4 ms·

Someone else would have taken that job maybe for a higher salary.

by ipaddr 4mo ago

bonsai_spool 4mo ago
At a certain point, there aren't enough Americans for these jobs. So the choice is to let other nations absorb these skilled laborers, or simply hire the best people. It's funny how we forget about meritocracy as soon as the median American is threatened.
- rjbwork 4mo ago
  >It's funny how we forget about meritocracy as soon as the median American is threatened. What meritocracy? This is a myth pushed to justify a kind of "just world" interpretation of our social ills. Nepotism is increasing, social mobility decreasing. To believe in meritocracy in the face of this is to deny reality.
- pixelatedindex 4mo ago
  > At a certain point, there aren't enough Americans for these jobs Is that really true? I’m sure in some fields where you need rare experts I believe it. For the average engineer who is just another cog in the wheel of big corp, I highly doubt it.
  - bonsai_spool 4mo ago
    > Is that really true? I’m sure in some fields where you need rare experts I believe it. For the average engineer who is just another cog in the wheel of big corp, I highly doubt it. Have you ever hired someone before? Did you decide to take the best person you found or did you pick an American?
    - pixelatedindex 4mo ago
      > Have you ever hired someone before? Did you decide to take the best person you found or did you pick an American? Many times. Sometimes we don’t offer sponsorships so we hired who didn’t need one. Other times not. During the interview process where they’re from isn’t the matter at hand. Either way, there’s no shortage of good candidates - solely American / GC or not. Though let’s be honest - there is a question behind the question, isn’t there? Why don’t you just ask that instead?
      - bonsai_spool 4mo ago
        > Though let’s be honest - there is a question behind the question, isn’t there? Why don’t you just ask that instead? You answered it - you picked the best person, who sometimes was not American.
        pixelatedindex 4mo ago
        That doesn’t directly prove that there aren’t enough Americans who can do the job. Sometimes yeah, the non American is better like in photolithography. Generally though, the foreign candidate is not so much better that hiring an American would have lowered the bar. Sometimes it also comes down to leveling - I’ve had to down level people due to budget concerns. Americans can hold out for that better job, but the other cannot so companies take advantage of that. My point is that it’s not a skill issue, it’s a wage + location issue. Foreigners will find that their wage is better than what they can earn at home, so they can undercut that citizens who’s held out for a better opportunity.
        bonsai_spool 4mo ago
        > so they can undercut that citizens who’s held out for a better opportunity. Just to better understand, genuinely, do you mean that the company would increase their budget in the event that a foreign worker had not been available, and that an American would have taken the job at that time, given the higher wage?
        pixelatedindex 4mo ago
        Why wouldn’t they? It’s a supply and demand thing, supply is lower so pay is higher to meet demand. Other ways to solve is to settle for less if the job isn’t that crucial, or look for someone who lives in a lower cost of living area who can take the wage. But that also depends on the whole RTO fiasco. To be clear, if you are doing leading edge R&D or some super special project like SpaceX, etc then yeah you need to seek the brightest minds across the globe. But to maintain your CMS or work in some ERP softwares, you can definitely find an American to do it. The basic point I’m making is a large majority of H1B work can be done just as well (within an acceptable error rate) by someone here. There are reasons why you need some special talent but those aren’t as common.
- jaharios 4mo ago
  So we should strive to maximize companies profits over the citizens?
- ipaddr 4mo ago
  With AI taking a percentage of jobs there will be enough people to fill those positions and more. Why bring in workers when productivity is taking away positions.
  - bonsai_spool 4mo ago
    > With AI taking a percentage of jobs there will be enough people to fill those positions and more. Why bring in workers when productivity is taking away positions. Have you ever hired someone before?
    - ipaddr 4mo ago
      AI is forecasted to remove 30% of white collar jobs in the next few years. People are not hiring now. Do you work in hr?
      - bonsai_spool 4mo ago
        > Have you ever hired someone before? You didn't answer!
        ipaddr 4mo ago
        Not in hr or own small company with 3 workers
dnnddidiej 4mo ago
But then they gave up a tax paying job and thus the net effect is zero. Looking holistically the person leaving the US (or lets say 100 people to make it easier to see the point) means 1 to 30 less startups and so maybe an entire company or more not being started. That is less revenue for US. What most people from the "they steal our jobs" mentality (not saying that is you, but this a seperate point) don't get is productive people create jobs by being a customer of many businesses.
- ipaddr 4mo ago
  Then someone lower got a better job and someone out of work ends up in a job.
  - bonsai_spool 4mo ago
    There are not enough qualified people in any particular country for all the possible new technologies that could be deployed. You're not likely to hire your plumber to program a webapp. That doesn't mean your plumber isn't qualified—just that people looking for webapps want to hire workers who know how to make them.
    - throwaway85825 4mo ago
      Writing web apps is not the most skilled of jobs. Despite what some egos would have tou believe.
    - ipaddr 4mo ago
      So many computer science grads can't find work many have left the field. I don't think we will run out of workers. There is the other side plenty of workers successful at programming language could be trained to fill any gap. That's what happened in the 50s and 60s..
      - rtgfhyuj 4mo ago
        lol cs grads can’t do this work
light_hue_1 4mo ago
Or it would have moved overseas forever. I can already on the ground see the effect of the Trump policies. So many tech jobs that would have been in the US are being lost. And companies are learning how to be effective with overseas teams.
qaq 4mo ago
You do realize every major tech company has offices in EU and in India. You make it hard here they will hire more there
- lmz 4mo ago
  [flagged]
  - aweiher 4mo ago
    Just so this doesn't go unanswered: That is a far-right conspiracy theory for which there is absolutely no evidence.
    - lmz 4mo ago
      Importing people from countries with higher fertility rates into a country that gives citizenship based on birth location. What else could be the result?
ozgrakkurt 4mo ago
It is questionable if US has the education system or people capital to support all the science based sectors it has IMO. Immigrants doing a very large portion of tech work can't be just because they get paid less
- hunterpayne 4mo ago
  "Immigrants doing a very large portion of tech work can't be just because they get paid less" It is solely about that. Remember, immigrants didn't really play a role in the US tech industry for half of its existence and didn't play a major role until a decade ago. This is despite the fact that US colleges openly and actively discriminate against US citizens for grad school spots for 2 or 3 decades now.
  - dukeyukey 4mo ago
    > and didn't play a major role until a decade ago Sergey Brin? Paul Graham? Elon Musk?
  - mlnj 4mo ago
    >US colleges openly and actively discriminate against US citizens for grad school spots for 2 or 3 decades now. Isn't this just because foreign students pay more than citizens? Isn't this just capitalism and the free market efficiently allocating resources? Something about 'having the cake and eating it too'.
    - jakeydus 4mo ago
      Not just that, universities (especially smaller research universities) love having grad students whose research is paid for. China, Saudi Arabia, Brazil (less so now than in the past), Qatar, and others have all had programs for years where they paid the tuition and research costs of students at universities. Why would the university not pick that over a local kid who the university has to pay for out of their own coffers?
      - 4mo ago
bubblethink 4mo ago
Humans tend not to be fungible.
konschubert 4mo ago
More likely there would have been one less job. There isn't a "lump of labour" that gets distributed in the economy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy

