I've made little secret that I'm not fond of H-1B visas. Despite the loud protestations of many tech firms, a recent study found no evidence of a high tech worker shortage in the United States. H-1Bs treat workers as raw materials, which can be imported from the cheapest source.
If it makes you feel better (or worse), I'm also against the guest worker provisions of the proposed immigration bill. So it's not a matter of "being okay with it when it comes to the guy mowing your yard," as I was accused the last time I brought this up. Besides, I mow my own patch of weeds.
What I favor is higher levels of genuine, straightforward, plain old immigration. The kind that places people directly on the road to citizenship. I don't like any options that create designated second-class Americans, with rights subject to repeal at the first traffic ticket -- or the first opportunity for the employer to bring in someone even cheaper. If it was up to me, I'd raise the numbers for legal immigration. A lot.
But for those who think the H-1B program is vital to the bottom line of American corporations, I do have a suggestion as to how non-immigrant visas might be used.
Yes, imported engineers can be had for less than the cost of the domestic variety. But for companies inclined to treat all workers as faceless commodities, that cost difference pales when considering another of those interchangeable cogs needed to make a corporation work -- managers.
Excessive executive pay has been a hot-button issue in American politics for years, but worldwide factors could one day make it a liability on the balance sheet. ... Since high-level executives and other white collar professionals in Asian companies typically make less than their Western equivalents, these companies potentially will have a cost advantage.
How or even whether the differences in executive salary will impact the market remains unclear: multinational companies are hiring their own executives in these regions, too, after all. Nonetheless, the numbers are tough to ignore: engineers aren't the only "talent" that costs less in developing markets. Executives cost a lot less, too.
In fact, executive pay in China and India is a small fraction of what it is in the United States. The rapid growth of industries in these nations surely demonstrates the ability of managers there to more than handle people, projects, and finances.
There were 130,000 applications for H-1B visas to fill technical positions last year. Surely well-run companies would want at least as many replacements for those costly executives.
Shouldn't any proposal for technical H-1Bs include at least an equal number aimed at management positions?
Update [2007-6-4 20:3:9 by Devilstower]: Just to be clear, I want to make it obvious that I don't believe Americans are in any way "better" than people coming here from elsewhere -- at least not when it comes to intelligence, creativity, and drive. People are people, and I'm disturbed that anyone might think I was suggesting anything else. My concern here is two fold:
- I'm frustrated by the lack of opportunities available to the people I see in the industry when employers would rather shop for an exact fit than to spend time on training or experience (especially if they can get that fit at a bargain price). All too often, requirements for a position are written to match exacting technical specifications, rather than looking for someone who has demonstrated capability and flexibility.
- I'm concerned that we lose out by having a program that's focused on bringing in people only for the length of a project. Do some people in these programs become citizens? They do. But they're the exceptions, and I'd much rather the system was flipped on its head: create a program designed to bring in more citizens, and accept the idea that some people are going to decide to leave.