There is no shortage of STEM workers
greenvilleonline.com
greenvilleonline.com
Enrollment numbers for engineering students are not really relevant. It is the graduation numbers. Engineering programs are notorious for "weeding out" large numbers of students. His salary statistics are scary though.
What I find more sobering is that the real US median income decreased 6.6% from 2000-2012.
The reality is that tech companies just want to pay people less. Of course they do - every company wants to pay less for the same product. We have equilibrium today where tech workers equalize at a certain balance of supply and demand - if demand rose, supply would increase from more promising STEM job prospects driving more people into STEM - but demand is not rising, since wage offerings are not rising.
It is important that we as a society realize that while most jobs are going away - and through that process, the supply of labor is going through the roof as more and more people fight to survive on the scraps of demand for whatever skill they have are put out into the market - engineering in all its forms remains uniquely capable of maintaining equilibrium above the poverty line.
It is always a battle between the provider and the consumer. As predominantly consumers we are not used to fighting as the provider of a valuable asset. But as the provider we must fight to keep prices high to maximize our own profits - in the same way corporate interests will fight to maintain their own profit margins. They are not your friends, they want to use you as much as you use them as a means to an end - you wanted chocolate bars and coffee, and they provided at prices set by the market. They want engineering talent, and you offer yourself at a price you deem fair, and if you are hired - that was a price set by the market.
Don't let anyone deceive you into manipulating the market for their purposes. They want to drive up supply to reduce their own costs - if they had real demand for talent, it would be met.
I think your point is very important...
My take is that this can fundamentally be attributed to our (increasingly full) participation in the "global economy"...
For years jobs have been out-sourced "within" countries by a process of competitive bidding...we Americans have done this for years and consider it fair...we refer to it as a level playing field...
Surprise...the global economy dictates that whoever is willing to do a good job cheaply--provide the same benefit at a reduced cost--has a very realistic shot at eventually filling a position...one way or another...
That's what I find sobering...regardless of your country of origin, or your particular skill set there are now many more just like you--equally qualified--who are willing to provide what you provide at a lower salary...
We're part of a "great leveling"...
If you see something on par [or even worse, less than] inflation, there isn't a shortage of any kind.
IOW, precision matters and we should be leery of over-generalizing.
On one hand, various thought-leaders insist that people in the US should get training in STEM fields. Education is the answer, your answer, to employability. It doesn't matter who you are; you can get STEM training and become competitive in the job market.
On the other hand, some of these same thought-leaders insist that the US absolutely must import lots more people from foreign countries. There's no way to train existing people in the US to do the necessary work. It doesn't matter who you are; you can't do it. Step aside. We're replacing you.
A lot of times the people making these arguments are lawyers.
But still, substitute "mechanical engineering" or "civil engineering" or FSM-only-knows what and the overall point remains the same. "Engineers" or "STEM" people aren't all filling the same positions and the people aren't really fungible (at least in the short term, retraining to change fields takes time).
When politicians (or most people, for that matter) talk about needing more people in STEM, they don't usually mean to increase funding for these fields. Rather, "STEM" is short-hand for "the sorts of people who solve problems that are useful for industry, business, and health."
To say it doesn't matter if there are 0 H1-Bs or 250,000 H1-Bs is ...
Your "high paid H1-B worker" most likely isn't (see data contained in the referenced article). Outside of a small percentage of very rare individuals or specialists every H1-B is taking a job from a US citizen, who would pay the same taxes or more, is far more likely to buy real estate than rent a nearby apartment for a couple of years, and will almost assuredly un-employ some American than hopefully employ one.
This is the lump of labor fallacy at its worst.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy
How did the US manage to grow from 100 million people to more than 300 million without massive unemployment if the number of jobs to go around was fixed?
Please stop using it.
