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Comment by jimbob45 | Hacker News Reader

>When H1Bs take your jobs, its hard to compete when they are paid less and willing to take less.

I think you're going to have a bad time arguing that point. H-1Bs constitute an fraction of the overall tech sector jobs. Personally, I might agree with you on the grounds that those H-1Bs cause a domino effect on overall job openings. However, the argument, at face value, that H-1Bs are a significant factor in the difficulty of finding a tech sector jobs is, in my opinion, largely a scapegoat.

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... “We demonstrate that H-1Bs given to a firm on average do not raise the firm’s patenting and/or other employment, contrary to firms’ frequent claims. Overall our results are more consistent with the second [i.e., the critics’] narrative, in which H-1Bs replace other workers to some extent, are paid less than alternative workers, and increase the firm’s profits (despite little, if any, effect on firm patenting).”

In addition, “we robustly find that new H-1Bs cause no significant increase in firm employment. New H-1Bs substantially and statistically significantly crowd out median employment of other workers,” they continue. This result conflicts with the widely repeated claim that foreign workers create American jobs, which is based, as we have previously reported, partly on the work of economist Madeline Zavodny of Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia. Furthermore, “[o]ur results are consistent with the possibility that H-1B and non-H-1B workers are perfect substitutes. This is notable in light of frequent claims that H-1Bs have unique skills that cannot easily be obtained elsewhere.”

The authors of this “important” study “have done an exhaustive analysis, given the data available, and they have better data than anyone to date, best I can tell,” says labor force expert Hal Salzman of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, by e-mail. “And their findings are consistent with all the other analyses that were done competently—and consistent with what the companies themselves state is the function of H-1B (to lower wage costs and raise profits).”"

https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2015/05/economists-h-1b-v... (Economists: H-1B visas suppress wages)

https://gspp.berkeley.edu/assets/uploads/research/pdf/h1b.pd... (The Effects of High-Skilled Immigration Policy on Firms: Evidence from Visa Lotteries)

> an fraction of the overall tech sector jobs

Wait, what? Where have you been? I mean, 9/10 is a fraction, so yeah… but I’ve been in software development for 25 years across five different geographic regions (of the United States) and I’m usually the _only_ non-Indian non-H1B software developer there.

I'm only seeing a total of < 500,000 according to the below link. That's a pretty small fraction of the total number of workers. I'm very open to anyone disputing that number.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/visa-and-immigratio...

there are speculations that there are over 1 million h1b workers. this is not counting the other work visa program. the government and tech industries have been hiding their population.

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