[jayd16]

By this logic, any increase in productivity is bad because it reduces labor scarcity. That's just not how it works.

> if we dropped 10 million software engineers in Silicon Valley from around the world, guess what?

Guess what, we'd get a lot more overseas clients as they wrestled with the labor shortage abroad. (Although, the real problem would be the humanitarian crisis in housing 10m more in SV overnight, ha)

[ThomPete]

The h1bs salary requirements allowed large companies to import cheap workers and compete with American labor.

It's not a coincidence that the biggest numbers of applications went to some of the big Indian IT companies.

It's a good thing they will be changed so that the cost get equalized rather than allowing big companies to import cheap and skilled labour. If it's skilled it should be paid the same of course not less.

This has been known for a long time to be a problem but was mostly ignored until recently.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/06/us/outsourcin...

[rjzzleep]

This hits the nail on its head. The reason why SV is so attractive to potential immigrants isn't because of its living standard of thousands of homeless people the healthcare, transportation or housing system.

It's because the scarcity of that particular labor makes it on one of the best paid tech sectors in the world. Most people go there for the money even if they may stay for other things. Well that, and the fact that other highly skilled people compete for those few spots available, which means you might be surrounded by interesting peers.

China for example has 10x as many communication network engineer graduates as the whole of Europe altogether. That's ignoring the fact that a significant number of graduates are migrants themselves. I believe China and India have the longest Green Card waiting lists.

[geggam]

Problem is finding actual talent vs talent on a resume that doesn't work well.

[howard941]

Like the market for used cars. All other things remaining equal the problem restrains pay for top performers.

[pasabagi]

>any increase in productivity is bad because it reduces labor scarcity

Isn't it? Increases in productivity, normally called automation, must reduce labour scarcity unless demand for the product is proportionately increased. There are plenty of sectors where this is exactly what happens, and some where it isn't.

[tobltobs]

> Increases in productivity, normally called automation

That is a wrong assumption to start with. Inventing the wheel wasn't automation.

[tomrod]

Actually...

Production has three components: capital, labor, and technology. Automation, as I understand it, both improves technology and lowers the cost of capital.

If I recall right, this strand of economic lit is called Total Factor Productivity.[0]

I believe the Wheel falls squarely in the technology bracket.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_factor_productivity

[mediaman]

Inventing the wheel absolutely is automation.

Why would the wheel, which allows the movement of goods with much less labor, be any different in concept than the transistor, which allows e.g. the accounting of a corporation to be done with far fewer accountants?

Or the assembly of a car with robots?

All productivity gains (expressed as production per person-hour) is a result of either (1) advancement in technology or (2) the increased use of existing technology through capital investment or (3) quality of labor (education, training, etc).

The invention of the wheel, the invention of fire, the invention of the steam engine, and the gas engine, the solar cell and the transistor all fall under (1) and the expansion of their use falls under (2).

[llsf]

One could argue that the invention of the wheel is actually automation. Instead of carrying goods on your back down to the river, now put it in a cart, and kick it to roll downhill... It is possibly the most basic automation, it does free human labor with a mechanical mean.

[conanbatt]

"If you wanted to increase the salaries of the lumberjacks, you would only need to pass a law that no axe could ever be sharpened" - Bastiat

[tw04]

>Guess what, we'd get a lot more overseas clients as they wrestled with the labor shortage abroad.

So exactly when is it that India is going to become a major client? You seem to think that a country with high unemployment or underemployment that exports a portion of their workforce won't quickly absorb that "shortage". That's a pretty poor assumption.

[AlexTWithBeard]

Guess what, we'd get a lot more overseas clients as they wrestled with the labor shortage abroad.

India produces more than 20 million undergrads every year. I don't think 10 million will make a dent in developers supply in India.

[TeMPOraL]

> By this logic, any increase in productivity is bad because it reduces labor scarcity. That's just not how it works.

Yes, this logic is perfectly sound. Increase in productivity has both good and bad impacts on a system within which it happens - the whole difficulty of managing a system (like a job market) is to find ways to pocket the good, and mitigate the bad.