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Immigration is about talent, not costs

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Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#481

Post by anjc »

snowwrestler wrote: post #428
anjc wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's lots of evidence out there. Probably the most obvious signal for you should be that companies are complaining about a lack of workers, but wages are stagnant. Or another signal might be the fact that 50% of STEM grads have to work in unrelated industries because of an inability to find work in tech. If you want more proof of funniness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU Or if you want proof of major…

Do you have a citation for "50% of STEM grads have to work in unrelated industries because of an inability to find work in tech"? Many STEM graduates choose not to work in tech, for example math majors who go into finance, or chem majors who go into consulting. And, many STEM grads are not actually qualified to work in tech. A BS in biology is certainly a STEM degree but that person is not likely to help scale your R…

Check this and the citing papers for it:

http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED498867

"Purported labor market shortages for scientists and engineers are anecdotal and also not supported by the available evidence"

"the education system produces qualified graduates far in excess of demand: S&E occupations make up only about one-twentieth of all workers, and each year there are more than three times as many S&E four-year college graduates as S&E job openings"

This article links to a bunch of other papers:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-i...

"The departure of STEM graduates to other fields starts early. In 2008, the NSF surveyed STEM graduates who’d earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in 2006 and 2007. It found that 2 out of 10 were already working in non-STEM fields. And 10 years after receiving a STEM degree, 58 percent of STEM graduates had left the field"

Some data from the economic policy institute (this is the first place i could re-find it): http://www.rit.edu/news/pdfs/CHE_Hira.pdf

Of the 50% of engineering graduates not working in engineering, 40% of CS grads not in CS, (35% total are working in totally unrelated fields), ~50% are not working in their fields because of pay and conditions, 37% are not working in their fields because they can't find work, and 10% are not working in the field for another reason. The 37% probably aren't the people who moved into management consulting.

Certainly some STEM grads may not be qualified to work in tech, but i'd argue that a biology major would easily adapt to working in the average web development shop. And certainly a mathematician or engineer would (obviously).

Lastly, there's a large supply of unemployed CS graduates in the US: http://www.epi.org/publication/pm195-stem-labor-shortages-mi...

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#482

Post by guyzero »

refurb wrote: post #442
geebee wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US does take about 1.2 million immigrants into the country every year. We mainly do this on family reunification, with a few other limited paths. I do agree that it is a terrible system. I'd love to see a points system like Australia. That said, I don't think the evidence supports the notion of a shortage of programmers, so I don't think the goal of an immigration system should be to provide silicon valley with m…

The problem with the point system is that someone can qualify to immigrate but not be able to find a job. That happened in Canada a while back. A ton of foreign trained doctors were working manual labor jobs because they couldn't work as a doctor.

This could be considered a failure of the medical training system rather than a failure of the immigration system. Canada has lots of need for doctors, there's a lack of residency spots to qualify as a Canadian-approved doctor.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#483

Post by serge2k »

manticore_alpha wrote: post #86

Look HNers, let's be honest with each other. There's a lot of H1B's on here. You have friends overseas who you want to see succeed in the Bay Area. In my experience at many tech companies in the Bay Area, H1B Visas exist for one reason, and one reason only - to get skilled engineering/STEM labor -- and to exploit connections (primarily Indian/Pakistani) among these workers to continue to get cheap labor. It absolutel…

H1-B is a standard normal way.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#484

Post by sliverstorm »

valar_m wrote: post #479
sliverstorm wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm arguing, what am I arguing for? Because it isn't less immigration. If I could have my way, we'd abolish H1B's and Visas and instead simply grant citizenship to basically anyone who wanted it (excepting, I don't know, internationally wanted criminals?). Well, maybe there is still a place for visas if the person only wants to work in the US for a while and their birth country does not allow dual citizenship. But…

Here we see silverstorm employ a pair common techniques for handling criticism of dog whistle rhetoric. First, he attempts to leverage previous deliberately vague language with a trap -- a demand for the respondent to place his vague language into precise terms: If I'm arguing, what am I arguing for? Of course, this is a can't lose situation if the respondent obliges. It does not matter what answer is given, the resp…

In my previous post I just explained I am 100% for immigration. All immigration. I welcome any and all peoples. Is that still too vague for you? Too much dog whistle? Too much covert racism? How can I be sufficiently clear?

I brought up H1B's because they were part of the original conversation, before you joined.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#485

Post by TheMagicHorsey »

manticore_alpha wrote: post #86

Look HNers, let's be honest with each other. There's a lot of H1B's on here. You have friends overseas who you want to see succeed in the Bay Area. In my experience at many tech companies in the Bay Area, H1B Visas exist for one reason, and one reason only - to get skilled engineering/STEM labor -- and to exploit connections (primarily Indian/Pakistani) among these workers to continue to get cheap labor. It absolutel…

Man, you make me ashamed to call myself American.

What are you so afraid of? Have you ever been to a nice Indian restaurant in Sunnyvale? I'm glad those ethnic conclaves exist.

Also, from a strictly moral perspective, the attitude that you deserve special treatment based on the fact that you were born within an imaginary closed cell on a map just isn't justified.

What makes you so special versus someone from Asia with better skills? I'm supposed to hire you because ... what? We share the same passport and so I owe you some special heightened loyalty beyond what I owe any human being born on our common planet?

