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America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

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Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#41

Post by dudul »

sbr464 wrote: post #21

A side benefit that I hadn’t really considered but seems obvious; By taking in skilled workers from other countries, it’s like poaching talent from another company. Then they aren’t contributing to or building companies in their former country. Not sure the scale you would need to make a dent, but is there a name for this?

The choice of word is interesting: encouraging immigration of skilled workers to the US has the benefit of preventing them from participating in the development of their home country.

Short term, sure it's beneficial for the US, but I don't think it's a good idea to reflect in a vacuum or only thinking short term. Emergent countries being able to develop is beneficial for everybody.

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#42

Post by k_sh »

bduerst wrote: post #33
firedrakerage wrote: post #11

I do not typically post, but these suggestions seem like genuine improvements to the existing system: "Kerr suggests allocating H-1Bs not by lottery as they are now, but by salary — the more that a company is willing to pay for a foreign worker, the quicker they can get a visa." "A second change would be to allow H-1B workers to apply for permanent residency green cards on their own, without having to be sponsored by…

The problem is that pay isn't uniform across skilled labor demand, and the purpose of the H1B program is to fulfill demand in the economy. If you set a quota and give to the highest bidder, you're going to see private sector executives and financial roles being filled in cities with high costs of living and competitive wages. Salary is a function not only of demand but also location and industry. This will discrimina…

Perhaps this could be offset by using something like the GS Locality Pay[0] index?

[0]: https://www.federalpay.org/gs/locality

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#43

Post by pmalynin »

bduerst wrote: post #33
firedrakerage wrote: post #11

I do not typically post, but these suggestions seem like genuine improvements to the existing system: "Kerr suggests allocating H-1Bs not by lottery as they are now, but by salary — the more that a company is willing to pay for a foreign worker, the quicker they can get a visa." "A second change would be to allow H-1B workers to apply for permanent residency green cards on their own, without having to be sponsored by…

The problem is that pay isn't uniform across skilled labor demand, and the purpose of the H1B program is to fulfill demand in the economy. If you set a quota and give to the highest bidder, you're going to see private sector executives and financial roles being filled in cities with high costs of living and competitive wages. Salary is a function not only of demand but also location and industry. This will discrimina…

The supply / demand in the economy is specifically determined by the salary. If the demand grows high enough so that salaries go up, then you can obviously compete with other highly paid professionals. There is no reason Tata and Infosys should be hiring 70k contractors to do shitty jobs.

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#44

Post by sametmax »

firedrakerage wrote: post #11

I do not typically post, but these suggestions seem like genuine improvements to the existing system: "Kerr suggests allocating H-1Bs not by lottery as they are now, but by salary — the more that a company is willing to pay for a foreign worker, the quicker they can get a visa." "A second change would be to allow H-1B workers to apply for permanent residency green cards on their own, without having to be sponsored by…

That would only make one more thing you can get better with more money.

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#45

Post by gotocake »

giardini wrote: post #36

Emphasis on "skilled" and add "legal", please. We don't need more chicken pluckers - there's a machine that does that faster and cheaper.

But not a machine to affordably and accurately pick strawberries or citrus, or clean your house and office park. Let’s not pretend that the demand for relatively unskilled work isn’t very high, because the work is perceived to be beneath the dignity or price range or natives. It would be nice if we could benefit from the immigrants willing and able to do this hard and unpleasant work, without also castigating them for doing it.

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#47

Post by johnvanommen »

bduerst wrote: post #33
firedrakerage wrote: post #11

I do not typically post, but these suggestions seem like genuine improvements to the existing system: "Kerr suggests allocating H-1Bs not by lottery as they are now, but by salary — the more that a company is willing to pay for a foreign worker, the quicker they can get a visa." "A second change would be to allow H-1B workers to apply for permanent residency green cards on their own, without having to be sponsored by…

The problem is that pay isn't uniform across skilled labor demand, and the purpose of the H1B program is to fulfill demand in the economy. If you set a quota and give to the highest bidder, you're going to see private sector executives and financial roles being filled in cities with high costs of living and competitive wages. Salary is a function not only of demand but also location and industry. This will discrimina…

You could index it with cost of living. So an H1B in a California company would expect to see a higher salary than one in Kansas.

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#48

Post by gumby »

firedrakerage wrote: post #11

I do not typically post, but these suggestions seem like genuine improvements to the existing system: "Kerr suggests allocating H-1Bs not by lottery as they are now, but by salary — the more that a company is willing to pay for a foreign worker, the quicker they can get a visa." "A second change would be to allow H-1B workers to apply for permanent residency green cards on their own, without having to be sponsored by…

A nice idea but would make it impossible, for example, for my kid’s foreign-language school to bring in qualified teachers.[+]

It’s difficult already as teachers switch jobs over the summer which over the past couple of decades has been when the supply is already used up.

[+] English teachers are recruited from the California system. Unfortunately CA schools are so terrible that if the kids go back to their jobs,encountry they are frequently behind in English!

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#49

Post by antisthenes »

ivl wrote: post #39
antisthenes wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A side benefit? It's been USA's primary competitive advantage for decades - brain draining the cream of the crop from a 5 billion population. It's incredibly naive to think it was ever unintentional.

The beneficiary of pretty much every brain drain for the last 100 years. No wonder such a strong economy came of it.

And the network effects of having some of the smartest people in the world together in proximity where they are able to cooperate and produce real innovation.

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#50

Post by duxup »

firedrakerage wrote: post #11

I do not typically post, but these suggestions seem like genuine improvements to the existing system: "Kerr suggests allocating H-1Bs not by lottery as they are now, but by salary — the more that a company is willing to pay for a foreign worker, the quicker they can get a visa." "A second change would be to allow H-1B workers to apply for permanent residency green cards on their own, without having to be sponsored by…

I always thought H1B should simply be $100k or $120k+ plus jobs only.

I was looking through online records and found folks being brought in for sub 50k jobs that looked like low level ... customer service roles.

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