
Slowing The Exodus Of Skilled Foreigners - terpua
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Slowing-The-Exodus-Of-Skilled-ibd-15191141.html
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rdl
I think everyone (except maybe self-interested immigration lawyers) thinks the
current system in the US is broken.

I think there are two extremes, and the US is inconsistently taking pieces of
each.

In the United Arab Emirates (UAE, which contains Dubai, ...), there is a
fairly open work visa policy for anyone with either enough capital ($50-100k)
to set up his own business, or with a job offer paying at least $1-2k/mo for
white collar positions (there is also the borderline-slavery $100-500/mo
construction industry, but I think that is basically a separate issue). There
is no pretense, outside banking and government, that local nationals need to
be given first shot at a job.

Then, you have countries with citizenship or permanent residency-track-only
immigration programs. (I think Canada's program is like this, and some other
commonwealth nations.) You don't NEED to become a PR or citizen if you
qualify, but almost all work visas qualify toward the PR/C process.

The main downside of the UAE system is that skilled people feel very little
long-term attachment to the place. e.g. there are non-resident indian families
who have lived for generations in UAE, but who are not permanent residents,
although they control important businesses.

The US has a weird hybrid system, where most green cards, allocated by country
and with preference toward reuniting families, go to people who have external
reasons to want to stay in the US permanently (family, where they came from
was worse, etc), and are generally economically non-productive. We give
temporary L1/H1B/etc. visas to the economically productive, disincenting them
to stay long term.

Basically, the US system is backward -- we should be trying to keep the people
who are economically valuable, as they bring net value into the economy, and
would allow us to increase the number of immigrants. We should have liberal
short and medium term visit visas, etc. for family and tourist and other non-
productive immigrants.

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mberning
Please don't slow them down. I generally support the idea of free market
economics, and the H1-B program is an absolute subversion of it. Countries
need an immigration policy. We should develop one consistent path to
citizenship that is equitable and moderates the influx of immigrants at a
sustainable level. If these skilled workers were truly on an even playing
field with US workers then I think it would be a much better result for them,
the US workers, and the country as a whole.

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doosra
While only speaking from experience, I've noticed that many foreign PhDs in
CS, Electrical and other engineering fields are increasingly electing to go
back once they are done.

The main reasons seem to include being so far away from family and being in an
alien culture. Further, jobs for PhDs are increasingly available in their home
countries-- this seems to seal the deal. The tough immigration stance
contributes to the discouragement since foreign workers have to "pause" their
lives until they get their green card.

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andr
I never understood this. The US spends more money on higher education for
foreigners than any other country in the world. After those foreigners
graduate, it's harder for them to stay and work in the US than in any other
country in the world.

That is a serious mismatch of policies.

~~~
dhimes
I think I get it. We're trying to help the other countries build stronger
economies. When people are desperate, feeling powerless and without hope, they
tend to seek violent means to attain that power and hope. But by empowering
other countries to lift themselves out of poverty or giving them the tools to
become "first world" players, we actually make ourselves (US) more secure.

Said another way, it's a form of foreign aid. Looked at from this point of
view, you wouldn't let anyone stay unless there was really a special need.

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geebee
This article, or a variant of it, has been posted many, many times over the
past few weeks. I usually chime in. I point out that 7 of the top 10 users of
the H1B visa are Indian outsourcing companies that cycle workers through the
US to learn a job before moving them back to India, and I provide a link. I
express concern that the high number of visas may be discouraging young
Americans from going into engineering and science at a time when we need them
most. I link to an NPR segment with Ron Hira, where he mentions that the
department of labor certified the prevailing wage at under $10/hr for a bunch
of programmers, and another 70+ programmers at $24,000/yr. I've done this an
embarrassing number of times now, though I am passionate about the issue, as I
do think US policy is inadvertently driving young Americans out of
engineering, and I think this is exactly whey we're in this situation where
60% of our grads

My question at this point is: how many people reading this are encountering a
variant of this post for the first time? Are we all just gathering for a well-
worn argument.

Part of the problem here is the concept of "news priming". This is done by PR
departments and political groups - prior to a lobbying or legislative
initiative, they'll try to frame the issue in the public mind. This is why the
proponents of the H1B tried to get it termed the "innovation visa" (and
probably weren't happy when India's minister of commerce called it the
"outsourcing visa.")

And of course, many people here are passionate about the issue - on both
sides, of course, so we jump in to make sure we are part of the "priming." But
I am curious - how many people here are surprised with anything in my post?
I'm starting to suspect that most people on hacker news are pretty well
informed about this by now.

~~~
psranga
I seriously doubt that immigration is driving Americans out of
engineering/programming. Let's take a look at some basic numbers.

The median household income in the US about $50k, men's medial income is 45K
and women's is 35K. If you assume a two income family with median earners
their income will be approx $80k.
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States))

Salaries in the tech industry (even at very low positions) are _much_ higher
than this (i.e., than 50k, 45k, 35k). This is _now_ when salaries are
supposedly low due to immigration.

