![\"\"](\"http:\/\/betanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/job-loss-cartoon-514x600.jpg\" "\\"job")
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There\u2019s an old joke in which a man asks a woman if she\u2019ll spend the night with him for $1 million? She will. Then he asks if she\u2019ll spend the night with him for $10?<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you think I\u2019m a prostitute?\u201d she asks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve already established that\u201d, he replies. \u201cThis is just a price negotiation\u201d.<\/p>\n
Not a great joke, but it came to mind recently when a reader pointed me to a panel discussion last September at the Brookings Institution ironically about STEM education and the shortage of qualified IT workers. Watch\u00a0the video<\/a>\u00a0if you can, especially the part where Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith offers to pay the government $10,000 each for up to 6,000 H-1B visas.<\/p>\n In the joke, this is analogous to the $10 offer. There\u2019s a $1 million offer, too, which is another U.S. visa — the EB-5 so-called\u00a0immigrant investor visa<\/a>, 15,000 of which are available each year and most go unclaimed. Why?<\/p>\n The EB-5 visa is better in many respects than the H-1B. The EB-5, for one thing, is a true immigrant visa leading to U.S. citizenship, where the H-1B, despite misleading arguments to the contrary, is by law a non-immigrant visa good for three or six years after which the worker has to go back to their native country. But the EB-5 requires the immigrant bring with him or her $1 million to be invested locally in an active business.<\/p>\n What\u2019s wrong with that? Can\u2019t Microsoft or any other big tech employer suffering from a severe lack of technical workers just set these immigrants up as little corporations capitalized at $1 million? It must be a better return on investment than the\u00a01.52 percent<\/a>\u00a0Redmond made on its billions in cash in 2011. Yet they don\u2019t do it. Why?<\/p>\n The answer is simple economics wrapped up in a huge stinking lie. First of all\u00a0there is no critical shortage of technical workers<\/i>. That\u2019s the lie.\u00a0Here\u2019s a study<\/a>\u00a0released last week \u00a0from the Economic Policy Institute that shows there is no shortage of native U.S. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) workers. None at all.<\/p>\n You may recall this lack of a true labor shortage was confirmed empirically in\u00a0another column<\/a>\u00a0of mine looking at tech hiring in Memphis, Tennessee.<\/p>\n If there was such a shortage, Microsoft and other companies\u00a0would<\/i>\u00a0be utilizing EB-5 and other visa programs beyond H-1B. They\u2019d do anything they could to get those desperately needed tech workers.<\/p>\n Some argue that these companies are using H-1Bs to force down local labor rates.\u00a0 Forcing them down how much is becoming clear, in this case thanks to Microsoft\u2019s Brad Smith\u2019s offer.\u00a0If H-1Bs are each worth $10,000 to Microsoft, the average savings from using an H-1B has to be more than $10,000 plus the risk premium of cheating the system.<\/p>\n But the H-1B program wasn\u2019t started to save money and money savings can\u2019t even be considered as a reason for granting an H-1B according to regulations. Though companies have become pretty brazen about that one when they advertise for\u00a0only<\/i>\u00a0H-1Bs for positions.<\/p>\n An interesting aspect of this story is that some readers have characterized Smith\u2019s offer as a\u00a0bribe<\/i>. Maybe it isn\u2019t. Maybe it\u2019s just a gift or it\u2019s intended to cover the true cost to the local and national economies of using an H-1B worker or, more importantly,\u00a0not using a comparably trained U.S. citizen<\/i>. But that can hardly be the case given the high unemployment rate among U.S. STEM workers.<\/p>\n What this kind of offer seems to be counting on are the typically terrible math skills of elected government officials; $10,000 ($3,333 per year) is not going to cover the lost income or true cost to society of a computer science graduate taking a lower-paying non-technical position.<\/p>\n What we need, I think, is a much simpler test for whether H-1Bs are actually warranted. The test I would impose is simple: if granting an H-1B results in the loss of a job for a U.S. citizen or green card holder, then that H-1B shouldn\u2019t be granted.<\/p>\n Solving true technical labor shortages or being able to import uniquely skilled foreign workers are one thing, but this supposed H-1B crisis is something else altogether.<\/p>\n Reprinted with permission<\/i><\/p>\n Photo Credit:<\/strong>\u00a0Cartoonresource<\/a>\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/p>\n There\u2019s an old joke in which a man asks a woman if she\u2019ll spend the night with him for $1 million? She will. Then he asks if she\u2019ll spend the night with him for $10? \u201cDo you think I\u2019m a prostitute?\u201d she asks. \u201cWe\u2019ve already established that\u201d, he replies. \u201cThis is just a price negotiation\u201d. 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