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IEEE: New H-1B Bill Will "Help Destroy" US Tech Workforce
dcblogs writes New legislation being pushed by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) to hike the H-1B visa cap is drawing criticism and warnings that it will lead to an increase in offshoring of tech jobs. IEEE-USA said the legislation, introduced by a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Tuesday, will "help destroy" the U.S. tech workforce with guest workers. Other critics, including Ron Hira, a professor of public policy at Howard University and a leading researcher on the issue, said the bill gives the tech industry "a huge increase in the supply of lower-cost foreign guest workers so they can undercut and replace American workers." Hira said this bill "will result in an exponential rise of American jobs being shipped overseas." Technically, the bill is a reintroduction of the earlier "I-Square" bill, but it includes enough revisions to be considered new. It increases the H-1B visa cap to 195,000 (instead of an earlier 300,000 cap), and eliminates the cap on people who earn an advanced degree in a STEM (science, technology, education and math) field. Hatch, who is the No. 2 ranking senator in the GOP-controlled chamber, was joined by co-sponsors Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) in backing the legislation."
See? They do work together! They are a team! The majority wants this. Don't even try to argue with them.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Explain to me how allowing more foreign workers to come to the US under H1B visas will increase offshoring? Surely not allowing people to work here is going to cause work to be sent overseas, not the other way around.
Every H1B worker I've met (including myself) wants to get a green card so they can live and work in the US permanently. At which point they are just as much part of the US tech workforce as a citizen who was born and raised here.
for senators? They may be cheap enough for ordinary people to bribe.
It's using the phrase "offshoring" to mean Americans losing jobs to cheaper foreign workers in general. Probably because by now everyone understands that "offshoring" == "bad".
It doesn't change the fact that the basic point (the death of American IT) is correct. If you can bring anyone in with an "Advanced STEM" degree then India will just open more schools to rubber stamp 'em. Race to the bottom.
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Being anti-H1B isn't protectionism.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
US Jobs Policy:
Step 1: Export tech jobs overseas to increase corporate profit
Step 2: Throw all low-skill immigrants back across the border
Step 3: Now US tech workers can get jobs doing lawn work, picking crops, and nannying.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
This has nothing to do with protectionism. Nobody is saying not let foreign software into the country.
As for foreign labor, I have no objection to bringing foreign labor in. My objection is kicking that labor out after it has gained experience. If there really was a tech worker shortage, these are the very workers we'd want to stay.
What this does is create a pool of offshore labor that's familiar with the work being done *here*. The obvious purpose is to use the immigration system to assist companies that want to relocate work overseas. And there's nothing special about American tech people; anything we can do can be done in India or Ukraine. That's fine, but I don't think the US government should be in the business of making it attractive for companies to move jobs overseas.
It's something so irrational (if we were to assume for the moment that the US government works for the welfare of the American people) there isn't even a word for it. It's the mirror image of protectionism. It's self-predation.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Yes. Just like here. Except less expensive. So actually not just like here. See how that works?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
1. Bring H1-B over to be trained and work.
2. Send back.
3. Open up foreign branch.
4. Reduce costs -> increased profit.
Model 2:
1. American company gets H1-Bs.
2. Sells services as "American" company (really important to government and politicians.)
3. Charge "American" fees.
3. Reduction in costs -> Increased profit.
I'd also like to point out that Hatch was the one who forced to FDA to reduce regulations on the supplement industry so that instead of having to prove their products work, the FDA has to prove they don't. And with state laws of Utah, there is a reason why the supplement industry is based in Utah. (see Bigger Stronger Faster
Meaning, I'm not saying he's corrupt, unethical, or anything like that. Or that he is a disgrace to the Senate and epitomizes everything wrong with our Congress and legislative system in the US and how they are all in the pockets of big business.
Nope. Not me.
For whatever reason, the summary chose to describe this bill in relation to a previous (failed) bill, rather than current law. The number that would have been meaningful in that sentence is the current cap; wikipedia indicates that it's 65,000, with caveats about a system of loopholes permitting an increasing figure over time.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
"Do the legislators really believe that, in doing this, US tech workers won't be negatively effected?"
Of course not. They really believe that, in doing this, they the legislators will be positively affected by means of their corporate patrons.
Politicians do the bidding of those who pay bribes
That's only true if the people watching (i.e. the voters) aren't paying attention. If we got together and voted out anyone who accepted bribes, then politicians would learn quickly.
