Economic Immigration Dilemma

Debunking Forbes: 14 In-demand Tech Jobs Employers Are Struggling To Fill

2017-05-10T20:38:00.004-07:00

I'm writing this because some Congressman will inevitably cite Forbes and enter this piece of fake news into the Congressional record.

Forbes Business Contributor, Laurence Bradford, published a click-bait piece titled, "14 In-demand Tech Jobs Employers Are Struggling To Fill". The article is 15 pages of photos, each containing a basic caption about a purported tech job. The reader has the pleasure of loading all of the Forbes advertising 15 times to get through the article.

Ms. Bradford claims that GlassDoor.com has the following, 1,076,505 positions that "...employers are struggling to fill."

Job #	Title	Purported GlassDoor Postings
1	IT Architect	10,487
2	Security Engineer	18,686
3	Data Scientist	20,498
4	QA Engineer	23,543
5	Front End Engineer	25,064
6	Mobile Developer	40,112
7	Java Developer	42,233
8	Data Engineer	49,712
9	Network Engineer	57,008
10	Software Engineer	69,989
11	Product Manager	70,488
12	DevOps Engineer	155,476
13	Solutions Architect	176,372
14	Systems Engineer	316,837

	Total	1,076,505

The problem is that GlassDoor only has a total of 441,693 listings

GlassDoor: All Job Openings 441,693 Jobs

Forbes is a staunchly pro-immigration publication...

"Why Pro-Immigration and Pro-Growth Policies are"
- Forbes, Oct 25, 2011 - Economic growth is essential for progress. The broad liberal goal to bring prosperity and justice to as many people as possible relies on ...

"6 Immigrant Stories That Will Make You Believe In"
- Forbes, Oct 4, 2016 - What's also meaningful is that despite all the hot air America, a land of immigrants, remains decidedly pro-immigrant. A 2016 Pew Research ...

"What Will Donald Trump Mean For Immigration?"
- Forbes, Nov 9, 2016 - Ronald Reagan was profoundly pro-immigration and spoke of America as a “shining city on a hill.” Lyndon Johnson and other recent ...

"Illegal Immigrants Don't Lower Our Wages Or Take Our Jobs"
- Forbes, Aug 28, 2015 - Immigration has taken center stage in the race for the Republican Presidential nomination. The conventional wisdom says illegal immigrants ...

"Billionaires Rally Around Immigration, Against Trump's ..."
- Forbes, Mar 12, 2016 - Known for his continuous support for the Democratic Party, Soros' pro-immigration agenda dates back to 1996 and the Emma Lazarus Fund, ...

Archived pages:

Archives:
https://web.archive.org/web/20170511022952/http://www2.forbes.com/business/14-in-demand-tech-jobs-employers-are-struggling-to-fill/

https://web.archive.org/web/20170511021127/http://www2.forbes.com/business/14-in-demand-tech-jobs-employers-are-struggling-to-fill/2/

https://web.archive.org/web/20170511021359/http://www3.forbes.com/business/14-in-demand-tech-jobs-employers-are-struggling-to-fill/3/

https://web.archive.org/web/20170511021602/http://www2.forbes.com/business/14-in-demand-tech-jobs-employers-are-struggling-to-fill/4/

https://web.archive.org/web/20170511021713/http://www3.forbes.com/business/14-in-demand-tech-jobs-employers-are-struggling-to-fill/5/

https://web.archive.org/web/20170511021816/http://www2.forbes.com/business/14-in-demand-tech-jobs-employers-are-struggling-to-fill/6/

https://web.archive.org/web/20170511021930/http://www3.forbes.com/business/14-in-demand-tech-jobs-employers-are-struggling-to-fill/7/

https://web.archive.org/web/20170511022023/http://www2.forbes.com/business/14-in-demand-tech-jobs-employers-are-struggling-to-fill/8/

https://web.archive.org/web/20170511022110/http://www3.forbes.com/business/14-in-demand-tech-jobs-employers-are-struggling-to-fill/9/

https://web.archive.org/web/20170511022217/http://www2.forbes.com/business/14-in-demand-tech-jobs-employers-are-struggling-to-fill/10/

https://web.archive.org/web/20170511022347/http://www3.forbes.com/business/14-in-demand-tech-jobs-employers-are-struggling-to-fill/11/

https://web.archive.org/web/20170511022430/http://www2.forbes.com/business/14-in-demand-tech-jobs-employers-are-struggling-to-fill/12/

https://web.archive.org/web/20170511022526/http://www3.forbes.com/business/14-in-demand-tech-jobs-employers-are-struggling-to-fill/13/

https://web.archive.org/web/20170511022636/http://www2.forbes.com/business/14-in-demand-tech-jobs-employers-are-struggling-to-fill/14/

https://web.archive.org/web/20170511022704/http://www3.forbes.com/business/14-in-demand-tech-jobs-employers-are-struggling-to-fill/15/

Disinformation (brought to you) By Code.org

2017-05-05T13:47:00.000-07:00

Click to enlarge

Disinformation IS Published by Code.org

For the latest in the computer worker shortage disinformation saga, we have a website called Code.org. While promoting importance of computer literacy is important, their claims about demand for those skills are not based in reality.

Two of the claims on their Promote Computer Science page are as follows:

There are currently 521,444 open computing jobs nationwide.
Last year, only 42,969 computer science students graduated into the workforce.

The problem with these statement are:

The "521,444 open computing jobs" are based upon 2024 projections. As of this writing, the current year is 2017.
The "computer science students graduated" is selection bias, for the occupation(s)

We can be assured that there are not "521,444 open computing jobs." (A) The Computer occupations have never experienced that much growth in one year and (B) the Department of Labor's, JOLTS database, publishes job opening statistics. From the January 2017 JOLTS report, there were 5,625,000 openings across all sectors, we subtract 5,424,000 million hires to arrive at 201,000 open positions. Thus, it is impossible to have 500,000 open "computing jobs." You can read about the JOLTS definition of Active recruiting here.

Code.org does have a document published that outlines how they arrived at these figures. That document confirms that they are using BLS 2014 to 2024 projections and also discloses the Occupational codes (SOC) they used (See Table 1).

In Table 1, I've combined their list with the BLS 2014 to 2024 projections data.

Table 1:

Computer Science codes:	(Projections 2014-2024)	Growth & Replacement	Growth (Employment Level)	Educational level
11-3021	Computer and Information Systems Managers	94,800	53,700	Bachelor's degree
17-2061	Computer Hardware Engineers	18,400	2,400	Bachelor's degree
25-1021	Computer science teachers, post-secondary	11,500	3,800	Doctoral or professional degree
15-1111	Computer and information research scientists	6,000	2,700	Doctoral or professional degree
15-1121	Computer systems analysts	191,600	118,600	Bachelor's degree
15-1122	Information security analysts	25,500	14,800	Bachelor's degree
15-1131	Computer programmers	81,000	-26,500	Bachelor's degree
15-1132	Software developers, applications	238,000	135,300	Bachelor's degree
15-1133	Software developers, systems software	107,900	51,300	Bachelor's degree
15-1134	Web developers	58,600	39,500	Associate's degree
15-1141	Database administrators	39,200	13,400	Bachelor's degree
15-1142	Network and computer systems administrators	79,400	30,200	Bachelor's degree
15-1143	Computer network architects	31,500	12,700	Bachelor's degree
15-1151	Computer user support specialists	150,500	75,100	Some college, no degree
15-1152	Computer network support specialists	36,900	13,600	Associate's degree
15-1199	Computer occupations, all other	37,700	7,700	Bachelor's degree

	Totals	1,208,500	548,300

So far, so good, we have the 548,300 in employment level growth that Code.org has referenced in their published document. Apparently, the BLS feels that 660,200 (15%) will leave the occupations by 2024.

Math & Computer Science factoid:

Of those with bachelors degrees or higher (2,647,000 of 3,578,220) in 2012-13 data...	Employed	% of Occupation
At least one S&E degree = 73.3%	1,940,251	54.2%
No S&E degrees but at least one S&E-related degree = 4.3%	113,821	3.2%
No S&E or S&E-related degree but at least one non-S&E degree = 22.5%	595,575	16.6%

Subtotal (slightly off due to rounding?)	2,649,647	74.0%

No Bachelors degree	928,573	26.0%

National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, Scientists and Engineers Statistical Data System (SESTAT) (2013), http://sestat.nsf.gov.

Source data: https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_107.htm and https://www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm

Click to enlarge

When we reference the WebCaspar database for Computer Science, in the method prescribed by Code.org, we find 60,266 bachelors degree conferred in 2015, this is quite a bit higher than 42,969 as stated by Code.org. In fact, the 42,969 number does not exist in the current output.

Computer Science is not the only curriculum for the "computing jobs" designated by Code.org. In fact, we can use the "SOC 2010 to CIP 2010 Crosswalk" to determine the Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) codes for the Standard Occupational Classifications (SOC) codes in Table 2.

Table 2

SOC to CIP Crosswalk: for Code.org referenced computer occupations
01.0106 Agricultural Business Technology
11.0101 Computer and Information Sciences, General
11.0102 Artificial Intelligence
11.0103 Information Technology
11.0104 Informatics
11.0199 Computer Science, Other
11.0201 Computer Programming/Programmer, General
11.0202 Computer Programming Special Applications
11.0203 Computer Programming, Vendor/Product Certification
11.0299 Computer Programming, Other
11.0301 Data Processing and Data Processing Technology/Technician
11.0401 Information Science/Studies
11.0501 Computer Systems Analysis/Analyst
11.0701 Computer Science
11.0801 Web Page, Digital/Multimedia and Information Resources Design
11.0802 Data Modeling/Warehousing and Database Administration
11.0804 Modeling, Virtual Environments and Simulation
11.0901 Computer Systems Networking and Telecommunications
11.1001 Network and System Administration/Administrator
11.1002 System, Networking, and LAN/WAN Management/Manager
11.1003 Computer and Information Systems Security/Information Assurance
11.1004 Web/Multimedia Management and Webmaster
11.1005 Information Technology Project Management
11.1006 Computer Support Specialist
13.1321 Computer Teacher Education
14.0901 Computer Engineering, General
14.0903 Computer Software Engineering
14.0999 Computer Engineering, Other
15.1204 Computer Software Technology/Technician
26.1103 Bioinformatics
26.1104 Computational Biology
30.0801 Mathematics and Computer Science
30.1601 Accounting and Computer Science
30.3001 Computational Science
30.3101 Human Computer Interaction
43.0116 Cyber/Computer Forensics and Counterterrorism
51.0709 Medical Office Computer Specialist/Assistant
51.2706 Medical Informatics
52.1201 Management Information Systems, General

When we compare the last ten years of educational data (for permanent residents and citizens), these awards (1,235,998) are congruent with the BLS Projections (1,208,500).

