from a economic contribution point of view, skilled migrants contributes higher than average
That's true, if you look at one person in isolation. But what is the overall effect of hundreds of thousands of guest workers concentrated in a few fields? Despite the loud protestations of the billionaires who benefit from cheaper labor, there is no actual evidence of a shortage of Americans with the required skills. In other words, economic activity in these fields is limited by demand, not supply. Americans displaced by guest workers generally make less money than they would have, and wind up throwing away their investment in education. It does not increase the GDP per capita, and it exacerbates the gulf between billionaires and everyone else.
I can say I'm definitely oppressed in my home country. Same with any H1-B that comes from my country who is not of a particular religious background, which comprises of 40% of the population.
That's unfortunate, and I am aware of it. However, it doesn't generally rise to the level that would justify refugee status.
14-year-old basement dwellers may be the only Americans left with an appreciation of the Bill of Rights. Maybe that's the age when you learn about the Constitution in detail. I suggest everyone take an annual refresher course.
Tie H1B visas to the local tech unemployment rate and average salary rate for a given field.
Better yet, just get rid of it. We did fine as the world's tech leader without it for decades. For truly exceptional people there are always things like the 'O' series visas. People have become so brainwashed by the long existence of this program and the constant cries of "shortage" that they seem to think it serves some reasonable purpose. It doesn't.
Now to address some of the needs of the employers.
The employers have no special needs in this regard. Again, they did fine without it for decades. Amazing, isn't it?
"Shortages" are a normal part of a market system, if by shortage you mean the price goes up. It's the only way that salaries ever gain. Why is it ok for them to drop, but not rise? Besides, by the "rising price" standard there is no shortage.
It's also amazing how creative employers become in the case of a shortage, putting aside their prejudices because it was bad for business. Maybe they'd consider hiring someone over the age of 30, or who'd switched to another line of work for a few years, and need a couple of weeks to learn whatever language the company uses. Maybe they'd even consider not laying off everybody at the drop of a hat, because they'd realize that when business turned back up they'd be left short-handed. Hard for many people to believe these days, but once upon a time that was a standard and sensible business consideration. Any business person would have been considered incompetent for ignoring it.
The classic examples of "shortages overcome prejudices" are the world wars. With so many guys being drafted and such high war production needs, they got creative. In WWI northern manufacturers actually hired black people, and even sent agents down south to recruit them. In WWII it was women. Gosh golly, you mean somebody who pees sitting down can work in a factory? Who'd a thunk.
In the case of a real shortage, as indicated by, for example, programmer and engineer pay rising as fast as CEO pay, we can always temporarily bring back a guest worker program.
make the H1B visa program a fast track to citizenship for America. In four years you earn your citizenship and become a contributing member of society or your out.
Or you're out? We have never done that with LPR (legal permanent residents, aka green card holders). As long as you weren't convicted of a felony, you could stay the rest of your life (regardless of whether you became a citizen). Why do you want to change that now?
And as for the H-1B, it's a guest worker visa, not an immigration visa. Ditch the program entirely - historically we've had immigrants instead of "guest workers". As an LPR you can get your citizenship in five years. That's worked just fine since the first immigration law was passed by the first congress. Why do we suddenly need to change it? I like the American ideal of immigration.
Another historical aspect of immigration is that, with very few exceptions, employers were not allowed to make job offers to anyone who hadn't already immigrated. That's because people in the past weren't gullible enough to believe neo-liberal garbage about "shortages" and how it impeded business. They understood full well that a system that allowed employers to influence immigration would be abused by businesses looking for cheap labor. Looks like they were right.
I've gathered that language specific crap has gotten popular, judging from the number of "Java developer" or "C# developer" ads I see. It's ridiculous. No programmer worth his salt should have any trouble learning a new language. Pardon the old fart story, but I actually go back to a time before C was the programmer's lingua franca. I'd just learned the language, and was involved in hiring about a half dozen people for a new project that was going to use it. Not a one of our new hires knew it, and we really didn't care. Everybody came up to speed quickly, and it didn't impede the project at all.
Dang, I kind of like that. Self-driving cars also have the ability to dramatically increase road capacity too, if all the cars are self-driving. Short following distances, no ripple braking, optimal speed to maximize capacity.
They obviously haven't thought this through at all.
