OT: Working Visas are on the chopping block

[no_such_reality]

I’m cynic, there’s very few labor shortages that higher wages won’t resolve.

Trump, like many of the technical consulting houses, can’t hire them, because, IMHO, they don’t want to hire them.

[CA renter]

[quote=no_such_reality]I’m cynic, there’s very few labor shortages that higher wages won’t resolve.

Trump, like many of the technical consulting houses, can’t hire them, because, IMHO, they don’t want to hire them.[/quote]

Bingo. There is no labor shortage. If the supply of labor isn’t keeping up with demand, then the price (wage) needs to be increased. People are willing and able to admit this regarding nearly every other market; but when it comes to labor, people act as though pricing mechanisms aren’t applicable.

[Anonymous]

[quote=CA renter]Bingo. There is no labor shortage. If the supply of labor isn’t keeping up with demand, then the price (wage) needs to be increased. People are willing and able to admit this regarding nearly every other market; but when it comes to labor, people act as though pricing mechanisms aren’t applicable.[/quote]

Who is claiming that there is a labor shortage?

“People” ?

There can be situations where there are simply not enough qualified people in the labor pool. Money can’t fix that, in the short-term at least. And often in the long-term as well.

No matter how much you pay me, I’m not qualified to be a paramedic.

The debate in the tech sector is often that there aren’t enough qualified Americans available. Some people just aren’t cut out to be programmers or whatever. Paying them more won’t change that. Of course training and education may help, but in some fields schooling doesn’t help if the aptitude isn’t there.

“Just raise the price” does not always work in the skilled labor market. It’s not a commodity.

[Anonymous]

What evidence do you have, Harvey, that there aren’t enough “qualified” Americans to work in the Tech sector? Just because CEOs from certain tech companies who benefit greatly from H1B hiring tell you so? Don’t be so gullible. Perhaps you should re-read Kev’s post and do some deeper investigations on your own.

[Anonymous]

[quote=deadzone]What evidence do you have, Harvey, that there aren’t enough “qualified” Americans to work in the Tech sector? [/quote]

I never made that claim.

[Anonymous]

Right, so you have no evidence of this. Therefore it may be appropriate to question the motives of the Tech CEOs and perhaps consider placing more restrictions on the H1B program. Thanks to Trump this may actually happen.

[spdrun]

The cynic in me says that outsourcing, even with some sort of tariff in place, will be easier than hiring foreign workers in the US if Trump’s proposals pass.

[Anonymous]

[quote=deadzone]Right, so you have no evidence of this. Therefore it may be appropriate to question the motives of the Tech CEOs and perhaps consider placing more restrictions on the H1B program. Thanks to Trump this may actually happen.[/quote]

I have no data to support either side, nor do I know what the “right” number of H1Bs are. But I’m sure the ideal number is not zero.

I never worked in technology directly, but I have worked with a highly educated and internationally diverse group of people and I can say for sure that the US economy benefits greatly from allowing educated immigrants work here. I understand that it’s possible to have too much of a good thing, but I have never seen any quantitative argument as to how many immigrant workers is too much. I’ve never had any trouble hiring anyone from anywhere, so I guess I never cared.

Like so many of Trump’s ideas, the proposal to limit H1B’s is very one-dimensional and won’t be as easy as he thinks. I’m sure many CEOs and corporations donate to their congressmen.

[Coronita]

[quote=no_such_reality][quote=flu]Oh please. Stop with the refugee coming and killing people hysteria. How many refugees to date have committed mass murderer in the us?

Versus how many domestic citizens committed mass murder with their easy access to getting a gun?

Let’s see.
Movie theater massacre.
Elementary school shootings.
Workplace shootings.
Middle and high school shooting.
Murder of Christina Grimmie…

How many of these were done by Muslim refugees.

Almost all of these were committed by , for the lack of better word, gun toting american white people. But, when they do it..We call that mental illness. Because we want keep the status quo on ease access to guns.

You and your kids are probably more likely to get killed by a gun nut with mental illness or someone with bad case of road rage than a refugee. I worry more about that than the refugees.[/quote]

Hey hey hey now, stop making sense. Next thing you know you’ll be talking about extreme vetting of people purchasing multiple weapons of moderate destruction.[/quote]

Lol…. Sorry for the off tangent… But this was funny…

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/02/politics/house-vote-guns-mental-illnesses/index.html
“House rolls back rule restricting gun sales to severely mentally ill”

Ok, so it’s ok to sell guns to mentally ill people, but when it comes to refugees, they are far more dangerous? You can’t make this shit up. Lol.

[barnaby33]

I don’t even want one immigrant to come here and do harm to even one US citizen. I don’t know anyone who feels differently than me on that point

You’re letting good be the enemy of possible. Its a big world and lots of people in it are immigrants. Your last statement shows all the fear of the unknown that immigrants represent so you probably really aren’t pro-immigrant.

Having just gone through the vetting process to get my wife a green card, most native born citizens will never know what a PITA it is and how powerless you are. That being said, the system does need revision. We can’t continue to absorb 1 million immigrants a year, even highly skilled ones. Blocking people because they are Muslim however is just stupid and racist. Doubly so when the countries that have contributed most of the terrorists aren’t even on the blocked list.

Lets grant less visas make sure they are high quality and rejoice in the fact that people still want to come here. Let’s also not let our basic human nature be overridden by laziness, which tends to favor immigration (poor and poorly skilled) from our southern neighbors.

A national Id would be a fairly easy way to ensure that people who were working here had the right to be here and then make it easier for us to grant tourist visas without so much fear of people overstaying and living in the gray.

