CoryAmber's comments

Your direct quote of what I said is wrong, that is but a clause in a complete sentence. The actual sentence does allow that a small percentage of H1-Bs are being used as intended by the program, but bulk of H1-Bs are not and the H1-B program suffers from rampant abuse and is being used to replace US Workers.

I have asked several times in the overall discussion for anyone to provide any link to any data of any kind which even indicates to any degree that there is a massive shortage of qualified candidates. I have yet to see one.

Given that there is no shortage of STEM qualified people then ipso facto there is no shortage of qualified candidates.

Do you have any evidence at all that you can provide indicative that their is a massive shortage in qualified candidates? Links Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, showing 100's if not 1,000s of positions going begging with no qualified candidates, or HR studies, any published studies, Dept of Labour or Commerce published statistics ... any shred of evidence at all that you can provide a link to?

Get familiar with them first.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/us/lawsuit-claims-disney-c... http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-edison-layoffs-2015021...

Nobody suggested that the probability of at least one of these people getting a decent job down the road is zero.

A huge percentage of them in their 40s, 50s will not get anything even close. Please take some time to become familiar with ageism in the IT industry to understand why this is the case.

What is it that you don't buy? Exactly.

That they didn't really lose their jobs? That they were not really replaced that by the temporary immigrants on H1-B visas that they trained? That most of them didn't find better paying jobs within the week after being laid off? That many of these families will not suffer a huge drop in living standard?

Given as fact that H1-Bs are dominated by the 3 or 4 large outsourcing body shops from India (Tata, TCS, Cognizant, et al) which simply flood the system with tons of names into a glorified lottery, I don't see how the charade that they are all the handpicked highest of the high, unique and rare technical specialist all, can be believed.

Sure there may very well be some Optical Physics Software specialist brought in by MagicLeap on an H1-B or some AI wunderkind by Google or Facebook. Far and away the H1-Bs stockpiled by the outsourcing body shops are bread and butter general skilled folk capable of filling basic roles, Linux admins, Oracle DBAs, Java Webdevs, HTML/CSS/JS, IBM MQ admins, backup operators, IT support staff and what have you. Most of it is coding camp stuff, or basic training on particular appliances that could be done in a few weeks. The diversity in IT camp should be going crazy that these sort of basic entry level opportunities are not being offered to folks that really really need it. C'mon Jesse Jackson get a clue here.

There are many, many, many Disney situations happening everywhere. e.g. Google "Southern California Edison outsource". In S. Fla an ex-fortune 500 corp outsourced many IT positions with same "train your replacement approach" and replaced with H1-Bs and they are not alone. It is rampant in the industry. You don't hear about many of these cases because of non-disparagement clauses in the layoff packages. Amazingly Disney's lawyers (should have outsourced the Corporate Lawyer Department to TCS there Big Mouse) neglected to add this standard clause to muzzle the displaced (fired) employees.

A huge proportion if H1-Bs are used to directly display existent IT workers. Period. Far more the rule than the exception.

Your assumption is not necessarily true.

> A single job posting can remain active indefinitely and does not necessarily represent just one open position.

I have asked about this already, several times in several postings. At this point, I'll take but one concrete example. Could you post one link, a single link, of one of these (from I assume a huge population) endless job postings from say Google, Facebook, Apple, HP, IBM, ... well from anyone, which represents a huge quantity of unfillable positions with near zero qualified applicants? I am curious for just one example. One.

Of course CEOs and VCs want engineers at the cheapest rates possible to increase their bottom line. Yes, indeed they have both monetary incentive and the means to exercise the political influence towards that goal. I don't see how that provides any proof or even marginal evidence that there is a massive STEM shortage.

If these CEOs and VCs have the data I have never seen it shared. Not one smidgen of detailed HR data.

Again, the original referenced article does offer up evidence of its premise and cites several studies, a PBS documentary, statistics, etc.

I understand you believe there is a massive shortage of STEM people unable to fill countless blackholes of open positions. Maybe this is just too big an ask, can you provide any evidence, at all? A link to a peer reviewed study from academia? Or maybe a link to detailed testimony from Apple's or Microsoft's CEO on capital hill. Any definitive numbers?? Anything at all?

The disconnect is in attributing second order effects as completely dominating the first order effects. In the thought experiment where poof the H1-Bs never happened and poof were filled by qualified US citizens, totally different conclusions.

The first order effect difference: I claim effectively all of those positions could and would be filled. The "this is egregiously wrong" position claims that effectively none of those well paid jobs would be filled. I know why people will proactively seek a well paying job. I am not able to follow the position that no one will bother to seek those positions at all. Seems at odds with basic human motives to me.

With regard to the alluded second order effects, multiplier effects.

Consider the Disney situation where "about 250 Disney employees were told in late October that they would be laid off. Many of their jobs were transferred to immigrants on temporary visas for highly skilled technical workers, who were brought in by an outsourcing firm based in India."[1]

Sure the local Indian restaurant will prosper. But that is 250 households whose kids can longer afford to go to college. 250 home purchases vs 250 apartment rentals (folks on 2-3 yr visa rent not buy in general). So on and so forth.

On the surface, to me, 250 middle class families with well paying IT positions spins off far more positive effects than what we have now which is 250 US families with significant if not total household income loss, on unemployment etc. In no way is this compensated by having 250, lower paid, immigrants on temporary H1-B visas (again NYTimes phrasing). I see a net-net huge loss, others seem to see a net-net huge win.

