Engineering Immigration Isn't Working?

[Someone]

Define "qualified"? Australia has a lot of state level qualifications and certifications that even the most experienced migrant engineers must attain.

Pretty much only for civil and building/construction engineering branches, the rest are outside any certification.

[Rick Law]

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.

[fourfathom]

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.

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]

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

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/ 

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.

Way to go, Texas!

[rstofer]

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.

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'.

[armandine2]

a couple of fairly obvious thoughts:

It is a huge own goal for a country to prevent highly able overseas professionals in shortage occupations to apply for their job's vacancies.

Another own goal, is/was the failure of the business community to progress (get) wannabe professionals of their own country to start their professional careers in occupations where they had significant aptitude/qualifications.

[Rick Law]

but the U.S. has five engineers on one visa.

There are too many ways to cheat these days.

Even if we accept the idea that there is not enough local qualified engineer, H1B is not the solution.  It merely covers the symptom and does solve the issue -- it does not create more local engineers.  If it is a temporary burst, I can see that.  But to use H1B'ers for decades, that doesn't solve the problem.  It increases the problem by reducing opportunities for local engineers.

If the reason for hiring H1B'er is cost to to employer, and I believe it is.  My opinion therefore is "cost is the fix."  An H1B tax/fee for employer (not employee) may solve the problem: 60% to 100% of total compensation including benefits.  The money will be use domestically for scholarships for the fields where H1B is hired.  Starts at 60%, each year, it goes up 20% till it reach 100%.  In the USA, 50% is common for overtime pay, so at 60% H1B'er tax/fee, even asking current staff to work overtime would be less costly to the employer.  Employer can have as many H1B'ers as they need, it just costs them more than hiring locals.  This solution should actually be familiar to people in the film industry today.  In some countries, union rules makes bringing in a foreign camera operator and other support staff way more costly than hiring locals.

With the H1B tax/fee going into scholarship funds for domestic students, the more the need, the more the scholarship funds.  Presumably, more domestic student would go into those fields if scholarship funding is more available.  So that will solve or reduce the availability problem as well.

For someone who is truly a catch, people like Schrödinger, Einstein, Christiaan Barnard... Many institutions would be happy to taking them paying 2x their salary just to get them on their staff.  For someone who is a average C coder, 100% employer tax will stop it stone cold.

I pick the name "Christiaan Barnard" for a reason.  He was the first to do a heart transplant (Cape Town, Dec 3, 1967).  A friend of mine who works as an immigration lawyer once told me, H1 visa was designed to with people like Christiaan Barnard in mind.  Not sure if my friend (RIP) was just picking a name or he knows for sure, but each time I trained an H1B'er, be it my replacement or replacement for someone on my staff.  I am fairly confident this H1B'er is no Christiaan Barnard.

[tooki]

I suspect BS also.  In the USA, employers are always saying "too many job opening, not enough applicants..." yet new local college graduates in the exact same field couldn't get a job.   With whatever "push" industries use to drive the politicians, the gate opens wider and wider.  That had gone on for years.

The problem is, as I see it, the way that many companies have deflated the experience levels so they can pay less. That is, they categorize as “entry level” a job whose requirements are in no way entry-level. (IMHO, 3-5 years experience and a master’s diploma is in no way “entry level”.) This creates a gulf between true job entrants and the jobs themselves. The companies that do try to bridge the gap do so with unpaid internships, which many people simply cannot afford to do.

IMHO this is all just companies shirking their responsibility to create the experienced workers they actually need.

In much of Europe, one way this problem is solved by formalized apprenticeship systems. But this requires buy-in from industry, in that they recognize their responsibility in creating their “new blood”. They accept that this costs money, but benefits their industry in the long run. The flip side is that they get to “mold” the apprentices a bit, in that they’re gaining experience in what that company does.

(I have experience with both approaches: I have a university education from a very good university in USA, and did an apprenticeship in Switzerland.)


