No, it has less labor supplied at current prices than purchasers would prefer. Market clearing quantity at current prices being less than buyers would prefer is...the normal case of a market economy.
It's only a shortage if buyers paying more wouldn't increase market clearing quantity, because of some constraint besides “you haven't offered enough money to convince more people to sell their labor”.
Yes, that constraint is immigration law.
The US tech sector can pay every software engineer 300k starting salary but at some point you’re completely hobbling the ability for new businesses to start and grow.
US has been letting in millions of IT immigrants for decades and it’s technology salaries are highest in the world. Simply put the demand created by these immigrants for more software services outstrips the increase in supply of engineers. They also start a ton of new companies so you have agglomeration effects of having more people.
Sure US companies can and should pay more but there is certainly a point where labor is expensive enough to make new growth prohibitive. The USA has much more abundant cheap labor than Europe which is why we have all the new innovative companies starting and not there. When these companies grow they produce lots of high skilled jobs as well. Think of Uber. Lots of drivers are low skilled immigrants, but the ability for a new company to have so many to drive for them spurred and entire new industry with thousands high paying tech jobs as well.
Low skilled immigration is a win win win for the USA. Americans get cheaper goods and services, a fast growing dynamic economy and hard working tax paying citizens to grow the nation and make it richer. They create huge demand for goods and services growing the US economy and market size. Low skilled immigrants may not be working the most glamorous jobs but they come to the US voluntarily knowing their children will vastly out earn them and be American. They prefer it to the situation that they left behind. These people are not financial liabilities to the USA.
None of this is an argument against higher pay, workers rights, safety standards. Uber drivers and strawberry pickers should be protected with the full force of the US government from abuse, and we should have safety nets in place to make sure they’re not destitute. Those should all be sought after. But increasing low skilled immigration makes the USA much richer overall and should be drastically increased.
> There is no scenario where they buy strawberries picked by people making $30/hr.
You're presenting a false dichotomy. Not only would people would pick strawberries in the U.S. season for less than that (assuming they would seek unskilled labor), consumers are accustomed to paying premium for "local" produce when in season.
> The US tech sector can pay every software engineer 300k starting salary but at some point you’re completely hobbling the ability for new businesses to start and grow.
There are always young engineers starting out desperate to get a job who would kill for the opportunity to work at a startup.
> the demand created by these immigrants for more software services outstrips the increase in supply of engineers.
FANG serves a global market, and the notion that there's some sort of lack of software services that consumers want is ludicrous. In the first place these are quickly filled in by app creators capitalizing on opportunity, in the 2nd, people generally don't know what they want when it comes to as-of-yet-invented software, they're told what they want by large companies.
> Americans get cheaper goods and services,
They already get that from imports.
> a fast growing dynamic economy
Benefiting the rich overwhelmingly.
Notwithstanding skill, because immigration isn't just about low-skilled workers (Canada doesn't prioritize it for instance), high supply of workers is lobbied for on the part of companies in order to suppress wages. That is the only reason.
Maybe I misunderstood your comment but Canada does prioritize high(er)-skilled immgrants over low-skilled immigrants as per the Canadian Federal Skilled Workers points system used to score potential immigrants applying to enter the country on a long-term basis.
[1] https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se...
Yea but that's my point. In the US for a lot of industries such as agriculture you can allow immigrants to come to the US and pick them for cheap or its going to get outsourced. There isn't a scenario where you have highly paid strawberry pickers. The amount of people paying premium for local produce is a drop in the bucket compared to the overall market. American consumers overwhelming buy whatever the cheapest produce is. I think increasing the number of agricultural visas for Mexican & South/Central American workers to come the US is a good thing, otherwise those strawberries just get grown in Mexico. Even in the depths of the great recession Americans were not lining up to pick produce, it's just not a job Americans want to do or are there enough non-immigrant workers in places with lots of farms.
> There are always young engineers starting out desperate to get a job who would kill for the opportunity to work at a startup.
This is much more true in the US than Europe because we have way more startups that make it big. And we have way more startups that make it big because there are so many more engineers here. More skilled tech immigrants is good. It's a cycle.
> FANG serves a global market, and the notion that there's some sort of lack of software services that consumers want is ludicrous. In the first place these are quickly filled in by app creators capitalizing on opportunity, in the 2nd, people generally don't know what they want when it comes to as-of-yet-invented software, they're told what they want by large companies.
I'm not sure what point you're even trying to make tbqh, did I say there way a lack of software services? I'm arguing when more tech immigrants come to the US, they create more demand for services like cloud computing and other SaaS. That in turn increases the need to hire more engineers to fulfill the demand. The end result of letting more highly skilled immigrants come to the US is a fast growing and innovative tech sector more-so than other nations. Yes tech is global but a huge, outsized part of it is centralized in the US. The more people we allow to come here, the more startups can hire and grow. If you cut off immigration, lots of startups wouldn't be able to hire enough engineers to grow as they would get out competed by the big tech companies. Yes you can pay more, but if you have 20k job opening and 10k engineers then the companies that lose that bidding war just won't get started or grow.
> Americans get cheaper goods and services,
America is filled with lots of double income highly educated couples with children that rely on low skilled immigrants as nannies, landscapers, cab drivers and other domestic jobs that can't be exported but make their lives run. As long as there is no abuse and the immigrants want to be here and make enough to get by, I don't see this as a bad thing. They are willing to work incredibly hard to give their children the chance at a better life.