Computing jobs: Degrees & Certificates conferred US Citizens and Permanent Residents (2006-15)

Doctorate – Professional = 9,899
Masters = 166,437
Bachelors = 544,578
Associate = 323,393
Post-grad Certificates = 11,012
1 but less than 4 year Certificates = 62,541
Less than 1 year Certificates = 118,138
Total 2006-2015 = 1,235,998

Of course, the NCES colleges also educate foreign students, the capacity to exceed projections does exist and the United States grants 1.2 million employment based green-cards per decade.

Computing jobs: Degrees & Certificates conferred Temporary Residents (2006-15)

Doctorate – Professional = 11,805
Masters = 113,545
Bachelors = 41,312
Associate = 4,862
Post-grad Certificates = 2,076
1 but less than 4 year Certificates = 974
Less than 1 year Certificates = 1,679
Total 2006-2015 = 176,253

Given the fact the NCES colleges have increased degree production by 20% of the 2006-2015 sample, it is safe to assume that there is an adequate supply of U.S. trained computer professionals.

H-1B: How many continue beyond the six years?

2017-03-14T10:43:00.001-07:00

H-1B: How many continue beyond the six years?

In Computer Occupations, 22,000 second extensions granted annually.

Written by Steve Kritzer
March 14th 2017
Updated March 15th 2017

Subjects: H-1B, Characteristics, AC21, PERM, Computer Occupations

I stumbled onto the 2015 H-1B Characteristics report, date-stamped March 17, 2016, it was embargoed from the public for almost a year. I think it is important to know what's happening within one's occupation.

On the topic of AC21 extension, I found that there are two types that are statistically significant. A seventh year extension which is annually renewed and a three year version if the intending immigrant will fall under the per-country quota backlog for PERM. There is no way i could find to tell the difference between the two numerically, but for the IT occupations (by percent), about 22,000 are filed annually. If the H-1B are primarily from India and China (3 yr. extensions), this would be 22,000 people, otherwise some portion of 22,000.

This number is significant to me because I have to ask, does the employee accept sponsorship as a job perk? Does (s)he really want to be a citizen, or is it just more convenient to stay? In some cases, PERM requires advertising the job and a labor certification examination. Does this happen when the petition is filed, or after the H-1B holds the job for another ten years on a hopeless waiting list? (As of January 17, 2017, DHS is giving itself 1780 days (4.8 years) to complete Labor Certifications.)

Alternately, if there is a dire shortage of these "brightest and best," why would only 1/3 be sponsored when PERM is so cheap?

Here's what the H-1B Characteristics report says about Continuing employment extensions.

Continuing employment petitions refer to extensions, sequential employment, and concurrent employment, which are filed for aliens already in the United States. Extensions generally are filed for H-1B workers intending to work beyond the initial 3-year period up to a total of six years, the maximum period generally permissible under law. Sequential employment refers to petitions for workers transferring between H-1B employers within the 6-year period. Finally, petitions for concurrent employment are filed for H-1B workers intending to work simultaneously for an additional H-1B employer.

Neither AC21 nor prior legislation established a cap on H-1B petitions for continuing employment. Certain aliens are exempt from the 6-year maximum period of admission under the provisions of the

American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act of 2000 (AC21), Pub. L. No. 106-313, 114 Stat. 1251. Computer Related H-1B

Computer-related occupations

Initial employment approvals
2010 = 31,661
2011 = 51,570
2012 = 83,444
2013 = 79,870
2014 = 80,877
2015 = 70,902

Total = 398,324 (66387.3 avg)

Total employment approvals (Continuing plus Initial)
2013 = 171,613
2014 = 203,425
2015 = 183,076

Total = 558,114

(Amount exceeding Initial employment approvals = 159,790)

Computer related, percent of all H-1B occupations
2013 = 59.8%
2014 = 64.5%
2015 = 66.5%

(Source data: Characteristics of Specialty Occupation Workers (H-1B): Fiscal Year 20xx_)

Concurrent and Change of employment applications
(Occupational share (percent of))
2013 = 26,493
2014 = 33,477
2015 = 34,041

Total = 94,012

Remainder of excess continuing approvals = 65,778 (21,926 avg yr.)

Employer is filing a second (or subsequent) extension of stay for an H-1B nonimmigrant.
(Occupational share (percent of))
2013 = 23,745
2014 = 28,975
2015 = 26,348

26,356 avg yr.

(Source data: FY 20xx Annual Report: H-1B Petitions)

By subtracting fee data from the Computer-related occupations in the Characteristics report, we arrive at an average of 21,926 extensions, but are unable to differentiate between single and three year duration.

By distributing the percentage of Computer-related occupations across "second (or subsequent) extension of stay" fee data, we arrive at an average of 26,356 extensions, but are still unable to differentiate between single and three year duration.

Data: https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-studies/reports-and-studies

Not in Labor Force NILF -- November 2016

2016-12-03T09:58:00.003-08:00

Not in Labor Force (NILF) -- November 2016

Finding the hidden unemployment rate?

Written by Steve Kritzer on December 3rd 2016
Updated December 3rd 2016

Subjects: Unemployment, Not in Labor Force, Working Age, Recession

Armed with the knowledge that the U-3 Unemployment Rate is subjective rather than objective, the nagging question is, "How do we compare current unemployment rates with historical unemployment rates?"

Not in Labor Force (NILF) is a top level catch-all category for those who are neither employed, nor unemployed (not actively seeking employment). The Civilian noninstitutional population includes the Labor Force, which is composed of the Employed, plus the Unemployed, everyone else considered Not In Labor Force. There will always be a certain amount of the NILF for various reasons, education, child rearing, disability. These are persons who did not work during the survey period and did not actively seek employment.

One way to model the effect of variance in the NILF would be to establish a bench-mark and distribute that percentage of NILF in all of the years going forward. With this model we effectively, establish what portion of the NILF would be considered unemployed and available for employment. In the chart below, I chose the average NILF (15.87%) for 1999, the last year we had full employment.

The chart uses the working-age population (25 through 54), to eliminate most students and baby-boomer retirements. This data is only available in the unadjusted series.

The (blue) chart data is the remainder of the NILF above 15.87%, which are then combined with the average number of unemployed for the year and then divided by the average employment level.

As expected, there is no deviation between the unemployment rate (red) and the unemployment rate plus the remainder of the NILF (blue) in 1999.

For the Bush 43 administration years, 2000-2008, we see that the headline unemployment rate would have been about 1.5% higher had these persons not been classified NILF.

For the Obama administration years, we see NILF obscure 3% of the unemployed in 2009 and over 4% in 2013, 2014 and 2015.

The St. Louis FRED is reporting a 3.8% unemployment rate in this age-group for November, 2016 (avg. 4.2% for the year), quite a departure from the 8.0% (1999 equivalent) in the chart.

Sources:
BLS Household Survey:
Series Id: LNU00000060
Series Id: LNU02000060
Series Id: LNU05000060

What President Trump Can Do About H-1B?

2016-11-13T13:05:00.000-08:00

What President Trump Can Do About H-1B?

The Secretary of Labor needs to consider available data.

by weaver on Sunday November 13, 2016

Updated: Thursday February 9, 2017, 7:55am

Subjects: Trump, H-1B, Secretary of Labor, Computer occupations, unemployment

After a few days reviewing the law concerning H-1B and L-1 visas, I'm finding that the foreign labor arbitrage problem can be addressed within current law and resolved by the Secretary of Labor, by practicing due diligence with respect to Labor Certifications.

Following the election of President Trump, we should become very interested in his choice for Secretary of Labor, Secretary of State and the Attorney General (Jeff Sessions). Insisting that the Secretary of Labor forces employers to prove that there is no equally qualified candidate would be an equitable method to determine difference between a uniquely qualified non-immigrant and career destroying foreign labor arbitrage.

U.S. Code › Title 8 › Chapter 12 › Subchapter II › Part II › § 1182(a)

(5) Labor certification and qualifications for certain immigrants

(A) Labor certification

(i) In general Any alien who seeks to enter the United States for the purpose of performing skilled or unskilled labor is inadmissible, unless the Secretary of Labor has determined and certified to the Secretary of State and the Attorney General that—

(I) there are not sufficient workers who are able, willing, qualified (or equally qualified in the case of an alien described in clause (ii)) and available at the time of application for a visa and admission to the United States and at the place where the alien is to perform such skilled or unskilled labor, and

(II) the employment of such alien will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of workers in the United States similarly employed.

(ii) Certain aliens subject to special rule For purposes of clause (i)(I), an alien described in this clause is an alien who—

(I) is a member of the teaching profession, or

(II) has exceptional ability in the sciences or the arts.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1182

How is the Secretary of Labor certifying that there are not sufficient equally qualified workers available in the case of § 1182?

Apparently, for an H-1B, all that is required is a bachelor's degree in an ill-defined definition known as "Specialty occupations" for certification. However, in the case of 1182(a)(5)(A)(i)(I), if the foreign worker's only credential is a bachelor's degree, then the foreign worker is inadmissible when a person with a bachelor's degree is available for the position.

Even in the case of an "exempt" foreign candidate, if there is an equally qualified U.S. candidate, § 1182 would prevail and the certification denied; exempt H-1B status only exempts the employer from the additional attestation regulations in the CFR.

The circular referencing in § 1182 would certainly allow the Secretary of Labor to rightly decline many labor certification applications, especially where an a more qualified American is being replaced.

Note: I cannot find any verbiage within CFR › Title 20 › Chapter V › Part 655 › Subpart H that nullifies the certification requirements found in § 1182. "Exempt" status is specifically for prevailing wage determinations and exempting "dependent" employers from additional attestations. Even if the alien worker is paid the $60,000 or possesses a master's degree, if an equally qualified American holds the job, the alien is inadmissible.

H-1B initial employment (Computer related)

The most recent data we have for H-1B is from October 2013 (FY 2014).

Even as of November 2016, the most recently published H-1B Characteristics report (FY2014) is for nonimmigrants who were authorized for employment on October 1, 2013. Reminding the reader that the total H-1B cap is 85,000, the FY2014 report shows us that 80,877 initial approvals were granted in Computer-related occupations.

Total H-1B approvals
The total number of H-1B initial employment approvals for FY2014 (October 1, 2013) was 124,326, government, non-profit and related educational employers are exempt from the numerical caps. Of these 124,326 initial approvals:

Aliens outside U.S. = 68,390
Aliens inside the U.S. = 55,936

The exemptions for government, non-profit and advanced degrees, found in 8 USC 1184(g)(5)(A)-(C) only exempts these petitioners from the numeric caps, nothing in the law exempts these individuals from the admissibility requirement found in 1182(a)(5)(A)(i)(I).

Unemployment

Q3 2013 unemployment in Computer occupations was 155,000. These are computer professionals actively seeking work. Keep in mind that if the computer professional's last employment was as a barrister, (s)he is no longer counted as an unemployed computer professional.
"Table 3. Employed and experienced unemployed persons by detailed occupation and class of worker, Quarter III 2013 (Source: Current Population Survey)"

Employment growth

Employment growth in Computer occupation for 2013 was 116,620. (80,877 new H-1B consumed (69.4%) of employment growth in the occupation.)
Note that the following Computer occupations do not require a bachelors degree.

