It's funny how all these huge companies that have billions in cash, and who don't pay their fair share of taxes, are always crying poor and wanting more subsidies from someone.
H1-B is effectively a subsidy provided by US workers to unfathomably rich, tax-dodging corporations.
The cap for H1-Bs is unlimited for non-profits. I'd like to see more written about this as well. I live in Seattle and I know of at least 5 PHD holders who either can't find work here, or can only find what amounts to menial jobs in their chosen field.
Yet we have Microsoft executives going in front of Congress talking about how there simply aren't enough STEM graduates... they should try hiring the ones who are already here!
As the prestige of the employer in the market drops, the employee's wages also drops - this happens for both citizens and immigrants alike, but the drop for immigrants maybe be larger.
My point is that these large tech firms hire H-1Bs out of necessity, and not to keep wages down. The less prestigious firms do hire H-1Bs to keep wages down.
I generally agree with you in an immediate, present sense. Google doesn't hire H1B workers specifically to suppress the salaries of the local workforce.
Even so, I'm suspicious of the program. Here's why - immigrants to the US (about 1.2 million annually) are generally free to pursue their educational and career path as they please. They can study nursing, medicine, or dental hygiene. They can open a sandwich shop or a hair salon, install drywall, or save a bit of money and try to pursue a dream of becoming an artist or writer.
Now, clearly working at google is something a lot of smart people who have that right to choose would wish to do. However, don't forget that those smart people with US citizenship had the right to major in economics or history and apply to law school, or study bio or chem and apply to med school, or major in music or art! They chose to major in STEM and work at Google, they weren't required to as a condition of living and working in the US. Is that a market failure that the government should get involved in correcting by allowing people to immigrate only if they study what google says they should study, work on what google says they are allowed to work on? Funny how people differ on this. Some think, look it's a good job, pays well, I'm sure it's fine. I have a much stronger reaction to this - I guess I just feel very strongly that if people are choosing not to do something, there's probably a damn good reason for it.
Yes, I don't see Google as an insidious user of this visa, deliberately using it to fire people to replace them with workers whose options are limited and can be coerced into working for less. But it does still give them an end-run around the concept of free labor markets.
Google pays good wages, but you know, the market still has spoken. If google is having trouble getting people with choice to pursue grad degrees in CS instead of law or medicine, that really is the market's answer. If a typical salary for an SSE at google were $350k, would that change things?
This is why I generally don't like any sort of immigration system that limits personal freedom. I think people, immigrants and otherwise, should be free to pursue their career path in accordance with their interests and abilities. By and large, I think people make OK decisions, they don't need the government and google deciding that they aren't going into STEM in the numbers silicon valley employers feel they should.
As a practical matter, I'd bend on this (for instance, if we just set a very high minimum salary) - but as it stands, I don't think salaries are high enough, even at places like google, that we should be scratching our heads and wondering why more people with freedom of choice aren't going into this field. And overall, I do think that the choice not to become a programmer is a perfectly rational one, and I think that this sort of limited freedom visa tends to suppress the market forces that would lead to a correction (i.e.., an improvement in career prospects, pay, and working conditions that would draw those high talent people out of other fields and into SSE positions at places like google).
> This is why I generally don't like any sort of immigration system that limits personal freedom.
Me neither. But there isn't a skilled immigrant visa which has that feature. HR 213 [1] tries to provide some improvements, but is a far from what you seem to be asking for.
My point was that the wage distortion caused by top-tier companies hiring employees on H-1B is small to nil. This thread started off from a mention of Microsoft, and then elsewhere down there is mention of overseas consulting firms too. These are very different market segments and the dynamics are different.
[1]: https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/213
I'm really not sure that's true. Even at top tier employers with high salaries. What I'm trying to get at, with my comment above, is that no insidious intent needs to be present for the wage distortion to occur.
It's difficult to know how the market would behave at the upper end in the absence of education and work specific visas. It's also difficult to make comparisons, since all fields are somewhat different.
However, I would say that getting hired by google is tough, and is an indication that you are working at the upper percentiles of the market. What is a typical salary for a graduate degree holder at the SSE level at a place like Google? Is that reflect of the 90%ile salary at other fields?
Truth is, these salaries are still considerably lower that you'd find for JD, MD, MBA holder at a comparable percentile level. If silicon valley employers couldn't rely on a visa to essentially coerce large numbers of would-be immigrants into studying CS/Related fields and working as software developers as a condition for moving to and working in the US, what would the labor market look like?
I personally feel that CS, Math, Engineering fields are very, very rigorous with high attrition rates relative to other academic fields. People don't drop out of Poly Sci because it's too tough and decide to major in Physics because it's easier. Admission to top graduate schools is very selective, and attrition rates are high. PhD programs often have 50% attrition rates at top schools, whereas attrition rates at top JD or MD programs are generally below 0.5% (yes, that's correct, less than one half of one percent). Even MS programs (there's less data on this) appear to have attrition rates of 25% or so, still two orders of magnitude higher.
Imagine if silicon valley employers had to convince top students that they should pick a STEM graduate degree and job as a developer at google instead of an MBA or JD or MD? That all people, immigrants and citizens, had that choice?
Honestly, I do think the landscape would look very very different. I think salaries and working conditions would be far higher than they are right now.
You may have heard of the RAND research institute - they essentially reached this conclusion: "Other approaches such as making K-12 science and math courses more interesting and pushing for more qualified math and science teachers "may have merit in their own right," researchers said, "but we think they pale in importance to the earnings and attractiveness of S&E careers as major determinants of the supply of U.S.-born students to S&E."
Here's a link to the full study. http://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP241.html
In short: salaries and career prospects in STEM really aren't competitive with the other options highly talented people can pursue - provided they are free to pursue them!.
Wage depression among masses of low-skilled workers is a very serious problem.
Wage issues in the top 10% is another dynamic entirely.
H1 abuse is actually concentrated in companies like Infosys and Tata - they are Indian companies who just want to bring in cheaper people from India without any other consideration.
They hire the most H1s.
If we're not ending H1-B, then at the very least, InfoSys and Tata should be banned from participating.
IMHO:
In addition to being socially destructive for American workers, H1-B has essentially become a trade route for Indian workers to come to the US.
I think most Americans know that we're not getting the best and the brightest from India. If we're bringing in 60k foreign workers per year, and ~80% of those are from India, then that's ~48k workers.
There's no way on Earth that all of those 48k represent the "best and the brightest" of India / China. For the large companies, it really just amounts to having a supply of indentured servants who are trapped in their jobs, and then using those workers to negotiate lower wages for American workers.
Also, I do generally think that Tata is choosing the 'best people they can' from India. But again, it's a question of numbers and scale.