RSSThe baloney of “We need more skilled immigrant technology workers.”
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The following blog post is my inspiration for this post. A bogus argument, repeated incessantly by many people, including Bill Gates, politicians, and this myopic blogger over at TechCrunch. I actually wonder if she is this ignorant, or she just wanted to make everyone mad.
Foreigners Attending US Grad Schools Way Down: Wake Up, Xenophobes
To begin with, I am highly offended that because I believe in enforcing immigration limits that someone would call me a xenophobe. People should not throw the “x” term around as if it is candy. It is plainly insulting.
Sarah, for the record, I do not care what anyone’s skin color is, where they came from, nor if they are rich or poor. I always treat everyone with innate kindness, including strangers, employees, peers, and foreigners. My only interest is in improving working conditions here in the United States of America.
Regarding plummeting foreign grad student numbers you said, ” This is a huge blow for the United States, and particularly Silicon Valley.” I read everywhere from so called “experts” or “industry leaders” that we need more skilled immigrants. My response is: Prove It.
For one, understand this:
Job Growth Lacking in the Private Sector
Here one can see there have been no net job gains in the United States for the last ten years. I understand there are various industry sectors, and geographic areas. However, this overall picture illustrates a crushing point for the American worker: The American business sector is now a perpetual employer’s market, with little to no competition for employees. That means wage deflation for workers.
Secondly, real wages in the United States of America are now in a perpetually flat cycle. We should hold our long-term politicians perfectly accountable for this:
Wages and Benefits: Real Wages (1964-2004)
Couple this with tremendous increases in the cost of living, such as health care and the high cost of automobiles. This adds up to a population of middle class Americans stressed to their absolute limits over money.
Regarding the need for technology workers: How can Bill Gates, or anyone say that they need an “expert” in some field in order to perform some average technology-related job function? I mention Bill Gates because he is a big H1-b proponent. The next time Bill Gates is telling an audience that he needs high technology workers from overseas, I would like someone in the audience to ask him exactly what skills he needs. Let us then see if there is a person matching his needs, somewhere in the United States, and willing to work in Seattle. What do you need Mr. Gates? Network engineer? Mathematician? Algol68 or Magma programmers? Let us see if we can try to find that person here in the US first. That will provide the only empirical evidence to these arguments.
I took your suggestion Sarah and checked out the LinkedIn references. Why do you suppose Reid Hoffman thinks he gets one million new users every seventeen days? He talks about LinkedIn having a great deal of recruiter activity. Many of these people are looking for work. Of course, this is especially true in this lousy economy, but it illustrates the point that there is little competition for workers any more in the U.S.
Our government and corporations promote H1-b to get cheaper labor. Period. As a solution, I argue that the US should immediately stop all highly educated immigration. Our government should observe and gauge the reactionary forces. Wages and competition for workers should increase. We can then re-evaluage our immigration limits and adjust accordingly for the long term.
Our congress will do no such thing though. Once, they are paid off by the corporations. Number two, I now believe the U.S. congress is intentionally flushing the U.S. down the economic drain. Lest you think this is conspiracy talk, ask yourself if there is any rational explanation whatsoever at the 14 trillion dollar plus debt that D.C. is racking up. We are heading for disaster, and congress is steering us right into it.
UPDATE August 29, 2009
I agree with the premise of the following article. It mentions that productivity begets new jobs. At this time in U.S. history it is clear that productivity has far outstripped job creation. However, new products and technologies are indeed part of the solution to this morass.
Where Have You Gone, Bell Labs?
How basic research can repair the broken U.S. business model
JBM
Update February 6, 2009
I have been waiting for this article. It uncovers the bloated projections of the earnings of college graduates. When you read that a bachelor degree or a masters degree will pay you x dollars more in the long run, make sure you understand that those numbers are developed from manufactured projections. I must note that I would not attempt to convince someone not to gain more education. My point is that people should serious think about the costs of education and realize the monetary return may not be what they are promised by the establishment.
