tuscl

[OT: Politics] The Ethics of Immigration of Skilled Wokers?

Sunday, May 7, 2017 10:54 AM
Since this subject came up in a recent thread, it lead me to think how my take of this subject is probably different from most peoples. Essentially I do think it partly an ethical issue, but it is often looked at from the wrong perspective. The way I look at is: why should a person in a different country be denied a chance to work for a company in the US willing to him or her just because he/she happened to be born in a different country? A fact that person obviously had no control over. If the US company is willing to shell out the addition cost of hiring that person, that's got to tell you that they feel the foreign worker could do the job either cheaper than an American worker or there is just no American with similar qualifications. In either case it seems unethical to deny the foreign worker the opportunity: simply because he/she was not born in the US. I question whether there should be any immigration caps at all providing they are skilled workers with an employer sponsor in fields likely to see high demand into the future. I think it's one of things restraining the US economy. Even though we are currently in a boom, it's nothing compared to what we could have if we did this and some other policy tweaks. What do the rest of you think?

22 comments

  • twentyfive
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    7 years ago
    I'll throw out some food for thought not necessarily OT as to ethics, by screwing around with the healthcare issue this never has been brought up for discussion. If they force a contraction in access to health care good paying jobs will be lost as a result, one thing nobody mentions about Obama Care is the rapid increase in jobs related to healthcare in all facets from hospitals to doctors offices to home health aides. If they reduce access there is going to be a slowdown in hiring and if people start losing their insurance there will be reductions out of necessity I don't believe this fight is over just yet but that is another front in this battle that doesn't yet seem to have been considered.
  • pleaseda
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    7 years ago
    As long as they emigrate, make money, pay taxes and spend on strip clubs am fine with it . Also if we can have a special visa for bringing in some world beauties from Brazil, Lebanon, Venezuela, Iran ( heard they are stunning ) :)
  • londonguy
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    7 years ago
    Too much immigration may breed resentment by the indigenous population? That's definitely what has been happening here for a number of years due to the immigrants putting too much strain on public services (especially our health service), driving down wages and in the main failing to integrate.
  • jackslash
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    7 years ago
    I think ethics and economics and politics are considerations here. Should a talented person from India be denied a job from an American company because he is not an American? Should an American company be denied higher profits by not being allowed to hire foreigners? Should American citizens lose their jobs to foreign immigrants? Politics, as Trump's election showed, will give a lot of weight to the self-interest of Americans.
  • Dougster
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    7 years ago
    @londonguy: I'm curious about how the immigrants became a burden on the system? Were they skilled workers to begin with? Maybe not enough emphasis was placed on how long their skills were likely to remain in high demand?
  • Dominic77
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    7 years ago
    twentyfive brings up an excellent point. There are a lot of nurses in my neighborhood and at the gym I go to. We've already seen some hearcount / staffing reductions due to some of the consolidation of hospitals buying up/out other hospitals in the area. -- There is a difference between highly educated, highly degreed, and high skilled immigrants and the typically immigrant. Most people have experience with a typical immigrant who is a strain on public services, is multicultural and fails to integrated, or in the case of (dot) Indians, scheme the system so they can fail pay taxes both in the US and India. This OP reminds me of a economic professor who said: -->"It's unethical to let stupid people keep their money because by definition they don't do anything worthwhile with it." I just can't side with something that takes jobs away from American citizens and forces wages even lower for Americans. We either have a country or we don't. We either have tradition or we don't. The hypercompetition being promoted here in a tad brutal. Not unethical or immortal, just a tad brutal. Dougster --> "I question whether there should be any immigration caps at all providing they are skilled workers WITH AN EMPLOYER SPONSOR in fields likely to see high demand into the future." (Emphasis mine). The sponsorship, that's just the thing. That's what employers want. With at-will employment, American citizens can quit at will. Under a sponsorship, it the worker quits, the visa ends (right?) and the worker gets shipped home. Wouldn't a worker try to avoid that? Sounds like something the employer can hold over the sponsoree's head. I think THAT is what businesses want. The skills and low wages may be sort of beside the point. If so, I question the ethics of THAT. But, free markets, and all. Dougster -->"Even though we are currently in a boom, it's nothing compared to what we could have if we did this and some other policy tweaks." Again, exactly who benefits from this (let's assume) boom? Certainly not the American citizens you are bypassing. Certainly not the lower 90% of everyone (Check a productivity versus capital chart or a productivity versus wages chart, starting at 1970 and ending now -- everyone in the lower 90% is getting butt fucked without a reach-around :( Why make it worse? Just to increase the stock portfolio valuation for a few fortunate people? Most Americans aren't going to go along with that. Maybe it's time for me to read Ayn Rand.
  • Estafador
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    7 years ago
    I think it's done too much to the point where Americans aren't expected to be better than a foreigner thus denying potential American quality that can better integrate in the country than a foreigner can.
  • RandomMember
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    7 years ago