Image the following thought experiment. Assume that tomorrow morning every H1-B worker poof vanished. Then, on the assumption of egregiously wrong, zero of those positions in this hypothetical world could or would be filled by a single individual of the 204 million working population of US. If egregiously wrong then 60K to 85K good well paying middle class salaried positions would sit begging, unfulfilled and unfillable.
If egregiously correct, than most of those positions would be filled. Care to quantify your belief of "egregious wrongness" by stating how many of those positions you in fact believe can not and will not get filled?
Some of those positions would be filled - eventually. Some of the jobs would be farmed out to other countries.
Also, the people that depend on the custom of those workers (say a bunch of them are from India and eat at a local Indian restaurant as a simple thought experiment) would suffer as well.
The economy is not a zero-sum game.
The first order effect difference: I claim effectively all of those positions could and would be filled. The "this is egregiously wrong" position claims that effectively none of those well paid jobs would be filled. I know why people will proactively seek a well paying job. I am not able to follow the position that no one will bother to seek those positions at all. Seems at odds with basic human motives to me.
With regard to the alluded second order effects, multiplier effects.
Consider the Disney situation where "about 250 Disney employees were told in late October that they would be laid off. Many of their jobs were transferred to immigrants on temporary visas for highly skilled technical workers, who were brought in by an outsourcing firm based in India."[1]
Sure the local Indian restaurant will prosper. But that is 250 households whose kids can longer afford to go to college. 250 home purchases vs 250 apartment rentals (folks on 2-3 yr visa rent not buy in general). So on and so forth.
On the surface, to me, 250 middle class families with well paying IT positions spins off far more positive effects than what we have now which is 250 US families with significant if not total household income loss, on unemployment etc. In no way is this compensated by having 250, lower paid, immigrants on temporary H1-B visas (again NYTimes phrasing). I see a net-net huge loss, others seem to see a net-net huge win.
[1] Quoted from NYTimes.
Because it's completely impossible for any of these people to find another decent job?
Sorry, don't buy it. I've been through companies folding and so on, and I have a better job than I did then.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/us/lawsuit-claims-disney-c... http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-edison-layoffs-2015021...
Nobody suggested that the probability of at least one of these people getting a decent job down the road is zero.
A huge percentage of them in their 40s, 50s will not get anything even close. Please take some time to become familiar with ageism in the IT industry to understand why this is the case.
What is it that you don't buy? Exactly.
That they didn't really lose their jobs? That they were not really replaced that by the temporary immigrants on H1-B visas that they trained? That most of them didn't find better paying jobs within the week after being laid off? That many of these families will not suffer a huge drop in living standard?
There's even a good market for developers over 40 - that includes me - even though there are some places where people prefer youth and energy to experience.
>pay the same taxes or more
Resident aliens pay the same tax rate, but do not qualify for many of the tax benefit tools (as an eg 401k is effectively useless because it becomes taxable income as soon as the person no longer resides in the US). Additionally one should consider that resident aliens pay significant tax with little hope of ever claiming a benefit, we do not get social security if unemployed (infact we get deportation), medicaid for our senior family members (they have no right to be here) etc.
> is far more likely to buy real estate
This is due to immigration rules. One cannot reasonably buy real estate unless they have some assurance of being able to stay in the time that buying makes sense. That timeline is 5-10 yrs at a minimum. H1Bs and other visas have 3 yr limits on them and can be revoked at any time.
> assuredly un-employ some American
You have little to no proof of this. I would argue the cost of bringing an H1B into the country (>= $10k) should make the existing American employee quite attractive.
I hope you can see that the deck is actually stacked in the local American's favor, and that a protectionist policy just drives jobs out of the country where they cannot be taxed at all.
This doesn't apply to companies "cheating the system" (looking at the consulting companies that apply for most of the h1bs w/ a lower salary), but most real companies that apply for real h1bs would much rather find a similarly qualified US person.
Do US Citizens deserve a job more than a non-citizen? Get off your high horse and see you are no more different than other people around the world!
