17 ms·

The problem with suggesting that the salary bar be set at the median of the lifetime salary, is that it does mean closing the door to current international stud

The problem with suggesting that the salary bar be set at the median of the lifetime salary, is that it does mean closing the door to current international students in the U.S., and to recent graduates recruited from universities abroad. The minimum bar for an immigrant should not be that they are better than half the people already employed here in their field, regardless of their stage in life. And, of course, most people immigrate when they are young and without kids. If you truly believe that H-1B should exist only for truly extraordinary talent, not available in the U.S. at any salary, this might be a reasonable proposal. But the thing is, there is already a program for extraordinary talent, the O-1 and EB-1 categories. If you instead believe that it should be possible for companies to get the best talent, regardless of where they happen to have been born, and for people to work abroad from their nations of birth, then the H-1B program can't be quite that stringent. It is a skilled workers program, and H-1B workers are skilled. It is not a genius engineer only program. Now, if your proposal is to change green card process so that employers can't hold people hostage over it, or to institute controls that companies can't underpay H1-B workers on average, that's one thing. But in the current political climate the suggestions seems to be "all foreigners must go! exceptions made for super stars". If the U.S. is truly becoming that closed, I genuinely think that, over time, it will find the best technology being developed elsewhere (maybe not at the research lab level if it keeps the O-1/EB-1 programs, but at the industrial/software innovation level for sure). Either in the countries that welcome immigration of skilled professionals (e.g. Canada, Germany, Singapore) or those with large pools of human capital to being with (e.g. China and India).

neltnerb 10y ago
Is your concern about the talent/bidding argument, or the "limited number" part? Because it seems to me that if you relax the latter, the prior is much less an issue. I dunno, I say the more the merrier. There's lots of problems to solve, may as well solve them here.
- lazaroclapp 10y ago
  The limited number mostly. I think H-1B reform was a good idea under the previous administration, and that better rules for green card processes, salaries, etc. could make it fairer on both foreign-born and U.S.-born employees, and remove the incentives for employers to strongly prefer one over the other all else being equal (which, btw, implicitly favors people already here, but not overwhelmingly so). But I also feel that right now the U.S. political climate is headed towards pretty strong xenophobia as state policy and that re-examining the H-1B program right now will likely lead to it being quite hostile to foreign-born employees and might end up not even benefiting local employees either on the long run.
sleepingeights 10y ago
> If you truly believe that H-1B should exist only for truly extraordinary talent Second to last paragraph: "Employers claim that they hire H-1Bs for rare skill sets or outstanding talent ― traits that they would need to pay a premium for on the open market. Yet current law requires only that they pay the average wage. Worse, it is the average wage within one of those four experience levels. Instead, we should replace this with a single wage floor set at the 75th percentile of the overall wage distribution for the given occupation and region." Silicon Valley is actively exploiting H1Bs and antagonizing and attacking US born/educated workers just to justify bringing in a cheaper labour force of lower skilled workers from India and China.
- lazaroclapp 10y ago
  Rare skillset or outstanding talent can be interpreted at different levels in so far as how strong an statement that is. As a percentage of the population, software engineers have a rare skillset, and there is no employment crisis in the field that requires protectionist measures to keep people with said skillset from mass unemployment. The system you are proposing would end with companies having to hire significantly over 25% of their workforce locally. That's not "favoring skilled U.S. workers over lower skilled workers from abroad", that is "restricting our talent pool to 5% of the world population for the most part". You might chose to legislate it thus if you wish, but you would be doing so at your peril. Don't get me wrong, I don't think the system should incentive not hiring Americans because they can resign with more ease, that is absurd. But on the other hand, I don't think the U.S. really benefits over the long run of having a system where the talent market is strongly distorted by citizenship. Let me put it another way, would you think it is a good idea, if it were legal to do so, if California passed a law saying people born out of state should only be able to work here at 75th percentile overall wage for their occupation?
  - walshemj 10y ago
    That's not what rare means rare is not the average SE
  - true_religion 10y ago
stupidcar 10y ago
You're ignoring the fact the US already produces a surplus of skilled and qualified STEM professionals. Freedom of labor movement is a nice–to–have, but not some ideological priority that must be placed above all other considerations. The size of the pool of human capital is irrelevant if there simply aren't enough jobs on offer. The government of a country should be first and foremost advocates for, and protectors of, the welfare of its own citizens. If a large number of those citizens are being encouraged to accumulate massive debts gaining an education that them leaves them unable to find a job, then that is a social problem that needs a solution. And if the government can help the situation by putting reasonable restrictions on the number of foreign workers competing for those jobs, then they absolutely should do that. I really do not understand how so many people came to view these kind of theoretical, free-market niceties as more important than the practical wellbeing of their fellow citizens, but it's an incredibly dangerous attitude. If you support free-markets and globalisation, then you should want them implemented in a way that doesn't cause major social damage that ends up creating hostility to them. Otherwise, you end up with the kinds of populist movements we're seeing now, which feed upon the resentments of people who've watched successive governments refuse to place their own citizen's welfare above that of an ideology that harms them.
- danenania 10y ago
  Why are people born inside the imaginary lines of my country more important to help than those born outside of it? Someone from Bangladesh or Mexico is not a fellow citizen of my country, but they are a fellow citizen of my world. Why should the smaller and more arbitrary geographical division come first? You can talk about culture, but I'm sure I have more in common culturally with a phd student or entrepreneur in Dhaka than a Christian fundamentalist in Kansas. I understand that there is a lot of complexity in these issues, but it's hard for me to see nationalism as anything more than a form of widely accepted bigotry.
  - YooLi 10y ago
    Because being born inside those imaginary lines means people pay ($ + other) and therefore expect the group they contribute to to put them ahead of an outsider.
rodionos 10y ago
One thing to keep in mind is that unlike O-1, EB-1 is an immigrant visa. It's for people who are set on relocating to the US and eventually become US citizens. The O-1 visas have been growing too, particularly issued to UK nationals: https://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/1bc51064/4/ https://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/1bc51064/4/