If voters actively looked for the campaign platform of the person they voted for and ignored ads, then politicians wouldn't need contributions.
But we live in a world where people don't take democracy seriously, but vote anyway. Welcome to democracy, we (collectively) get what we deserve.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
( Being anti-H1B isn't protectionism.) Especially when other countries aren't just throwing their gates open to Americans. Last time I showed up to do a project in Canada I had to lie about the scope and they were clearly less than thrilled about my arrival. All developed countries that I'm aware of are at least moderately, if not highly cautious of allowing foreign workers. A playing field that isn't totally level, in this case is better than the alternative. We're busy telling our young people to go to college and get STEM degrees. We owe it to them to protect the jobs we are telling them are there and for which they are needed. I'm all for a robust global economy were all workers can earn a living in dignity, but not at the cost of losing the American middle class.
Yeah, majority of campaign contribution dollars...
Table-ized A.I.
There's more than one way for us to create situations that are "not what this country is about." The question at hand here is, is the value of the ideal of the free market for everyone, everywhere, regardless of consequences, more important than the idea that we here in the USA should be able to afford homes, transport, healthcare, safe neighborhoods and so forth. Your assertion of inflated wages is also questionable: how appropriate wages are has to be measured against cost of living, maintainance of a healthy lifestyle, home ownership, and so forth. The costs and social limits here are demonstrably different than in, for instance, China.
Protectionism has its place, and isolating the economies of strong countries from those of weak countries is one of them.
At this point, having seen the actual long term effects of our free trade policy, I am entirely for putting protectionism in place hard. If you want access to the US market, you live here, you mine it here, build it here, bank here, design it here -- period. We are resource rich in every way: we have raw materials, we have manpower, we have land, we have a potentially useful educational system and we have an ethos that matches job ethic with reward. Most importantly, with high trade barriers, we have the required market.
If we did this, we'd have our own semiconductor industries, our own electronics manufacturing industries, and so forth, for every category you can think of.
"Free trade" was put in place last century with good intentions and yes, a very American outlook, trying to extend the way we thought outside our own and operated borders. But that's not what happened. Only some of the economic mechanisms made it out. So now we have countries mostly unlike us in the sense that they have an ethos that matches job ethic only with the most basic day to day survival -- and they use that to severely undercut us. It's cheaper to buy prescription eyeglasses from China, ship them across the ocean by air and then across our own country, than it is to buy them here. Same for batteries, radios, displays, computers, iPods and tablets, jewelry, tech jobs, pretty much you name it.
It's not just price as a per-hour thing; I don't require a high per-hour wage, and I know some others of comparable skill who don't either. None of us are employable, though, based on various combinations of basically economic factors like age, health, family size and the like. None of this makes a significant difference when the hire doesn't have to be insured; that's another economic advantage which going outside the country for labor provides.
Look at Bethlehem, PA. At Detroit, MI. At Butte, Montana. Once you really see the wreckage caused by free trade, its very hard to have any confidence it's actually the right thing to do. Nice idea, yes -- but like many ideals, when put into practice, human nature alters the deal, Darth Vader style.
I say put the walls up, give it 20-30 years, or whatever it takes for our economy to recover from the miss-step, then slowly begin to let other countries in with a carefully crafted tariff system that normalizes their prices with the prices here. That way, competition is based upon quality. Not the wages of Chinese or Indian peasants living in hovels.
To indulge in a little metaphor, we offered our hand, and they burned it instead of shaking it. Time to pull it back. That's just the sane response. Right now, all we're doing is standing there, arm out, fingers burned off, waiting until the figurative fire burns our arms off to the shoulders. It doesn't help one bit to stand around saying "but our intentions were good!" Sure they were. But the intentions of corporations are not. The only way they are actually like people is that they act like sociopaths and
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
This article lists some H-1B employer fees. Let's increase that by $50,000 per year per "guest" employee. That should cut down on the number of employees who are brought here in order to save on wages.
However, some non-American hiring managers will want to hire only people from their own countries, because of feelings of patriotism for their countries. So we should have a law that states that "guest" hiring managers must hire at least 50% Americans, and that each year, the lowest starting salary of Americans that he/she hires must be higher than the highest starting salary of the non-Americans that he/she hires.
More importantly, isn:t capitalism great when you have non-monetary incentives to hold over people? The ability to deport workers works much better then benifits packages, and all those pesky US workers who can do things like change jobs and thus have competition are just too expensive.
