Why Corporate America Has Conniptions about Trump’s H-1B Visa Reform, by Wolf Richter

The H-1B visa program is riddled with contradictions, but corporations who use H-1B workers love it. From Wolf Richter at wolfstreet.com:

“This is now standard practice in the technology industry.”

US tech companies, and other companies with large IT departments, are having conniptions about President Trump’s immigration policies, particularly the leaked draft of an executive order that includes references to reforming the H-1B visa program for foreign tech workers.

In light of the 85,000 foreign tech workers allowed to be brought into the US annually under the H-1B visa program – a limit tech companies have been clamoring to raise – here’s a stunning forecast by the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Employment of computer and information technology occupations is projected to grow 12% from 2014 to 2024, faster than the average for all occupations. These occupations are expected to add about 488,500 new jobs, from about 3.9 million jobs to about 4.4 million jobs from 2014 to 2024, in part due to a greater emphasis on cloud computing, the collection and storage of big data, more everyday items becoming connected to the Internet in what is commonly referred to as the “Internet of things,” and the continued demand for mobile computing.

That’s exciting news. So 488,500 IT jobs are to be created over ten years, so about 44,850 a year on average, which means more jobs in good years and net job reductions in bad years. But over the same decade, 850,000 H-1B visa holders would come to the US to fill these 488,500 IT jobs…. You get the idea.

Now we’re in the good years. So more IT jobs are being created. Alas, many of them are going to be filled by the 85,000 foreign workers brought in every year with H-1B visas.

To continue reading: Why Corporate America Has Conniptions about Trump’s H-1B Visa Reform