And let’s not forget another problem with employers and their inability to find applicants: brain-dead HR staff and software. HR people who don’t properly understand the jobs they’re processing applicants for use software to manage incoming applications, using keyword filtering to eliminate “unqualified” applicants who, in actuality, would be excellent candidates if given the chance. That and truly stupid crap like wanting “experienced” programmers for a specific technology, and then define “experienced” as some minimum number of years —on a technology or product that hasn’t existed that long. (I recently read about this happening to someone, rejected for not having sufficient experience with some open source program. A program he wrote.  )

[temperance]

Maybe Faringdon can move to Australia. Some immediate advantages:

-The weather is better.
-Beaches filled with cute ladies in red swimming costumes with window cleaning lips. That's if you're into that or happen to have a fish tank.
-You don't have to sip tea all day long to blend in. No more waiting in front of the bathroom where most difficult engineering discussions take place.
-Border control is very stringent so no more CE SMPS to look after. Fake components are non existent. If it blows up, take mirror and talk to yourself because it must be your own fault.
-If you're tired of fixing the SMPS's you can mine some gold. It is so abundant you only need a shovel and a strong accent.

At least, that's what they show us on TV in Europe.

EDit: I forgot to mention that all those engineers, doctors, dentists and shoe sole repairers went to the EU. But we don't need doctors, engineers,...

[CatalinaWOW]

but the U.S. has five engineers on one visa.

There are too many ways to cheat these days.

Even if we accept the idea that there is not enough local qualified engineer, H1B is not the solution.  It merely covers the symptom and does solve the issue -- it does not create more local engineers.  If it is a temporary burst, I can see that.  But to use H1B'ers for decades, that doesn't solve the problem.  It increases the problem by reducing opportunities for local engineers.

If the reason for hiring H1B'er is cost to to employer, and I believe it is.  My opinion therefore is "cost is the fix."  An H1B tax/fee for employer (not employee) may solve the problem: 60% to 100% of total compensation including benefits.  The money will be use domestically for scholarships for the fields where H1B is hired.  Starts at 60%, each year, it goes up 20% till it reach 100%.  In the USA, 50% is common for overtime pay, so at 60% H1B'er tax/fee, even asking current staff to work overtime would be less costly to the employer.  Employer can have as many H1B'ers as they need, it just costs them more than hiring locals.  This solution should actually be familiar to people in the film industry today.  In some countries, union rules makes bringing in a foreign camera operator and other support staff way more costly than hiring locals.

With the H1B tax/fee going into scholarship funds for domestic students, the more the need, the more the scholarship funds.  Presumably, more domestic student would go into those fields if scholarship funding is more available.  So that will solve or reduce the availability problem as well.

For someone who is truly a catch, people like Schrödinger, Einstein, Christiaan Barnard... Many institutions would be happy to taking them paying 2x their salary just to get them on their staff.  For someone who is a average C coder, 100% employer tax will stop it stone cold.

I pick the name "Christiaan Barnard" for a reason.  He was the first to do a heart transplant (Cape Town, Dec 3, 1967).  A friend of mine who works as an immigration lawyer once told me, H1 visa was designed to with people like Christiaan Barnard in mind.  Not sure if my friend (RIP) was just picking a name or he knows for sure, but each time I trained an H1B'er, be it my replacement or replacement for someone on my staff.  I am fairly confident this H1B'er is no Christiaan Barnard.

The overall idea makes sense.  But it you believe that the way the system works now has limited the supply of domestic engineers, which is at least partly true in my opinion your solution will cause two things - a painful transition and export of jobs.   

Maybe modify it with a graduated kick in, roughly equal to the pipeline delay for domestic talent.   Roughly four to five years.  Start the tax at 15% and grow 15% each year until it reaches your starting point and go  from there.

[CatalinaWOW]

If you want to get talent from another country to immigrate, don't set up a special category (H1B) that doesn't allow immigration and doesn't recognize the social ties that these talented people may have.  Give real, permanent resident status to the gifted resource and spouse and children and presumably the potential of citizenship.  In many cases this talent is a cluster (doesn't matter whether it is genetics or social) so expanding to other near relatives would be a win for the accepting country.

Of course expecting immigration officials to recognize such desirable talents is kind of like asking HR to supply superior talents.  It is theoretically possible, but the reality often falls very short of the theory.

[Rick Law]

If you want to get talent from another country to immigrate, don't set up a special category (H1B) that doesn't allow immigration and doesn't recognize the social ties that these talented people may have.  Give real, permanent resident status to the gifted resource and spouse and children and presumably the potential of citizenship.  In many cases this talent is a cluster (doesn't matter whether it is genetics or social) so expanding to other near relatives would be a win for the accepting country.

Of course expecting immigration officials to recognize such desirable talents is kind of like asking HR to supply superior talents.  It is theoretically possible, but the reality often falls very short of the theory.

