H-1B: Uber snatches up more foreign-worker visas as it lays off hundreds of employees

The Mercury News ^ | 17 Oct 2019 | Ethan Baron

[Theoria]

San Francisco firm says it’s not replacing U.S. workers with H-1Bs

Uber has doubled the number of government approvals it has received to hire foreign workers through the controversial H-1B visa this year, while laying off hundreds of skilled employees, state and federal data show.

The San Francisco ride-hailing giant revealed in a California employment-department filing this month that it is laying off nearly 400 workers at its offices in the city and in Palo Alto. The filing showed software engineers at the firm were the hardest hit, with more than 125 people cut loose.

Meanwhile, Uber this year received federal government approval for 299 new H-1B visas — work permits intended for jobs requiring specialized skills — compared with 152 in 2018 and 158 in 2017, according to data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. It is unclear whether Uber plans to use all those visas or when new H-1B workers might be brought on. The visas typically cost thousands of dollars each to obtain.

The maneuvers raise questions about whether the Bay Area company is moving to replace U.S. workers with cheaper foreign labor as it struggles to please Wall Street months after its much-hyped IPO.

“When they’re laying off, they shouldn’t be using H-1Bs at all, or maybe sparingly at best,” said Ron Hira, a Howard University professor who studies the use of the visa by companies. “It runs totally contrary to the intent of the H-1B program.”

Uber declined to answer questions in any detail about its increasing pursuit of H-1B workers at a time of significant layoffs, but a company spokesman said, “Any implication that these restructurings were done in order to replace U.S. workers with H-1B workers is simply not true.” Uber declined to say if H-1B workers were among those laid off.

[Lockbox]

Best described by this line from Law & Order.

"I'm in a funny business, Ray. Everybody talks like hippies and acts like they're in the Sicilian mob."

—Lisa Lundquist, Law and Order

[DoodleDawg]

Uber declined to answer questions in any detail about its increasing pursuit of H-1B workers at a time of significant layoffs, but a company spokesman said, “Any implication that these restructurings were done in order to replace U.S. workers with H-1B workers is simply not true.”

The restructurings were done in order to cut costs. The fact that the U.S. workers were all replaced by cheaper foreign H-1Bs is merely a coincidence.

[EC Washington]

Took two Uber’s in Vegas last month - neither driver could speak a complete sentence in English - they had to watch Google maps the entire trip just to get me back to my hotel.

[CJ Wolf]

Uber was in the process of decommissioning this site at the beginning of the year. Reason being cali is too expensive to be there. They moved most there stuff to cheaper states. The H1Bs are mostly for the autonomous cars and flying car development.

[Tired of Taxes]

And software engineer was supposed to be a secure job, always in demand.

Is a computer science major still a good bet these days?

[Regulator]

“and flying car development”

Should be fun interaction for the FAA software DER trying to certify their code.

Will make the MCAS debacle seem respectable.

[CJ Wolf]

Oh yeah. That will be fun.

[Mr. Blond]

Great. The same people that wrote the 737 Max’s code will be making the flying cars.