Facing Immigration Crackdown, Silicon Valley Rethinks Its Dreams

[newwurldmn]

I want you to provide me with a pointer to him personally stating something else from what we know from his official links. You can't.
Yes, H1B just like any other visa expires. Only citizenship has no expiration. Their visas might or might not be extended.
New people will be hired. Nothing to worry about. Maybe they will have to pay higher salaries and hire more Americans, but that's fine.
Any way it's beneficial for American citizens.

Trumps advisors now speak for him as he has put them in a position to enact those policies. If Trump disagrees with them, he needs to make that clear otherwise that is what we should expect.

The tech industry doesn't seem to agree with you and that's the point of this thread. And like the article said, the fear of future deportation (when your visa expires) is already cramping some entrepreneurial activities in that industry.

Maybe this will all be better for other American citizens, but that's not the point of this thread.

 

[Sig]

I'll note that you're committing a similar fallacy -- neither of us have provided any data. So let's take a look at the data. From 2013, 32% of computer science graduates are not employed in the field, due to lack of available jobs. http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2015/article/stem-crisis-or-stem-surplus-yes-and-yes.htm. That being said, it looks like wages have been rising since then from every article I can find. So maybe you're right and there is something to this idea of a tech shortage. Maybe it's time for me to negotiate another raise while I'm at it given the shortage (though I'm pretty comfortable with my pay given that I live in upstate NY, more money is always welcome).

That amount you quoted isn't so terrible for SF when I was there a couple years ago (I'm not familiar with Virginia), though you won't be able to compete against Google and Facebook with it. But if you want tech talent you will be competing with Google and Facebook.

Where the shortage is really felt is government jobs. When I was still in school, people from the NSA and DHS and whatnot would come try to recruit people for cybersecurity jobs. They'd pretty much get laughed at the moment they left, because the pay was so horrible compared to the private sector.

There's 50k CS grads a year from US colleges/universities. That number might be rising. I know my undergrad institution has gone from a graduating class of three to sixteen. People are at least responding to the incentives of money.

I'd like to add a note though that this conversation is only applicable to the computer science part of STEM. Every other area, especially in science, has seen flat wages and higher than average unemployment. I'll be happy to see H1B abuse get cut down. Other areas have been horrible here. Everyone knows about Infosys, but it sucks for ce/ee. Intel used H1Bs to drive wages down immensely for those jobs.

Actually the paper your link quotes says "32 percent of computer science graduates not employed in information technology attributed their situation to a lack of available jobs", which is a very different thing than 32% of computer science graduates not being employed!

While I agree about the shortcoming of anecdotal data, in this case the market is clearly demonstrating a shortage with the salaries which are easily double those of people with comparable degrees in other fields that don't face shortages. In addition, I think it's important to note that by definition an H1B visa holder is willing to move in order to get a job, where as many American's with STEM degrees are not. So there may well be a surplus of software developers in Syracuse who work outside of STEM because they can't find a STEM job and don't want to leave upstate. That in no way means that a company in SF is being cheap or abusing the H1B by importing H1B workers who are willing to work in SF.

The bottom line is that you, and me, and all the other electrical engineers and CS grads out there, would like to make more money and think we should make more money (because of course, we're smarter than those humanities majors, right?), but we're already making far more than the average for someone with our degree. A "flat" wage for an EE that's much higher than the average wage for someone with the same degree level doesn't indicate H1B abuse! If these (http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes172071.htm) are what you call being "driven down" then they were pretty damn high to start with! You notably didn't provide your salary, but I'm willing to wager that it's easily double what an average humanities PhD makes. You're not inherently "worth" more than the humanities PhD, it's pure supply and demand.

By the way, I'm one of your article's STEM people who would say I'm not working in a STEM job. When I was a pilot, the vast majority of my fellow pilots were STEM majors but being a pilot isn't technically a STEM job. I know a large number of small company upper management who have STEM degrees but aren't doing computer coding or designing circuits and would probably say they aren't in a STEM job. In other words, saying that half of all STEM majors aren't in STEM jobs says almost nothing about if there is a shortage of jobs there or not, as opposed to the market which says everything about shortage and surplus.

