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> The point I am making, that you are repeatedly refusing to acknowledge, is that the H-1B program covers almost ALL skilled immigrants, not just the ones that

> The point I am making, that you are repeatedly refusing to acknowledge, is that the H-1B program covers almost ALL skilled immigrants, not just the ones that are hired because they are cheap. What you are failing to grasp is the very existence of an H1-B program causes the labir rates to go down for other jobs. They do have a choice, they can bid up the price of the engineers or whatever in an effort to lure engineers away. Instead, they collude and try not to compete with each other. Charles Crocker didnt import chinease immigrants to build railroads because they were the bestest railroad builders in the world.

esoterica 7y ago
You are committing the lump of labor fallacy. Silicon Valley has a large number of immigrants (and tech workers in general) yet it has the highest tech wages in the world. By your naive analysis you would expect “higher supply = lower price” to hold, but it obviously doesn’t. If you’re going that the large number of immigrants (and transplants) in the Bay Area is a result, and not a cause of the high wages then you are only half-correct. High paying jobs are created there because that’s where all the best talent is, and the best talent moves there because that’s where the highest paying jobs are. It’s a virtuous cycle. Can you think of any other possible reason why the Bay Area pays as much as it is? The valley is no different from any other lame suburb in the country, literally the only differentiating factor is the people. Many of whom are not local. If there were fewer tech immigrants, then there would be fewer companies founded here, fewer offices opened here, and the companies that were founded here would be much less successful and pay less due to limited access to talent. No matter how much you are willing to pay, you can never acquire the talent you want if you artificially restrict your hiring pool. Why does Barcelona employ Messi? Is it because they are too cheap to hire a Spanish striker and are not willing to bid up the wages of one? Of course not.
- supercanuck 7y ago
  You are conflating immigration policy with the H1-B. The H1-B process is specifically designed to shackle the immigrant to a company for a period of 5 years no different than Central Pacific hiring chinease to build the transcontinental railroad. When Messi and other star talent come to America, are they piped through intermediaries like Infosys, Cognizant and Tata and given roles such as QA Analyst and Data Analyst? Of course not. He could freely negotiate with any club teams he so deserves because his level of skill and accomplishment commanded such attention. You seem to be conflating my argument that I am anti-immigrant or I am naive to assume that immigrants don't grow the area. That is not what I am arguing and that is not what the H1-B Visa is designed to do. I'm sure you believe that is the intent of the program but that is not what it IS doing and that is reflected by the volume of workers and median salaries. You can even see this spread in the salaries s of just Software Engineers. Some area as high as 220,000, others are 109,000. Do you're own homework though, research: "Why Are Wages Not Rising Despite the Labor Shortage?" It is textbook economics but people associate it with racism or xenophobia and nationalism and corporations are all too ready to profit from this sentiment because of course they are. Why would they invest in employee development, Training, interviewing, blah blah when the answer is to just increase the pool via programs like the H1-B especially when so many arrogant engineers believe that being a software engineer is somehow an innate talent that just needs to be discovered and unlocked in special people.
  - esoterica 7y ago
    Like I said, I agree with you that the H-1B program is bad precisely because of its restrictive nature towards employees who want to switch jobs. My point is that there are usually no available alternatives to the program for hiring immigrants, so using the H-1B program is not prima facie evidence that a corporation is intentionally seeking out a low wage employee who is shackled to them. This is evidenced by the fact that many (not all of course) tech companies have a policy of starting the green card process on day 1 of an employee’s tenure, which speeds up the process of freeing the employees from the work visa handcuffs. Yes, companies like Infosys exist, but the companies that pay their engineers 300k+ also have to use the same program to recruit immigrants because that’s just the unfortunate nature of how the US immigration system works.

esoterica 7y ago

You are committing the lump of labor fallacy. Silicon Valley has a large number of immigrants (and tech workers in general) yet it has the highest tech wages in the world. By your naive analysis you would expect “higher supply = lower price” to hold, but it obviously doesn’t. If you’re going that the large number of immigrants (and transplants) in the Bay Area is a result, and not a cause of the high wages then you are only half-correct. High paying jobs are created there because that’s where all the best talent is, and the best talent moves there because that’s where the highest paying jobs are. It’s a virtuous cycle. Can you think of any other possible reason why the Bay Area pays as much as it is? The valley is no different from any other lame suburb in the country, literally the only differentiating factor is the people. Many of whom are not local. If there were fewer tech immigrants, then there would be fewer companies founded here, fewer offices opened here, and the companies that were founded here would be much less successful and pay less due to limited access to talent. No matter how much you are willing to pay, you can never acquire the talent you want if you artificially restrict your hiring pool. Why does Barcelona employ Messi? Is it because they are too cheap to hire a Spanish striker and are not willing to bid up the wages of one? Of course not.

supercanuck 7y ago
You are conflating immigration policy with the H1-B. The H1-B process is specifically designed to shackle the immigrant to a company for a period of 5 years no different than Central Pacific hiring chinease to build the transcontinental railroad. When Messi and other star talent come to America, are they piped through intermediaries like Infosys, Cognizant and Tata and given roles such as QA Analyst and Data Analyst? Of course not. He could freely negotiate with any club teams he so deserves because his level of skill and accomplishment commanded such attention. You seem to be conflating my argument that I am anti-immigrant or I am naive to assume that immigrants don't grow the area. That is not what I am arguing and that is not what the H1-B Visa is designed to do. I'm sure you believe that is the intent of the program but that is not what it IS doing and that is reflected by the volume of workers and median salaries. You can even see this spread in the salaries s of just Software Engineers. Some area as high as 220,000, others are 109,000. Do you're own homework though, research: "Why Are Wages Not Rising Despite the Labor Shortage?" It is textbook economics but people associate it with racism or xenophobia and nationalism and corporations are all too ready to profit from this sentiment because of course they are. Why would they invest in employee development, Training, interviewing, blah blah when the answer is to just increase the pool via programs like the H1-B especially when so many arrogant engineers believe that being a software engineer is somehow an innate talent that just needs to be discovered and unlocked in special people.
- esoterica 7y ago
  Like I said, I agree with you that the H-1B program is bad precisely because of its restrictive nature towards employees who want to switch jobs. My point is that there are usually no available alternatives to the program for hiring immigrants, so using the H-1B program is not prima facie evidence that a corporation is intentionally seeking out a low wage employee who is shackled to them. This is evidenced by the fact that many (not all of course) tech companies have a policy of starting the green card process on day 1 of an employee’s tenure, which speeds up the process of freeing the employees from the work visa handcuffs. Yes, companies like Infosys exist, but the companies that pay their engineers 300k+ also have to use the same program to recruit immigrants because that’s just the unfortunate nature of how the US immigration system works.