[1] Quoted from NYTimes.

The guest columnist presenting the case that the STEM shortage is a myth is:

Mark Thies is a Professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Clemson. His research areas include advanced materials, biofuels, and renewable biopolymers.

I didn't read his article as "complaining" and that is a very high bar distinguishing low and high quality engineers you have if he fails to clear it. I thought it substantive citing supporting data and studies for his premise.

What citizenry anywhere would say, "You, you over there. Disney programmer. Sorry, gotta put you, the wife and the kids on food stamps. Mortgage? Yea, well just leave keys on the kitchen table. Bank will take care of it. Oh, that goes for the rest of you as well. Yea, the whole department."

What citizenry anywhere would not prioritize their fellow citizens to a decent job, wage and life?

To answer your question, yea, yea they do.

Egregiously wrong can be back of the envelope quantified here.

Image the following thought experiment. Assume that tomorrow morning every H1-B worker poof vanished. Then, on the assumption of egregiously wrong, zero of those positions in this hypothetical world could or would be filled by a single individual of the 204 million working population of US. If egregiously wrong then 60K to 85K good well paying middle class salaried positions would sit begging, unfulfilled and unfillable.

If egregiously correct, than most of those positions would be filled. Care to quantify your belief of "egregious wrongness" by stating how many of those positions you in fact believe can not and will not get filled?

> All STEM graduates are not automatically qualified for all open positions.

What does this tautology offer to the topic? Common sense obvious true, not every STEM graduate is universally qualified for every open position. So ... ???

> And even then, STEM graduates are not automatically going to move to any random place in the US just because there is an open position there.

Again, common sense true. So ... ???

> Lastly, if an employer has an open position, they are not going to wait indefinitely for a candidate to show up.

OK, true. So ... ??? Is your assumption then that they would have to wait indefinitely and that no candidate would ever show up? cited evidence of this is appreciated. Links to studies, large amounts of unfulfillable postings are welcomed.

> Furthermore, because of the additional legal costs involved in hiring H1-B candidates, they can be more expensive than a local citizen.

So ...?

Nothing stated above bears any light to the argument (flawed or otherwise), it's just a sequence of common sense things that one can say about a labour market.

This topic's referenced article is specific in its position in claiming there is no shortage of STEM qualified applicants and presents cited statistics and studies. If you have counter data and studies, please present their facts and cite links.

The referenced article presents a case that there is no STEM worker shortage and supports it with referenced statistics and studies. You may dispute his data, but he did provide it. Stating a position on the assumption that there is a serious problem with excessive or high wages, i.e. overpaid workers which requires immediate fixing is an odd leap.

What workers are demanding more that the market rate? There is a market rate with a 1/4 million H1-Bs and there is a market rate without a 1/4 million H1-Bs. Any worker which demands more than the market rate will not get it.

And what is the expense of everyone else referring too? It is substantially a zero sum game. Who are the else?

You have changed the topic of discussion. I have not claimed some difference from other people or offered an opinion on deservedness, entitlement or anything. I just stated that (modulo special cases, point exceptions) that the bulk of H1-Bs occupy a position that could and would be filled by a US citizen.

Please, read the article under discussion which contains a link to the Center Of Immigration studies. The article under discussion does provide evidence. You may not agree with it, or question its strength, but really hard to deny the article, the statistics it provides and the studies it references provide no evidence.

If the facts quoted in the study do not suffice, let us try a dialogue of rational reasoning. Assuming H1-Bs do occupy job positions, i.e. are employed. Then either the job is only opened if and only if there are H1-Bs around, which doesn't make sense, or not a single qualified US citizen can fill the job. Give the working age population of the US is 204 million[1] this also seems highly unlikely.

[1]https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LFWA64TTUSM647S

One hears that espoused quite frequently.

Assuming there is "a big shortage in 'high quality' engineers" can anyone provide links to any AWS, Google, Apple, Facebook, SpaceX, position postings which typifies this big shortage? e.g. Postings which are an exemplar, of requiring 'high quality engineers' but remain open for weeks or months due to the massive STEM shortage? Based on the I-squared Act's proposed increase to a 1/4 million (250,000) H1-Bs there should be 10s and 10s of 10,000s such postings.

This massive STEM shortage debate has been happening for years. The referenced article links studies, presents supporting data (aka actual statistics) and provides direct anecdotal evidence (he is involved in the production of STEM resources). Bluntly I have seen many similar fact based articles and studies on the "there is no STEM shortage" side and can't recall a single peer reviewed study on the massive shortage side. Links welcome.

Does it matter? Of course, otherwise this wouldn't be the contentious issue that it is. If you are the Disney programmer telling your wife and kids that you are unemployed, I assure you, it matters.

To say it doesn't matter if there are 0 H1-Bs or 250,000 H1-Bs is ...

Your "high paid H1-B worker" most likely isn't (see data contained in the referenced article). Outside of a small percentage of very rare individuals or specialists every H1-B is taking a job from a US citizen, who would pay the same taxes or more, is far more likely to buy real estate than rent a nearby apartment for a couple of years, and will almost assuredly un-employ some American than hopefully employ one.

The Haskell version was not compiled or run as a multithreaded application. Given sufficient heap to avoid a GC in the middle of the run I'm seeing ~ 375ms +/- 25

https://github.com/RayRacine/skynet/blob/haskell/haskell/Sky...