5 ms·

The elephant in the room: make it too hard to employ talented foreigners, and sooner or later companies will just open up offices there, rather than here. Remot

by davidw 5y ago

The elephant in the room: make it too hard to employ talented foreigners, and sooner or later companies will just open up offices there, rather than here. Remote work has only made this easier. I want smart, hard working, talented people coming to the US, myself.

kfprt 5y ago
And I want a low unemployment rate so I can pay less in taxes due to the costs of welfare.
- Jensson 5y ago
  High skill immigrants are net pay tax payers, they help reduce the need to tax you.
  - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
    If a job is so hard to find that a company needs to find foreign talent to fill it, then it should pay WAY higher than the market average. That isn't what happens the vast majority of the time.
  - bifrost 5y ago
    Eh, people paying taxes are not why taxes are high nor why they get raised regularly for no good reason...
  - kfprt 5y ago
    That's not what I'm saying. If a company hires a foreigner instead of an American then that American doesn't have a job. If they don't have a job they are unemployed. If they are unemployed then they are a net cost to me the taxpayer. If we reduce unemployment we reduce the tax burden.
    - davidw 5y ago
      This is zero sum thinking, and it's been pretty thoroughly debunked. We have more people in the US than in 1960, and far more programming jobs.
      - kfprt 5y ago
        More people and fewer of them are in the labor force than in living memory. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART I should also note this isn't the 1960s when women were stay at home moms keeping the participation rate down. No, now it's just the nasty kind of unemployment where people are barely scraping by because single income with kids isn't middle class anymore.
    - reaperducer 5y ago
      If they are unemployed then they are a net cost to me the taxpayer. Unemployment benefits are not paid for by you the taxpayer. They are paid by the employee during employment and by his former employer both during and after the employment period. At least that's how it was in the three states where I've opened companies.
      - kfprt 5y ago
        While that is how unemployment insurance works, it is only temporary. Unemployed in the statistical sense means actively looking for work or on unemployment while in common parlance it refers to any person not currently employed. The costs of persons who are capable of being employed but are not come at great expense to the taxpayer. Foodstamps, housing assistance, healthcare and a myriad of other programs. It is far preferable to have as many citizens in the labor force as is reasonably possible.
        random314 5y ago
        This is a super creative argument :D Arguing for protectionism for yourself while complaining about the cost of protectionism for the unemployed!! Who would be the "welfare queen" in this case. Is it those people who would have been unemployed with/without immigrants? OR Is it those who would have been employed only because of the presence of immigrants? As brexiteers have shown, be careful what you wish for.
        kfprt 5y ago
        "Promote the general welfare" is written in the constitution. It is my understanding that this is the point of government. https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/preamble https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/preamble
    - UncleMeat 5y ago
      Software engineers create more software engineering jobs. Hiring a foreigner doesn't leave a gap for an American.
  - bruceb 5y ago
    They also send billions overseas as opposed to Americans who spend their money in country. Its a complex situation filled with lies of omission.
  - splistud 5y ago
    If they are paying the taxes rather than a citizen, then no, they are not net tax payers.
- random314 5y ago
  Its funny to see a Republican talking point of "welfare queens" being turned around to support socialism for local citizens and keep hard working immigrants out :D
  - kfprt 5y ago
    America is a nation of citizens, not an international charity. Nor is it a corporatocracy in the legal sense.
    - random314 5y ago
      But why build such a welfare state that is doomed to fail? Immigrants have built this nation over several hundred years through diligent hard work. Why the volte face towards socialism to reverse all this progress?
      - kfprt 5y ago
        Surely I would be amenable to such an argument if the frontier was still open, the safety net nonexistent, and retirement age death. We must face facts, the conditions of the past are not the conditions of today nor can our policies reflect an alien society. Call it what you will, I call it the will of the electorate.
azinman2 5y ago
There needs to be a balance as there’s an existing country that enabled these companies to exist and grow as large as they have on the backs of its treasure and blood. Personally I think we should be trying to get most of the worlds brightest to want to become citizens here. The issue is when companies have low skilled jobs that they want H1Bs using because they can pay them less and know they’ll stay around as they need to for their visa. That’s an abuse of the system.