neltnerb 10y ago

Is your concern about the talent/bidding argument, or the "limited number" part? Because it seems to me that if you relax the latter, the prior is much less an issue. I dunno, I say the more the merrier. There's lots of problems to solve, may as well solve them here.

lazaroclapp 10y ago
The limited number mostly. I think H-1B reform was a good idea under the previous administration, and that better rules for green card processes, salaries, etc. could make it fairer on both foreign-born and U.S.-born employees, and remove the incentives for employers to strongly prefer one over the other all else being equal (which, btw, implicitly favors people already here, but not overwhelmingly so). But I also feel that right now the U.S. political climate is headed towards pretty strong xenophobia as state policy and that re-examining the H-1B program right now will likely lead to it being quite hostile to foreign-born employees and might end up not even benefiting local employees either on the long run.

sleepingeights 10y ago

> If you truly believe that H-1B should exist only for truly extraordinary talent Second to last paragraph: "Employers claim that they hire H-1Bs for rare skill sets or outstanding talent ― traits that they would need to pay a premium for on the open market. Yet current law requires only that they pay the average wage. Worse, it is the average wage within one of those four experience levels. Instead, we should replace this with a single wage floor set at the 75th percentile of the overall wage distribution for the given occupation and region." Silicon Valley is actively exploiting H1Bs and antagonizing and attacking US born/educated workers just to justify bringing in a cheaper labour force of lower skilled workers from India and China.

lazaroclapp 10y ago
Rare skillset or outstanding talent can be interpreted at different levels in so far as how strong an statement that is. As a percentage of the population, software engineers have a rare skillset, and there is no employment crisis in the field that requires protectionist measures to keep people with said skillset from mass unemployment. The system you are proposing would end with companies having to hire significantly over 25% of their workforce locally. That's not "favoring skilled U.S. workers over lower skilled workers from abroad", that is "restricting our talent pool to 5% of the world population for the most part". You might chose to legislate it thus if you wish, but you would be doing so at your peril. Don't get me wrong, I don't think the system should incentive not hiring Americans because they can resign with more ease, that is absurd. But on the other hand, I don't think the U.S. really benefits over the long run of having a system where the talent market is strongly distorted by citizenship. Let me put it another way, would you think it is a good idea, if it were legal to do so, if California passed a law saying people born out of state should only be able to work here at 75th percentile overall wage for their occupation?
- walshemj 10y ago
  That's not what rare means rare is not the average SE
- true_religion 10y ago

stupidcar 10y ago

You're ignoring the fact the US already produces a surplus of skilled and qualified STEM professionals. Freedom of labor movement is a nice–to–have, but not some ideological priority that must be placed above all other considerations. The size of the pool of human capital is irrelevant if there simply aren't enough jobs on offer. The government of a country should be first and foremost advocates for, and protectors of, the welfare of its own citizens. If a large number of those citizens are being encouraged to accumulate massive debts gaining an education that them leaves them unable to find a job, then that is a social problem that needs a solution. And if the government can help the situation by putting reasonable restrictions on the number of foreign workers competing for those jobs, then they absolutely should do that. I really do not understand how so many people came to view these kind of theoretical, free-market niceties as more important than the practical wellbeing of their fellow citizens, but it's an incredibly dangerous attitude. If you support free-markets and globalisation, then you should want them implemented in a way that doesn't cause major social damage that ends up creating hostility to them. Otherwise, you end up with the kinds of populist movements we're seeing now, which feed upon the resentments of people who've watched successive governments refuse to place their own citizen's welfare above that of an ideology that harms them.

danenania 10y ago
Why are people born inside the imaginary lines of my country more important to help than those born outside of it? Someone from Bangladesh or Mexico is not a fellow citizen of my country, but they are a fellow citizen of my world. Why should the smaller and more arbitrary geographical division come first? You can talk about culture, but I'm sure I have more in common culturally with a phd student or entrepreneur in Dhaka than a Christian fundamentalist in Kansas. I understand that there is a lot of complexity in these issues, but it's hard for me to see nationalism as anything more than a form of widely accepted bigotry.
- YooLi 10y ago
  Because being born inside those imaginary lines means people pay ($ + other) and therefore expect the group they contribute to to put them ahead of an outsider.

rodionos 10y ago

One thing to keep in mind is that unlike O-1, EB-1 is an immigrant visa. It's for people who are set on relocating to the US and eventually become US citizens. The O-1 visas have been growing too, particularly issued to UK nationals: https://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/1bc51064/4/ https://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/1bc51064/4/