Immigration official are not the ones who creates immigration laws, nor do they judge the worth of the applicant's knowledge.  Existing H1B laws of today merely requires that they advertised the job (for a certain duration if enforced) and could not find qualified US citizen (or non citizen already with work permission) for the job.  But -- job requirements can be so readily worded/created that only one person can ever fulfill.  So current requirement (if it is even enforced) at best merely slow down process a bit but cannot stop employers merely looking for a cheap hire.

Even if Congress creates a law to put an employer tax on H1B, congress did not judge the worth of the H1B'er.  The employer did the "worth judging" by offering the H1B a job of $X compensation.  The tax or fee(if done as I suggested) would just be a fixed percentage of that value $X as determined by the employer.

Importing exceptional talent is beneficial to the receiving country.  Importing unexceptional talent for lower cost merely hollows out the industry and turn it into an industry of cheap, unimaginative, and low quality product creator.  It is damaging to the receiving country.  If the employer is not willing to pay extra, it is an indication that the talent isn't worth the extra.

If tech industries continue to use CPA (cheapest price available) methods of purchasing and recruiting, we will just be another creator of junk products.  From all the indicators I can observe, we (the USA) are well on the decline.  I am fearful Idiocracy is already in the making.

[shabaz]

Talent will leave and take skills with them if they notice unwelcome rules/atmosphere to others.

No matter how much they want to mix, people will often only want to settle down in an area where there may be at least one or two others from their own background, within a mile radius or whatever.

Repeat that many times, and natural clusters will form, just due to geography and math. Same reason communities of expats naturally form in all countries. Therefore it's an uphill fight against nature if immigration rules are so stringent that only talented are accepted.

In any case, untalented people present in a country (local or immigrant) are happy to work, too - this is why it's normal to see immigrants working (if they can; some are legally forbidden to work) just as much as locals, no matter how low-paid the jobs are, and having to house-share with half a dozen others because rents are so high.

Another example of the disconnect between typical laws and human nature: when things are very unfair to those untalented but trying to get on, it's human nature to always support the underdog (local or immigrant) so that no-one suffers. It's what people do, they stick up for those less capable than themselves, and if financial support is needed then so what. It should be a sign of pride to see people being supported while they visit job/recruitment advisers etc., or free (to the student at the time so that it's one less thing to stress about) higher education. Same with medical aid, should always be free, but different country governments "think different". The laws should be devised to reflect reality (because life is unfair to some, we can't all be permanently healthy, some of us will not be as talented as others), but of course it doesn't, since laws are people-made. "If all men were angels there would be no need for laws" (horribly misquoted, but still there's a lot to think about in that quote which is timeless and could also be applied to doing right with regards to dealing with people).

It's not as if it is significant enough to even be considered by an individual to be their tax money paying for it, since it's just pennies/cents per person. There's so much government waste, plus individuals waste more on half uneaten lunches etc., which is fine, it's their lunch, but clearly two-faced if those same individuals then turn around and complain that their salaries are being depressed or their tax-money is being wasted.

Despite living in a Western country, I've worked for about 10 years for overseas managers, with a completely remote team and occasional visits since firms are so global nowadays. Organizations will always find ways of hiring the people they want, whether that takes lawyers to build their case for bringing in an immigrant, or simply outsource or have remote offices.

[Rick Law]

...
If the reason for hiring H1B'er is cost to to employer, and I believe it is.  My opinion therefore is "cost is the fix."  An H1B tax/fee for employer (not employee) may solve the problem: 60% to 100% of total compensation including benefits.  The money will be use domestically for scholarships for the fields where H1B is hired.  Starts at 60%, each year, it goes up 20% till it reach 100%.
...

The overall idea makes sense.  But it you believe that the way the system works now has limited the supply of domestic engineers, which is at least partly true in my opinion your solution will cause two things - a painful transition and export of jobs.   

Maybe modify it with a graduated kick in, roughly equal to the pipeline delay for domestic talent.   Roughly four to five years.  Start the tax at 15% and grow 15% each year until it reaches your starting point and go  from there.

I think that would work too (starts at 15%...) but less effective. 15% is easily fudged -- I like to see something that make the employer re-think it immediately.  May be 30%.  It gotta hurt.

One thing very damaging is the the H1B's filling up the spaces in the first few rungs of the ladder.  Not being able to get on the ladder really damages the new graduate the entire career.  College kids are not competitive upon graduation.  They should have the first shot within their own country -- a place where they, and their parents have been funding by taxation presumably for years already.