- davidw 5y ago
  > low skilled jobs Hard work is a skill in and of itself, that many of our ancestors who migrated here possessed - and not much else.
  - azinman2 5y ago
    Except: 1. The population was low then, and the entire economic dynamic and need for immigrants was completely different than now. Laws change over time to reflect the current situation and should never remain static. 2. We already have existing ways for people to immigrate here legally outside of H1B that includes the low-skilled. 3. H1B was specifically designed for people who have skills that are difficult to grab from existing citizens, and is a requirement of the program. 4. This program has notoriously been abused as a way to pay less than the existing market of citizens would take for the job. 5. There are plenty of great people who should be here on an H1B (especially fresh grads), but are subject to a lottery that includes those who consultants have put in specifically to pay less. The abuse has displaced some who deserve it. 6. The premise of pre-reserving slots for H1B violates the entire spirit of the visa.
    - davidw 5y ago
      > 2. We already have existing ways for people to immigrate here legally outside of H1B that includes the low-skilled. You don't know much about immigration in the US.
elzbardico 5y ago
Make those companies pay their taxes. Reform education, invest on infrastructure. Tada! plenty of jobs without the need of magic.
BitwiseFool 5y ago
I want American businesses to look towards cultivating local talent first. I don't disagree with the desire to have "smart, hard working, talented people coming to the US" but from my experience big companies use H1B's as a means of getting cheaper labor and having more power/leverage over the individual.
- a-and 5y ago
  What is your experience? I will admit I don't have much insight into WITCH. I've worked at and interviewed people at FAANGs for the past 5 years and the bar for hiring is the same.
  - BitwiseFool 5y ago
    I worked for a large corporation that is not known for being particularly tech-oriented. Think traditional big business that has a lot of technology supporting it, but the product was not software. In my particular office, upwards of 60% of the people working there were either H1B or contractors managed by Wipro. There were plenty of job listings that looked appropriate for new graduates / people with less than 5 years of experience but these were rarely filled by non-temp/non-contractor/non-H1B folks. HR never went out of their way to recruit local talent and did the bare minimum to "post" the job. I sensed they made the jobs hard to find, but also wrote the postings in such a way that being unable to find an American willing to do the work was a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more Machiavellian managers realized they could overwork the H1B's because of how dependent they were on sponsorship.
Factorium 5y ago
Immigrants are brought into the US to fill existing positions under poorer conditions than US workers, and to generally boost aggregate GDP (mostly to the benefit of capital/land owners). Canada and Australia have extremely generous immigration systems, but are backwaters for software development compared to the USA, and IT salaries are worse. Additionally, there is no diversity or equality in the US H1B intake: Indians make up 75% of the intake, and 78% of them are male: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/h-1b-petitions-by-gender-country-of-birth-fy2019.pdf https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/h-1b... The H1B visa could be hugely improved if the intake was limited to 10% max from any one country and max 49% male from any one country. The US Diversity Lottery has per-country intake limits already.
- mdorazio 5y ago
  Or alternatively, make the H1B process an auction instead of a lottery to guarantee the visas actually go to positions at companies that need them enough to pay top dollar.
  - davidw 5y ago
    That short changes industries that may be important but just don't pay as much as others. And it also perpetuates the "magic number" of visas, which is not based on anything rational or reasoned. It's just a number someone invented.
  - tharne 5y ago
    Or we could just have an education system that results in a highly-skilled U.S. labor force. Imagine that.
splistud 5y ago
If that were productive they would (and have) already done so.
newfriend 5y ago
I want MY government to prioritize its citizens, i.e. ME.
- Kim_Bruning 5y ago
  Ok, I'll bite. How about we propose the following deal: I'll let your company do business in my country unfettered by extra rules and tariffs, if you let my company do business in yours on the same terms. Now you're doing business in two whole countries instead of one. Is that a better or a worse deal than the one you were proposing before?

by davidw 5y ago

kfprt 5y ago

And I want a low unemployment rate so I can pay less in taxes due to the costs of welfare.