Someone else would have taken that job maybe for a higher salary.

by ipaddr 4mo ago

Someone else would have taken that job maybe for a higher salary.

At a certain point, there aren't enough Americans for these jobs. So the choice is to let other nations absorb these skilled laborers, or simply hire the best people. It's funny how we forget about meritocracy as soon as the median American is threatened.

rjbwork 4mo ago
>It's funny how we forget about meritocracy as soon as the median American is threatened. What meritocracy? This is a myth pushed to justify a kind of "just world" interpretation of our social ills. Nepotism is increasing, social mobility decreasing. To believe in meritocracy in the face of this is to deny reality.
pixelatedindex 4mo ago
> At a certain point, there aren't enough Americans for these jobs Is that really true? I’m sure in some fields where you need rare experts I believe it. For the average engineer who is just another cog in the wheel of big corp, I highly doubt it.
- bonsai_spool 4mo ago
  > Is that really true? I’m sure in some fields where you need rare experts I believe it. For the average engineer who is just another cog in the wheel of big corp, I highly doubt it. Have you ever hired someone before? Did you decide to take the best person you found or did you pick an American?
  - pixelatedindex 4mo ago
    > Have you ever hired someone before? Did you decide to take the best person you found or did you pick an American? Many times. Sometimes we don’t offer sponsorships so we hired who didn’t need one. Other times not. During the interview process where they’re from isn’t the matter at hand. Either way, there’s no shortage of good candidates - solely American / GC or not. Though let’s be honest - there is a question behind the question, isn’t there? Why don’t you just ask that instead?
    - bonsai_spool 4mo ago
      > Though let’s be honest - there is a question behind the question, isn’t there? Why don’t you just ask that instead? You answered it - you picked the best person, who sometimes was not American.
      - pixelatedindex 4mo ago
        That doesn’t directly prove that there aren’t enough Americans who can do the job. Sometimes yeah, the non American is better like in photolithography. Generally though, the foreign candidate is not so much better that hiring an American would have lowered the bar. Sometimes it also comes down to leveling - I’ve had to down level people due to budget concerns. Americans can hold out for that better job, but the other cannot so companies take advantage of that. My point is that it’s not a skill issue, it’s a wage + location issue. Foreigners will find that their wage is better than what they can earn at home, so they can undercut that citizens who’s held out for a better opportunity.
        bonsai_spool 4mo ago
        > so they can undercut that citizens who’s held out for a better opportunity. Just to better understand, genuinely, do you mean that the company would increase their budget in the event that a foreign worker had not been available, and that an American would have taken the job at that time, given the higher wage?
        pixelatedindex 4mo ago
        Why wouldn’t they? It’s a supply and demand thing, supply is lower so pay is higher to meet demand. Other ways to solve is to settle for less if the job isn’t that crucial, or look for someone who lives in a lower cost of living area who can take the wage. But that also depends on the whole RTO fiasco. To be clear, if you are doing leading edge R&D or some super special project like SpaceX, etc then yeah you need to seek the brightest minds across the globe. But to maintain your CMS or work in some ERP softwares, you can definitely find an American to do it. The basic point I’m making is a large majority of H1B work can be done just as well (within an acceptable error rate) by someone here. There are reasons why you need some special talent but those aren’t as common.
jaharios 4mo ago
So we should strive to maximize companies profits over the citizens?
ipaddr 4mo ago
With AI taking a percentage of jobs there will be enough people to fill those positions and more. Why bring in workers when productivity is taking away positions.
- bonsai_spool 4mo ago
  > With AI taking a percentage of jobs there will be enough people to fill those positions and more. Why bring in workers when productivity is taking away positions. Have you ever hired someone before?
  - ipaddr 4mo ago
    AI is forecasted to remove 30% of white collar jobs in the next few years. People are not hiring now. Do you work in hr?
    - bonsai_spool 4mo ago
      > Have you ever hired someone before? You didn't answer!
      - ipaddr 4mo ago
        Not in hr or own small company with 3 workers

