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Ask Slashdot: Reasonable Immigration Policy For Highly-Trained Workers?
davidwr writes "What are a reasonable temporary-worker or immigration-visa rules to apply to workers whose skills would quickly net them a 'top 20th percentile wages' job (about $100,000) in the American workplace, if they were allowed to work in the country? Should the visa length be time-limited? Should it provide for a path to permanent residency? Should the number be limited, and if so, how should we decide what the limit should be? The people affected are already likely eligible for special work-permit programs, but these programs may have quotas, time limits, prior-job-offer-requirements, and other restrictions. I'm asking what Slashdotters think the limits and restrictions, if any, should be. (Let's assume any policy to keep out criminals and spies remains as-is.)"
let them stay. Educated immigrants are more likely to start their own business. So where do you want that business to be?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Assuming you're not from a country where security issues might be a concern.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
We should favor workers who are looking for permanent residency. They are good for the economy and the community.
We should make sure it costs no less to hire a foreign worker to work in the US than it costs to hire an existing resident.
We should not be using foreign worker visas to train people as a prelude to off-shoring.
I'm wondering if an auction system for tech visas would work out.
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Should now read:
"Give me your inventors, your geniuses,
Your bored singletons yearning to spur economic growth,
The fertile intellects left from your teeming chaff.
Send these, the able, patent-ers to me,
I lift my GDP beside the golden door!"
Let's face it, work visas are handed out like bouncers controlling admission to a club. You are asking these questions that sound like they treat people with respect and offer them opportunity but what I hear is basically: Are you going to be a net positive for the United States? And how do we accurately measure the Nikola Teslas and Yao Mings from the Dr. Nasser al-Aulaqis (Fullbright Scholar and father of Anwar al-Awlaki).
You know what? It's a dirty business and I don't want any part of it. In my own humble opinion, it's unethical. Your questions sound like "Can we implement a brain drain on the rest of the world with little or no risk?" I think it should be all law-abiding individuals or none and, despite 9/11 and the Mariel Boatlift that consisted of criminals and mental patients, I personally lean toward letting everyone in unless they are known to have committed or been convicted of crimes in their country of origin that are 1) credible sentences and 2) also misdemeanors or higher in the United States.
My work here is dung.
It seems any system that differentiates based on wage is inherently flawed.
Most try to differentiate based on skill and if that skill can be found locally.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Trolling for opinions on immigration is not "news for nerds." Believe it or not, I come here to get informed, not to get drawn into pointless flame-wars.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Top 20% creates jobs for the people in the bottom 80%. The myth of immigrant labor taking jobs is pretty much busted. Wall St Journal reported last month that Mexico is a NET EMMIGRATION country since 2006. If you add up all the "lost jobs" since they started broadcasting the "lost jobs" statistic, the developing world would be an empty desert. The jobs that are lost are not jobs we want. What we want are the top 20%, and we want those companies to excel with the best workforce possible. http://retroworks.blogspot.com/2012/04/mexican-immigration-solved.html
Gently reply
Personally, I have my doubts that immigration is logical in a democracy.
But if you are a capitalist and are coming from a standpoint of increasing the economy, then allowing anyone who wants to come and work on whatever is the only logical policy.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
We have lots of citizens who need jobs. Send the foreigners home. Locals may need training, but let's get them working again.
Read my lips. No amount of training is going to bridge the shortage of skilled workers in the USA. Until something is done that actually addresses the problems in your education system this is always going to be an issue.
Oh, and there's plenty of work available in the fields picking fruit, but only foreign workers will do it.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
At the risk of sounding Xenophobic...
Why do we need to bring in labor when we have 8.2% unemployment, not counting those who quit looking and underemployment? Are companies not willing to invest in its own workforce or in schools to develop these people? Or do they want them shipped over on a gold platter?
Even from a company like Ireland or Canada, there are quotas. The quotas change from year to year (by country) based upon greater need. It's a logistical nightmare that pays terribly because it can cost you quite a bit of money in government paper pushing just for a chance to get on a list only to not get the spot.
Test -MC
The theory is that we have plenty of talent to fill the 20k-90k/yr jobs and don't want to dilute that market for current residents and citizens.
I think the policy should be dictated by the immigrants home-policy. That is, if its impossible for
a US national to get a job THERE, it should be hard to get a job for the foreign national HERE.
This would level the playing field for US national scientists and engineers quickly.
Education system what on the job skills that can't be done in the class room or the lack of entry level jobs so people can work there way up.
shortage of skilled workers some times comes from people what a overload of skills that NO one has.
For any bright person that wants to immigrate here, they should sponsor someone in the US who is currently unemployed to immigrate into their home country.
Maybe the idea is half-baked: what additional cooking do you suggest?
more apprenticeships are needed college for all is a issue with the system as is.
1. Build a wall and take other border security measures to prevent the bringing in of illegal aliens, illegal drugs, illegal weapons, and whatever else we want to keep out of our country.
2. When the border is secure - really secure - amnesty current illegal trespassers so we can end the situation of having two classes of people in the country and can stop having to show our papers any time we want to do a little bit of work.
3. Give out plenty of visas to software engineers because the cost of shipping software is next to nothing and I would rather compete against an Indian making an American salary than an Indian making an Indian salary.
4. . . . ?
