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‘Two years of lost immigration’ is responsible for half of missing workforce

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Re: ‘Two years of lost immigration’ is responsible for half of missing workforce

#81

Post by onethought »

gloryjulio wrote: post #78
honestduane wrote: post #24

The sad fact is that we have enough software developers in America to fully meet all of every American companies technical needs; The problem is that these companies don't want to meet the market demands of that labor pool by paying what that market is asking to keep that sustainable, so they want to import people who they can abuse to temporarily lower labor prices for them. And the number of Americans I know who wo…

Uhhh, no? I don't think u realize how big of the gap between the average programming work vs fanng+ companies. Note that I didn't say the quality of the candidates, because I don't think it's hard and most of the ppl can achieve that level if they really tried. But the difference in work is so huge it's basically 2 type of jobs. In typical fanng companies, most regular ppl wont survive. It's highly competitive and re…

I’m calling bs on this. Many people in faang companies I know are pretty average work effort required is also pretty average, could you provide more concrete examples of where this isn’t true?

Re: ‘Two years of lost immigration’ is responsible for half of missing workforce

#82

Post by rramadass »

howinteresting wrote: post #61
honestduane wrote: post #24

The sad fact is that we have enough software developers in America to fully meet all of every American companies technical needs; The problem is that these companies don't want to meet the market demands of that labor pool by paying what that market is asking to keep that sustainable, so they want to import people who they can abuse to temporarily lower labor prices for them. And the number of Americans I know who wo…

H1B is a dual intent visa. It has never been just temporary, the idea that H1B workers can seek permanent residence is built into the visa. (It is not built into most other visas.) Many H1B workers wish to become citizens but can't due to decades-long backlogs. If your post is actually meant to campaign for them to get quicker green cards and citizenship, I applaud you.

>H1B is a dual intent visa. It has never been just temporary, the idea that H1B workers can seek permanent residence is built into the visa.

This needs to be repeated time and time again until people "get it". It was designed as a "legal way" of immigrating to the US.

Re: ‘Two years of lost immigration’ is responsible for half of missing workforce

#83

Post by ajmurmann »

strken wrote: post #55
podric wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that H-1B workers suppress US wages is a harmful myth that gets thrown around HN a lot. The study that supports the claim that the H-1B program suppresses US tech wages is about 20 years old, and no longer reflects the current reality. In fact, a 2017 Glassdoor study found that the wages of H-1B workers were 2.8% higher than their American counterparts: https://www.glassdoor.com/research/h1b-workers/ The US…

Getting paid more than domestic workers doesn't mean you don't lower the wages of the sector overall, it could just mean you're competing with the top end of the market. I was over there working on an E-3 a few years back, and I'm pretty sure I got hired because it was easier (e.g. cheaper) to set up a hiring funnel in another country than within the US. That doesn't automatically mean lower wage growth, but it could…

Any additional workers in an area will lower wages in that area. Simple supply & demand and off course you are right that they also grow the overall pie. I do wonder though how much the added friction when changing jobs as an H1B holder creates a downward pressure. I'd bet comp in all areas with lots of H1B workers would go up if we made it much easier to change jobs while on an H1B and give a lot more time to find a new job when suddenly unemployed (1-2 years instead of weeks)

Re: ‘Two years of lost immigration’ is responsible for half of missing workforce

#84

Post by [deleted] »

kmonsen wrote: post #53
odysseus wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's 60 million children missing over almost 50 years, or ~830K/year. But not all of these were "unwanted". Many women are pressured into abortion by abusive, manipulative, cowardly, and responsibility-shirking men. As for the truly unwanted ones, ~33 million couples in the U.S. are infertile. There are untold thousands of families waiting to adopt. A few of them are listed at https://www.americanadoptions.com/fami…

And women that want to can still go trough with pregnancy and adopt the child out if they want to. It is their right to choose if they want to dedicate 9 months of their lives to giving birth, including sacrificing their body and possibly going through the most painful and dangerous part of the lives. Made even more difficult now as many hospitals in red states are holding back needed medical care just so they don't…

[deleted]

Re: ‘Two years of lost immigration’ is responsible for half of missing workforce

#85

Post by cat_plus_plus »

No it's not. Immigrants tend to adopt to native sub-replacement birth rate and bring their elderly parents to live in US and often make use of social security. Even to the degree that they have children, children take two decades to enter the workforce. Bottom line, it's impossible to solve US labor shortage with any reasonable immigration levels under current policies. Unless you want a Dubai style system where only active workers are welcome and those don't get benefits of the citizens.

Re: ‘Two years of lost immigration’ is responsible for half of missing workforce

#86

Post by matthewmacleod »

bobosha wrote: post #66
honestduane wrote: post #24

The sad fact is that we have enough software developers in America to fully meet all of every American companies technical needs; The problem is that these companies don't want to meet the market demands of that labor pool by paying what that market is asking to keep that sustainable, so they want to import people who they can abuse to temporarily lower labor prices for them. And the number of Americans I know who wo…

>The sad fact is that we have enough software developers in America to fully meet all of every American companies technical needs; The problem is that these companies don't want to meet the market demands of that labor pool by paying what that market is asking to keep that sustainable, so they want to import people who they can abuse to temporarily lower labor prices for them. This is a bogus self-serving argument th…

In my view you are both wrong for different reasons.

