U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by raz32dust » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 5:26 AM UTC

sct202 wrote: post #109

raz32dust wrote: post #58

It would have been a positive change if they did not have the restriction that the Masters must be from a US university. What's wrong with non-US universities? I don't see why degree even matters. Like someone suggested in a previous similar thread, just sorting by pay and giving higher wages more priority (perhaps with some sort of normalization to compensate for cost of living and the field of work) is much better.

It's a gamble to come to America to get educated (cost, cultural adjustment, visa issues), and I think that we should show preference to those students who have made that extra effort to live and study in America over other people.

I just answered this elsewhere as well. This reasoning would make sense if that's what they said. But the explicit reason for the changes is to get more "skilled" workers in. Then, it should not matter if the degree was from US or Europe or China. I would have accepted this reason if they had separate weightage for "How long the person spent time in the US". This particular formulation puts a graduate from Europe at a disadvantage, for example.

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

#262

Post by hnaccy » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 5:26 AM UTC

joshe wrote: post #215

tossaccount123 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>To prime your intuition a bit, consider how woman and minorities more than doubled the work force from the 1960s to 1990s with no loss in jobs or lowering of wages. You do realize there hasn't been a raise in real wages since the 70s when you account for inflation right? Coincidentally during that same time period the income gap exploded because the wealthy had plentiful cheap labor and were able to pocket the produ…

That's super interesting, I didn't know that about hourly wages. I tend to think of income gaining from 1950 to 1990 and flattening from the mid 1990s to now. Though it does look like total compensation (adding in benefits) did actually increase recently, they don't have anything for back to 1960. So maybe the story is that wages stayed flat, but benefits accounted for most of the income increase. Not an economist so…

>Wage trends over the past half-century suggest that a 10 percent increase in the number of workers with a particular set of skills probably lowers the wage of that group by at least 3 percent. Even after the economy has fully adjusted, those skill groups that received the most immigrants will still offer lower pay relative to those that received fewer immigrants.

>Immigration redistributes wealth from those who compete with immigrants to those who use immigrants—from the employee to the employer. And the additional profits are so large that the economic pie accruing to all natives actually grows... But behind that calculation is a much larger shift from one group of Americans to another: The total wealth redistribution from the native losers to the native winners is enormous, roughly a half-trillion dollars a year. Immigrants, too, gain substantially; their total earnings far exceed what their income would have been had they not migrated.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/trump-clinto...

Unless you're an immigrant or high up in tech business why would you cheer more high-skill immigrants? It will depress your wages and the economic gains will not accrue to you.

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

#263

Post by picacho » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 5:27 AM UTC

define high-skilled workers. Currently an steven's institute graduate cs master could get a h1b visa by lottery while a Harvard graduate might not be that lucky. Consider this, is knowing how to use kubernetes anything harder than working in a Physics Lab? The system is flawed~~

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

#264

Post by Consultant32452 » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 5:28 AM UTC

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…

How do you feel about the broader high skilled worker market? I'm not personally familiar with it, but the internet™ makes it sound pretty abysmal. Low wages for most science careers, horrible working conditions and pay for graduate positions, professorships replaced by adjunct positions, fewer and fewer tenure track positions offered. It appears as though the high skilled worker market has really taken it in the pants the past few decades.

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

#265

Post by blazespin » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 5:29 AM UTC

tossaccount123 wrote: post #147

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…

>To prime your intuition a bit, consider how woman and minorities more than doubled the work force from the 1960s to 1990s with no loss in jobs or lowering of wages. You do realize there hasn't been a raise in real wages since the 70s when you account for inflation right? Coincidentally during that same time period the income gap exploded because the wealthy had plentiful cheap labor and were able to pocket the produ…

Wouldn't everyone become a founder then?

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

#266

Post by arcticbull » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 5:29 AM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #178

arcticbull wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sure have, and Japan believe it or not has no caps or quotas on immigration and just introduced a bunch of measures to make it easier to immigrate. Limiting immigrants is a bad thing and the US could stand to benefit hugely, economically and socially, by laxening the rules.

