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You have got it it wrong. The shortage that high-tech industries are talking about is a shortage of highly trained people who will work for lower wages than a similarly educated American. (However, many that stay after grad school and go to private industry do catch up quickly). Eliminate this source of labor supply and a real shortage will exist. Wages/salaries will rise, as a result. This, in turn, will be passed onto consumers as price increases of the goods and services produced by the companies that employ H1B workers.
A necessary evil to stop the criminal (in my opinion) replacement of Americans to make a buck. Besides, the cheap, cheap, cheap mentality that views the workforce as expendable will soon spill over toward the customers and product quality.
The H1B is actually a dual-intent visa, though I think it never should have been. However I agree that this program needs to end. Don't reform it, don't raise the quota, just end it. It's already done far too much damage to the US IT sector. These are not the best & brightest.
I agree, and get rid of the H2B program too. Both of them do nothing but hurt American workers
Like vision33r said, even if the H1B program is scrapped or completely reduced, a lot of these jobs would just be offshored. I do think the program needs to be reformed and the Indian IT outsourcing firms that seem to take up a large amount of the H1B visas need to be curtailed.
It should also be noted that the H1B programs are not only used for IT workers, but by other professions like doctors for example. Especially doctors based in remote areas. A friend worked at some random hospital in West Virginia where most of the doctors were foreigners. Apparently many American doctors don't want to move there and unfortunately locals aren't becoming doctors.
I actually think it was easier to get an H1B before Obama though, as there was no 'lottery' like there has been for a number of years now due to the high number of applicants.
I also want to add that quite a few science/engineering PhD grads I know, like my sister, all didn't pursue engineering careers. 2 went into management consulting and the 3rd works at a research department at an Ivy school. The 2 didn't pursue engineering not because of lack of jobs. It's just that there's more competition for them these days from consulting firms and the financial services industry. The MS grads are even more likely to pursue these paths.
The H1B process makes it EASIER to offshore the jobs! So arguing that it's silly to not get rid of it as they'd just offshore them anyway is very flawed!
The data disagrees with you. You know how many biological and chemistry research labs in Universities would grind to a halt?
All that states is that they've replaced a lot of Americans with foreigners already there. I shan't shed a tear if they suffer when their greed gravy train comes to an end.
The issue is opaque; there are multiple possibilities.
Maybe the best American STEM graduates are just finding better opportunities outside of STEM? I say this, because engineering in America is not a high-prestige profession, whereas in many countries, engineering/math/physics ranks above medicine or law. So, the best American STEM graduates go into finance, for example, because that's where the compensation and the prestige are highest.
Maybe we have simultaneously a dearth of STEM graduates with the best credentials, and a glut of those from third-rate schools with third-rate grades? In other words, we have insufficient number of physics PhDs from Caltech or Stanford, and way too many “data science” B.S. (pun intended) grads from Southeastern State U?
And yet another possibility: some of the best STEM graduates from American universities – especially from graduate school – came here on a student visa? Upon graduation, they have two options: remain in America, on an H-1b; or return to their home-country, and use their first-rate American education to advance their own country's economy. Which would we prefer?
So if you need to go to Standford and spend $200K or so a year on tuition only to come out and get paid about $60K/yr, in order to be "good enough" for these companies, that might be why you have a shortage!
End it and America suffers. We are not pumping out enough tech graduates.
America is going to have to accept the suffering if they want anything to get better. The reason there is suposidley not enough "talent" is because the pay is too low. Talented Americans are not going to major in comp sci if the pay is not way up there (70k starting and 150k mid career) and the ones who already did likely cross trained into something else and are not looking back.
Just like we are going to have to go through a period of suffering to get manufacturing back here again with high tariffs.
There is no way around the temporary suffering if we want our country back.
you have got it it wrong. The shortage that high-tech industries are talking about is a shortage of highly trained people who will work for lower wages than a similarly educated american. (however, many that stay after grad school and go to private industry do catch up quickly). Eliminate this source of labor supply and a real shortage will exist. Wages/salaries will rise, as a result. This, in turn, will be passed onto consumers as price increases of the goods and services produced by the companies that employ h1b workers.
I'd advocate for yet a different approach. Suppose that that IIT/IIS graduate comes to the US on an F-1 visa to get a PhD in physics at Harvard. He writes his thesis, graduates, and... now what? Go back to India, taking his knowledge with him? Or stay in the US? If the latter, there really are only two options: marry an American citizen, or get an H1-B.
Yes, of course. But you're a chemist, right? My field is fluid dynamics - in aeronautical engineering, but with some overlap with chemistry. Well, in the late 1990s, those students who were doing computational fluid dynamics, were heavily recruited by the financial companies, to develop trading-algorithms and the like. Instead of doing research in turbulent mixing, or reduction of pumping-losses in distribution systems, they ended up working on predictive models for pricing options or derivatives. And that, I would argue, was a loss for science.
People that get PhD's from caltech in physics is purple squirrels. If those are the only people worthy of note then how do we even have a discussion at a national level. They graduate, what, 10 people a year?
I agree there are alot of hacks with phony degrees but to suggest that PhD's from caltech are the only true stem grads is not a real discussion. If caltech PhD's are the only ones worthy of prestige and good jobs in this post H1B world we all might as well just cook meth or engage in other criminal activity because thats not most of us.
If there were a shortage of engineers, engineering wages would be going up faster than inflation. Are they? No. Ergo, no engineering shortage.
Sure they are. Web engineers made $50k 15 years ago. Now they make over $200k. My cousin, who is a web engineer, makes over $250k just 5 years out of college in Minnesota. Tech salaries are outpacing inflation by quite a margin.
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