| ▲ | C-x_C-f 10 hours ago |
| Love the irony of the numerically illiterate argument at the start: > The number of foreign STEM workers in the United States has more than doubled between 2000 and 2019, increasing from 1.2 million to almost 2.5 million, while overall STEM employment has only increased 44.5 percent during that time. Knowing that STEM employment only increased 44.5 percent doesn't tell you anything about the comparison if you don't know the absolute size.
Turns out that there are around 11M STEM jobs in the US [0] so the increase in jobs is actually higher for American citizens (approx 2.7M vs 1.3M for foreign workers). Maybe the White House needs more numerically skilled people? [0] https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/stem-employment.htm |
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| ▲ | rayiner 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| The comparison as stated straightforwardly shows that the percentage of workers who are foreign born has grown. Your comparison is the odd one. Yes, the increase in jobs is higher for American citizens, in absolute numbers, than for foreign workers. Of course. These are jobs in America, after all. The baseline growth in foreign workers I’d expect would be zero. |
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| ▲ | sokoloff 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| If I'm concerned with the overall citizen population's job prospects, the relative size of the increases matters more to me than the absolute change. If I created 1 nepotistic software job for my kid and 3 jobs for software professionals not related to me, I think very few people would look at that and say "Oh, well three times as many non-nepotistic jobs were created, so we can ignore the one..." |
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| ▲ | C-x_C-f 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | How are H-1Bs comparable to nepotism? | | |
| ▲ | sokoloff 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Don't focus on the nepotism aspect specifically, but rather that job group in one distinct, identifiable population (my kid or H1Bs) grew at a far higher rate than for the general (not my kids or not H1Bs) employment market, despite the latter experiencing more absolute growth. | | |
| ▲ | C-x_C-f 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | I still don't see what the issue is. Consider two scenarios: 1. H-1Bs get massively reduced over the next five years. Tech sector crisis ensues due to market shocks. Foreign workers decrease. American workers go up by 25% (~2.5M). 2. H-1B numbers stay as is. Tech sector relatively unperturbed. Foreign workers increase by 50% (~1.3M). American workers increase by 30% (~3M). Wouldn't you argue that 2 is preferable to 1? (I'm not saying that a crisis will happen if H-1Bs end, I'm just presenting two scenarios with different relative increases that I believe prove my point) | | |
| ▲ | sokoloff 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Are you asking if I would prefer a tech market that didn't experience a crisis over one that did and from my answer of "of course I do", believe that proves some unrelated point? | | |
| ▲ | C-x_C-f 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | The relevant variable here is the increase in jobs. The crisis in my example is just some exogenous variable. I'm genuinely trying to understand your point. In my view, if one cared more about difference in relative increases inter-group rather than absolute differences intra-group, then scenario 1 would be preferable. |
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| ▲ | hilsdev 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I too am capable of semi random number generation |
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| ▲ | DaveExeter 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Maybe because nepotism leads to untalented people getting jobs? I think the $100K fee is a good idea. If these H-1Bs are exceptional talent, paying $100k to employ one is truly a bargain. | | |
| ▲ | seanmcdirmid 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | What if China only charges $1k or even free for the same people? I mean, they are doing lots of AI work now also, and you can already see a few foreign programmers in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. What is stopping Apple, Microsoft, Meta, or Amazon from doing even more work in India or other countries because they can't get the people they need in the US, or its just cheaper to setup more research jobs in Stockholm or London than it is in Seattle or San Jose? Its not like it isn't already a work market for talent. $100k is a significant amount of friction to overcome. | | |
| ▲ | cmxch 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Set a floor that is regionally adjusted such that the foreign ops/noncitizen cost is consistently higher no matter where. And that it also accounts for and penalizes malicious compliance/intent. Regarding the overall problem:
For the jobs that people care about keeping away from the alphabet soup provisions, the only problem is finding pliant and desperate people that take any port in a storm - not competence. On business resistance:
As for firms like Alphabet/Microsoft/Meta, they are not immune to noneconomic forces that might favor US presence and penalize non US expansion, broadly construed. | |
| ▲ | DaveExeter 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I think you meant "world market". Companies are going to be offshoring as much as they can anyway. Bits fly across borders untaxed. If there is some foreign talent that, for example, Meta thinks will benefit their bottom line by $1M/year, an extra $100K on top of a $250K benefits package is small change! It's a human-tariff, but it is paid by wealthy corporations. | | |
| ▲ | seanmcdirmid 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yes, world market, darn phone. They have more incentive to offshore now, $100k is some overhead but so is setting up an office overseas (~$100k/engineer). |
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| ▲ | C-x_C-f 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Do you think that the employee pool overall would be more or less talented without the H-1B program? What about the tails of the distributions? |
