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Trump’s Next Move on Immigration to Hit Closer to Home for Tech

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Re: Trump’s Next Move on Immigration to Hit Closer to Home for Tech

#51

Post by onion2k »

UK-AL wrote: post #27
onion2k wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a company can't recruit an immigrant worker on a visa they'll try recruit one of the currently unemployed local developers on the exact same package the immigrant would have been on. That has no impact on wages. If the job required a unique talent that would only have been possible to fill with an exceptionally talented immigrant worker then the job won't be filled, and the company will be consequently less compet…

Surely if companies are desperate for developers, there would be very few unemployed developers.

If local wages are high then it's possible for companies to be desperate for workers and for there to be high levels of unemployment. For example, if someone adds $50k to the company's bottom line then paying them more than $50k represents a loss.

This is actually one of the tech industries biggest challenges - how do you drive the cost of products down to compete in the marketplace when producing software costs so much due to high wages. The simplest answer is to drive wages down by recruiting immigrants. The long term answer is increase the pool of available labor by pushing for children to learn to code at school.

Re: Trump’s Next Move on Immigration to Hit Closer to Home for Tech

#52

Post by icebraining »

throwaway_374 wrote: post #43
yummyfajitas wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current way of doing things is great for some companies and for customers who want to save money on IT services but I believe it does undermine wages (for Americans and others) Why do we care about increasing inequality and increasing costs to consumers by protecting high-wage American workers from foreign competition? and being on a visa tied to a company just opens up foreign developers to abuse I'd love to hea…

" increasing costs to consumers by protecting high-wage American workers from foreign competition?" Sorry I have to disagree, I am the most vehement loather of Trump and his fan base but fundamentally this just encourages a race to the bottom, does it not?

In the same way that California allowing workers from other states. Some industries already have state-specific licensing requirements, maybe the software industry should too, to keep the riff-raff from flyover country from lowering their wages.

Re: Trump’s Next Move on Immigration to Hit Closer to Home for Tech

#53

Post by rando444 »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #36
ajeet_dhaliwal wrote: post #8

I don't live in the USA currently but I have worked there before on a visa and I think the current system does require some sort of an overhaul. The current way of doing things is great for some companies and for customers who want to save money on IT services but I believe it does undermine wages (for Americans and others) and being on a visa tied to a company just opens up foreign developers to abuse (not the horri…

The current way of doing things is great for some companies and for customers who want to save money on IT services but I believe it does undermine wages (for Americans and others) Why do we care about increasing inequality and increasing costs to consumers by protecting high-wage American workers from foreign competition? and being on a visa tied to a company just opens up foreign developers to abuse I'd love to hea…

Here are some good examples:

https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-egregious-examples-of-H1...

Re: Trump’s Next Move on Immigration to Hit Closer to Home for Tech

#55

Post by moomin »

Disclosure: my wife used to be on a work-permit scheme similar to H1B.

The problem with all of these schemes is they're tied to a particular job. You give up that job, your right to remain is toast. This makes it hard to move to competitors and artificially depresses wages. In turn, this artificially affects native workers in the same industry.

I think the solution here is more capitalism, not more government. Anyone coming to work shouldn't be limited in who they work for. You'd find this flow of cheap labour dry up awfully fast if they could get better jobs.

Re: Trump’s Next Move on Immigration to Hit Closer to Home for Tech

#56

Post by yummyfajitas »

throwaway_374 wrote: post #43
yummyfajitas wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current way of doing things is great for some companies and for customers who want to save money on IT services but I believe it does undermine wages (for Americans and others) Why do we care about increasing inequality and increasing costs to consumers by protecting high-wage American workers from foreign competition? and being on a visa tied to a company just opens up foreign developers to abuse I'd love to hea…

" increasing costs to consumers by protecting high-wage American workers from foreign competition?" Sorry I have to disagree, I am the most vehement loather of Trump and his fan base but fundamentally this just encourages a race to the bottom, does it not?

Allowing competition between whites and negroes (by ending Jim Crow, Davis Bacon and similar laws) also encourages a race to the bottom. Do you have any principled reason for opposing those laws?

(Note: I'm not calling you "racist" - that's a slur that has lost all meaning these days. I'm taking a policy I'm pretty sure you oppose and asking you for a principled reason why you oppose it.)

Re: Trump’s Next Move on Immigration to Hit Closer to Home for Tech

#57

Post by hocuspocus »

anjc wrote: post #40
onion2k wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a company can't recruit an immigrant worker on a visa they'll try recruit one of the currently unemployed local developers on the exact same package the immigrant would have been on. That has no impact on wages. If the job required a unique talent that would only have been possible to fill with an exceptionally talented immigrant worker then the job won't be filled, and the company will be consequently less compet…

Why would it drive wages down?! It'd be the exact opposite, and is the reason that wages have been stagnant in STEM, and is the reason for the wage collusion scandal. Companies would have to increase their offers to attract talent from other companies. Or they would have to - as used to be the case everywhere - accept that talent is nurtured from within.

IT services aren't STEM.

The wage collusion scandal happened at a time where yearly H-1B quotas were typically not met! (Edit: I'm wrong, they were met, but much more slowly than they are today, no lottery needed back then). Today there's roughly 4 times more applications than visas delivered through the lottery, and the wages in tech have never been so high. If you get screwed by your employer within the framework of labor laws, don't blame it on immigration.

Re: Trump’s Next Move on Immigration to Hit Closer to Home for Tech

#58

Post by jijji »

The u.s. is over populated with low paid indian and asian workers from the h1-b program. About time someone tried to fix it. You goto a job interview and if you don't speak hindi or mandarin you cant get hired because you wont be able to talk to your coworkers. Lol

Re: Trump’s Next Move on Immigration to Hit Closer to Home for Tech

#59

Post by mjmsmith »

Chris2048 wrote: post #38
kitsune_ wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it is horrible. Why limit your professional life, team, workplace and day to day exchanges to a tiny pool of people when there are billions of people who inhabit planet earth.

Reciprocity. People you have fewer bonds/relationships with are less likely to reciprocate, and more likely to compete. > a tiny pool of people Are you talking about the US (dev) population?

This assumes that shared nationality is going to make for stronger bonds. The way things are going, the opposite might be true.

Re: Trump’s Next Move on Immigration to Hit Closer to Home for Tech

#60

Post by threeseed »

rocqua wrote: post #49

As a European soon leaving university, and entering the job market, this makes working in the US more attractive. Before I'd written it off, as the competition for H1-B visas is fierce. However, with luck this change will be aimed exactly at people like me. This makes the high-wages and innovation of the US look much more appealing. There remains the downside of US politics in general and labor protection specificall…

Honestly I don't really think anything will change for you.

You are still going to be struggling to find work without at least some experience. Unless of course you enter a graduate program which is seperate from the rest of the job market.

Many companies are simply ill-equipped or unwilling to invest in training young developers. Especially in SV where the pace and intensity is so much higher.

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