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Notes -
My main point is it's a distraction from the actual immigration issues. I agree there is no reason to expand the program.
The claim there is a shortfall in skilled STEM talent is difficult because STEM is an overly broad category. Initially I dispute the claim -- there seems to me to be an extreme over-production of STEM graduates globally and in the US. Very roughly,
900k new grads for110k positions. About 200k of those grads are Master's and Doctorates, the rest are under-grad.the problem I have with the claim comes more from my experience. I think there may actually be a shortfall at the upper echelons of the various tech industries. The number of really good coders, deep algorithmic thinkers, experienced operators, etc. is kind of high. It's really tough to hire great engineers and no one wants the middling ones who fill out the fat belly of the jobs market. The H1-B program, if expanded, will produce more of these huckleberries, but only in proportions we already understand; you'll get a few more geniuses and a lot more chumps.
What I'm curious about is how we get the huckleberries without the H1-B program. We still require a legal path to hiring them and bringing them over. And maybe 99% chumps to 1% huckleberries is tolerable if that 1% initiates the next tech revolution. These types of games scale in ways that are difficult to predict.
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