In big dollar markets, the program is used more for special skills. But when a big bank or government contractor needs marginally skilled people onshore, they open an office in Nowhere, Arizona, and have a hard time finding J2EE developers. So some company from New Jersey will appear and provide a steady stream of workers making $25/hr.
The calculus is that more H1=less offshore.
The smart move would be to just let skilled workers from India, China, etc with a visa that doesn’t tie them to an employer. That would end the abusive labor practices and probably reduce the number of lower end workers or the incentive to deny entry level employment to US nationals.
The problem is that the left, which was historically pro-labor, abdicated this position for racial reasons, and the right was always about maximizing the economic zone.
Basically, progressives in Denmark have argued for very strict immigration rules, the essential argument being that Denmark has an expensive social welfare state, and to get the populace to support the high taxes needed to pay for this, you can't just let anyone in who shows up on your doorstep.
The American left could learn a ton of lessons from this. I may loath Greg Abbott for lots of reasons, but I largely support what he did bussing migrants to NYC and other liberal cities. Many people in these cities wanted to bask in the feelings of moral superiority by being "sanctuary cities", but public sentiment changed drastically when they actually had to start bearing a large portion of the cost of a flood of migrants.
The real reason is that they are totally beholden to powerful business interests that benefit from mass immigration, and the ensuing suppression of American labor movements. The racial equity bit is just the line that they feed to their voters.
I think the real problem is that the median voter is either unable to, has no time to or no interest to understand basic economics and second-order consequences. We see this on both sides of the aisle. Policies like caps on credit card interest rates, rent control or no tax on tips are very, very popular while also being obviously bad after thinking about it for just 1 minute.
This is compounded by there being relatively little discussion of policies like that. They get reported on but not discussed and analyzed. This takes us back to your point about the perception of the Democratic party. The media (probably because the median voter prefers it) will instead discuss issues that are more emotionally relatable, like the border being "overwhelmed", trans athletes, etc. which makes it less likely to get people to think about economic policy.
This causes a preference for simple policies that seem to aim straight for the goal. Rent too high? Prohibit higher rent! Credit card fees too high? Prohibit high fees! Immigrants lower wages? Have fewer immigrant!
Telling the median voter that H1-B visa holders are lowering wages due to the high friction of changing sponsors and that the solution is to loosen the visa restrictions is gonna go over well with much of the electorate. Even only the portion of initial problem statement will likely reach most voters in the form of "H1-B visas lower wages". Someone who will simply take that simplified issue and run with cutting down further on immigration will be much more likely to succeed with how public opinion is currently formed.
All this stuff is why I love learning about policy and absolutely loath politics.
What do you think of that?
Further, I'm very disappointed that the median voter doesn't seem to understand or care about the policies they vote for. Tariffs and deportations are recipes to cause more inflation, yet here we are.
Don’t understand why other countries make it harder.
EU would flourish economically and there would be no room for ultra conservative right to gain any real foothold (which is 95% just failed immigration topic just like Brexit was).
Alas, we are where we are, they slowly backpedal but its too little too late, as usually. I blame Merkel for half of EU woes, she really was a horrible leader of otherwise very powerful nation made much weaker and less resilient due to her flawed policies and lack of grokking where world is heading to.
Btw she still acknowledges nothing and keeps thinking how great she was. Also a nuclear physicist who turned off all existing nuclear plants too early so Germany has to import massive amount of electricity from coal burning plants. You can't make it up.
How does Switzerland keep local companies from hiring workers on low wages to compete against locals? How do they police it?
This nation has always taken in at least some percentage of less well off immigrants. It's against tradition to do otherwise. I don't see why we should render the second category non-existent, or why that is some inherent good that everyone should agree to be the case? Am I allowed to believe otherwise?
I already know that the right-wing supports h1bs, Trump himself said so.
People in tech are so quick to shoot themselves in the foot.
Tech has its barriers too. Most people I've met in tech come from relatively rich families. (Families where spending $70k+/yr on college is not a major concern for multiple kids - that's not normal middle class at all even for the US)
Even literal Nazis were exempted from immigration controls on the basis of extreme merit.
TACO Trump himself said he'd reveal his health care plan in two weeks, many many years ago, many many times. But then he chickened out again and again and again and again and again. So that the buk buk buk are you talking about?
> nothing ever happens here that helps the workers and whatever rights we have now are slowly dwindling
I felt enormous sympathy for my coworkers here with that visa. Their lives sucked because there was little downside for sociopathic managers to make them suck.
Most frustrating was when they were doing the same kind of work I was doing, like writing Python web services and whatnot. We absolutely could hire local employees to do those things. They weren't building quantum computers or something. Crappy employers gamed the system to get below-market-rate-salary employees and work them like rented mules. It was infuriating.
While working at Google I worked with many many amazing H1B (and other kinds) visa holders. I did 3 interviews a week, sat on hiring committees (reading 10-15 packets a week) and had a pretty good gauge of what we could find.
There was just no way I could see that we could replace these people with Americans. And they got paid top dollar and had the same wlb as everyone else (you could not generally tell what someone’s status was).
But wanna use it as a way to undercut American jobs with 80-hour-a-week laborers, as I've personally witnessed? Nah.
My criticisms against the H1B program are completely against the companies who abuse it. By all means, please do use it to bring in world-class scientists, researchers, and engineers!
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jamesfobrien_tech-jobs-have-d...
But, for existing teams they wanted (reasonably) to avoid splitting between locations. So you need someone local.