Sarcasm notwithstanding, I doubt they have "thought this through". Talked about it yeah, and probably concluded that that was a problem for phase 17 of the project, which is scheduled for??? Google has generated a lot of hype and buzz with their science project, but that doesn't mean it's even close to reality. Who have they given the cars to for test drives?
Best to detect that 4 foot "puddle" before you drive into it. Visual recognition? Water sensors that magically don't get false positives in a downpour or splashing through a 6 inch puddle? It's not easy. Maybe there's a reason why mostly people who live in sunny Silicon Valley are optimistic about this. Have they even taken it up into the mountains to try it in snow?
At least it can guarantee a safe crossing. That guarantee doesn't exist today. The police just need to enforce the law against obstructing traffic.
I'll give you the "guarantee that doesn't exist today", at least were self-driving cars are being used (and the crosswalk system has been installed and is working) but that still doesn't solve the issue of jaywalkers, kids running out into the street, intersections where the system isn't installed, etc. As for activating it, probably a simple "push to cross" system, as is used now at major intersections, would be best.
"Safe to do so" means the same as what it means at yellow lights.
No, that still doesn't answer handling the idiot (or kid) who practically jumps out in front of you. Jamb on the brakes even though there's a truck on your ass, swerve into a parked car, hope they flip over the hood cleanly? It's not simple.
Either a hand signal or standing in a pedestrian refuge area would indicate that traffic must stop
I'm sure that all pedestrians, including kids, will follow those rules. And no one, including kids, will loiter in the "pedestrian refuge area", thus screwing up the whole system.
traffic must stop if it is safe to do so
What does "safe to do so" mean, and what if some idiot jumps out into the road and it's not safe to stop?
We are trying to hire Java developers in Chicago for a salary range of 80k-120k and NOTHING. H1-B or not. The market is very tight.
Maybe the problem is that you're trying to hire "Java developers" instead of good programmers. That's a mentality that seems to have become pervasive. There was a time when people would be embarrassed to say they were looking for a "language X developer". I once interviewed at a place where the interviewer started to ask me about a specific language. Then he stopped himself right in the middle and said "sorry, stupid question".
Can't find somebody who knows your language du jour? Hire any decent programmer on a probationary basis. If they're not up to speed on the flavor-of-the-year in a month or two, then get rid of them. If you're not willing to invest or chance a month or two then you're not in serious need.
Then why are Microsoft, Amazon, Adobe, etc. located in the US? Software writing can be done anywhere in the world.
Microsoft, Amazon, Adobe, etc. are located here because they were founded here, and for all their talk of the joys of globalization, the founders and C-level execs don't want to emigrate to India. The real question is why do they write software here.
"Software writing" is not always something that can be done as well anywhere in the world. It's not like putting bolt A into hole B 400x per hour, where the task is repetitive and well defined. It's often important for people to understand what it's being used for and how. The idea of "write to this perfect spec" is utterly simplistic and unrealistic.
Ok, that's my $0.02. Why do you think they write software here? Do you disagree that programmers are cheaper elsewhere?
I thought this was a site of thinkers, geeks, not of xenophobic extremists.
Unfortunately you can find those idiots anywhere.
The only issue I take with H1-b is the treatment of said workers. This is a country that once prided itself on harboring the best and brightest from around the world, giving them shelter and refuge in exchange for their knowledge and experience. Now we give them nothing for that.
If we give them nothing, then why do they come here?
As far as your other points, you're going too far in playing up the myth of American immigration. First, the vast majority of H-1B's are not the "best and brightest". They may be competent, and reasonably well educated, but that doesn't put one in the "best and brightest" category. I'm good at what I do, but I'm not in that category.
Moreover, "shelter and refuge" are what you give refugees, not hi-tech guest workers. We're not talking about people who would be oppressed if they couldn't come here. As for "knowledge and experience", the experience part doesn't cut it, as many H-1B's come here (or stay here) fresh out of school. They do have knowledge, but unfortunately it's not of the kind that we don't already have plenty of. Unfortunately, and especially at a time like this when unemployment is still high, very few H-1B's have any skills or knowledge that can't be found amongst unemployed Americans.
We have been denigrating, insulting and making fun of civil servants for some 30 years now.
30 years? More like forever. I don't think that's the problem. TPTB make sure that government employees turn a blind eye to this. Any attempt to seriously cut through this garbage would lead to some very nasty phone calls from some very generous "campaign contributors".
