The H-1B scuttle over the holiday break. Elon went to the mat defending importing employees. This may be why….
https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=tesla+inc&job=&city=&year=2024
One of the bigger stories over the week between Christmas and New Year’s was the “importing employees” scuttle that broke out. It started with Elon stating that we should only hire the best and the brightest, regardless of where they are from. This was then backed up by Vivek Ramaswamy who said that America has been “dumbed down” by propping kids in front of TV’s and screens while other cultures have their children learning and involved in extra-curricular activities that lead to learning, and make them “more qualified” for a job as a non-citizen. For the record I do think that America has been systematically dumbed down over the last 50+ years, hence why we are where we are today in falling for every propaganda they try to sell. They intentionally dumbed down our education system. Anywho….many American’s chimed in that they have the college degree/education and struggle to find jobs. Many are engineers. There were stories of people graduating with an engineering degree as a double major, and were still trying to land a job 1+ years after graduation.
H-1B is the visa program that employers use to bring non-Americans into the United States to work. Not illegal immigrants, people legally here in the US on a work visa.
Shockingly, or not so, there is someone out there that tracks every company, every job, and every salary, that is posted as a H-1B visa job. Are we REALLY bringing in the best of the best, or has this also been a way to create a whole different immigration problem?
Tesla is the example I shared above.
These are high paying jobs. There are 398 posted jobs for H-1B visa positions just at Tesla alone. I have no issue with people coming to work in the US on a work visa…..but my question is, are there truly no qualified US employees for these jobs? Are they intentionally skipping over US employees and hiring from overseas? (Full disclosure, I don’t know the ratio of US versus visa employees at Tesla, this number just appears to be very high on the visa side.)
I did a cursory search on Kansas City. Cerner, one of the biggest tech companies in Kansas City, hires a TON of H-1B visa employees. So do the local hospitals. They are looking for visa employees to work as physicians, medical school faculty, nurses, cath lab employees, etc. There are even positions for visa employees to work as pastors of churches in my area.
The big question becomes, are we importing employees for gain, or to our own workforce detriment? That is the question. I encourage you all to have a look at your own city. Who is heavily relying on importing visa employees to work for them versus hiring local?
One biggie that has come under fire is Bass Pro Shops. Located in Springfield Missouri.
These are 2 jobs that would be life game changers with that salary. Located 2 hours south of Kansas City, I can promise you that good smart talent could easily be recruited to work these two jobs. Springfield has a university locally, and you have one of the best engineering/STEM colleges (Missouri S&T) in the country an hour down the road in Rolla. Not to mention you have University of Arkansas about a hour away, Oral Roberts and University of Tulsa close by, Pitt State just across the Kansas border, and too many colleges to count a 2 hours drive north. Why are they importing for these positions?
American’s have questions.
Neither of Trumps new billionaire donors that he is now evidently beholden to should have attacked the American workforce the way they did. I personally took offense to being called dumb and retarded. After 30 years in tech and having lost countless jobs to cheap labor indentured servants, that I had to train, importing even more foreigners isn't a plan, it's an Invasion and concerted effort to put Americans out of work. Trump was on record stating he was against h1b visa in 2016, now he's suddenly for the practice. He can't have it both ways. Either he is FOR America first or he is for replacing us with indentured servants. He got called out and rightfully so. This is what healthy debate looks like. Everyone gets an opinion. There should be absolutely no immigration for the next 2 generations in the US. We're full up and Trump was elected on putting Americans back to work, not replacing us with slave labor.
Jennifer: i worked in the IT field for over 30 years in different companies (i have an information systems degree).The whole H1B visa thing was going on then. No one who was a native American who worked in IT liked it because it resulted in stagnant salaries and job loss. But all of us were powerless to change it. And we are still powerless to change it. My advice to young people: do not go into IT because the deck is stacked against you.