On the other hand: does the glut of tech workers drive down wages? If you strictly look at it from a supply/demand angle, one could argue that if these companies wanted more techies, they could just pay more. Being able to increase supply at will (i.e. import techies) will naturally drive down prices (i.e. wages).
The same argument is made about illegal immigration: these immigrants fill low-end jobs that don't pay well; but their availability ensures that these jobs will never pay well.
Please don't get me wrong: I'm not opposed to immigration or this bill.I'm just asking about the impact; I'm not taking sides, so no flames please.
You raise an interesting concept, but as US-born software engineer, this is why I'm not too concerned:
- Unlike low-skill manufacturing jobs, most technology jobs are not commodity work. To put it another way: if the US gave out visas to 55,000 people who got an acting degree, I doubt Brad Pitt would have to take a paycut on his next movie.
- A lot of the companies sponsoring this bill are software companies, but STEM isn't just software engineering. The applicants here are in a wide variety of fields. How many of them will specifically get a computer science degree with the explicit goal of getting a job at Google? Some, sure, but not all 55,000. They'll go into other fields and other industries and I don't think the total volume of talent in each particular STEM industry will be enough to significantly impact wages.
- Whatever these people were going to do in the US in terms of entrepreneurship, if they can't get a visa they'll just go back to their home country and do it there. So it's just as possible they'd start their own companies and need to hire software engineers, which would actually have upward pressure on wages.
I can't imagine why US engineers would support a bill like this from a benefit analysis perspective. It should be obvious that if you add engineers, prices will go down. I can completely understand supporting it for moral reasons however.
1) It's not a whole lot different than H1-B and those haven't led to wage collapse.
2) Engineers who come into the US tend to start an insignificant number of new businesses, which, in turn, employ other engineers.
3) Countries that severely limit work visas have not turned into meccas of software development.
4) Companies will only increase pay up to a certain ceiling. At some point either the product economics don't make sense, or finding a dedicated development team in Romania/Poland/Ukraine is worth it even with communication overhead.
I like working with colleagues from other countries. (I'm also marrying one.) I'd rather the best of the world do their great work inside of the US rather than outside.
> It should be obvious that if you add engineers, prices will go down.
STEM is not a zero sum game. Adding personnel does not simply cut the pie into more pieces, it grows the pie. It's OK to get fewer dollars if those dollars can buy a self-driving car or a cure for Alzheimer's disease.
The same argument is made about illegal immigration: these immigrants fill low-end jobs that don't pay well; but their availability ensures that these jobs will never pay well.
Please don't get me wrong: I'm not opposed to immigration or this bill.I'm just asking about the impact; I'm not taking sides, so no flames please.