Technology companies are falsely claiming a shortage of domestic engineering talent in order to justify lifting the cap on H1-B visas and import foreign workers. This keeps domestic engineering salaries down by dramatically increasing the supply of workers, even while there is an ample supply of unemployed domestic engineering talent. Keeping technology talent salaries low discourages the pursuit of domestic science and technology careers serving only to depress the supply of domestic engineering talent. In other words, raising the cap on H1-B visas, depresses the supply of domestic engineering talent in the longer term while increasing unemployment in the short term.
We petition the Obama admistration to oppose raising the cap on H1-B visas as long as the unemployment rate is above 5%.