1) Rubio is bought by Microsoft. They're his biggest donor. (or 2nd biggest depending on how you dice the numbers) MS' profit margins would benefit from driving wages down. 2) The job of the politicians of the United States is to make life better for American citizens, not people abroad.
The economies of some countries (poorer ones) benefit greatly from remittances.
when we will get to the "citizen of the world" equality it would be another issue. Right now we have distinct countries with their own citizens and their own support/taxes/infrastructure serving them and that's their own issues to work on.
If anything, these people are coming, paying high taxes whilst receiving only a tiny fraction of the benefits (no medicare, no unemployment, no education cost) etc. They may or may not be driving salaries down (pretty sure if the law was enforced it wouldn't be the case), but you can't ignore the rest.
There's also a lot of statistics on immigrants and children of immigrants founding a disproportionate amount of companies compared to US natives.
What citizenry anywhere would not prioritize their fellow citizens to a decent job, wage and life?
To answer your question, yea, yea they do.
There is no evidence to support this assertion.
If the facts quoted in the study do not suffice, let us try a dialogue of rational reasoning. Assuming H1-Bs do occupy job positions, i.e. are employed. Then either the job is only opened if and only if there are H1-Bs around, which doesn't make sense, or not a single qualified US citizen can fill the job. Give the working age population of the US is 204 million[1] this also seems highly unlikely.
[1]https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LFWA64TTUSM647S
Also there isn't a global consciousness through which STEM grads get immediately notified of all open positions. Not every position is advertised on every single jobs board. And even then, STEM graduates are not automatically going to move to any random place in the US just because there is an open position there.
Lastly, if an employer has an open position, they are not going to wait indefinitely for a candidate to show up. Furthermore, because of the additional legal costs involved in hiring H1-B candidates, they can be more expensive than a local citizen.
>let us try a dialogue of rational reasoning.
Yes, let "us" do that.
What does this tautology offer to the topic? Common sense obvious true, not every STEM graduate is universally qualified for every open position. So ... ???
> And even then, STEM graduates are not automatically going to move to any random place in the US just because there is an open position there.
Again, common sense true. So ... ???
> Lastly, if an employer has an open position, they are not going to wait indefinitely for a candidate to show up.
OK, true. So ... ??? Is your assumption then that they would have to wait indefinitely and that no candidate would ever show up? cited evidence of this is appreciated. Links to studies, large amounts of unfulfillable postings are welcomed.
> Furthermore, because of the additional legal costs involved in hiring H1-B candidates, they can be more expensive than a local citizen.
So ...?
Nothing stated above bears any light to the argument (flawed or otherwise), it's just a sequence of common sense things that one can say about a labour market.
This topic's referenced article is specific in its position in claiming there is no shortage of STEM qualified applicants and presents cited statistics and studies. If you have counter data and studies, please present their facts and cite links.
If your argument was US citizens should always be given priority regardless of their skill, I might actually agree with your position.
I have asked several times in the overall discussion for anyone to provide any link to any data of any kind which even indicates to any degree that there is a massive shortage of qualified candidates. I have yet to see one.
Given that there is no shortage of STEM qualified people then ipso facto there is no shortage of qualified candidates.
Do you have any evidence at all that you can provide indicative that their is a massive shortage in qualified candidates? Links Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, showing 100's if not 1,000s of positions going begging with no qualified candidates, or HR studies, any published studies, Dept of Labour or Commerce published statistics ... any shred of evidence at all that you can provide a link to?
How big does local need to be to assert true then for you? The recent Disney accusations seem rather large. I remember reading recently about migrant workers and the job postings being listed in other states to prevent having local applicants. I guess this isn't a black and white scenario. One H1-B can be taking away an existing local job while another instance in another area might not be. "H1-Bs can take away local jobs" would be a true statement if that local scope fact is true but if you're suggesting that "no local jobs are lost to H1-Bs" then you're wrong. Local scope can invalidate a global scope.
