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Researchers Say the Tech Worker Shortage Doesn't Really Exist
Beeftopia sends this excerpt from an article at BusinessWeek:
"There’s no evidence of any way, shape, or form that there’s a shortage in the conventional sense," says Hal Salzman, a professor of planning and public policy at Rutgers University. "They may not be able to find them at the price they want. But I’m not sure that qualifies as a shortage, any more than my not being able to find a half-priced TV." ... The real issue, say Salzman and others, is the industry’s desire for lower-wage, more-exploitable guest workers, not a lack of available American staff. "It seems pretty clear that the industry just wants lower-cost labor," Dean Baker, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, wrote in an e-mail. A 2011 review (PDF) by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that the H-1B visa program, which is what industry groups are lobbying to expand, had "fragmented and restricted" oversight that weakened its ostensible labor standards. "Many in the tech industry are using it for cheaper, indentured labor," says Rochester Institute of Technology public policy associate professor Ron Hira, an EPI research associate and co-author of the book Outsourcing America.
All of the tech industries behavior point to a desire to keep wages lower than what they would pay in an open market.
Uh ... no. An "open market" would mean NO limits on visas. Anyone would be free to come here and compete with you.
So by open market you mean protected local labor market?
Reread the previous post. Nothing about reducing H1-Bs. Maybe that's the end game for the previous poster, but greatly reducing the indentured servitude aspect of an H1-B visa (especially while saying nothing about reducing the number of H1-Bs!) doesn't restrict the labor pool.