 

[Surgo]

Actually the paper your link quotes says "32 percent of computer science graduates not employed in information technology attributed their situation to a lack of available jobs", which is a very different thing than 32% of computer science graduates not being employed!

Yeah, that's what I meant. Misspoke.

While I agree about the shortcoming of anecdotal data, in this case the market is clearly demonstrating a shortage with the salaries which are easily double those of people with comparable degrees in other fields that don't face shortages. In addition, I think it's important to note that by definition an H1B visa holder is willing to move in order to get a job, where as many American's with STEM degrees are not. So there may well be a surplus of software developers in Syracuse who work outside of STEM because they can't find a STEM job and don't want to leave upstate. That in no way means that a company in SF is being cheap or abusing the H1B by importing H1B workers who are willing to work in SF.

Nobody said they were abusing H1Bs. This works both ways though. If there's a large amount of cheap labor in Syracuse, companies should be willing to relocate to Syracuse. (As far as the Syracuse example goes, to the best of my knowledge that's exactly what happened. I don't live there, though.)

The bottom line is that you, and me, and all the other electrical engineers and CS grads out there, would like to make more money and think we should make more money (because of course, we're smarter than those humanities majors, right?), but we're already making far more than the average for someone with our degree. A "flat" wage for an EE that's much higher than the average wage for someone with the same degree level doesn't indicate H1B abuse!

I don't know what you're referring to with H1B abuse; I suspect you read my post to mean something significantly different.

If these (http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes172071.htm) are what you call being "driven down" then they were pretty damn high to start with!

I'm not really sure what to say here. Intel was known throughout the 2000s for getting H1B visas and paying them slightly under what they were paying locals, rinse and repeat with "slightly under" going down every year. One of the many reasons I never considered working there or that industry in general, and moved to pure computer science.

You notably didn't provide your salary, but I'm willing to wager that it's easily double what an average humanities PhD makes. You're not inherently "worth" more than the humanities PhD, it's pure supply and demand.

You're literally attacking a strawman here. I never made any claims of inherent worth of degree. For what it's worth, my company's value gained per employee is vastly higher than what it pays its employees. (My salary is roughly $250k/yr, up and down based on the whims of the stock market.)

I'm not going to claim that society pays me or anyone else correctly. If American society paid people what they were really worth, teachers would get paid and treated way better than they do and those of us here trading wouldn't make anything from it.

 

[Sig]

Yeah, that's what I meant. Misspoke.


Nobody said they were abusing H1Bs. This works both ways though. If there's a large amount of cheap labor in Syracuse, companies should be willing to relocate to Syracuse. (As far as the Syracuse example goes, to the best of my knowledge that's exactly what happened. I don't live there, though.)



I don't know what you're referring to with H1B abuse; I suspect you read my post to mean something significantly different.


I'm not really sure what to say here. Intel was known throughout the 2000s for getting H1B visas and paying them slightly under what they were paying locals, rinse and repeat with "slightly under" going down every year. One of the many reasons I never considered working there or that industry in general, and moved to pure computer science.


You're literally attacking a strawman here. I never made any claims of inherent worth of degree. For what it's worth, my company's value gained per employee is vastly higher than what it pays its employees. (My salary is roughly $250k/yr, up and down based on the whims of the stock market.)

I'm not going to claim that society pays me or anyone else correctly. If American society paid people what they were really worth, teachers would get paid and treated way better than they do and those of us here trading wouldn't make anything from it.