Occupational growth

15-1150 Computer Support Specialists = 12,750

15-1134 Web Developers = 9,880

This should reduce the H-1B eligible employment growth to 93,990, H-1B consumed 80.6% of the eligible Computer occupations
Source: U.S. Department of Labor Statistics. http://www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm

College degree production

Degree production for U.S. citizens and permanent residents in Computer And Information Sciences and Support Services was 101,407 in 2013.

2013 Degrees/Awards Conferred: Computer And Information Sciences and Support Services
U.S. Citizens and Permanent Residents

Doctorate Degree-Research/Scholarship = 849
Doctorate Degree-Other = 21
Master's Degrees = 12,725
Bachelor's Degrees = 49,204
Associate's Degrees = 38,608

Total Degrees = 101,407

Degrees/Awards Conferred by Race (NCES population of institutions)
https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/webcaspar/index.jsp

The damage

Keep in mind that the following does not include other visa programs like the L-1, the TN (NAFTA), the O-1 and the EB permanent residence visa.

H-1B Computer related initial employment = 80,877
College Degrees (U.S. citizens and Perm residents) = 101,407
Computer occupations unemployed = 155,000

Subtotal = 337,284

Employment growth (subtract) = 116,620

New unemployment level = 220,664

The H-1B program increased unemployment levels by 65,664 in FY 2014. The average unemployment benefit nationally is $300 per week and since new college graduates are not reporting difficulty being placed, we presume the newly unemployed are those being displaced. If this is the case, the misuse of the H-1B is costing state unemployment programs $19,699,200.00 per week, or $512,179,200.00 per year, if extended to the full 26 weeks.

An additional 66,700 L-1 visas were issued in 2013, however these statistics are not delineated by occupation.
Source: U.S. Department of State. https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/law-and-policy/statistics/non-immigrant-visas.html

Turns out, an education in Tech can be a curse rather than benefit

2016-10-31T15:25:00.002-07:00

Turns out, an education in Tech can be a curse rather than benefit.

Patriot at the end of his rope, help needed.

Written by weaver on Monday October 31st 2015
Updated October 31st 2015

Subjects: fundraiser, navy, veteran, H-1b, volunteer

Laid off in 2003, Virgil is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. He lives in (“get a job”) Harper Texas, but because he has Tech skills, nobody will hire him for entry level positions and Tech jobs only go to H-1B temporary foreign workers (in April) and new graduates get the left overs in June.

Virgil hasn't been idle, he has dedicated his time to exposing the foreign labor problem on his websites (KeepAmericaAtWork.com) and being a Navy veteran, he is also an active volunteer in HeadwatersForHeroes.com, the local veteran's charity. His realtor's license is on inactive status for lack of funds to renew.

We need at least 63 people who can chip in $10.00 to keep him on his land. He is optimistic about an upcoming WalMart gig, which should keep him on his property and fighting the foreign labor incursion.

Can we get him over this hump intact?

Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/vbierschwale

H-1B Lottery Application Abuse

2016-10-27T21:36:00.001-07:00

H-1B Lottery Application Abuse

H-1B applications nine times the amount of job growth.

Written by weaver on October 27th 2016
Updated October 27th 2016

Subjects: Labor Condition Application, H-1B, Employment, Keep America at Work

Keep America at Work posted some LCA data today, which reminded me that I wanted to see some comparisons.

9 H-1B applications compared to each job in the prior years's growth? The Computer Systems Analysts occupation only employs 556,660, adding 272,221 (H-1B) would be a 49% increase. The occupation has only grown 38,430 since 2008.

The H-1B program is obviously being abused by overwhelming the system with free applications. It is the equivalent to the government giving away free lottery tickets. All the employer has to do is apply, the application fees are paid only if the visa selected in the lottery -- all other applications are returned unopened -- i.e., those checks are not cashed. An H-1B Dependent employer can apply for 10,000 H-1B visas, without incurring the $40 million that it should cost to do so.

(I.e., Foreign outsourcers apply for 20 visas, even though they only need one. Stacks the odds in their favor and costs them net nothing.)

Giveaway to H-1B Employers Opens Huge Hole in USCIS Budget

H-1B Applications
https://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/pdf/PerformanceData/2016/H-1B_Selected_Statistics_FY2016_Q3.pdf

Employment levels May 2015
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm

Historical employment levels
http://www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm

Working Age Employment Levels Still Below 1999 Levels.

2016-07-24T19:07:00.003-07:00

Working Age Employment Levels Still Below 1999 Levels.

Dismal Employment Outlook for Ages 25 to 54

Written by Steve Kritzer
Updated October 16th 2016

Subjects: employment, unemployment, working age, labor statistic
Related

Employment levels

Employment levels for this age group (25 to 54) are still below the levels attained in 1999 (-586,000).

Population

Lower employment can't be attributed to baby-boomer retirement, this population has grown by about 5.5 million.

Employment to population ratio

The drop in the employment to population ratio, is about 4%.

Unemployment rate

Somehow, with negative job growth, we have arrived at a similar unemployment rate (3.1% in 1999 vs 4.0% in June 2016).

Labor force with Employment levels

The labor force is the combination of the employed plus the unemployed.

In the chart below, the delta between the two charted lines is the number of working age unemployed. In December of 2007, the labor force was 104,694,000, in June of 2016, the labor force is 102,025,000. The population has largely recovered since December 2007, but 2.7 million persons have left the labor force.

Working Age Employment Levels Still Below 1999 Levels.

2016-07-24T19:07:00.001-07:00

Working Age Employment Levels Still Below 1999 Levels.

Dismal Employment Outlook for Ages 25 to 54

Written by Steve Kritzer on Tuesday July 24th 2015
Updated July 25th 2015

Subjects: employment, unemployment, working age, labor statistic

Employment levels

Employment levels for this age group (25 to 54) are still below the levels attained in 1999 (-586,000).

Population

Lower employment can't be attributed to baby-boomer retirement, this population has grown by about 5.5 million.

Employment to population ratio

The drop in the employment to population ratio, is about 4%.

Unemployment rate

Somehow, with negative job growth, we have arrived at a similar unemployment rate (3.1% in 1999 vs 4.0% in June 2016).

Labor force with Employment levels

How many H-1B in the United States?

2016-05-21T12:23:00.001-07:00

How many H-1B in the United States?

Many more H-1B than the experts have estimated

Written by Steve Kritzer on July 24th 2016
Updated March 19th 2017

Subjects: H-1B, Michelle Malkin, Center for Immigration Studies, Economic Policy Institute

At about 13:00 mmss in the accompaying video, Malkin looks to the panel for confirmation that 650,000 H-1B are in the country. USCIS reports indicate the number of H-1B filing for ACWIA fees is 1.6 million during the most recent six year period.

Adjustments, put the number of H-1B working in the US at about 1.07 million, but we only account for six years on the AC21 backlog -- which is still H-1B status. It is known that there are H-1B backlogged in AC21 since 2012, but that number is not possible to quantify due to an unknown number of departures.

In, "Temporary foreign workers by the numbers", By Daniel Costa and Jennifer Rosenbaum • March 7, 2017, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) declares that there are 460,749 H-1B working in the United States.

The EPI report completely ignores the population of H-1B from the prior decade, who are beyond the six year limitation, living and working in the US on AC21 extension. EPI actually deducts two years of these H-1B extensions (52,184) from their estimate. These individuals are still in H-1B status!

So I guess EPI's logic goes as follows: in addition to H-1B exemption to the rule concerning direct replacement of professionals performing the job, exemptions to the statutory caps for certain types of employers, an extension for STEM-OPT students to work 3 years before the H-1B is granted and the AC21 permanent extension (beyond the six year statutory limigation) for those who can find a sponsor, the EPI arbitrarily removes a huge population, who are technically still on H-1B.

Until the AC21 petitioner secures another form of Employment Authorization Document (EAD), they are collateral damage from the H-1B and remain classified as such. They are primarily foreign undergraduates who have not completed an FBI background check and the labor certification for the jobs they hold are postponed years beyond the H-1B six year limitation.

Some of the data the EPI uses comes from the USCIC "FY 20xx Annual Report: H-1B Petitions" reports. We can do a sanity check for a six year period to gauge how many light-years the EPI is off on its estimate.

H-1B: Filed (ACWIA fee)
2010 = 247,617
2011 = 267,654
2012 = 307,713
2013 = 299,467
2014 = 318,824
2015 = 348,669

Total = 1,789,944

H-1B: Approved and approval rate (ACWIA fee)
2010 = 192,990 (77.94%)
2011 = 269,653 (100.75%)
2012 = 262,569 (85.33%)
2013 = 286,773 (95.76%)
2014 = 315,857 (99.07%)
2015 = 275,317 (78.96%)

Subtotal = 1,603,159 (89.56%)

H-1B: Change of employer (Fraud detection fee)
2010 = 27,551
2011 = 40,476
2012 = 37,290
2013 = 43,400
2014 = 51,029
2015 = 50,504

Subtotal = 250,250

Total = 1,352,909
(Approved ACWIA Fees w Change of employer Fraud Deduction Fee instances deducted).

If we include a commensurate EPI estimate of LPR status awarded to H-1B (2 x 139,303 = 278,606), this still leaves us with 1,074,303 approved ACWIA filings -- 614,154 more than the EPI's estimate.

Update:
Zamora: H-1B adjustment of status to Legal Permanent Resident (LPR)

2010 = 40,717
2011 = 47,764
2012 = 42,318
2013 = 49,221
2014 = 42,167
2015 = 44,437 (avg. of prior yrs.)

Total H-1B to LPR= 266,624

Note 1: The 1 year extensions, deducted by EPI (52,184 for two years), are still H-1B visas, there is no reason for EPI to deduct these H-1Bs to arrive at, "...H-1B workers were employed in the United States..." (on page 18).

Note 2: Because of the (purported) six year limitation on H-1B visa, this data does not consider AC21 extensions prior to 2010. USCIS and EPI claim that these extensions are filed either annually, or triennially. The presumption made here is annually, as only paying the ACWIA fee every third year would markedly increase the estimate of those on AC21 extension.

Note 3: The number of second extensions for 2010 to 2015 was 225,807, which again is a mixed bag of single-year and three-year extensions. We know that some green card categories are backlogged 12 years, so a sample of 2010 to 2015 would not be all inclusive. The number of adjustments to LPR status deducted from this data-set exceeds second extensions; therefore, renewals of second extensions (regardless of duration) are statistically irrelevant to the total.

