Should the annual H-1B cap be:

very interesting survey. thanks for it.
iddaa betsson

H-1B allows employers to use foreign workers as indentured servants through control of their visa status.

Ideally the program should just be shut down, but barring that it needs some common sense reforms to make sure this program isn't being used to drive down American salaries or displace American workers.

1. Employers do not control the visa status of the H-1B workers.
2. Visas are allocated by auction, not lottery. This should hit bodyshops like Infosys, Wipro, etc without hurting companies who are willing to pay salaries commensurate with what they consider to be top notch talent.
3. Steep nonrefundable visa fees to compensate for the cost of background check, etc. plus the damage done by adding new bodies to the labor pool.

Until these reforms are implemented, we can't have an honest discussion about the "need" for more foreign workers, or who's "the best and the brightest".

Eliminate the H-1B, etc, I want a career.

The visa programs were defined for political purposes - not for economic purposes. "Shortages" is a propaganda message perpetuated by groups like the ITAA and the Chamber of Commerce and their spinoff lobbying organizations because their members make a lot of money from them in several ways: 1) exporting high value middle class professional jobs 2) H-1B's are imported cheap labor to replace high value middle class professionals 3) The foreigners who are imported on educational visas are used in the universities for cheap labor on corporate and government projects billed as "research" but which are actually development efforts for private profit.

All you have to do is a little research on the "shortages" media campaign and you'll see that there are "shortages" in nearly every single profession and occupation. I even heard Clay Johnson of the OMB say that there was a shortage in government workers. Cross my heart - he actually said it.

In 1997, the OMB changed their coding scheme for industry classifications to a new one (NAICS) which I'm sure included the coding schemes for job types. The redefinitions created artificial "shortages" on the reports but not shortages in reality. I believe that this was a fraud perpetrated on the American people because when I wrote the commentary below, an economics professor contacted me and said that he'd been teaching business and economics for 20 years and he never heard of the NAICS. What that says is that the government didn't advertise the fact that they were changing coding schemes so the assumptions that people were working under were the old system while the government was actually using a new system.

http://www.channelingreality.com/NAU/Census_Naics/what_does_it_mean_to_b...

Studies by researchers from
Duke
Georgetown University,
Harvard,
RAND Corporation,
Rochester Institute of Technology,
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation,
Stanford,
UC Davis, and
Urban Institute,
have reported that we have continually been producing far more US citizen STEM (science, tech, engineering, math) workers than we've been employing in these fields.

Examination of employment data and projections from BLS when compared with NCES (Dept. of Education) records of degrees earned by US citizens confirms these findings.

"As late as 1987, 60K graduates were competing for about 25K open positions, according to Janet Ruhl, author of _The Programmers Survival Guide_" --- Margie Wylie _CNET_ "The skills shortage that isn't: When the rising tide floats employees' boats, employers proclaim disaster"
http://news.com.com/2010-1077-281060.html
http://www.kermitrose.com/econ1998.html#19980204

In testimony to the House Science and Technology Committee, Harold Salzman reported that we've been producing as many as 3 times the numbers of STEM workers as we've been employing in these fields.

http://democrats.science.house.gov/Media/File/
Commdocs/hearings/2007/tech/06nov/salzman_testimony.pdf

http://www.kermitrose.com/econ200711.html#Runnerup2007