- How 800,000 H-1B Workers Came to the U.S.
- The Picture in Washington
- Current Laws and Policies
- Programmers Guild: The American Worker Needs Protection
- Industry Group: More STEM Grads, But H-1B Reform, Too
- The Corporate Perspective: Intel’s Approach to H-1Bs
- The Opponent: H-1Bs Pressure U.S. Wages
- The Economist: H-1Bs Are Important to the Economy
- A Guest Worker’s Perspective on H-1Bs
Economist: H-1Bs Are Important to the Economy
One phrase that's almost always injected into discussions of H1-Bs is "supply and demand." But how is that measured when it comes to tech workers? For some insight, I spoke with Ashok Bardhan, a senior economist at the University of California at Berkeley and author of Globalization and a High Tech Economy: California, the U.S. and Beyond. What impact do H-1B workers have on the American economy? Because of the fact that H-1B visas are by and large issued to professionals in well-paid occupations with fast-rising demand — and thus low unemployment rates — the impact of this increased supply on wages is moderate. Having said that, there is some adverse impact on older American workers, since most H-1B applicants are young. How big a chunk of the tech workforce are H-1Bs? This is a difficult question to answer. In many years, the approvals are rarely more than a couple of percentage points of those employed in a given occupation. But in some years the number has reached double digits, and over time the share can be considerable. In some of the computer software area’s specialty occupations it can probably constitute a majority. The Special Report: