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.
- 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.