There have been a lot of market discussions in this forum, from labor issues to free trade to US competitiveness. Each one I have fairly strong opinions on and think about them more than most I know. Here are my thoughts.
We should be lucky that well-trained foreigners want to move from their homelands to work in the US (most would prefer to stay near family and a culture they fit into if they could find the same jobs). And we should feel even more lucky that the multi-national companies still want to have their jobs located in the US. As the world gets more competitive, both the foreigners and the companies will have more options. I am certain that they will increasingly mean that both the foreigners will choose to stay in their home country and the multi-national companies will choose to locate new jobs to those other countries (mainly in Asia). Who wins if this happens? US citizens might get higher jobs, but with less workers and less jobs our economy will be much smaller, and so thus will our overall prosperity.
Most of the posts are from a personal or microeconomic point of view. That’s natural but from the macroeconomic point of view, H1-B visas are a winner for the US. We get to have many of the best and the brightest from other parts of the world for no cost to US taxpayers!! They come all grown up, ready to work and contribute to the rest of our society, including the slackers who don’t even exert themselves here. Many become permanent residents or citizens, but some move back home (thus forfitting their Social Security). More than 50% of my friends and co-workers are foreign-born, and I know the benefits well. As for those hurt in this area (US workers), you have to ask yourself, am I committed to free trade (and labor) even when I am the loser or do I favor free trade just when it helps me? A truly free market (without corruption) will cause everyone to adapt to the needs of the market. If that could ever be achieved, then we would all collectively be better off, worldwide.
One last comment. Think about jobs from the executive’s point of view of a multi-national company. Exxon, Coca-cola, Motorola or any other number of billion dollar companies are not American. I repeat they are not American, nor are they working in the interests of the US. They are global, and care about maximizing their global business, which means increasing their profits everywhere on earth. This concept of meta-nationalism is so utterly foreign for most people, because for the last 200 years nationalism has been so dominant. These executives have a choice as to where to keep jobs, and if business is too expensive in the US, they will go someplace cheaper. One way of keeping them in the US is to have the best employees, regardless of if they are US born or not. H1-B visas help keep jobs in the US, even if it is not Americans who fill them (but they do pay taxes for the rest of us, and buy stuff here to so our country benefits about the same as native workers).
