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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

#171

Post by httpz »

calvinbhai wrote: post #150

I agree with what Kerr is suggesting. It makes a lot of sense. I also agree with a many Americans who are anti-H1b that it suppresses wages, hence makes it attractive to higher foreign workers, quite often for jobs that are not truly state of the art, but do require the technical know how. This is why it makes sense for the H1-B to be a highest paid gets first kind of a visa. That way there's a strong incentive to no…

Though it should be divided by industry. Otherwise, highly paid software engineers will take all the visas and other industries will struggle to match the salary required get a visa. How to divide industry is a very messy business though. Some of our immigration laws divide by industry and those were written 30 years ago. A lot of jobs we hire now didn't exist 30 years ago.

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

#172

Post by coding123 »

lmkg wrote: post #136
thrmsforbfast wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you set a quota and give to the highest bidder, you're going to see private sector executives, lawyers, and financial roles being filled in cities with high costs of living and competitive wages. Yes, that's the point. Skilled labor immigration is for skilled labor . It should not by a subsidy to companies that cannot afford to pay prevailing wages and/or are unwilling to invest in their workforce. > This will d…

> As for rural America, there's a reason these areas > can't attract companies or talent. Look, I don't want to live in a remote shit-hole either, but... The fact that the concerns of rural communities are summarily dismissed when making policy was one of the big contributing factors to the election victories of both Brexit and Trump. (Possibly more due to resentment rather than as a rational response, but that's irr…

And actually the problem is worse - some of those places don't suck, and causing them to RAPIDLY grow in population, turning them into Urban areas that really shouldn't be.

It would be much better if more small towns had similar offerings such that the 10% aren't overrun by people looking to get away from the city.

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

#173

Post by outworlder »

geff82 wrote: post #149

You want good healthcare, good salary, the real Autobahns, good houses and you are talented, have at least a bachelor in IT and are willing to try something out? Come over to Germany. Honestly, no I other country I know of has such a fast and well thought out way to permanent residence for foreign talent than Germany. If you are interested in working here, drop me a message to eriklistserve at gmail dot com.

Question: how big would the language barrier be? Not only at the workplace, but on mundane, day to day activities, for a family?

When I was considering moving to Europe, I thought of Germany, but quickly dismissed, and then came to the conclusion that the Netherlands would be a better fit. But I'm not sure how accurate that assessment was.

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

#174

Post by freeone3000 »

jki275 wrote: post #144
spiznnx wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an Iran ban, call it whatever you like. The existence of a list at a certain point in time doesn't mean anything if the current administration is the one that uses it in a policy it created itself. School visas are the foot in the door for young scientists and engineers to employment in the US.

They restricted immigration from countries who posed a threat. That threat was defined previously. You're being disingenuous in claiming it was motivated by religion. You're incorrect in stating it restricted legal immigration. It stopped immigration by countries deemed a threat to the security of the US by Congress and the previous administration.

Oh, come on, there was a given number of legal immigrants and now there are fewer because of a change in government policies, that's a restriction on legal immigration. You're arguing it's justified, but stating it didn't reduce legal immigration is simply incorrect. Because it did.

I also don't think it's disingenuous in stating it was motivated by religion when the circuit court for Hawaii declared it was and 4 members of the supreme court agreed.

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

#175

Post by mo1ok »

Kephael wrote: post #7

The supply of technical workers is artificially limited by Leetcode style interviews. There doesn't seem to be an actual supply side limitation, especially not at the entry level.

Piggybacking off the fizzbuzz comment, but at my job we we don't ask hard whiteboard questions - just simple ones that prove people can code, and 75% of them can't do it. If you can't do fizzbuzz, you can't do this job. It's an effective filter.

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

#176

Post by klipt »

geebee wrote: post #111
thrmsforbfast wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These sorts of "highest salary wins" rules should typically be crafted in an industry/sector-specific way. So schools have to compete with each other on salary but not with tech/finance/med. And then there are caps by sector. The problem with this approach, of course, is that you need a judge/executive who follows the spirit of the law so that I can't get a bunch of cheap tech workers by saying "oh, job ABC in town X…

I'm not sure I agree with this. I work for a university, and I am stunned with how talented and accomplished many post-docs are considering the level of low pay and career uncertainty they continue to face. The RAND institute, among others, concluded that the reason US citizens have turned away from graduate degrees in the sciences is a rational market response to poor pay and working conditions in favor of fields th…

There's always a trade-off. You can have cheap steel, or well paid steel workers. You can have cheap medical care, or well paid doctors.

Arguably by making postdocs underpaid, the US as a nation is getting cheap scientific advancement, in exchange for dangling the promise of eventual American citizenship (and the American dream) in front of said postdocs.

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

#177

Post by Nasrudith »

ransom1538 wrote: post #82
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 just wish it was reciprocated. I would like to work in Spain (no really). If I work in Spain, the US should open a spot for someone from Spain to work in the US. You want to hire someone from Turkey? No problem, find someone in the US to move to Turkey. You could allow companies to even grease the wheels, "Work from Turkey and get a 30k / year extra free bonus stipend!! yay!!"

Personally I would like to see freedom of movement in trade agreements. Goods and capital can already flow freely - letting labor do so as well would be more free and have potential to make the workforce something competed for more as well. Companies can already outsource so letting people flow with less artificial resistance (as opposed to natural like language and cultural barriers) seems both fair and efficient.

Granted I acknowledge that has potential to be messy in reality without a whole lot of work to get a framework - let alone one that would be accepted. Perhaps some sort of "social service fee" minimum for benefits in taxes paid to prevent free rider issues for instance.

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

#178

Post by outworlder »

dudul wrote: post #41
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.

> 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.

In theory, yes. However, in practice, "participating in the development" can mean working for crappy employers, for a pittance, on some ass backward php/delphi/whatever system that has been accruing technical debt for the past decade. Not all developing countries are friendly for entrepreneurs either(bureaucracy, corruption, taxes, limited access to credit), so options may be limited.

In many cases, they wouldn't be able to contribute that much, but they may be highly skilled, and the United States works as a force multiplier.

Source: came from a third world country, had a company for a couple of years, spent another couple of years trying to officially close that company after operations had ceased.

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

#179

Post by klipt »

njarboe wrote: post #122
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…

How about allocating some large number of 6 year work visas by a pure auction? The visa goes with the person, they can work anywhere, and after the visa is up can be a US citizen with minimal hassle. Employers could pay the fee for people to come and work for them, if they like, with a claw-back clause, if necessary. It would be interesting to see what the price would be for such a visa.

> The visa goes with the person, they can work anywhere, and after the visa is up can be a US citizen with minimal hassle.

You basically described a green card (except it's nominally five years to citizenship, not six).

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

#180

Post by enraged_camel »

x0x0 wrote: post #156
enraged_camel wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>In fact, I think a better way would be to give two 3-year temporary green cards. if at the end of 6th year if the person still has job, it becomes a permanent job. No, the entire reason companies get away with paying H1Bs below market rate is because the visa is tied to employment. It needs to be decoupled so that visa holders can freely and easily switch jobs without worrying about losing their status.

Or both? ie grant them to people being paid the highest wages first, and limit the h1b holder to mandatory 1 year employment with the sponsoring company then 5 years of free to switch at will. We'd still be willing to sponsor as we aren't keeping h1bs via the visa; we keep employees because they want to work here. The pain with sponsoring isn't the cost; it's the time and uncertainty. Sponsoring costs compare favorab…

>> grant them to people being paid the highest wages first

I'm against that because it would give FAANG a massive advantage, since they can afford to pay really high salaries compared to, say, a startup.

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