There are not “enough software developers in America to fully meet all of every American companies technical needs”. There is virtually no unemployment among competent software developers and almost every team I have ever talked to consistently struggles to hire. It doesn’t pass the sniff test, as there are relatively few of these workers in any case.

Equally, workers are absolutely entitled to complain about companies abusing people in precarious positions—such as H1B visa holders—to reduce costs. Certain orgs are notorious for this. It is not “entitled” to think that workers should be paid the market rate for their work, and the reality is that software developers are highly-paid in part because their skills are hard to come by and drive significant financial benefit (i.e. they are worth it). You don’t need to put the effort in to defend companies who have famously colluded to suppress wages!

Is the real problem not the existence of a silly visa system in the first place? If you want workers, then allow them to enter the country and compete freely at market wages for roles - without making them so subject to the whims of their sponsoring employer. That system is basically designed to facilitate abuse.

Re: ‘Two years of lost immigration’ is responsible for half of missing workforce

#87

Post by cat_plus_plus »

darth_avocado wrote: post #59
honestduane wrote: post #24

The sad fact is that we have enough software developers in America to fully meet all of every American companies technical needs; The problem is that these companies don't want to meet the market demands of that labor pool by paying what that market is asking to keep that sustainable, so they want to import people who they can abuse to temporarily lower labor prices for them. And the number of Americans I know who wo…

H1B is an easy scapegoat. You see people of certain nationalities on visa and think ohh the companies are bringing in cheap labor. The reality is that most of them would be citizens if the immigration laws were created equal. You wouldn’t see that many people on visa if they didn’t have to stay on it for decades. People come from Europe all the time and become citizens, and you don’t say “ohh look at all these foreig…

You guys have no clue about US immigration system. There are equal green card quotas for each country, which is the main merit path to citizenship. Of course some countries have a huge population or huge demand for US visas, but that still means that green cards for that country are equal in number to green cards from other countries. And for example, there are a lot of countries in Africa.

On the other hand, children of undocumented immigrants get citizenship without any quota. So there are many more new citizens from Mexico and Central America vs Europe. I am not saying they are bad citizens, but there is some rational limit to immigration that protects native culture from sudden disruption against wishes of existing citizens. So, defining what is fair is not as easy as you might think.

Re: ‘Two years of lost immigration’ is responsible for half of missing workforce

#88

Post by ahzhou »

darth_avocado wrote: post #59
honestduane wrote: post #24

The sad fact is that we have enough software developers in America to fully meet all of every American companies technical needs; The problem is that these companies don't want to meet the market demands of that labor pool by paying what that market is asking to keep that sustainable, so they want to import people who they can abuse to temporarily lower labor prices for them. And the number of Americans I know who wo…

H1B is an easy scapegoat. You see people of certain nationalities on visa and think ohh the companies are bringing in cheap labor. The reality is that most of them would be citizens if the immigration laws were created equal. You wouldn’t see that many people on visa if they didn’t have to stay on it for decades. People come from Europe all the time and become citizens, and you don’t say “ohh look at all these foreig…

+1B. Unfortunately no one cares about legal immigration in the US so all this talent is sitting around for decades and wondering why years or decades assimilation isn’t enough to walk through the front door.

One of the major competitive advantages of the US is that it brain drains the rest of the world through its education system and career opportunities, but that’s starting to dwindle after a decade of neglect. US’s loss and Canada’s win, I guess.

Re: ‘Two years of lost immigration’ is responsible for half of missing workforce

#89

Post by barry-cotter »

mullingitover wrote: post #7

It's interesting how the roles reversed between the two parties over the decades. Here's a video of George Bush and Ronald Reagan tag-teaming pro-immigration policy speeches[1] that would have them tarred and feathered by the republican party of today. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsmgPp_nlok

Only because of voters. There has always been a bipartisan consensus in the House and Senate on increasing immigration[1][2]. The Republican representatives don’t want to lose their seats though and they know increasing immigration is the best possible way to get primaried[3]. Corporate Republicans want more labour[4], the same way Democrats do, without expecting that the immigrants will vote for them. Opposition to further amnesty has always come from below, not above.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_of_Eight_(immigration)

[2] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/last-minute-push-to-...

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/02/2...

[4] https://www.hoover.org/research/republican-case-immigration-...

Re: ‘Two years of lost immigration’ is responsible for half of missing workforce

#90

Post by graevy »

astrange wrote: post #21
mistrial9 wrote: post #4

three decades of declining wages and increasing demands, plus de-facto "illegal" workers in every city in the USA.. perhaps a factor?

US real median household income is 55% higher in 2019 than 1990. https://twitter.com/MichaelRStrain/status/160341481147113472...

your source, some guy on twitter from the "american enterprise institute" marketing his book "the american dream is not dead", is cherrypicking from the low to high points of the business cycle:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N

from a dataset which actually tracks data outside that range:

https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2022-11/58353-HouseholdInco...

a more robust dataset, which you would get by simply searching "US real median household income" and opening the first result citing census data, indicates that, charitably, real median household income has risen about 25% since 1980:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=bOeD

wikipedia's article, which has thoroughly succumbed to link rot, in addition to citing the above data, also provides historical census data neatly summarized on page 5 of this census report pegging an increase at about 15-20% since 1964:

https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...

this took me 3 minutes

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