducing a large population of foreigners who have less social capital and political leverage than native born people. More power to elites seems like a natural consequence of immigration.
How? The locals still have the same voting power. The locals just don't care if the money goes to the elites because it perfectly aligns with their politics and worldview (capitalism, etc).
Voting power only helps you (maybe) fix a problem after it’s arisen. But flooding the workforce with immigrant labor creates the problem in the first place by reducing the negotiating leverage of native born workers.
Even in terms of voting power—immigration reduces social solidarity and undermines the economic left in the long run.
Even in terms of voting power—immigration reduces social solidarity and undermines the economic left in the long run.
>If you take a middle class California family from 1980, are they and their kids better off due to the immigration-fueled rise of Silicon Valley?
Their million dollar houses would suggest so. They can cash out and move to Tennessee or Texas as you point out.
Their million dollar houses would suggest so. They can cash out and move to Tennessee or Texas as you point out.
Something had to replace the defense and aerospace industry
You would get tit for tat and US would tax any offshore development products.
The perm process is absurdly stupid, people you put those « ads » for are already working there on a H1B/L1, no company would decide to hire anyone else for their position.
> The real culprit is the backward immigration system designed to pacify voters.
Shouldn’t the immigration system—and every system—be designed to pacify voters?
Shouldn’t the immigration system—and every system—be designed to pacify voters?
"Pacify" implies doing something, anything, to keep something calm and under control, not necessarily solving the actual problem or doing what would be best long term.
A good government should explain to the electorate the consequences of restricting immigration, because in reality people who don't want immigration probably wouldn't actually like living in a country with no immigration. However, it's a lot easier to appear to be doing something, without really doing much.
The ultimate example would be the Brexit vote in the UK. The population were promised that it would solve all their problems, enormous amounts of anger which could only be quelled by an exit were successfully generated and in 2016, 52% of the population voted for to leave. Fast forward to 2023, and only 33% of the population thinks it was a good decision.
A good government should explain to the electorate the consequences of restricting immigration, because in reality people who don't want immigration probably wouldn't actually like living in a country with no immigration. However, it's a lot easier to appear to be doing something, without really doing much.
The ultimate example would be the Brexit vote in the UK. The population were promised that it would solve all their problems, enormous amounts of anger which could only be quelled by an exit were successfully generated and in 2016, 52% of the population voted for to leave. Fast forward to 2023, and only 33% of the population thinks it was a good decision.
The problem is assuming that you know better (1) what voters “really want”; and (2) what effects particular policies will lead to. Elites of both parties have encouraged mass immigration since the 1965 INA. But society seems to have gotten much worse during that time, in particular social and political cohesion.
Meanwhile, the benefits of both low-skill (e.g. farm workers) and high-skill (e.g. Silicon Valley workers) seem to have gone to a relatively small slice of the population in wealthy coastal cities, while reducing the opportunities available in the rest of the country.
In my home state of Virginia, we saw massive immigration since we immigrated there in 1989. It’s made northern Virginia richer, sure, but that hasn’t “trickled down” to the rest of the state. And all those immigrants helped northern Virginia take over control of the whole state politically. What would happen if you gave folks in Virginia in 1989 a picture of Virginia today, and then asked them to vote on whether to accept all that immigration?
Meanwhile, the benefits of both low-skill (e.g. farm workers) and high-skill (e.g. Silicon Valley workers) seem to have gone to a relatively small slice of the population in wealthy coastal cities, while reducing the opportunities available in the rest of the country.
In my home state of Virginia, we saw massive immigration since we immigrated there in 1989. It’s made northern Virginia richer, sure, but that hasn’t “trickled down” to the rest of the state. And all those immigrants helped northern Virginia take over control of the whole state politically. What would happen if you gave folks in Virginia in 1989 a picture of Virginia today, and then asked them to vote on whether to accept all that immigration?
Yeah, the effects of immigration are pretty obvious and very acutely felt by people at the low end of the social scale. In particular a young male with no diploma is really not having it.
But then you have elites or upper middle class people overintellectualizing immigration with "feel-good" argument and a lot of bullshit nonsense. In the end most of the immigration is young male with no diploma, and they come and add competition to the already low-wage shit jobs.