Thank heavens for that, because almost half of the STEM Ph.D.'s in this country have jobs that justify their degrees. Anything else and we might actually see their pay rising! When that happened back in the 1980's the NSF wisely suggested a vast increase in student visas (with the express and stated purpose of driving down salaries).
So they can encourage foreign outsourcing? Doesn't anyone see this as having a negative impact on domestic unemployment?
No. Any job that can be offshored either has been or will be, because 3rd world countries are even cheaper than guest workers. The jobs remaining here are the ones that can't be offshored so readily.
Well we should be trying to get these people to come here and stay instead of cross training them, and sending them back so the previous employers can just pay them their foreign offshore rates.
Better yet, just eliminate the program completely. The US did fine for years as a tech leader without it. There has never been any justification for it, and with the current job market there's even less.
If you've got at least $1B, or regularly appear before bobbing heads on the news, you could say that 2+2=5 and have your views solemnly acknowledged and endorsed by the Very Serious People who discuss these issues.
Sure, but it won't do you any good. Any self-respecting company has legal staff that's seen the "How to not hire an American" video.
Interestingly, you can get links to that video from either DailyKos or Free Republic (actually the first two sites in a search) so you can see that the outrage covers a pretty broad part of the political spectrum. Not that our congress cares - we're just the @#%#^! voters and citizens of this country.
It will require the U.S. Labor Dept. to create a website of H-1B job openings that employers must post to. The jobs must be posted least 30 calendar days before hiring an H-1B applicant to fill that position. The bill also raises wages for H-1B workers to make them more competitive, although the amount wasn't specified.
Pure window dressing. Is there anyone dumb enough to think this will make a difference? The H-1B has had various "comparable wages" and "no American worker available" provisions for years. It's meaningless because it's never enforced, and I don't expect any magic pixie dust in this bill to change that.
One provision that will affect India, in particular, limits H-1B visa use to 50% of a firm's U.S. workforce.
This may actually have some effect, but it's frightening to say that. A crackdown means limiting it to 50% of a company's U.S. workforce? U.S. does mean United States, right?
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from a economic contribution point of view, skilled migrants contributes higher than average
That's true, if you look at one person in isolation. But what is the overall effect of hundreds of thousands of guest workers concentrated in a few fields? Despite the loud protestations of the billionaires who benefit from cheaper labor, there is no actual evidence of a shortage of Americans with the required skills. In other words, economic activity in these fields is limited by demand, not supply. Americans displaced by guest workers generally make less money than they would have, and wind up throwing away their investment in education. It does not increase the GDP per capita, and it exacerbates the gulf between billionaires and everyone else.
I can say I'm definitely oppressed in my home country. Same with any H1-B that comes from my country who is not of a particular religious background, which comprises of 40% of the population.
That's unfortunate, and I am aware of it. However, it doesn't generally rise to the level that would justify refugee status.
And you call that nothing? What's your point?
14-year-old basement dwellers may be the only Americans left with an appreciation of the Bill of Rights. Maybe that's the age when you learn about the Constitution in detail. I suggest everyone take an annual refresher course.
Sounds good to me.
Tie H1B visas to the local tech unemployment rate and average salary rate for a given field.
Better yet, just get rid of it. We did fine as the world's tech leader without it for decades. For truly exceptional people there are always things like the 'O' series visas. People have become so brainwashed by the long existence of this program and the constant cries of "shortage" that they seem to think it serves some reasonable purpose. It doesn't.
Now to address some of the needs of the employers.
The employers have no special needs in this regard. Again, they did fine without it for decades. Amazing, isn't it?
"Shortages" are a normal part of a market system, if by shortage you mean the price goes up. It's the only way that salaries ever gain. Why is it ok for them to drop, but not rise? Besides, by the "rising price" standard there is no shortage.
It's also amazing how creative employers become in the case of a shortage, putting aside their prejudices because it was bad for business. Maybe they'd consider hiring someone over the age of 30, or who'd switched to another line of work for a few years, and need a couple of weeks to learn whatever language the company uses. Maybe they'd even consider not laying off everybody at the drop of a hat, because they'd realize that when business turned back up they'd be left short-handed. Hard for many people to believe these days, but once upon a time that was a standard and sensible business consideration. Any business person would have been considered incompetent for ignoring it.
The classic examples of "shortages overcome prejudices" are the world wars. With so many guys being drafted and such high war production needs, they got creative. In WWI northern manufacturers actually hired black people, and even sent agents down south to recruit them. In WWII it was women. Gosh golly, you mean somebody who pees sitting down can work in a factory? Who'd a thunk.