> Benefiting the rich overwhelmingly. If you're in the top 40% of America you're rich. Hacker News is filled with rich engineers due to the points I've outlined above. America is really good at creating more and more rich people because we're good at business. Back to my Uber example, how many millionaires has Uber created, and how many immigrants make some money and get the chance to support a family based on it. Now if they think the bargain isn't worth it, then they don't have to stay in the US. But the truth is lots of them do think its worth it because they and their children will be better off down the line.
> Notwithstanding skill, because immigration isn't just about low-skilled workers (Canada doesn't prioritize it for instance), high supply of workers is lobbied for on the part of companies in order to suppress wages. That is the only reason.
If you believe this you've missed my entire point. The labor market is supply and demand. If you think it suppresses wages you've missed the entire demand side of the equation. Immigrants increase demand more than they increase supply. Wages are not reduced. There is papers and papers worth of academic literature on this subject. The only demographic that sometimes looses out is low skilled workers who directly compete with low skilled immigrants. There is very little of this overlap as a lot of the poorest American's aren't willing to go pick produce or cut lawns. If more immigrants lowered wages the US would have the lowest wages in the world but it doesn't, not by a long shot. By your logic software engineers would be making poverty wages due to high levels of immigration, but they don't. They're some of the highest paid people in the country. More immigrants mean more economic growth which is good for everyone.
For this particular US industry, it already is outsourced, the company profits from labor in Mexico.
> There isn't a scenario where you have highly paid strawberry pickers.
You're doubling down on this when I made it clear it's all relative. You don't need an engineer's payscale to entice more agricultural workers when they have zero education.
> I think increasing the number of agricultural visas for Mexican & South/Central American workers to come the US is a good thing, otherwise those strawberries just get grown in Mexico.
Yes, they already are. Check the packaging at your grocery store. The company just yields the profits.
> This is much more true in the US than Europe because we have way more startups that make it big. And we have way more startups that make it big because there are so many more engineers here. More skilled tech immigrants is good. It's a cycle.
This is too simplistic of a view. The valley has the capital, that's why startups can make it. There are more engineers because they're clamoring for potentially large salaries in very expensive cities. More engineers means more competition and consequently suppressed wages; it's not a given that they all make it to FANG, and it's not a given that the small company or startup they start with will get any consideration or funding. For a young engineer, a company's success doesn't matter so much in the beginning, they're desperate for experience in order to better compete if they've missed their first opening at a FANG. You can be a good developer and still never get hired there, in which case you'd eventually move out of the valley.
> did I say there way a lack of software services?
That is the exact implication when you suggest the demand for software services sufficiently outweights the supply of workers. It is a nonsensical statement. Demand being created basically reiterates what I said, but here again, it's not a given that your shiny new service will lead to substantial demand. The vast majority fail.
> If you cut off immigration
No one said anything about cutting off immigration. The counter to high, unfettered immigration isn't "no" immigration, it's a sensible rate that actually considers other factors like wages, unemployment status etc rather than only a corporation's desires.
Even Statistics Canada clearly lays out that increasing immigration over a certain rate suppresses wages: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/89-001-x/89-001-x2007001... . This is from the government itself.
> The end result of letting more highly skilled immigrants come to the US is a fast growing and innovative tech sector more-so than other nations.
The end result is a faster growing GDP, and as we have already established, a higher GDP does not reflect better prosperity for people in places of high inequality. It means the rich get richer, and the purchasing power of the middle class diminishes.
> nannies, landscapers, cab drivers and other domestic jobs that can't be exported but make their lives run.
Nothing reflects privilege like a nanny. Working class Americans don't have nannies. Landscaping can pay quite well and you can make a living driving cabs, it's not something only immigrants want.
> If you're in the top 40% of America you're rich.
The poverty rate is 10.5%. The average annual wage is $51,916.27 and the real median personal income in the US in 2019 is $35,977. Most workers are not rich, and wages have not been catching up with inflation let alone GDP. Wages are suppressed over decades.
> If you think it suppresses wages you've missed the entire demand side of the equation.
You have a distorted, naive view of the consequence of this increase of demand.
New bodies need a place to live (housing prices are skyrocketing), they need food (this increase does basically fuck all for the vast majority of Americans because it's so automated and controlled by very few rich families), they need transportation (the infrastructure is effectively just maintained at this point i.e. subways and buses, and vehicle manufacturing is going fully automated), and they want entertainment (so an elite cadre of Hollywood studios and video game producers can get slightly richer).
So far in these examples, the increase in demand does not demonstrate a need for new jobs. Housing would be one, except it's artificially restricted owing to zoning laws so the snail's pace is pegged. Basically everything else as demand goes can already be met with, in aggregate, very little need for new workers on the whole. With the grip of automation tightening, among other issues, this idea that demand will automatically lead to new jobs is unsubstantiable. The most generous view is that the ratio of new bodies to new jobs created is worsening.
We're on the cusp of serious popular consideration for UBI, with the implication that availability of jobs will diminish more rapidly than new ones are created. If this is further realized, then an increase in immigration makes zero sense.
> By your logic software engineers would be making poverty wages due to high levels of immigration, but they don't.
No. FANG is a top money-maker that dominates the stock exchange but represents a fraction of total occupancy by sector in the country, so they're interested in maintaining talent. Not every sector is like FANG, but then not every programmer works at one - wages won't be maintained everywhere, pretty much like the other sectors. Add to the fact, programming jobs available are projected to decline 9% in the next decade - https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/... . So it seems more bodies will not in fact directly translate to more available jobs even in IT. Consequently wages will fall if there is high competition, and a 9% difference sounds like it.
Mediocre, bad, unlucky or badly located, geographically, citizen workers lose out. And then they vote for Trump :-)