Well, considering that I don't have a job, 65,000 seems like 65,000 too many. Since the current unemployment rate is about 6% (not including people who have fallen off the chart due to not being able to find a job within a certain amount of time.), and 193 million people between the ages of 18 and 64, it looks like we need to fill another 11.5 million jobs with American unemployed people before we allow any H1bs in.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
No it isn't. HIB is a slave status. Being against a slave status is not protectionism. It's classic American patriotism (Common Sense).
You are trying to conflate immigration in general with the HIB underclass status and they simply aren't the same thing.
If they're worth importing, they're worth treating right.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You forgot the fact that the cost of goods and services will never drop in half to match the salary drops. That equals profit. Why would they drop the profit?
Does apple drop the cost of the goods because they use cheap slave labor instead of making the products in the expensive US?
So enjoy your 10$ loaf of bread. It now only takes you 3 weeks to make that.
love the taste, hate the texture
For what it's worth, the legislation is called the "Immigration Innovation Act of 2015 (I-Squared Act of 2015)". Here's another article along with the senate press release and the bill itself.
It's hard to understand how disconnected they are from us and our daily concerns. They're representing their interests and the interests of everyone they know and meet. Senators, and the people who hang out with senators, don't have to worry about being outsourced. "Outsourcing" is something that makes people's business more successful and their bank accounts bigger. Why would you oppose it?
Or, if you're feeling cynical:
They're connected now, if they weren't already before. When the US turns into a third world shithole because of their actions, they'll be the feudal lords or safely relocate to a less distasteful locale. (Or at least they hope that's the case. Or they know they'll be dead before any sort of collapse and don't care what their lifestyle costs the chattel.) If they aren't so pampered and surrounded by sycophants to see the outcomes of their actions, they're just-world believers and think the displaced workers probably deserved being laid off.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
What did you say when shiny gadget manufacturer #1 announced that workers had better learn to "run against the robots"? And when shiny gadget manufacturer #2 exploited underage workers in dangerous sweatshops in China? I haven't read any comments about "unions turning the IT sector into another Detroit" on this page, but instead I now learn that government regulation is in "the true spirit of America, because it's againt slavery". If selling stuff in Spain but paying taxes to the British Virgin Islands is not only moraly acceptable, but even a duty, because it's in the interest of the investors, then why would hiring IT developers from abroad be any different?
Capitalism is about making money, and that's it. It's not a philosophy, it won't make your lives better by itself. And rightly so. It is a government's job to ensure that the interests of those making money proceed in harmony with the interests of a nation as a whole; to which extent is matter of debate. When the government turns out as an expression of those with the most money (bi-partisan agreements...) rather than the choice of informed voters, we'd better learn to love the "invisible hand" and wait for its positive effects on the economy to trickle down on us.
That article expresses one theory. Of course it doesn't mention the fact that the economy in Texas has been besting the national average since long before the shale boom. Since right about time we started electing Republican governors, of turns out.
But saying it doesn't make it so. You cite no metric, or evidence, or source to support - or even clearly define - your claim.
Lets take a look to see if this is real, or good old Texas bragging.
Since the current Republican hold on the governorship began with Bush in 1995, lets look at an actual chart of Texas relative performance. What we see is that the ratio of the Texas per capital GDP to that of the overall U.S. sank after 1997 (it did worse than the rest of the nation) and did not recover to its same relative economic performance until 2010, with the recovery occurring after 2006 --- or just at the time oil shale arrested Texas's declining oil production.
So no, your claim is a fantasy.
I charted the data and like looked anxiously to see which party had better economic growth. It turned out that both parties had years of high growth and low, all over the place. The chart made one thing very obvious, though. Economic growth had ALWAYS improved under every Republican administration, and always got worse under every Democrat administration's budgets. No exceptions.
My, my, my. What a nice little story. Full of angst, with a surprise, and to you, heart-warming ending.
It is a shame we have only your word that you didn't just, you know, make this all up. You cite no specific figures for any administration, or overall figures, that could be easily checked to see if you did any of the math correctly. I guess you figured that everyone would have to perform (I won't say "replicate") the whole analysis to check to see if you aren't just blowing smoke.
Problem is, lots of other people have done this exact same analysis, and consistently come to the opposite conclusion. Just try Googling it. Look for example at the Conservative British economics journal The Economist. Their analysis is interesting because they find it embarrassing to admit and look for ways to turn a silk purse into a pig's ear.
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