
The Foreign Visa Crackdown Is Putting Americans Out of Work - JumpCrisscross
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-21/the-foreign-visa-crackdown-is-putting-americans-out-of-work
======
empath75
I'm strongly in favor of open borders and immigration, as long as immigrants
have all the same workplace protections as American citizens.

But the argument that Americans won't take these jobs is and always had been
bullshit. They'll take the jobs if you pay well enough. A whole lot of the
American economy runs on effectively indentured servitude, either from illegal
immigrants working under the table, or legal immigrants trapped in jobs
because of the terms of their visa or literal prisoners or literal slave labor
from sweatshops in developing countries and it depresses salaries for
everyone.

We have an expectation for the price of goods and services that's based on the
idea that the less privileged should do shitty backbreaking work for next to
nothing.

One of the things that had lead to the rise of vile, xenophobic populists like
trump has been the complete unwillingness of both parties to address this, and
the unwillingness of Americans to recognize that the cheap shit they buy from
Walmart and amazon has real human costs.

~~~
trhway
>They'll take the jobs if you pay well enough.

Taking a job and doing it with sufficient attention/quality/skills/etc. are
two different things. No money would make most of Americans working 110F
strawberry field for any prolonged period of time. Even $1M/day - most would
just quit after a week with cool $7M (at least i'd :)

Of course, the immigration system making illegals pretty much slaves is just a
shame for a civilized society and has to be replaced with more humane system.
We should value and respect people doing such hard and undesirable jobs.
Practically it means at least minimum wage and all the labor laws irrespective
of status (one of the effects otherwise is just breeding predatory employers
and that drugs the society back and lower). And of course the minimum wage in
US should already be 2x-3x what it is now (the current minimum wage in US is
another shame for a civilized society)

~~~
frgtpsswrdlame
Actually I think $40/hr (obviously not a real number) would get quite a large
labor migration to the strawberry fields. North Dakota saw a huge influx of
out-of-work men when oil was booming.

~~~
kelnos
Sure, and then the price of strawberries goes up, and grocery shoppers
complain and don't buy them.

The US is addicted to cheap goods. In many sectors cheap goods can't be had
without cheap labor.

~~~
cottonpicker
You are exactly right. But who said that strawberries should be inexpensive
and found in every fridge in America? What you have just acknowledged is that
strawberries are not cheap. They should not be cheap.

The real danger here is not that Americans will be deprived of strawberries.
The danger is that some American who does not actually harvest strawberries
will not be able to profit so much from strawberries. Their business will be
in jeopardy. It is obviously bad for America when we drive businesses out of
business. American business people need to be able to have somebody else do
all the work very cheaply so that the American business person can profit.

If nobody values your product enough to pay its true costs, the answer is to
reduce costs by having somebody else work cheaper. If the free market doesn't
support cheaper labor costs, you need to use some other method to reduce labor
costs. Wielding control of immigration status is one tool to incent cheaper
labor.

~~~
kelnos
> If the free market doesn't support cheaper labor costs, you need to use some
> other method to reduce labor costs.

What if you can't? Do we just do without strawberries, then?

------
southphillyman
Recently heard someone argue "If you can't afford to pay livable wages, then
you can't afford to be in business". Have to say I agree with that. It's hard
for me to feel sorry for businesses who rely on importing cheap labor to
survive.

~~~
kelnos
I'm sure you'd also be totally ok with the _much_ higher prices this would
cause?

~~~
HarryHirsch
The greater part of operating cost isn't wages, it's rent for the premises,
cost of energy and of raw materials, and yet this pernicious meme gets trotted
out every damn time the subject of minimum wage comes up. What I cannot
understand is why that is.

~~~
pm24601
I understand why: _It serves the interest of CEOs_

What I don't understand is why non-CEOs believe it so dogmatically.