Update July 25, 2010
Do consider this: Steve Jobs creates the iPod which quickly became one of the most popular product in all of history. He manufacturers it in China. Thus no manufacturing workers in the United States benefit from this invention. A handful of highly technical people can create a device, the rest of society buys it, but few benefit with wages gained. This is why the U.S. will never see another post-World War II growth again. Because most of the businessmen with the serious money only care about their profit margin. This is very ironic considering the United States consumer built Microsoft, as well as Apple, as well as Ford, as well as all of the U.S. corporations which are now multinational. I am not suggesting any governemnt mandates to counteract free trade, although tariffs on imports may help solve this problem, but I do want to point out that these people do not care about their country. Plain and simple.
Here are letters to the editor of the Wall Street Journal. In response to a recent story that demonstrated how real wages have plummeted over the years, these readers contradict the argument:
Real Wages Don’t Tell the Whole Compensation Story
These arguments are flawed. Regarding fringe benefits, if these are government mandates like social security and medicare, the worker may very well prefer cash wages over these mandates. (I am certainly speaking for myself!) Considering inflation, while health care has skyrocketed, home prices do fluctuate. Still in the midst of the 2008 recession, home prices are significantly lower than just a few years ago. On the other hand, home prices are too tied to actual demand, which is driven by large builders. If the demand was consumer driven, the increased cost of housing would be within a reasonable margin. But currently, the housing market is mostly dead, large builders are buying properties at a huge rate. So a house that is currently work $10.00 according to consumer demand (nil) has again skyrocketed in price. The bottom line is the consumer is in fact getting creamed by inflation, whether the CPI statistics prove it or not.
Regarding the “knowledge-based economy”, computer programmers today make $30,000 if they can find a job. As I wrote about above this is due to recruiting fo tech workers from other countries. So the non-supervisory wage of $30,000 vs. an inflation adjusted rate of $60,000 applies to the workers of this great [sic] , new economy.
Lastly, how do I feel about unionization? Unions are the other end of the spectrum. They do not care about the employee, the business, nor the customer. As such they have destroyed some of the greatest American businesses. Only a stockholder who has a sense of love of country, ethics, and fairness, would make efforts to create more U.S. jobs when it is easy to offshore work or hire cheap immigrant labor.
Update July 27, 2010
The Great Decoupling Of Corporate Profits From Jobs
Robert Reich is dead on! The U.S. public corporations have hit the extreme end of profitability. The workforce cannot work any harder, the companies cannot produce any more widgets, and the profit margin cannot be any higher. I am not advocating any mandates to reverse this trend, although some of the corporations are monopolies and a congress of yesterday would have broken them up into smaller companies. I am simply stressing that America has had a fundamental shift to productivity, automation, and outsourcing, and there is zero relief in sight for the jobless. Hello President Obama and congress, are you listening?
Update August 11, 2010
We must understand the following as it underscores why the U.S. economy will not providing the eighteen million lost jobs. When the employment rate goes down, it will mostly be due to many people giving up on a job search, and many households resetting to a single income.
23 Occupations That Will Never Recover From The Great Recession
Uncategorized
economic conditions, foreign workers, h1-b visa, job competition, poor economy, techcrunch, United States
Want it or not, US salaries will drop anyway. It is a natural process: US competes not only against Europe and Japan, but also against India and China. As a future prospect: cheap labor in Africa (if they settle the ordeal) and South/Latin America. The world is getting richer and will compete for resources and talents. How are you going to fix this trend?
There is no way to force companies to manufacture here in the U.S. Even the best products, such as the iPod, are made overseas. That is a shame that foreign workers reap most of the benefits of American innovation.
Given the chance, I would manufacture my goods here, even taking a smaller profit than I otherwise would. But that sense of country, and what I think is a dire situation, is not widespread.
Someone asks the good question to the powers that be: Can you manufacture silicon chips here in the U.S.?
U.S. chip manufacturing in the age of the iPad