First let me say that I support the underlying intention of this piece of writing. However and this is crucial - it is based on a factually wrong premise which invalidates the entire hit piece. Unfortunately that also makes the surrounding discussion and angst misdirected.
I am urging you to go into the rest of this comment with an open mind.
H-1B visas require a “prevailing wage” which the foreign worker must be paid at or above in order to get a visa. Prevailing wages are made based on the area the worker will be in and their title, and are published on the DOL website: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/foreign-labor/wages
Before being allowed to hire a foreign worker a company must advertise the position in the US. This could be improved as right now you can put the ad in the most obscure newspaper you can find or on TV at 3am. But you do have to do something.
The decision to grant or deny a visa is made by a consular officer - a trained human - who carefully considers all the foreign worker’s case materials (called a “petition”).
All this is to say, they thought of this “bringing in foreign workers depresses wages” problem way back when they created this program and invented prevailing wages to mitigate it. They thought of “bringing in foreign workers denies locals opportunities to apply for those roles” way back when they created the program and invented job ad requirements to mitigate it.
Don’t get me wrong the H-1B is definitely being exploited. Bodyshops are a thing. But it’s not at huge scale. It is a problem to be fixed with better enforcement and targeted reforms, not pitchforks.
Mr. Sanders’ argument needs to be backed up differently. As it stands he is misleading the public. It’s surprisingly out of character.
There's still plenty of opportunity for playing games with the specific job categorization and level - the definitions are wooly enough and work opaque enough there's functionally no oversight possible.
And because the lottery is purely random and not based on category/level, there's little advantage to the sponsoring company to try for anything but the lowest salaried bucket that kinda fits. At least until it gets to the level where the employee is willing to torpedo their own petition by bringing it up.
Anyone working on software in the USA should check the local prevailing wage for a level 1 "computer programmer", or even "software developer", and ask themselves of they would be interested in applying for their current position at that salary.
If H1-B visas are really meant to fill jobs where there are not enough US workers than the minimum salary should be at least twice the prevailing wage. As it is it is just another unfair tool companies use to lower wages.
> And one way to help make that happen is to substantially increase the guest worker fees large corporations pay to fund scholarships, apprenticeships, and job training opportunities for American workers. This is something that I have advocated from my first days as a U.S. senator.
This is the proper solution. Ideally, the H1-B program would remove quotas and lotteries and switch to a pure auction program for the fees. E.g, a Dutch auction for the X thousand available slots where the fee can be deducted from federal income taxes. If companies really want the best talent in the world, they should be willing to pay for it.
> Hospitals and labs can’t afford to match tech spending to obtain H1Bs.
That's the point! You can train Americans to do those jobs. Visas should be reserved for truly exceptional workers that will create enormous value in the U.S., as opposed to those doing mundane skilled work who wills imply drive down wages for Americans.
> Hospitals and labs can’t afford to match tech spending to obtain H1Bs.
This is just basic demand-supply. I don't see a problem here.
If hospitals and labs can't afford to match the salaries of other occupations, maybe you have too many American candidates or the end result isn't producing enough value.
Most of the occupations doesn't really need H1B. And that's okay.
And why not? Check Kaisers bottom line, they’re not exactly hurting. Same for many hospitals. Also tech is not yet hiring doctors anyway and if there’s a true shortage of medical pros then by all means there will be cash to pay them.
They obtain interest from citizen workers by increasing wages. H1Bs artificially suppress wages and make the market inefficient by removing those price signals. This creates a self-perpetuating problem that can only be "resolved" by bringing in more H1Bs, as the H1B impact on wages disincentivizes citizens from entering the field and pursuing the requisite education and training.
> Most countries identify industry shortages and tailor their immigration needs to bring in people to fulfill those roles.
This makes no sense economically. Auctioning immigrant slots to the highest bidder should allocate those spots to where they'll be most valued in the economy. What the countries you seem to be describing are doing is industry-selective wage suppression.