    " I think it's done too much to the point where Americans aren't expected to be better than a foreigner " ----------------------------------------------- If you let unlimited numbers of foreign $60K software engineers into the country, there's very little incentive for talented young people to go into the field; instead these smart young kids will go into soft-core, irrelevant fields like basket weaving and family law. So if you import foreign workers because of a lack of home-grown talent, you end up creating less incentive for students to study STEM fields in the first place. OTOH, agree with @Dougster's point about lack of skilled workers putting a drag on the economy. We want all the Sergey Brin's around the world to feel welcome here -- that's for sure. Thing is, he immigrated here without an H1B visa and chose to study computer science once he got here. So using Brin as an example of the need for visas may not make much sense.
  • RandomMember
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    7 years ago
    ...glad I'm not 20-yrs-old. Trying to find a career where you're not in competition with AI or foreign workers is a real challenge.
  • skibum609
    •
    7 years ago
    You can always tell that someone has no independent thoughts and is just regurgitating what they read when they believe that Obamacare has a damn thing to do with healthcare and pretend that revoking it means a denial of healthcare. Its an insurance plan and everyone still has healthcare, as they did before, whether it remains in place or is revoked.
  • RandomMember
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    7 years ago
    @SkiBirther wrote: :"....pretend that revoking it means a denial of healthcare." --------------------------------------- You keep making the same idiotic point. If you can no longer afford health insurance, then you can no longer afford to get the proper healthcare in a timely manner. For example, maybe you're in the early stages of cancer and can no longer afford to go to a doctor. So you wait until it's too late and drop dead in the emergency room (where you get service whether you have insurance of not). This last healthcare bill was pushed through the House with no CBO scoring since at least 24M people will no longer be able to afford health insurance. It amounts to nearly $1T tax break to the top 2%, taking away subsides and Medicaid expansion. .
  • RandomMember
    •
    7 years ago
    ...listening to Paul Ryan the other day made me want to put my fist through the television. Trump is too stupid to know what's in the healthcare bill. Ryan knows better, but bullshits and lies his way through interviews. Both are horribly unpopular.
  • Dougster
    •
    7 years ago
    Are there really so many (hireable) software engineers in the world that they could bring the wage down to $60k/y? (Can they write fizzbuzz?) Also why do so many of the H1B go to the Indian IT firms instead of the big five tech companies?
  • RandomMember
    •
    7 years ago
    Are there really so many (hireable) software engineers in the world that they could bring the wage down to $60k/y? --------------------- Not sure, but if we allow unlimited H1B visas, we would find out. Would you recommend this field to your 18-yr-old, freshman, niece or nephew? You usually think of poor white rural dudes getting run over by globalization and AI. But watch out in some of these other fields like software, law, and even finance. Nobody really cares until it hits your own career. Only safe career these days is probably AI consulting.
  • Dougster
    •
    7 years ago
    I don't think things have changed too much since I was in college. At that point the top computer science students always combined it with a strong concentration in something else. I think combining with math is particularly flexible and biology/genetics would be even better these days.
  • flagooner
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    7 years ago
    How is it unethical? Our government is responsible for the betterment of our country and our citizens, not to improve the world at our detriment. This is one of many philosophies where I strongly disagreed with the omnipotent Obama. You may disagree with me, but I don't see it as a question of ethics.
  • RandomMember
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    7 years ago
    " I think combining with math is particularly flexible and biology/genetics would be even better these days." --------------------- That sounds right to me, although lifting H1B limits completely might be more of a problem for "commodity" programmers and software contractors. BTW, not a software engineer myself. Don't really understand your post @Flag. The issue is that opening up floodgates on H1Bs might help corporate America at the expense of some American workers.
  • NinaBambina
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    7 years ago
    "Too much immigration may breed resentment by the indigenous population?" Londonguy, the indigenous people of America are Indians and they make up about 2 percent of the population... plus I think they have more resentment about their land being stolen and tribes being killed off.
  • rickthevulture
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    7 years ago
    I could go either way on immigration but I agree strongly with ski bum regarding health care. Squawk! There are too many of you hairless apes on the planet already. What is the point of trying to save the sick, old, and injured? Squawk! Just let them die by the side of the road, decay in the sun for a bit, and then they will be yummy yummy yummy in my tummy tummy tummy! Squawk! Remember, #blackvulturelivesmatter but hairless ape lives don't. Squawk!
  • Dougster
    •
    7 years ago
    @flag: There's the legal and then there's the ethical. And the two are not equally, all though there is a pretty good overlap in a society such as ours at least. This is one area where they are disjoint, IMO, however.
  • Dougster
    •
    7 years ago
    @Random: either you don't know the insider slang or you are just being too polite to use it. I believe the term you are looking for is "code monkeys".
  • sharkhunter
    •
    7 years ago
    I prefer Americans get hired first instead of recruiting cheaper foreign labor. Some companies have gone so far as to replace all American higher paid workers with cheaper foreign labor just to save some cash and even had the Amerucan workers train their replacements. I'm opposed to that. Americans want to stay and live here for the most part. It can be difficult if we have to compete with a lot of cheap labor coming here decreasing wages for your group. My perspective is that Amerucan companies claim they can't find American workers who are qualified. From my perspective, the companies don't want to pay higher wages Americans are used to making and want cheaper foreign pay right here without relocating overseas. In some cases they don't want to train American workers if they are lacking a skill. American voters and workers voted for Trump so I believe there is a big concern with being replaced.
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