foreign domestic hiring supply workers employers wages

High-Tech Employers Seek More Foreign Workers to Depress WagesA timely new academic study of hiring practices in the high-tech industry wasreleased by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) on April 24.Based on extensive data on salaries and hiring practices for foreign anddomestic STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) graduates,the researchers found that there is no shortage of domestic graduates, thatwages have been flat since about 2004 – belying industry claims of a shortage,and that the growing supply of guestworkers, “…appear to provide firms withaccess to labor that will be in plentiful supply at wages that are too low toinduce a significantly increased supply from the domestic workforce.”More significant than the issue of employers taking advantage of lower wageforeign workers – and pushing for even more in the Gang of 8 immigration bill(S.744) introduced last week – is the fact that this trend has the effect ofdiscouraging U.S. students from pursuing careers in high-tech jobs. This meansthat by hiring more foreign workers employers depress the supply of domestichigh-tech workers. The cyclical effect is to perpetuate and expand the hiringof foreign workers on the basis of the employer-caused reduction in domesticgraduates.The implication is clear: If Congress accedes to the high-tech industrystrategy and enormously increases H-1B and L visas for guestworkers andimmigrant visas for STEM graduates as included in S.744, future jobopportunities for U.S. students will be diminished and the United States willbecome increasingly dependent on foreigners to staff its vital high-techworkforce.Take a look at FAIR’s analysis of the H-1B provisions in the Gang of 8 billhere.