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Comment by booleandilemma | Hacker News Reader

I would like to see the H-1B program abolished.

I hate knowing that every H-1B employee I see is filling a job that an American could have had.

I would like to see the H-1B program dramatically expanded; because the people I have worked with who are using the program have been, without exception, fantastic additions to the team who brought unique and important ways of thinking with them.

This is what an auction system would fix. If you cap the number of visas and make every employer bid on them, then the only visas will be for people making >$500,000/year.

Those people are exactly what any red-blooded American should want immigrating here, lest we alienate them so that they go back to China and start the Jet Propulsion Laboratory there.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qian_Xuesen

Protectionism, Xenophobia and/or Racism actually costs a LOT economically. We’re much more affluent when we attract and retain the greatest talent in the world rather than block them from working here.

That requires an overhaul of the American education system to focus more on STEM and technical skills. What you're seeing is, however, a continuous regression to lower standards in Math and Science education.

Indeed. It's not clear to me how closing off visa programs while simultaneously divesting in education will do anything strengthen a country's economic position.

Eh people say the same about farm labor and illegal immigrants.

It makes far more sense to enforce basic employment laws than pretend employers aren't willfully negligent in their hiring practices

The whole point of work visas is to address situations when there aren't enough qualified domestic workers for the open positions that are available. It's economically favorable to fill a position with a qualified foreign national than it is to just leave it open.

I don't think it's that simple. Open positions for which there "aren't enough workers" are effectively positions that companies don't want to pay market rates for. It's in their interests to always have such positions so they can bring in cheap workers. Labor shortages are mostly bullshit.

It depends on what market you're deciding to operate in, right? Global market vs domestic market. In an era of globalization, it's a huge loss for an economically well-off country to close itself off from the rest of the world. Remember that businesses don't have any obligation to operate in your country if the local labor market simply becomes too expensive. It also means that a business is far more likely to leave critical positions unfilled because an available person with the required skill set literally doesn't exist (or is extremely difficult to find). The only way to find talent is to poach from other companies, but this is a zero-sum game and offers no overall economic benefit to your country.

In principle a well-implemented visa program picks up people with required skills rather than just simply increasing the size of the available labor pool to suppress costs of labor. If the current program doesn't achieve this, then it certainly requires an overhaul. But abolishment (i.e. closing the labor market to domestic candidates only) doesn't do anything to further the economic health of your country.

Not really.

If employers need 1,000 neurosurgeons, but only 800 exist in the US, no amount of pay is going to magically create a new neurosurgeon.

That's not how economics works.

Please explain.

From what i understand it takes more than a decade to create a new neurosurgeon.

No amount of money can create one today.

The premise of a command economy where you top down specify you need N of something is faulty to begin with.

Huh? You're saying a command economy can create a new neurosurgeon instantly?

Ideally. But it’s de facto used to suppress domestic wages. An auction system would fix that.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff...

If you’ve ever been on the hiring committee at a tech company, you would know this is complete nonsense. We look for qualified candidates for years before we can find them, and immigrants working in tech probably pay more in taxes in a decade than most Americans in their lifetime.

If anything, the H-1B program should be augmented, and employment-based green cards should not be linked to how nice your employer is.

How about illegal emigrants getting free medical care, while Americans cannot afford? Everything is relative, I'd rather see more high skilled, law abiding immigrants. It's better for the country in general, and especially these days, when IT is a battleground.

Why is it necessarily always better that an American has a job in the US vs a non-American?

Better chance for wages to increase when the worker is not indentured.

This is a good point. I believe H1B as it exists today is abusive.

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