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Evidence That H-1B Holders Don't Replace US Workers
Okian Warrior writes: In response to Donald Trump's allegations that H1B visas drive Americans out of jobs, The Huffington Post points to this study which refutes that claim. From the study: "But the data show that over the last decade, as businesses have requested more H-1Bs, they also expanded jobs for Americans." This seems to fly in the face of reason, consensus opinion, and numerous anecdotal reports. Is this report accurate? Have we been concerned over nothing these past few years? Remember, this is about aggregates, rather than whether some specific job has been replaced.
Also, remember that part of the fight is about _expanding_ the pool of H1-Bs. From the pov of the employers, if current levels of H1Bs mean they aren't getting cheaper labor, then clearly they don't have enough H1-Bs. The study doesn't project what would happen if the number were increased substantially.
This is BS. The author of TFA is using the third type of lie, statistics, to suggest that H-1Bs aren't having a negative affect, by setting up a strawman argument. Sure, H-1Bs may not increase unemployment, IN AGGREGATE. But that's as easy as saying, "Well, Initech replaced 50 American coders with H-1Bs, but there's a new McDonalds open down the road that hired 60 people at minimum wage, so unemployment is down!"
There was no mention of salaries, benefits, much less anything specific to particular fields, not even "IT." At most he made an argument that "STEM grads are less likely to be unemployed" but that means nothing, because that can still be true even if they're not being given the opportunities they should.
Any other day and HuffPo would be telling us about the horrors of H1B abuse by large corporations. However, if it means furthering the narrative that Trump is bad, then suddenly H1Bs are good.
It means there's more demand for CHEAPER skilled workers than the native talent pool has.
There is ALWAYS demand for less expensive labor. Sometimes it isn't available. Sometimes companies engage in measures to reduce labor costs. Importing cheaper labor is fundamentally no different than offshoring the work. The basic goal is the same - to reduce labor costs. I run a manufacturing company and we do all our work domestically and pay as much as we can but our competition does a lot of their work in Central America or China so we really cannot compete on jobs with a high labor content unless there are special requirements like engineering help or just in time delivery. We simply cannot pay much more than we do and remain competitive.
Some companies are obviously engaged in some shady tactics to keep labor costs down. The tactics may be reprehensible but the fact that they are trying to contain labor costs should surprise no one. In a competitive market companies HAVE to try to do that. It's particularly galling though when the company has huge profit margins like Microsoft or Facebook does. A low margin manufacturing company might go out of business if they don't keep a tight lid on labor costs. A hugely profitable tech company has no such excuse.
I've heard stories from a technical director at a major American firm where they'd reject PHDs simply because they were worried they'd leave for higher paying jobs elsewhere.
It's not just PHDs. I have a pair of masters degrees and I've been told point-blank during interviews that they were afraid I would get bored and leave or seek higher paying work. It's incredibly short sighted but it happens pretty routinely.
Well, of course. Every foreign worker hired is a job that doesn't go to an American worker.
Claiming that hiring foreign workers doesn't take jobs away from American workers is bizzaro logic at its best. Its the same bizzaro logic that said shutting down factories and sending millions of jobs to Mexico and China creates job for American workers.
More importantly, the claim that these are "highly skilled workers" is a lie that insults our intelligence.
Why is it that all of these "highly skilled workers" come from the same place - a country where a huge percentage of the population is illiterate and lives in poverty far beyond anything that exists in the U.S. A country where 350 million people, more than the entire population of the U.S., shit in public because they don't have access to a toilet. How is it possible that such a country is producing such huge numbers of "highly skilled workers"?
That's right, it isn't possible. The only "skill" they possess is a willingness to work for low wages. And since the H1-B program is nothing more than legalized indentured servitude, companies can do anything they want without feat of being reported by the workers.
Any other day and HuffPo would be telling us about the horrors of H1B abuse by large corporations. However, if it means furthering the narrative that Trump is bad, then suddenly H1Bs are good.
Someone finally states the correct spin of the article. I doesn't matter who funded the study or why, it's needed to attack Trump.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.