5. Profit!
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
I can empathize form where you are coming from, but you are ask subjective question where people give the wrong answers.
Even the simple one on permanent residence. I worked on a study on Scandinavian immigrants to the US in the late 19th century. Over ½ said they were going to return. Almost none did. The predictive power just was not there. I am going to rely on antidotal evidence but I still think it holds true. People come to the US with plans and after 5 years those plans almost always gets turned around.
Then you start asking the tougher subjective questions – Are these people going to take away “Native” American jobs away from us – or at least lower our pay. The answer is always going to be yes. That being said, we are a nation of immigrants – it is one of the ways we constantly reinvent ourselves to meet the new challenges of tomorrow. I can’t imagine an immigration bureaucrat being able to guess who will kick off the next great revolution.
If somebody can earn 100k I would rather have them work in the US and have them shave 5k in salaries for a “Native”. They will pay taxes and add vigor. The other option is to let them stay where they are – and let them invent the next big idea outside of America.
HERE? This is one of those topics that is guaranteed to garner intelligent discourse by a few amidst a horrifying see of flame from the majority. Why not look into studies on the impact of skilled workers joining a workforce, and the cultural effects of immigration instead? My take is that there should be minimal (but some) financial incentive on the short-term for employment of such workers (IMHO, H1-B is *too* much incentive) and incentives towards citizenship. I believe that immigration of good skilled workers is good for this nation. I've only ever learned from smarter and more educated people around me in the workplace, and have rarely been at their mercy. If a population of 100 grows to 101 because 1 person of a highly-skilled nature joins it, that's a good thing.
Why not ask something more acceptable to the Slashdot community, like "I've just inherited a medium-sized business where everything runs on a mix of Linux and FreeBSD. Which Windows variant should I migrate them all to?"
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
As has been pointed out before, the point of H1-B visas is to get rid of older American workers who with education and experience have become highly trained, and replace them with less trained, cheap foreign labor. In 2010, during record-high unemployment, 117,409 people came in on the H1-B visa. Which is just one of many visas that people come to the US and work on. Professor Norm Matloff has a web page about this.
Read my lips. No amount of training is going to bridge the shortage of skilled workers in the USA. Until something is done that actually addresses the problems in your education system this is always going to be an issue.
The education system is far from perfect, but there seems to be a lack of entry level positions that would help aleviate the problem. Basically Corporate America complains there is a "talent shortage" but then does nothing about it.
If you were born less than 13000 km from my birth place (in ECEF frame) and if you speaks flemish (just kidding, I'm from the other side of the language border), in my opinion you should be allowed to come to my country for any period of time and for any occupation, do whatever you want to do. If you are coming from further (or if the concept of birth don't applies to you) I have only one condition: just explain to everybody how to suppress the concept of "work".
I'm a Mexican national who has lived over half his life in the U.S. (19 out of 32 years). First it was through my father's work visa, then through my student visa, and currently under my G-4. After graduating from an American university, I found the options available to me very disappointing. I was offered most of the jobs I applied to, but the offers were quickly rescinded when I inquired about visa sponsorship after my OPT expired. At one point it seemed as if I would end up working as a bilingual school teacher since they were the only ones willing and able to sponsor me for the visa, and I believe they weren't subject to the caps imposed by INS. Fortunately I was able to find my current job where visa sponsorship is not an issue.
As a foreigner with strong ties to this country and its people, it is very disheartening to see most of the pathways to permanent residence blocked off. Under my previous visas I never met the continuous presence requirements, and the G-4 does not have a path to residence. I'm not posting this to rant, but rather to share my experience and see what everybody's thoughts are. Unfortunately the U.S. currently finds itself with strong conflicts of interest when it comes to immigration and there is no easy answer.
Temporary, no. Permanent, yes. We should be stapling green cards to every engineering degree with a 3.0 average granted by an accredited US university. We don't have enough highly skilled folks to fill these jobs, and these jobs are leaving and not coming back. If a company in America wants to hire you to do work for more than the average *household* income in America, and it's not a profession with a lack of job openings, we should be doing our best to convince you to become a permanent citizen. Average household income is under $50k, FWIW.
.
This sucks.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
Let 'em all in. If you're going to pull down six digits (and pay taxes on it) then I say: WELCOME TO THE U.S.A.
Here's the thing. We Americans don't actually build stuff, grow stuff or put stuff together anymore. Well, we do, but it's becoming more and more rare. What do we do? We make software and design stuff. Unfortunately, the kind of endeavors one might easily imagining doing somewhere else. We really, really don't want that to happen, since it's this kind of activity we're going to rely on moving forward to support the rest of the economy, which is inwardly focused (medicine, finance, service industry, etc.) That's why we really want all the world's bad-ass scientists, engineers and developers to re-locate their Hindi / Mandarin / who-the-hell-cares-as-long-as-they-also-speak-English selves stateside and get to work building the next Facebook Google.
Junk degrees in college are an issue here, and they aren't helping much of anyone. College loans are available to all, but they're not quite enough to pay for a top-tier engineering school. College loans are available to all, but they subsidize comparative medieval literature majors just the same as electrical engineers. We need more of certain professions, but we aren't actively helping people go into those professions any more than a random pick on a dartboard. We also explain to high school students "you can do anything!", when in the real world, some careers are *enormously* harder to pursue than others.