Source Data:
Table 3. Number of H-1B Petitions Approved by Quarter and Reason of Exemption from ACWIA Fee: FY 20xx
Table 5. Number of H-1B Petitions Approved Requiring Fraud Prevention and Detection Fee: FY 20xx
https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-studies/reports-and-studies
Zamora: "Are 'Temporary Workers' Really Temporary? Turning Temporary Status into Green Cards"
EPI: "Temporary foreign workers by the numbers"

Immigration Moratorium: Chapter 2

2015-11-24T16:51:00.001-08:00

Immigration Moratorium

Chapter 2: Expected Useful Lifetime of STEM Degree

1 million new STEM jobs projected by 2022, 5.9 million new American graduates will apply for them.

by Steve Kritzer on
November 24, 2015; Updated November 24, 2015

Subjects: Immigration moratorium, STEM, Employment, Education, temporary visa


Source data by NSF/NCES

In the previous post, we found that domestic (citizen and permanent resident) bachelor's degree production is more than adequately meeting employment growth published by the BLS. Even with an additional 22 months (2014-Oct. 2015) of employment growth beyond the college degree data period (2000-13), there would still be 6.42% slack (not employed) in the college educated population.

For this post we are looking at STEM degree production, on the domestic side (citizens and permanent residents), for the fourteen years of data we have 4,945,112 STEM bachelor's and 3,311,070 associate's degrees conferred, for a total of 8,256,182. Without factoring in any immigration and considering the STEM sector employment level for 2014 below, domestic degree production can replace the entire STEM employment market in a little over 15 years. Most of these graduates need 40 years of employment to reach their retirement age.

There were over 8.3 million STEM jobs in May 2014, representing about 6.2 percent of total U.S. employment. Seven of the 10 largest STEM occupations were related to computers. These occupations included applications software developers, with employment of 686,470; computer user support specialists (563,540); and computer systems analysts (528,320). Wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives of technical and scientific products (335,540) was the largest STEM occupation that was not specifically computer related. Source: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ocwage.pdf

The BLS 2014 projection for STEM employment is that STEM employment "...is projected to grow to more than 9 million between 2012 and 2022. That’s an increase of about 1 million jobs over 2012 employment levels." [PDF] However, from averages taken from the table below, the STEM bachelor's degrees will be conferred will be 3.53 million and the associate’s degrees will be another 2.37 million over ten years. Basically, there are 5.9 million (citizen and permanent resident) students in the pipeline for an employment growth projection of 1 million jobs.

The following educational sectors are adhock and do not represent the exact degrees in the paragraph above, but with the disparity in numbers, all we need is common horse-sense to support an immigration moratorium.

Citizenship (standardized): U.S. Citizens and Permanent Residents 2000-2013	Bachelor's	Associate's
01 Agriculture, Agriculture Operations, and Related Sciences	206,762	69,513
02 Agricultural Sciences	901	163
04 Architecture and Related Services	125,605	7,057
10 Communications Technologies/Technicians and Support Services	46,313	52,801
11 Computer and Information Sciences and Support Services	612,641	474,940
14 Engineering	902,298	32,648
15 Engineering Technologies and Engineering Related Fields	207,083	499,185
25 Library Science	1,202	1,681
26 Biological and Biomedical Sciences	1,042,147	31,070
27 Mathematics and Statistics	5,496	25,738
29 Military Technologies and Applied Science	688	7,455
40 Physical Sciences	287,555	28,020
41 Science Technologies/Technicians	4,391	19,979
41 Science Technologies/Technicians	4,391	19,979
48 Precision Production	583	34,736
51 Health Professions and Related Programs	1,497,056	2,006,105

Subtotals	4,945,112	3,311,070

The following table displays the (2000-13) degrees conferred to temporary resident (foreign students). Attempting to grant work authorization to just U.S. educated foreign workers will add 556,490 job seekers to the STEM workforce, bringing the competition to 6.5 candidates for each projected job. Additionally, under President Obama's planned OPT extension, foreign STEM students will receive up to a three year Social Security and Medicare contribution exemption, combining the employee and employer share this is a discount of 12.4% on Social Security and another 2.9% on Medicare combined contributions.

Citizenship (standardized): Temporary Residents 2000-2013	Doctorate	Master's	Bachelor's	Associate's
01 Agriculture, Agriculture Operations, and Related Sciences	3703	6961	3,028	513
02 Agricultural Sciences	31	42	16	2
04 Architecture and Related Services	714	15673	6,789	267
10 Communications Technologies/Technicians and Support Services	15	2093	1,407	1,199
11 Computer and Information Sciences and Support Services	5676	112524	41,916	9,192
14 Engineering	34598	193060	67,107	1,696
15 Engineering Technologies and Engineering Related Fields	267	11736	6,411	4,993
25 Library Science	150	1941	7	7
26 Biological and Biomedical Sciences	14513	19830	29,255	888
27 Mathematics and Statistics	5496	25738	11,855	725
29 Military Technologies and Applied Science	0	2	5	0
40 Physical Sciences	16543	23011	11,490	1,915
41 Science Technologies/Technicians	3	69	177	356
48 Precision Production	0	12	33	88
51 Health Professions and Related Programs	5565	38369	22,109	17,303

Subtotals	87,274	451,061	201,605	39,144

Totals	779,084	5.02%	(Associate's)

Source data: https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/webcaspar/

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License.

Immigration Moratorium; Chapter 1

2015-11-20T23:50:00.000-08:00

Immigration Moratorium

Chapter 1: College Outcomes vs. Employment Growth

by Steve Kritzer November 20th 2015
Updated November 21st 2015

Subjects: Immigration moratorium, employment, college outcome, unemployment, H-1B,Green Card

The high-skill immigration debate is turning toward stapling a Green Card to U.S. conferred degrees. (The globalists call them advanced degrees without any further specificity, so we'll assume bachelors degrees and above in this exercise.)

Instead of writing about H-1B, this exercise coaxes college outcome data out of BLS Employment growth statistics verses Permanent Resident and Citizen bachelor's degrees conferred (U.S.) to find a "Not Employed" rate.

The following section in the table displays the bachelors degrees and above and how that "Not Employed" rate is changed as we accept more (U.S. college educated) Temporary Residents (non-citizens).

Retirement for those 65 and older are subtracted from the U.S. degrees conferred yearly at the rate of their presence in the population for the subject year. (A generous deduction since this percentage grows yearly and those degrees were conferred 40 years ago).

Finally, the original Employment Growth data does not match the available educational data, I adjusted that "Not Employed" rate in the final section of the table. (I'm not calling it an unemployment rate because it would not be technically accurate.)

Bachelors Degree Employment Outcomes Since 2000

Citizen and PermRes Bachelors Degrees Conferred (2000-13)	20,720,142
Retirement (aging out) Bachelors Since December 1999	-3,420,761

Bachelors Degrees Adjusted Growth	17,299,381
BLS Employment Growth Bachelors (Dec. 1999 - Oct. 2015)	16,189,000

Bachelors Degree Not Employed	1,110,381
Bachelors Degree Not Employed (Percent - U.S. only)	6.42%


Temporary Resident Degrees Conferred (2000-2013)
Bachelors	661,474
Masters	1,044,480
Doctorate	126,813

Not Employed Percent with TempRes Degrees Added
Bachelors	10.24%
Masters	12.46%
Doctorate	7.15%

Total Not Employed Bachelors (w Res and Non res.)	17.01%


Rollback Employment to 2013 Levels (to match EDU data)	13,876,381
Bachelors Degrees Adjusted Growth (U.S. Citizen and PermRes.)	16,189,000

Bachelors Degree Not Employed (U.S.)	2,312,619
Temporary Resident Degrees Conferred (2000-2013)	1,832,767

Bachelors Degree Not Employed (Percent)	27.99%

Notes: The number of Doctorate degrees conferred to Temporary Residents is miniscule over the 14 year period, 100% of the bachelors degrees are unnecessary as is some portion of the masters degrees. The yearly average is 130,912.

Not all foreign students foreign student will be interested in staying, the current employment-based Green Card caps of 140,000 is adequate. All temporary immigrant programs are likely unneeded.

* I noticed that when I rolled back the "Not Employed" to EOY 2013 levels, I did not subtract the 853,000 degree holders who had not yet retired.

Educational Data Source: https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/webcaspar/
Employment and Population Data Unadj. (Current Population Survey - CPS) Source: http://www.bls.gov/data/

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License.

Job Openings Data Misrepresented

2015-07-24T12:05:00.001-07:00

Job Openings Data Misrepresented

Think tank personnel cannot read a simple chart, desperate to fool public?

Written by Steve Kritzer on July 24th 2015
Updated July 25th 2015

Subjects: shortage of STEM graduates, Adams Nagar, H-1B train your replacement, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation ITIF

Adams Nagar, an Economic Research Analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (a lobbyist think tank), has completely misrepresented the JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) data. On page 2 of "Looking Past the Loopholes: Are H-1Bs an 'Offshoring' Visa?", Nagar claims that there are 5.4 million job openings, but neglects to include that 5 million of those positions were filled in the same period. (This happens each and every month.)

Demand for technology workers has never been higher. Indeed, many of the record 5.4 million positions currently open in the United States are tied to the shortage of STEM workers.

Companies facing costly [H-1B] hiring difficulties face a tough choice: Remain uncompetitive with under-qualified U.S. workers, pay to poach workers from other companies and industries also facing shortages, fill the positions with foreign-born and often U.S.-educated professionals, or leave the position unfilled and forfeit an opportunity for growth.

Unable to interpret the simple Wall St. Journal chart that he linked to, perhaps Nagar is a prime example of an under-qualified U.S. worker that he references. He holds an M.A. in Political Economy and Public Policy and a B.A. in Economics and Political Economy from Wash. U.

Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS)

The JOLTS survey measures actively recruited positions, as Job Openings. It also measures, Hires and Separations, categorized as quits, layoffs with no intent to rehire, discharge of the position or personnel etc. Basically, JOLTS simply measures "churn" or natural turnover in the labor market.

The JOLTS data begins in December 2000, so I decided to take a look at, and chart, the long term averages. I found it interesting that for all of the years included in the data-set, even during recessions, Hires exceeded Job Openings, with the except being 2015. (This data to June 2015 and June is preliminary.)

The blue line in the chart above is the yearly average of Job Openings which finally returned to year 2000 levels. The red line, Hires, is currently averaging 369,600 below year 2000 levels. The yellow line (calculated by subtracting Opening from Hires (implied employment change)), is the amount the Hires have traditionally exceeded Job Openings, this year appears to be an outlier.

Although I hate to use Unemployment data because it does not include discouraged workers, I used it in the following chart because I wanted to compare those actively seeking employment to the active recruiting format the JOLTS provides in Job Openings.

The above chart adds the JOLTS averages with Unemployment data (U-3) by educational level, this data is only available for ages 25 years and older.

The brown line represents headline unemployment levels (number of persons) with less than a bachelors degree. From 2007 to 2010, this group's unemployment levels grew by 4.95 million. Again, this population is likely to contain discouraged workers, which are not included in the U-3 displayed, but the steeply diving trend in this segment of the unemployed since 2010, makes it appear that the majority of hiring has occurred within the population with less than a bachelors degree.

