April 28, 2007
More debate about the H1B
Here is an informative debate about the H1B visa program on NPR. Bill Gates and other high-tech industry executives are urging Congress to increase the number of technology workers allowed into the United States. The argument here, of course, is that America can't compete without importing more tech workers. According this view, it simply isn't possible to hire Americans who can maintain computer networks, write software, and perform similar complicated tasks.
The other side of this debate was summed up in a recent column in Information Week:
"If you believe the industry, it's because they can't find enough domestic IT pros to fill their needs. If you believe groups like the Programmers Guild, it's because they want to replace expensive American workers with lower-paid foreigners." ---InformationWeek
As you will find out in the aforementioned NPR segment, most H1B technology workers are paid less than $50,000. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate of American high-tech workers is higher than that of professionals in comparable fields. These statistics lend credibility to the argument that companies like IBM and Microsoft are engaging in wage arbitrage---scouring the globe for the cheapest possible labor.
In other words, Bill Gates could hire more programmers and software engineers in the United States if he wanted to. But he would rather hire at the prevailing wages of Bangalore or Beijing than at the salary levels required by Americans.
Whether or not wage arbitrage is necessary in order to maintain industry competitiveness is a separate debate. But high-tech execs are being disingenuous when they portray the issue as a "shortage." Why don't they just say that want to hire on the cheap? Then we could at least respect them.