Saying "every" as the GP did was wrong. But the argument is which is greater the number of by the book H1-Bs or the the number of H1-Bs that take local jobs. Is there an acceptable level of lost local jobs that makes the gain worth it?
I feel like it is the conflict of setting a guilty man free to never convict and innocent man. "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" but not everyone agrees with that. They would rather catch the ten guilty persons and would be okay with the one innocent suffering. The greater good maybe? I'm not sure either way.
Sure there may very well be some Optical Physics Software specialist brought in by MagicLeap on an H1-B or some AI wunderkind by Google or Facebook. Far and away the H1-Bs stockpiled by the outsourcing body shops are bread and butter general skilled folk capable of filling basic roles, Linux admins, Oracle DBAs, Java Webdevs, HTML/CSS/JS, IBM MQ admins, backup operators, IT support staff and what have you. Most of it is coding camp stuff, or basic training on particular appliances that could be done in a few weeks. The diversity in IT camp should be going crazy that these sort of basic entry level opportunities are not being offered to folks that really really need it. C'mon Jesse Jackson get a clue here.
There are many, many, many Disney situations happening everywhere. e.g. Google "Southern California Edison outsource". In S. Fla an ex-fortune 500 corp outsourced many IT positions with same "train your replacement approach" and replaced with H1-Bs and they are not alone. It is rampant in the industry. You don't hear about many of these cases because of non-disparagement clauses in the layoff packages. Amazingly Disney's lawyers (should have outsourced the Corporate Lawyer Department to TCS there Big Mouse) neglected to add this standard clause to muzzle the displaced (fired) employees.
A huge proportion if H1-Bs are used to directly display existent IT workers. Period. Far more the rule than the exception.
Of course there are not a fixed number of jobs, and keeping families apart is generally viewed as cruel.
My solution? Let anyone into the country as long as they can prove that they are receiving a salary of > 125,000$ /year. Or perhaps just create a fast lane immigration track for companies, where if they really really want someone to be let into the country, then they send the US government a $50k check, to skip everything, and get their VISA automatically approved.
I understand people are against "economic immigrants" right now, but last time I checked most of the people that passed through Ellis Island were poor and the United States managed to grow in the last 100 years.
The fantasy that the United States can just flourish with only highly educated people working in tech is not real. We also need people to cut our grass, work on our cars, and clean our hotel rooms.
You can apply to a new green card via the new employer (or any potential employer too). Once you get through to the I-140 stage of your second GC again - provided that the new job is one similar to your previous one - you can use your same place-in-line in the GC as before.
The green card application can get stuck in the bureaucratic backlog for any number of reasons - for years. These delays messes up with your peace of mind in ways you can probably imagine. Internet is full of horror stories about these things. This prevents people from changing jobs, or making any long term plans about buying a house etc.
It is a long-standing request from many people stuck in GC backlogs to not have them go through the _unpredictable_ re-application process, when they switch jobs. This was hinted as part of President Obama's Executive Action on immigration reform.
In a memo[1] dated 11/20/2014, Jeh Johnson (Secretary of Dept. of Homeland Security) stated:
As you know, our employment-based immigration system is
afflicted with extremely long waits for immigrant visas, or
"green cards," due to relatively low green card numerical limits
established by Congress 24 years ago in 1990.
...
To correct this problem, I hereby direct USCIS to take several
steps to modernize and improve the immigrant visa process.
[1] Executive Action: Support High-skilled Business and Workers - http://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/14_1120_...
[2] USCIS Seeks Comments on Proposed Rule Affecting Certain Employment-Based Immigrant and Nonimmigrant Visa Programs - https://www.uscis.gov/news/uscis-seeks-comments-proposed-rul...
[3] http://www.regulations.gov/#!docketDetail;D=USCIS-2015-0008
Main problem with H1b is low wages and lack of mobility - lose your job and you're out.