In the case of a real shortage, as indicated by, for example, programmer and engineer pay rising as fast as CEO pay, we can always temporarily bring back a guest worker program.
make the H1B visa program a fast track to citizenship for America. In four years you earn your citizenship and become a contributing member of society or your out.
Or you're out? We have never done that with LPR (legal permanent residents, aka green card holders). As long as you weren't convicted of a felony, you could stay the rest of your life (regardless of whether you became a citizen). Why do you want to change that now?
And as for the H-1B, it's a guest worker visa, not an immigration visa. Ditch the program entirely - historically we've had immigrants instead of "guest workers". As an LPR you can get your citizenship in five years. That's worked just fine since the first immigration law was passed by the first congress. Why do we suddenly need to change it? I like the American ideal of immigration.
Another historical aspect of immigration is that, with very few exceptions, employers were not allowed to make job offers to anyone who hadn't already immigrated. That's because people in the past weren't gullible enough to believe neo-liberal garbage about "shortages" and how it impeded business. They understood full well that a system that allowed employers to influence immigration would be abused by businesses looking for cheap labor. Looks like they were right.
I've gathered that language specific crap has gotten popular, judging from the number of "Java developer" or "C# developer" ads I see. It's ridiculous. No programmer worth his salt should have any trouble learning a new language. Pardon the old fart story, but I actually go back to a time before C was the programmer's lingua franca. I'd just learned the language, and was involved in hiring about a half dozen people for a new project that was going to use it. Not a one of our new hires knew it, and we really didn't care. Everybody came up to speed quickly, and it didn't impede the project at all.
Dang, I kind of like that. Self-driving cars also have the ability to dramatically increase road capacity too, if all the cars are self-driving. Short following distances, no ripple braking, optimal speed to maximize capacity.
Mod parent up +10: funny and insightful.
I completely agree with your comment, but as a lifelong urban/suburban person, I have to ask what a "cattle grate" is.
They obviously haven't thought this through at all.
Sarcasm notwithstanding, I doubt they have "thought this through". Talked about it yeah, and probably concluded that that was a problem for phase 17 of the project, which is scheduled for??? Google has generated a lot of hype and buzz with their science project, but that doesn't mean it's even close to reality. Who have they given the cars to for test drives?
Best to detect that 4 foot "puddle" before you drive into it. Visual recognition? Water sensors that magically don't get false positives in a downpour or splashing through a 6 inch puddle? It's not easy. Maybe there's a reason why mostly people who live in sunny Silicon Valley are optimistic about this. Have they even taken it up into the mountains to try it in snow?
At least it can guarantee a safe crossing. That guarantee doesn't exist today. The police just need to enforce the law against obstructing traffic.
I'll give you the "guarantee that doesn't exist today", at least were self-driving cars are being used (and the crosswalk system has been installed and is working) but that still doesn't solve the issue of jaywalkers, kids running out into the street, intersections where the system isn't installed, etc. As for activating it, probably a simple "push to cross" system, as is used now at major intersections, would be best.
"Safe to do so" means the same as what it means at yellow lights.
No, that still doesn't answer handling the idiot (or kid) who practically jumps out in front of you. Jamb on the brakes even though there's a truck on your ass, swerve into a parked car, hope they flip over the hood cleanly? It's not simple.
Either a hand signal or standing in a pedestrian refuge area would indicate that traffic must stop
I'm sure that all pedestrians, including kids, will follow those rules. And no one, including kids, will loiter in the "pedestrian refuge area", thus screwing up the whole system.
traffic must stop if it is safe to do so
What does "safe to do so" mean, and what if some idiot jumps out into the road and it's not safe to stop?
We are trying to hire Java developers in Chicago for a salary range of 80k-120k and NOTHING. H1-B or not. The market is very tight.
Maybe the problem is that you're trying to hire "Java developers" instead of good programmers. That's a mentality that seems to have become pervasive. There was a time when people would be embarrassed to say they were looking for a "language X developer". I once interviewed at a place where the interviewer started to ask me about a specific language. Then he stopped himself right in the middle and said "sorry, stupid question".
Can't find somebody who knows your language du jour? Hire any decent programmer on a probationary basis. If they're not up to speed on the flavor-of-the-year in a month or two, then get rid of them. If you're not willing to invest or chance a month or two then you're not in serious need.
