Posted on 04/26/2019 6:27:42 AM PDT by C19fan
n praising the “brainiacs” who hold H-1B visas, Stephen Moore writes that “the firms that use these visas must affirm that they were not able to find comparably skilled American workers to do the jobs.” That claim is generally false. Most firms are not even required to advertise the position before applying for an H-1B worker. (Recruiting Americans prior to applying for an H-1B is required only for employers deemed “H-1B dependent” or “willful violators.”) Moore’s piece has remained uncorrected on the Dallas News site for six days and counting.
The error is important because it touches on a key question about the H-1B program, and about “high-skill” immigration more generally: Are we really getting Einstein-level intellects with few American equivalents, or are firms simply importing run-of-the-mill college graduates to hold down wages? To support the Einstein theory, Moore cites the testimony of Bill Gates, who once claimed that each H-1B worker hired by Microsoft creates four new jobs.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
These “brainiacs” come from places where huge numbers of people go out into the street to do #2. H1-B is simply a way to get cheap labor. They copypasta code like crazy at the last minute to beat a deadline, and spend their work time online, asking girls to show bobs and vegene.
Even though he’s a complete doofus on this issue, Stephen Moore is still better than most of the Fed.
I’m finishing up an MS in Data Science next month. About 3/4 of the class are foreign students (China, Nigeria, and India).
Most have a BS in Computer Science or Engineering from their home countries.
They can’t code their way out of a paper bag. They can’t give a coherent presentation. Their writing is no better than a bag of random words.
Yet, they will all get hired first.
Why? As I am told, the only way they can stay in the county after school is to get a job. They are highly motivated to take a job AT ANY SALARY just to stay in the US.
This ruinous wage suppression scheme is even starting to affect newly minted Doctors.
Companies performing these technical hires trap themselves in the long run. They create job descriptions so specific that they target a single individual to justify their hiring under these constraints. Later, should a viable candidate apply for the same position, the business must, by law, use the exact same criteria to hire, if said suitable candidate does not match the specifics of the prior candidate, they cannot be hired. This is due to legal liability for fair hiring practices. You cannot set the standards for a given position and then on the fly change it, because if a previous candidate was denied the position based on said criteria and someone else is hired after discarding said criteria, the denied applicant then has legal recourse to sue for discriminating practices. It is a huge deal.
They copypasta code like crazy...
And refuse to use any standard reference materials. If it can't be ripped from the web, github, or YouTube, it ain't happening.
Outstanding!
‘H-1B visas are distributed by lottery when the program is oversubscribed, so researchers can isolate the impact of acquiring an H-1B worker by comparing lottery winners with lottery losers. I previously wrote about the results of that study for NR:
‘”If H-1B workers are truly exceptional talents for whom there are few American substitutes, then we would expect to see that lottery-winning companies increase their employment relative to the lottery losers by roughly the number of H-1B workers they receive. (In fact, if the more grandiose claims about immigrant productivity are true, then we would expect the lottery-winning companies to generate even more jobs beyond the ones that go to the H-1Bs.) Instead, both lottery-winning and lottery-losing firms ended up with employment levels that were statistically indistinguishable. Presumably, the losing companies just went ahead and hired someone who was not an H-1B.
‘”Although the evidence is less robust, it also appears that lottery-winning companies lowered median wages and increased their profits relative to the lottery losers. So the lottery data are more consistent with the view that firms use the H-1B program to hire cheaper substitute workers from abroad, not to bring in the next Einstein.
‘[...] In my own work, I’ve found that immigrants with foreign college or advanced degrees have substantially lower levels of English literacy, numeracy, and computer skills compared to people with U.S. degrees.’
Absolutely yes. Pretty generally, at first they were rather poor college students with another kind of visa for that, who stayed here after graduation because the didn’t want to go back home because of having become acculturated to the American lifestyle. Seen it over and over in colleges and in corporate life. Fifty years of it has ruined our campuses as well as undermining the economics of why one would want to seek a technical or medical degree.
In my experience, they are below average "college graduates", that can barely pour water out of a boot if you give them detailed instructions on the heel.
“Moore’s piece has remained uncorrected on the Dallas News site for six days and counting.”
Not sure what “correction” would look like - there are some great comments there, particularly this:
‘While lobbying Congress for more H-1B visas, industry claims H-1B workers are “brainiacs”. Come payday, however, they’re entry-level workers.
‘The wage rules for H-1B and green card sponsorship are broken down into wage Levels I, II, III and IV, with Level III being the median. For software developers, the most common type of foreign worker on H-1B, the green card data show the following percentages of foreign workers at Levels I or II making below-median wages: Amazon 91%; Facebook 91%; and Google 96%. These firms, putatively in the vanguard of advanced technology and certainly in the vanguard in Capitol Hill lobbying regarding H-1B, are paying almost all of their foreign workers - ostensibly, the “best and brightest” - wages below the median for the given region.
‘The Government Accountability Office (GAO) put out a report on the H-1B visa that discusses at some length the fact that the vast majority of H-1B workers are hired at the entry-level wage level. In fact, most are at “Level I”, which is officially defined by the Dept. of Labor as those who have a “basic understanding of duties and perform routine tasks requiring limited judgment”. Moreover, the GAO found that a mere 6% of H-1B workers are at “Level IV”, which is officially defined by the Dept. of Labor as those who are “fully competent”.
‘This all belies the industry lobbyists’ claims that H-1B workers are hired because they’re experts that can’t be found among the U.S. workforce. ‘
Are those contract houses Desi Body Shops?
If we do nothing to eliminate the H1-B, there will be a student loan bailout.
This guy is good.
Here’s another timely, related article from him (as Kushner gets ready to role out his plan for increased immigration):
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/cheating-our-way-to-4-percent-growth/
It’s not just the wages, but also the working conditions, at least for farm labor, that have got worse in recent decades because of the availability of illegal labor.
Get them out of the market and these sectors will right themselves. But with them here, only those who stoop to those levels will be viable businesses.
Get them out of the market and these sectors will right themselves.
But, but, strawberries will cost $1000 a pint! /s
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