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The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified

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Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified

#91

Post by harshalizee »

bluGill wrote: post #39
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 willin…

Your hypothesis straight up assumes that a) Americans have the best possible education required for the work (we don't; functional illiteracy has never been higher in the last few decades). And b) Americans are the most fluent in English (again see a.).

Even if the above assumptions are true the set of Americans who are qualified will be completely outnumbered by, say, even 2% of qualified people from a huge population like China/India/etc.

Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified

#92

Post by snovymgodym »

ecshafer wrote: post #61
phainopepla2 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have seen H1Bs used for basic Java development, Desktop Support [...] Working in non-FAANG corporate America, these types of roles are the only thing thing I've ever seen H1B hires used for. They've run the gamut from incompetent to quite good, but none have ever been the "best and brightest". It saddens me that the left no longer seems to care about protecting American workers.

There are a lot of office / IT jobs that can be done by anyone with an education. Instead of a team of H1B from TCS doing BI dashboards, why not a bunch of local college kids? You dont even need a CS degree, any business degree student can do that with a couple days of training. Hell an associates degree should be more than enough. Companies used to hire local people, give aptitude tests and place people.

With H1Bs you get people who will do anything to keep their jobs because that's what keeps them as a legal resident of the country, i.e. people you can underpay and exploit.

If you try to make some College kid work 10-20 hours of unpaid overtime a week they'll just walk.

The entire point is exploitation and downward wage suppression.

Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified

#93

Post by xnx »

nightpool wrote: post #72
xnx wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard to be too mad at the applicants when a similar percentage of the roles might also be fake.

That might be true if you're applying for a megacorp like AWS or something but hard to feel like that's a valid argument when you're applying to a company with 2 open roles.

Small companies I've worked for are "always hiring". They leave job descriptions posted in case they get some miracle applicant.

Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified

#94

Post by samtp »

JuniperMesos wrote: post #38
samtp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They can't vote.

Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified

#95

Post by samtp »

fundad wrote: post #37
samtp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

More people frequenting local business and spending the income in the local economy is generally viewed as a good thing.

Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified

#97

Post by chistev »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #3
skmurphy wrote: post #2

Conclusion: "There is plenty of international talent that can and should be leveraged in the appropriate places and the proper ways. There are many instances where you’re going to want to hire a leading expert in a technical field. But most jobs, the qualifications are a core technical and subject competency combined with diligence and a willingness to learn. [..] We need to encourage a corporate mindset that believe…

> We need to encourage a corporate mindset that believes in the importance of building up the American talent pool to tackle not only the challenge in front of them but the array of challenges that the future will bring." YC partner Ankit Gupta: hiring Americans first is DEI - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49467325 - August 2026 (2 comments) H-1B Middlemen Bring Cheap Labor to Citi, Capital One - https://news.…

Your ability to consistently cite relevant sources/articles in your comments is impressive to me.

It's a sign of a well informed person. Keep it up!

Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified

#98

Post by samtp »

dominotw wrote: post #31
samtp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Its not that they can't find them. It's that if they can't exert the same control that they have over H1B visa holders, they would rather pay a lower salary (overseas).

The US government could disincentivize companies from moving jobs over seas instead of hiring local, but the current administration seems more concerned with corporate profit and stock prices than anything else.

Re: The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified

#100

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]
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