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theocean154
We need to start distinguishing between the H1B abuse of several large foreign
consulting companies and the seasonal low skill jobs in our discourse. You
yell "let's reform the visa process" in a crowded room in this country and
everyone cheers for different reasons.

~~~
Zigurd
That's right, it isn't black and white. There isn't one knob to turn. If you
read the visa regulations, it looks perfectly fine. But "body shops" game the
system. Because, short of litigating every job description, there is no
visibility by regulators into job requirements and whether applicants meet
those requirements, H1-B has hijacked for the purpose of wage suppression.

There's also no bright line between the generally bad actors and the good
guys. Even R&D-oriented high tech companies that often use H1-B for the
intended purpose of importing otherwise unobtainable talent also use H1-B (and
other methods like anti-poaching agreements) for wage suppression.

Reform needs to be flexible and enforced by financial incentives, like
auctioning visas at a high reserve. It does not need to be cheap for
employers.

~~~
sjg007
I think wage suppression was a side effect despite good intentions. In
addition, H1Bs are/were a mechanism for outsourcing companies to win US IT
contracts. Auctioning visas may not solve this problem.

Other causes of recent wage suppression include the no-poaching and other
gentlemen agreements among the big players in the Valley. In addition the
basic, I'm not going to pay more than the other guy (or the minimum I can get
away with).

Wage suppression comes in other forms too. Asking for previous salaries,
asking for W2s etc... Some companies are so large that they just refuse to pay
more as well. But that's just "the market" at that point. In every company
there's some maximum value for you.

The only way to escape this is to start your own company.

------
basseq
Two diametrically opposed quotes from the article:

"Employers find the H-2B program expensive and bureaucratic, and tend to
reserve it for hard-to-fill jobs that are critical to expanding operations."
(American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy, 2011)*

vs.

"In the Pentagoet’s case, that’s meant six women from Jamaica (about a fifth
of the total staff) who work in housekeeping and in the kitchen."

Are housekeeping and kitchen jobs hard to fill, critical to expanding
operations, and worth significant investment? I'm just confused about H1-B in
general and what it's supposed to do. Bring high-skilled workers? Provide
cheap, seasonal labor? Both?

*Paraphrased for readability. Original quote hedges the conclusion.

~~~
emidln
> Are housekeeping and kitchen jobs hard to fill, critical to expanding
> operations, and worth significant investment?

No. In the Pentagoet's case, this is about being able to find pre-trained
workers without paying the market rate. This place has gone out of their way
to establish travel and housing, yet completely failed to look in any major
urban area for staff. Ask yourself why that is.

------
maehwasu
"Many Businesses Are More Viable When They Can Pay Employees Peanuts"

Looking forward to more insightful articles from Bloomberg.

------
mc32
Counterpoint to their argument. Japan has negative population growth and an
aging population. Yet, outside of Tokyo and even in Tokyo it's rather rare to
see foreigners do the "immigrant" work that we see in the US.

Go to a restaurant in Tokyo, for the most part the cooks server and other
staff are Japanese --you will see a smattering of foreign staff, but it's not
nearly the same as in the US. And that is in an economy with an aging
population and decreasing population.

And things are not super expensive. Food is healthy and reasonably priced.
Some foodstuffs cost more than the equivalent in the US but Japanese are quite
willing to pay the price difference to keep their farmers afloat --many times
have they imposed barriers to cheaper imported foodstuffs but they like things
their way.

Point is, it's not pre-ordained to ruin an economy.

------
johngrefe
Came here for the comments.

Just wanted to make sure that FOSS hadn't made everyone open borders
evangelicals.

Many demographics have huge unemployment problems, mostly NEETs, because the
jobs they used to do are replaced by absolute lowest wage immigrants. This
problem has been long brewing in the US, and I just don't understand how
making it worse (more immigration) is going to solve it. At the same time I
know I'm a massive beneficiary with overseas production of my products and
cheap food at home.

Also, why is HN posting pure political articles so much now? I understand
technology intersects with politics, but at this point anyone strongly
advocating for saving the H#B programs are probably H1B beneficiary companies
which are only the Big tech companies, so a story like this feels like it's
rolled out to the tech community to soften you up to the plight of the H2B
community.

If that's the case, this is nothing more than a propaganda feed.

~~~
sjg007
What's a NEET?

~~~
johngrefe
"Not Seeking Employment Education or Training"

Economics term, growing subset of mostly disconnected young men across NA /
EU.