When you are a smaller country that's more exposed to the international markets than the US, wage suppression is often good for the economy. High wages indicate lack of competitiveness, as foreign businesses can generate the same outputs cheaper than your businesses.
If we could measure externalities accurately and tax/subsidize businesses accordingly, visa auctions might lead to even more accurate wage suppression than immigration policy. But because we can't, auctions optimize the wrong measure. Some industries create more value than they can capture, while others create less.
Western countries don’t have the stomach to maintain “temporary” worker programs as such. Turkish workers in Germany were supposed to be temporary as well. In the U.S., H1B is still legally a “temporary (nonimmigrant)” but was turned into a gateway to permanent immigration by executive branch practice.
Bernie’s right on somethings here and wrong on others.
There’s already a “best and brightest” visa and it’s not H1B. It’s O1.
That said H1B is essentially the only reasonable way for people to immigrate to the United States through employment. Most employers are not going to stick out the convoluted process to obtain an EB2/3 immigrant visa for a worker they haven’t any experience with especially since they can enter the country and immediately work for someone else.
As is TN and E3 but L1 is only an option if you can work for the company abroad for a year which is only possible if the company has some presence in your country.
L1 is also harder to qualify for than H1B in terms of job requirements.
It’s going to suck to be a worker in the future. That’s why my wife and I are investing heavily across a broad range of assets: we want to be able to work for less (inevitable) while maintaining our quality of life as it is through investment dividends.
Helps explain why the progressive running on pocketbook economics and not the neo-liberal running on identity politics won the dem nomination for Mayor in NYC.
The situation now is radically different. In the late 2000s/early 2010s, most H1B applications got approved (something like 80%). For a time before that, the H1B cap wasn't usually maxed out and any application would succeed. If I'm being blunt this is because of one country. H1Bs are dominated by this country. This country makes up 75% of applications and without these, H1Bs would actually be undersubscribed.
The significant shift comes a lot from how this country has massive systems in place to perform wage arbitrage through IT consultancies. Compared to Chinese industrial outsourcing (which requires capex), wage arbitrage is pure profit in that there's almost no overhead. So these IT companies got phenomenally rich. These companies have a US branch, usually having a manager based in the US while the others are based in India. So it's no longer getting the best and brightest through H1B, but just a way to make money off the vast difference in economic conditions between a third and first world country. And there's a direct incentive to depress the economic conditions of workers, because that's money right there. Then this goes into overdrive when many US companies realize it's even cheaper to do it themselves and set up shop in this country.
What happened to the US industrial base/blue collar workers is happening right now to white collar workers, except it'll go much faster because there's no physical equipment to move.
I remember. The year that it started maxing out was from 2013.
We all know how to solve this problem e.g. ranked by compensations maybe with some restrictions and diversifying occupations a bit. We know which companies abuse it. The number of H1B with their salaries is public.
Yet this article from Bernie grand-stands random stuff.
I am urging you to go into the rest of this comment with an open mind.
H-1B visas require a “prevailing wage” which the foreign worker must be paid at or above in order to get a visa. Prevailing wages are made based on the area the worker will be in and their title, and are published on the DOL website: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/foreign-labor/wages
Before being allowed to hire a foreign worker a company must advertise the position in the US. This could be improved as right now you can put the ad in the most obscure newspaper you can find or on TV at 3am. But you do have to do something.
The decision to grant or deny a visa is made by a consular officer - a trained human - who carefully considers all the foreign worker’s case materials (called a “petition”).
All this is to say, they thought of this “bringing in foreign workers depresses wages” problem way back when they created this program and invented prevailing wages to mitigate it. They thought of “bringing in foreign workers denies locals opportunities to apply for those roles” way back when they created the program and invented job ad requirements to mitigate it.
Don’t get me wrong the H-1B is definitely being exploited. Bodyshops are a thing. But it’s not at huge scale. It is a problem to be fixed with better enforcement and targeted reforms, not pitchforks.
