Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 637 posts

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#151

Post by femiagbabiaka »

ajxs wrote: post #113
femiagbabiaka wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that those on H1B visas are bringing wages down for software engineers is a popular one. Is it supported by data? If it isn’t, this is just thinly veiled xenophobia. Personally, I think the more diverse groups have an opportunity to come to America legally, the better.

However anecdotal this claim may be, it seems fairly intuitive given the basic economic model of supply and demand. Can you explain how greatly increasing the supply of developers by importing them from overseas will not affect the demand, and therefore negatively affect the cost of labour?

Software engineers have a habit of assuming problems are more intuitive than they actually are.

Even with H1B, there are literally not enough engineers in the Valley to saturate the demand from companies. BLS estimates that the number of employed software engineers will go up 24% next year, that’s insane.

Also, I’m not seeing this supposed depression in salaries. The median salary for a software engineer is 103k a year: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/.... That number has been growing expontially in the last decade and a half.

So there’s data that shows that engineers are getting hired more and paid more than ever before. I can’t find any to prove that H1Bs are dragging down salaries.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#152

Post by Daishiman »

mc32 wrote: post #91
Daishiman wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False; pretty much all of the Americas are jus soli.

Not false. How is ~164 out of 194 countries jus sanguinis not most? There are approx 30 of 194 that are jus soli. How is that “false”. And except for Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chili and Uruguay, the rest aren’t what one would think of as “sought after”, otherwise you’d have other people trying to take advantage of their citizenship policies.

An entire continent, of the youngest countries consisting of liberal democracies being jus soli isn't something you can just wave away and pretend is irrelevant or has some particularly unusual behavior.

Said countries have even laxes immigration policies, similar proportions of immigrant populations, the same anti-immigrant rhetoric that you're spouting, and yet it's just not really the problem that it's made out to be at all.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#153

Post by jlarocco »

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #70
luckydata wrote: post #13

Honestly this is a good thing. Right now the H1B is a bullshit immigration program for cheap engineers from India and China designed to depress wages in silicon valley. A change is sorely needed, this is not big enough but it's definitely a step.

The idea that those on H1B visas are bringing wages down for software engineers is a popular one. Is it supported by data? If it isn’t, this is just thinly veiled xenophobia. Personally, I think the more diverse groups have an opportunity to come to America legally, the better.

I think when you're contesting a well known economic principle (increased supply tends to decrease prices given equal demand) the impetus is on you to prove the claim.

That said, this would be difficult to demonstrate with data because the effect manifests as salaries growing slower than they would without H1Bs. Obviously, there are a million other variables involved, so without some kind of controlled study it's unlikely anybody can be more specific than "increased labor supply decreases wages".

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#154

Post by arcticbull »

reedhen32 wrote: post #40
luckydata wrote: post #13

Honestly this is a good thing. Right now the H1B is a bullshit immigration program for cheap engineers from India and China designed to depress wages in silicon valley. A change is sorely needed, this is not big enough but it's definitely a step.

What a weird world we live in though, where PhDs and Masters with a steady job still have to wait 7-10+ years for citizenship, while people can just flip over the fence in the southern border and get citizenship via asylum or birthing kids

Wow, I’m not sure what world you live in but it’s certainly not over here with the rest of us. Anyone can claim asylum even you, so long as you can demonstrate credible fear and hardship in your home country in an immigration court (a process endorsed by the United Nations) and has nothing to do with flipping over a fence. Then you get a green card and wait 5 years for citizenship.

Birthing children is no easy path to citizenship, you have to be here, birth your child for the low average price of $32,000 then your child gets citizenship — not you - and has to wait until they’re an adult so they can sponsor you for a green card which is when your 5 year clock starts, so sure, squeeze out a baby who moves to America and a mere 27 years later, problem solved. The whole interim period paying US taxes - and then for the rest of their natural lives - no matter where on earth they live. EASY.

I’m not pro jus soli for what it’s worth, but your arguments are just flat out wrong.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#155

Post by femiagbabiaka »

fxfan wrote: post #110
femiagbabiaka wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that those on H1B visas are bringing wages down for software engineers is a popular one. Is it supported by data? If it isn’t, this is just thinly veiled xenophobia. Personally, I think the more diverse groups have an opportunity to come to America legally, the better.

> Personally, I think the more diverse groups have an opportunity to come to America legally, the better. Is this supported by data? If it isn't, this is just thinly veiled parroting of propaganda. I'm not against any color but blindly saying a star trek bar is better than a more homogeneous bar is just parroting

There’s a huge difference between stating my personal opinion and making factual claims. My opinion is that more diversity is good and makes the world better.

Also: > I’m not against any color but...

lol.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#156

Post by mc32 »

Daishiman wrote: post #152
mc32 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not false. How is ~164 out of 194 countries jus sanguinis not most? There are approx 30 of 194 that are jus soli. How is that “false”. And except for Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chili and Uruguay, the rest aren’t what one would think of as “sought after”, otherwise you’d have other people trying to take advantage of their citizenship policies.

