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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 28 2012 @ 07:35 PM EDT |
...y'know, I'd like to believe this. However, in my
experience, Cringley is right. Most H1-b hiring I've been
involved with was done because an American worker would have
been too expensive. There are 2 advantages to a H1-b. (a)
You can usually offer a bit less (15% ish) (b) They are not
mobile. So, you don't need to offer competitive wage
increases and they work harder to avoid being fired. In
practice, every H1-b I've known has gotten about a 30k raise
following acceptance of their green card application.
(Either by switching jobs or by negotiating something.)
Would the US economy improve with a more lenient immigration
policy? Sure. Paying someone a high wage if you could get
the equivalent cheaper always limits business opportunities.
I just don't believe that we should target relatively poorly
paid positions like science and technology. It would
probably make more economic sense to allow H1-B's only for
jobs in the upper 1% income bracket. So, mostly finance
people.
Now, there are real arguments towards encouraging
immigration in science and technology in terms of long-term
productivity growth and forming hi-tech sectors, but,
realistically, most 'shortages' are based more on being
unwilling to absorb retraining costs for people skilled in,
eg, Cobol when C++ is needed than any real inability to
recruit someone capable of doing the job.
--Erwin[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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