Jensson 5y ago
High skill immigrants are net pay tax payers, they help reduce the need to tax you.
- MisterBastahrd 5y ago
  If a job is so hard to find that a company needs to find foreign talent to fill it, then it should pay WAY higher than the market average. That isn't what happens the vast majority of the time.
- bifrost 5y ago
  Eh, people paying taxes are not why taxes are high nor why they get raised regularly for no good reason...
- kfprt 5y ago
  That's not what I'm saying. If a company hires a foreigner instead of an American then that American doesn't have a job. If they don't have a job they are unemployed. If they are unemployed then they are a net cost to me the taxpayer. If we reduce unemployment we reduce the tax burden.
  - davidw 5y ago
    This is zero sum thinking, and it's been pretty thoroughly debunked. We have more people in the US than in 1960, and far more programming jobs.
    - kfprt 5y ago
      More people and fewer of them are in the labor force than in living memory. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART I should also note this isn't the 1960s when women were stay at home moms keeping the participation rate down. No, now it's just the nasty kind of unemployment where people are barely scraping by because single income with kids isn't middle class anymore.
  - reaperducer 5y ago
    If they are unemployed then they are a net cost to me the taxpayer. Unemployment benefits are not paid for by you the taxpayer. They are paid by the employee during employment and by his former employer both during and after the employment period. At least that's how it was in the three states where I've opened companies.
    - kfprt 5y ago
      While that is how unemployment insurance works, it is only temporary. Unemployed in the statistical sense means actively looking for work or on unemployment while in common parlance it refers to any person not currently employed. The costs of persons who are capable of being employed but are not come at great expense to the taxpayer. Foodstamps, housing assistance, healthcare and a myriad of other programs. It is far preferable to have as many citizens in the labor force as is reasonably possible.
      - random314 5y ago
        This is a super creative argument :D Arguing for protectionism for yourself while complaining about the cost of protectionism for the unemployed!! Who would be the "welfare queen" in this case. Is it those people who would have been unemployed with/without immigrants? OR Is it those who would have been employed only because of the presence of immigrants? As brexiteers have shown, be careful what you wish for.
        kfprt 5y ago
        "Promote the general welfare" is written in the constitution. It is my understanding that this is the point of government. https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/preamble https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/preamble
  - UncleMeat 5y ago
    Software engineers create more software engineering jobs. Hiring a foreigner doesn't leave a gap for an American.
- bruceb 5y ago
  They also send billions overseas as opposed to Americans who spend their money in country. Its a complex situation filled with lies of omission.
- splistud 5y ago
  If they are paying the taxes rather than a citizen, then no, they are not net tax payers.
random314 5y ago
Its funny to see a Republican talking point of "welfare queens" being turned around to support socialism for local citizens and keep hard working immigrants out :D
- kfprt 5y ago
  America is a nation of citizens, not an international charity. Nor is it a corporatocracy in the legal sense.
  - random314 5y ago
    But why build such a welfare state that is doomed to fail? Immigrants have built this nation over several hundred years through diligent hard work. Why the volte face towards socialism to reverse all this progress?
    - kfprt 5y ago
      Surely I would be amenable to such an argument if the frontier was still open, the safety net nonexistent, and retirement age death. We must face facts, the conditions of the past are not the conditions of today nor can our policies reflect an alien society. Call it what you will, I call it the will of the electorate.

azinman2 5y ago

There needs to be a balance as there’s an existing country that enabled these companies to exist and grow as large as they have on the backs of its treasure and blood. Personally I think we should be trying to get most of the worlds brightest to want to become citizens here. The issue is when companies have low skilled jobs that they want H1Bs using because they can pay them less and know they’ll stay around as they need to for their visa. That’s an abuse of the system.

