(Blog Post)
Labor leaders and some experts contend that the high-tech labor shortage is a myth.
"The industry claim to need H-1Bs to remedy a labor shortage is false. Their claim that the H-1Bs are 'the best and the brightest,' needed to keep American firms innovative, is also false in the vast majority of cases. Instead, the employers' goal is use H-1Bs as a source of cheap labor,"
Full Story »
The dirty backstory on abuse of H-1B visas and imported cheap labor are seldom reported in the corporate friendly media. The posts here in the blog get some of that story from informed and enterprising participants.
Boeing’s engineering union, SPEEA, is in a unique position to comment on the issue: It is one of few unions in the country that represents high-tech workers.
“If instead you bring in 150,000 foreign workers and you’re only graduating 120,000 new students annually, you’ve short-circuited the labor market,” Sorscher said. “Our policy to bring in the foreign workers has the effect of short-circuiting the labor market and preventing us from ever producing enough domestic workers.” Once domestic workers are discouraged from entering the field, the U.S. becomes dependent upon foreign workers, he says.
“The H-1B program is not temporary, it’s ongoing,”
I am active in SPEEA, and respect the good research Sorscher has been doing in following this issue.