If we imported a bunch of poor people we would have factories again. Cheap labor would bring them back. About 100 million people want to imigrate to the united states. We have plenty of room and food for them. Not sure if we have water for that many people. Short term you would have a lot of disruption. People would lose jobs. Wages would go down. There would be deflation on the dollar. Lots of oppurtoonity as well. Local buisnesses would be able to sell goods and services to these people.
Competition is good
Only if the competition is fair. Are they paying the same taxes? Are they living in the same area with the same cost index?
I could live like a king in many places on my wages, but not in the northeast USA, or on the Pacific coast, and then take a look at other places around the world, and the difference is even greater. Sure if my living costs were lower I could see dealing with the cut in pay.
So I iterate again, Competition is good only when competition is fair.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
The myth of immigrant labor taking jobs is pretty much busted.
This myth was busted a long, long time ago. See The Lump of Labor Fallacy. Economists have understood for centuries that economics is not a zero-sum game. But uneducated people continue to believe it is.
I agree. But I know people with STEM degrees who have difficulty finding meaningful work. It seems to me that if you have less than 5 years or so of professional work in very specific areas in addition to a relevant degree, that you're SOL
ALL unemployed people aren't stupid, they can learn. Even the older tech workers. Tech companies just want to pay less for foreign.
As in medical, engineering, software, geophysics, etc. The best thing that could happen to the USA is a population bias in favor of intelligence. At the moment, it would seem that we desperately need that.
However, I would also propose that those with without technical degrees (e.g political science, ethno-musicology) need not apply, but good luck in your country search.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
... because that's how it currently feels when you want to get a US visa with a strong education and the intention to create a company there. Scratch that; this doesn't even remotely begin to describe US immigration officials. I'd wager that they export more US jobs (by having them created elsewhere, directly or indirectly) than all other professions combined.
Seriously... Just open the floodgates and let anyone who applies with a degree come and settle, including those after lower quintile jobs. People with education are more likely to create a business, and those that don't increase the supply of trained staff. Cost-free, at that. The "they'll steal low-wage jobs" point is hogwash. Nobody wants the lowest paid jobs anyway, the newcomers would do away with the housing inventory in a snap, and China would have an extremely hard time making its factories work if their production engineers all migrated to the US. (Remember that NYT story about how Apple decided to produce the iPhone in China because, amongst other things, fielding a few thousands of production engineers could be done in China in a matter of weeks instead of months?)
Also, consider the drive, the resourcefulness and the taste for risk-taking that are needed to successfully cross the Rio Grande or the Mediterranean Sea. In either case, you need to not take no for an answer when you applied the legal way, save hard-earned cash to pay whoever is taking you on the other side, and there is a non-negligible likelihood that you'll get robbed, murdered or (if a woman) forced into sex slavery. If those skills don't fit the successful entrepreneur, I don't know what does. And if crime gets less cash because the flood gates are open, all the better.
Lastly, it is surprising that livestock and poultry can cross borders freely, but actual people cannot. We may have gotten our priorities wrong when passports were introduced in the 19th century. Then again, if the plebeians cannot escape to better places, wages are kept in check.
How about training local citizens for the job, at low or no cost to them.
Don't you believe in a free market?
I think it is silly to restrict people because of where they are born. If somebody is better then I am, why should he NOT be able to take my job.
If _I_ am better then somebody else, why should I not be able to take his job?
If you are an employer, why should you not have the ability to hire the best people that you can?
Do you want to be hired on what you are able to do, or because of your race, sex, religion or nationality?
I have a different nationality from the country where I work. My company thought I was the best for the task, so they hired me. They thought higher of me then of people of their own country. The reason why? Because they cared about the job, not about the passport.
And when people speak about me not being from their country I say: I have chosen the country I live in. I have made a very calculated decision as an adult. That means I deserve it MORE to live here then those who are born here. That always brings up interesting discussions. :-D
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
It is (relatively) easy for skilled workers to work in the U.S. either temporarily or to immigrate.
Basically, there has to be no American that can be found that meets the minimum job requirements at the prevailing wage.
I did write skilled.
Of course, "found" has different interpretations depending on whether the stay is temporary (H1-B) or permanent (EB-2 or EB-3 "Green Card").
For the temporary case, the employer has to assert they can't find any Americans (and not have layed off any in the last six months, not have an ongoing strike, not be in the immigration department's "dog house", etc.).
For the permanent case, the employer has to hire the least-qualified American from responses to a ten-day nation-wide advertised job search.
Immigration attornies can "fudge" things a bit, to make it easier, but not mutch.
In Liberty, Rene
What does an employed person care if their customer is foreign or not? If I change a tire on a foreigners car I still get paid the same. A foreigner eats the same fast food, rents the same property, and uses the same movies theaters as a citizen. Bringing them into the country levels the playing field for American workers. A foreigner earns the same wage and recieves the same benifits when here. At home they get paid less and regulations are looser for the environment and safety. At home their paychecks go to foriegn buisnesses for foriegn goods. More people does not equal less jobs. More people normally equals more jobs.
With an average unemployment of over 8.2%, and you can't find a single American to do your job?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Just copy Canada.
