I think both sides have fine points. I don't support immigration barriers, but I also don't think we should tear the wall down in one fell swoop. If we significantly lower the boundary to immigration all at once, it will probably create a painful cycle in which all workers are significantly under paid until the businesses find the right balance in salary in order to get enough quality.

Ultimately lowering the immigration barriers will probably be good for everyone, tech workers included as the talent market globalizes and opens up more opportunities all around the world. Right now the need for good software globally seems to far outweigh the supply.

I've heard a lot of companies reason for locating in the Bay Area is for access to high quality engineers, way more than it is for financing. It's way easier to take money outside the Bay Area than it is to convince good engineers to move to X.

Without that influx, this concentration would be impossible. If the US heavily restricts immigration by software engineers, the industry will ultimately relocate elsewhere. Europe would love to get all its software engineers back.

It can still be better for engineers though, if they are in the top third of desired immigrants from a jobs perspective.

The median household income in the US about $50k, men's medial income is 45K and women's is 35K. If you assume a two income family with median earners their income will be approx $80k. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_...)

Salaries in the tech industry (even at very low positions) are much higher than this (i.e., than 50k, 45k, 35k). This is now when salaries are supposedly low due to immigration.

I do see that Americans respond to economic incentives in other professions. During the real estate bubble a HUGE number of people passed the realtor exams and got into the real estate business.

Programming/computer skills are the easiest skills to pick up (no need for expensive equipment). I'm actually very puzzled that there aren't more Americans in engineering/programming.

I'm unconvinced that fear of immigration-induced salary decreases is the reason why Americans don't want to go into engineering.

Not necessarily. Letting in immigrants with tech skills to compete with software developers should reduce salaries. But letting in immigrants with tech skills to found companies should drive up demand for software developers.

I feel the same way about doctors and other highly paid skilled professions, and immigration as a whole.

If engineering is more difficult and pays less, than you'd expect a shortage. Markets will correct this shortage naturally, since bidding wars will emerge for the smaller number of qualified engineers, wages will rise, and people who would otherwise do law or medicine would look at engineering with more interest. Unfortunately, if you allow industry-specific immigration (or worse, guest worker) programs, this market correction will never occur. This is a big part of why many people who are not opposed to immigration in general take a very dim view of the H1B (keep in mind that Milton Friedman (not exactly a guy who advocates "reducing immigration for the express purpose of not unduly expanding the labor pool" was a critic of the H1B program for this very reason). It's not that it expands the labor pool, it's that it does it in a very uneven way. You're essentially saying "we'll let you in here to do engineering, but not to do, say, law." This amounts to a government program designed to discourage Americans from studying engineering and get them into law school instead.

While most fields aren't nearly as closed off to "new Americans who may look a little different and have a funny last name" as law is, there mere absence of a widespread visa program can have a similar effect. So you'd also expect this program to encourage Americans who might otherwise have studied engineering to become real estate agents, mortgage brokers, nurses, and physical therapists.

I don't like to hear people say "dey took our jawbs", but I think it's very legitimate to ask "why did the government set up a system where engineering (and a few other) jobs were the only ones they were allowed to take?"

Especially when independent, objective research like the RAND study suggests that engineering isn't experiencing any kind of labor shortage.

BTW, there is one final factor here, which may explain what is going on. Many jobs are lucrative to the person doing them without producing much wealth. Engineering is generally the opposite - produces great amounts of wealth, but not always lucrative for the practitioner. To over simplify, a tax lawyer who saves a client a million doesn't produce a million in wealth, but he'll be paid by his client as if he had. An engineer generally does produce this wealth. So society, in general, has more interest in producing engineers than individuals have in becoming engineers. So I suppose the US has decided to resolve this by seeing if we can lure away someone else's engineers. That way, we can be lawyers, real estate agents, and so forth, and still have someone producing the wealth that the rest of us get to divvy up. As long as you ban those new people from taking anything other than an engineering job, and you don't mind watching Americans abandon the field in large numbers, should be fine, right?

Well, wait until we can't get engineers from overseas, and need to suddenly revive a profession that we essentially destroyed through policy. I actually think this could end very badly, which is often the case with the unintended consequences that occur when you regulate markets unevenly. I think that in the long run, these programs could create a severe shortage that will be very damaging.

Some founders, and engineers, have those sort of fantasy that they can hire with way lower wages or something like 1/3 of the cost for equally qualified engineers. Wrong, immigration isn't that hard, even easier for Canada, it will take time, but people might be willing to gave up 25% or even 30% of their salary to live in a place that's of lower cost, where their family reside, but they are not going to gave up 2/3 of their salary, when they could have immigrated fairly easily. The cheapest and easiest way is probably to attend a shitty school and graduate, the only cost is time.

The only impact I see is it's now way easier for smaller companies to hire and operate a team globally, even for 3-5 people, previously it was reserved for major corps and giant consultancies.

People sometimes tend to ignore that people create value for the company, not the other way around.

Also just as a side note, many countries in this world have company-paid salary tax (somewhat similar to FICA, but are paid at a much higher percentage in some places). This often gets ignored in salary comparison.

These articles seem to assume that if you open your doors, foreign engineers will come, and that if you improve your educational system, your own students will become engineers. Both are probably false in the long run.

First, there actually aren't all that many talented engineers overseas. A recent study at Duke completely debunked the notion that China and India are producing massive numbers of talented engineers. This isn't to knock IIT grads, of course - they are a very talented bunch. But 300,000 grads at this level every year? Not even close.

Second, improving the US education system in math and science isn't going to create more engineers if law, medicine, and finance remain more attractive. I recently read an article about how Japan is starting to experience engineering shortages. It was the first honest article I'd read in a while: unlike the economist article, this one pointed out that engineering is really, really hard, and doesn't pay as well as other like finance, medicine and law. In other words, there are other paths that are easier, more lucrative, and more stable than engineering.

Another problem, of course, is that if foreign engineers enter the US in large numbers while law jobs remain off limits to foreigners, that creates an incentive for US students to avoid engineering and go into law. Even if you don't create special protections for Americans like law and medicine do, you'd still expect people to steer clear of a field targeted for employment-related immigration.

In many ways, the US has created the perfect set of conditions to deter Americans from entering the field.

I always wonder when the Economist leaves out basic economics. The locations in the USA where engineering, R&D and startup innovation are concentrated are also the most expensive places to live.

25 years ago, a research scientist or engineer could make $60K and buy a house in Livermore for $120K. Now, that same house is $1.2M but the salary for a research scientist is still $60K. The immigrant researchers and engineers who originally populated silicon valley now encourage their children to be doctors, lawyers, or increasingly to go into finance (Economics is now #1 major for Smart People).

This can be fixed one of two ways: pay engineers and researchers more, or build R&D centers in less expensive areas. Corporations are choosing the second option. Unfortunately (for americans), the less expensive areas they are moving R&D are located overseas.