You said " I'll be happy to see H1B abuse get cut down", I'm maintaining there is no such "abuse". You're claiming there's no shortage of STEM grads in the U.S., and I'm pointing out that the market is indicating the opposite. You're a case in point, $250K a year in upstate New York is easily 2-3X the average of all PhDs in your area with your experience level, that's scarcity at work my friend. I make no statement of the inherent worth of a teacher or a software developer, I'm simply pointing out how economics work and if a particular profession pays more than another with the same schooling requirements it indicates a relative shortage in the higher paying one vs the other. If Intel was getting H1B electrical engineers in the 2000s and paying them "only" $199,000 while the local EEs were getting $205,000 it simply means there was a shortage of local EEs that allowed them to demand such a huge salary to start with. It's in everyone's interest but the local EEs to bring that supply and demand picture at least a bit more into balance. And no, it's not incumbent on companies to go set up shop in every back corner of flyover country when the world's best and brightest are happy to move to where the jobs are. In fact as you pointed out in your very first post, if you force big corps to set up shop in Wichita or Des Moines to find talent they might just as well set that shop up in Sofia or Mumbai.

 

[Surgo]

You said " I'll be happy to see H1B abuse get cut down", I'm maintaining there is no such "abuse".

Yeah okay, I don't think we'll ever agree on this point. I see abuse ranging from as tame as Intel driving down wages, to as crazy as body shops like Infosys.

Besides, H1Bs aren't as far as I'm aware meant to bring balance to supply and demand. They're meant to import labor you can't find in-country.

 

[Sig]

Yeah okay, I don't think we'll ever agree on this point. I see abuse ranging from as tame as Intel driving down wages, to as crazy as body shops like Infosys.

Besides, H1Bs aren't as far as I'm aware meant to bring balance to supply and demand. They're meant to import labor you can't find in-country.

I think your last paragraph says it all. If there is an imbalance in supply and demand it means there isn't enough supply to meet demand. That's the same as not enough, can't find it, don't have as many as you need.... When that happens the scarcity employees can demand a higher and higher wage because companies essentially are just poaching from other companies. Only the companies with the highest profit margins get to be fully staffed, and a lot of economic productivity is lost because a number of jobs simply go unfilled. The high salaries are simply an effect of not having enough of something. As you can probably tell my advanced degree is an MBA and my business is running markets; this is classic markets.

 

[Surgo]

I think your last paragraph says it all. If there is an imbalance in supply and demand it means there isn't enough supply to meet demand.

Sorry you took it that way, but I'm not admitting there's an imbalance in supply and demand. I'm just saying that if there is (there might be), the H1B program is not meant to address such a thing.

 

[2rosy]

Have you ever tried to hire a developer in SF/Seattle/Boston/NY/DC? Why don't you give it a try and get back to me on how there's plenty of underemployed software developers desperate for jobs and the big mean corporations just won't hire them. If you know of any, please PM me. Seriously, I'm always looking for software developers and have a very difficult time hiring them despite paying well in an interesting, profitable company. I could just be a jackass who's hard to get along with, but I've never had anyone I did hire leave and all my fellow CEOs complain about the same thing. It's surprising that a technical PhD like you would make a statement like that which just isn't supported by the data.

what's your company? I will send you my resume and take less than the salary you mentioned. My only requirement is that I work remotely. I don't think there is any tech shortage. From my experience most of the work is rather mundane and utilizes less than 40hrs/wk

 

[gkishot]

Trumps advisors now speak for him as he has put them in a position to enact those policies. If Trump disagrees with them, he needs to make that clear otherwise that is what we should expect.

The tech industry doesn't seem to agree with you and that's the point of this thread. And like the article said, the fear of future deportation (when your visa expires) is already cramping some entrepreneurial activities in that industry.

Maybe this will all be better for other American citizens, but that's not the point of this thread.

>>Trumps advisors now speak for him
Link please.
>>The tech industry doesn't seem to agree with you
Not a problem.

 

[d08]

There are pretty drastic and negative "social consequences" to working in a STEM field.

#1 All your colleagues are men
#2 Most of your colleagues are introverts
#3 Any social skills you absorb from your -many- H1-B colleagues work in the developing world - ONLY.

Basically, STEM ruins your life, and does not get you laid.

Name a silicon valley guy who gets hot chicks.

Definitely not Mr Facebook P

There was an article on the crazy sex parties that are the in-thing nowadays in Silicon Valley. A bunch of people with boatloads of money and youth is the perfect mixture for this.
It's cute that you think all hot women pick men based on looks.