I do see that Americans respond to economic incentives in other professions.
During the real estate bubble a _HUGE_ number of people passed the realtor
exams and got into the real estate business.

Programming/computer skills are the easiest skills to pick up (no need for
expensive equipment). I'm actually very puzzled that there aren't more
Americans in engineering/programming.

I'm unconvinced that fear of immigration-induced salary decreases is the
reason why Americans don't want to go into engineering.

~~~
geebee
The part of your argument that leaves me unconvinced is your use of the median
income as a benchmark. The article referenced (on yahoo) mentions the high
percentage of foreign nationals who obtain PhD's and Master's degrees at US
Universities.

So you're comparing someone who was talented enough in high school to hit the
ground running with Calculus at university. This student then sleeps very few
hours struggling with advanced calculus, differential equations, stochastic
processes, nonlinear optimization, compiler design, chemistry, and physics. He
scores well enough on the GRE (and perhaps the subject test) to get into a PhD
program, and makes it through 6 years + a dissertation.

You compare that to the median. Seriously?

Meanwhile, his fellow lawyers in training breeze through a Poly Sci major.
It's tough to get into a top law school, but no harder than getting into a top
engineering program (because you don't have to compete with foreign nationals
to get into law school in the US on anything near the scale you do in
engineering). 3 years of law school or 2 of an MBA program are no picnic, but
virtually _all_ students at these programs obtain their degress (which is
hardly the case at PhD programs, I know this from personal experience at
Berkeley).

Salaries would have to be as high or higher than Law/MBA to convince Americans
to do this. Instead, engineering salaries can lag way behind, because it's
easy to get foreigners, especially from countries without much economic
opportunity, to sign up for this _as a way of gaining a path toward US
residency and citizenship_.

While salaries might not be actively _lowered_ , they almost certainly place a
limit on wage _growth_. When this happens over decades (and wages aren't
similarly controlled in other fields where Law and MBA students are hired),
you'll start to see a huge wage differential.

To me, this has clearly happened - and now Americans have no interest in
signing up for such an intensely rigorous path with rewards that are, quite
frankly, much lower than in other professions.

~~~
psranga
Wrt median: Your points seem to support what I am saying. The median general
salary is much lower than even the tech industry's supposed depressed wages.
Then why aren't people scrambling to become engineers like they did to become
realtors or at least encouraging their children to become engineers?

I don't have the link handy, but NY Times had a great graphic with salaries of
different professions. Lawyers are paid more than computer people, but the
delta is not a multiple (iirc it was about 50% more). So it's not even clear
to me that lawyers are paid significanty more (considering the criticality of
their work).

Also it's not clear to me why you bring in PhD and master's. Most engineers in
tech don't have those degrees.

~~~
geebee
<The median general salary is much lower than even the tech industry's
supposed depressed wages>

My point is that it doesn't make sense to compare a skillset like engineering
to the median. You'd need to compare it to the kind of salary someone capable
of engineering would be able to earn in another field. Salaries for a field
can be higher than the median and still be lower than they would be in the
absence of an H1B program.

<Then why aren't people scrambling to become engineers like they did to become
realtors or at least encouraging their children to become engineers?>

I didn't notice anyone scrambling to get their kids into the real estate
business. But maybe the reason they don't encourage their kids into
engineering is that they've seen that a similar or lesser effort in other
fields would have a bigger payout?

<Also it's not clear to me why you bring in PhD and master's. Most engineers
in tech don't have those degrees.>

I brought this up because it was used in the original article that promoted
this thread. It is often used to justify the need for an H1B program.

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cvboss
The only reason to hire the majority of that IT "talent" was the cheaper
rates, not some outstanding brilliant achievments or skills. I think the guy
is lobbying the interests of those bodyshops, that make tons of money selling
developers from other countries. Also how many H1B holders actually get
"postgraduate US education"? Not so many, I am afraid.

~~~
nandemo
Do you think Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Goldman Sachs go out of their way to
hire foreigners just because they are cheaper?

~~~
garply
Why wouldn't they? For a profit-seeking entity, lower costs seems like a good
reason to me.

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antirez
There are other cases, like Italians that are usually educated and trained in
Italy and _then_ they go in the US. Our govern is really silly permitting
this. The reason scientists go away from Italy after the initial years of
research is that there is too little money for their equipment and for
research in general.

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rnugent
The H-1B program has been discredited by study after study. US Innovation did
not suddenly begin with the presence of foreign "talent". Indeed if you
examine the impact of this talent in their own countries you'll see that there
is very little innovation coming from those geographies when the talent is
there. Think about it, why would a country encourage it's most skilled to come
to the US in the first place? Because the best talent in the world is right
here and they want their citizens to gather knowledge from the most innovative
system and bring it back home. The H-1B program exports our most valuable
resource - our competitive edge.

~~~
nandemo
There's little innovation in (say) India and China because talent is not
enough; you need capital and free markets.

Also, as far as I know countries do not "encourage" their citizens to go to
US. Individuals choose to go to US on their own. It's not like they're
embarking on a government-funded trip.