I'm a New Zealand-born software developer working in just one of those highly paid jobs in Vancouver BC. I refused to move to the US partly because I think the H1-B system has great potential for abuse.
As a country, you want the highly skilled migrants because they can work where they like and they bring great value. *Every* country in the world is competing to get them; except the US. US based developers have to compete against developers everywhere else anyway; preventing immigration doesn't help any. Even a low-skilled immigrant doesn't really steal a job. In many cases, the money they make is roughly matched by the money they spend that keeps the local economy moving. This is the experience in Alabama where they are actively trying to force immigrants out. Preventing immigration is also racist. As a country, you are claiming that those who are born in your country have a greater right to a job than somebody born anywhere else. Is there a fundamental difference between an American and an African other than their place of birth?
The Canadian system has a few ways in but they can be summarised as:
1. Find an employer who wants you enough to fill out some forms for you.
2. Show that you are young and smart
3. Wait for the paperwork. That gets you Permanent Resident status.
4. Wait 3 years actually in Canada
5. Apply for Citizenship.
In my case, I came to Canada on a Working Holiday Work Permit. This allowed me to work for anyone for 1 year and is only available to under-36 year olds. Then I found a job and explained what I needed them to do. I used a scheme where my province nominates me for immigration. My employer wrote a letter to the province, filled in some forms, added a copy of their incorporation certificate, I paid the money and off it went.
Household income will come closer, but only 6-7% of people make that kind of money.
maybe your skillsets is to big or to long
Get over it. The 90k/year immigrant is quick to note that he can make a better wage elsewhere, and the company will be looking for a new guy as soon as he moves on. Plus, the odds are they're only offering you the interview because the spotted the immigrant, and they need to show immigration officials that they failed to locate the needed candidate before sponsoring a visa. The real issue here isn't the immigrant, it's the immigration policy, the hiring policy and the going bout of deflation.
college what about tech schools and people who learn on there own??
OR apprenticeships
CS is not IT. Tech school do give the skilled needed for a IT help desk / desktop / system admin job. CS is more on the programmer side and even then it tends to be very top level with lot's of lacking skills.
No amount of training is going to bridge the shortage of skilled workers in the USA.
Hiring the existing unemployed skilled workers might bridge the shortage. You won't know if you don't try it.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
No it's called supply and demand. I promise you that you'll find plenty of people doing what ever job you want if you just pay them accordingly. If we paid tech workers (or fruit pickers or teachers or whatever job you want) what we apparently pay investment bankers or CEOs or what we used to pay lawyers you'd be able to find as many as you need. People seem to want the free market but then complain when the free market responds by informing them that they need to pay more than they want to for a particular resource. The market is telling that employer that smart people capable of doing the job they want done can get better compensated in a different field. Why should we distort the market for any particular field?
Let me pick on Bill Gates who has testified before congress on this issue (partly cause it's just fun). He has said that Microsoft can't find enough people here with the skills they need. That's not true, there is a whole company here called Apple (and Google and yadda yadda yadda) that have all the skilled workers Microsoft needs. However Microsoft is unwilling to pay them enough to lure them away. That's the market at work, it's has decided that the most productive place to put it's skilled workers, *for a given wage* is a variety of companies. Microsoft's complaint isn't really that it can't find enough workers locally, it's just that it doesn't want to pay what's required to do so, and so what it wants to do is artificially increase the supply of workers by importing them so that the price on the demand curve shift lower.
Finally to answer the question originally posed. I'd make it a requirement that H1B type migrants be paid in the top 5 percentile (or pick your own high figure) for the job they are taking. That gives the employers incentive to find a worker here and the market will work out the rest.
There is no shortage you fool. There is a surplus.
The shortage is of people willing to 100k of work a year for 40k in pay.
I worked in Germany, the US and now Canada. Had a green card for the US due to my American wife, but decided that Canada would be a good place to sit out the Great Recession. I wouldn't be here if this country didn't have fairly transparent immigration rules that allow for certainty that you and your familly will get permanent residence status.
Payed of handsomely for Canada. After all I pay a heck of a lot of taxes - not considerably much worse than what I had to pay in the US though and my salary increased by a good margin when I made the move.
The theory is that we have plenty of talent to fill the 20k-90k/yr jobs and don't want to dilute that market for current residents and citizens.
I would argue that the theory is exactly backwards. We should only be allowing people to immigrate who have specialized skills that are not available in the current labor pool in the United States. Thus, those jobs should also be the highest paying jobs. Instead, what we have turned the immigration policy into is a way to bring in people to perform the middle class jobs for which we have many, many existing people with the skill and desire to perform. So instead of filling a specific gap in labor we are just undercutting the cost of an already existing and well-balanced labor pool.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Furthermore, a lot of businesses started by immigrants are just staffing companies.
As soon as we can accept the reality that we are already competing with them for jobs, all the reasons not to have them here fall away.
The countries that recognize this first will gain the most benefit.
Oh please. Have you looked at our state of education lately? Have you noticed how few of us go into the most important fields of study?
The skilled migrant system in Australia, NZ and Canada seems to work well - a points system with adjustable quotas and bonus points for areas of absolute skills shortage, with a well defined path to residency and citizenship.
Science degrees are rough, honestly; many of the physics majors I've met have wound up doing math or software.
How about training local citizens for the job, at low or no cost to them.
