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Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens

thehill.com

371–380 of 571 posts

Re: Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens

#371
post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like a fair way for the free market to address things, no? If you need special carve outs, create a new type of Visa for those special cases. The immigrants are all going to be paying taxes on their earnings. If you can boost H1B salaries by an average of $20k/yr by doing a price auction, that brings govt revenue and maybe even gives opportunities to balance the budget by creating more H1B slots.

What do you mean “fair”? What happens in the years/decades between when this hypothetical system is enacted and when the US can train up sufficient workers to substitute the labor force we currently have with H1-B? Your proposal will mean 99% of all of the H1-B allocation will go to hedge fund quants and 1% maybe go to an AI researcher, but all of the materials science (eg. Cutting edge battery tech), semiconductor f…

You could make multiple pools, having separate ones carved out for research and advanced technology.

A lot of H1Bs are not working on anything you described though.

Re: Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens

#372
post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No explicitly not that. I want whoever sponsors and h1b or the equivalent in my fantasy world here to pay for the cost to society up front and then for that h1b person to have the same freedom as a citizen. That would be too much - an alien having all the privileges of a citizen but no obligations is above a mere citizen. If you want to become a citizen there is an employment-based immigration, if you don't - you ar…

> That would be too much - an alien having all the privileges of a citizen but no obligations is above a mere citizen. If you want to become a citizen there is an employment-based immigration, if you don't - you are going to be restricted in any developed country because normal countries do not put foreigners above citizens. My point is that issuing h1bs are a service for corporations in the us, ostensibly under the…

You keep insisting that H-1B or any temporary visas are for the jobs that cannot be filled by Americans. This is simply not true. There are no such requirements so you whole reasoning is based on a fantasy.

Re: Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens

#373

A lot of these problems could be solved if H1-B's were given out in order of salary (I think there's such a proposal going around recently). And by that I mean: something like a Dutch auction. Give H1-Bs to the top 85K paying jobs (maybe normalized to SoL in the region, I'm sure the BLS has some idea on how to do it). The lure of H1-Bs is the money savings, and the fact that if you're on an H1-B, you're practically a…

This conflates high education specialists with high earnings. It’s probably not completely uncorrelated, but only giving H1-Bs to the highest paying reqs which need them starves all of the other reqs of any possible candidates. I understand that H1-Bs are currently likely to create an abusive relationship with the visa-ed employee, but just because you have identified a valid diagnosis doesn’t mean your suggested pre…

> but only giving H1-Bs to the highest paying reqs which need them starves all of the other reqs of any possible candidates.

If this is the effect, is there a reason these starved orgs couldn't just hire Americans? If not, I think implicit in your argument is that H1-Bs exist to provide cheap labor to firms at the expense of American lives.

Re: Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens

#374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TL;DR I don't want to compete with under-priced outsourced labor. I gladly accept peers and betters who expand the market by bringing the best and the brightest to the same national team. ~ I'm all for immigration reform in ways that empower the workers. Want to bring in the best talent from elsewhere? Fine, Make sure they cost the company MORE than you'd pay a US worker, with the government getting the excess as a t…

The job adverts that are being talked about are part of the PERM process that is required for the “pathway to citizenship” for workers that are already here for an extended period of time. What is also part of the process, is the requirement that you pay more than the median wages. Undercutting wages will get this petition denied and the process itself costs thousands of dollars on top of the thousands of dollars it…

I'd rather they cost like 4X the median worker's wage, with at least half of that collected as taxes by the government.

It should be a notable cost, and the worker needs to be making a premium for it to be a rush on immigration.

Further note, this is to also encourage more _entry level_ jobs for local workers and train up citizens to become more highly skilled workers.

Re: Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens

#375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the wrong logic. Immigrants can make exactly the same as natives and still suppress wages. Fundamentally how prices are set is someone sets a price, and if there are no takers they change the price. If a company offers a salary, and they bring in an H1-B to fill the role, they don't have to raise the salary. Over time it suppresses the wage.

Something else worth mentioning is that the companies are conferring a valuable benefit that they generally don't have to pay for: The promise of US citizenship for the employee and (eventually) their family.

FWIW the large companies usually do pay for much of it, including dedicated immigration lawyers.

Re: Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens

#376
post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the US have such a shortage of artistic talent we have to hire abroad for it?

Short answer - yes. There's no long answer.

Where are the H1-Bs working in the arts at the moment?

Re: Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens

#377
post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That would be too much - an alien having all the privileges of a citizen but no obligations is above a mere citizen. If you want to become a citizen there is an employment-based immigration, if you don't - you are going to be restricted in any developed country because normal countries do not put foreigners above citizens. My point is that issuing h1bs are a service for corporations in the us, ostensibly under the…

You keep insisting that H-1B or any temporary visas are for the jobs that cannot be filled by Americans. This is simply not true. There are no such requirements so you whole reasoning is based on a fantasy.

> You keep insisting that H-1B or any temporary visas are for the jobs that cannot be filled by Americans. This is simply not true.

As a de facto description of the current situation in the United States I agree with you.

The de jure description for why h1bs would be allowed is due to them, again _ostensibly_, having skills or a specific skillset that could not be found in a reasonable time frame and are worth importing.

I am trying to game theory out ways to make the h1b system achieve the ostensible goals. I am not trying to defend the current system as it stands

edit: I realized this might be our point of contention right now

> There are no such requirements so you whole reasoning is based on a fantasy.

I was under the impression that h1bs positions were supposed to pay a “higher than prevailing wage” but there has been a surge of activity around these terms the past few months on the internet and I can’t find definitive proof of that. If that fact isn’t true it would modify my view on the system

Re: Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens

#378
post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You keep insisting that H-1B or any temporary visas are for the jobs that cannot be filled by Americans. This is simply not true. There are no such requirements so you whole reasoning is based on a fantasy.

> You keep insisting that H-1B or any temporary visas are for the jobs that cannot be filled by Americans. This is simply not true. As a de facto description of the current situation in the United States I agree with you. The de jure description for why h1bs would be allowed is due to them, again _ostensibly_, having skills or a specific skillset that could not be found in a reasonable time frame and are worth import…

>The de jure description for why h1bs would be allowed is due to them, again _ostensibly_, having skills or a specific skillset that could not be found in a reasonable time frame and are worth importing.

There is no such description in law (this is what de jure means) so I have no clue why you think so.

>I was under the impression that h1bs positions were supposed to pay a “higher than prevailing wage”

They are. It does not mean they are for jobs, which cannot be done by an American worker, ostensibly or otherwise.

Re: Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens

#380
post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You keep insisting that H-1B or any temporary visas are for the jobs that cannot be filled by Americans. This is simply not true. As a de facto description of the current situation in the United States I agree with you. The de jure description for why h1bs would be allowed is due to them, again _ostensibly_, having skills or a specific skillset that could not be found in a reasonable time frame and are worth import…

>The de jure description for why h1bs would be allowed is due to them, again _ostensibly_, having skills or a specific skillset that could not be found in a reasonable time frame and are worth importing. There is no such description in law (this is what de jure means) so I have no clue why you think so. >I was under the impression that h1bs positions were supposed to pay a “higher than prevailing wage” They are. It d…

Ok, then I guess what I am trying to figure out is how to build a system that is the same as my de jure description.

I was under the impression that was the case and do not need you to prove to me otherwise. But I agreed with that de jure description and would like a system that achieves that

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