General > General Technical Chat

Engineering Immigration Isn't Working?

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Someone:

--- Quote from: AndyBeez on September 10, 2022, 10:26:24 pm ---Define "qualified"? Australia has a lot of state level qualifications and certifications that even the most experienced migrant engineers must attain.
--- End quote ---
Pretty much only for civil and building/construction engineering branches, the rest are outside any certification.

Rick Law:

--- Quote from: mag_therm on September 10, 2022, 09:01:17 pm ---
--- Quote from: fourfathom on September 10, 2022, 08:36:53 pm ---
--- Quote from: Rick Law on September 10, 2022, 06:40:08 pm ---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]
--- End quote ---

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.

--- End quote ---
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.

--- End quote ---

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.


--- Quote from: fourfathom on September 10, 2022, 09:05:34 pm ---
--- Quote from: Rick Law on September 10, 2022, 07:11:44 pm ---[...] good grads, and reasonably bright grads (judging from their questions), but can't get on the first step of the ladder.
--- End quote ---

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?
...

--- End quote ---
(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.

fourfathom:

--- Quote from: Rick Law on September 11, 2022, 06:48:37 pm ---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.
--- End quote ---

This is effectively an import tariff on foreign engineers, or a minimum wage of sorts.  This kind of trade barrier might work to increase the pool of qualified "local" engineers and level the playing field, but I'm not completely comfortable with it.

We seem to be struggling with two different problems:  Are we hiring foreign engineers because there are too few qualified and technically competitive locals?  If so, the tariff-funded education may improve the situation.

But if good experienced engineers are being set aside because cheaper engineers can be imported then this is different dynamic.  If we already have an excess of good locals, then why would we want to add to the pool by training even more? (Of course we always need to train young engineers to keep the pipeline filled as old ones retire.)

This is much like the low-end construction, ditch-digger-type and farm jobs here in California.  Immigrants (mostly illegal from Mexico) congregate at the local gas station, waiting for contractors to pick them up for day jobs.  They work for low under-the-table wages.  The "locals" mostly refuse those jobs, even at a higher wage.  Have engineers become the grape-pickers?

I think it's difficult to make generalizations, because engineering is a broad field with some areas requiring higher skills than others.  And most of the imported engineers are themselves highly skilled.  We can keep them out with trade barriers, but is this the best solution?

As for training more engineers, how many and what kind do we really need?  I wouldn't want to see us, in the name of "diversity", training people who actually don't want to do engineering.

This is something that the trade unions deal with, and in my outside experience (never been in a union) I don't look forward to engineering unionization.

So I actually don't know what we can do.  I doubt there is a perfect solution, but perhaps incremental improvements are worthwhile.

rstofer:

--- Quote from: fourfathom on September 11, 2022, 08:30:52 pm ---So I actually don't know what we can do.  I doubt there is a perfect solution, but perhaps incremental improvements are worthwhile.

--- End quote ---

For a start, improve public education such that more than 26% of high school graduates are competent in math.  That's a real number from my local school district in their annual assessment, state mandated.

Then work on getting college and university tuition back to some kind of affordable.  The costs are insane!  It's true that California State Colleges are substantially cheaper than California State Universities but still pricey.

Finally, the Board of Regents needs to understand that they don't own the universities, the taxpayers do.  The parents of the kids who don't get to attend because, well, foreign students pay more.  There shouldn't be a single foreign student in any taxpayer funded college/university until EVERY in-state candidate has been accomodated.

We improve K-12 education, reduce tuition and educate our own. 

Can you remember a time when employers paid for grad school?  I do!

Every state should have a Hazelwood Act like Texas.  https://www.tvc.texas.gov/education/hazlewood/ 


--- Quote ---The Hazlewood Act is a State of Texas benefit that provides qualified Veterans, spouses, and dependent children with an education benefit of up to 150 hours of tuition exemption, including most fee charges, at public institutions of higher education in Texas. This does NOT include living expenses, books, or supply fees.

--- End quote ---

Way to go, Texas!

rstofer:

--- Quote from: fourfathom on September 11, 2022, 08:30:52 pm ---As for training more engineers, how many and what kind do we really need?  I wouldn't want to see us, in the name of "diversity", training people who actually don't want to do engineering.

This is something that the trade unions deal with, and in my outside experience (never been in a union) I don't look forward to engineering unionization.

--- End quote ---

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Professional_Engineering_Employees_in_Aerospace

There are professional employee unions, primarily in aerospace.  I don't know how it works out.  I did belong to a trade union while I worked my way through college.  Working as an industrial electrician in an aerospace plant was probably the 'best' job I ever had for some definitions of 'best'.

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