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I'm glad genuinely glad you came to the U.S. and found gainful employment. I have many friends, some very close, that likewise have come to the U.S. and the U.S

I'm glad genuinely glad you came to the U.S. and found gainful employment. I have many friends, some very close, that likewise have come to the U.S. and the U.S. is better for it. That being said, even if the salaries are all the same, it doesn't mean that wages are not suppressed. If you import supply and demand stays consistent, prices drop. I think the burden of proof is on the people saying otherwise to prove that importing tens of thousands of engineers doesn't suppress wages. In other words, if large corporations couldn't import H1B workers, they'd have to do other things to get their work done, and those things would probably involve raising wages for especially skilled engineers. Or perhaps by investing in other productivity measures (better dev tools, better hardware, more administrative assistants, etc.).

baddox 10y ago
At this point I just don't understand your argument. You seem to imply that there is some "correct" supply of engineers, and anything that increases the supply above that is "suppressing wages." That would mean that scholarships for engineering schools, programs for encouraging engineering careers, all forms of immigration, and even internal population growth, would all be things that can "suppress wages."
- humanrebar 10y ago
  It seems to me that H1B supporters are the ones saying there is a correct supply of engineers and that the U.S. is below that threshold. I'm arguing that the supply is more fungible than that, especially in the long run and especially given a floating price point, and that changing the laws and regulations to solve challenges in particular business models is basically an indirect form of lobbying for special interests.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  Actually, all those things are things that suppress wages. Think about it: WHY do we need programs to encourage engineering careers? Do we have programs to encourage people to go into law or medicine? Why not? Well those professions don't seem to have a shortage of people willing to work hard to get into those schools. So why does engineering have such a shortage? These programs assume that there's something wrong with young people, or with the culture, causing them to avoid these careers. Maybe, instead, there's something wrong with the careers themselves, and the employers, which cause people to avoid them. So why are we, as a society, subsidizing these rich companies to help them get more workers? If these companies really need these workers so badly, maybe they should foot the bill to recruit people into the profession and then train them (I mean their entire college costs here). If an employer isn't willing to pay $100k for a kid to go through college, who otherwise isn't willing to take that risk himself, then why should the rest of us try to brainwash that kid to do it, or help fund a scholarship for him?
mavelikara 10y ago
> if large corporations couldn't import H1B workers, they'd have to do other things to get their work done, and those things would probably involve raising wages for especially skilled engineers. Or perhaps by investing in other productivity measures Or perhaps, move the job to another country which has a larger supply of workers.
- humanrebar 10y ago
  Sure, but I suspect they are already doing that to the extent it makes sense.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  Nope. It's simple: if this were an option, they'd have already done it. Microsoft could easily just pack up and move all their dev work to India. There's a large supply of workers there, and they can pay them a fraction of what they have to pay here. Why aren't they doing this? The big companies threaten this, but they never do it. Simple: if it were really this easy, they'd have already done it. There's obviously some good reasons why they're not, and why instead they choose to import people under H1-B, pay them roughly similar salaries to US workers, and pay for lots of immigration/paperwork-related costs on top of this. They might be (and I think they are) helping keep salaries down this way overall, but that's nothing compared to just dumping everyone and moving operations to India and paying 1/5 of US labor rates. So why aren't they doing that?
  - wan23 10y ago
    Google runs large engineering offices in a number of foreign countries. If there's talent out there that can't be imported the next best thing is to go where the talent is.
    - Arizhel 10y ago
      Ok, then tell me why they haven't done that already. They could save huge amounts of money by just laying off everyone in the US and hiring new people in India (or relocating everyone to India). The salaries in India are easily 1/5 or less than those in Silicon Valley. So what's stopping them?
gaius 10y ago
Companies would need to invest in continuing professional development, as lawyers, doctors, PEs and so on need to. Not just hire someone with the latest buzzwords then discard them when the fashion changes.

baddox 10y ago

At this point I just don't understand your argument. You seem to imply that there is some "correct" supply of engineers, and anything that increases the supply above that is "suppressing wages." That would mean that scholarships for engineering schools, programs for encouraging engineering careers, all forms of immigration, and even internal population growth, would all be things that can "suppress wages."

humanrebar 10y ago
It seems to me that H1B supporters are the ones saying there is a correct supply of engineers and that the U.S. is below that threshold. I'm arguing that the supply is more fungible than that, especially in the long run and especially given a floating price point, and that changing the laws and regulations to solve challenges in particular business models is basically an indirect form of lobbying for special interests.
Arizhel 10y ago
Actually, all those things are things that suppress wages. Think about it: WHY do we need programs to encourage engineering careers? Do we have programs to encourage people to go into law or medicine? Why not? Well those professions don't seem to have a shortage of people willing to work hard to get into those schools. So why does engineering have such a shortage? These programs assume that there's something wrong with young people, or with the culture, causing them to avoid these careers. Maybe, instead, there's something wrong with the careers themselves, and the employers, which cause people to avoid them. So why are we, as a society, subsidizing these rich companies to help them get more workers? If these companies really need these workers so badly, maybe they should foot the bill to recruit people into the profession and then train them (I mean their entire college costs here). If an employer isn't willing to pay $100k for a kid to go through college, who otherwise isn't willing to take that risk himself, then why should the rest of us try to brainwash that kid to do it, or help fund a scholarship for him?

mavelikara 10y ago

> if large corporations couldn't import H1B workers, they'd have to do other things to get their work done, and those things would probably involve raising wages for especially skilled engineers. Or perhaps by investing in other productivity measures Or perhaps, move the job to another country which has a larger supply of workers.

humanrebar 10y ago
Sure, but I suspect they are already doing that to the extent it makes sense.
Arizhel 10y ago
Nope. It's simple: if this were an option, they'd have already done it. Microsoft could easily just pack up and move all their dev work to India. There's a large supply of workers there, and they can pay them a fraction of what they have to pay here. Why aren't they doing this? The big companies threaten this, but they never do it. Simple: if it were really this easy, they'd have already done it. There's obviously some good reasons why they're not, and why instead they choose to import people under H1-B, pay them roughly similar salaries to US workers, and pay for lots of immigration/paperwork-related costs on top of this. They might be (and I think they are) helping keep salaries down this way overall, but that's nothing compared to just dumping everyone and moving operations to India and paying 1/5 of US labor rates. So why aren't they doing that?
- wan23 10y ago
  Google runs large engineering offices in a number of foreign countries. If there's talent out there that can't be imported the next best thing is to go where the talent is.
  - Arizhel 10y ago
    Ok, then tell me why they haven't done that already. They could save huge amounts of money by just laying off everyone in the US and hiring new people in India (or relocating everyone to India). The salaries in India are easily 1/5 or less than those in Silicon Valley. So what's stopping them?

gaius 10y ago

Companies would need to invest in continuing professional development, as lawyers, doctors, PEs and so on need to. Not just hire someone with the latest buzzwords then discard them when the fashion changes.