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The H-1B visa program was intended to attract specialized talent from overseas, but has instead become a tool for employers to hire low-cost labor for general jobs. .
The result is a distorted job market, with spam applications for civilian workers locking highly skilled workers out of the H-1B visa program and replacing them with entry-level workers who are already in short supply. I will take the position. This abuse of H-1B visas has a negative synergy with the growing impact of AI on the job market and is part of a larger issue that requires urgent attention.
The impact of this visa problem is particularly acute among young people and recent graduates, who face a tough job market despite the moderate overall unemployment rate. The unemployment rate for university graduates under 25 and those over 25 is at a record high of more than 4:1, according to government data. This means that entry-level jobs are already four times more scarce than jobs that require experience or advanced expertise.
Applicants for the program should have clear specialized skills, and those specialized skills should not be readily available from existing permanent workers.
I have seen signs that the demand for entry-level technical positions is decreasing. These symptoms include fewer job notifications from recruiters targeting new CS graduates, fewer job fairs with fewer companies, and concerns about lower wages and fewer offers. In some cases, you may not get any offers at all. Granting H-1B visas to low-wage, non-skilled workers does little to meet the actual demand for skilled workers and only exacerbates this shortage.
H-1B visas hurt one type of worker and exploit another. this mess needs to be fixed
The issue here is not the number of visas issued, but rather how the visas are used. Applicants for the program should have clear specialized skills, and those specialized skills should not be readily available from existing permanent workers. But bureaucratic vetting processes allow employers to exaggerate claims and hire workers with ordinary skills at lower wages. There are sub-professionals such as human resources staff and lawyers who specialize in dressing pigeons to look like peacocks.
This abuse of the application process has created a lottery system where workers with the special skills needed often lose out to workers without the special skills. As a result, it becomes harder for new graduates to get entry-level jobs, and at the same time companies that really need specific specialized skills are unable to obtain visas for those workers. Imagine someone who guzzles sugar pills instead of vitamins and suffers from both malnutrition and diabetes.
I want to emphasize that I am not advocating for an island cap on the number of H-1B visas. The challenge is to ensure that people with the real specialized skills that are actually needed are accepted through the H-1B program. If used properly, H-1B visas can benefit the nation as a whole by replenishing the workforce with people with the necessary and specialized skills. Whether it's retaining international graduates or bringing in talent from abroad, the United States has historically benefited greatly from immigrants with needed skills.
Many people who invest in visa agriculture make the unconvincing argument that H-1B visas are already going to specialized workers as intended, but H-1B visa recipients The statistics are inconsistent.
Debate rages within the MAGA coalition, with President Trump saying he hasn't changed his mind about H-1B visas
According to the U.S. government's Citizenship and Immigration Services annual report, approximately 63,000 H-1B visa recipients in 2023 will work in “computer-related occupations,” making the median salary for this group. The value was $99,000 per year, of which 25% were for this visa holder. Income is less than $85,000. A salary of $99,000 or $85,000 a year is certainly a good amount, but it's far below what you'd expect from someone with rare specialized skills in this field.
One would think that people with specialized, hard-to-find skills would earn very high salaries, but these data actually show the opposite. Indeed, the more one examines the data in the agency's annual report, the less the approved applications appear to be from an exceptional group of people in the profession. Rather, it looks like there are many regular workers who are paid less than I would expect, as well as workers with special skills.
These observations are consistent with my own experiences hiring technology workers and advising CS students, with what others have directly related to me, and with a number of recently published analyses. I am. The only clear explanation I can think of for these discrepancies is that the employer is filling out an entry-level position that does not require any special rare skills, even at entry-level. Salaries are low and those unsuitable applications are not rejected.
Looking at the bigger picture, H-1B visa abuse is not the only obstacle facing U.S. job seekers, as AI automation is also displacing jobs and exacerbating talent shortages. Currently, the impact of AI is disproportionately focused on entry-level jobs, exacerbating the problems caused by abuse of the H-1B program. However, as AI continues to improve both in functionality and ease of use, and as the range of tasks it can perform expands, so will its impact on the job market.
MAGA's H-1B “Civil War” is exactly how politics works
Although AI and H-1B visa abuse may seem like separate issues, they interact in ways that most people do not understand. Even if it cannot fully replace human workers, AI will facilitate the transition of jobs from full-time employees to contractors and remote workers.
The explanation is that AI often removes the need for highly specialized skills and knowledge and replaces it with a lower requirement, just the ability to review work to make sure it's correct. As a result, AI has simplified tasks that were previously too complex to delegate to contractors or remote workers, making them suitable for externalization.
As AI technology continues to improve, employers will realize that more jobs can be done with unskilled workers and will have more incentive to use H-1B visas to hire those unskilled workers cheaply. .
The review process for the H-1B visa program needs to be reformed to prioritize applicants with true professional talent and to ensure that recipients do not compete unfairly with workers already in the United States.Also, AI automation and The impact on the job market, which also has to deal with growing threats.
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About 90% of U.S. tax revenue comes from taxes on the income of working individuals, and if unemployment continues to rise, tax revenue will shrink dramatically. At the same time, the number of unemployed people in need of welfare will skyrocket. This combination does not work mathematically and is an obvious recipe for disaster.
This situation requires fundamental changes to avoid a dystopian future. While overall unemployment numbers may appear robust, high entry-level unemployment and overall underemployment point to a larger problem.
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Disclaimer: All opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author as an individual. Nothing in this article should be construed as a statement made in relation to the author's professional position at his or her institution.
