As a hiring manager, I would love to hire only citizens, but only the underqualified apply. I guess the qualified citizens all just go the Frontier labs. We don't have the time to train folks, we need them to hit the ground running. Real conundrum tbh
There's fundamentally two schools of thought - those who are Pro and Anti immigration. People's opinions of programs like H1B tend to align more closely to their school of thought than they do any economic or social impact.
"let's just have hundreds of thousands of people move into the US every year, surely they are only here temporarily to work and won't effect US citizens housing or jobs prospects". The H-1B program is a disgrace, should be considered treason.
Conversely, the question should be "Who is preventing American agriculture from mechanizing?"
Or, if you are such a pessimist in America's can-do attitude, instead take it from the point of view of market efficiency. If a good cannot be produced cheaply enough for the market to sustain it, the solution is not to modify the social contract and undermine the value of labor for the sake of the good.
We have always solved problems by innovation. The surest way to prevent innovation is to continually provide cheaper and cheaper labor. The Roman empire is an excellent example of this.
Undoubtedly, these issues are more complex. However, this is such a tired old canard. Wages make labor, scarcity makes innovation.
The part of American agriculture which employs illegal immigrants is clearly not mechanized; they are not driving combines and are tending vegetables by hand.
Types of food really are discretionary. Beans are an excellent vegetable and can be raised completely without manual labor. Trading salad greens for them would not be an overall nutritional loss. Perhaps the true market price for a head of lettuce should be 1.6x in a properly labor regime.
To draw the distinction more clearly, suppose we had zero illegal immigrants working in the field and someone said “let’s reduce the price of some vegetables by a third and create a permanent underclass”. Does that sound reasonable?
> no one but you mentioned the current admin or the republican party
does not make it irrelevant, the stance you have is the same they have, while they also have another stance that works directly against it, I don't know your stance on universities
the saying about cake I meant to imply was about getting to have it and eat it too, as applied to the party in power holding views that work against each other
I personally think that nurse practitioners is something to emphasize, maybe more so than doctors, for the non-emergency medical care that underdeliver for in this country while paying twice as much as the next closest country
I'd start with the basics here, reading and math competency levels are largely headed the wrong direction. Mississippi has done wonders for their reading, re: phonics, and I hope other states follow suite
So what? If you don’t bother the train anyone within your own country, then what is the point? How do you improve if you don’t build from within? See China if you want to know what happens when you build from within. Infrastructure-wise they are killing the Western world.
America is not alone in failing to build infrastructure from within their country most just make excuses. All along the way (the last sixty years) many Western countries have deindustrialize themselves which mainly helps the upper income groups, but doesn’t help the average wage earners in any of those countries.
Importing H1B’s does not help the target country in the long term. All it does is postpone building infrastructure, industry within and raising the incomes of people within the destination country, the overall collapse of the target country still happens.
The country works for the citizens or it isn't a functioning country. They can take the 40 trillion from the people leveraging H-1Bs over domestic labor.
This is absolutely hilarious and so incredibly misguided... I promise you that Mohamed the neurosurgeon is not the reason your children are not able to become doctors.
Here's a prospect for them; war. Do you like that? It's where they're headed, living here.
Fact is, your kid could start working 40 hours a week at age 18 for the next 50 years, and still not receive a proper pension. The government won't have any money left for them, and even if they did the economy probably wouldn't be ready to pay it back. Their brilliant future is enlistment in a war half a world a way, to bleed on foreign soil and see their government ignore them. Hope they're planning accordingly.
several companies I work(ed) with ended the H1-B sponsorships. now they just outsource the work abroad, much better :)
H1-B is smokescreen put in front us to “argue” about and pale in comparison to outsourcing which no one talks about (cause companies pay politicians a lot of money to make sure no one talks about it, like ever…)
Within the United States, the upper division sales the need for H1B’s to the public within the country and then at the same time do all it can to still sub out everything to cheaper labor countries.
The big three countries in competition with the United States, China, Korea, Japan. Do sub out some things, but they do not sub out the core critical part of their industries or allow their companies, to do just about anything they want when it comes comes to pursuing cheaper labor overseas to the detriment of their citizens it is largely a western phenomenon, two of those countries even have strong unions similar to Germany. Who are actually taken seriously. (see what the unions were able to do in Korea for their workers in Korea at two of the memory cartel companies).
As a hiring manager, I would love to hire only citizens, but only the underqualified apply. I guess the qualified citizens all just go the Frontier labs. We don't have the time to train folks, we need them to hit the ground running. Real conundrum tbh
There's fundamentally two schools of thought - those who are Pro and Anti immigration. People's opinions of programs like H1B tend to align more closely to their school of thought than they do any economic or social impact.
This is incoherent, the pro and anti-immigration stances are downstream from economic and social impacts.
"let's just have hundreds of thousands of people move into the US every year, surely they are only here temporarily to work and won't effect US citizens housing or jobs prospects". The H-1B program is a disgrace, should be considered treason.
if that's treason then what is dismantling US global hegemony?
> then what is dismantling US global hegemony?
Partly it is importing H-1B workers to displace US citizens?
Who's going to pick the fruits and harvest the vegetables? Those are not jobs Americans want, among many more.
