That said, i've noticed different "worlds" of H1B worlds, with different impacts upon other workers.
I did a govt job on the US East Coast (Richmond, VA) that had a lot of H1B contract workers, likely from one of these body shops. They were good people, and adequate if unimpressive coders. They were earning decent US wages and were painfully aware that losing or leaving a job left them no guarantee there'd be another for them in the US soon. Management abused the heck out of these people, establishing practices, expectations, and treatment of coders that were terrible. They put up with it, but but it lowered the quality of the workplace for everyone, and the employees and US citizens (naturalized or born) working there also suffered, and tended to leave when they could. I was one of them, which put me in Seattle on the West Coast...
...Where I found an entirely different world of H1B workers. These were not contractors, not through a body shop, and were definitely impressive in their fields (devs, architects, and QA/Test eng, along with a handful of PMs and Team Leads). Here there was no reduction of workplace quality - these workers had lots of extra annoyances I didn't have to worry about (example: apparently changing your job title during one period of time when applying for a green card restarts the multi-year process, so I knew of people that declined or postponed promotions!) but they could definitely find work elsewhere easily enough - should workplace be unbearable they'd bounce like the rest of us could.
Whenever the H1-B debate comes up, I reflect on the different impact the workers had on these offices, and the impact the H1-B rules had on those workers. Everytime one of my friends debated if it was worth pursuing a green card or naturalization, I saw the seeming idiotic result of the US chasing away workers that it said it needed, that had proven themselves, and that american companies had spent time and money in training and getting experience to.
The first group are basically being exploited by a body shop that puts in 10X the number of applications vs spots that they need, but always still gets lots of awards. They then are able to leverage the fact they flooded the pool to carry out visa arbitrage - they have something employees want, and leverage that, even though that things is really public government property (visa) and so shouldn't be a privately leveraged.
Almost all the H1B horror stories are from these shops (often they have related outsource arms) - "I had to train my replacement and they sent my job overseas using H1B visas". You can see how trump got elected when dems were defending this as good for US workers.
The second group are folks who really really need employees. They are and will hire absolutely any US worker who meets their criteria (it's a lot easier - fewer hoops to jump through) and are willing to hire an H1B eligible employee if they run out of pipeline on US based folks. These tend to be truly higher skill jobs. The US is taking the cream of other countries investments in education etc etc with the folks - I can't imagine this is bad for the US in any way.
What is frustrating from one perspective though is that the reactionary defense of H1B means that lots of group 1 are still allowed to play their games. Seriously, crack down big time on group one. Keep same number of folks coming, and loosen up on group 2 - Level 2+ wages, masters degree US should be first in line.
If that position ceases to exist or gets filled by a local worker, then the visa loses its purpose, the employee apparently isn't needed anymore by US and can be discarded.
We can easily let people switch job titles and employers while addressing potential loopholes though.
Too many people benefit from having a slave that can't leave their job without getting deported.
> shortage of skilled engineers
...at peanut pricing.
Currently, the process is that you need to find a company that is willing to sponsor you, then that company needs to file paperwork with the government to explain the wages, job description, etc. And then this application is either accepted or rejected based on whatever guidelines they use[1].
If we keep this situation and start allow workers to move around wherever they want, the company just ate the paperwork legal costs and the role they hired for might not even stay filled for long, prompting them to redo the process.
[1] https://www.immi-usa.com/h1b-application-process-step-by-ste...
Would you expect a company to be able to retain US citizen employees if it underpaid or gave boring work?
Switching jobs is a stressful, non-trivial process. Most people who are happy with their job don't want to change it. If the company can't retain an employee on the merits of its own offerings and compensation, that's too bad.
Any other mechanism affords the opportunity for arbitrage, bureaucracy, legal leeches specialized in exploiting the process etc.
The only counter I've heard to it is that Joe's Tech Corp in Podunk, USA cannot compete with big city salaries and would never be able to get any filled. Though I see that as a feature not a bug.
I'm trying to come up with the most charitable interpretation of your last sentence but am failing. Was it meant as a "let them eat cake" statement for not being a coastal dweller? Given the many negative effects tech centers are having on local populations, deconcentrating tech across the country seems like it would have positive benefits for many not in the tech industry, which is most people.
I'm totally amazed how often the US come up with ways for the rich to have the benefits of socialism and the or to have the consequences of capitalism.
we already run an immigration lottery
Won't that just mean the body shops create 100K subsidiaries?
I'm not just saying this to be facetious. There's a huge pressure on members of any marginalized group (women, immigrants, LGBTQ) to either be extraordinary or not matter at all. You have to make space for the people that aren't extraordinary.
I'm speaking as someone from a marginalized group. I've dealt with this pressure myself.
However I recently saw an opening where I work go to an H1B where there were other qualified candidates, which I don't like to see. I would rather see the H1B's have a more stable/easier path to permanent residency. Not only does it confer a longer term economic benefit to the US to have more skilled workers, it would (probably) make the worker feel more secure and stable in their life, and less beholden to stay somewhere working because their H1B status is being held over their head and preventing easy mobility.
Unless I misread the article, this looks like a crackdown to me. It's a BA level QA analyst job at an outsourcing shop.
Or we could focus on making the process uncloggable and work towards the free movement of labor which could add $78T to the global GDP.
https://www.economist.com/the-world-if/2017/07/13/a-world-of...
Immigration restriction is the process by the which you refuse the gift from another country. It is doing to yourself what your competitors are trying to inflict on you.
When there is a 6+ months wait from applying for H1-B for getting it approved or rejected, the very top candidates nor the fastest growing companies may not want to wait that long. So H1-B is by nature more appealing to companies who can play the numbers game.
Job specific degrees are always a boon-doggle and they really shouldn't be getting the jobs their degrees proclaim. School is the time for theory, but these Job-specific degree programs these days are just glorified bootcamps
Indeed. What the H1-B program should look is for workers paying taxes. I'd grant them from top to bottom until equilibrium. Except for a very small set of specific professions needed and still not making it (perhaps healthcare or education). US doesn't need QA analysts or consultants.
Note: I'm not from US.
Where I work the H1B applicants (who don't get selected) have masters, from a US university, for a degree that applies specifically to their job. These folks should be on the red carpet to US citizenship. They have checked every box. Instead they get treated like crap.
They should SHUT DOWN these other players who clog up the process.
a) outsourcing firms that are just numbers game body shop mills.
b) set a minimum comp for the jobs that is reasonable (but include retirement and other benefits in calc).
c) allow all employers one applicant before awarding more slots, so the body shop mills have to compete with small business who have real jobs for real people and are not just playing percentage games (100K applications with 5k actual jobs available).
I'm a HUGE fan of lots of immigration - but saying H1B is highly specialized for real jobs, then having the body shop mills apply for 100K slots (they don't have those jobs), so they can dominate the selections and then profit off the salary / visa arbitrage is disgusting for all involved. And yes, I sign real applications that never get selected (and am willing to pay well over Level 1 and Level 2 wages).