
42% of California’s STEM Workforce Hails from Outside the U.S - teklaperry
http://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/at-work/tech-careers/fortytwo-percent-of-californias-stem-workforce-hails-from-outside-the-us
======
ishan_dikshit
I think everyone here is ignoring a very important statistic within the
article: "data shows that 25 percent of high tech companies founded between
1995 and 2005 have at least one immigrant founder". Would you rather have
these companies be based out of Asia entirely?

Also see: [https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2016/03/17/study-immigrants-
fou...](https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2016/03/17/study-immigrants-
founded-51-of-u-s-billion-dollar-startups/)

I was recently speaking with Demis Hassabis and he recommended looking for
startup funding in California but continuing to work out of London. More and
more companies are gravitating towards this general template (not London
specifically). Would you rather have some low level Stack Developer working at
Airbnb on an H1B build the next Billion dollar startup in the Bay Area or out
of Bangalore?

Yes, hiring someone with an H1B might cost a company 10k less per annum. But
what would it cost America to not have these foreign workers want to work in
California altogether? Besides, it isn't fair to build such an impressive
hotbed of thought and progress and then try and wall others out of it.

~~~
kamaal
>>Would you rather have these companies be based out of Asia entirely?

>>Would you rather have some low level Stack Developer working at Airbnb on an
H1B build the next Billion dollar startup in the Bay Area or out of Bangalore?

As somebody who stays in Bangalore, I can tell you this is already the case
and has been for a few years now.

Back then when I started my career there was a mad rush to move to US in most
young people. Today coupled with a impossibly long green card wait, and
uncertainties associated with a job on a Visa for most smart people moving to
US isn't even an option. I know a lot of smart people for whom moving to US
isn't even in their list of priorities.

In the past decade start up ecosystem here has become very good. Starting
companies is no longer social or economic taboo in India/Bangalore today.

US people think outsourcing was bad for them? Imagine competing with start ups
and their funding, which are operating at 1/10th the budget of any city in US.

------
quicknir
Every time H1B related stuff comes up, I make the same simple suggestion: just
inflation adjust the minimum H1B salary from when the law was passed in 1990.
60K dollars in 1990 is about 110K now. This should be able to see a lot of
support from different groups because:

1\. It makes a clear appeal back to the original intent of the law.

2\. It would most likely end most of the perceived abuse/misuse of the law,
which occurs at lower salary ranges.

3\. It will not prevent tech companies that actually do cool stuff like Google
& co from hiring, since most of their hires probably start over 110K now.

I also think that the impact on American workers in this salary range from H1B
is pretty low. Many companies with salaries in this range are always hiring
provided you have the skills.

~~~
jrs95
I think that's a start but specifically because $110K is nearly entry level in
silicon valley it ought to be significantly higher. $150K would probably be
enough to stop it from holding wages down.

A great side effect of this is that it pretty much makes H1B not viable in the
Midwest or other areas where we probably ought to be trying to develop more
talent

~~~
ajju
$60K is the minimum salary for a H1B visa, it is not the minimum salary for a
H1B visa in a technical position.

I would be very surprised if the "H1B prevailing wage" for any meaningful
technical role in the SF bay area is less than $100k.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
Prevailing wage for an entry-level "Computer Programmer" in SF is $73k [1].

[1]
[http://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesQuickResults.aspx?code=15-11...](http://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesQuickResults.aspx?code=15-1131&area=41884&year=18&source=1)

------
jrs95
This wouldn't be necessary if we actually invested in our own citizens. I'd
have no problem with it if our own population didn't have a skills shortage,
but it does.

~~~
ajross
I have absolutely no issue with your policy priorities. Let's get more native-
born citizens through school with skills appropriate for the modern workforce.

But the bit where this falls down is your use of "our own" in a context where
it either has no meaning or has, let's just say "accidentally discriminatory"
meaning. The idea that we should invest to "prevent" this situation is kinda
distasteful.

These people are americans now. No, they aren't all citizens (though many
are), but their kids are and their descendants will be. This is their home as
much as it is yours or mine. This country built itself on the backs of
imported talent, there's no valid reason for that to stop now.

~~~
awkwarddaturtle
> This country built itself on the backs of imported talent

No we didn't. We built our country on the exploitation of poor european
factory workers, chinese "slave" labor and african slaves.

This country wasn't built on "talent". It was built on exploitation of CHEAP
or free labor.

> there's no valid reason for that to stop now.

We stopped it many times in history to protect AMERICANS. Go read about
immigration history rather than propaganda we are forcefed. European
immigration was stalled to protect american labor. Chinese immigration was
stopped to protect american labor. And if you think about it, even american
slavery was stopped to protect american labor.

Immigration wasn't all great. Throughout US history, it led to lots of
turmoil, displacement and heartache.

Nothing is all great or all evil like people with agenda like to believe.
There are pros and cons to everything. The skewed "pro-immigration" policy the
past 50 years has gutted american labor and american society. We need a more
rational policy.

And the fact that america/american government shouldn't favor AMERICANS over
immigrants is pure rubbish. It's neoliberal fantasy. As a nation we have gone
too "left". We need to correct our trajectory lest america fall off the tracks
entirely.