Trump is using the system at levels like no one has seen before, perhaps he could set an example
"Trump Organization requested record number of foreign workers in 2025"
https://thehill.com/business/5603478-trump-organization-fore...
Conversely, the question should be "Who is preventing American agriculture from mechanizing?"
Or, if you are such a pessimist in America's can-do attitude, instead take it from the point of view of market efficiency. If a good cannot be produced cheaply enough for the market to sustain it, the solution is not to modify the social contract and undermine the value of labor for the sake of the good.
We have always solved problems by innovation. The surest way to prevent innovation is to continually provide cheaper and cheaper labor. The Roman empire is an excellent example of this.
Undoubtedly, these issues are more complex. However, this is such a tired old canard. Wages make labor, scarcity makes innovation.
> Undoubtedly, these issues are more complex.
agreed, two points toward this are
1. American agriculture is largely mechanic already, which removes the labor completely
2. food is non-discretionary, caveats about choices of what king of "food" eg. fast vs healthy
The part of American agriculture which employs illegal immigrants is clearly not mechanized; they are not driving combines and are tending vegetables by hand.
Types of food really are discretionary. Beans are an excellent vegetable and can be raised completely without manual labor. Trading salad greens for them would not be an overall nutritional loss. Perhaps the true market price for a head of lettuce should be 1.6x in a properly labor regime.
To draw the distinction more clearly, suppose we had zero illegal immigrants working in the field and someone said “let’s reduce the price of some vegetables by a third and create a permanent underclass”. Does that sound reasonable?
Not so much that, but doctors, ATC, and other skilled labor the US needs and can't replace with AI.
Is it better to scale back hospitals and airports instead of filling those jobs?
The US would have more doctors tomorrow if they invested in US citizens and not foreign workers..
training up doctors takes ~10 years
the current administration and republican party regularly put down the very institutions needed to do what you want
there's a saying about cake that is appropriate here
Better start tomorrow, and no one but you mentioned the current admin or the republican party. Projecting much?
Yes, and the people saying let them eat cake are the same ones promoting H-1Bs, they will end the same.
> no one but you mentioned the current admin or the republican party
does not make it irrelevant, the stance you have is the same they have, while they also have another stance that works directly against it, I don't know your stance on universities
the saying about cake I meant to imply was about getting to have it and eat it too, as applied to the party in power holding views that work against each other
I personally think that nurse practitioners is something to emphasize, maybe more so than doctors, for the non-emergency medical care that underdeliver for in this country while paying twice as much as the next closest country
I'd start with the basics here, reading and math competency levels are largely headed the wrong direction. Mississippi has done wonders for their reading, re: phonics, and I hope other states follow suite
So what? If you don’t bother the train anyone within your own country, then what is the point? How do you improve if you don’t build from within? See China if you want to know what happens when you build from within. Infrastructure-wise they are killing the Western world.
America is not alone in failing to build infrastructure from within their country most just make excuses. All along the way (the last sixty years) many Western countries have deindustrialize themselves which mainly helps the upper income groups, but doesn’t help the average wage earners in any of those countries.
Importing H1B’s does not help the target country in the long term. All it does is postpone building infrastructure, industry within and raising the incomes of people within the destination country, the overall collapse of the target country still happens.
Out of taxpayer's pocketbooks? The Fed isn't running a charity, there's 40 trillion dollars of debt that we all share.
The country works for the citizens or it isn't a functioning country. They can take the 40 trillion from the people leveraging H-1Bs over domestic labor.
They can be skilled doctors back in their own countries. I want prospects for my children.
This is absolutely hilarious and so incredibly misguided... I promise you that Mohamed the neurosurgeon is not the reason your children are not able to become doctors.
See China, Korea or Japan, Mohammed, who?
Here's a prospect for them; war. Do you like that? It's where they're headed, living here.
Fact is, your kid could start working 40 hours a week at age 18 for the next 50 years, and still not receive a proper pension. The government won't have any money left for them, and even if they did the economy probably wouldn't be ready to pay it back. Their brilliant future is enlistment in a war half a world a way, to bleed on foreign soil and see their government ignore them. Hope they're planning accordingly.
Famously H-1B jobs /s
several companies I work(ed) with ended the H1-B sponsorships. now they just outsource the work abroad, much better :)
H1-B is smokescreen put in front us to “argue” about and pale in comparison to outsourcing which no one talks about (cause companies pay politicians a lot of money to make sure no one talks about it, like ever…)
Within the United States, the upper division sales the need for H1B’s to the public within the country and then at the same time do all it can to still sub out everything to cheaper labor countries.
The big three countries in competition with the United States, China, Korea, Japan. Do sub out some things, but they do not sub out the core critical part of their industries or allow their companies, to do just about anything they want when it comes comes to pursuing cheaper labor overseas to the detriment of their citizens it is largely a western phenomenon, two of those countries even have strong unions similar to Germany. Who are actually taken seriously. (see what the unions were able to do in Korea for their workers in Korea at two of the memory cartel companies).
HN posters when the topic is DEI or Affirmative Action: I support pure meritocracy!
HN posters when the topic is H1b visas or outsourcing: Meritocracy is horrible and I reject it!
What is it when HN posters label winning an actually lottery (the H1b lottery) as meritocracy?