Your comment is full of implicit prejudice. Some redneck told you that you deserve to be treated as a special person because you saluted the flag when you were a little kid in class, and without thinking very critically about the concept, you just swallowed it whole. Now you are regurgitating the same concept here as though this audience is as paranoid as the one on MSNBC.com. This is a totally different audience, that isn't afraid to compete against other workers on a skills versus skills basis. I don't think most people here think they need special protection from Uncle Sam against programmers from abroad.

You are probably afraid of some Indian and Chinese programmers. I have zero fear. In fact I welcome the competition and hope that some of the best can be my co-workers. You are welcome to form an exclusive zone with the country's coddled also-rans. Just don't try to form that zone in the Bay Area. I don't know if you are watching Google or Facebook, or Twitter, but former H1Bs are working on the most complex projects at those companies ... and not because those companies can't afford to hire the best students. But because those H1Bs ARE the best students.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#486

Post by x0x0 »

vonsnowman wrote: post #473
x0x0 wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

dude, it's just a job. You're not making the world a better place. You're building slightly better corporate file sharing. That's it. It's a dropbox or box or btsync competitor tuned for corporate clients. And it's just a job. Not a mission. People jump out of bed to go skiing, or cure cancer, or research fundamental physics, or to practice medicine, or to help the needy, or to help animals, or to put a human on mars…

Such anger. I don't recall claiming to make the world a better place. We've changed our focus since I joined and to be honest I was more excited about the original vision but I'll take corporate file sharing over online advertising any day. Then again, I'd take life as an itinerant purveyor of french toast and fine liquors over online advertising so I'm hardly representative of the average person in this "industry".

You're the one saying employees need to care about the product and team, and disparaging people who just want a paycheck.

People going on about cultural fit and missions -- while, of course, having a problem hiring -- make me literally laugh out loud.

I'd rather be an itinerant snow bum, personally.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#487

Post by nahname »

jlebar wrote: post #200
manticore_alpha wrote: post #86

Look HNers, let's be honest with each other. There's a lot of H1B's on here. You have friends overseas who you want to see succeed in the Bay Area. In my experience at many tech companies in the Bay Area, H1B Visas exist for one reason, and one reason only - to get skilled engineering/STEM labor -- and to exploit connections (primarily Indian/Pakistani) among these workers to continue to get cheap labor. It absolutel…

> It absolutely, positively hurts local labor - naturalized citizens - etc. Without a doubt. I think there's little question that increasing the supply of engineers reduces their price -- our salaries. We can argue about whether it's a small or a large effect, and whether it goes away in the long run due to macroeconomic effects, but it's certainly there. So you're arguing against a straw man here. But more to the po…

>Especially since those of us in tech are, by and large, ridiculously well-compensated.

Tech workers maintained the middle class, while most jobs saw stagnant growth. I would not say ridiculously well compensated.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#488

Post by x0x0 »

exelius wrote: post #468
x0x0 wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yet you admitted it 3 comments up. pay = value.

It's two different markets - professional services firms have far greater negotiating power and sales forces than individuals.

If under the proposed system (h1bs granted in descending sort order of salary), product firms were losing out to professional services firms, then the product firms are free to pay their employees more. If they don't create enough value to justify paying more, well, then the system works as designed.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#489

Post by anjc »

dominotw wrote: post #206
manticore_alpha wrote: post #86

Look HNers, let's be honest with each other. There's a lot of H1B's on here. You have friends overseas who you want to see succeed in the Bay Area. In my experience at many tech companies in the Bay Area, H1B Visas exist for one reason, and one reason only - to get skilled engineering/STEM labor -- and to exploit connections (primarily Indian/Pakistani) among these workers to continue to get cheap labor. It absolutel…

>There's standard, normalized ways immigrants have come to the US for a long time now. And what are those? If you are being honest why not just say "We don't want any more immigrants". Because H1B is the only way to immigrate to US. Its great that your parents got a shot a new life and now you want the door to closed. PS: I am a naturalized US citizen, if it matters.

His point is that H1B visas are exploited to get cheap labour, and, they are. Why conflate that with general immigration, which H1Bs are not for?

Do you only want immigrants who have talents in a specialised area?

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#490

Post by gjm11 »

mbreese wrote: post #351
gjm11 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that there's a big transparency benefit to using the same basket everywhere, but I don't think that actually gives the most realistic answer. Imagine that every day, for every meal, you eat spaghetti carbonara. You'd be almost as happy eating linguine with pesto, but you happen to have a slight preference for spaghetti carbonara. Now you move somewhere else where, for whatever reason, spaghetti is 100x the pr…

> because later on you can move out of San Francisco, sell that house, and get the money back again You obviously didn't own a house in the US about 5-6 years ago...

I obviously felt my comment was already too long and wouldn't on balance benefit from a cautious parenthesis to the effect that you might actually get a lot more money back than you put in, or a lot less, depending on exactly what the housing market does, and that it also depends a lot on how much of the house you own (the limiting case of a 100% mortgage is, at least to begin with, almost indistinguishable from renting), but that to first order, assuming a reasonable amount of equity and no catastrophic shocks to the housing market, what you get out is at least a fair fraction of what you put in ... but as two people have commented on that omission, perhaps I was mistaken.

(As it happens, I indeed didn't own a house in the US 5-6 years ago, but I'm well aware of what happened.)

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