That requires local citizens willing/inclined to pursue the education necessary for a 6-figure salary. And please don't tell me that cost is what drives locals away from doing that. We have an abundance of Marketing/Creative Writing graduates (and too few STEM graduates) to prove this is not a factor.
You need to change the ethos of our society before you can even have a soapbox from where to ask your question. As it is, it's just jingoistic posturing. Deal with it, and suck on it. We do not have a society that cares much about education, and who cares more about creationism and MBAs than anything remotely associated with STEM. There is a reason the STEM intelligentsia in this country is made up in great part by foreign-born citizens.
Just because you prefer to read into what I did not say is not my fucking problem. The top guy on the team makes $120k and does not have a college degree, so fuck off.
I share your pain. I used to make more than twice what I make right now, but it seems that these days, having an H1B is a requirement. I keep getting contacted by people with Indian sounding names from various consulting firms, and they always want to know about my H1B status, never my citizenship status. Basically, if you are not on an H1B and are not Indian, they don't want to hear from you, because you are going to demand the prevailing wage, and they are there to try to illegally undercut the prevailing wage by using H1B labor.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
" A foreigner earns the same wage and recieves the same benifits when here."
NO. They depress wages. Except ceo wages.
Oh, and there's plenty of work available in the fields picking fruit, but only foreign workers will do it for $3 an hour.
FTFY.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
No amount of training is going to bridge the shortage of skilled workers in the USA.
Exactly. I can only speak for IT, but it has been hard to find qualified candidates for mid-level positions. The guy I ended up hiring is mostly self taught and loves the work. The large majority of the candidates all wanted to be IT managers and were very light on technical skills.
What are a reasonable temporary-worker or immigration-visa rules to apply to workers whose skills would quickly net them a 'top 20th percentile wages' job (about $100,000) in the American workplace...
It depends. Are we at economic full employment with american workers in those positions? If not, why would want to encourage businesses to hire non-american workers? On the other hand, if we are at economic full employment with american workers in those positions, then by all means, fill the empty positions with skilled non-americans.
Pay more.
Whatever the rules, there needs to be reciprocity - if a country won't let US citizens move there, purchase property and pay the same tax rates as residents, then screw 'em.
more apprenticeships are needed college for all is a issue with the system as is.
And grammar classes. We need more of that as well.
Give me your rich, your educated,
your nation's promise for the future.
Send these, for no more than three years, to me
provided they have proof of employment and don't intend to have kids.
Screw that. There is only one immigration problem in the U.S.: the fact that we've made it difficult to get in. The anti-immigration argument "We shouldn't give people who break the rules amnesty, or let them cut in line!" assumes that there should be a line, or that immigration should ever be a crime.
The sum total of U.S. immigration policy should be: "Are you wanted for a crime in your home country? No? Welcome to America."
Ok, I do the failings of any system with discrimination on citizenship. Why should anybody have an advantage or a disadvantage just because he was born at the right place, or because he had the good combination of parents, or a combination of this two criteria (depending of the countries we are talking about) ? I don't understand that.
Read my lips. No amount of training is going to bridge the shortage of skilled workers in the USA. Until something is done that actually addresses the problems in your education system this is always going to be an issue.
The education system is far from perfect, but there seems to be a lack of entry level positions that would help aleviate the problem. Basically Corporate America complains there is a "talent shortage" but then does nothing about it.
This is one of the root causes (not the only one mind you, but an important one.) Corporate America used to believe in training and developing talent. Now, they all want already trained senior level people (with mid-level salaries), and junior-level openings filled with either local senior-level people or with offshore foot soldiers.
My first job send me and other colleagues to a 5-day training workshop, $7K per head. And mind you that this wasn't an engineering firm, but a good ol' insurance company. But this wasn't uncommon. Any company with enough size had a budget for training.
That concept is gone because, after all, a company's sole goal nowadays is to maximize profit. Anything else is labeled as socialism (mostly by illiterate angry folks who have no flying clue what the f* that term means.)
"Tech companies just want to pay less for foreign."
Just as you want to pay less for what they produce.
Competition is good
Only if the competition is fair. Are they paying the same taxes? Are they living in the same area with the same cost index?
If they are living among us as US citizens or permanent residents, they do.
Well that's where you're wrong actually. Putting artificial barriers in the way of who can and cannot get into the country is the exact opposite of the free market. Your little suggestion about dictating what H1B employees should earn is exactly the kind of interference in the market that you lament in almost every other sentence of that post. Your statement is a classic example of doublethink. You're either for the free market (and the free movement of labor that goes with it) or you're not, or you're in favour of some sort of compromise. But don't ask for trade barriers in one breath and complain about distorting the market in the next.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Pay more.
Monkeys don't get any better at programming just because you throw more money at them. Sometimes you have to look further afield if you want to get qualified people.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
There's NO shortage of highly skilled, unemployed, AMERICAN WORKERS!
All this SHIT about labor shortages while unemployment, (REAL) unemployment is between 18% and 20%!
NEVER since the great depression have there seen so many unemployed for so long!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
If I may make a modest proposal here... why send them home? Consider this: 40 million Americans live in poverty. 3.5 million American children are at a risk of hunger every day! Meanwhile, foreign workers are rich in fats and protein - a good part of which, I must add, coming from them being well-fed and well-cared for in an American society, courtesy of the American taxpayer! How can you possibly support shipping all those valuable nutrients to third world countries like UK and Germany when American citizens are dying without them? Not to mention all the CO2 emissions produced by planes flying them back.
