Appreciate the response. I think you make some good points, on your response my thoughts would be.
1. Fully agree, but I don't think we should use that as justification to implement another unfair system. My thinking is that the current H1-B system isn't perfect, but at least we understand its shortcomings. We shouldn't implement a new system that we know has flaws because we don't know what the effects of those flaws will be. It's a devil you know vs devil you don't know type thing. If the current system was a bidding system and people were advocating for a lottery system, I would likely be advocating for staying with the bidding system.
2. To some extent I do think it does affect salaries, but I think there just aren't enough H1-B visas available to have had a super noticeable effect. Also, the rise in companies using H1-Bs has coincided with a massive rise in tech salaries and we don't have a control group to compare against. If tech salaries are up 300% in the last 10 years, but they would have been up 400% without H1-B it's really hard to prove that and it's hard to gain a ton of sympathy from the general public when tech workers are already paid far above average. No one wants to spend their political capital defending the 28 year or making 300k who is upset about not making 400k, even if they are pointing out a legitimate issue.
3. I have a couple of H1-B employees on my team and they all hate the lottery system, so I'm sure they would say a bidding system. To be honest though, in a bidding system, I don't think my company would pay enough to win a visa for them and if I told them that, that would change their mind. My guess would be that a lottery system is actually better for most people currently in the H1-B process because my personal experience has been that most of the people aren't actually all that specialized.
> My guess would be that a lottery system is actually better for most people currently in the H1-B process because my personal experience
Regardless of your personal experience, if H1-B visas are currently allocated randomly to less than 50% of the applicants, then this is mathematically true.
1. Fully agree, but I don't think we should use that as justification to implement another unfair system. My thinking is that the current H1-B system isn't perfect, but at least we understand its shortcomings. We shouldn't implement a new system that we know has flaws because we don't know what the effects of those flaws will be. It's a devil you know vs devil you don't know type thing. If the current system was a bidding system and people were advocating for a lottery system, I would likely be advocating for staying with the bidding system.
2. To some extent I do think it does affect salaries, but I think there just aren't enough H1-B visas available to have had a super noticeable effect. Also, the rise in companies using H1-Bs has coincided with a massive rise in tech salaries and we don't have a control group to compare against. If tech salaries are up 300% in the last 10 years, but they would have been up 400% without H1-B it's really hard to prove that and it's hard to gain a ton of sympathy from the general public when tech workers are already paid far above average. No one wants to spend their political capital defending the 28 year or making 300k who is upset about not making 400k, even if they are pointing out a legitimate issue.
3. I have a couple of H1-B employees on my team and they all hate the lottery system, so I'm sure they would say a bidding system. To be honest though, in a bidding system, I don't think my company would pay enough to win a visa for them and if I told them that, that would change their mind. My guess would be that a lottery system is actually better for most people currently in the H1-B process because my personal experience has been that most of the people aren't actually all that specialized.