The green line, represents those unemployed, 25 and older, with a bachelors degree and higher. Again, because this is U-3 Unemployment data, this represents people actively seeking employment. This data appears to be quite telling. For the years 2000 through 2008, we see that unemployment levels appear to be closely associated with the jobs which were not actively recruited (the yellow line, Hires vs. Openings). From 2008 forward, a gap has opened up between the non-actively recruited Hires and the formally educated and unemployed population.

Divergence: unemployed college grads and non-actively recruited Hires.
2007 = 202,333
2008 = 245,083
2009 = 711,167
2010 = 956,833
2011 = 1,064,000
2012 = 1,249,000
2013 = 1,227,167
2014 = 1,287,250
2015 = 1,535,433

Note that Unemployment levels for college graduates and above was 559,000 in December 2000 and is 1,307,000 for June 2015.

Before analyzing what is going on with the college graduates, I refer back to the chart, to point out that prior to 2009, the unemployment levels for those with less than a bachelors degree (brown line) also appears to have had a correlation with the non-actively recruited Hires.

Unemployment: less than a bachelors degree

When even the New York Times reports on it, it is no secret that the majority of recovery jobs have been created in low paying service industries. Automation is also constantly increasing, so the level of sophistication for some jobs is on the decline. Additionally, many college graduates are reporting that they are taking wrote service level jobs, bartender, waitress, Uber driver etc.

Unemployment: bachelors degree and above

With the Unemployment levels in this population still 2.4 times higher than they were in December of 2000, there is either, no suitable jobs for them, an unwillingness to hire these workers, or many are not willing to settle for employment that does not fall within their discipline/meet their salary requirement.

An open search for advertised positions on Dice.com, the premier job website for technical employment yields 86,858 job listings, this is basically identical to pre-recession levels.

Adams Nagar, economics degree and all, must be living in some kind of parallel universe if he thinks that JOLT numbers, which have barely eclipsed December 2000 levels, have anything to do with demand for STEM workers and by extension H-1B visas.

There are already plenty of visas for "domestic" employers, but not if they are used for the "train your replacement" loophole, where those employee's only sin was to be more expensive than a foreign student who is attempting to jump the citizenship line through non-immigrant visa programs.

"Domestic" employers can't seem to come to terms with the fact that offshore outsourcing firms are the top users of and applicants for the H-1B visa. They are gaming the system, and in actual terms are foreign firms, or whose specialty is arbitraging jobs to foreign nations, benefiting from a program that was designed to help American employers.

Microsoft Uses Women's Soccer Team to Regurgitate Faulty Data

2015-07-20T23:13:00.003-07:00

Microsoft Uses Women's Soccer Team to Regurgitate Faulty Data

Microsoft's use of the US Women's Soccer Team and faulty data to try to increase immigration falls to a new low.

Written by Steve Kritzer on Monday July 20th 2015

Subjects: shortage of Computer Science (CS) graduates, Women's Soccer, H-1B train your replacement, shortage debunked, Computer Science degrees

We gained some traction on "train your replacement" H-1B abuse. Many thanks to the journalists who covered the stories.

Foremost, a big thank you to ComputerWorld's, Patrick Thibodeau for his tireless work on covering the H-1B and foreign labor arbitrage topic. "About 500 IT jobs are cut at utility through layoffs and voluntary departures", February 4, 2015.

The New York Times, Pulitzer Prize winner, Julia Preston, who wrote, "Pink Slips at Disney. But First, Training Foreign Replacements", June 3, 2015, and was surprised enough about the comments on the article that she did a follow up article.

The Los Angeles Times, Pulitzer Prize winner, Michael Hiltzik, who covered the Southern California Edison labor arbitrage in, "A loophole in immigration law is costing thousands of American jobs" February 20, 2015. (Sorry, no links, The LA Times is currently behind paywall -- I guess I could delete their cookie.).

The Immigration shills waited a while and have now started regurgitating the faulty, data based, immigration attorney funded, H-1B (temporary foreign labor) propaganda. The use of women's issues and the US National Soccer Team is a new angle though. The article is pretty well identified as propaganda and discussed on Slashdot.

Ten days ago, the United States women’s national soccer team became the most successful team in the history of the FIFA Women’s World Cup by winning the top prize for the third time. However, despite the fact that soccer is not as popular in America as in the rest of the world, it is not surprising that the U.S. women have been dominant in the sport in recent years. The explanation for that success lies in the talent pipeline. With over 1.5 million girls registered in youth leagues, close to 50 percent of all youth players in the U.S. are female and soccer is one of the top three most popular sports among girls ages 5-19.

We only get into the third paragraph before the author whips out the cherry picked graduation data and uses BLS projections rather than actual data.

Unfortunately, the strength in the talent pipeline that we see in female soccer today is not the reality for technology. The U.S. is facing a shortage of Computer Science (CS) graduates. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, every year there are close to 140,000 jobs requiring a CS degree, but only 40,000 U.S. college graduates major in CS, which means that 100,000 positions go unfilled by domestic talent. Even more dramatic is that women in U.S. colleges and universities earn only 18 percent of CS degrees."

-- Changing the face of coding", By Lori Forte Harnick - Microsoft General Manager, Citizenship and Public Affairs, July 15, 2015

First, Computer Science undergraduate degrees are not the only degrees that are applicable to Computer occupations. Additionally, in 2011, the Census Bureau reports that, 1,013,300 (28%) of those employed in Computer occupations held less than a bachelor's degree.

Citizens and Permanent Residents
Computer related degrees conferred 2013	Total	Female	-/- Percent Female
Master's Degrees	12,725	3,303	25.96%
Bachelor's Degrees	49,204	8,726	17.73%
Associate's Degrees	38,608	8,198	21.23%

Total	100,537	20,227	20.12%

Source: NSF WebCaspar, 11 Computer and Information Sciences and Support Services.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projections is also rather suspect at 140,000 per year, in fact, since 2009, employment growth in computer occupations is less than 10% of projected, at 13,922.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics: OES

By the way, the H-1B initial employment approvals for Computer-related occupations was 80,877 for 2014 alone. One year of H-1B intake exceeded five years of recession recovery growth of 69,610.

The latest five years of C.S. and C.I.S. graduation data (2009-13), for citizens and permanent residents only (Master's, Bachelor's and Associate) is 444,912 with 92,716 (20.84%) conferred to women.

After this investment in time and resources, do our qualified women even get a tryout, when temporary foreign workers have a clear hiring preference?

Incidentally, are there any women with temporary visas on the U.S. Women's Soccer Team?

Misleading Employment Situation Report

2015-07-13T10:26:00.001-07:00

Here's the quote from the first line of Employment Situation Report for June 2015. "Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 223,000 in June, and the unemployment rate declined to 5.3 percent,..."

These two pieces of data are not even from the same surveys.

The problem here is that the Unemployment rate is taken from the Household Survey(CPS), not the Payroll report(CES). For the month of June, total employment(CPS) declined by 56,000, yet unemployment edges down by 0.2%. (More than 100% in the decline in the Unemployment rate for June is the result of people leaving the labor force.)

Employment for bachelors degreed and above (25 and older), employment increased by 30,000, curiously that unemployment rate also declined by 0.2%.

Also, when we read the monthly Employment Situation Report, employment by Industry is taken from the Payroll report (CES) and the April and May reports were revised downward by 60,000. So this seemingly straight forward survey was off by 12% in the previous reports, and again, has nothing to do with the unemployment rate.

If you ever want to stump an idiot who tells you how great the economy is doing and points to the Unemployment rate as proof, ask them, "How many jobs were created that month, and what that number has to do with the Unemployment rate?"

Debunked: Shortage in Math and Computer Science

2015-05-21T00:36:00.000-07:00

Debunked: Shortage in Math and Computer Science

Shortage of Computer Science and Mathematics Debunked -- Professionals crowded out by H-1B

Written by Steve Kritzer on May 21st 2015
Updated January 28th 2017

Subjects: H-1B visa, STEM shortage myth, Bachelors Degree, STEM shortage debunked, Math and Computer Science degrees

College employment outcomes worsening

I am surprised that I had not thought of approaching the STEM shortage myth in this manner before. Math and Computer Science constitutes 50% of all STEM occupations and roughly 60% of all new H-1B visas are computer related. The H-1B visa program began in 1992; therefore, we can presume that Math and Computer Science occupations were primarily staffed with citizens and permanent residents in 1992.

NCSES ranked colleges conferred 2,317,505 Math and Computer Science degrees and certificates from 1992 to 2013, to citizens and permanent residents. Using 1992 employment levels (1,830,800) as our baseline, we add the new degrees to the 1992 employment levels to find the size of our native Math and Computer Science workforce at 4,147,305

Math & CompSci 1992 - 2013
Employment levels
(15-000) Computer and Mathematical Occupations (2013) = 3,696,180
Math and Computer Science (1992) = 1,830,800

Growth levels
Employment Growth Since 1992 = 1,865,380
Mathematics and Computer Degrees & Certs (1992-2013) = 2,317,505

Employment deficit = 486,705 (13.17%)
Does not include foreign workers since 1992, nor foreign students.

Only counting domestic resources (citizens and permanent residents), we have educated half a million more Math and CompSci professionals than we employ. This without considering the hundreds of thousands of H-1B, L-1, T-N (NAFTA), OPT and O visas granted annually.

So where is this shortage? The IT shortage that employers, trade associations and immigration attorneys write incessantly about? (The occupations targeted with "shortage" adjective (traditionally Math & CompSci) has been expanded to STEM occupations, but that topic is for another paper.)

486,705 is a surplus of 9,734 formally trained professionals for every state in the nation, or a national surplus of 13.17%. For retirement to be a factor, a significant portion of those employed in Math and Computer Science occupations would have had to have been 42 years old in 1992. Highly unlikely since IBM's MS-DOS was not introduced until August of 1981.

There are about 1.6 million H-1B working in the US, per USCIS 2014 data, 64.5% are in computer occupations. Roughly 1,032,000 H-1B in CompSci.

We also know from the Census Bureau (ACS), that a bachelors degree is not mandatory in computer science, 28% of those employed in computer occupations had less that a bachelors degree in 2011. Aptitude can be proven with coursework, individual initiative, or both.

High School or less
Computer support specialists = 49,200
Computer occupations, all other = 31,800
Software developers = 22,400
Computer programmers = 21,800
Computer systems analysts = 20,800
Computer and information systems managers = 20,100

Some College or Associate’s Degree
Computer support specialists = 210,700
Computer occupations, all other = 125,100
Computer and information systems managers = 116,500
Software developers = 114,700
Computer systems analysts = 98,700
Computer programmers = 94,300
Network and computer systems administrators = 87,200

Computer occupations less than bachelors degree (2011) = 1,013,300 (28.04%)

Computer occupations employment 2011 = 3,614,046

In 2011, Computer occupations accounted for 50% of all STEM occupations.

