Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 404 posts

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

#221

Post by 50 »

QuercusMax wrote: post #81
2_listerine_pls wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone with a CS degree can write a fizzbuz

Wow, didn't realize this was a comedy site. Speaking from personal experience, the number of people with multiple years of experience and multiple degrees in CS (usually BS and MS) who can't pass FizzBuzz is really high .

Is the correct and most efficient way to solve it?

  #include 
  using namespace std;

  int main()
  {
      for (int i = 1; i

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

#222

Post by bduerst »

stale2002 wrote: post #210
bduerst wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you could argue that the U.S. gains more from allowing 20 lower-paid civil engineers than allowing 1 private sector executive buy their H1B. The point is that switching to an auction with the H1B causes more problems without really solving any, at least within the scope of the program's purpose.

But the choice is not between 20 low paid engineers vs 1 highly private sector employee. The choice is instead between 20 low paid engineers and 20 high paid executives/engineers/employees. This makes the answer to this choice much more clear.

Which comes back to location and industry discrimination, since higher pay is a function of these different factors.

Again, auctioning H1B with quotas doesn't solve a problem, it just creates new ones.

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

#223

Post by onemoresoop »

basilgohar wrote: post #107
dkhenry wrote: post #85

I have a modest proposal to help with the need for skilled labor. Reject all skilled applicants for visa's. Only accept the unskilled and uneducated. If you have an advanced degree and specialty skills you are not allowed in and have to remain in your country of origin. If you get a visa to study in the US you have to return to be employed in your home country. I think this will have two primary effects. 1. It will c…

This is fine for the purpose you are outlining, but it completely neglects the fact that the primary reason people are emigrating from their home countries is seeking a better quality of life for themselves and/or their families. Closing the door to them shuts them out from this path. Moreover, a lot of immigrants that arrive to the US end up having a greater impact on the world as a whole than they would or could ha…

Also nobody here mentions that immigrants to the US pay taxes and spend most of their money inside the US propping up the economy.

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

#224

Post by qaq »

tabtab wrote: post #211
qaq wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it will not change anything to be honest. I work for a relatively large US company we have offices in CA, VA, NC, Ireland, Germany, India. If it becomes harder to higher in US they will just grow teams in other offices.

But not every organization is internationally distributed like that. If physical location of employee really didn't matter, then your org would have most of its IT staff in India, because the labor rates are lower and that's the largest pool of English-speaking IT talent. I agree there is some fluidity to IT labor, but there is a limit to it also. Besides, the stated on-paper purpose of H-1B visas is to fill (alleged…

I'd say the ones employing majority of programmers are and that will affect the market at large.

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

#225

Post by pkaye »

jki275 wrote: post #93
QuercusMax wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, didn't realize this was a comedy site. Speaking from personal experience, the number of people with multiple years of experience and multiple degrees in CS (usually BS and MS) who can't pass FizzBuzz is really high .

That's amazing to me. Not arguing you're wrong, I'm not interviewing people, just amazes me that anyone with degrees in CS would not be able to solve such a basic problem.

I agree with the parent comment. So many people just can't code the most basic program correctly. And this is with a generous amount of time and forgiving syntax errors.

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

#226

Post by CodeMage »

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…

> Both of these would ensure that we can get smart and talented individuals from outside the US and would drastically improve the ability for the US to compete while continuing to provide broad-based wage increases.

As an immigrant, I'm all for better and easier immigration system. As a parent of an 11 year old, I can tell you that what your country really needs is not more smart and talented immigrants, but better education.

When I was brought to work here on H-1B visa, I couldn't understand why the US would need so many immigrant software developers. Now that I've had 5 years to see what your schools are teaching kids, this is no longer a mystery to me. Your education is appalling and is the main reason why I'm planing to leave the country eventually.

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

#227

Post by bduerst »

kd0amg wrote: post #121
EduardoBautista wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That still doesn't consider pay differences between two completely different jobs.

Then it would be working as intended. Jobs where labor isn't so scarce as to push prevailing wages up really high don't need extra labor brought into the market. The remaining concern is distorted markets like foreign language teachers (brought up elsewhere in the thread), where it may be politically infeasible to raise compensation to match the value workers create.

The purpose of the H1B program is to fulfill skilled labor demand where local labor is unable to fill it.

The purpose is not to give visas to the wealthiest bidder in the wealthiest locations and industries.

Prevailing wage requirement already solves the problem of wage velocity, so this is just creating more issues without solving any.

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

#229

Post by eropple »

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…

Sorry, but this doesn't scan. "The concerns of rural communities" are overrepresented in American politics. Twenty percent of the population is represented by the Senate majority and are able to, at minimum, gridlock the American system of government (and, at maximum--well, quite a lot, given SCOTUS and what we've seen over the last few months).

This is, of course, an intentional behavior of our system of government. You can even make an argument that it's a positive one. (I would disagree.) It is not, however, "democratic", nor does it point at some kind of underrepresentation.

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

#230

Post by LoSboccacc »

mdpopescu wrote: post #170
El_Flanagan wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont know about Turkey, but at Spain 30K/year wont be your bonus. Will be you salary. And consider it good salary.

I have no idea why this comment was killed but yes, 30K/year is a pretty good salary in a lot of Europe.

Yeah well rural Europe is a lot of Europe, but 30k in a capital where the 30k jobs are give you is just mediocre.
Post reply on HN