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The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified

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Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified

#31

Post by dominotw »

samtp wrote: post #28
petcat wrote: post #23

> An H-1B hire should not simply be marginally better than an American counterpart. They should provide such a leap forward in capabilities such that the rest of the company is elevated in their own knowledge and expertise. This is an important thing that was recently addressed by the new $100,000 fee to sponsor an H-1B visa. It is especially impacting Indian tech workers in the US [1] since the types of roles that I…

Seems more likely to just lead to larger offices in India, reducing high earners here in America (even if only temporary) and reducing the amount of money that is recycled through American cities.

this seems like common retort. hire h1b or else....

we open a role on linkedin for a data engineer for about 6 hrs and we got 500+ applicants and vast majority were indeed qualifed on paper. I am baffled by employers who cant seem to find anyone in the country that doesnt need work authorization. Love to hear what types of roles and where this is happening.

Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified

#32

Post by eigencoder »

YesBox wrote: post #13

When 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 com…

I don't follow that "Most Qualified" would mean 95% of jobs going to foreigners. I get that the U.S. is 4-5% of the world's population, but if I live in San Antonio, Texas, the pool of plumbers for my house must also live in San Antonio, Texas, meaning that 99.9+% of the world is not remotely qualified for the job.

Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified

#33

Post by mc32 »

petcat wrote: post #23

> An H-1B hire should not simply be marginally better than an American counterpart. They should provide such a leap forward in capabilities such that the rest of the company is elevated in their own knowledge and expertise. This is an important thing that was recently addressed by the new $100,000 fee to sponsor an H-1B visa. It is especially impacting Indian tech workers in the US [1] since the types of roles that I…

Also, if you go by the Lisep TRU article (whose premise I mildly disagree with) over 20% of Americans are “functionally unemployed” then that says American employers are screwing their compatriots by bringing in lower wage substitutes and moreover they bring them in not because we don’t have people, rather we/they don’t want to pay the going rate.

Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified

#34

Post by wakawaka28 »

YesBox wrote: post #13

When 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 com…

It wouldn't be 95%. The US is like 5% of the world, but it disproportionately contains the most qualified workers in many fields. Also, in many cases, even if a worker was somehow qualified, they would be lacking some basic skill like English proficiency or basic cultural compatibility, that would make them actually unqualified on net. But your overall sentiment is right. There are hundreds of millions of people who want to come to the US and make less than you.

It is also a fact that "most qualified" is fuzzy. It comes down to something more like, performance per dollar, or "culture fit", or some other thing. Unless you are trying to absolutely have the most advanced shit in the world at any price, "qualifications" or "talent" are not the ultimate factors. Having been in this industry for a while, most foreign workers obviously aren't "the best" like that. They're not even more talented or hard-working than the average American worker. But they usually work for less and the job gets done (roughly speaking), and their mere presence drives down everyone's wages.

Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified

#35

Post by mjr00 »

YesBox wrote: post #13

When 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 com…

> 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. [1] The USA is less than 5% of the worlds population.

This would be true if you're talking about randomly picking people from around the world to live in the US for their formative years and go through the US education system (at which point they barely count as "foreigners"). This isn't reality, though, and if you're talking about hiring a worker today, a large swath of that 95% won't speak English, or won't be literate, or will have never received a formal education, all of which are disqualifying for pretty much every job in the US.

Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified

#36

Post by GlibMonkeyDeath »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #16
GlibMonkeyDeath wrote: post #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...

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”.

Ah yes - the older H1 program started in 1952 (I was confused by the article calling the H1 visa "H-1B" - they aren't the same.)

Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified

#37

Post by fundad »

samtp wrote: post #28
petcat wrote: post #23

> An H-1B hire should not simply be marginally better than an American counterpart. They should provide such a leap forward in capabilities such that the rest of the company is elevated in their own knowledge and expertise. This is an important thing that was recently addressed by the new $100,000 fee to sponsor an H-1B visa. It is especially impacting Indian tech workers in the US [1] since the types of roles that I…

Seems more likely to just lead to larger offices in India, reducing high earners here in America (even if only temporary) and reducing the amount of money that is recycled through American cities.

Economic growth is not valued universally as we are seeing very clearly. There are more anti-growth people that you think.

Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified

#38

Post by JuniperMesos »

samtp wrote: post #28
petcat wrote: post #23

> An H-1B hire should not simply be marginally better than an American counterpart. They should provide such a leap forward in capabilities such that the rest of the company is elevated in their own knowledge and expertise. This is an important thing that was recently addressed by the new $100,000 fee to sponsor an H-1B visa. It is especially impacting Indian tech workers in the US [1] since the types of roles that I…

Seems more likely to just lead to larger offices in India, reducing high earners here in America (even if only temporary) and reducing the amount of money that is recycled through American cities.

It also reduces the number of Indian people who physically reside in the US and can influence the American political system.

Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified

#39

Post by bluGill »

YesBox wrote: post #13

When 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 com…

The reality is you couldn't hand over jobs to the most qualified person. In most cases the most qualified person already works for you (or is you!), and just needs an assistant who by definition is less qualified.

Suppose you found someone at your competitor who is doing your exact same job (already unlikely - their have a different structure in some way that is important) who is better than you. Would they be willing to move to where you company is? Would your company be willing to pay enough to make them join? Even if the above are true, all those structures your company has that are different mean there will be some time before they are better than you.

Most jobs don't need the best person. Is my doctor the best in the world - probably not - but she is more than good enough for my needs.

Though I have to object to your 95% number. Most people in the world do not have the education that the US provides. Most people are not fluent in English which is almost always a critical part of working for a company in the US. Once you add those requirements, the something closer to 50% of the most qualified people for your job live in the US (now if New Zealand was your country 95% of the most qualified don't live there - and most probably wouldn't want to move even though it is apparently a nice country)

Which is to say even if there was unlimited immigration allowed, your best hire in the US will be an American in most cases.

Though it doesn't matter who is most qualified you need to a plan to mentor and train up the younger generation. (who then grow old and train the next generation)

Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified

#40

Post by tehlike »

redlewel wrote: post #20

H1B 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.

There's a playbook someone on X published (and bragged about it). Borderline fraudulent imho.

So even though O-1 is intended for extra ordinary abilities, it's far from one.

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