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US burns through all high-skill visas for 2015 in less than a week

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Re: US burns through all high-skill visas for 2015 in less than a week

#101

Post by monochr »

firstOrder wrote: post #5

> Does turning away highly skilled and educated people due to an artificial cap on visas sound silly? This is a false way of framing things on many levels. First, as Norm Matloff has extensively documented, they are not all "highly skilled and educated people". Secondly, they can be given green cards and other such things, why is this specific visa necessary? Also, if there's a shortage of talent, then the Silicon Va…

>Also, if there's a shortage of talent, then the Silicon Valley CEO's can put an end to things like their conspiracy to drive down tech wages that is playing out in the courts, which is something that would obviously depress the number of engineers applying for jobs. Instead of the federal government cutting loans and grants to college students, they could expand them if they want more engineers.

You can't expect the Silicon Valley ~~CEO~~ Royalty to be bothered with something as plebeian as the free market. Much easier to get some programming serf imported to do the job and then throw them off the land once they aren't needed anymore.

Re: US burns through all high-skill visas for 2015 in less than a week

#102

Post by NextUserName »

tommu wrote: post #92
NextUserName wrote: post #24

> 124,000 people applied for the combined 85,000 So if we gave them all Visas - we'd be good for less than two weeks? Sounds like a bigger problem here. On a related note, how many highly skilled and educated people live here already who are currently unemployed? Two observations. * Immigrants will go to where the work is. They will live almost anywhere the work is, they are moving already so it is easier than for so…

Einstein, Tesla and Musk. None of those guys would have ended up in the US if you had any power over immigration policy. Oh.. and are you native? Genuine question as I have no idea.

I don't see how this is a valid argument against anything that I have said. I can argue that many people could have been even more highly regarded who were born in the US if we concentrated on the problems within the country using other means than pulling people from outside the country.

I also don't see a direct criticism or counter argument to anything that I said. Downvoters offer no explanation on their disagreement. I wish down voting would require a comment, or at least an identifier of who did it. I think that this would be a much better change than that stupid pending comments thing that almost saw the light of day.

Blindly downvoting without any accountability is a pretty poor reality IMO.

Re: US burns through all high-skill visas for 2015 in less than a week

#103

Post by mkohlmyr »

tokenadult wrote: post #26

What is that makes the United States such an attractive place to immigrate to for people whose skill sets could take them almost anywhere in the world? (In other words, why is that successive sessions of Congress can basically count on lots of people desiring to live in the United States, thus setting up an environment in which immigration regulation is restrictive rather than open?) (I'm genuinely curious about this…

(Personal opinion) It isn't the United States that's attractive. It's the tech-hubs within it. I would never seriously consider moving anywhere but a handful of cities / areas in the US. The eco-systems in those places are still years ahead of London or Berlin.

I moved from Sweden to the United Kingdom to attend university for similar reasons. The university culture is different (much better) here, and there is more of a hub factor to the campuses, which offers many advantages socially and otherwise.

Re: US burns through all high-skill visas for 2015 in less than a week

#104

Post by diegomcfly »

firstOrder wrote: post #5

> Does turning away highly skilled and educated people due to an artificial cap on visas sound silly? This is a false way of framing things on many levels. First, as Norm Matloff has extensively documented, they are not all "highly skilled and educated people". Secondly, they can be given green cards and other such things, why is this specific visa necessary? Also, if there's a shortage of talent, then the Silicon Va…

If the supply of "highly skilled" people could not keep up with demand (which is what these companies lobbying Congress for uncapped H1Bs are effectively saying is the case), then salaries would be rising.

They are not.

/end of story. All other propaganda and testimony by these companies that say otherwise is bullshit.

Re: US burns through all high-skill visas for 2015 in less than a week

#105

Post by ori_b »

This article is slightly misleading, IMO.

The agency working on my application specifically timed it so that my application was submitted on April 1st, when the applications initially opened, instead of in November when I submitted the paperwork. If all agencies time applications this way, then the reason that all applications were exhausted within a week is because the entire year's applicants queued up until their requests were submitted this week.