An entire continent, of the youngest countries consisting of liberal democracies being jus soli isn't something you can just wave away and pretend is irrelevant or has some particularly unusual behavior. Said countries have even laxes immigration policies, similar proportions of immigrant populations, the same anti-immigrant rhetoric that you're spouting, and yet it's just not really the problem that it's made out to…

Wanting control over who comes in and who goes out is not “anti-immigrant rhetoric”, If those countries had sudden surges, you’d see them change, just look at the Venezuela/Colombia border to see how a surge will change opinion anc behavior.

Chile is also cracking down on illegal entries now that they’re more prevalent. No country will have unrestricted immigration, otherwise why not form a union with neighbors?

Also my claim wasn’t false as you suggested.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#157

Post by femiagbabiaka »

jlarocco wrote: post #153
femiagbabiaka wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that those on H1B visas are bringing wages down for software engineers is a popular one. Is it supported by data? If it isn’t, this is just thinly veiled xenophobia. Personally, I think the more diverse groups have an opportunity to come to America legally, the better.

I think when you're contesting a well known economic principle (increased supply tends to decrease prices given equal demand) the impetus is on you to prove the claim. That said, this would be difficult to demonstrate with data because the effect manifests as salaries growing slower than they would without H1Bs. Obviously, there are a million other variables involved, so without some kind of controlled study it's unl…

Software engineers are being hired at much higher rates than any other profession in the US and that has been going up for decades.

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#158

Post by Pinckney »

aeontech wrote: post #137
ajxs wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However anecdotal this claim may be, it seems fairly intuitive given the basic economic model of supply and demand. Can you explain how greatly increasing the supply of developers by importing them from overseas will not affect the demand, and therefore negatively affect the cost of labour?

Qualified supply is nowhere close to matching demand. Ask anyone that has to do recruiting for their teams. Source: personal experience

Talking about demand exceeding supply is somewhat nonsensical without reference to a price.

What you're saying is "at the price my company is willing to pay, we're unable to find qualified candidates." That means you can either pay more to attract qualified candidates, or do without.

Alternatively, we can raise the supply curve, which has the affect of lowering wages, and might allow your company to attract talent without paying more.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#159

Post by joshe »

treis wrote: post #123
joshe wrote: post #94

I've worked with a few H1-B holders in Silicon Valley and they're awesome. A great improvement would be to allow H1B holders to change jobs easily (maybe after a year). It's too easy for them to get stuck in not great situations. It would be great for everyone if they could move to better fitting jobs, especially for startups who have trouble running H1-B programs. If you are, like me, a software engineer, you should…

>just because "immigrants lower wages" is "common knowledge" doesn't make it true. [1] From your own cite: >Immigrant workers can either be substitutes for native-born workers or complements to them. When immigrant workers are substitutes for native-born workers, they compete for similar jobs. Using a simple supply and demand model, an influx of substitutable workers constitutes an increase in the supply of labor, ca…

That's the section where they acknowledge that, yes, people lose jobs to immigrants. They go on to say that actually more people gain jobs at higher wages because of immigrants.

There's a section on high tech jobs to read too, take a look.

Most people believe that immigrants generally lower wages and take jobs. They almost never do. Economists who have done hundreds of studies on different wage markets have found that immigrants create more jobs and raise wages in most cases.

Also in the paper? "... how does immigration affect the average American?...annual economic gains to the native-born population to be between 0.1 and 0.3 percent of gross domestic product". This is an astonishingly large benefit. Some estimate that switching completely to self driving cars would add .2% to gdp a year. It's that big a gain. Almost no other policy we can think of has this great an effect. Our current gdp growth is at 2%.

It's not unusual to be wrong about this, there aren't more than 5 people at any major newspaper who understand that immigrants create jobs. 95% of news stories you have ever read get this wrong.

Add to that the media always going for max outrage, and you get stories about workers being replaced. Never stories about the workers that immigrants added.

Btw, H1-B workers are not magic, an American worker is creating complementary jobs too. This is why cities have such high wages, the high density of complementary labor.

And hey, when have you ever known software to not create the need for more software :0)

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#160

Post by vilhelm_s »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #130
ones_and_zeros wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A great improvement would be to give them citizenship if they want it. The economic impact of immigrants is not under debate, however your examples are poor choices as I don't think any of those people came to the US on an H1B visa. If anything it's an argument against H1B.

H1B's are immigrant visas, they terminate in greencards after one renewal. The only problem is that a few countries have long lines (India, China, Philippines) on how many greencards can be granted this way per year. That should be done away with.

There is nothing in the H1B that entitles you to a green card. You can only renew the H1B once, so after that you need to either somehow get a green card or leave the U.S.
Post reply on HN