To: H-1B/L-1/offshoring e-newsletter Tue Jul 23 20:53:32 PDT 2013 A number of people drew my attention to today's NYT blog, "Big Data Analysis Adds to Guest Worker Debate," at http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/23/big-data-analysis-adds-to-guest-worker-debate/?_r=0 It fits well with the Computerworld article I reported on yesterday, http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/WedelUpdate.txt One major theme of that article was that in spite of all the hoopla about a general STEM labor shortage, presumably including all of engineering, the only engineering job title to have substantial growth in recent years is Software Engineer. Of course, even that narrowly-focused job growth doesn't imply a shortage of software engineers--again, wage growth has only been mild, counterindicating a shortage--but at the very least the government data indicate that we don't have a shortage of electrical engineers, for instance. A study by Bright (www.bright.com), a company that aims to connect job seekers with suitable job openings, carries this theme further, by actually trying to estimate how many well-qualified ("good fit," in their words) candidates there are. They then present the results in a handy table, available at http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/technology/H1BReport_Bright_New_Method.pdf The bottom line, from the above document: "Within the top 10 jobs, there are an estimated 134% more candidates nationwide than there were positions requested. Additionally, we found that domestic student enrollment in computer and mathematical graduate programs has grown 88% in the last decade, while foreign student enrollment has dwindled 13%. There does not appear to be a sudden mass shortage of educated domestic workers, rather a handful of outsourcing firms who file a majority of the LCAs and are uninterested in domestic candidates. 82% of the positions requested by the top 20 companies were requested by outsourcing firms." In particular job categories, the Bright analyst found a huge "shortage" for the Computer Systems Analyst title. As the NYT blog points out, this type of job is considered to be at the far low end in terms of skill level, and in fact is an anachronism. As (I hope) you know, I hate the scapegoating of the Indian bodyshops, because abuse of H-1B pervades the entire industry, but I wish the analyst had done a cross-tab here, factoring in the type of employer. I suspect that the cases for this job title were disproportionately from the bodyshops. Whether that is the case or not, the fact remains that Bright's findings are dramatically at odds with the industry lobbyists' claims to be using the H-1B visa to hire "game changing innovators." On the contrary, the category the innovators would typically fall in would be "Software Developers, Applications" and "Software Developers, Systems Software," two categories in which Bright finds no shortage. The other apparent "shortage" category was a catchall one, "Computer Occupations, All Other," defined at http://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/15-1199.00?redir=15-1099.00 These include a number of decidedly non-innovator job titles, such as "Software Quality Assurance Engineers and Testers: and "Web Administrators." Interesting exercise--but does it show anything? There are some serious problems with the analysis. First, it uses LCAs, the forms employers use to apply for permission to hire an H-1B worker. As Bright's paper points out, "An LCA is not an actual H1-B application rather an intent to hire an H1-B worker after an unsuccessful domestic search." As many of you know, the latter statement is incorrect; other than a small exceptional category, there is no general requirement that employers give hiring priority to U.S. workers. But the fact remains that the LCAs are merely requests to hire an H-1B, without necessarily having a specific foreign worker in hand--and without necessarily have a JOB OPENING. In other words, the LCA numbers tend to be quite inflated. Meanwhile, I suspect that the numbers of "good fit" applicants are underestimates. There are so many synonyms among computer skills that it's hard to believe the analysis factored in all, or even most of them. On the other hand, just having the right words on a CV doesn't necessarily imply a good fit; as I've often said, for instance, a key issue is quality, as for example studies show a 10-to-1 range in productivity between the best and the worst programmers. Giovanni Peri points out in the blog article that there may be lots of job openings for which companies don't file LCAs. I agree in general, but not for the types of jobs being discussed. All the big tech companies have Immigration Departments that make sure they get LCAs in, even if they are not sure a job will materialize. Bright, of course, has a vested interest in showing that the claimed tech labor shortage is bogus; it prospers if it can match U.S. citizens and permanent residents to employers. But it may not fully realize yet (though mentioned in the article) that a lot of the genuine good fits are unacceptable to employers, as they are over age 35 and thus cost more than the employers are willing to pay. I wonder whether Bright will start factoring this into their model. The Bright paper is important for a different reason, in that it brings up a point known to very few people interested in the H-1B issue: The H-1B visa, as Brights say, is often "used by hiring companies to save search time..." This is very, very common, in my experience. So, rather than remeding a shortage, H-1B is used simply for convenience. Should government policy be subsidizing that? I hope not. (Leave aside the other reasons many firms hire H-1Bs, for cheap and immobile labor.) By the way, an interesting example of the convenience factor was mentioned to me a couple of years ago. An engineer I know told me that when he attended a fundraiser for former EBay CEO Meg Whitman (who was running for California governor at the time), he asked her why EBay hires so many H-1Bs, and she replied, "They're great, because after we hire them they bring in all their friends." Bright apparently succumbed to that itself, In summary, the Bright analysis is a little squishy (but hey, many analyses by academic researchers in this field are REALLY squishy), but of interest nonetheless. And the quote by the Bright CEO is priceless: "We’re Silicon Valley people, we just assumed the shortage was true. It turns out there is a little Silicon Valley groupthink going on about this, though it’s not comfortable to say that.” Norm Archived at http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/TheIncredibleShrinkingShortage.txt