~~~
neo4sure
"Immigration wasn't all great. Throughout US history, it led to lots of
turmoil, displacement and heartache." Get a grip on your self. It was never
good for the natives amricans. Anyway, the current issues of the country are
not immigrant made. That's a fantasy fox world view.

------
similarfark
Google and the rest could have instituted huge training programs for
Americans. Instead, they imported the most fortunate from other countries,
leaving behind the least fortunate everywhere.

It's 1% Americans importing the %1 from other counties. It's the most powerful
and well off united in screwing the least powerful.

You don't have to dislike immigrants to dislike corporations and politicians
destroying opportunity for millions of the families that literally built
America.

~~~
Veratyr
I don't think the burden should be on corporations. Nearly (all?) every other
developed country on earth has government subsidised or provided education.
Where do you think all the immigrants are getting their degrees? Americans can
even go to other countries and get educated for free (Germany I believe does
this).

The US needs to overhaul, hell, even nationalize, its higher education system.
Don't expect corporations to educate people for you.

~~~
s73ver
I do think most of the burden should be on corporations. They're the ones that
need the talent.

~~~
Veratyr
And some businesses need people who've been through high school (and some
don't). Why is college different?

------
barrkel
Articles like this seem to bring out people involuntarily triggered to grind
their pet axe. The discussion is never enlightening. That's why I flagged.

~~~
dalbasal
I suspect a lot of triggering is voluntary.

------
mc32
This is a failure of both our educational system and our culture. Our
educational and cultural systems both underscore soft majors in the liberal
arts realms and don't make STEM cool to average students as they might in
China Russia or India.

Kids care too much about fitting in rather than making it in life with hard
skills. You will have thousands working service jobs in LA with hopes of
making it in entertainment. You don't see that emphasis in STEM in the US.

~~~
masondixon
I've always wondered about this. People never really talk about it, but I see
the "cool" factor as pivotal. Smart social people want to be bankers, lawyers,
doctors, management consultants, not STEM.

With the internet everyone has had the ability to learn programming for ages,
and it really hasn't dramatically changed much. People are just not interested
in it at some point.

------
lunchladydoris
Is this a case of there not being enough qualified US citizens or immigrants
being willing to work for less?

~~~
vinhboy
In my very limited experience with companies that hires H1B to fill
programming jobs, it's because they can't find qualified local candidates.

All the really qualified people are in the bay area working for tech startups,
etc...

So a company outside of the bay area would have to bring in H1B workers who
are willing to live in the area.

I am not sure if there are costs concerns for the company in making that
decision, but I figure if they were willing to hire me, they probably don't
have a problem hiring local candidates if possible.

Edit: Since people want more details, I'll elaborate on the VERY LITTLE that I
know. Right now consulting agencies in Sacramento, CA need Senior Ruby Devs
and they can't find any. I am not 100% sure on what salary is being offered,
but I am guessing around 100K. A junior dev fresh out of college can make
about 40K (remember its Sacramento!). (I want to make it clear this is all
hearsay, don't quote me on this)

I was told an agency that hires out H1B workers can get paid as much as
$50/hr. I have no way to verify this, but this is what I heard.

Another thing is, these are short term, project based, positions --- not very
attractive to people seeking a career.

They also have a constant need for .NET and Java devs.

That being said. I am very much against outsourcing jobs that could be hired
locally. But Sacramento has a very small developer community, so I don't blame
them for using H1B to fill the gap. But who knows... maybe it's all a ruse.

~~~
SilasX
At risk of opening that whole debate again...

Are there really no qualified local candidates, or are there no qualified
local candidates _who can also solve theoretical CS problems on the spot_
while pretending they're not doing it from memory?

Or qualified local candidates who refuse to lie and say they only took 3 hours
on the take-home exercise?

~~~
maxsilver
I personally think this is the real problem. Companies dismissing qualified
candidates as "unqualified" because they are too lazy to evaluate candidates
based on their skills, and would rather throw brainteasers at them instead.

For every 100 candidates a CS job gets, probably 80 are truly unqualified, 20
are truly qualified, but only 2 were both qualified _and_ could pass an
arbitrary list of brainteasers.

And that lie lets managers run around saying "see, we can't hire enough
talent! Skills shortage!" (where "skills" means "brainteaser skills", not
software development skills)

~~~
morgante
In the past, I've done dual-track interviewing where candidates could choose
either a (paid!) evaluation project or a traditional technical interview. Even
then, the vast majority of applicants could not perform at a suitable level.

Have you actually done hiring? The truth is that there really is a shortage of
qualified applicants (at least, at existing prices). I've literally never met
a fellow hiring manager who thought there was a surplus of good engineers.

