From
November 30, 2011 Information Week:
The House on Tuesday voted to eliminate per-country caps on employment-based visas, a move that could make it easier for tech workers from highly populated nations like India and China to obtain so-called green cards, which allow individuals to permanently reside and work in the U.S.
...
The bill's bipartisan support owes much to the fact that it does nothing to increase the total number of green cards awarded, it simply evens out the process for those looking to emigrate to the U.S.
Of course, the problem that the tech companies are trying to solve is "a lack of access to highly-skilled workers." Wow. You would never know that America is awash in software and electrical engineers who are out of work, working part-time, or making a fraction of what they did several years ago. And so we need to simplify the process of bringing in low-paid workers from other countries? HR 3012 passed the House 389-15, and "is expected to move swiftly through the Senate." Hey, this worked great for agribusiness, driving down wages and disemploying unskilled Americans. Why not for all the other industries?
At the peak of the tech boom there were more than 525K electrical engineers in this country.
ReplyDeleteNow there are fewer than 300K. And it's not like they all retired.
Electrical engineering has been in a Depression now for more than 10 years. So let's ship in more competition, that can't hurt American's prospects, can it?