davidw 5y ago
> low skilled jobs Hard work is a skill in and of itself, that many of our ancestors who migrated here possessed - and not much else.
- azinman2 5y ago
  Except: 1. The population was low then, and the entire economic dynamic and need for immigrants was completely different than now. Laws change over time to reflect the current situation and should never remain static. 2. We already have existing ways for people to immigrate here legally outside of H1B that includes the low-skilled. 3. H1B was specifically designed for people who have skills that are difficult to grab from existing citizens, and is a requirement of the program. 4. This program has notoriously been abused as a way to pay less than the existing market of citizens would take for the job. 5. There are plenty of great people who should be here on an H1B (especially fresh grads), but are subject to a lottery that includes those who consultants have put in specifically to pay less. The abuse has displaced some who deserve it. 6. The premise of pre-reserving slots for H1B violates the entire spirit of the visa.
  - davidw 5y ago
    > 2. We already have existing ways for people to immigrate here legally outside of H1B that includes the low-skilled. You don't know much about immigration in the US.

elzbardico 5y ago

Make those companies pay their taxes. Reform education, invest on infrastructure. Tada! plenty of jobs without the need of magic.

BitwiseFool 5y ago

I want American businesses to look towards cultivating local talent first. I don't disagree with the desire to have "smart, hard working, talented people coming to the US" but from my experience big companies use H1B's as a means of getting cheaper labor and having more power/leverage over the individual.

a-and 5y ago
What is your experience? I will admit I don't have much insight into WITCH. I've worked at and interviewed people at FAANGs for the past 5 years and the bar for hiring is the same.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  I worked for a large corporation that is not known for being particularly tech-oriented. Think traditional big business that has a lot of technology supporting it, but the product was not software. In my particular office, upwards of 60% of the people working there were either H1B or contractors managed by Wipro. There were plenty of job listings that looked appropriate for new graduates / people with less than 5 years of experience but these were rarely filled by non-temp/non-contractor/non-H1B folks. HR never went out of their way to recruit local talent and did the bare minimum to "post" the job. I sensed they made the jobs hard to find, but also wrote the postings in such a way that being unable to find an American willing to do the work was a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more Machiavellian managers realized they could overwork the H1B's because of how dependent they were on sponsorship.

Factorium 5y ago

Immigrants are brought into the US to fill existing positions under poorer conditions than US workers, and to generally boost aggregate GDP (mostly to the benefit of capital/land owners). Canada and Australia have extremely generous immigration systems, but are backwaters for software development compared to the USA, and IT salaries are worse. Additionally, there is no diversity or equality in the US H1B intake: Indians make up 75% of the intake, and 78% of them are male: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/h-1b-petitions-by-gender-country-of-birth-fy2019.pdf https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/h-1b... The H1B visa could be hugely improved if the intake was limited to 10% max from any one country and max 49% male from any one country. The US Diversity Lottery has per-country intake limits already.

mdorazio 5y ago
Or alternatively, make the H1B process an auction instead of a lottery to guarantee the visas actually go to positions at companies that need them enough to pay top dollar.
- davidw 5y ago
  That short changes industries that may be important but just don't pay as much as others. And it also perpetuates the "magic number" of visas, which is not based on anything rational or reasoned. It's just a number someone invented.
- tharne 5y ago
  Or we could just have an education system that results in a highly-skilled U.S. labor force. Imagine that.

splistud 5y ago

If that were productive they would (and have) already done so.

newfriend 5y ago

I want MY government to prioritize its citizens, i.e. ME.

Kim_Bruning 5y ago
Ok, I'll bite. How about we propose the following deal: I'll let your company do business in my country unfettered by extra rules and tariffs, if you let my company do business in yours on the same terms. Now you're doing business in two whole countries instead of one. Is that a better or a worse deal than the one you were proposing before?