WSJ: H-1B Visas Keep Down U.S. Tech Wages, Study Shows • Hacker News Board

Re: WSJ: H-1B Visas Keep Down U.S. Tech Wages, Study Shows

#21

Post by richardlong » Tue, Mar 14, 2017, 8:53 PM UTC

Eridrus wrote: post #19

scott00 wrote: post #13

Public service announcement: There is no such thing as a labor shortage. Having trouble hiring developers? Offer a salary of $1 million per year. Your new problem will be job applicant crowd-control. Whenever an employer reports a labor shortage they mean they can't find enough people to take jobs AT THE WAGE THEY ARE WILLING TO PAY. Lest you brand me a red shirt-wearing Das Kapital-waving pinko commie, let me lay an…

This seems like an argument that can be used to argue that shortages cannot exist for anything you can buy. The same rough argument could be used to argue that food shortages cannot exist. I'm pretty sure the word shortage already implies that there is a shortage at the market price, not at an arbitrary price.

Right, GP is leaving out A. necessary skills, and B. the size of the labor pool (multiplied by the labor force participation rate).

For any given skill there is a labor pool with some participation rate, of people who currently have that skill, such that it is accurate to say that the market has a shortage.

Answers to the shortage must solve for either the size of the labor pool, the rate of participation, or the amount of people who have that skill.

Those answers vacillate between importing labor to solve the problem now, or forcing the market to educate people by blocking imported labor.

The problem with importing labor is that it reduces market incentives to educate people. The problem with not importing people is that it means you'll have a labor shortage until the market adjusts and people re-educate.

Easy answers, on either side, are snake oil.

Re: WSJ: H-1B Visas Keep Down U.S. Tech Wages, Study Shows

#22

Post by klipt » Tue, Mar 14, 2017, 8:56 PM UTC

scott00 wrote: post #13

Public service announcement: There is no such thing as a labor shortage. Having trouble hiring developers? Offer a salary of $1 million per year. Your new problem will be job applicant crowd-control. Whenever an employer reports a labor shortage they mean they can't find enough people to take jobs AT THE WAGE THEY ARE WILLING TO PAY. Lest you brand me a red shirt-wearing Das Kapital-waving pinko commie, let me lay an…

What if family doctors charged $10,000 / hour? Wouldn't you call that a doctor shortage?

Just because a service exists at some (arbitrarily high) price point doesn't mean society isn't suffering from a shortage of that service.

Re: WSJ: H-1B Visas Keep Down U.S. Tech Wages, Study Shows

#23

Post by splintercell » Tue, Mar 14, 2017, 8:58 PM UTC

scott00 wrote: post #13

Public service announcement: There is no such thing as a labor shortage. Having trouble hiring developers? Offer a salary of $1 million per year. Your new problem will be job applicant crowd-control. Whenever an employer reports a labor shortage they mean they can't find enough people to take jobs AT THE WAGE THEY ARE WILLING TO PAY. Lest you brand me a red shirt-wearing Das Kapital-waving pinko commie, let me lay an…

Labor shortage does not mean what you think it does. If we use the logic you presented, then we can say "There is no such thing as a shortage of Cabs, try offering $100 for a cab ride and there will be people pulling their personal cars next to you to take you where you want to go". Well Duh.

A shortage of a good means that there if there can be pending buy and sell orders in a market book, then there are a lot of pending buy orders, but just not for the price at which sellers are willing to sell.

What SV is saying that there are a lot of people who would buy a lot of goods, if they can be produced cheaply (and it isn't because they're poor, it's just because the consumers don't value that good that much). If Netflix raised their fees to $90 per month then it means that a lot of people would cancel their subscription (and not all would do because at $90 they will be unable to meet their rent).

Re: WSJ: H-1B Visas Keep Down U.S. Tech Wages, Study Shows

#24

Post by richardlong » Tue, Mar 14, 2017, 9:02 PM UTC

sumitgt wrote: post #16

I feel that there are some core issues that can fix the problem: 1) Solve the Green-Card backlog issue that forces people in the backlog to stick with their current jobs. This is a major thing, that is not talked about more often. 2) Simple merit/salary based priority queue to grant VISAs. I have never quite understood why there is this urge to entirely get rid of it instead of fixing it to do what it was originally…

Giving H-1Bs expedited green cards only accelerates the decline of the price of skilled labor.

