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How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

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Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#381

Post by johncolanduoni »

Retric wrote: post #375
wan23 wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that this is a problem caused by government regulations interfering with supply and demand. If there is a business that's willing to pay for a worker and worker willing to take the job then it should be good for the economy for that match to happen. However, in this case immigration regulations sometimes make the supply lower than the demand. Sure, that makes the price go up and that's good for workers b…

Companies are free to higher Canadian workers in Canida etc. You can even get an Indian worker in Mexico and import the results free of charge. But, limiting immigration is one of the fundamental functions of government, and it's not going away any time soon. PS: I also somehow doubt you would be OK with al qaeda corp setting up shop an then importing large number of people.

So the US wasn't a government until 1875 when the first immigration law was passed?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page_Act_of_1875

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#382

Post by adrienne »

nulldevz wrote: post #121
whatever_dude wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The H1B as it is has many problems, but a big salary floor is not the way to go in my opinion. Remember H1B is not just for tech workers. If you want to hire, say, an interpreter of a specific foreign language to work on a community in rural Alabama temporarily, a $100,000 minimum wage would be absurd. They instead need to go after the companies that learned to game the system. I'm not sure what the solution is here.…

> They instead need to go after the companies that learned to game the system. I'm not sure if there's a way to prevent global labor arbitrage. Multinational corporations will shift labor to countries with the lowest wages. Perhaps they should put a multiplying factor on payroll taxes that's proportional to the total non-US labor wages paid (directly or indirectly) for producing a product. All expenses should be defa…

There absolutely is: free movement of labor. Unfortunately that's the solution capitalists absolutely will not countenance, and they will happily stoke xenophobia and buy off the most reactionary elements of government in order to keep it from becoming a reality.

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#383

Post by someguydave »

gumby wrote: post #286
waqf wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, what is the aim of the H1B program? You appear to have raised that question, and then shied away from that phrasing in your answer.

> Ok, what is the aim of the H1B program? It is to make it possible for foreigners to provide work to US organizations when no local person is available. I have hired many many people on H1s. It was always a hire of last resort: when we could not find someone local. It always cost us a lot more than a local person: in both legal fees and procedural fees (you need to verify that the salary you are paying is not lower…

>But the system does need an escape mechanism when nobody local can do the work.

I submit that there is no work in the US that can't be done by a US citizen. The problem isn't "finding someone" the problem is "finding someone at the below-market-rate wage we want to pay"

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#384

Post by gumby »

someguydave wrote: post #383
gumby wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ok, what is the aim of the H1B program? It is to make it possible for foreigners to provide work to US organizations when no local person is available. I have hired many many people on H1s. It was always a hire of last resort: when we could not find someone local. It always cost us a lot more than a local person: in both legal fees and procedural fees (you need to verify that the salary you are paying is not lower…

>But the system does need an escape mechanism when nobody local can do the work. I submit that there is no work in the US that can't be done by a US citizen. The problem isn't "finding someone" the problem is "finding someone at the below-market-rate wage we want to pay"

> I submit that there is no work in the US that can't be done by a US citizen.

In another thread to this article I gave an example of a teacher for a German school -- native speaker, experienced in teaching the German state curriculum. A few such people have moved here and indeed we hired them, but mostly they had to come in on H-1.

There are certainly medical specialties for which there is a shortage of available doctors or nurses, in particular outside the cities.

And you really believe that there is a US citizen expert in every possible discipline in every possible location?

> The problem isn't "finding someone" the problem is "finding someone at the below-market-rate wage we want to pay"

In the very comment to which you were replying I just said we pay more for H-1 workers, in both time and money (and salary -- the labor conditions verification makes sure that's the case. Why do you assume they come in at below market wages? Have you ever hired one? In my experience it's impossible to do, at least for a startup.

