> ut, if I'm an entry-level, US-based programmer, what I see are floods of cheap talent, some with questionable skills, coming over to compete for my job.
I don't understand this dichotomy. Why would companies here go out of their way to hire cheap labor of questionable skill outside the U.S.?? Bad cheap labor is easy to find. Call up a recruiter and say "I need 20 horrible programmers", they're not going to say "oh wow that's a tough one".
Either you think: 1. Outside labor is good and thus I should be scared for my job, BUT those people legitimately deserve to be working here and are net positive for their employers, or 2. Outside workers aren't good and so what difference does it make if they compete with me here? I'm already competing with a saturated market of bad workers and if companies are stupid enough to hire them it'll work itself out -- they're not really competing with me.
During my career I've witnessed a stark contrast between different visa holders:
1) Exceptional — the best and brightest from all walks of life. IIT Delhi to NUS Singapore. Hands down amazing folks who consistently outperformed their peers.
2) Cheap(er), mediocre — predominantly H1B holders from India and China. Varying degrees of output and communication skills. Mostly “slow tracked” for promotion and given the lowest salary in a given position’s range.
My perception is that the startup community has generally ignored group #2’s existence. It’s not very surprising when you consider who the top 5 h1b sponsors last year: Infosys, Tata, Wipro, Deloitte, and Accenture[1]. Most startup folk would likely be surprised since we usually associate tech companies -> Google instead of Wipro.
Logically your thinking is spot-on, but I'm not so sure the truth is so black and white. Consider the psychology of an h1b holder from India who has a 7 year wait to get a green card -- how is that person thinking about aggressive career moves? The answer is that they probably aren't.
I bet if you looked at relative rates of employee churn you'd find visa holders stay with employers longer than their counterparts. They are probably also less likely to push for raises / promotions since their negotiating position is somewhat compromised by them needing another employer to transfer this visa to (possible, but very stressful). There is also likely a sense of indebtedness to a company when someone is first sponsored. This is probably the biggest difference when considering the cost of Group #2 vs similarly qualified domestic labor.
Now consider those top 5 h1b sponsors again -- how does their workforce stack up? My intuition says they aren't the best and brightest from group #1 (don't know how to prove or disprove this just my qualitative observation).
What seems to be happening is that we have huge consulting firms sponsoring labor from Group #2 -- and these companies are run by smart folks. They've developing a well-oiled machine for employing a more loyal workforce, at less cost -- and while the quality isn't as high as it could be, it's good enough to make their business model work. This is the exact opposite model of startups (and large, but highly innovative companies like Google) who want to only hire from Group #1.
As a founder I've experienced the Group #1 labor shortage first-hand but I also worked with Group #2 in the industry and both experiences left me leaving a lot to be desired with our current immigration policy. I see both sides of this debate, but from my standpoint everyone is right. The disconnect seems to be that "anti-immigration" camp is fighting against expansion of Group #2 while startups and innovative companies like Google, et al. are fighting to increase visas for Group #1.
What can we do to bridge that communication disconnect?
> since their negotiating position is somewhat compromised by them needing another employer to transfer this visa to (possible, but very stressful). There is also likely a sense of indebtedness to a company when someone is first sponsored.
This is part of the point: this aspect of immigration labor would ironically disappear if it was easier to get into this country. The fact that its hard to get in and get a job is precisely what creates the imbalance of power in negotiation and further leads to a sense of indebtedness.
BTW, this also negatively affects startups. I've been in situations where its difficult to poach someone because of their visa situation (they don't know how easy or hard it is to transfer, they feel indebted, etc etc), and additionally, its way easier for large corporations to go through the paperwork to hire outside talent than a small startup thats just 3 founders. Regulation, as usual, creates all sorts of strange counter-intuitive incentives and imbalances.
If companies could just hire whomever they wanted, then sure, you might be competing directly with someone from india, but you'd also be on a more equal footing because that guy from india would have the same mobility to other jobs that you do, and thus would not be so desirable for his "capturability". Not to mention the fact that whether you like it or not you'll eventually all be competing anyways: at some point it just becomes easier to open offices there and then there's just no job here period.
So how do we implement this as policy? What we can't do is just say anyone can immigrate. We need to find ways to make it easy for exceptional people to live and work here but make it difficult (sliding scale to impossible) for everyone else.
One random idea I was thinking about was regional, industry specific visa committees that would review each application to ensure that we are able to more accurately identify exceptional individuals and filter out the mediocre / low-quality talent.
Allow anyone to immigrate, require they be paid an equal wage as a citizen of similar skill (hard to enforce I know), and then charge the employer a tax on the wage (10%?). This would force employers in any industry to only take people who are at least 10% more valuable to the company. You can change the tax appropriately to get the desired result.
I don't understand this dichotomy. Why would companies here go out of their way to hire cheap labor of questionable skill outside the U.S.?? Bad cheap labor is easy to find. Call up a recruiter and say "I need 20 horrible programmers", they're not going to say "oh wow that's a tough one".
Either you think: 1. Outside labor is good and thus I should be scared for my job, BUT those people legitimately deserve to be working here and are net positive for their employers, or 2. Outside workers aren't good and so what difference does it make if they compete with me here? I'm already competing with a saturated market of bad workers and if companies are stupid enough to hire them it'll work itself out -- they're not really competing with me.