dnnddidiej 4mo ago

But then they gave up a tax paying job and thus the net effect is zero. Looking holistically the person leaving the US (or lets say 100 people to make it easier to see the point) means 1 to 30 less startups and so maybe an entire company or more not being started. That is less revenue for US. What most people from the "they steal our jobs" mentality (not saying that is you, but this a seperate point) don't get is productive people create jobs by being a customer of many businesses.

ipaddr 4mo ago
Then someone lower got a better job and someone out of work ends up in a job.
- bonsai_spool 4mo ago
  There are not enough qualified people in any particular country for all the possible new technologies that could be deployed. You're not likely to hire your plumber to program a webapp. That doesn't mean your plumber isn't qualified—just that people looking for webapps want to hire workers who know how to make them.
  - throwaway85825 4mo ago
    Writing web apps is not the most skilled of jobs. Despite what some egos would have tou believe.
  - ipaddr 4mo ago
    So many computer science grads can't find work many have left the field. I don't think we will run out of workers. There is the other side plenty of workers successful at programming language could be trained to fill any gap. That's what happened in the 50s and 60s..
    - rtgfhyuj 4mo ago
      lol cs grads can’t do this work

light_hue_1 4mo ago

Or it would have moved overseas forever. I can already on the ground see the effect of the Trump policies. So many tech jobs that would have been in the US are being lost. And companies are learning how to be effective with overseas teams.

qaq 4mo ago

You do realize every major tech company has offices in EU and in India. You make it hard here they will hire more there

lmz 4mo ago
[flagged]
- aweiher 4mo ago
  Just so this doesn't go unanswered: That is a far-right conspiracy theory for which there is absolutely no evidence.
  - lmz 4mo ago
    Importing people from countries with higher fertility rates into a country that gives citizenship based on birth location. What else could be the result?

ozgrakkurt 4mo ago

It is questionable if US has the education system or people capital to support all the science based sectors it has IMO. Immigrants doing a very large portion of tech work can't be just because they get paid less

hunterpayne 4mo ago
"Immigrants doing a very large portion of tech work can't be just because they get paid less" It is solely about that. Remember, immigrants didn't really play a role in the US tech industry for half of its existence and didn't play a major role until a decade ago. This is despite the fact that US colleges openly and actively discriminate against US citizens for grad school spots for 2 or 3 decades now.
- dukeyukey 4mo ago
  > and didn't play a major role until a decade ago Sergey Brin? Paul Graham? Elon Musk?
- mlnj 4mo ago
  >US colleges openly and actively discriminate against US citizens for grad school spots for 2 or 3 decades now. Isn't this just because foreign students pay more than citizens? Isn't this just capitalism and the free market efficiently allocating resources? Something about 'having the cake and eating it too'.
  - jakeydus 4mo ago
    Not just that, universities (especially smaller research universities) love having grad students whose research is paid for. China, Saudi Arabia, Brazil (less so now than in the past), Qatar, and others have all had programs for years where they paid the tuition and research costs of students at universities. Why would the university not pick that over a local kid who the university has to pay for out of their own coffers?
    - 4mo ago

bubblethink 4mo ago

Humans tend not to be fungible.

konschubert 4mo ago

More likely there would have been one less job. There isn't a "lump of labour" that gets distributed in the economy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy