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And I suspect that for skilled visa programs, labour demand is actually somewhat elastic, so that one additional skilled worker creates some fraction of a new j

And I suspect that for skilled visa programs, labour demand is actually somewhat elastic, so that one additional skilled worker creates some fraction of a new job. The supply of jobs isn't fixed. Consider a company like Google, who doesn't hire on quotas, but just grabs all the talented engineers they can. In what sense is a visa worker taking a job away from an American, when Google will gladly hire both?

micaksica 10y ago
I'd mostly agree with you on this point and it's divergent from the one that the Trumpistas care about. That said, I have seen companies that were "H-1B dependent", ie, they have paid the fees for visas to hire from outside the country, because they were able to get lower salaries from doing so even after paying the legal fees. Clearly not the Googles of the world, but they do exist.
- greenshackle2 10y ago
  Yeah they definitely exist. And the ratio of those vs. the Googles will affect how elastic it is. Anywhere between 0.1 and 0.9 for the elasticity sounds plausible to me (not an economist, I could be not even using the right concepts, so take that for what it's worth).
- greenshackle2 10y ago
  Yeah they definitely exist. And the ratio of those vs. the Googles will affect how elastic it is. Anywhere between 0.1 and 0.9 for the elasticity sounds plausible to me (not an economist, I could be not even using the right concepts, so take that for what it's worth).
bernawil 10y ago
>not jobs that these people actually want anyway ... for the offered salary. The way I see it, "inorganically" adding to the labor supply hinders the natural price discovery of the market.
- aianus 10y ago
  I don't think anybody is sitting at home unemployed because Google's $140k offer wasn't good enough for them. Yes, Google might be able to hire more employees with higher salaries by poaching them from elsewhere. But that just shifts the labor shortage to some other company, it doesn't get rid of it. The way I see it, it's bad for everyone (the employer, the Indian, the American taxpayer) when an American $100k job opportunity stays unfilled and a willing qualified Indian is working at an Indian company for $30k instead because they won't let him into the USA.
  - bernawil 10y ago
    Come on, I think it was clear that by "jobs locals don't want anyway" OP was talking about low wage-low status jobs filled by immigrants instead, that would otherwise offer higher and higher salaries until the supply curve met the demand one if interest group didn't inject immigrants into the supply -at least that's kind of the trump supporter angle-. And in your deal I can see someone getting the short end of the stick: The employer gets lower costs and higher profits. The Indian gets a higher salary and access to infrastructure he didn't have to pay for. The local gets a lower salary, and the rest of taxpayers get one more body consuming the public services he had to pay, more people competing for housing and ~40$K less in demand for whatever he has to offer.
    - phil21 10y ago
      I often question if anyone on HN actually grew up blue collar... Locals want those jobs. I worked them when they actually made a relatively decent wage. Now they simply are not worth my time even as side jobs they pay so little. I was making $22/hr at 16 years old in the mid-90's as a landscaping laborer. This pay range was quite common for such jobs, and most of my co-workers were 20 and 30 somethings supporting families. Good luck getting even half that today, 20 years later. If you started paying roofers $50/hr, you would have an unlimited pool of labor willing to take those jobs. At $10/hr I'm not interested because I can barely make a living at that rate, so it's certainly not worth the wear and tear on my health. Unskilled immigration is largely a wealth transfer from the most vulnerable in our society to the most privileged. There is very little to be gained in these practices for the typical underskilled American - most all the benefits are accrued elsewhere in the economy. http://dailycaller.com/2016/03/16/harvard-economist-immigration-costs-us-workers-500-billion-a-year-video/ http://dailycaller.com/2016/03/16/harvard-economist-immigrat...

micaksica 10y ago

I'd mostly agree with you on this point and it's divergent from the one that the Trumpistas care about. That said, I have seen companies that were "H-1B dependent", ie, they have paid the fees for visas to hire from outside the country, because they were able to get lower salaries from doing so even after paying the legal fees. Clearly not the Googles of the world, but they do exist.

greenshackle2 10y ago
Yeah they definitely exist. And the ratio of those vs. the Googles will affect how elastic it is. Anywhere between 0.1 and 0.9 for the elasticity sounds plausible to me (not an economist, I could be not even using the right concepts, so take that for what it's worth).
greenshackle2 10y ago
Yeah they definitely exist. And the ratio of those vs. the Googles will affect how elastic it is. Anywhere between 0.1 and 0.9 for the elasticity sounds plausible to me (not an economist, I could be not even using the right concepts, so take that for what it's worth).

bernawil 10y ago

>not jobs that these people actually want anyway ... for the offered salary. The way I see it, "inorganically" adding to the labor supply hinders the natural price discovery of the market.

aianus 10y ago
I don't think anybody is sitting at home unemployed because Google's $140k offer wasn't good enough for them. Yes, Google might be able to hire more employees with higher salaries by poaching them from elsewhere. But that just shifts the labor shortage to some other company, it doesn't get rid of it. The way I see it, it's bad for everyone (the employer, the Indian, the American taxpayer) when an American $100k job opportunity stays unfilled and a willing qualified Indian is working at an Indian company for $30k instead because they won't let him into the USA.
- bernawil 10y ago
  Come on, I think it was clear that by "jobs locals don't want anyway" OP was talking about low wage-low status jobs filled by immigrants instead, that would otherwise offer higher and higher salaries until the supply curve met the demand one if interest group didn't inject immigrants into the supply -at least that's kind of the trump supporter angle-. And in your deal I can see someone getting the short end of the stick: The employer gets lower costs and higher profits. The Indian gets a higher salary and access to infrastructure he didn't have to pay for. The local gets a lower salary, and the rest of taxpayers get one more body consuming the public services he had to pay, more people competing for housing and ~40$K less in demand for whatever he has to offer.
  - phil21 10y ago
    I often question if anyone on HN actually grew up blue collar... Locals want those jobs. I worked them when they actually made a relatively decent wage. Now they simply are not worth my time even as side jobs they pay so little. I was making $22/hr at 16 years old in the mid-90's as a landscaping laborer. This pay range was quite common for such jobs, and most of my co-workers were 20 and 30 somethings supporting families. Good luck getting even half that today, 20 years later. If you started paying roofers $50/hr, you would have an unlimited pool of labor willing to take those jobs. At $10/hr I'm not interested because I can barely make a living at that rate, so it's certainly not worth the wear and tear on my health. Unskilled immigration is largely a wealth transfer from the most vulnerable in our society to the most privileged. There is very little to be gained in these practices for the typical underskilled American - most all the benefits are accrued elsewhere in the economy. http://dailycaller.com/2016/03/16/harvard-economist-immigration-costs-us-workers-500-billion-a-year-video/ http://dailycaller.com/2016/03/16/harvard-economist-immigrat...