Not the Best and Brighest? Say it ain't so, Joe!

(Shamelessly stolen from Norm Matloff, but I don't think he'd mind...)

To: H-1B/L-1/offshoring e-newsletter

CIS has just published a new article by me, titled "H-1Bs: Still Not the Best and the Brightest." The title alludes to an earlier article I wrote for CIS, in which I had done some preliminary statistical work showing that most H-1Bs are ordinary people doing ordinary work, not the geniuses claimed by the industry lobbyists. In the present article, I present much more direct statistical analysis along these lines.

Here I use a market-based approach to show that:

1. The vast majority of H-1Bs are not of outstanding talent.

2. This is also true when the data are broken down by occupation.

3. This is also true for almost all prominent tech firms that were analyzed.

4. Contrary to the constant hyperbole in the press that “Johnnie can’t do math” in comparison with kids in Asia, the workers from Western European countries tend to be more talented than those of their Asian counterparts.

Please note the the implications of my article applies just as much (actually more) to the employer-based green card system as to H-1B itself. This is a crucial point, as there are proposals in Congress (rumored to be considered seriously by Congress in May) to expand both the H-1B and green card programs--both of which expansions would adversely impact job opportunities and wages for U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

You can read the article at

http://www.cis.org/articles/2008/back508.html

Norm

JobDestruction blacklisted by Google

Rob Sanchez's great site Job Destruction got blacklisted by Google. It was obviously a mistake but it will be slow to undo and the damage to the website traffic will be considerable. Way to go Google. I thought your mantra was to do no evil in the world.

Sigh.

OPTing out of the American Dream

Rob Sanchez has a good article on how the government is scamming Americans out of jobs by bringing in cheap labor without congress.

The OPT program is the worst of breed of backroom deals.

More on Microsoft

The third video in the series...

Bill Gates and the H-1B Visa, Chapter 3

Microsoft's Duplicity

So we know that Microsoft cannot get enough H1-B visas. We know that Bill lobbies Congress regularly for an unlimited number of visas. If you listen to him as our Congressmen do, you'd think that our high tech industry is going to come crumbling down around our heads because we Americans (and residents) are just too damn dumb, unlike those whipper snapper smarties that live in all the other countries.

If you want the truth, check out these videos on Youtube:

Bill Gates' addition to visas (part 1)
Bill Gates addiction to visas (part 2)

We must be dumb as rocks

Microsoft has apparently begun arguing that having American citizens and legal residents lose their jobs due to displacement by labor imported via visas is good for us - so good that it creates more jobs that it takes!

This is an incredible statement. Bill must think that we are dumb as rocks to believe that one. There isn't a shred of evidence that this is true and there is a lot of evidence that there is nothing but a net job loss for Americans. Following this logic, we only need to import maybe another 200,000 foreigners to take jobs, then the resulting jobs explosion will employ everyone (trading engineering jobs for MacDonalds at best).

See an article on this at the Job Destruction Newsletter.

Way to go, Bill. Way to show thankfulness to the economy and workers that made you the richest person in the world. I bet your Democratic parents are proud of you.

Reasons why the H-1B visa cap will increase

1. H-1B opponents have no clout
2. The Gates effect
3. There is grass root support for the H-1B visa
4. The H-1B lottery is a big problem for tech firms
5. Congressional support for visa

The above five reasons come from Patrick Thibodou here.

1. Congress won't see through Bill Gates' misleading testimony.
2. Congress doesn't want to know these truths anyway, as they don't want to jeopardize the lavish campaign contributions Congress receives from the tech industry.
3. The Programmers Guild and many other critics of the H-1B program are diluting whatever influence they have (which Thibodeau correctly points out is limited compared to the huge clout wielded by the tech industry) by focusing on the second-sourcing issue (in which a firm hires H-1Bs and then rents them out to other firms).

The remainder come from Professor Norm Matloff here.