This does not detract from the fact that there are too few visas granted, however, the situation isn't quite as insane as you would expect from reading this article.

Re: US burns through all high-skill visas for 2015 in less than a week

#106

Post by NAFV_P »

msvan wrote: post #84
tokenadult wrote: post #26

What is that makes the United States such an attractive place to immigrate to for people whose skill sets could take them almost anywhere in the world? (In other words, why is that successive sessions of Congress can basically count on lots of people desiring to live in the United States, thus setting up an environment in which immigration regulation is restrictive rather than open?) (I'm genuinely curious about this…

I live in Northern Europe. It's arguably superior to the US in many ways, but there are some things which we cannot get here. One thing is size. The US has 300+ million people, whereas my country only has a few million. All communities are smaller here; interesting things get here later or not at all (with bad localizations) because the market is too small. Things are tinier, quieter and get less traction. Another th…

> Another thing is that there is something of a cultural identity crisis going on. We cannot match the enormous cultural influence of the US, and so a lot of our culture is American.

I don't think that applies to music genres. I live in Gloucester, England which is practically in the middle of Jungle country.

Re: US burns through all high-skill visas for 2015 in less than a week

#107

Post by diegomcfly »

npinguy wrote: post #20
fsk wrote: post #2

They really should call them "indentured servant slave visas". The H1-B visa holder has to leave the country if he gets fired (and doesn't find a new employer quickly), and if he switches jobs the green card process has to start over. Because the H1-B visa employee is legally bound to the job, he becomes more attractive than hiring a US citizen, (assuming equal salary and qualification).

Except relocation costs, lawyer fees, living expenses (frequently covered for a time period after move), and so on. Bringing a foreign employee over is incredibly expensive. The reason companies do it isn't to get a grateful slave that will do anything to hold his job and rise ahead. They do it because a shortage of skilled workers locally, and incredible competition from other companies. Not to mention all the hassl…

Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit.

I've been in this industry for nearly 20 years. There is no shortage. There IS A HUGE SHORTAGE of engineers willing to work for the pay and conditions that an H1B will work for though.

Re: US burns through all high-skill visas for 2015 in less than a week

#108

Post by refurb »

avmich wrote: post #89
JamesArgo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada will take anyone with an engineering degree.

What do you mean by "take"? Canadian employers aren't very familiar with a concept of working visa in practice - they prefer you to first have a permanent residence, then they can talk about hiring you. To get permanent residence, you have to pass the process, which is many months long. Am I substantially missing something?

I think the gp is referring to Canada's point system. As long as you have enough points, then you will be admitted into Canada.

Re: US burns through all high-skill visas for 2015 in less than a week

#109

Post by dragonwriter »

diegomcfly wrote: post #104
firstOrder wrote: post #5

> Does turning away highly skilled and educated people due to an artificial cap on visas sound silly? This is a false way of framing things on many levels. First, as Norm Matloff has extensively documented, they are not all "highly skilled and educated people". Secondly, they can be given green cards and other such things, why is this specific visa necessary? Also, if there's a shortage of talent, then the Silicon Va…

If the supply of "highly skilled" people could not keep up with demand (which is what these companies lobbying Congress for uncapped H1Bs are effectively saying is the case), then salaries would be rising. They are not. /end of story. All other propaganda and testimony by these companies that say otherwise is bullshit.

That's not really true; if the supply could not keep up with demand, the companies would throw more resources at the problem of meeting their labor demand -- that might be raising wages (in the most simplistic economic models, that's the obvious thing), but it might equally be putting resources into lobbying Congress to allow increased immigration. If they expect lobbying to pay of greater returns for the investment than higher wages will, then that's where you'd expect them to put the resources.

Re: US burns through all high-skill visas for 2015 in less than a week

#110

Post by BenefitOfDoubt »

>"In the United States, nine percent of computer science graduates are unemployed, and 14.7 percent of those who hold degrees in information systems have no job. Graduates with degrees in STEM - science, technology, engineering and medicine" http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/11/surviving-p...

How does opening up more visas help this? It is not about helping the people of America. It is about corporations getting richer. There are plenty of people already here to fill tech jobs.

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