Think of the children! Think of the environment!
the Queen's English committee folded yesterday
Many people have difficulties differentiating "their" and "there"
Just when we need someone to educate the public about proper English Grammar the committee folded !!
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
If they are valuable enough to import for their skills, then they are valuable enough to be granted citizenship on the spot. Otherwise, don't bother.
H1-B is an abomination.
Genuine talent should not be effectively enslaved to some American employer. At the very least a proper guest worker deserves an immediate green card and the right to work for any employer they choose. They should be on equal footing as any citizen.
No talent scabs should not even be allowed in the country.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
First, eliminate any advantages H-1Bs have over US workers. The most important thing to do is to make the visa stick to the employee, not the company. If the employee changes jobs, the visa (and any green card paperwork) moves with him, no restarting anything. If the employee is laid off or fired, he gets to stay if he finds another eligible job within X months. It's often claimed that employers prefer H-1B workers because they're essentially indentured; if they quit for another job, they risk losing the visa and have to re-start any green card paperwork.
Second -- and this one is much harder -- make sure these so-called skilled professionals are skilled. Too often a company will engage a whole bunch of cheap and unskilled H-1Bs from a body shop specializing in the practice, rather than hiring or contracting for a smaller number of much more expensive actual skilled people. There are a lot of skilled H-1Bs, but there's an order of magnitude more phonies.
I couldn't have said it better myself. In my situation, the guy we ended up hiring took the position for the rate we were offering. He was also employed at the time and left his job to come work for us. Salary was not a barrier to attracting qualified talent (once we found the talent).
Most of the people screaming "socialism" and fighting for tax cuts for the wealthy are precisely the sort of underskilled underemployed laborers that are being left behind by the new corporate mentality. Ironically they are the ones that need a little "socialism" to help pick up the slack.
I can just see them all defending the Soylent Corporation.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If you paid more, you would have more qualified people seeking you out. Clearly there is a problem, and it is with you.
Let me pose a different, axial question: why shouldn't the US invade their countries, steal their women, and pillage their natural resources (and hand-made carpets)? It's a similarly preposterous question, so I deem you should answer it.
In all seriousness, this is a stupid question. It's like the famous "let them eat cake" statement: completely ignorant of the situation, proposing a grand solution to a complicated and sensitive problem.
There is absolutely no reason why there should be much, if any, limitations on such highly skilled workers. I deem that the reality is that all of the leading questions asked by the OP should have a feel-good answer readily available to the lips and easily found within the immigration code of pretty much any country. The problem is quite the opposite, and compounded by other related issues. People, as described, don't actually make it into the US.
For instance: a highly skilled professional who would make $60-90k throughout most of the US (vs. in, say, the SF Bay area, where wages are grossly inflated) from Europe is fucked. S/he can't get in, in most cases. I know this because I've got quite a few acquaintances who have tried to do so, and have been unable to do so. They're specialized machinists with employment offers, IT professionals, and nurses with clean histories and in-demand skills. So ask yourself: why are people like them not allowed to immigrate to the US, either on temporary vistas or to become residents and citizens? Why does the 3rd world have a massively disproportionate number (no matter how you divide it up - per capita, per application, or some combination thereof) compared to Europe? Here's a hint: immigration in the US has become yet another form of global welfare the US "provides as a service", doing irreparable harm to the countries at the bottom first and foremost.
If we're not letting people like this into the country - while allowing people to flow in over the borders from Mexico and immigrate from North Africa and China at record levels (you know, those places in the globe which aren't actually all that culturally or politically friendly with the US), I'm glad we've got a problem with employment in the US.
And that's what it comes down to: There is no legal immigration which is working in the US. We're importing crime, impoverty, manual laborers, and a burgeoning welfare underclass. The other side of that is that we seem to be using affirmative action for India and China as well, allowing complete dipshits with fraudulent diplomas and CVs come over here and work $90k/year jobs at $45k. The State Department couldn't more actively sabotage national interests if they tried, quite literally.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
for anyone with any self respect to want to work for. Given his comments, I think I know how to vote.
you might find the source of all of your problems that way.
they think that everyone else should supply them whatever they want at the price they demand. I've fired more than one employer who couldn't believe that I wouldn't enjoy doing all of their work for them at way below market wages.
Exactly right. The structure has broken down because the concept of lifetime employment is dead. There was a time, not so long ago, when companies would hire kids out of college, train them, and provide them with a career with a good salary and benefits. And at the end of it you got a pension as gratitude for your service. Heck, my dad worked for Kodak for 35 years until the day he retired. He made a good living. They took care of him. Today, the idea of working even 3.5 years (never mind 35) at the same company is insane. Pensions - gone. Training - gone. If you work in high tech you can be certain that your job will be off-shored the instant some bean counter can justify it. Companies claim they can't find qualified people - bullshit. What they really mean is that they are unwilling to spend any money to train someone to do the job. They would rather hire some H1-B worker at a fraction of the salary and hold them captive for the duration of the visa. You realize that if you're on an H1-B and you leave the job you have to start the visa process all over again? And possibly have to leave the country to do it. Yeah - employers know that too. All to well. So they have a basically a captive labor force working cheap. If it doesn't work out then just can the guy and move on to the next H1-B application on the pile. That's why I contract. I work they pay me. No quarter asked, none given.
