Giving some actual research on the effect of H1Bs on tech /u/larrytheevilbunnie CSCQ protests reddit

I’ve been seeing a lot of emotion and anecdote the past few days, and thought it would be nice to inject some facts into the discussion, because y’all unironically don’t realize that immigrants increase the supply of jobs and make it easier to find jobs in the long term.

First off, immigrants are 100% a boon to tech employment, and anyone saying they’re not is coping. Immigrants are just more likely to start businesses of all types, and this is especially so in tech. Despite making up only 14% of the population, immigrants were founders of 55% of current Unicorn startups%20of%20these%20companies.%20The%20number%20rises%20to%20nearly%20two%2Dthirds%20(64%25)%20when%20adding%20companies%20founded%20by%20the%20children%20of%20immigrants) (goes up to 64% when you add 2nd generation American children), and despite making up 27% of the population, immigrants and their children founded 46% of the current Fortune 500 companies. And this is just the supply side, I haven’t even included the additional jobs from increased aggregate demand.

And the research is like overwhelmingly in favor of high skill immigration (all lifted from here).

H1Bs don’t have negative effects on natives, in fact, they benefit us in aggregate by increasing the number of jobs and wages:

• Mayda et al. (2017) found that when national H-1b numbers were restricted, employment for similar native-born workers didn’t rise.
• Mahajan et al. (2024) found that companies who won the H-1b lottery didn’t hire fewer “H-1b-like” native-born workers. They conclude that “lottery wins enable firms to scale up without generating large amounts of substitution away from native workers”.
• Kerr et al. (2015) find that when companies successfully hire more H-1b workers, they employ more skilled native-born workers than before.
• Peri, Shih, and Sparber (2015) look at the city level instead of the company level, and found that “increases in STEM workers are associated with significant wage gains for college-educated natives.” This should help quiet fears that companies that hire H-1b workers are outcompeting companies that hire mostly native-born Americans.
• Glennon (2023) shows that when companies are prevented from hiring H-1b workers, they start investing in other countries instead: “How do multinational firms respond when artificial constraints, namely policies restricting skilled immigration, are placed on their ability to hire scarce human capital?…[F]irms respond to restrictions on H-1B immigration by increasing foreign affiliate employment…particularly in China, India, and Canada. The most impacted jobs were R&D-intensive ones…[F]or every visa rejection, [multinational companies] hire 0.4 employees abroad.”
• Dimmock et al. (2019) find that startups that manage to hire H-1b workers are a lot more likely to have a successful exit.
• Mithas and Lucas (2010) find that once you control for observable determinants of skills, H-1b workers actually get paid more than similar American workers, not less. That means they’re generally not being forced to do the same job as a native-born worker for lower cost, as some allege.

The real reason y’all are unemployed is like 99% due to interest rates, your own skill issue, and the fact Trump gimped the R&D tax deduction.

Also, a bunch of really cracked people are basically only here due to H1B. I will take 1 Yan LeCun over 1 million unemployed cs majors any day of the week.

I’ve been seeing a lot of emotion and anecdote the past few days, and thought it would be nice to inject some facts into the discussion, because y’all unironically don’t realize that immigrants increase the supply of jobs and make it easier to find jobs in the long term.

First off, immigrants are 100% a boon to tech employment, and anyone saying they’re not is coping. Immigrants are just more likely to start businesses of all types, and this is especially so in tech. Despite making up only 14% of the population, immigrants were founders of 55% of current Unicorn startups%20of%20these%20companies.%20The%20number%20rises%20to%20nearly%20two%2Dthirds%20(64%25)%20when%20adding%20companies%20founded%20by%20the%20children%20of%20immigrants) (goes up to 64% when you add 2nd generation American children), and despite making up 27% of the population, immigrants and their children founded 46% of the current Fortune 500 companies. And this is just the supply side, I haven’t even included the additional jobs from increased aggregate demand.

And the research is like overwhelmingly in favor of high skill immigration (all lifted from here).

H1Bs don’t have negative effects on natives, in fact, they benefit us in aggregate by increasing the number of jobs and wages:

• Mayda et al. (2017) found that when national H-1b numbers were restricted, employment for similar native-born workers didn’t rise.
• Mahajan et al. (2024) found that companies who won the H-1b lottery didn’t hire fewer “H-1b-like” native-born workers. They conclude that “lottery wins enable firms to scale up without generating large amounts of substitution away from native workers”.
• Kerr et al. (2015) find that when companies successfully hire more H-1b workers, they employ more skilled native-born workers than before.
• Peri, Shih, and Sparber (2015) look at the city level instead of the company level, and found that “increases in STEM workers are associated with significant wage gains for college-educated natives.” This should help quiet fears that companies that hire H-1b workers are outcompeting companies that hire mostly native-born Americans.
• Glennon (2023) shows that when companies are prevented from hiring H-1b workers, they start investing in other countries instead: “How do multinational firms respond when artificial constraints, namely policies restricting skilled immigration, are placed on their ability to hire scarce human capital?…[F]irms respond to restrictions on H-1B immigration by increasing foreign affiliate employment…particularly in China, India, and Canada. The most impacted jobs were R&D-intensive ones…[F]or every visa rejection, [multinational companies] hire 0.4 employees abroad.”
• Dimmock et al. (2019) find that startups that manage to hire H-1b workers are a lot more likely to have a successful exit.
• Mithas and Lucas (2010) find that once you control for observable determinants of skills, H-1b workers actually get paid more than similar American workers, not less. That means they’re generally not being forced to do the same job as a native-born worker for lower cost, as some allege.

The real reason y’all are unemployed is like 99% due to interest rates, your own skill issue, and the fact Trump gimped the R&D tax deduction.

Also, a bunch of really cracked people are basically only here due to H1B. I will take 1 Yan LeCun over 1 million unemployed cs majors any day of the week.