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

How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 451 posts

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#351

Post by karmelapple »

mcguire wrote: post #347
karmelapple wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused; are you saying first-generation immigrants with a green card who are competing with US citizens in non-tech jobs don't have a level playing field?

No, my understanding of the proposal under consideration is a green card for any foreign student graduating from a US university. I was wondering if that was limited to high paying, in demand majors or would apply to history or radio-television-and-film. (I do so love picking on RTF majors.)

If someone has come to the USA for education, and can find a job in that field, I think it's fair. If you've shown you're willing to get good grades throughout four years of college, that's some indication that you have good discipline and would be a net benefit to the economy.

There's no guarantee of that, but if someone wants to stay, they'll be paying taxes (and were throughout their schooling days), driving the housing market, etc. If they can't find a job, they'll likely think about going elsewhere.

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#352

Post by dikdik »

refurb wrote: post #223
NhanH wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not the GP, and I do not agree with the statement. However, I have seen it being made numerous times: any shortage of US workers just means the companies are not paying enough (their argument being, try to pay $1mil and you will certainly fill your positions, this is just very minor exaggeration)

I see the thought process, but it's not universally true since you have to account for value the employee brings as well. Consider a company with only 1 employee. That employee can create 1 widget per year which sells for $100,000. The market for widgets is very elastic and at price points above $100,000, the demand is zero. Overhead and cost of goods is $50,000. In that case, the person's salary can't exceed $50,000…

So then maybe it would be cheaper for the company to hire a low-skilled American worker and actually gasps train them?

The CEO of the theoretical company is always welcome to put in an extra 30 hours a week and reap the extra economic value.

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#353

Post by wan23 »

Retric wrote: post #194
johncolanduoni wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the market rate of a translator for an uncommon language in Alabama? Where are you getting your data that suggests $100k is not dramatically above market rates for any job where there is a lack of domestic talent and a surplus of foreign talent? Median personal income in the US is $30k, so I don't think it's fair to assume every job is like tech and has market rates in anywhere near the same place.

Are there people in the US who know the language and are not willing to move to Alabama for 95k? Then the market has spoken. The entire point of capitalism is not everyone get's what they want and price how that is decided.

The thing is that this is a problem caused by government regulations interfering with supply and demand. If there is a business that's willing to pay for a worker and worker willing to take the job then it should be good for the economy for that match to happen. However, in this case immigration regulations sometimes make the supply lower than the demand. Sure, that makes the price go up and that's good for workers but if there aren't enough workers to go around that's bad for American business.

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#354

Post by dragonwriter »

wan23 wrote: post #353
Retric wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there people in the US who know the language and are not willing to move to Alabama for 95k? Then the market has spoken. The entire point of capitalism is not everyone get's what they want and price how that is decided.

The thing is that this is a problem caused by government regulations interfering with supply and demand. If there is a business that's willing to pay for a worker and worker willing to take the job then it should be good for the economy for that match to happen. However, in this case immigration regulations sometimes make the supply lower than the demand. Sure, that makes the price go up and that's good for workers b…

You are assuming that immigration has no externalized costs; I think it's pretty clear that it does. While I will certainly agree that the actual design of our immigration system is far from optimal in dealing with them, the idea that unregulated immigration so long as employer and employee find mutual benefit is desirable as that mutual benefit internal to the transaction implies total net benefit to society is, IMO, deeply flawed.

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#355

Post by cortuso »

unprepare wrote: post #207
cortuso wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, my understanding of IT market, is that shortage of candidates Silicon Valley, and not only, so complains about, is because there are NO local candidates willing to take that job, and not because "all those indians steal our young grads jobs". If by saying "So you're saying the incentives would work as intended" you mean minimum salary wage will raise because of that, don't think so.

> NO local candidates willing to take that job >not because "all those indians steal our young grads jobs" Yet we have record numbers of college graduates working at starbucks and other hourly employers. Do you honestly believe that college graduates would rather work at starbucks or mcdonalds than a tech company doing IT?

In our company we have struggle to get applicants to apply. Junior, or Senior. May be it's our company, but in general I would agree that H1B should be meant for experienced personal. What is happening now, companies are getting qualified labor (years of experience, Masters/Phds) from overseas for $60K. Nice and shiny. My point is that this, most likely, will not open more entry level positions, or make companies willing to pay more for entry level engineer.

