Myths and Realities About the USA H1-B Program
April 2008:
Myth: H1-Bs are the "best and brightest"
Reality: If that were true then the typical H1-B would a Nobel prize winning scientist. The truth is, the typical H1-B is an average student, hired right out of college with only a four year degree. The typical H1-B is no more qualified than the US graduates who are not getting jobs. The H1-Bs are just cheaper. And because of the lottery nature of the H1-B process, employers do not even know who they are getting. So how do employers know that they are getting the best and brightest?
Also, isn't it funny that almost all of the “best and brightest” come from countries where people earn as little as $1 a day? If it's really about the “best and brightest” then why aren't there more European H1-Bs?
Myth: H1-Bs are needed because of the critical shortage of US technology workers
Reality: Serious academic studies clearly indicate that skills shortage is a myth.
These studies done at Duke aren’t alone in their assessment that there is in fact no skills shortage. They’re backed up by other studies conducted by RAND Corporation, The Urban Institute and Stanford University, among others, all of which settle upon the same conclusion: There is no shortage of educated IT workers.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1081923#PaperDownload
This according to a well researched article at baselinemag.com:
Myth: H1-Bs do not compete unfairly, because H1-Bs are paid the prevailing wage
Reality:
According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) as the measurement of U.S. wages, and the H-1B LCA disclosure data to measure H-1B wages, 90% of H-1B employers' prevailing wage claims for programmers were below the median U.S. wage for that occupation and location, with 62% of them falling in the bottom 25th percentile of U.S. wages, said Miano [founder of the Programmer's Guild].
Ron Hira, an assistant professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology (currently on leave) and a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, pointed to USCIS's most recent report to Congress, which shows that the medium wage in 2005 for new H-1B computing professionals was just $50,000 – even lower than the entry-level wages that a newly graduated tech worker with a bachelor's degree and no experience would command.
According to the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Service's (USCIS) annual report to Congress in 2005, the aggregate data for computing professionals lend support to the argument that the practice of paying H-1Bs below-market wages is quite common.
http://www.sharedprosperity.org/bp187.html
H1-Bs are hired at four different skill levels, “4” being the highest. But most H1-Bs are hired for the lowest “1” level jobs - regardless of what kind of work the H1-Bs actually do.
Myth: In the USA enrollment in technical disciplines is declining. Proof the USA needs to hire more foreign workers
Reality: This myth is designed to confuse cause and effect. Employers are not forced to hire offshore because enrollment is down. Rather, enrollment is down because of aggressive offshoring by employers. But even with enrollments down, there are still more than enough US workers.
Due to both outsourcing and insourcing, many young people are concluding that technology is a bad place to invest their time,” said Mark Thoma, a professor of economics at the University of Oregon in Eugene.
Myth: Critics of the H1-B program are xenophobic
Reality: This “argument” is nothing but name calling. These allegations are offered without any shred of evidence or logic. There are many perfectly reasonable criticisms of the current US policy on work visas, that have nothing to do with being xenophobic. These types of accusations are nothing but smear tactics.
Myth: US citizens are too stupid and lazy to master technical subjects
Reality: Isn't it interesting that advocates of increasing H1-B visas are quick to insult the USA, while at the same time, accusing critics the current policies of being xenophobic (i.e. raciest).
The USA is not seeing declining enrollment in such rigorous fields as medicine, or law, or any other career fields that are not being aggressively offshored. Plenty of Americans were studying CS in 2000. So what happened? All Americans just got stupid and lazy at the same time? Americans just suddenly decided that, although IT was a great field, they would all stop studying it, for just no good reason?
I think there is a far more plausible explanation. Technical training is difficult, it requires a lot of time, money, and effort. Americans are perfectly willing to pay the price, but only if they can feel reasonably assured that they will be adequately rewarded for their sacrifices.
Myth: The H1-B program is needed for the USA to competitive on the world market
Reality: Actually, it's just the opposite. The present H1-B system is destructive to long term US competitiveness. Aggressive offshoring, and aggressive replacing US technology workers with cheaper H1-Bs, just discourages US citizens from entering technology field. Why study technology when your odds of getting a job, or keeping a job are so poor? Clearly, if present trends continue, the USA will lose it's technological edge.
Myth: The H1-B program actually creates more jobs for Americans
Reality: This assertion is based on a report created by a group called the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP). The NFAP created a report titled “H-1B Visas and Job Creation.” The report claims that for each H-1B visa requested by a corporation, that organization's overall hires have climbed by, on average, five-fold.
http://www.nfap.net/pdf/080311H1-B.pdf
Note that, according the NFAP report, the H1-B does not even have to hired, just requested. It is just like magic. Unlike King Midas, those who hire H1-Bs don't even have to touch things to turn them to gold.
The report makes no mention of what types of additional job positions were created, and never makes a correlation between new positions created and the requesting of an H-1B.
The report also makes no attempt to explain why the same number of jobs could not be created by hiring an American instead of an H1-B.
To the best of my understanding, the methodology used by the NFAP works something like this: company A requests two H1-B workers in 2001, by 2007 company A has hired ten additional workers. From this, the NFAP concludes that hiring H1-Bs is hugely beneficial to US technology workers.
There is no mention of who funded the report. There is also no mention of who funds the NFAP. The NFAP is one of several think-tanks that always seems to have a special report handy, just in time to support whatever position Microsoft is taking at the moment. It is well known that Microsoft funds several think tanks, including the American Enterprise Institute, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, and the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_de_Tocqueville_Institution
Regardless of the report's credibility, data from this report has been cited in respected publications, such as The Economist, and Bill Gates even cited data from this report in his testimony before the US congress.
http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11016270