There are always a lot of arguments about immigration, that it is useful for skilled people and that they pay taxes. But it does not even pass the sniff test, a local person would pay even more tax (most likely) and needing to import qualified skilled people is just a sign of failure somewhere in your education system. For many reasons you should not want to import skilled labor, it is not a good deal for a country...
However, it is good for-profit focused business to increase competition and lower wages in their industry. Which is exactly what Apple does and others did before. But the same rich people who buy their expensive hardware and have truly little competition in their luxury ivory tower will tell you otherwise. I do not even blame them, they cannot relate at all, they don't have the relevant experience. I feel like some minimum wage hard work with shitty hours should be mandatory to be allowed to talk about those type of things, otherwise it's just people talking out of their asses...
There are always a lot of arguments about immigration, that it is useful for skilled people and that they pay taxes. But it does not even pass the sniff test, a local person would pay even more tax (most likely) and needing to import qualified skilled people is just a sign of failure somewhere in your education system. For many reasons you should not want to import skilled labor, it is not a good deal for a country...
However, it is good for-profit focused business to increase competition and lower wages in their industry. Which is exactly what Apple does and others did before. But the same rich people who buy their expensive hardware and have truly little competition in their luxury ivory tower will tell you otherwise. I do not even blame them, they cannot relate at all, they don't have the relevant experience. I feel like some minimum wage hard work with shitty hours should be mandatory to be allowed to talk about those type of things, otherwise it's just people talking out of their asses...
I’m skeptical even of skilled immigration. Perhaps even more skeptical of skilled immigration than unskilled immigration. Skilled immigrants are often elites back home. The people ruining things in India or Nigeria or China then come to America and bring their same attitudes with them.
That is an interesting reflection, which makes sense.
And it matches something I recently realized. In the west, what we call elite is not clearly linked to any merit.
I believe that what are considered elites got there not by being competitive but mostly in ways that are closer to what cheating is. We are in an era of major stagnation in mobility for the lower part of the society precisely because the elite have been reproducing themselves and have shut down the competition by faking it and creating all kind of "standards" impossible to meet for peoples without the means. I think immigration is just another cheat to prevent equalization. If we look at the distribution ok skills/competency of humans, it mostly follow a normal distribution, yet revenues are really not distributed like that...
I believe that what are considered elites got there not by being competitive but mostly in ways that are closer to what cheating is. We are in an era of major stagnation in mobility for the lower part of the society precisely because the elite have been reproducing themselves and have shut down the competition by faking it and creating all kind of "standards" impossible to meet for peoples without the means. I think immigration is just another cheat to prevent equalization. If we look at the distribution ok skills/competency of humans, it mostly follow a normal distribution, yet revenues are really not distributed like that...
> Shouldn’t the immigration system—and every system—be designed to pacify voters?
To an extent, yes — but like all humans, voters can sometimes focus too narrowly on the short term, and/or on their own desires and fears; sometimes a broader perspective is needed. (That's why some elected officials used to say, in effect, "My voters elected me to exercise my judgment.")
To an extent, yes — but like all humans, voters can sometimes focus too narrowly on the short term, and/or on their own desires and fears; sometimes a broader perspective is needed. (That's why some elected officials used to say, in effect, "My voters elected me to exercise my judgment.")
They admit culpability, they didn't even post the jobs, and required applicants to physically mail applications in. Something something pacify voters, huh?
> system designed to pacify voters
sounds like you might be happier back in China?
sounds like you might be happier back in China?
That amount is an embarrassing joke. What's going on that's causing these appallingly low penalties for companies? Is it just that the legislation was written without these kinds of megacorps in mind? Is it trepidation on the part of regulators? Seriously, what is going on here?
I think the real punishment for Apple is that it’ll be harder for their employees to get their PERMs certified i.e. more likely to be denied/audited (audit adds 5-6 months on top of the normal 10-11 months), which has been the case for Facebook since the same settlement with DOJ.
Wait until you learn about enforcement for outright wage theft. In many cases the penalty is nothing, and employers sometimes even get to keep some of the stolen wages. In most cases it's not even pursued by the DoL
This is not going to change anything - Apple makes $109,229 per second(https://tipalti.com/profit-per-second/) - this so called penalty is 3.8 hours of Apple's profit. This is equivalent to a parking ticket for Apple.
