This is something that I've long suspected was going on with the H1B system.
In essence, we have a limited "guest worker" program that allocates most of the economic benefits to the company (in terms of a compliant workforce that has little incentive or ability to take their skills to a competing company that might offer a better salary or career options) while allocating most of the costs to the actual H1B workers AND the US Citizens and permanent residents who have to compete with a pool of workers that will accept lower pay with little in the way of bargaining power. Great deal for companies. Terrible deal for individual workers (on both sides).
I can sympathize with a company having trouble hiring talent. There is an acute shortage of capable, knowledgeable workers trained in the skills that industry needs. I just happen to think that the H1B program is a poor solution to it.
The better option would be for us to offer a form of permanent legal residency to workers who have critical skills that make them attractive to industry. Once they are here, permanent residency along with all of the benefits that entails (freedom to travel, freedom to change jobs) should be part of the package.
I know we do something like this using a scoring system but frankly I think it's administered very poorly based on what I've heard from others. We can do better.
I don't like the idea of a permanent underclass with fewer rights than others. We should encourage emigration and settlement from cultures that integrate well with ours and have the best possible chance of success in our social and economic systems.
Too little is written about the cadre of interests that benefit from illegal immigration of low-status individuals. It may seem cruel, but we do nobody a favor by allowing illegal immigrants to hide in the shadows and subject themselves to abuse at the hands of those that would profit from their lack of power or ability to go to the government for help.
> There is an acute shortage of capable, knowledgeable workers trained in the skills that industry needs.
Just like there is an acute shortage of NFL Quarterbacks that are capable of leading a team to a super bowl championship.
The problem with this skills gap myth is that we are looking for people who are better than most of their peers in the industry. The will always be a shortage of top 10% performers in the industry because the top 10% of the industry will always be the same amount.
EDIT: I should just clarify that I'm absolutely in favor of people coming from other countries to work in the US. That said, the H1B in its current form is often just indentured servitude and definitely needs to be adjusted. My statement is specifically addressing the skills gap myth.
There's also, by definition, a shortage of talent willing to work for far-below-market wages. It's in employers' best interest to address this "shortage".
This would only be true if companies needed better employees than their competitors. If you merely need someone capable of doing a job, there's no such limitation: it's logically-possible for 100% of software developers to be able to put a script in cron that runs a SQL query to generate a report.
Given enough time almost any very junior software developer from any amount of training could successfully complete that task. What you consider capable is that they can do it within a certain time frame and with a certain level of quality. That quality being higher than others and the time frame being faster than others.
Also, that expectation of time frame and quality level has increased significantly since 1985. The reason that has increased is because the average level software developer in 2017 can do that task quite a bit faster and of higher quality than the average software developer could do in 1985.
The definition of acceptable in any market changes with the pool of options available.
> allocating most of the costs to the actual H1B workers
If it were not a good option for them, they wouldn't sign up for it, so it has more benefits than costs for them.
In terms of competition.... IT is a very globalized industry already.
> permanent legal residency to workers who have critical skills that make them attractive to industry. Once they are here, permanent residency along with all of the benefits that entails (freedom to travel, freedom to change jobs)
And I'm sure there are children out there for whom closing of a local factory (because it breaks the child labor ban) would be a tragedy. IMO ban on child labor should be imposed only if the state is equipped to provide adequate material help to children who would lose jobs this way.
"Good" must be put into relative terms. "Better" works better - "if it were not a better option (than working/living conditions in their current country), they wouldn't sign up for it."
There is the opportunity for a significant gap between the effectively indentured servitude that H-1B may provide and the opportunities in other countries.
In essence, we have a limited "guest worker" program that allocates most of the economic benefits to the company (in terms of a compliant workforce that has little incentive or ability to take their skills to a competing company that might offer a better salary or career options) while allocating most of the costs to the actual H1B workers AND the US Citizens and permanent residents who have to compete with a pool of workers that will accept lower pay with little in the way of bargaining power. Great deal for companies. Terrible deal for individual workers (on both sides).
I can sympathize with a company having trouble hiring talent. There is an acute shortage of capable, knowledgeable workers trained in the skills that industry needs. I just happen to think that the H1B program is a poor solution to it.
The better option would be for us to offer a form of permanent legal residency to workers who have critical skills that make them attractive to industry. Once they are here, permanent residency along with all of the benefits that entails (freedom to travel, freedom to change jobs) should be part of the package.
I know we do something like this using a scoring system but frankly I think it's administered very poorly based on what I've heard from others. We can do better.
I don't like the idea of a permanent underclass with fewer rights than others. We should encourage emigration and settlement from cultures that integrate well with ours and have the best possible chance of success in our social and economic systems.
Too little is written about the cadre of interests that benefit from illegal immigration of low-status individuals. It may seem cruel, but we do nobody a favor by allowing illegal immigrants to hide in the shadows and subject themselves to abuse at the hands of those that would profit from their lack of power or ability to go to the government for help.