Mr. Sanders’ argument needs to be backed up differently. As it stands he is misleading the public. It’s surprisingly out of character.
And because the lottery is purely random and not based on category/level, there's little advantage to the sponsoring company to try for anything but the lowest salaried bucket that kinda fits. At least until it gets to the level where the employee is willing to torpedo their own petition by bringing it up.
Anyone working on software in the USA should check the local prevailing wage for a level 1 "computer programmer", or even "software developer", and ask themselves of they would be interested in applying for their current position at that salary.
It provides supply in the market and lowers their bargaining power, so the parity in wages is parity in a lower baseline
Also in practice there are salary ranges and the H1B's usually take the lower of the range AND work longer hours at the fear of visa loss.
Wages are suppressed. Exactly as intended by the major companies abusing the system for their benefit.
In other words, wage suppression.
What causes wages to rise? Shortage of supply.
What's the fix to that pesky problem? Importing tons of people at, let's call it, current wages.
This is the proper solution. Ideally, the H1-B program would remove quotas and lotteries and switch to a pure auction program for the fees. E.g, a Dutch auction for the X thousand available slots where the fee can be deducted from federal income taxes. If companies really want the best talent in the world, they should be willing to pay for it.
Hospitals and labs can’t afford to match tech spending to obtain H1Bs.
If there’s going to be an auction then there needs to be an industry or job code cap too.
That's the point! You can train Americans to do those jobs. Visas should be reserved for truly exceptional workers that will create enormous value in the U.S., as opposed to those doing mundane skilled work who wills imply drive down wages for Americans.
This is just basic demand-supply. I don't see a problem here.
If hospitals and labs can't afford to match the salaries of other occupations, maybe you have too many American candidates or the end result isn't producing enough value.
Most of the occupations doesn't really need H1B. And that's okay.
You can let capitalism do its thing, and you can put your finger on the scale for things that society needs but that are not as profitable.
Most countries identify industry shortages and tailor their immigration needs to bring in people to fulfill those roles.
This makes no sense economically. Auctioning immigrant slots to the highest bidder should allocate those spots to where they'll be most valued in the economy. What the countries you seem to be describing are doing is industry-selective wage suppression.
If we could measure externalities accurately and tax/subsidize businesses accordingly, visa auctions might lead to even more accurate wage suppression than immigration policy. But because we can't, auctions optimize the wrong measure. Some industries create more value than they can capture, while others create less.
There’s already a “best and brightest” visa and it’s not H1B. It’s O1.
That said H1B is essentially the only reasonable way for people to immigrate to the United States through employment. Most employers are not going to stick out the convoluted process to obtain an EB2/3 immigrant visa for a worker they haven’t any experience with especially since they can enter the country and immediately work for someone else.
H1Bs can stay indefinitely only if they have a pending Green Card application.
L1 is also harder to qualify for than H1B in terms of job requirements.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44404726
https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/microsoft-confi....
The significant shift comes a lot from how this country has massive systems in place to perform wage arbitrage through IT consultancies. Compared to Chinese industrial outsourcing (which requires capex), wage arbitrage is pure profit in that there's almost no overhead. So these IT companies got phenomenally rich. These companies have a US branch, usually having a manager based in the US while the others are based in India. So it's no longer getting the best and brightest through H1B, but just a way to make money off the vast difference in economic conditions between a third and first world country. And there's a direct incentive to depress the economic conditions of workers, because that's money right there. Then this goes into overdrive when many US companies realize it's even cheaper to do it themselves and set up shop in this country.
What happened to the US industrial base/blue collar workers is happening right now to white collar workers, except it'll go much faster because there's no physical equipment to move.
We all know how to solve this problem e.g. ranked by compensations maybe with some restrictions and diversifying occupations a bit. We know which companies abuse it. The number of H1B with their salaries is public.
Yet this article from Bernie grand-stands random stuff.