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#385

Post by netc »

Retric wrote: post #194
johncolanduoni wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the market rate of a translator for an uncommon language in Alabama? Where are you getting your data that suggests $100k is not dramatically above market rates for any job where there is a lack of domestic talent and a surplus of foreign talent? Median personal income in the US is $30k, so I don't think it's fair to assume every job is like tech and has market rates in anywhere near the same place.

Are there people in the US who know the language and are not willing to move to Alabama for 95k? Then the market has spoken. The entire point of capitalism is not everyone get's what they want and price how that is decided.

>The entire point of capitalism is not everyone get's what they want and price how that is decided.

You mean protected capitalism - protected by artificial minimum wages put in place by government?

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#386

Post by intopieces »

testUser69 wrote: post #88

Americas "tech dominance" threatens the breadbasket. The coastal areas, mostly certain cities, have become "international" and any worker from a rural area who wants to earn a living wage doing a technical job (e.g. STEM) now not only has to compete with other Americans, but everyone in the world. What exactly do the elites expect people in the breadbasket to do? If America is an international country then we're goin…

>they must hire two rural American workers from a community that's average income is less than the national median.

What makes you think two rural Americans per one non-rural want to work for a tech company? Talk about condescending. Rural Americans don't need the charity of American tech workers on the coast. They can figure their livelihoods out themselves just fine, seeing as they've been doing it for centuries.

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#387

Post by DrScump »

Retric wrote: post #375
wan23 wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that this is a problem caused by government regulations interfering with supply and demand. If there is a business that's willing to pay for a worker and worker willing to take the job then it should be good for the economy for that match to happen. However, in this case immigration regulations sometimes make the supply lower than the demand. Sure, that makes the price go up and that's good for workers b…

Companies are free to higher Canadian workers in Canida etc. You can even get an Indian worker in Mexico and import the results free of charge. But, limiting immigration is one of the fundamental functions of government, and it's not going away any time soon. PS: I also somehow doubt you would be OK with al qaeda corp setting up shop an then importing large number of people.

  You can even get an Indian worker in Mexico
Have you actually researched Mexican immigration law?

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#388

Post by DrScump »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #147
hungrygs wrote: post #28

The general direction of the Trump plan regarding H-1b is the way to go. The lottery needs to be replaced with a demand system where the highest salaries get slots. A floor of $100,000/yr should exist and adjust for inflation. Next, generously expand the green card fast track, as this category of employee, as an immigrant, is a free agent to move among companies or to start their own business. To date, as we all know…

>To date, as we all know, the H-1b system has primarily been used to arbitrage for lower wage by Indian companies This isn't really true, or it is, but only in high profile yet minority cases. H1B abuse is more about hiring someone at near competitive wages and telling them they're working 60 hour weeks and slowly getting rid of native workers who won't stand for that. So now your IT department is 12 people instead o…

  near competitive wages and telling them they're working 60 hour weeks
"wage(s)" implies pay per hour worked. If you're spreading "near competitive" wages across a 50% longer workweek, the per-hour isn't actually competitive, is it?

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#389

Post by DrScump »

dragonwriter wrote: post #241
peterchon wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't you hire remote employees? is it imperative that the employee be present? Considering that SF is the most expensive place to live, why would anyone want to move there? especially if you have family?

> Considering that SF is the most expensive place to live, why would anyone want to move there? SF is the most expensive place to live because people want to move there.

Are engineers preferring SF because the quality of life is higher?

Or is it that the perceived access to the next, more lucrative opportunity is greatest there?

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#390

Post by DrScump »

mywittyname wrote: post #186
jacquesm wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Early America was full of Native Americans and they didn't need those immigrants at all. The people that needed the skilled laborers were immigrants themselves. By the way, the very best way to stop immigration is to make other countries wealthy.

You're being intentionally obtuse. Sure, the Native Americans would have gotten along fine with bows and horses. But we are discussing the economy. The growth the US economy throughout its history was driven heavily by immigration.

  Sure, the Native Americans would have gotten along fine with bows and horses
To be pedantic, horses were extinct in the Americas until the Spaniards brought them.
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