An individual trained in engineering or comp sci can readily update to any new tech concepts or programming advances. It isn’t difficult for an intelligent, well-educated individual in these fields. I can speak directly to the use of H1B’s as cheap labor. A recent employer of mine (not a company but a state gov’t) hired individuals with visa challenges that US citizens don’t have—the pay rate was about 40% less than the going rate across the US for comparable positions and institutions. There was no overt advertising for such individuals but the pay and the situation would result in such candidates. The result was a department staffed with people from all over the planet and a few old-timers from the local area. Performance among the foreign hires was a mess. A few US citizens were hired but they either left quickly or were awful performers, too.
It is about the money. Good performers cost money—but they are well worth it. As far as gov’t goes, it is the gov’t’s responsibility to encourage economic opportunity for the citizenry. This gov’t works against that responsibility and that is arguably the worst thing a gov’t can do in peace time.
IBM’s solution was to encourage their laid off US citizens to move to India where they would be paid a mere fraction of their old salary but it would “go farther”.
“There was no overt advertising for such individuals but the pay and the situation would result in such candidates. The result was a department staffed with people from all over the planet and a few old-timers from the local area. Performance among the foreign hires was a mess.”
A programmer friend described how they make the case for “no American workers” to do the work: They post jobs with requirements nobody could match anyway, claim it was unfilled, then import Asians to do it.
I’m seeing the same nonsense in accounting and banking now, and performance among those foreign hires isn’t so great, either. Their pay isn’t as much lower than ours than you would think, but a company can work them a lot longer hours for as long as they are sponsored. When their sponsorship/indentured servitude is up, they have no bargaining leverage; they leave the company (staying in the US) and their job goes to another (new) Asian import.
In “Wall Street”, Martin Sheen tells Charlie that rich people have been screwing others forever; in these examples, he’s absolutely right. Bill Gates, to justify his use of Asian indentured servants, complains that American students don’t go into computers anymore; why would they, if they’re just going to be undercut by those coolies? At the same time, he threatens to move the work to Canada or Asia itself if he isn’t assured a steady stream of said coolies.
That is simply evil.
Performance among the foreign hires was a mess.