~~~
sjg007
And what's a FOSS?

~~~
johngrefe
Free Open Source Software.

Am I getting trolled?

------
sudosteph
If they need low-wage unskilled laborers, surely there are high school
students or college students who would do the work while on summer break. I
worked in a kitchen as my first job (age 16) and it was a great experience,
even though it was hard work with low pay. Some of the people working there
were immigrants (not seasonal though) and it was a great cultural learning
experience in that respect too.

Sure there will be increased turnover and more expenses spent on hiring, but
that should be accepted as a standard cost of doing business. Also, hiring
young people is better for the community. When a young person has their own
job they learn responsibility, money management, and are contributing to the
economy instead of getting into trouble.

The numbers of young people working part-time or over the summer has dropped
significantly in the past 30 years. I wonder if the ease of getting visas for
seasonal labor has contributed to that.

------
24gttghh
Maybe they should pay local people fairer wages for the work to make it more
appealing hmm?

~~~
fleshBot
I dunno. That might go against the narrative that literally everything is
subject to market forces except for labor. The only thing for which we can
arbitrarily set a magical, minimum value for some reason.

~~~
hedonistbot
So your point is that indeed everything is subject to market forces and hence
we cannot control the minimum wage. Or that market forces are not all
encompassing and we should legislate the areas where they lead to unacceptable
equilibria? I am confused...

------
davidandgoliath
I'm confused why they're complaining to bloomberg & not bothering to put ads
in some nearby towns/cities.

I imagine there's no shortage of low-skill workers available in the united
states, shipping people in from afar seems outrageous.

~~~
viraptor
I get the sentiment, but from TFA:

> including the costs of the newspaper ads they have to take out as part of
> the process, plus (...), they’ve already spent thousands of dollars they
> won’t get back.

~~~
basseq
From the article, H1-B costs an estimated $2,500/person, plus flight and
lodging. Let's pretend all 6 people Pentagoet wants to hire are staying in the
mentioned apartment ($1,200/mo).

Assuming a 40 hour work week, they could increase the hourly wage by $4+/hr.
and spend the same amount of money. That's a ~50% increase from minimum wage.

Now I feel for the business in this particular case. They had a process, they
followed it, spend their money, and got staff. Now the process has changed,
but they've already spent the money. It's a sunk cost. That _sucks_.

------
nkrisc
Perhaps this reduction in visas and foreign workers will make voters realize
how much of the economy they currently enjoy is buoyed by cheap, foreign
labor. We aren't paying the real costs.

~~~
realtheow
We are paying the real cost, just not in the price of goods. We spend it on
public assistance, food stamps, medical care for these cheap laborers. A
direct parallel would be the outrage over walmart employees being asked to go
on supplementary services in order to survive. I'd rather know what this
magical extra cost is so it can be compared to the other real hidden costs.

------
Chardok
Looking at the broader scope of things, it seems to be that the idea of
Americans filling low paying jobs directly competes with the relatively small
pay these foreign workers are getting.

The question is, are these businesses being artificially propped up by foreign
low paid workers, or is it a symptom of jobs paying too low for any American
to actual work?

~~~
gozur88
There's no such thing as a shortage; only a clearing price. If these
businesses paid more they could get local workers.

------
dafty4
Ever heard of summer student labor? These are lame tears.

~~~
keithpeter
Sounds like a project. Match students seeking jobs (and who have some
experience) with employers similar to those in the OA.

UK: it tends to be waiting/bar staff in my local Universities as lower skill
requirements and more flexible working times

------
nfriedly
> Maine, meanwhile, is set to be hit so hard by the shortage that Republican
> Governor Paul LePage has conditionally commuted the sentences of a number of
> prisoners so that they can fill some of the needed positions.

That's interesting - I wonder what the conditions are?

------
gshulegaard
> “I don’t think that people who talk about defending American jobs with this
> policy have ever looked into the economics of it,” says Giovanni Peri, chair
> of the economics department at the University of California at Davis.

Amen...and I find it doubly cool because my degree is from the economics
department at UC Davis.

