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Do you favor more or less protection for engineering workers? If more, would you also favor more protection for lower-skilled and manufacturing workers (many o
by dventimi 14y ago
Do you favor more or less protection for engineering workers? If more, would you also favor more protection for lower-skilled and manufacturing workers (many of whom are actually highly-skilled)? Is there any class of worker who doesn't deserve protection?
- geebee 14y agoI don't think the issue is protection so much as whether we should go out of our way to create a specific visa program designed to bring STEM workers to the US. I think this is a very complex issue - the US should make a greater effort to attract highly skilled and educated immigrants. However, I think that focusing too narrowly on one specific segment of the economy can end up stifling wage growth and suppressing the market signals that might have attracted more US citizens to the field.
- dventimi 14y agoAmericans already enjoy blanket worker protection, since you can't legally work here without some kind of visa. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and I'm not saying it's different from labor policy in other nations. But it's a fact, and it does prop up U.S. wages. H1B visas do have the effect of eroding that protection and lowering domestic wages. That also may not necessarily be a bad thing, but it's also a fact. One way that it may be a good thing is that it lowers the cost of engineering services for the rest of us, the same way low-wage workers overseas provide us with cheap manufactured goods, and low-wage farm workers provide us with cheap food. If I.T. wage growth exceeds productivity growth in that sector (I'm not saying it does, I'm saying if it does), then we're being overcharged for I.T. services.