If you're paying $30000 in income tax every year, which would be lost if you had to return to your home country, there's a really good reason to just hand you a green card. $30k is a significant chunk of a useless government sinecure, after all. And if you make it based on taxes, you can be reasonably certain that it will be recurring revenue, rather than a one-time windfall. And at that income level, you're likely to be a high-expectations parent to a child who will eventually speak English and want to stay forever. So bring the spouse and kids!
As a nation, wouldn't we want to encourage as much immigration as possible from people who will be net contributors to our society? Wouldn't we want to bring their families with them, so they wouldn't be remitting their earnings back to another country? Ignoring all the irrational racism, of course. That might still be a problem.
That's what I've heard about the problem currently.
Also I wouldn't base it on federal taxes, because people with state taxes will pay less federal tax since the state tax is a federal tax deduction or similar. I would base it on total USA tax load.
Perhaps the real solution would be to approve H1B visa applications for the top N salaries. You're clearly not experiencing a labor shortage if you're not willing to pay one of the top N salaries.
What makes that number better than $124,000 ?
THE MYTH OF THE RULE OF LAW
http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm
...and...
HAYEK, THE COMMON LAW, AND FLUID DRIVE
http://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/ECM_PRO_060886.pd...
Thats what my friend at MS told me, not sure how common it is though.
Based on my own experience and the experiences of my friends (people who work as engineers for AWS, Google, Apple, Facebook, SpaceX, etc.), there is a big shortage in 'high quality' engineers.
Google and Apple have also been convicted of colluding not to poach each other's "high quality" engineers, lest it drive the price up.
Assuming there is "a big shortage in 'high quality' engineers" can anyone provide links to any AWS, Google, Apple, Facebook, SpaceX, position postings which typifies this big shortage? e.g. Postings which are an exemplar, of requiring 'high quality engineers' but remain open for weeks or months due to the massive STEM shortage? Based on the I-squared Act's proposed increase to a 1/4 million (250,000) H1-Bs there should be 10s and 10s of 10,000s such postings.
This massive STEM shortage debate has been happening for years. The referenced article links studies, presents supporting data (aka actual statistics) and provides direct anecdotal evidence (he is involved in the production of STEM resources). Bluntly I have seen many similar fact based articles and studies on the "there is no STEM shortage" side and can't recall a single peer reviewed study on the massive shortage side. Links welcome.
A single job posting can remain active indefinitely and does not necessarily represent just one open position.
This leads to the situation where an outsider sees one 'job posting' and thousands of applicants while Tech Co sees a shortage because only a few of those applicants are qualified.
Also, there is an incentive mis-match between people who realize there is a shortage and people wanting to prove that a shortage exists. If as a 'high quality engineer' you realize you are a scarce resource, and that makes you a lot of $, why would you want to convince other people to acquire the skills you have – self inflicted devaluation?
This is why the people with the loudest voices on this issue are CEOs and VCs who were previously high quality engineers. They have a clear view, the data, and the monetary incentive to vocalize it – more high quality engineers will increase their $.
> A single job posting can remain active indefinitely and does not necessarily represent just one open position.
I have asked about this already, several times in several postings. At this point, I'll take but one concrete example. Could you post one link, a single link, of one of these (from I assume a huge population) endless job postings from say Google, Facebook, Apple, HP, IBM, ... well from anyone, which represents a huge quantity of unfillable positions with near zero qualified applicants? I am curious for just one example. One.
Of course CEOs and VCs want engineers at the cheapest rates possible to increase their bottom line. Yes, indeed they have both monetary incentive and the means to exercise the political influence towards that goal. I don't see how that provides any proof or even marginal evidence that there is a massive STEM shortage.
If these CEOs and VCs have the data I have never seen it shared. Not one smidgen of detailed HR data.
Again, the original referenced article does offer up evidence of its premise and cites several studies, a PBS documentary, statistics, etc.