Re: WSJ: H-1B Visas Keep Down U.S. Tech Wages, Study Shows

#25

Post by richardlong » Tue, Mar 14, 2017, 9:04 PM UTC

thatWasntFun wrote: post #17

davidf18 wrote: post #14

Another article explaining how colleges graduate twice as many STEM workers as there are jobs. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/the-bogus-high-tech... EDIT: (from the article) "Currently, U.S. colleges graduate far more scientists and engineers than find employment in those fields every year — about 200,000 more — while the IT industry fills about two-thirds of its entry-level positions with guest workers." O…

Thank you for pointing this out. Not two weeks ago I was "hired" by a firm to do some consulting for them, during which time they extracted data on "how" to solve a problem (NLP related) and then flew in some dude form India to code the solution. I made a decent wage. For two days. He undoubtedly was a faste progrmmer than me, but fuck if we both didn't get used. I live in a state that thinks the word union means tha…

So will Trump do what he said he would re: H-1Bs?

Re: WSJ: H-1B Visas Keep Down U.S. Tech Wages, Study Shows

#26

Post by vanattab » Tue, Mar 14, 2017, 9:23 PM UTC

I don't understand why we don't just make the minimum H-1B visa salary 130k-150k. If it true that there are no other candidates that have the skills you need in the entire country then surely that skill set is worth a solid six figures.

Re: WSJ: H-1B Visas Keep Down U.S. Tech Wages, Study Shows

#27

Post by supercanuck » Tue, Mar 14, 2017, 9:33 PM UTC

klipt wrote: post #22

scott00 wrote: post #13

Public service announcement: There is no such thing as a labor shortage. Having trouble hiring developers? Offer a salary of $1 million per year. Your new problem will be job applicant crowd-control. Whenever an employer reports a labor shortage they mean they can't find enough people to take jobs AT THE WAGE THEY ARE WILLING TO PAY. Lest you brand me a red shirt-wearing Das Kapital-waving pinko commie, let me lay an…

What if family doctors charged $10,000 / hour? Wouldn't you call that a doctor shortage? Just because a service exists at some (arbitrarily high) price point doesn't mean society isn't suffering from a shortage of that service.

You actually used evidence that contradicts your point.

If Family Doctors could charge $10K/hour, that most certainly does point to a shortage.

His point was, offer Family Doctors $5/hour and see how many family doctors show up, which is 'equivalent' of what is happening now.

Re: WSJ: H-1B Visas Keep Down U.S. Tech Wages, Study Shows

#28

Post by guitarbill » Tue, Mar 14, 2017, 9:35 PM UTC

What I don't get is why they don't just raise the minimum pay for H1-B visas. It might not fix all issues for this type of visa in the long run. But the fact that the minimum pay was set in 1989 seems like an obvious issue to me. This would seem to be corroborated by the numbers.

The lottery system is arguably the worst part of it, it punishes companies who carefully and rigorously select candidates and rewards companies who "spam" applications. Again, while not perfect, compensation is probably an okay proxy for how selective the interview process is.

Apart from the people abusing the system, who is against a market rate/inflation adjustment? I have no stake in this, but I really don't understand.

Re: WSJ: H-1B Visas Keep Down U.S. Tech Wages, Study Shows

#29

Post by dgudkov » Tue, Mar 14, 2017, 9:52 PM UTC

scott00 wrote: post #13

Public service announcement: There is no such thing as a labor shortage. Having trouble hiring developers? Offer a salary of $1 million per year. Your new problem will be job applicant crowd-control. Whenever an employer reports a labor shortage they mean they can't find enough people to take jobs AT THE WAGE THEY ARE WILLING TO PAY. Lest you brand me a red shirt-wearing Das Kapital-waving pinko commie, let me lay an…

Higher wage won't necessarily increase number of qualified candidates. To illustrate the point: you could offer piles of gold for a decent C++ programmer in the ancient Roman Empire and get no one simply because they didn't exist.

Re: WSJ: H-1B Visas Keep Down U.S. Tech Wages, Study Shows

#30

Post by xiaoma » Tue, Mar 14, 2017, 9:53 PM UTC

guitarbill wrote: post #28

What I don't get is why they don't just raise the minimum pay for H1-B visas. It might not fix all issues for this type of visa in the long run. But the fact that the minimum pay was set in 1989 seems like an obvious issue to me. This would seem to be corroborated by the numbers. The lottery system is arguably the worst part of it, it punishes companies who carefully and rigorously select candidates and rewards compa…

>"What I don't get is why they don't just raise the minimum pay for H1-B visas."

That was a key part of Trump's proposed bill. IRRC, the proposal is to increase the minimum from $60k to $130k. Interestingly $60k in 1989 was worth what $117k is in 2017. In other words, given current inflation rates, it's very likely that the new minimum will be the 2020 or 2021 equivalent of the original minimum.

That would suck for low-end outsourcing body shops, be good for the giant SV tech companies and probably remain about equally sucky for young start-ups as it is now.