Yes we should not only allow educated immigrates to stay but we should encourage as many to come to the US as wish to come.
That said, the primary reason so much of the US economy needs these immigrants is because they outsourced their lower skilled jobs. With those positions outsourced it harder for domestic labor to get the experience to be useful in higher level jobs.
So I'd say do both. I don't know how to encourage businesses to hire more entry level workers rather then outsourcing them. It's a complex issue. But if they keep doing this our domestic labor force will have to leave the country to get experience in another country before they can come back. It's that or the welfare rolls expand.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I remember seeing ads in 2000-2002 time frame of companies wanting 7+ years of Java. If you were lucky - at a company that was an early adopter - you'd probably have 5-6 years tops. Unless of course your name was Gossling...
Labor has natural trade barriers due to geography and the lack of teleportation. Bridging these barriers may or may not be a good thing, but let's not pretend there is a freely flowing supply of workers even without government interference.
He is also not asking for trade barriers, he is asking for reasonable regulations that need to exist in a free market.
Cheap storage VM.
Companies would rather bring in exactly want they want (i.e. skills, no training at low pay) then actually expend some effort.
Subject says it all.
In Reason We Trust
Alan Greenspan was not shy about the motivation for increased STEM immigration: "We pay the highest skilled labor wages in the world. If we would open up our borders to skilled labor far more than we do, we would attract a very substantial quantity of skilled labor which would suppress the wage levels of the skilled..." http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2007/03/14/greenspan_let_more_skilled_immigrants_in/ The idea of STEM shortages is advanced to shave corporate costs. The AFL-CIO explains that there is no shortage. “ Between 2006 and 2007, the U.S. Department of Education and the Computing Research Association show that colleges and universities graduated more than 203,000 students with Bachelor’s, Master’s or Ph.D.s in the core disciplines of computer and information sciences, math and engineering and engineering technology. This number more than surpasses the 82,000 new jobs expected to be added in computer and mathematical science occupations during this time period." http://dpeaflcio.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Guest-Worker-Programs-and-STEM.pdf 22 million Americans are unemployed. Let's take care of them first, *then* start thinking about the rest of the world.
If you paid more, you would have more qualified people seeking you out.
Yeah, from outside the US.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
BULL FUCKING SHIT! CS unemployment? Dumbass, CS is the degree you have (or wish you have), NOT the job you lost!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
If they were being paid local market total compensation, their pay wouldn't be much of an issue.
If US tax-victims were not subsidizing foreign students' educations, and they were not learning US research methods, how to use or modify capital equipment developed in the USA, didn't have access to intellectual property developed in the USA, that wouldn't be much of an issue.
If all H-1B recipients were genuinely "best and brightest" and were paid at local "best and brightest" total compensation levels it wouldn't be much of an issue. If they were all truly "best and brightest" and stayed in the USA, became US citizens, refrained from spying or intellectual property theft or smuggling of US national security secrets, invested in the USA, created jobs for other US citizens, it wouldn't be an issue.
(I include those last 2 having recently read Gurcharan Das's book and noting his mentions of several "great entrepreneurs" who came from India to the USA, attended US colleges and universities, learned the ropes, gained access to information and technology and business contacts, then poured their US earnings and/or US investment funds and US technology and other intellectual property from the USA back into creating jobs and infrastructure in India. This is very good reason for the USA to make serious cuts in the numbers of student and guest-work and LPR visas.)
It's an issue because the vast majority of H-1B grantees are not "best" or "brightest", they're not doing work that requires above-average ability, they don't create jobs for US citizens, they aren't loyal to the USA, they're not paid local market compensation for the job, and because there is a glut (1.8 million or more) of able, knowledgeable, experienced US citizen STEM professionals who could be doing those jobs but instead are unemployed or under-employed, because they can't get a recruiter let alone a hiring manager to conscientiously read their resumes and make the small effort to evaluate their knowledge, intelligence, creativity, and industry. And then, of course, it's an issue because it would be nice for US citizens to actually be flown in (at this stage, a train or bus would do) within the USA for interviews as was common before the H-1B program. It would be nice if even the minority of H-1Bs sponsored for green cards, which many believe is a sign that they're a cut above the average H-1B, were paid salaries (total compensation is not reported) significantly above the median, or better, a compensation commensurate with being "best" or "brightest" as they claim. It would be nice if immigration lawyers were not engaging in bias against US citizens, advising clients to advertise those jobs in obscure places so that few capable US citizens will have the chance to apply, and otherwise to favor the person in the PERM process applying for the green card.
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For the last decade, there have been US employers demanding that US citizens travel hundreds of miles to another state, to work for 1-3 months, for less than the median -- no housing allowance, no travel allowance, no meal allowance or per diem to cover the extra expenses of such a working arrangement/circumstance. Why? Because of the talent glut and the bizarre expectations of executives, distorted by the existence of the F+OPT and H-1B and L-1 visa programs and the explosion in bodyshopping.
Making sure they're not criminals is not an "artificial" "non-free market" "barrier". It's good common sense.
