Rethink the H-1B visa program — and stop shutting Americans out of jobs to win Gen Z
The University of Pittsburgh is hiring an event planner at a salary of $45,000.
Yes, the compensation is measly and the skill set required is elementary — but rest assured, this is a highly competitive role that no American candidate can fill.
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At least, that’s what we’re told about this and other H-1B jobs — tens of thousands of them a year.
The H-1B visa program, which lets American companies bring in 85,000-plus foreign workers each year, is an increasingly sore subject for young Americans, who feel like they’re being displaced in an already tight job market.
If Republicans want to make a play for Gen Z in the November midterm elections, ending or seriously reforming H-1B must be on their agenda.
Last week President Donald Trump made another attempt to curb H-1B usage by proposing to charge employers a hefty $103,265 fee for each H-1B worker.
But advocates of H-1B — who argue that it’s needed to recruit highly skilled foreigners for advanced work in engineering, science and IT when Americans aren’t up to the task — have previously stymied such moves in the courts.
Clearly, it’s in our national interest to poach our rivals’ geniuses.
But that’s not necessarily what’s happening — as the Pitt posting attests.
All too many companies exploit H-1B to bring in semi-skilled workers willing to be paid chump change compared to what Americans would demand.
A growing number of Gen Z and Millennials are objecting to what they see as a government-aided effort to import a cheap, unimpressive underclass that’s stealing their jobs.
Anecdotal evidence abounds: A young male relative working in computer science has complained to me about the hand-holding he and his colleagues must do for H-1B arrivals, mainly from India.
They resent having to work ever harder, even as their jobs come under threat.
“It took my son, a decorated USMC sergeant with two deployments to Iraq and a university IT degree, almost five years to get a job in his chosen field because all the entry-level positions were taken by . . . H-1B visa holders,” wrote one commenter on a YouTube video I made on this topic.
“The injustice is absolutely maddening.”
And it’s been rankling workers for years: Another commenter recalled how, 20 years ago, his department at FedEx once hired an H-1B optical engineer who didn’t know how to write software.
“I eventually set up a little school in my lab to teach them the basics, but they never produced usable code . . . What a disaster.”
To be fair, it’s not all headwinds for American STEM workers.
Job openings for software developers, quality-assurance analysts and testers are projected to grow 15% by 2034, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — much faster than the average for all occupations.
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And even if the sector was contracting, those workers’ skills would be valued in the trades, which are projected to have 1.4 million jobs across seven essential industries unfilled by 2030.
So it would make sense to keep H-1B in its current form if young Americans weren’t stepping up to the plate.
But the US has plenty of whiz kids — they just aren’t being activated.
In 2022, 17.2 million working-age Americans had STEM degrees, but only 8.6 million of them were actually employed in STEM jobs, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.
The data suggests that there’s a surplus of STEM-qualified Americans.
But as H-1B labor floods in, supply and demand means their presence will inevitably depress the salaries of American STEM workers.
That’s because H-1B is a big break for employers’ payrolls: These foreign workers earn 16% less than US workers with the exact same education, occupation, age, gender and location.
A lot of young Americans object to the prospect of being underpaid by Big Tech.
Meanwhile, accounts of corruption in the program are rife.
To qualify for an H-1B, a foreign worker generally needs a bachelor’s degree or higher.
But the program is riddled with fraud, as diploma mills — institutions that sell fake degrees or issue academic credentials with little to no coursework — help migrants bypass the requirements.
It translates into mediocre workers doing desk work or data entry — or even event planning — on the cheap.
That’s why so many young Americans see getting rid of H-1B as a simple way to ease their burden in an uncertain job market.
Americans can fill those 85,000 jobs a year, they argue — if only companies are willing to pay them fairly.
Caroline Downey is a columnist at National Review and senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum.
