I am leaning with Michael, just because I think you reach a point where the differing laws we have no input on (foriegn countries) cause different economic realities. To say we should be a worldwide job market, hiring the lowest bidder, and then circumventing the immigration rules to allow that, is very much government manipulation, and is paid for by those companies. You really believe that the SC voted to allow companies to be people and donate as much as they want because it was constitutional? I don't. It was bought and paid for.

William, I am fairly sure these people know exactly what they are doing, and also that the law is specifically written (and paid for by them) to accomplish it. It is not the Lilly white "we need smart people and Americans are dumb" or the "they want too much money and we have to cut costs". Rarely do I see them importing managers, we seem to have an overabundance of their like. Maybe that is part of the problem...

That is true, and both parties though should have some obligation to the other. One thing I have seen managers who have no clue what they are doing do, is get rid of the senior people and replace them with imports, then start firing any other managers or engineers when the factory implodes because all the expertise was tossed. The managers making the decisions rarely have any specific knowledge of what the real things are needed to do the job. A degree does not impart knowledge.

Indeed, but you now end up with a mix of government interferance, and importation of what could be economic slave labor. Believe me, the slaves do wake up within a couple of years, then the company goes fishing again. This is not a valid way to grow your own society, as you keep adding more slaves to the mix.

Exactly!

Until a plane falls out of the sky, 300 people are killed, and the investigation then demands blame. Either a bunch of money is then spread to cool the fire, or a group of senior manager move to another company to repeat the process. Those actions are just skirting the law that had to be created just to prevent that type of thing. One reason (besides the cattle car syndrome), I fly as little as possible.

True John. My current job is in this bucket though, although I have made sure I extend my fingers into as much as I can to try to make it less likely. But I see a lot of it.

Thank you, I agree with your position, I would say though that the natural relationship one on one has been corrupted by both politics and elitism. It used to be you could go from technician to engineer in a major electronics manufacturer, yet today, you must have a Bachelors in a science, and then you are expected to quickly have a Masters and on. This "closed" door has resulted in the whole need for any kind of visa program.We have a lot of smart people, who for one reason or another, chose not to go to college, or went to work right away and have amassed a huge amount of knowledge and skill that is far beyond what a degree may, or may not provide. Some of the article addressed that, and, to me, shows this "excuse" they use. The market should dictate wages, and value, but I think the use of people imported world wide just because they have a lower market standard there, is disruptive. What encouragement is there to go to work as an engineer, when you are under a risk that your company will import someone just because they will take less. I find that most of those imported quickly realize what is happening, and use it to just get an anchor set here, then either demand a significant raise, or move on.

Guess you missed the word "competent" in my tirade. As stated that is what I would require to "fill" a job by an American. I also questioned the validity of the graduates capabilities.
I believe in a free market. We don't have one and corporate looters write laws to prevent it.
Government is being used by some entities to force the transfer of assets from some of its citizens to those entities. Not a free market

A job is not property. It is a temporary voluntary trading relationship.

Yes. As an employee you are selling your talents by the hour effectively. That is your are selling on a time basis at fixed rate to someone who wants/needs those talents. In a way you are literally selling the hours of your life. It is not the best or safest or most lucrative way to make a living. When the arrangement does not make sense to either party compared to alternatives they are free to end it. There is nothing immoral about doing so if the decision is fully rational.

I don't know of any employer that will be in a hurry to get rid of a known quantity good worker fully up to speed in their organization just to save a bit of money. Not unless it is a commodity job or the worker is part of a union jacking up rates and restrictions beyond reason and seldom even then. Hiring is hard. Mistakes can be made. A known good worker is not let go lightly.

That is not because of not enough jobs in many industries such as software. It is because a lot of the graduates flunk out of interviews that attempt to see if they can actually produce results. I have interviewed far too many CS graduates that couldn't demonstrate they could code even the simplest of things at a whiteboard.

I have lost excellent team members because of how tight the H-1B program is. People that are some of the best I have worked with in my long career. Some very successful Silicon Valley entrepreneurs came here on H-1B visas and then became citizens. Being a citizen doesn't quality anyone for squat. Either you can do the work or you cannot. Generally a company would much rather hire a full time worker who does not have any visa restrictions and hassles given the choice of an equally capable worker.