What does a quota matter when you have other real effective restrictions. Also, I’m for immigration where we have proven needs. I don’t agree with flooding the market and depressing wages for average workers. PhDs, sure, rare skills, sure. Or, let’s put it this way, would you be in favor we took Japan’s immigration system part and parcel and implemented it as they have?

Back up. You cite Japan as a strict immigration program (they have no caps, quotas and are actively recruiting foreigners and changing laws to make immigration more attractive), China (a totalitarian ethnostate actively placing a portion of the population in labor camps), South Africa (struggling with the fallout of apartheid) and Korea (I don’t know enough to comment) as your prime examples of tough immigration policy being ... what exactly? I don’t want Japan’s system for America, I want Canada’s - largely merit based, quick, efficient and open to anyone skilled, while still open to refugees and people in need. That’s how economies grow.

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

#267

Post by OurBoysGirls1st » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 5:30 AM UTC

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…

>> They aren't competitors, they are complements and create more jobs.

We've had the H1B program for 25+yrs. We accept 65+20k workers a year. That is 8520+ workers who have entered the country on this program. Lets round down and say 2million workers. These are 2million jobs that didn't go to local graduates, but instead to overseas graduates.

Of those 2 million workers, could anyone cite any significant companies started by the H1b workers which created jobs?* I mean, not a dozen jobs here or there, but serious job creation that would offset the 2 million local workers who were displaced?

There is this myth that H1b workers create more jobs than they take, but where are these jobs? Oh, please dont mention Google or Tesla, as those founders didnt come in on H1bs.

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

#268

Post by spangry » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 5:33 AM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #93

justinhj wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re putting the cart before the horse. Why is there a shortage of low skilled workers in a country of 400m? Because you have illegal workers who’ve driven the price of that work below what the market legally supports. If the law was effectively enforced those low skilled jobs would pay enough for Americans

Vegetable and dairy farmers would go out of business, if prices can't be raised due to competition from imports. You'd need tariffs as well, and people would need to put up with significant price increases at the grocery store. There are not many Americans who want their kids to grow up to be farmhands or migrant workers. If you can speak English, you're better off in retail. For immigrants, there is a valuable benef…

This is also why we should abolish federal and state minimum wage laws. Gotta support those marginal businesses!

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

#269

Post by pauljurczak » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 5:33 AM UTC

joshe wrote: post #215

tossaccount123 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>To prime your intuition a bit, consider how woman and minorities more than doubled the work force from the 1960s to 1990s with no loss in jobs or lowering of wages. You do realize there hasn't been a raise in real wages since the 70s when you account for inflation right? Coincidentally during that same time period the income gap exploded because the wealthy had plentiful cheap labor and were able to pocket the produ…

That's super interesting, I didn't know that about hourly wages. I tend to think of income gaining from 1950 to 1990 and flattening from the mid 1990s to now. Though it does look like total compensation (adding in benefits) did actually increase recently, they don't have anything for back to 1960. So maybe the story is that wages stayed flat, but benefits accounted for most of the income increase. Not an economist so…

> The main point of my comment is that when economists spend 10 years looking at data and arguing out every detail, they conclude that immigration is increasing jobs and increasing wages.

Economists look at the past and extrapolate into future, often with really poor results. With increasing amount of automation, software development is probably safe from paradigm change for a short while. Given that, it is always risky to claim that immigration will increase jobs and wages in the next decade, because it did so in the previous one.

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

#270

Post by somerandomness » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 5:33 AM UTC

prickledpear wrote: post #3

I'm trying to understand exactly what is changing. From the article are they just switching the order of the two lotteries? They aren't actually raising the number of visas offered, right? This just has the effect of allocating more of the 85,000 visas granted to those with a Master's degree or PhD, right? I'm sure the universities that heavily recruit international students to their graduate programs will love this.

Actually it says the 20,000 is only for Master/PhDs, so this could reduce the total number of H1Bs issued if there are fewer than 20,000 Master/PhD applicants. Otherwise the effect is more Master/PhD H1Bs and fewer others.