Then why are Microsoft, Amazon, Adobe, etc. located in the US? Software writing can be done anywhere in the world.
Microsoft, Amazon, Adobe, etc. are located here because they were founded here, and for all their talk of the joys of globalization, the founders and C-level execs don't want to emigrate to India. The real question is why do they write software here.
"Software writing" is not always something that can be done as well anywhere in the world. It's not like putting bolt A into hole B 400x per hour, where the task is repetitive and well defined. It's often important for people to understand what it's being used for and how. The idea of "write to this perfect spec" is utterly simplistic and unrealistic.
Ok, that's my $0.02. Why do you think they write software here? Do you disagree that programmers are cheaper elsewhere?
I thought this was a site of thinkers, geeks, not of xenophobic extremists.
Unfortunately you can find those idiots anywhere.
The only issue I take with H1-b is the treatment of said workers. This is a country that once prided itself on harboring the best and brightest from around the world, giving them shelter and refuge in exchange for their knowledge and experience. Now we give them nothing for that.
If we give them nothing, then why do they come here?
As far as your other points, you're going too far in playing up the myth of American immigration. First, the vast majority of H-1B's are not the "best and brightest". They may be competent, and reasonably well educated, but that doesn't put one in the "best and brightest" category. I'm good at what I do, but I'm not in that category.
Moreover, "shelter and refuge" are what you give refugees, not hi-tech guest workers. We're not talking about people who would be oppressed if they couldn't come here. As for "knowledge and experience", the experience part doesn't cut it, as many H-1B's come here (or stay here) fresh out of school. They do have knowledge, but unfortunately it's not of the kind that we don't already have plenty of. Unfortunately, and especially at a time like this when unemployment is still high, very few H-1B's have any skills or knowledge that can't be found amongst unemployed Americans.
The main problem is skill fragmentation.
No, you had it right with "companies find ways to work around this". The job requirements are a scam.
We have been denigrating, insulting and making fun of civil servants for some 30 years now.
30 years? More like forever. I don't think that's the problem. TPTB make sure that government employees turn a blind eye to this. Any attempt to seriously cut through this garbage would lead to some very nasty phone calls from some very generous "campaign contributors".
Ph D in STEM can already do that.
Thank heavens for that, because almost half of the STEM Ph.D.'s in this country have jobs that justify their degrees. Anything else and we might actually see their pay rising! When that happened back in the 1980's the NSF wisely suggested a vast increase in student visas (with the express and stated purpose of driving down salaries).
Be reasonable, that affects the Great and Holy Intellectual Property that's the wealth of our nation. We're merely citizens.
So they can encourage foreign outsourcing? Doesn't anyone see this as having a negative impact on domestic unemployment?
No. Any job that can be offshored either has been or will be, because 3rd world countries are even cheaper than guest workers. The jobs remaining here are the ones that can't be offshored so readily.
Well we should be trying to get these people to come here and stay instead of cross training them, and sending them back so the previous employers can just pay them their foreign offshore rates.
Better yet, just eliminate the program completely. The US did fine for years as a tech leader without it. There has never been any justification for it, and with the current job market there's even less.
If you've got at least $1B, or regularly appear before bobbing heads on the news, you could say that 2+2=5 and have your views solemnly acknowledged and endorsed by the Very Serious People who discuss these issues.
Sure, but it won't do you any good. Any self-respecting company has legal staff that's seen the "How to not hire an American" video.
Interestingly, you can get links to that video from either DailyKos or Free Republic (actually the first two sites in a search) so you can see that the outrage covers a pretty broad part of the political spectrum. Not that our congress cares - we're just the @#%#^! voters and citizens of this country.
It will require the U.S. Labor Dept. to create a website of H-1B job openings that employers must post to. The jobs must be posted least 30 calendar days before hiring an H-1B applicant to fill that position. The bill also raises wages for H-1B workers to make them more competitive, although the amount wasn't specified.
Pure window dressing. Is there anyone dumb enough to think this will make a difference? The H-1B has had various "comparable wages" and "no American worker available" provisions for years. It's meaningless because it's never enforced, and I don't expect any magic pixie dust in this bill to change that.
One provision that will affect India, in particular, limits H-1B visa use to 50% of a firm's U.S. workforce.
This may actually have some effect, but it's frightening to say that. A crackdown means limiting it to 50% of a company's U.S. workforce? U.S. does mean United States, right?