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Comment by merpnderp | Hacker News Reader

Part of the problem is the US education system seems to not be turning out enough people with quality educations, even when there isn't a shortage of of credentialed people. For instance, there are plenty of lawyers. Most of them don't make much money and leave the industry quickly. Yet it is difficult to find a highly qualified lawyer to handle difficult issues.

With medical professionals, there is simply a huge shortage. Same with researchers, engineers, etc.

My company hires H1B visas not because they are cheaper, but because we can't get anyone here to do the job at reasonable rates. Reasonable being new graduate hires start out at CPI adjusted rates to near top end in silicon valley.

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"My company hires H1B visas not because they are cheaper, but because we can't get anyone here to do the job at reasonable rates."

Sounds like "H1B visa holders are cheaper" to me. High quality engineers should be commanding on the order of $250k. In the absence of H1B visa holders lowering wages, that's what high quality engineers would command as an average salary; same as a good doctor or lawyer.

The main reason doctors and lawyers cost that much: you can't H1B them. Lawyer skills are too specific to a locality and subsection of the trade; for whatever reason, law school doesn't actually help with this -experience, networking (particularly for criminal law) and apprenticeship is how it ends up working. LLD is just a hoop that needs to be jumped through to get such apprenticeships. The AMA is the most effective labor union in America, keeping out highly skilled doctors from abroad by denying their skills validity.

Layer's pretty much world wide, have some form of 'local certification' in the form of 'Passing the bar', or equivalent local requirement. Its not that the skills are specific to a locality, its that in order be allowed to practice law in a jurisdiction you must complete the local requirement.

"not because they are cheaper, but because we can't get anyone here to do the job at reasonable rates."

Um... that is the definition of cheaper. In your own justification sentence. H1B must (should) be paid at your prevalent rate -- and this may not be what you consider a "reasonable" rate.

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