I understand you believe there is a massive shortage of STEM people unable to fill countless blackholes of open positions. Maybe this is just too big an ask, can you provide any evidence, at all? A link to a peer reviewed study from academia? Or maybe a link to detailed testimony from Apple's or Microsoft's CEO on capital hill. Any definitive numbers?? Anything at all?
Here is one example: https://stripe.com/jobs/positions/engineer
That single job listing (Engineer at Stripe) represents ALL of their Engineer hires, and likely 100x-1000x as many rejected applications as hires. That posting has been there for years. There are not enough qualified people to fill the role.
There are many, many companies that operate this way.
Mark Thies is a Professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Clemson. His research areas include advanced materials, biofuels, and renewable biopolymers.
I didn't read his article as "complaining" and that is a very high bar distinguishing low and high quality engineers you have if he fails to clear it. I thought it substantive citing supporting data and studies for his premise.
Also, the common argument of "There is no shortage for X, people just want to pay less money, than the current, extremely high price of X", is completely nonsensical.
The DEFINITION of a shortage is "I believe the price is too high". Thats how supply and demand works.
Example: Imagine if bread costed 100$ a loaf. Is there a shortage of food, or is it just people complaining that the price of bread is too high?
How else would you even define a shortage other than "the price is too high"?
And, in fact, the same thing applies in reverse from the sell side. They never complain that the price is too high, but some of them think the price is too low - and others don't.
I'd expect that everyone who thinks there's a shortage of engineers is on the employer side. And most of those on the employee side think that there quite clearly is not a shortage.
The actual definition of a shortage is "a deficiency in quantity" (per dictionary.com). Well, that's not very helpful. Deficiency compared to what? Or, deficient by what measure? You can have a shortage personally, compared to what you desire; but for a market as a whole to have a shortage, you have to have something to compare it to. That usually is the state of the market at a time when [it is generally agreed that] there wasn't a shortage.
So if you say, "STEM salaries are twice as high as they were in 1990, even after adjusting for inflation", then you might be able to make a case that there is a shortage. If you say, "we can't find people at the price we're willing to pay, but that price is less than the market rate in 1990", well, my heart fails to bleed for you.
More people want to buy product or service X than there is currently available in the marketplace.
So, let's say that during the next growing season, some new fungus appears and decimates the US grain crop. That will result in bread shortages. Even at $100 per loaf, there won't be as much bread available as there are people looking to buy it.
If it cost $100 per loaf, there would again be people who want it but can't buy it, just as the situation already is but more of them.
Capitalism is literally defined by the perpetual shortage of scarce physical resources. Bread costs what it does because people want it - that means they do not already have it - and are willing to pay so much for it. And the highest bidders get their bread, with the price being set at approximately the lowest bidder who would still get a finite loaf of bread if they were dolled out in sequence of most demand to least, while anyone below that "bid" amount does not get bread.
If bread were market valued at $100 a loaf, it would mean either more people are willing to pay more for the same bread - say, someone wants to buy all the bread and offers way above market price to capture the bread supply - or the supply itself has diminished enough that the lowest bidders at $1 and $10 and $99 were too far back in line to get bread behind all those willing to pay $100 or more.
If something is worth value in market exchange, it means someone wants something they do not have, and are willing to pay an amount of money for it. Demand is dictated by the total amount of money seeking something, and supply is determined by how much of something can fill that demand. And demand can include those seeking loaves of bread for a cent - but it is very unlikely their demand will ever be met, because they offer so little in return.
As do you have the cause wrong.
The reason why enrollments in STEM are high is because it is one of the last remaining degrees which actually pays back the money spent to get it.
Until they start feeding a quarter million H1-B's into the system a year.
Your definition of shortage is nonsensical, and it's easy to prove it:
From MY point of view, there is a shortage of supermodels willing to have sex with me. Everybody would laugh at that being a "shortage".
The same applies in that there is a shortage of engineers willing to work for me for free. Everybody would also laugh at that shortage.
It's just a matter of time until IT is in a similar position and something else becomes the hot new field.
