In this corner: A number of employers, particularly tech companies, who claim they have a large number of unfilled positions and can’t find enough skilled American workers to fill all their needs, and thus need to attract skilled foreign workers through an expanded H-1B visa program. In the opposite corner: Immigration skeptics, including probably every unemployed programmer in the country, who think tech companies simply prefer to hire cheaper imported labor rather than more expensive American workers. From this perspective, even one unemployed American tech worker is proof that the H-1B program undermines citizen employment. How shall we break this impasse and make progress on what should be one of the easiest incremental reforms in the immigration reform debate? A bipartisan commission likely to end in gridlock? Raw political “we won, you lost” power? Further inaction, which just exacerbates the problem? Here’s a better idea — a market mechanism that would determine once and for all not only who is right, but what the market-clearing price for skilled immigrant labor actually is, thus informing future immigration policy formation.
Of all the controversial elements of proposed immigration reform plans, the H-1B visa impasse should be the easiest to solve.
In this corner: A number of employers, particularly tech companies, who claim they have a large number of unfilled positions and can’t find enough skilled American workers to fill all their needs, and thus need to attract skilled foreign workers through an expanded H-1B visa program.
In the opposite corner: Immigration skeptics, including probably every unemployed programmer in the country, who think tech companies simply prefer to hire cheaper imported labor rather than more expensive American workers. From this perspective, even one unemployed American tech worker is proof that the H-1B program undermines citizen employment.
How shall we break this impasse and make progress on what should be one of the easiest incremental reforms in the immigration reform debate? A bipartisan commission likely to end in gridlock? Raw political “we won, you lost” power? Further inaction, which just exacerbates the problem?
Here’s a better idea — a market mechanism that would determine once and for all not only who is right, but what the market-clearing price for skilled immigrant labor actually is, thus informing future immigration policy formation.