~~~
maxsilver
I have never been a hiring manager, but I have been a developer asked to
evaluate candidates in interviews for multiple companies, and I've seen my own
employer turn away qualified candidates. I've also been an employee at
companies who institute hiring policies _their own current employees would not
pass_ , and then claim new candidates are unqualified based on those policies.
Neither of these are particularly unusual.

I've also been a person applying to jobs, where I know I'm fully qualified
(usually because I already do the same thing in the same way for a competitor)
and where I'm told "we think your a good culture fit, but we're worried about
your technical abilities". I can't know exactly why they said that, but when
I've showed working code they say their happy with, but I know I struggled on
their brainteaser questions, it feels safe to infer.

So, I've seen qualified candidates turned away because they were "unqualified"
(but they really weren't), from both sides of the table. I'm not claiming
there is a huge surplus of engineering out there, but there is no real
shortage either. There are enough engineers, just not enough employers willing
to hire them.

------
Overtonwindow
I think some might read that title and jump to conclusion. Don't. The article
states that they are only foreign born, but it doesn't say anything about how
they got here. It would have helped had the article made this clear, but it's
likely IEEE doesn't want to step into the H1B visa abuse issue.

~~~
vaishaksuresh
Whenever someone brings up H1B, everybody goes to abuse issue, but a lot of us
got here as students and we still have to use H1B to work. It is unfair to
just lump everybody on an H1B as a low wage, unqualified person.

~~~
DamnYuppie
The issue that many of us have, myself included, with the H1B program is that
is is primarily used to suppress local wages. It is easy to say you can't find
candidates if you are pricing the job well below market wages.

~~~
vaishaksuresh
I'm not saying H1B is not abused, I'm saying not everybody on H1B is abusing
the system or is getting paid below market wages.

~~~
DamnYuppie
I am not saying everyone on H1B is as well. Yet the overwhelming majority of
uses I see of H1B is to get a lower wage full stop. I do work extensively with
offhsore resources and have worked with H1B's for over 20 years.

I don't begrudge them recipients for taking the jobs. My issue is the
corporations who are abusing a system to make themselves more money while
simultaneously destroying local talent. It is a death spiral of greed, yet
they seem to be oblivious to it.

~~~
vaishaksuresh
I can't say I understand this argument. Say an American company X outsources
to a foreign company Y. Y abuses the system and hires a bunch of H1B and pays
them pennies to the dollar. X is still paying Y dollars and not pennies right?
Sure, the H1B is working for lower salary, but X's cost is still not a lot
lower than hiring locally right? I see how just shipping the jobs to
India/China might have the effect you are describing, but I don't think hiring
H1B holders is the same thing.

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aphextron
This has nothing to do with immigration policy. Our kids in the US are simply
not studying STEM subjects, period. We are not keeping pace with the rest of
the world. I'm currently taking lower division engineering requirements in a
California community college, and perhaps 20% of my class are native born,
English speaking American kids. There is just no respect for it whatsoever, in
a culture where it's _funny_ or _cool_ to think math is stupid. We are
completely finished as a society. What rises to takes it's place who knows,
but there's no way a country can survive like this.

------
CrazyCoin
I want to keep this not politicized but is there merit to the argument that
immigrants are taking jobs away from other STEM majors who are from the U.S.?
To find out we would need to look at STEM job growth for a year, then look at
the number of STEM graduates, then look at how many STEM graduates go to work
in their field, then see if after 52% of the jobs are subtracted see if
there's enough left for the recent graduates. Also immigrant graduates would
also have to be taken into account.

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fhood
Are there numbers on where (in what country) they were educated?

~~~
nxsynonym
this is what I'm curious about too. Are these people who came to the U.S for
college / grad school?

the report only says foreign born - doesn't mention how long they've been in
the U.S for or if they came just for the job they landed.

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cloudwizard
I was CTO at 2 startups during the first Internet boom. I was getting resumes
from janitors that were offering to be trained.

I had to hire most of the teams from Canada.

~~~
drpgq
As a Canadian, that's kind of depressing.

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geebee
I highly recommend following and reading the link to the full report. Here it
is again.

[https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/foreign-...](https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/foreign-
born-stem-workers-united-states)

There's an interesting breakdown of a more narrow definition of STEM vs a
broader one (that includes social sciences and health sciences). I personally
would be more inclined to include health sciences than social sciences, but
the data is granular enough to get at this distinction in some cases.

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qbaqbaqba
That's funny how everyone here is against the trumps wall meanwhile every time
H1B is mentioned no one has problem with people calling for "kicking them to
India". Quite sad.

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moultano
Why would we expect a global company to hire even a majority from the US?

