False dichotomy. An H1B hire who has graduated from a US university and will receive a green card in a few years and become a US citizen after another 5 contributes to "the next generation of US talent" in the same way as John from Chicago.
The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified
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Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified
#12"The H-1B program was started with the vision of finding von Brauns across other industries and bringing them into the US"
Is this true? I thought the the "O" visa accomplished this. H-1B is for specific worker shortages. Of course, a "shortage" from a company's perspective is "no Americans are applying for my position", which isn't necessarily because there are no qualified Americans to hire...
Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified
#13When I was in high school, I took a physics class. I think I scraped by but one thing the teacher said that has stuck with me ever since was "when you want to test a hypothesis, set the variables to extreme numbers". Very useful framework IMO!
If we pursued the "Most Qualified" in its truest form, then ~95%[1] of the jobs in this country would be handed over to foreigners. In isolation, this would be great for US companies. In reality, 95% of the local population would riot.
If we pursued "only hire Americans", then our growth as a country would be stunted, and we'd lose our global competitive edge.
Somewhere between is a balanced medium.
Side observation: I've noticed tech leaders/CEOs/PG have been choosing (or succumbing) to what the algorithm wants them to say or how phrase. I stopped following all of them because I can feel my emotions being manipulated whenever I read what they have to say.
[1] The USA is less than 5% of the worlds population.
Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified
#14[flagged]
Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified
#15I don't like the implied assumption that you can only do one or the other. To use the author's own story, the US had both von Braun and Johnson. Also, there are just many scenarios where you can't afford to train someone from scratch or tolerate a potentially poor hire and that's just reality. Sometimes you really do need the best person you can find.
Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified
#16"The H-1B program was started with the vision of finding von Brauns across other industries and bringing them into the US" Is this true? I thought the the "O" visa accomplished this. H-1B is for specific worker shortages. Of course, a "shortage" from a company's perspective is "no Americans are applying for my position", which isn't necessarily because there are no qualified Americans to hire...
Yes, it’s true. The H-1B program was redesigned that way in the Immigration Act of 1990 that introduced the O visa category; before that, the H-1B criteria formally required that recipients have “distinguished merit and ability” and perform services “of an exceptional nature requiring such merit and ability”.
Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified
#17It's not a matter of economics, corporate policy or belief in people -- it's a strategic matter. A country needs a secure and stable pipeline for personnel as much as for any other strategic asset.
A country also needs to keep up and learn from other countries. That means working with and integrating technologies, ideas and, yes, personnel from other countries.
It's a balance thing and Anduril has a hard job in trying to strike the balance, but they have to do it. The defense industry is not simply a number-goes-up operation.
Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified
#18I have seen H1Bs used for basic Java development, Desktop Support, CRM managemetn, Marketing, Project Managers, and all sorts of basic office work. The idea its used for the best and brightest is absurd. When you also count the massive fraud in H1B, people looking for kickbacks, racial preferences, lying on resumes (I once interviewed an H1B with 4 pages on their resume, couldn't answer a single question from what I pulled out of the resume, and got overruled by the manager on the hiring board). There is a massive amount of office work that can be done by a bright high schooler or community college grad, but gets shunted off to a body shop who mass applies H1B. Several years ago Disney fired their IT staff and replaced them with H1B, this was in the news. There was obviously not a talent shortage, and plenty of American citizens can pass the A+ or various microsoft sysadmin certs that "qualify" someone for IT work.
Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified
#19The article doesn't address what I think are the main complaints about H-1B: that it is mostly used to cut costs and hire people who have very little freedom to switch jobs. That and all the trickery with ghost jobs meant to only give the appearance of hiring stateside. The example given is also not great. Von Braun was one remarkable foreign expert in a leadership position. On the other hand, in my experience, many…
That is the real reason. Immigrants are cheap and will work hard maybe at the cost of quality. Companies will to hire cheap or will outsource to cheaper countries. I think every generation had cheap foreign labor coming to America which fueled the growth. Right now it is H1b labor.
Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified
#20H1B is not about finding geniuses, this is O-1 Visa program.
The H1B exists to find laborers in areas where we have a shortage of qualified people in US. Given the fact that in many fields we have lots of American graduates that struggle to get jobs, H1B currently has no legitimate purpose in America. It should be abolished entirely.