If the tax/fee rule is implemented, I would readily accept un-capped H1B, and after say 7 or 10 years with the same employer, they can seek a conversion to permanent resident status.   After all, employer shown they are really to pay this guy 2x the amount for years already.  Yeah, there will be those who hired their brain-dead brother-in-law and pay the fee just to get the brother-in-law a green card.  Additional refinements to the rules will be necessary to catch as many of those abusers as possible.

[Rick Law]

...
In any case, untalented people present in a country (local or immigrant) are happy to work, too - this is why it's normal to see immigrants working (if they can; some are legally forbidden to work) just as much as locals, no matter how low-paid the jobs are, and having to house-share with half a dozen others because rents are so high.
...

I admit, it is a lost-lost situation.

Mathematics dictates that if current average is 100, and you add more that is below 100, the average will go down.  So if we import "the untalented people happy to work" as you put it, we become less talented on average.  So it is a lost.

On the other hand, if we only import those more talented, we become on average more talented.  But we are taking the talented away from their home land where their talent may be missed.  The so called "brain drain."  So it is lost too.

I am comfortable with a freeze.  You (generic "you", not personal "you") keep your talent, and we keep ours.  We (the whole world) should share knowledge and thus each gain talent in our own pace and in our own place.

[shabaz]

What about talented locals who want to work elsewhere in order to sell globally to turn a bit more profit?

When they take their untalented families along with them, the average might have a chance of getting back up to 100, or perhaps increasing further. Unfortunately, that would be asking other countries to accept what you're unwilling to do, which, unfortunately, they would consider to be hypocritical.

Mathematics dictates that if current average is 100, and you add more that is below 100, the average will go down.  So if we import "the untalented people happy to work" as you put it, we become less talented on average.  So it is a lost.

EDIT: Also, there's a false equivalency you've sneaked in there. Adding talent, and 'untalented' people isn't a 'loss'. Those 'untalented' can still work, study, and contribute. Not everyone needs to be exceptionally talented like the person you mentioned earlier, to contribute to society.

[CatalinaWOW]

If you want to get talent from another country to immigrate, don't set up a special category (H1B) that doesn't allow immigration and doesn't recognize the social ties that these talented people may have.  Give real, permanent resident status to the gifted resource and spouse and children and presumably the potential of citizenship.  In many cases this talent is a cluster (doesn't matter whether it is genetics or social) so expanding to other near relatives would be a win for the accepting country.

Of course expecting immigration officials to recognize such desirable talents is kind of like asking HR to supply superior talents.  It is theoretically possible, but the reality often falls very short of the theory.

Immigration official are not the ones who creates immigration laws, nor do they judge the worth of the applicant's knowledge.  Existing H1B laws of today merely requires that they advertised the job (for a certain duration if enforced) and could not find qualified US citizen (or non citizen already with work permission) for the job.  But -- job requirements can be so readily worded/created that only one person can ever fulfill.  So current requirement (if it is even enforced) at best merely slow down process a bit but cannot stop employers merely looking for a cheap hire.

Even if Congress creates a law to put an employer tax on H1B, congress did not judge the worth of the H1B'er.  The employer did the "worth judging" by offering the H1B a job of $X compensation.  The tax or fee(if done as I suggested) would just be a fixed percentage of that value $X as determined by the employer.

Importing exceptional talent is beneficial to the receiving country.  Importing unexceptional talent for lower cost merely hollows out the industry and turn it into an industry of cheap, unimaginative, and low quality product creator.  It is damaging to the receiving country.  If the employer is not willing to pay extra, it is an indication that the talent isn't worth the extra.

If tech industries continue to use CPA (cheapest price available) methods of purchasing and recruiting, we will just be another creator of junk products.  From all the indicators I can observe, we (the USA) are well on the decline.  I am fearful Idiocracy is already in the making.

Apparently I did not express myself clearly.  Nothing I said was intended to be contradictory to your reply.  I support immigration by exceptional talent.  But will stand by my comment that we seem very incapable of judging that, whether through corporate or government organizations

[Rick Law]

...
...
Apparently I did not express myself clearly.  Nothing I said was intended to be contradictory to your reply.  I support immigration by exceptional talent.  But will stand by my comment that we seem very incapable of judging that, whether through corporate or government organizations

My lack of writing skill actually.  Mea Culpa.  Apology included.

I understood your points and I got the agreement.  The only difference you proposed was the starting point 15% vs 60%.

I was using that reply to also address the other points I have read here on this thread, but failed to adequately express well enough to distinct that from other replies verses those your writing...  Writing isn't one of my talents, I suppose.