Mike is completely right. It’s absurd that we let so few highly skilled workers into the US. I don’t really have anything to add to his excellent points, but I was amused by some of the comments in that post. First a good example of the kinds of problems the low H1-B cap creates:
My wife and I are highly skilled British workers (me in IT and my Wife in Microbiology). We chose to emigrate to Australia over the US because of this short-sighted, protectionist attitude. Australia has a points system that allows anyone in if they meet the point’s target, dependant on their profession. The points awarded to each industry and profession is varied according to the economic demand. Trying to plan a move to the States wasn’t worth the hassle of waiting for a ‘lottery’ visa application.
I now earn more than many Australians because they have jobs that need done and not enough people to do them. This is partly to a fast growing economy (no recession here) and an aging population where people are retiring.
And this guy gets the award for the biggest non-sequitur of the discussion:
Why is the tech industry so special? In every other industry, a lack of skilled workers results in companies paying HIGHER SALARIES to draw those skilled workers in. That causes people to flood schools seeking education for those areas so that they can graduate and fill the industry needs, eventually resulting in a somewhat lower salary overall, because the demand and supply are more even. THAT is capitalism. THAT is how it has always been.
But somehow when it comes to the tech industry, the answer isn’t related to supply and demand. When it comes to the tech industry, they artificially bend supply and demand to the corporate side’s favor by importing extra supply.
The guy above who says that he moved to AUS instead of the US because of our “protectionism” (what the hell are you talking about? the problem is a LACK of protectionism) has some deeply flawed logic. If he moved to the US, he wouldn’t keep that fantastic salary he’s getting in AUS right now, because he would be competing with the flood of imported labor.
I hope I don’t have to point out the numerous illogical aspects of this argument. But one of the things I find striking about this is the implicit xenophobia on display. Because of course, the British guy is probably white and speaks impeccable English, so he’s obviously not part of the problem. It’s those other people, that menacing “flood of imported labor” that we need to be worried about. It’s apparently lost on him that Indian, Chinese, and Korean workers are human beings who need to support their families just as much as British people do.
A final point to be made is that the tech sector isn’t special. For decades, we’ve been dealing with job losses in the manufacturing sector. Wages have been depressed somewhat by both free trade agreements and high levels of immigration, legal and otherwise. Economists have pointed out, correctly, that these changes benefit consumers by allowing companies to produce better products at lower prices. Precisely the same argument applies to the tech sector, and it’s disappointing to see my fellow geeks stoop to demagoguery and thinly disguised xenophobia when it comes to facing competition in their own industry.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.