Detailed by field of degree from the same Census Bureau report, only 49% of those with Computers, mathematics, statistics degrees are working in STEM fields. Under the twisted logic of trade-association's, open-borders propaganda, they would have you believe that this is due to these professionals finding better employment in other fields. The reality is that these professionals have just as likely been crowded out of their chosen field by temporary foreign workers.

Census Bureau: Bachelor’s Degree for the First Listed Major: 2011

Computers, mathematics, and statistics = 1,879,764

51% not working in STEM = 958,679

Source: Liana Christin Landivar, 2013, “The Relationship Between Science and Engineering Education and Employment in STEM Occupations,” American Community Survey Reports, ACS-23, U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, DC.

Math & CompSci Deficit Update 1992 - 2015
Employment levels
(15-000) Computer and Mathematical Occupations (2015) = 4,005,250
Math and Computer Science (1992) = 1,830,800

Growth levels
Employment Growth Since 1992 = 2,174,450
Mathematics and Computer Degrees & Certs (1992-2015) = 2,657,642

Employment deficit = 483,192 (12.06%)
Does not include foreign workers since 1992, nor foreign students.

Note 1: I became curious as to whether some degrees or certifications may have been granted to the same persons. I ran the NSF/WEBCASPAR query again, this time selecting "Highest Degree (standardized):" rather than "Level of Degree or Other Award:" both queries yield the same result of 2,657,642.

Note 2: Employment growth in Math & CompSci, for the years 2013, 2014 and 2015, totaled was 397,360. Unemployment decreased from 3.6 to 2.6 percent, declining by 34,000 persons, but the employment deficit only declined by 3,513. Of the unemployment decline, only 10.33% came from the employment deficit I've described in this paper.

For 2013 and 2014, 160,747 new H-1B temporary workers were added to the Computer related occupations. 401,922 new citizen and permanent resident degrees and certifications (2013 (127,260), 2014 (135,176) and 2015 (139,486)), would have kept pace with the increase in employment levels without the need for temporary workers.

Degrees & Certs, Math & CompSci 1992-2015
Year: 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995, 1994, 1993, 1992
Citizenship (standardized): U.S. Citizens and Permanent Residents
Academic Discipline, 2-digit Classification of Instructional Program (CIP): 11 Computer and Information Sciences and Support Services, 27 Mathematics and Statistics
Level of Degree or Other Award: All values
Academic Discipline (CIP)	Level of Degree or Other Award	Citizens & perm. residents
11 Computer and Information Sciences and Support Services	Doctorate Degrees	8,532
	Doctorate Degree-Research/Scholarship	5,384
	Doctorate Degree-Professional Practice	54
	Doctorate Degree-Other	152
	Master's Degrees	225,622
	Bachelor's Degrees	912,140
	Associate's Degrees	640,889
	Post-Master's Certificates	2,120
	Post-Baccalaureate Certificates	12,944
	2 But Less Than 4 Year Certificates	12,265
	1 But Less Than 2 Year Certificates	151,910
	Less Than 1 Year Certificates	235,698
	Subtotal	2,207,710
27 Mathematics and Statistics	Doctorate Degrees	10,154
	Doctorate Degree-Research/Scholarship	5,779
	Master's Degrees	70,559
	Bachelor's Degrees	336,521
	Associate's Degrees	23,634
	Post-Master's Certificates	1,069
	Post-Baccalaureate Certificates	1,271
	2 But Less Than 4 Year Certificates	3
	1 But Less Than 2 Year Certificates	169
	Less Than 1 Year Certificates	773
	Subtotal	449,932
Mathematics and Computer total (1992-2015)		2,657,642

Data sources:

Occupational statistics data: http://www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm
IPEDS Completions Survey by Race https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/webcaspar/
USCIS Reports and Studies https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-studies/reports-and-studies

Source: Liana Christin Landivar, 2013, “The Relationship Between Science and Engineering Education and Employment in STEM Occupations,” American Community Survey Reports, ACS-23, U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, DC.

Employment - Unemployment: 25 - 54 Age-group Still Getting Pounded.

2015-04-06T10:22:00.001-07:00

Subjects: Unemployment, Immigration, Employment growth, Ages 25 - 54, Male, Female

I recently read a ZeroHedge article, by Tyler Durden, with a thesis on how most employment growth has been going to males, 55 years and older. I noticed two flaws in the analysis. First, some comparisons only included the age-group 55 - 64 and other data presented includes ages 55 and over (including retirement age). Second, I did not see any consideration for the fact that many of these employed males are baby-boomers and may have aged into the 55 and over category, simply remaining employed in the same position.

(In an earlier posting, I noted that 2/3 of the 3 million net jobs created from 2000 to End of Year (EOY) 2009, were held by retirement age individuals beginning in 2010, most likely, this is a combination of aging into the age-category and choosing not to retire during recession, with some electing to return to the workforce.)

For the reasons I've stated above, I decided to look at the 25 through 54 age-group and do an Employment to Population growth sample from EOY 1999 to the present (end of month March 2015). During this exercise, one thing that occurred to me is that this would be an opportunity to expose how meaningless the Unemployment statistic really is.

Current (March 2015) employment levels are still 691,000 below Jan. 31, 1999 levels.

In the chart above we are simply examining the aggregate growth of the BLS-CPS population growth (noninstitutionalized civilian population) with employment growth for the 25 - 54 year old age-group. I note that the population has declined by 1.05 million since 2007; considering the fact that immigration is well over 1 million per year, I presume the population decline is due to baby-boomers aging out of the category.

Unemployment vs. Not In the Labor Force: Additionally, I decided to take a look at the unemployment rates for the period and compare them to employment levels. I found two months with almost identical employment levels. In January 2009, employment was 95,921,000 and the Unemployment rate for this age-group was 7.7%. In January 2015, employment was 95,834,000 and the Unemployment rate was 5.3%.

Simple logic infers that a reduction of 487,000 (0.39%) in the population, with virtually the same employment levels, did not cause the Unemployment rate to be 2.4% lower. The cause for the Unemployment rate decline is that 2,705,000 fewer persons feel that seeking employment will produce any results.

If you don't already know how this happens statistically, the search-term is "Not In the Labor Force" and there is a, freshly published, Bureau of Labor Statistics backgrounder here.

As the ZeroHedge article article does imply, women do seem to have a tougher go than men.

Current (March 2015) female employment levels are still 679,000 below Jan. 31, 1999 levels.

In the chart for females above, I note that the 2001-02 recession caused a flat employment growth rate from 2001 until 2004. Employment did not return to 1999 levels until 2006, and in comparison to the chart for males (below), the 2004-08 recovery for the female population did not exceed 1999 employment levels, even though this population had increased by 3 million.

Current (March 2015) male employment levels are still 11,000 below Jan. 31, 1999 levels.
Also of interest is that the entire decline in the population for the age-group is limited to males.

For the male population, I note that the 2001-03 recession was short-lived, with 2007 employment levels reaching 2.6 million higher that Jan. 31, 1999, 4.3 million jobs evaporated by 2009, while the population had increased by 4.2 million for the period.

About these charts: These charts are a sample of how the job-creation engine is performing over a specific period of time. In the 25 - 54 age group, we have added 6.2 million to the population (5.25%), combined with employment level losses of 691,000 since Jan. 31, 1999.

My recommendation (which will fall on deaf ears): In his wisdom, the President is hell-bent on providing permanent residency to some illegal aliens living within the United States. The problem with this plan is he gives nothing in return and does nothing to restore the employment growth economic-equilibrium. The remedy is an immigration moratorium, this can be achieved by a decrement in the caps on legal immigration for each illegal alien that is granted status on a one to one basis.

Data:
BLS-CPS http://www.bls.gov/data/

Period ending: March, 2015

(Unadj) Population Level - 25-54 yrs.
Total = 124,949,000
Male = 61,334,000
Female = 63,615,000

(Unadj) Employment Level - 25-54 yrs.
Total = 96,300,000
Male = 51,615,000
Female = 44,685,000

Data extracted on: April 5, 2015 (2:19:06 PM)

The Great Employment Giveaway

2015-03-20T14:40:00.000-07:00

Subjects: H-1B visa, Immigration, Bachelors Degree, L-1 visa, O-1 visa, TN visa, Work years

Since 2000, USCIS starts the fiscal year by giving away about 1 million work-years, in advance, to skilled non-immigrant foreign workers. In the chart below, we see the actual visas granted by year; however, most of these visas do not expire yearly, the H-1B has a six year expiration, the L-1 intracompany-visa a 5 year for worker, or 7 year expiration for manager. The O-1, and TN visas are one year duration and can be extended indefinitely.

In the following chart, we see the same visas as above, combined as a group, with their expiration duration extrapolated. The work-years consistently remain at or above 1 million since the year 2000.

Generally, the skilled visas in question require a bachelors degree or equivalent, the following chart displays the yearly growth in employment levels for bachelors degrees and above, available from the BLS only in the 25 years and above age-group. When comparing the chart above with the employment growth chart below, we see that from 2001 to 2014, has employment growth exceeded the linear of about 1 million new jobs only 6 times in those 14 years.

In 2008, employment levels for college graduates declined by 106,000. During that same year 1.46 million non-immigrants were hired, thus, incumbent workers lost 1.56 million jobs. In fact from 2007, to 2011, untold numbers of US workers and possibly temporary foreign workers lost million of jobs, due to the incessant importation of temporary worker. Even though employment was growing, the flood of foreign workers made it impossible for separated workers to rejoin the workforce for several years.

This brings us to the data that started me wondering if there is a correlation to the addition of educated workers with worsening employment opportunities. The chart below compares the percent of bachelor degree'd and above (again age 25 and older) with the percentage of bachelor degree'd and above within the entire civilian population. In this data, there is no distinction between citizen workers and immigrants, but we see that around the year 2000, temporary foreign workers began to increase, while the opportunities for college graduates decreased. Note that this is many years prior to the great recession.

Data sources:

BLS CPS
http://www.bls.gov/data/

Nonimmigrant Visas by Individual Class of Admission (e.g. A1, A2, etc.)*
http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/law-and-policy/statistics/non-immigrant-visas.html

Comparison: "Inequality for All"

2015-02-25T12:34:00.001-08:00

Subjects: Income Inequality, Immigration

No, I haven't seen Reich's, Inequality for All, but I did notice a similarity between his "suspension bridge" graph and the Census data for the foreign-born in the labor force, covering roughly the same period.

It appears to this layman, that income inequality peaked during the era of the robber-baron, i.e., the Great Depression and then again at the onset of the Great Recession, where the foreign-born in the labor force was in excess of 15% on both occasions.

Perhaps, the learned economists can explain why an inorganic labor supply, comprised of immigrants, does not upset the labor and wage economic-equilibrium, thereby causing the income inequality gap.

