Is the real H1B problem the consulting firms rather than the workers?

Something that keeps getting lost in the H1B wars is the difference between a specialized engineer hired directly by a company and someone supplied through a staffing or outsourcing firm. Critics argue that parts of the consulting industry have used the program to supply lower-cost labor for jobs Americans could perform. Supporters argue that plenty of H1B workers have genuinely specialized skills and are difficult to replace.

Both can exist...

Wouldn't it make more sense to concentrate enforcement on questionable staffing practices, wage violations and fraudulent job descriptions instead of treating every H-1B employee the same? I know we have many people who have worked with both direct hires and consulting firms, what's been your experience?

#Consulting #EmploymentAgencies #H1B #Staffing

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@at Cisco doesnt have H1b folks via partners. Majority of red badges are in CX in other countries.

Like you said, most companies are opting to hire in other countries. Cisco is no stranger to this. CX is staffed in India and Mexico as the bigger hubs, but Cisco also doesnt have a night time job policy. For this they use the red badges. At the same time they cannot completely remove CX in RTP and Richardson since customers still prefer a voice with an american accent if they call within those hours.

Both direct Cisco employee H-1B & indirect through a supplier H-1B needs to stop, along with outsourcing.

OP, like a lot of things, they start out as good ideas and eventually get corrupted. H-1B may have started out as a good idea to fill legitimate labor gaps, but the scale has ramped up out way out of control. Companies need to be reigned in.

And remember, H-1B (direct hire into Cisco or indirect via a supplier) is a grain of sand compared to the outsourcing problem. No company has ever outsourced for a better labor pool; it's always cost-cutting to get cheaper labor.

Without intervention, the future of Cisco's (and many companies) labor pool is this: blue badge leadership with a skeleton team of red badges who just monitor AI agents....

And I wonder what CFO's are thinking right now...because at some point, their ability to shrink the cost of the labor pool will stop, and they'll have to figure out where else to cut to keep wall street happy with profit growth.

@OP

It would make more sense to grow local talents and pay the market price for people who grew up here, pay taxes here and have families to support here.
If you honestly believe that India and Pakistan or China have the highest density of talents and only from there we can get highly qualified and unique workers you are living in you own selfbuilt bubble. Wake up, you rarely see a Nobel prize winner from those areas despite of half of the world population being covered by these countries.
It is all corporate greediness that paints you as unique and genies. Time to close that door

It is an illegal immigration problem and unemployment problem.

Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

Is the real H1B problem the consulting firms rather than the workers?

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