When those strategic core competence are carried by those with no long-term attachment (emotional investment) to the company, the company no longer has a future. [and more good stuff]
I agree with everything you have written.
Many of the H1 and Green Card holders we employed ended up becoming full-time residents, with families. Some later started their own companies, and hired locals as well as other non-locals. If we provide a good environment for success then good people tend to stick around. I hope we don't destroy that good environment.
Yes,I did that,took the opportunity to get out of Australia, came to USA on L1B visa (specialist intra-company).
Later started the business, became citizen.
In my experience, conditions were much more favorable in USA compared to Australia for engineers and business owners.
Don't know if that will always be the case, however I think engineering was in decline in Australia particularly since the automotive industry failed back in 1990s.
Post WW2 Australia had electronics, agri-machinery, automotive manufacturing industries, steel and paper etc, but they mostly declined except for mining.
re: "...Many of the H1 and Green Card holders we employed ended up becoming full-time residents..."This is true but there is another aspect. If you look at overall stats, it is many but low in overall H1 percentage. More failed to convert than those who did. This is of course administration dependent. From what I have read, currently just about anyone and their brother gets converted resulting in many who may not become productive citizen of their new homeland.
re: "...Some later started their own companies, and hired locals as well as other non-locals. If we provide a good environment for success then good people tend to stick around. I hope we don't destroy that good environment. ..."Yeah, I have seen plenty of examples of that.
I am supportive of providing that opportunity as well as good environment. It is the
pure price-driven hiring resulting in clogging up the lower rungs of the ladder that I object to. It also hurt the immigrants: once they become a green card holder, they are no longer captive by the paper filing firm, they can look for a new job that pays normally. Upon doing that, they are no longer price-competitive with those in the earlier phases of paper-work.
re: "...Later started the business, became citizen.
In my experience, conditions were much more favorable in USA compared to Australia for engineers and business owners. ..."I am also very supportive of that! In fact, for business starting there is also the "
investment visas" to look at. If you have the funding, you can apply come to the USA to start a business with a different visa other than H1B. There is minimum investment one must start with (low 6 figures if I recall correctly), and one must hire two locals within the first year (or months). Bare in mind, in general (not just visa created companies), only one in five new business survives more than a year.
When I was in college, I needed to work for college money. One of my two jobs was from a fellow who used the investment visa years ago (he was established and became citizen years ago before he hired me). Folks who came for the opportunities (instead of for hand-outs) tends to thankful of the opportunity and utilize it well. Many of them became great contributors and valuable citizens. To this day, I am still thankful of that fellow for giving me my second job - as I had two jobs while at college, he was very flexible with my hours. Without his understanding and generosity, I probably would have had a much harder time getting enough $ to finish college.
[...] good grads, and reasonably bright grads (judging from their questions), but can't get on the first step of the ladder.
This is a sad observation, and no doubt true.
...
But if this is the direction we are heading, what can we do about it? This is not a rhetorical question -- how can a someone who wants to be an engineer attain a satisfying career? How can a current engineer avoid being left behind on the scrap heap?
...
(bold added)
Yeah, so sadly true. Of all my former staff (dozens, at multiple firms), I don't know of one who has not been laid off at least once after training their lower priced replacement. One guy I picked for hire at a job fair (and became his mentor upon his hiring). He resigned a couple of years later for a better job, only to be laid-off at the two subsequent jobs. I was at a different firm by then and I hired him to join me... There we were both hit. We trained our replacement and off we went.
What we can do about it is simple, getting it done is hard. It is price - a numbers game, so we fix it with numbers.
Imagine if say a company hires an H1 "because they need the skill" - well hire a foreigner if you must, but the employer must pay a "skill training tax "to ensure that particular skill will be available locally in the future. Whatever the
total compensation to the H1 hire (total means include all perks such as medical insurance, etc., etc.), an additional 30% tax will be paid by
employer. This revenue will be use to create a scholarship at a near-by university for students who
major in (and/or) studies in exactly what that job requirement is.
So companies that truly need that skill can hire a foreign immediately, while also help fund an increase of local supplied of that skill. Companies that merely seek lower price, well, that 30% tax will fix the problem. If not, make that 50% or whatever number works.
Knowing what can fix the problem is one thing, getting the politician to get it done would be quite another.