There is no need for an artificial cap, just make it a bidding system. The companies bid for how many workers at salary $X. Highest bids are awarded the visas. Problem solved.

This may work for tech, but I'm guessing there are quite a few other industries with low volumes of h1b applicants/workers which could utilize a "bidding system" to hire well below market rate due to decreased demand when compared to tech.

$150k cap across the board ensures that all industries are kept honest. A bidding system can be added on top of that, if needed, but this extremely simple fix would ensure that the system fulfills the original goals it was created for, while adding no bureaucratic overhead.

No controls for any other industry - if you want an H1b, bid.

So anyone who desperately needs someone on a visa can get them. Low-end body shops go away and a bunch of industries that are being cheap don't get their visas. This is called a good thing.

There are many sectors where hiring managers want degrees and other certifications and pay minimum wage or damn close. Then they complain about worker shortages.

This is all solved by higher pay and better conditions, but people want to bring in indentured servants as it's easier. As someone who has run businesses and bootstrapped, that's utter BS.

better idea - just make it 25-50% above prevailing wage for that kind of work.

Australian here, but had similar ideas about the visa situation in .au however I think you can't just do a +X% of "prevailing wage"

If the prevailing wage is calculated based on an average, you will find big business will get lower payed workers bundled in to the industry average (i.e. apple has retail staff, most companies have call centre staff, all have janitorial staff, etc) and the "prevailing wage" will be significantly lower then it should be.

If its based on job title you will just find every visa holder will have a "lower" job title (i.e. Junior rather then senior) that gives the companies a way to pay less.

Thats before factoring cost of living between various locations.

Special interests will ensure that the prevailing wage is drawn sufficiently lower then it should be.

I think it has to remain a static value (adjusted for inflation) that is quite high (e.g. $180k->$250k AUD for Australia), enough that anyone who a company will pay that much would almost certainly be a world class employee, and if someone is worth that much, then I can't see how they wouldn't be a benefit for both the country / economy, employee and the competitiveness of the company. I have no issue with this being an unlimited visa class, and should be able to be streamlined for a much quicker approval (i.e. has the company signed an agreement that they are paying $X per year?, if yes its approved pending health and security approval).

This allows companies to hire the best in the world, while not allowing them to drive down salaries with similarly skilled employees. Additionally if there is a shortage it will ensure there is some pressure to train / develop employees, innovate, automate, etc, but providing a pressure relief if needed (if supply and demand becomes unbalanced enough that people are willing to pay $180k for janitorial staff, then economically they are needed).

Then you just have job reclassification. It doesn’t work. Only money talks.

Great way to puff up signin bonus without stock, vacation or health plans to move up the list.

How about remove the quota limit and put a minimum salary of 60k?

While something like that would help mitigate the abuse vector (although the number would have to be higher - $150k is not much in Bay area tech), it introduces its own set of problems in the other direction, because now only the most profitable companies will be able to hire foreign labor. I know that's the point, but as long as the market fails to account for positive externalities, positions like nurses and teachers will be systematically undervalued, even though it's much more valuable to the country in the long run for expert labor to land there.

If a company values the skillset and knowledge of a potential immigrant at less than $150k yearly (~3 "highly specialized knowledge" employees at worst), they should utilize immigration channels not designed exclusively for poaching the top 0.1% from other countries TO FULFILL ROLES WHICH CANNOT BE FULFILLED BY US WORKERS DUE TO LACK OF SKILLED PERSON(s).

And I agree that $150k is probably on the low end for tech, but I wanted to name a conservative amount which takes into consideration pay across all industries. Whatever we do, we should __Start__ with that, and then further modify requirements/restrictions as deemed necessary.

AFAIK, the number considered is salary, so the number is decently high, even for bay area. There are some exceptions like Netflix, but a lot of companies pay majority in equity, especially at higher salary levels.

I don't know how easy/difficult would it be for companies to move from equity based compensation to normal salary though, if something like that is implemented.

You’ll also be watching American businesses dying as they lose to global competitors who operate in a much more favourable regulatory environment, because their country doesn’t force them to pay 150k per engineer.

Where is this favorable-to-corporations regulatory environment? Europe? UK? Australia? Canada? I'm having trouble thinking of a single western democracy that has a looser regulatory environment than the US. But I'd love to be educated.

Why does it have to be a western democracy? Chinese companies are a good example - Cisco is rapidly losing market share to Huawei, who can employ skilled workers at a fraction of the price.

Huawei doesn't count. China has a heavily managed economy. If Huawei employs workers at a fraction of the cost, it's not because Indians, Vietnamese and Turkish tech workers are flocking to Shenzen instead of San Jose. It's because the Chinese government wants it that way.

Why does the reason matter? If Cisco isn’t competitive, they die. How do you propose they stay in business when Huawei is selling the same thing for half the price?

I dunno, maybe get Trump to executive order lower salaries for Cisco employees? That would be roughly equivalent to the Chinese situation.

Alternatively, the USA as a country could put some effort into education, so as to be self-sufficient in available, skilled workers.

But you're simplifying things - do we really know that lack of cheap Indian H1-B or L1 workers is what's killing Cisco? No. We don't even know that Cisco is being killed. They just gave $10+million dollar bonus to the CEO, as we learned elsewhere in these threads. That suggests robust health.

I don’t agree that Chinese labour is cheaper is because the government forces people work for low salaries. Sure there is a lot of intervention, but that’s a stretch. In any case, using your example, there are Indian, Vietnamese and Turkish workers that are willing to do the work Cisco needs at a cheaper price than Cisco is required to pay in America. If Cisco doesn’t recruit them, a competitor does and that competitor gains a material advantage over Cisco. Some companies and industries can absorb the inefficiency better than others, and it might not kill them immediately, but in the long run forcing your country’s businesses to operate uncompetitively is very bad.

Allowing your country's companies to under-pay your population probably has worse effects, even in the short run. Corporations are here to make things better for the populace, not to use the populace as resources to be raided before the corporation moves along to better things. That almost always seems to be left out of the analysis. Without any benefits from a corporation,we're all better off without them, except maybe a few big stockholders and C-level employees. If corporations don't help, they're not even Pareto-efficient.

I guess I'll also point out that you've dodged the question. Chinese companies are not a good example - the Chinese government interferes in markets to a degree unheard of elsewhere. That's a different regulatory environment altogether than what you have imagined as being competitive.