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#356

Post by InitialLastName »

msabalau wrote: post #151
devmunchies wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no a notion of "nation" in USA, there is no such thing Yeah ok, buddy. Try that line when you don't wanna pay taxes.

The term "nation" typically means a collection of people with a common culture and ethnicity. The "Poles" are a nation, Poland is a state. That's why the the term nation-state exists, and contrasts with, say, empires composed of multiple nations. Canada, for example, traditionally described as a binational state, is now typically identified as a multicultural state, with some Québécois disliking the change in emphasi…

To be fair, Americans are also united in sloppily mishandling the term "state", mostly because it (arguably) no longer applies to us the way it used to.

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#357

Post by mancerayder »

untog wrote: post #284
waqf wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, what is the aim of the H1B program? You appear to have raised that question, and then shied away from that phrasing in your answer.

Luckily for me, you, and the internet at large, Google lets you look up information on large government programs. Not sure what is "bizarre" about me "shying away" from duplicating publicly available information. "The H-1B program applies to employers seeking to hire nonimmigrant aliens as workers in specialty occupations or as fashion models of distinguished merit and ability. A specialty occupation is one that requ…

It says, "or fashion models," amusingly. I guess not only is there a tech shortage, but we're too unattractive to find our own fashion models, too.

Unless fashion model is a legal euphemism for someone at the top tier of new tech or skills? edit: Like, some sexy new JavaScript framework or some ancient functional language.

I think they're referring to real fashion models, though, amazingly.

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#358

Post by chillacy »

yokisan wrote: post #247
throwaway729 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This "rural communities don't need tech" narrative is tiring and false. "Tech" is more than Google. How many engineers do you think John Deere hires? How many scientists does Monsanto have on staff? How many lines of code go into the average modern factory? If I had a dime for every time I talk to a farmer/laborer who plants fields full of GM crops and/or harvests those fields with impressive machinery, and then insi…

> There's nothing stopping those people from getting an education and joining a big tech company. "There's nothing stopping somebody from the ghetto from getting an education and joining a big tech company". In both cases, sadly there is. And I think what the OP is suggesting ("for every immigrant a tech company imports, they must hire two rural American workers") is a step towards remedying this.

Would that be some sort of like economic affirmative action? There is some truth to the idea that we're born into an economic class in America. Its also probably less morally hard to swallow than racial affirmative action while having somewhat of the same effect.

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#359

Post by Arizhel »

testUser69 wrote: post #88

Americas "tech dominance" threatens the breadbasket. The coastal areas, mostly certain cities, have become "international" and any worker from a rural area who wants to earn a living wage doing a technical job (e.g. STEM) now not only has to compete with other Americans, but everyone in the world. What exactly do the elites expect people in the breadbasket to do? If America is an international country then we're goin…

>What I think would really help America (and the world by proxy) is if for every immigrant a tech company imports, they must hire two rural American workers from a community that's average income is less than the national median.

There's a big problem with this idea: you seem to be assuming that rural Americans want to live in the international coastal cities. I'm quite sure this simply isn't the case for most of them (it is true for many young people, who do in fact move to the coastal cities on their own volition). So are you proposing requiring tech companies to open satellite offices in rural areas, where there's no concentration of workers at all? And what are these people going to do for the tech companies anyway? If they had relevant skills, they'd already be working in tech, not living in rural areas and working at Walmart.

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#360

Post by Arizhel »

rsfern wrote: post #6
chrischen wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea but who will stop him?

Congress, hopefully. Call your senators and representatives! There's a Senate bill that needs support. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/248

Oh please. Congress has been stuffed with GOP people who are in league with him. The only time they complain is when he does something that isn't conservative enough for them, like when he issued a statement that his administration would uphold the LGBT anti-discrimination order from Obama, and a few GOP congressmen complained how this infringes "religious freedom".

The only people in Congress who'll oppose him are (some) Democrats, who simply aren't numerous enough to make a difference.

You might as well get used to the new reality; Trump has the power to do almost anything he wants, unless it's so bad that it pisses off much of the GOP.

Post reply on HN