The executives and their lobbyists and the immigration lawyers who just happen to make a good living from the visa applicants, have been claiming shortage since 1986, when they knew quite well, and most of the rest of the citizenry knew, that there was no evidence of a shortage, and no such evidence has been presented. That's fraud, and thus not "free market".
The executives have been fraudulently claiming that every H-1B recipient is "best and brightest", but the vast majority are neither. That's not "free market".
Either you initiate force or fraud, or you do not. But don't demand cheap, young, pliant labor with questionable ethics in one breath; conspire over means of rejecting every US applicant regardless of their ability and drive; and then complain about it not being an undistorted market, because YOU are the one distorting the markets.
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Define "hard". How easy or hard or cheap or expensive should it be?
In how many major daily papers did you advertise? Were they only classifieds or display ads? On how many web sites? In how many of those ads did you include your e-mail address and telephone number (not your immigration lawyers')? What percentage of candidates did you fly in for interviews? How much were you willing to invest in relocation? How much were you willing to invest in normal -- 2-12 week -- new-hire training? (For that matter, how much do you invest in retained employee training? Is it the 2-4 weeks that was the norm before H-1B?) Are 10% of your employees in training at any particular time, as was the case at Infosys back in 2000? Is that investment in employee training 5% or more of annual revenues as it was at Infosys? It should be more in comparison with such a low-life bodyshop.
Define "qualified". Are those "qualifications" reasonable or outrageous? "Qualified" is such a weasel word that it means nothing at all without extensive explanation (and the folks at Cohen and Grigsby made it widely known how much the word is abused). Credentials, for instance, should be mere corroboration, supporting evidence of likely ability and productivity, not a deal-killer. I've seen bright high school and college students doing professional-grade work in economics, science, engineering apps, data-base analysis and design, statistical analysis... Is it really one job or are you trying to get one person who is willing to do 3 or 4 jobs for 1 professional's compensation?
Are there ethical issues that may repulse self-respecting STEM professionals? Does the work involve privacy violations? Does it involve force or fraud or anything else shady? Does it involve something which would make it easier for others to cheat or violate privacy in some way?
Of course, the more interesting the work the more people are likely to want to do it. And the more interesting it is, the more likely they are to put up with poor working conditions, pay, risks, etc. If it's not interesting you'll get fewer nibbles and will have to offer better compensation. (Some kinds of risk can make work more interesting in the right circumstances, else we'd never have lumberjacks, commercial fishermen, farmers, or people to maintain radio and water towers and high-voltage lines. Hrmph, then again recent headlines suggest that some commerial fishing outfits have turned to slavery. I hope you're not trying that hard.)
In 1940 only 10% of Americans bothered to purchase health care insurance. The move to insurance and the insertion of unnecessary intermediaries, helped drive up prices, because at point of purchase only about 5% of actual costs were seen by the purchaser, the rest was hidden in the form of past insurance premium payments and in the buffering functions inherent in insurance. This meant that we were tempted to buy more than we could afford, or, looked at from the other side, allowed the prices to go up.
Sorry, can't be PC with the Subject; it won't fit.
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Academic credentials should not count for much in a point system, and the cap exemptions should be eliminated. I've seen too many people with PhDs and MBAs who were not very bright.
A proper background investigation would take care of most of the other concerns.
But, since the H-1B guest-workers are disingenuously represented as "best and brightest" we should hold them (the executives, lobbyists, immigration lawyers, and the guest-workers) to that standard.
You could set top 1% or 0.5% IQ standard or SAT or ACT or GRE or MCAT score as the minimum, and that would create incentives for various kinds of cheating which we'd have to expend other resources to squelch.
You could set a minimum number of patents, but then we'd get a lot of feeble patent applications, and, due to politics, a lot of them would be approved when they should not.
We could set the number of student visas at 20K per year, hard limit, no waivers or exemptions; and a number of H-1B visa at 2K per year -- no exemptions, no waivers, a hard cap; run background investigations and charge the costs; then auction off a proportional number of visas each month to the highest bidding applicants and/or sponsors. This would create something like market discipline, market pricing, but we still wouldn't necessarily be getting the "best and brightest".
So while you're competing with some nice Vietnamese kid for your job, are you going to enjoy the Vietnamese cost of living while you are doing so? Of course not.
So how does your post make any sense. You want an international "free market" on labor, but there is no international "free market" on housing or health care. That nice Vietnamese kid will take your job, and most of his earnings will be spent back home, where he sent them. As opposed to that money staying within your community if that paycheck was still going to you.
Young American: assume 5 to 6 figures in student loan debt for that technical degree.
Young Vietnamese: zero student loan debt because he went to a state school.
Young American: lifetime of paying American prices for goods, housing, health care.
Young Vietnamese: lifetime of paying a fraction of a percentage of that cost.
Young American: spend his money within the American economy.
Young Vietnamese: sends his money back home to his family.
End result: only rich assed rich Americans will get technical degrees in America, because they are the only ones who can afford it.
So on the low end Americans should have to compete with third world labor on manufacturing, and now they also have to compete with third word cost of education and standard of living on the high end as well? Just how many Americans are going to take on 5 or 6 figures in student loan debt and then have to compete with graduates from India or China who had.....none of those costs to deal with?