Half the people complain about H-1B and the other half complain about outsourcing. Neither of them makes sense to me, but the outsourcing angle even less so. It's just labor cost arbitrage for knowledge work. And soon that arbitrage opportunity will perhaps shift from humans to llms. What is the issue with that?
The “competition is scary, let’s build walls” approach usually looks good in the short term for a segment of workers, but over the long term it tends to weaken the economy. A country that shuts out global talent not only loses people who would have filled skill gaps, it also loses many who would have built the next companies, industries, or research breakthroughs.
Not to mention, if companies can’t hire the talent they need in the US, they won’t just “make do” with whoever’s available... they’ll move operations elsewhere, which means fewer opportunities for the very people immigration restrictions are supposed to help.
''Time and again through our history, we have discovered that attempting merely to preserve the comfortable features of the present, rather than reaching for new levels of prosperity, is a sure path to stagnation'' - Alan Greenspan (https://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2004/20040...)
Anyone who doesnt believe that, look at Canadas big industries like banking or telecom. They’re coddled by the government against competition and totally fail to compete or innovate at all. There’s 50 other examples of protectionism failing too.
> I am sure people understand that H-1B issues are just red herring.
I don't 100% agree. H-1B visa holders, if laid off, have 60 days to find another job or leave the country.
This means they have much much lower negotiation power and will likely try and avoid at all cost being laid off, and will accept worse condition to stay in the US.
This is a detriment to the whole working class, because:
- US workers are now competing with other workers that will accept worse condition
- US companies can leverage H-1B workers as leverage against the negotiation power of US workers
I've seen this with my own eyes. When my previous employer announced forced RTO, all holders of the equivalent of H-1B visas just accepted it automatically, because rejecting would have meant (most likely) getting out of the country.
And the company was able to easily let go (or accept the resignation of) workers with stronger rights.
An over-supply of workers just weakens labor power, it's basic supply&demand reasoning: it's crazy that people don't realize that open borders and unchecked immigration is the most anti-worker thing one could do.
The solution to that is to give more rights to people on visas, and yet pretty much nobody supports that. Not Ds, not Rs, not corporations, and certainly not the people who complain about H-1B.
this is the thing that is missed often in recent convos. h1b not only enables you to hire cheaper, but also give much bigger leverage and power over worker. maybe now there are plenty of candidates on the market, but still having immigrant on visa for cheaper is, cynically, much better deal for corps.
It's not basic supply and demand--indeed, most economists are pro immigration. Bryan Caplan went as far as advocating for open border (admittedly he's more libertarian than most).
Labor market is complicated because jobs are not a finite pool that people compete over. New workers are also new consumers, who create new jobs as well. If more workers are always bad for other workers, declining birth rate (ie fewer future workers) would be a good thing.
> It's not basic supply and demand--indeed, most economists are pro immigration. Bryan Caplan went as far as advocating for open border (admittedly he's more libertarian than most).
> New workers are also new consumers, who create new jobs as well.
New workers with much lower purchasing power will not be consuming as much/as well. Heck, a lot of companies are known to hand out directions on how to get food stamps upon hiring (i think Walmart was one of the notable cases).
Without proper rights may get new consumers but you may also get more pressure on the welfare system (which is already weak in the US).
> If more workers are always bad for other workers, declining birth rate (ie fewer future workers) would be a good thing.
You skip the part where declining birth rate is a very strong in developed countries but not as strong (in some cases, not strong at all) in not-equally developed countries.