Salaries aren't going up because employers are conspiring to push down wages[0] and non executive wages in general are stagnating or going down[1]. Furthermore as already stated elsewhere in this thread, STEM degrees have huge wash out percentages so "freshmen enrolled" is just as good a statistic as "college freshman who plan on changing the world". The real problem, which has been repeated ad nauseam here, is that there's a shortage of STEM workers at the wages employers are willing to pay.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L... [1] https://rwer.wordpress.com/2016/01/16/percent-change-in-u-s-...
"there are no worker protections to prevent companies from firing American workers, replacing them with H-1B’s, and even forcing them to train their replacements"
Another name for "worker shortage" is "high wages". You can't fix one without fixing the other at the same time.
If high priced workers are replaced with cheaper ones then all else being equal, it means the company is operating more efficiently. Isn't that a good thing? Good for the economy, good for consumers and only bad for the overpaid workers. What does he expect? That workers who demand more than the market rate should have their jobs protected so they don't feel bad about the economy changing around them? Even at the expense of everyone else?
What workers are demanding more that the market rate? There is a market rate with a 1/4 million H1-Bs and there is a market rate without a 1/4 million H1-Bs. Any worker which demands more than the market rate will not get it.
And what is the expense of everyone else referring too? It is substantially a zero sum game. Who are the else?
I demand a market rate of zero. Now do you see the problem?
Everybody loves capitalism--until they're on the receiving end.
http://www.businessinsider.com/when-steves-jobs-and-barack-o...
"Jobs continued to press the engineering angle at the dinner, saying that at the time Apple employed 700,000 factory workers in China, plus 30,000 engineers to support those workers."
We need the best talent of the world to be a technological leader nation. nonetheless, there is a big amount of jobs that need a good engineer but not a bright mind as Wozniak.
This is how globalization works and we need to keep up or be defeated by a better player at accepting STEM immigration. Let the fear aside, confront the global arena and struggle to keep being leaders of the world.
1. Put the factory and the jobs in China
2. Put the factory and the jobs in the US, using workers who are imported (from China/India/et al)
Why doesn't Jobs mention an option to, oh, I don't know, _make a commitment to the millions of people who are already in the US_ looking for work?
And, who better than Apple itself to train up some _existing_ members of the US labor pool in how to do what Apple does?
To the extent that "American" corporations are shells that import manufactured goods from foreign factories and import engineers from foreign societies, I have to wonder whether I give a crap if the US is a "technological leader."
Maybe if some Chinese investors bought Apple and moved the whole mess to Shenzhen, the world would finally get reasonable prices on (and customization of) Apple hardware.
That reality would sit poorly with Americans who didn't see it coming, and certainly with those trying to use offshore manufacturing for political support, but that's been the plan all along.
Read that again. That means that for every domestic engineer job (even assuming all were in the USA), Apple created 23 offshore jobs in China alone.
I'm going to call bogus on this. The law requires H1B holders to be paid the prevailing market wage, or more, for their profession/experience level. The fact that he's referencing Trump's election platform, and doesn't offer any other evidence of this, doesn't give me any confidence whatsoever.
I'd also like to issue a challenge to anyone who claims that the H1B system we currently have is bad: Please propose an alternate form of immigration system. Please also specify details regarding
1) How many immigrants should be allowed into the country every year
2) How the above number of immigrants should be selected, amongst all potential applicants.
A simple revamp to the program would be simple: - Absolutely zero visas (or very few) to any of the outsourcing / bodyshop companies - Tata, etc.
- A company found bringing workers in on a Visa to be trained and then lay people off, the company should face a significant fine.
- Companys have to show if there is on one side a significant downsizing and then sudden rehiring that includes H1Bs, that they didn't offer training and mentorship before laying some of the original people off. IBM and Disney come to mind.