By percent, the lowest level of foreign-born in the labor force was in 1970 at 5.2%. This correlates with the chart provided below "Wages as Percent of GDP" (Gross Domestic Product).

Wages as Percent of GDP
(as mass-immigration resumes in 1970, wage share declines)

Here is the teaser for the film, if you are interested...

View count since March 18, 2015

OPT extension to cost current STEM workers 175.5 billion in earnings

2014-11-21T21:41:00.000-08:00

Updated: November 21, 2014

American Tech Workers Successfully Win Standing to Sue on Alleged Illegal Issuance of STEM-Related Work Authorization

Source: Link

American workers at a huge hiring disadvantage.
* Judge recognizes that OPT foreign-workers are Social Security and Medicare exempt.

The Programmers Guild and the Immigration Reform Law Institute, have been denied a preliminary injunction against the Bush administration's 17 month extension of OPT-CPT training visas for foreign graduates studying STEM coursework.

Catch up on the details here:
Judge rejects student visa injunction sought by H-1B opponents
Patrick Thibodeau: Computerworld, August 7, 2008

Here's the problem:

"Hochberg's ruling focused less on the merits of the case and more on whether H-1B opponents had legal standing to bring it, noting that they could not show they had been directly hurt by the student visa extension."

One way to demonstrate direct harm to current STEM workers would be to show the effect of the added temporary foreign workers impacting the lifespan of the STEM career.

BLS STEM Employment 2005 = 5,228,040
Avg STEM Salary 2005 = $64,560.00

U.S. citizens and permanent residents:
Bachelors Degrees Science and Engineering (S&E) awarded
1995 = 363,463
1996 = 369,927
1997 = 373,745
1998 = 375,909
1999 = missing
2000 = 383,438
2001 = 384,492
2002 = 399,288
2003 = 421,730
2004 = 436,372

Total = 3,508,364
(389,818.22 avg. per yr.)

STEM Career to replacement factor (domestic) = 13.41 years
(2005 STEM employment divided by avg. S&E (citizen and perm res.) bachelor degree production.)

Assumptions:
* Domestic bachelor's degree production will increase naturally and congruent with demand.
* Bachelor's degrees are not the minimal educational requirement for all STEM occupations, but it would only take 13.41 years of bachelor degree production to replace the entire STEM workforce.
* S&E degrees are not the only degrees relevant to STEM occupations.

Baseline:
Without additional foreign labor supply, the average US, S&E undergraduate could expect a STEM career lifespan of 13.41 years, before being replaced by a domestic candidate with an updated degree.

Source data: Institute of International Education

Nonresident aliens:
Bachelors Science and Engineering (S&E) awarded
1995 = 14,685
1996 = 14,747
1997 = 14,737
1998 = 14,709
1999 = missing
2000 = 15184
2001 = 15,714
2002 = 16,323
2003 = 17,704
2004 = 18,606

Total 142,409
(15,823.22 avg per yr.)

STEM Career to replacement factor (domestic & foreign grads) = 12.89 years
(2005 STEM employment divided by avg. S&E (citizen and perm res. plus nonresident alien) bachelor degree production.)

Lost career lifespan caused by retaining foreign S&E graduates via temp. visas = 0.52 years

Dollar impact to each current STEM worker = $33,571.20

Effect:
The effect of modifying immigration policy, with intent to retain all foreign S&E graduates in the tax subsidized OPT visa (Social Security and Medicare exempt), combined with the H-1B visa, which includes unlimited extensions (beyond the 6 year limitation) for Permanent Residency applicants, is extremely detrimental to the competitiveness of the citizen and permanent residents.

Extending the OPT visa an additional 17 months, with CPT provisions for STEM students, ensures that a higher percentage of foreign-students will fall into the temporary-worker loophole, and that foreign-students will enjoy a hiring preference while transitioning from working-student status, to H-1B.

Total lost earnings to citizen and perm res. STEM workforce = $175,511,576,448.00
(Employed STEM earnings lost in career lifespan, shortened by .52 years)

Source:
STEM Bachelor degree data
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf07308/tables/tab4.xls

STEM Employment data
http://www.bls.gov/opub/ooq/2007/spring/art04.pdf

Details on OPT - CPT status
http://www.ice.gov/sevis/practical-training

Source data for chart:
Institute of International Education

Common Sense H-1B Reform

2014-07-27T00:36:00.001-07:00

Over the last couple of years, the trend in the media has been to lament that we train foreign students in "advanced" STEM degrees here, and then send them home to compete against us, due to a shortage of H-1B visas. The fact that H-1B pundits are careful to use the word "advanced" instead of postgraduate has not escaped me. In addition to the H-1B educational requirement being set too low, another source of H-1B lobbyist whining is the highly publicized H-1B lottery, which is likely caused by foreign outsourcing firms who suffer no financial penalty when attempting to game the system.

Adjust the H-1B educational eligibility requirement, not the yearly cap.

The logical thing to do is to raise the educational requirement for H-1B to a postgraduate degree. According to the FY 2012, H-1B data, eliminating bachelors degree eligibility would free up 50% of new H-1B visas.

Data presented by Dr. Ron Hira, shows that legitimate US employers draw heavily from the postgraduate population, while offshore outsourcing firms favor undergraduate degrees. Additionally, the offshore outsourcing firms have the unlimited Intra-company L-1 visa available to them, once the candidate has one year of experience with the firm.

By raising the H-1B educational requirement, citizen and permanent resident candidates would have a better chance at bachelors degree and associate degree level positions, which are the targeted positions to be moved offshore by the offshore outsourcing firms. Restated, 50% more H-1B visas would be available to legitimate US employers.

According to the Institute of International Education, there were 311,204 foreign students enrolled in postgraduate programs in the United States in 2012-13. This might seem like a large number until we factor in the Doctoral programs are four years, and masters and professional degree probably average two years. So the number likely to graduate in 2013 was roughly 126,157 for all declared and undeclared majors (not just STEM). Additionally, some students may not want to stay in the US and other might not graduate, but the 126,157 number is still less than the total number of H-1B initial employment approvals in FY 2012 (136,890),

Work experience authorizations

The IIE data also discloses that there were 94,919 international students gaining work experience on the Optional Practical Training (OPT), an unlimited cap, 12 month work permit with a 17 month extension available for STEM graduates. While working on student visas, these employees are exempt from Social Security and Medicare tax, putting entry level citizens and permanent residents at a huge financial disadvantage.

H-1B lottery and oversubscription

A second point of contention is the H-1B lottery, that is triggered when the number of applications exceed the 85,000 visa cap. As reported by the Center for Immigration Studies, this phenomena is primarily caused by companies attempting to game the system. Due to the fact that H-1B application fees are refunded to the applicant employer (unlike most other visa fees) there is no financial penalty for oversubscribing the H-1B category.

Gaming the number of applications

H-1B dependent employers, employers with a high percentage of H-1B staff, are eligible for something called a multi-slot Labor Condition Application (LCA). The multi-slot LCA allows, primarily outsourcing, firms to apply for an unlimited amount of H-1B visa on a single application -- without naming the candidate or providing credential for USCIS/DOL review.

The ability to apply for hundreds of H-1B visas, on a single application, with the knowledge that application fees will be refunded encourages these companies to oversubscribe the visa category, hoping that their consultant (possibly the same candidate) will be placed at the firms who could not attain the visa at a higher premium. (I.e., if Microsoft doesn't win the lottery on a single LCA, the outsourcing firm, with the un-named H-1B LCAs, can provide the candidate as a consultant.)

Employment based (EB-3) permanent immigration oversubscription

Due to the dual-intent rules available in both the H-1B and L-1 temporary visas, employers can sponsor these employees for permanent residence. Published figures estimate that there is a backlog of 500,000 workers in the EB-3 (bachelors degree level) employment based permanent residency program. Due to country of origin limits, these immigrants are primarily from China and India and are on yearly AC21 extensions, taking them well beyond the 5 and 6 year limits of the L-1 and H-1B visas.

As such, bachelor degree permanent residency applicants from non-backlogged countries will gain permanent residency ahead of those on AC21 extension. Raising the educational requirement for H-1B will reduce the intake of bachelors degree permanent residency applicants and vacant slots can be recovered and distributed to address the AC21 backlog.

Computer Occupations: H-1B 80% of (Recession Recovery) Employment Level Growth 2011-2013

2014-07-15T12:48:00.000-07:00

During the "recovery" from the most severe economic times since the Great Depression, 80% of Computer Employment Growth went to new H-1B immigrants.

Recession and recovery periods are critically important, foreign labor work authorizations during these periods must be highly scrutinized.

The BLS Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) offer us of view of the occupational levels from year to year. Released in May of each year, the titles can be a bit misleading, for instance, the May 2013 report covers from the end of May 2012 through April 2013 -- so the MAY 2013 OES report in question aligns almost perfectly with the Fiscal Year 2012 H-1B Characteristics report from USCIS (Fiscal year begins on April 1).

The H-1B is a 3 year visa in its fist term, with a single 3 year extension and unlimited 1 year extensions for those who have secured PERM employment sponsorship for a Green Card.

In order to compare employment level growth and H-1B foreign labor assumption of employment growth, we need to look at the 3 year period where the H-1B is known to have employment authorization.

H-1B New Employment Approvals in Computer Occupations

FY 2012 = 83,444 (61.4% of total new approvals)
FY 2011 = 51,570 ( 48.9% of total new approvals )
FY 2010 = 31,661 ( 41.8 of total new approvals)
Total 166,675
Source: USCIS Reports and Studies

Concerning the employment level Gain or Losses, a portion of the Computer Occupations do not require a bachelors degree or higher and therefore, should not be eligible for the H-1B program.

Computer Occupations, 3 year Employment Level Loss Gain
Bachelors Degree or Higher = 206,240 *
Associate Degree = 73,870

* The Bachelors Degree or Higher contains Web Developers, which is an Associate Degree entry position, but that number cannot be extracted from this data-series.

Once again, we see that of the employment growth that is H-1B eligible, 206,240 jobs, 166,875 of these jobs (89%) went to H-1B "temporary" immigrants.