Not that it changes much beyond the US GDP but you labeled the per minute figure per second.
Impact aside, which is should absolutely impact more, I'm almost doubtful the practice is even a net loss for them. ${years} of the hiring practice for an unknown number of individuals may have even been worth more than the fine.
Some other comments note it may have other impacts though, so maybe that's the real influence.
Impact aside, which is should absolutely impact more, I'm almost doubtful the practice is even a net loss for them. ${years} of the hiring practice for an unknown number of individuals may have even been worth more than the fine.
Some other comments note it may have other impacts though, so maybe that's the real influence.
Can there be class action case by all who were potentially discriminated by these hiring practices?
Discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38224950
[dupe]
More here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38224950
More here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38224950
Would Apple even notice something so small?
No. That's about 0.006% of their yearly revenue.
To put that into perspective, if you earn 100k salary, that'd be 600 bucks.
Haven't seen it posted yet? It's actually six dollars.
Banana for scale: Apple makes that much in revenue in about 30 minutes.
My thought exactly. That number is way below a rounding error.
Imagine the parking ticket for you would be a penny. It would be more profitable to park illegally than to pay for the parking fees, which is why parking fines are greater than the parking fee. Why do corporations have fines so low?
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Great. Now make this an actually punitive amount and apply it to all of the big tech companies (who have obviously been doing this for years) and you may start to actually fix this problem.
A hundred thousand CS graduates a year in this country and yet the biggest companies claim they can’t find workers. So they hire people from overseas and pay them some of the highest entry level wages in the nation all the while kids I grew up with in the Midwest, who were coding in junior high, work in factories.
I call bullshit, it’s clearly discrimination
A hundred thousand CS graduates a year in this country and yet the biggest companies claim they can’t find workers. So they hire people from overseas and pay them some of the highest entry level wages in the nation all the while kids I grew up with in the Midwest, who were coding in junior high, work in factories.
I call bullshit, it’s clearly discrimination
> hundred thousand CS graduates a year in this country and yet the biggest companies claim they can’t find workers.
I think big tech happy to hire and does hire those CS graduates if they pass interview.
I think big tech happy to hire and does hire those CS graduates if they pass interview.
Just give your favored person leetcode easy questions and your non favored person leetcode hard...
Those interviews are designed around favoritism.
Additionally favored people can skip the interview with the right managers approval.
Whe I worked at LinkedIn it was almost 100% Indians on my team and the rest of the department was like 75% non-American.
The chain of command is literally all Indian people except Ryan R.
Those interviews are designed around favoritism.
Additionally favored people can skip the interview with the right managers approval.
Whe I worked at LinkedIn it was almost 100% Indians on my team and the rest of the department was like 75% non-American.
The chain of command is literally all Indian people except Ryan R.
yes, that's what distinguished FB and Google: to be hired person need to be interviewed by some people outside the team, so they reduce conflict of interests that way and keep some bar of candidate's quality.
I don't think that China is the only one stealing tech from the US. Just like the borders crisis is making apparent that some spies/terrorists/undesirables are getting through. In due time and with enough research it will be public that spies/thieves/undesirables get through via legal channels. With the amount of access that these highly educated so called quintessential tech workers which surely cannot be found at America's top notch universities have, surely there are a few bad apples. Just gotta run the comb through.
There are only a few tech niches where these companies truly cannot find talent, most projects could surely be accomplished by local graduates. That narrative doesn't pad the pockets of the CEO's though.
There are only a few tech niches where these companies truly cannot find talent, most projects could surely be accomplished by local graduates. That narrative doesn't pad the pockets of the CEO's though.
Max(A U B) >= Max(A)
Similarly the top x% of both local and international are stronger than the top x% of local candidates, even if local and international have the same distribution of talent.
Similarly the top x% of both local and international are stronger than the top x% of local candidates, even if local and international have the same distribution of talent.
> Now make this an actually punitive amount ... and you may start to actually fix this problem.
Seems like there's no real desire to fix this problem - which isn't a new one by any means - otherwise it would already have been done ages ago?
Seems like there's no real desire to fix this problem - which isn't a new one by any means - otherwise it would already have been done ages ago?
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