- Keep or impose caps by region. Sorry, we are a melting pot, but certain countries have significantly higher numbers trying to come in than others. The best companies and groups I worked with were diverse rather than monoculture work places.
Personally, I do like the score based system that Canada and Australia generally have.
EDIT/Addition:
- The original mentality of cost being the overarching factor has become less en vogue. Many companies started insourcing again. That said, it's still not wholly reversed most of the outsourcing going on.
I know outsourcing does not equate with H1B wholly, but there are companies that abuse the visas to hire cheaper, have locals train, and fire the locals.
Regionally by US demographic could be interesting. A lot of the insourcing of things like support and call centers are going to regions of the US where costs are lower, but there is still an educational base. Though, surprisingly, some areas like Eugene/Springfield, OR are getting pretty hard hit -- though that may mostly be troubled due to Symantec's financial issues.
It is unfair to US workers: Right after I was hired at the very next downturn coworker's were let go but I stayed. I didn't know it at the time but my salary was low.
It is unfair to the H1B worker - you can't switch jobs easily. If you are fired you have to leave the country, it is very stressful. You can't plan your future - why invest for retirement ?
There is a path to a green card but only if employer sponsors at considerable cost.
It only benefits the employers.
If there is a true shortage of tech workers make the system better by allowing full mobility and allowing the workers to directly apply for green card without sponsorship. It could start by demanding employer's pay prevailing wage plus a 25k deposit/bond towards future unemployment or immigration costs of employee + family, and employee is able to switch jobs after 6 months with h1b sponsor
A lot of specialist workers need to get together and rebuild their labor cartels. The pendulum has swung very far from center, and it needs to be pushed back a bit.
As it is now, very few specialists have enough clout to arrest the current momentum, and software professionals, hardware professionals, healthcare workers, and engineers are likely the only ones that wouldn't be scoffed out of the room if they threatened a general strike.
The good times should last quite a few years before the new unions become too corrupt to be worth keeping. But after that, we still might be able to keep the 6-hour workday and obligatory foos-pong tables.
..and why would they strike? This group is probably in the top 10% of workers paid in the US.
I find it a little strange that a group that has the most power, money, and benefits even thinks about striking.
Not to mention, unions/professional associations for doctors, lawyers, etc.
A union in this case would benefit the majority, but at the cost of people not in the union. Tighter/more strict immigration would benefit the people in the country in terms of reducing downward wage pressure, but it would remove opportunity for people abroad/non-citizens.
* increased compensation
* accelerated equity vesting
* cap on required hours (no more mandatory crunch time)
* increased vacation time
* protection from your job becoming off-shored
* access to better development tools
* better working environment (offices or cubicles instead of open plan)
* etc.
Put another way: Why do you (and tech workers in general) assume that you currently have personally negotiated the best possible work arrangement for yourself that the company could offer, and that no collective effort could possibly produce a better outcome?
Even assuming a union would bring most of those benefits, it would only be for a short time until the company could move my job to somewhere without a union. There's no protection from having your job off-shored beyond providing good value to your employer.
Beyond that I don't want to deal with union bosses and union dues and the fact that part of my paycheck ends up supporting politicians I don't want in office. I don't want to work in a place where the company can't get rid of underperformers, or where seniority is more important than ability. I don't want to work in a place populated by people who are comfortable working in a union shop.
If I wanted all that I'd work for the government.
Or is it because employers always spontaneously pay the highest wages they possibly can and never, ever treat employees unethically let alone break the law?
Or is that because the current political system is so very, very good at protecting the interests of employees or because market forces do it so very, very, well?
The question of relevance is whether an employee is better off or not. And when organized, employees always enjoy high wages and better conditions.
And, whether organization is personally annoying or not, as a lone individual you will have essentially no power to protect yourself let alone your profession in anyway.
There's no shortage of available workers, there's a shortage of companies willing to pay well.
- intrusive overlay (tick) - prompting to use my location (tick) - huge ugly advert mixed into content (tick)
Hmmm.