Apparently you do not believe in a free market. Sad.

Some of the best and most productive people in Silicon Valley started on a visa.

Yes to all five paragraphs! I agree with all of it. The fifth one is a key response to the article originally posted.

The article is pretty bogus. Quality foreign engineers have been paid the same as US born engineers in every software house I have personally worked in in 35 years in Silicon Valley. The only exception has been contractors short-changed by their contracting company for those contracting companies that specialize in ripping of minimal visa workers.

Remember please that a "job" is not the property of some American just because it is an American company. A business exists to produce products and services that enough customers want at a price they can make a good ROI on. They do not exist to provide jobs or especially not jobs to one group over another. Employees/labor will be shopped for the best quality for price that is sufficient quality and affordable price as it should be.

But in software in the valley the problem is actually that we often can't find good software people at any price and of any nationality in the quantity actually needed.

Yes, this is a forum for Ayn Rand's ideas, not fixed pie stagnation and conservative statism. Ayn Rand adamantly opposed government force employed to "protect" anyone's claimed economic self interest. The economy grows from individual productive effort and creativity in a free society.

This country is not supposed to be nationalistic guild socialism or the latest equivalent forced unionism. As individualists we do not lump people into "classes" by who has a "right" to what job and who is excluded. This isn't the international version of a caste society.

Individuals have a natural right to contract with others regardless of what country they are from. They have that right because of their nature as human beings, not what country they were born in. The right isn't a gift from government, to be "protected" against others who want to compete but who are allowed to only by government permission, which the nationalists and demagogic Trump 'jobs mercantilists' want to deny.

"Graduating in STEM" says nothing about what a person is capable of doing or how motivated he is or for what. A large portion of people in any field do not wind up pursing a career in the subject in which they were formally trained. And there are those in any field who expect to be given a job of their choosing by entitlement, having gone through what they are told are formal requirements, then expecting to sit on a job regardless of who can do it better or more efficiently. Most foreign workers are not better than Americans, but the small number of those ambitious enough to make themselves better and come to this country are better than any average.

The corruption in the H1 visa program is that individuals are made dependent on bureaucracy and corporate influence because it is so difficult for an individual to contend on his own with the immigration bureaucracy and the entrenched government restrictions. That is what allows the corporate cronies to manipulate the system to bring in people who may or may not be better but in the form of indentured servants made dependent on the corporations and a corrupt system. As usual, the solution to problems caused by statism are not solved by making it more statist.

You may have hit the nail on the head with: I guess it just depends on whose job you are taking.

The kakistocracy and everything connected to it hate us as it hates itself.

Ayn Rand rejected government protectionism of jobs or any other economic transactions. No one has a right to use the force of government on behalf of what he claims is his economic self interest. Regarding foreign workers, individuals have natural rights in accordance with their nature as human beings, not nationalism.

gotcha. . in my case, it was the reductions associated
with the demise of the nuc weapons stockpile. . DOE was --
and still is -- playing games with people money versus
facility money. . they have even cut our retirement health plan,
plus there's been no COLA for more than ten years. -- j
.

You betcha.
What a number of employees often forget is that they should always prepare themselves for every contingency. Even a well meaning employer may have to cut back or close his doors. In my case, at the end of my lease, the landlord raised the rent considerably, and also put into the lease various changes to the store façade and a new very expensive sign. That, coupled with digital photography coming in a few years caused us to hustle up a going out of business sale. Luckily by then, we only had part-time kids working for us as our margin got so tight we couldn't afford full-timers.

Too bad I'm only allowed to give just one point.
Freedom's hammer hit the nail on the head.

after 30 years of working with an employer who seemed
to be loyal in exchange for my loyalty, there came down
a statement about "at-will" employment. . the change,
from a new group of managers, was intended to be a
threat to the employees. . it meant "we can terminate
your employment without any reason, at any time,"
and I took it to heart. . always working my ass off, I made
careful plans and retired soon. . "at will" goes both ways. -- j
.

emphasizes the importance of unique personal contributions, huh? -- j
.