Debate over H-1B visas shines spotlight on US tech worker shortages | Hacker News Reader

Debate over H-1B visas shines spotlight on US tech worker shortages

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7 pointsrntn19 comments

I'm not opposed to H-1Bs generally, but there should be a very high minimum pay level for the worker. If you "need" to bring someone in on a visa, you better "need" to do so, demonstrate it.

Many years ago I recall digging through what was supposed to be a DB of H1B visa holders jobs that accompanied a news report. Some of the jobs looked suspiciously like front like customer service job that were located in the middle of nowhere USA.

https://h1bdata.info/

https://www.h1bleaderboard.com/

if 1327 people can “replace” 14500 then perhaps they deserve to be replaced.

of course in reality any layoff will be followed by hiring at some point. no one would say that any “replacement” is going on in any other case

How can there be mass layoffs and "worker shortages" at the same time? IMO we should suspend H1-B for the time being. Exceptional talent can still be brought in via O-1.

Talent is a wrong dimension. Plenty of roles require specific skills, knowledge, and experience, which are not readily available in the market. You could in principle take someone with sufficient talent and train them, but it could take years for them to reach the point where they can start working in the role.

O-1 is not the right answer. The actual criteria are based on substantial achievements, which are yet another dimension.

Has anyone even attempted to study whether that's the situation we're in? Or are we further destroying the low end of the labor market to make the rich even richer? The latter seems vastly more likely. Expensive, local labor, folks, is how you "tax the rich" and "fix inequality".

"There's a worker shortage ... at the price I'm willing to pay and I want to be able to hold them to this job or they have to leave the country..."

I suspect it is that kind of "shortage".

You seem to be under the impression that 'those foreigner are stealing our jobs'?

You also seem to be under the impression that workers are interchangeable?

You seem to be under impression you can read other people's mind. You can't.

Well, you seem to suggest that tightening the existing restrictions that all but ban Americans from hiring foreigners will somehow help with layoffs?

It is already the law of the land that Americans must take priority if they are qualified for the job. This is not enforced (primarily because businesses benefit for cheaper labor), but enforcement should be strengthened, IMO. And until it is, we need to stop issuing new H1-Bs. That's all I'm saying, really.

Why 'should'? Just because it's the law of the land, doesn't mean it's a good idea.

Because it's the law of the land, and as such it needs to be enforced. And it is a good idea, too.

I mean, is there really still a tech worker shortage? People are sending resumes for 6+ months to no avail. Upwork has ran dry.

Yeah my place is hiring, we got inundated with resumes, and frankly a lot of very good resumes compared to what we expected.

The tech worker shortage is a myth. Any business that offers a competitive wage is able to hire engineering talent by the boatload, even if they mandate in-person participation five days a week. The "shortage" is a fig leaf to cover up the desperate greed American businesses are feeling as their margins shrink and their supply chains become more fragile.

What needs to happen is all job posting need to have a salary range. If, after so many months of trying to fill a position and it can't be filled, the company can utilize an H1B visa to fill the position, and the pay must be in that salary range. That would go a long way to resolve H1B abuse, and make it easier for US citizens to get tech jobs.

Anecdotally, companies are attempting to cram labor costs down by putting off hiring, putting reqs out there with much lower wages than recent historical (<5 years), and outsourcing to India and LATAM at scale while also attempting to assert control by requiring hybrid or full time office attendance. This is in direct conflict with the current admin's anti immigration stance (which is arguably good for domestic workers) and forward looking demographics [1] [2] (also good for workers). More on this macro trend can be found in the book "The Great Demographic Reversal: Ageing Societies, Waning Inequality, and an Inflation Revival" [3].

> The "shortage" is a fig leaf to cover up the desperate greed American businesses are feeling as their margins shrink and their supply chains become more fragile.

Truth. There is no shortage, just sadness with regards to market clearing price.

[1] US Faces a Deficit of 6 Million Workers in Less Than a Decade - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-18/us-faces-... | https://archive.today/Lyr5t - September 18, 2024

[2] Aging Boomers Explain Shrinking Labor Force, NY Fed Study Says - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-30/aging-boo... | https://archive.today/nZVda - March 30, 2023 ("Population aging is likely to continue to exert strong downward pressure on participation going forward, as more of the baby boomer generation continue to enter retirement,” the researchers wrote.")

[3] https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-42657-6

Are margins really shrinking? Corporate profits stand about constant at around 10% of GDP in the last 30 years or so, apart from the big dip they took around the GFC, quickly recovering thereafter.

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