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A couple of years ago it was reported that in 2012 more than half of all American wage earners made less than $30,000 per year. The Social Security Administration's new earnings report for 2014 is out and there's still much gnashing of teeth about the dying middle class. With earnings numbers that haven't changed much in 2 years, estimates running as high as 100 million working age Americans without a job, and no one tracking the population of H-1B visa holders, where are the jobs really?
The July 9, 2015, issue of The New York Review of Books carried a very thoughtful piece by Andrew Hacker. In "The Frenzy About High-Tech Talent," Hacker discusses a number of books and reports that address whether or not there really is a need for more tech talent, the justification for the H-1B visa program, and issues in the American educational system.
[...] Throughout his piece Hacker is basically questioning two things:
1. Is there really an unfilled need for STEM graduates, or are we actually graduating too many so that many end up unemployed or employed in different areas?
2. Are there flaws in the American education system, both at the K-12 level and in college, that lead us to be very dependent on foreign STEM graduates?
[...] The texts Hacker is reviewing, and his own information, seem to dwell predominately on overall job projections for the STEM fields. Nowhere does there appear a breakout of the job forecast for computing related job categories. With the increased ubiquity of computing across all industries and employment sectors, it seems unlikely that we will see the "deskilling" trend that may be occurring in engineering (whereby engineers create equipment that means they and others like them no longer have job opportunities). We know that there are many jobs in the "tech sector" but there are also a lot of computing jobs in banking, finance, manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare, etc. We can get an accurate picture of future job openings only if we can make a good determination of the computing jobs that exist outside of the "tech sector."
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday October 27 2015, @04:58PM
I'm not an american, but my perception is that there would be strong resistance to making it generally easier to get a green card. "Dang furriners takin our jerbs".
I think you would have more chance of arguing the limited case that any H1-B who survives in the job for a month be given one.
Companies would look like hypocrites simultaneously claiming that H1-B's are needed because of a shortage (and that they get equal benefits to locals), and that the H1-B's shouldn't get green cards because then they could negotiate equal benefits to the locals.
The effect on tech jobs would be complex, removing the indentured servant problem, but possibly increasing the supply of workers. Overall, I would expect an improvement in pay and conditions, simply because the indians and chinese would have a better negotiating position than they do now. If the bottom level moves up, so does the average.
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