[spdrun]

Our fertility rate is below or at replacement, so population increases are mainly by immigration.

1 million per year is 0.3% per annum. Hardly unsustainable.

BTW – I’m close with someone whose parents were from a “southern neighbor” that isn’t Mexico, but has a similar per-capita income. Her father was a taxi and later a truck driver, her mom became a teacher. They went back and forth, she spent about 2/3 of her childhood outside the US.

The siblings and cousins that I’ve met generally have at least a master’s — quite a few lawyers, doctors, and engineers. Don’t assume that people from a humble background won’t educate themselves.

Let’s grant MORE visas. Even manual work needs doing. Better to satisfy the demand for immigration from all social strata vs allowing criminal gangs to control it.

[barnaby33]

Below replacement rate is exactly where we need to be. This country and the world in general are way beyond carrying capacity. Especially if you take the unbigoted view that you’d like most if not all to have a shot at an American standard of living. My wife is Peruvian I’m well versed in the not everyone is poor or poorly educated meme. However I also grew up here, specifically in an agricultural town. I think I am pretty well versed in both the actuals of immigration and the theory. It’s great that we can agree to disagree and do so with neither of us yelling at the other.
Josh

[CA renter]

[quote=harvey][quote=CA renter]Bingo. There is no labor shortage. If the supply of labor isn’t keeping up with demand, then the price (wage) needs to be increased. People are willing and able to admit this regarding nearly every other market; but when it comes to labor, people act as though pricing mechanisms aren’t applicable.[/quote]

Who is claiming that there is a labor shortage?

“People” ?

There can be situations where there are simply not enough qualified people in the labor pool. Money can’t fix that, in the short-term at least. And often in the long-term as well.

No matter how much you pay me, I’m not qualified to be a paramedic.

The debate in the tech sector is often that there aren’t enough qualified Americans available. Some people just aren’t cut out to be programmers or whatever. Paying them more won’t change that. Of course training and education may help, but in some fields schooling doesn’t help if the aptitude isn’t there.

“Just raise the price” does not always work in the skilled labor market. It’s not a commodity.[/quote]

Have you been living under a rock all these years? Everyone who’s been advocating for open borders and generous work visas has done so under the guise of there being a labor shortage.

Even in areas that required advanced degrees, there is (generally speaking) no labor shortage, and certainly no shortage of people who are intellectually capable of learning the skills required of these more skilled trades.

The problem is money and job insecurity, especially when more and more employers are demanding very specific skill sets without being willing to train employees themselves. People are afraid to go though all of the work and expense to obtain a niche degree that might have been in high demand when they started, but that might not be in high demand once they graduate, especially if they need a Ph.D.

Once upon a time, companies were willing to invest in their employees — they paid them well, provided secure jobs, and invested in their employees’ education. In return, employees worked hard, were highly productive, and were loyal to these companies, often staying with them even if potentially better opportunities would arise, or when companies needed workers to help absorb some of the losses (money or hours worked) when economically challenging times would occur. IMO, if companies want workers with very specific skills, they should be willing to take someone who is “close enough” and train that person on the company’s dime.

https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2015/article/stem-crisis-or-stem-surplus-yes-and-yes.htm

——————–

“This wage data suggest that there is not a shortage of STEM workers broadly, or for commonly discussed computer occupations. (Data on all detailed STEM occupations is available here.) One reason employers might think they can’t find workers is that they may have inflexible requirements for vacant positions. For example, a company might require that workers work for low wages and long hours, or that they have particular certifications or unreasonably specific skills, or vague cultural attributes that favor certain types of people. There might also be an unwillingness to train new workers on-the-job, which was very common in the past.

So when employers complain about not being able to find workers, what they really mean is that they can’t find workers who meet their requirements at the wage they are willing to offer. With the cost of living rapidly rising in areas like San Francisco, where there are many STEM employers, it makes sense that workers would not apply for positions that offer wages they find to be too low.”

http://cepr.net/blogs/cepr-blog/is-there-a-shortage-of-workers-in-stem-fields

[no_such_reality]

H-2A, $11.89/hr, 35 (ahem) hours per week, starting at 5AM.

Here’s what the work looks like.

Can’t imagine why people are beating a path to do that given the massive career opportunities.

When Henry Ford built the assembly line he paid that outrageous rate back then, because he knew he had to pay more to get workers to leave their craftsman’s job and do the boring repetitive work of the assembly line.

And for those that can’t connect the dots between the business outlook that wants the celery picker and the business outlook that is asking for tens of thousands of ‘tech’ workers that are entry level ‘consultants’ it’s the same, cheap less demanding labor.

[Anonymous]

[quote=CA renter]Have you been living under a rock all these years? Everyone who’s been advocating for open borders and generous work visas has done so under the guise of there being a labor shortage.[/quote]

Lots of nonspecific, hysterical words like “everyone,” “guise”, etc.

[quote]Even in areas that required advanced degrees, there is (generally speaking) no labor shortage, and certainly no shortage of people who are intellectually capable of learning the skills required of these more skilled trades.[/quote]

Maybe there’s no labor shortage because we allow immigration?

[quote]Once upon a time, companies were willing to invest in their employees — they paid them well, provided secure jobs, and invested in their employees’ education. [/quote]

Vague nostalgia for some unspecified time in the past. When America was great? Not exactly useful for determining policy.

Your little citation says nothing more than employers try to pay as little as they can and employees want to get paid as much as they can. Really insightful.

I already said that I don’t know the right number for good immigration policy. It’s pretty clear that you don’t either. Difference is that I know what I don’t know.

[Author]

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