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by abrokenpipe 1759 days ago
I think the argument that he is making is that work visas are used to increase the labor pool (creating a "buyers market" for companies that are hiring). If a company cant find anyone willing to accept their offer then they need to improve the compensation and working environment... or they could hire a worker from the visa pool, thus suppressing wages, benefits, WLB, etc...

It's labor-economics 101.

It doesn't matter what the job is, if you pay enough then someone will take the job (and become qualified if needed).

ex: I'd scrub the shit out of sewage pipes with a toothbrush if you paid me enough, but most companies would just say that there is a "skilled labor shortage".

1 comments

Thanks for the explanation. This description is easy to grasp and makes sense. I tried to look for some numbers following your description and it seems like that the H1B wages are not lower than local market in average according to this Glassdoor study [0]. After reading it I was curious to see what’s the ratio of H1B for tech jobs (which is probably dominating the Glassdoor study) and apparently it’s the majority according to this Pew Research study [1].

[0] https://www.glassdoor.com/research/h1b-workers/

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/27/key-facts-a...