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| ▲ | rco8786 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| They all know that. These are politicians. They know they’re misrepresenting the data. They don’t care, they consider it to be part of the job, and they’re not wrong. That’s it. |
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| ▲ | C-x_C-f 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I did considered that but then went with Hanlon's razor [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor | | |
| ▲ | halfcat 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | You seem good at using the tools of data. Stick to that. We need more people like you. Don’t let clever phrasing dim your shine. Hanlon’s razor is in that group of things the expert class is supposed to say so the expert class doesn’t use the tools of data on their masters and attempt to convict them. Along with Occam’s razor, correlation does not imply causation, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, data is not the plural of anecdote, let’s agree to disagree, no one can beat the market, and so on. These all throw out the baby (Iran-Contra, etc) with the bath water (flat earth, etc), tend toward curbing scrutiny, and let someone off the hook. All of these sayings are worth considering, and red flags, at the same time. |
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| ▲ | rayiner 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | How are they “misrepresenting” the data? The comparison as stated shows that the foreign born share of the workforce is growing faster than the field as a whole. The point is that foreign workers are becoming a larger share of the workforce. They didn’t say that foreign workers got more of the jobs in absolute terms than native workers. That would be truly disastrous. |
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| ▲ | chickenzzzzu 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Why should the number of foreign workers here be anything greater than zero? Why specifically, should the American employee, American homebuyer/renter, American college student uniquely have to compete with the entire world, when nearly no other countries on Earth have to, especially not at this scale? |
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| ▲ | jonstewart 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | If there such a thing as American exceptionalism, if the USA has an edge, it is immigration. Without it, our demographic future is cooked. So, that’s why. | | |
| ▲ | rayiner 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > If there such a thing as American exceptionalism, if the USA has an edge, it is immigration You’re conflating cause and effect. The U.S. has had high immigration because it’s exceptional, not the other way around. The U.S. GDP/capita was head and shoulders above everyone except Great Britain by 1801: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/bdvazr/top.... That was before even the German mass migration. Silicon Valley arose during the 1950s and 1960, during a period of very low foreign born population in California: https://www.ppic.org/publication/immigrants-in-california/ | | |
| ▲ | FreakLegion 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | At least five of the traitorous eight were immigrants or children of immigrants, but do go on. | | |
| ▲ | chickenzzzzu an hour ago | parent [-] | | Why can't existing American businesses invest in these individuals while they live abroad, and then the US government can tax the profits the investors make? Why must it be that they must live here, taking desk jobs and barista jobs from Americans? How many hundreds of thousands of Shockleys got their start working as baristas, nurses, and mechanics (yes I know they are not H1B)? Do you believe that any American who fails to compete with the entire world deserves it? Why can't I move to India and become Shockley over there? |
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| ▲ | 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | ivewonyoung 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | A quarter of all the billion dollar+ US startups had founders who were on student/work visas at some point. If you include founders who are born of work immigrant parents that number will only go up. Just imagine all the technology, jobs and wealth created by just SpaceX, Google, Tesla alone. | | |
| ▲ | chickenzzzzu 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Retail investors can't purchase shares of SpaceX. Nearly anyone on Earth can purchase shares of Google and Tesla, and we all benefit from the knock on effects of their technology. And yet only Americans have to compete for housing and jobs in this context. I ask you once again, why would I lose anything if Tesla was in the UAE? | | |
| ▲ | ivewonyoung 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | > ask you once again, why would I lose anything if Tesla was in the UAE? Tesla employs 120,000 people in the US, not to mention all the federal, state, local, SS and Medicare taxes paid. Tesla employees, especially early ones, also had their stock options grow huge, building US wealth and increasing taxes owed and paid. | | |
| ▲ | chickenzzzzu 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | That is a reasonable counter argument, however I would argue that that is no longer a benefit for the American public. Similar to how our country effectively relocated our entire manufacturing sector to the entire world (to externalize the environmental impact), only to enforce it with gunboat diplomacy to ensure that only the profits make their way home, I don't see any benefit in having the jobs located on US soil. Politicians will say that there is a good reason to have the jobs here, but there isn't. It is much better for everyone if we just tax the owners of the company when they exercise their shares (something probably has to be done about the loaning loophole). America should be a nation of suburban houses, spread quite far apart from each other, of people mostly working from home. Anything else is a legitimate nuissance. |
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| ▲ | yahway 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| America got to the moon without H1-Bs. America doesn't need H1-Bs. America just needs a little wake up call, which the H1-Bs did. Now watch things unfold as an informed person. |
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