Meanwhile, 235,818 entry degrees, 125,393 bachelors and 110,425 associate degrees, were awarded to citizens and permanent residents in Computer and Information Sciences and Support Services from 2010 to 2012.
Source: WebCaspar NCSES

Occupational Employment Statistics - Data

2011 2013 Emp. Loss / Growth

Computer Occupations
3,293,020 3,573,120

Bachelors Associate

15-1111 Computer and Information Research Scientists
25,160 24,380 -780

15-1121 Computer Systems Analysts
487,740 507,100 19,360

15-1131 Computer Programmers
320,100 312,340 -7,760

15-1132 Software Developers, Applications
539,880 643,830 103,950

15-1133 Software Developers, Systems Software
387,050 373,510 -13,540

15-1141 Database Administrators
108,500 114,910 6,410

15-1142 Network and Computer Systems Administrators
341,800 362,310 20,510

15-1150 Computer Support Specialists
632,490 706,360
73,870

15-1179 Information Security Analysts, Web Developers, and Computer Network Architects
272,670 332,110 59,440 *

15-1799 Computer Occupations, All Other*
177,630 196,280 18,650

Totals

3,293,020 3,573,130 206,240 73,870 26%

Source data: http://www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm

		2011	2013	Emp. Loss / Growth
	Computer Occupations	3,293,020	3,573,120
				Bachelors	Associate
15-1111	Computer and Information Research Scientists	25,160	24,380	-780
15-1121	Computer Systems Analysts	487,740	507,100	19,360
15-1131	Computer Programmers	320,100	312,340	-7,760
15-1132	Software Developers, Applications	539,880	643,830	103,950
15-1133	Software Developers, Systems Software	387,050	373,510	-13,540
15-1141	Database Administrators	108,500	114,910	6,410
15-1142	Network and Computer Systems Administrators	341,800	362,310	20,510
15-1150	Computer Support Specialists	632,490	706,360		73,870
15-1179	Information Security Analysts, Web Developers, and Computer Network Architects	272,670	332,110	59,440	*
15-1799	Computer Occupations, All Other*	177,630	196,280	18,650

Totals		3,293,020	3,573,130	206,240	73,870	26%

Thank a Slave for that Cheap Laptop and Phone?

2014-06-19T13:29:00.000-07:00

Only 36% of Google's DRC mineral suppliers are certified as conflict free.

Topic: Conflict Minerals and Slave Labor:

YouTube Link

Just a short post to try to give this topic a bump, good segment by, Abbey Martin from RT's, Breaking the Set.

Correlation Therefore Conclusion

2014-05-24T23:48:00.001-07:00

In my wildest dreams, I can not imagine Peri, Shih and Sparber, concluding the mere presence of immigrant workers causes wages to rise –- these are employment based migrants, their gig is to move to the locations where the wages are rising.

The mainstream media is on a mission to extol the virtue of the In this particular instance, it is impossible to tell if the journalistic pro-immigration slant is coming from the Wall Street Journal authors, Josh Zumbrun and Matt Stiles and if the article’s title, "Skilled Foreign Workers a Boon to Pay, Study Finds” was their idea, was created by their editor, or is actually contained in the “Study” that Zumbrun and Stiles neglected to name. I guess the WSJ authors thought that nobody would be interested in reading the study, authored by, Giovanni Peri, Kevin Shih, Chad Sparber, and entitled, “Foreign STEM Workers and Native Wages and Employment in U.S. Cities”, so why bother to provide the name of the study that they are writing about?

Instead of reporting, the WSJ's Zumbrun and Stiles open by editorializing the first sentence…

Want a pay raise? Ask your employer to hire more immigrant scientists.
That's the general conclusion of a study that examined wage data and immigration in 219 metropolitan areas from 1990 to 2010. Researchers found that cities seeing the biggest influx of foreign-born workers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics—the so-called STEM professions—saw wages climb fastest for the native-born, college-educated population.

I tend to find that journalists are often duped into misrepresenting pro-immigration publications, at least in the previous quote, they used the qualifier “general conclusion” rather than a statement of fact, but then they follow later with this…

Mr. Peri, along with co-authors Kevin Shih at UC Davis, and Chad Sparber at Colgate University, studied how wages for college- and noncollege-educated native workers shifted along with immigration. They found that a one-percentage-point increase in the share of workers in STEM fields raised wages for college-educated natives by seven to eight percentage points and wages of the noncollege-educated natives by three to four percentage points.

In my wildest dreams, I can not imagine Peri, Shih and Sparber, concluding the mere presence of immigrant workers causes wages to rise – they are employment based migrants, their gig is to move to locations where the wages are rising. Anyway, I’m not going to spend the five dollars to purchase the study, I found the data in my browser’s cache and that’s what I’m primarily interested in.
But we do have a quote from the article:

"A lot of people have the idea there is a fixed number of jobs," said one of the authors, Giovanni Peri of the University of California, Davis.
"It's completely turned around." Immigrants can boost the productivity of the overall economy, he said, "because then the pie grows and there are more jobs for other people as well and there's not a zero-sum trade-off between natives and immigrants."

I took the data from the 1990 to 2010 study which (from the WSJ article) infers that H-1B STEM workers (the sample data) are causational to better employment outcomes across Metropolitan Statistical Areas. The chart below includes the study data and BLS Unemployment data for 2010. The red horizontal line is the National Unemployment Rate (9.6%) for the year of 2010

With this chart, I’m not trying to imply that H-1B has any measurable affect on the entire national unemployment rate, this is clearly displayed on the leftmost eight of the ten groups of Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA). However, when we look at the MSAs where H-1B participation is declining, static and increasing, we do see a measurable difference in the local unemployment rates.

Where there is less immigrant pressure on the employment market (leftmost 2 MSA groups) the unemployment rates are slightly lower. For the six MSA group in the middle of the chart, a small increase of 0.1 to 1.0 percent increase in H-1B participation unemployment rates are slightly higher than the 9.6% rate. The two rightmost MSA groups likely displays MSA groups where the business cycle was recovering from the recession with both H-1B migrants and citizen STEM workers moving to those locations.

Judging from leftmost 8 of 10 MSA groups in the chart, the statement made by Giovanni Peri , “Immigrants can boost the productivity of the overall economy…”, would be an exception rather than the rule and therefore indicating that immigrant participation is not causational.

Again, my thesis does not prove that MSAs with a better business climate attracts higher paid workers and immigrants, but it is just as viable as the thesis that the presence of immigrant workers cause higher wages.

The MSA groups in order of appearance in the chart.

Yellow background indicates wage growth of 15% or above (Avg. 8.69 Unemployment in 2010)

MSA of H-1B Participation Decline
Metro Statistical Area	State	H-1B Participation %	STEM Wages %	2010 Unemployment
Flint	MI	-0.2	-23.1	13.8
Rocky Mount	NC	-0.2	-13.1	13.8
Kankakee	IL	-0.3	-7.9	13.3
Kokomo	IN	-0.4	-5.7	12.1
Sumter	SC	-0.9	-24.3	12
Fitchburg-Leominster	MA	-0.7	-8.7	10.7
Albany	GA	-0.7	-6.4	10.7
Grand Junction	CO	-0.4	1.5	10.7
Greenville	NC	-0.4	-6.7	10.4
Jackson	TN	-0.2	2.1	10.2
Panama City	FL	-0.9	-16.6	10.1
Flagstaff	AZ-UT	-0.1	-15.3	9.7
Columbus	GA-AL	-0.4	8.8	9.4
Goldsboro	NC	-0.1	-7.2	9.3
Biloxi-Gulfport	MS	-0.1	21.8	9.3
Gadsden	AL	-0.4	-15.2	9.2
Wausau	WI	-0.1	6.9	9
Laredo	TX	-0.7	-7	8.9
Barnstable-Yarmouth	MA	-1.4	-8	8.7
Dothan	AL	-1.3	-16.2	8.3
Glens Falls	NY	-1.1	-21.4	8.2
Newburgh-Middletown	NY	-1.9	-18.5	8.1
Fort Smith	AR-OK	-0.2	-11.5	8.1
Lynchburg	VA	-0.1	2.9	8
Auburn-Opelika	AL	-0.5	-27	7.8
Topeka	KS	-0.1	-7.5	7.1
Lake Charles	LA	-1	11.1	7
Alexandria	LA	-0.1	3.7	7
Portland	ME	-0.6	-1.5	6.8
Sioux City	IA-NE	-0.1	-12.7	6.8
Charlottesville	VA	-0.8	-8.1	6
Iowa City	IA	-0.6	-19.5	4.5

Metro Statistical Area Count =	32.00
H-1B Participation % (Avg) =	-0.53
STEM Wages % (Avg) =	-7.82
2010 Unemployment Avg =	9.22


Increase/Decline: H-1B Participation = NONE
Metro Statistical Area	State	H-1B Participation %	STEM Wages %	2010 Unemployment
Elkhart-Goshen	IN	0	-1.8	13.4
Benton Harbor	MI	0	12.3	12.3
Myrtle Beach	SC	0	19.1	12.1
Danville	VA	0	-6.2	11.8
Mansfield	OH	0	6	11.7
Toledo	OH-MI	0	1.4	11.1
Pueblo	CO	0	21.4	10.5
Yakima	WA	0	5.4	10.1
Johnson City-Kingsport--Bristol	TN-VA	0	15	9.1
Hattiesburg	MS	0	-14.5	9
Florence	AL	0	-7.7	8.8
Tuscaloosa	AL	0	-0.4	8.7
Evansville	IN-KY	0	15.5	8.5
Tallahassee	FL	0	-15.9	8.3
St. Joseph	MO	0	1.5	8.2
Corpus Christi	TX	0	-5	8.1
Duluth-Superior	MN-WI	0	18.3	8.1
Monroe	LA	0	5.5	7.8
Wichita Falls	TX	0	4.2	7.7
St. Cloud	MN	0	-13.6	7.5
Longview-Marshall	TX	0	23.9	7.5
New Orleans	LA	0	7	7.2
Shreveport	LA	0	14.8	6.9
Abilene	TX	0	-5.4	6.5
Houma-Thibodoux	LA	0	13.4	5.4
Billings	MT	0	12.3	5.2

Metro Statistical Area Count =	26.00
H-1B Participation % (Avg) =	0.00
STEM Wages % (Avg) =	4.87
2010 Unemployment Avg =	8.90

Increase/Decline: H-1B Participation = 0.1%
Metro Statistical Area	State	H-1B Participation %	STEM Wages %	2010 Unemployment
Yuma	AZ	0.1	11.2	26.1
Yuba City	CA	0.1	18.4	19.3
Rockford	IL	0.1	7.5	15.4
Medford	OR	0.1	-3	12.6
Youngstown-Warren	OH-PA	0.1	-4.5	11.3
Canton	OH	0.1	2.2	11.3
South Bend-Mishawaka	IN	0.1	5.6	11.3
Janesville-Beloit	WI	0.1	2	11.2
Terre Haute	IN	0.1	-17.3	11.1
Eugene-Springfield	OR	0.1	3.9	11.1
Lima	OH	0.1	1.6	10.8
Dayton-Springfield	OH	0.1	2.8	10.7
Beaumont-Port Arthur-Orange	TX	0.1	5.7	10.7
Racine	WI	0.1	-9.4	10.1
Clarksville- Hopkinsville	TN-KY	0.1	1.3	10.1
Pensacola	FL	0.1	1.7	10
Mobile	AL	0.1	7	9.9
Scranton-Wilkes-Barre	PA	0.1	7.2	9.5
Anniston	AL	0.1	7	9.4
Johnstown	PA	0.1	-4.3	9.2
Reading	PA	0.1	6.5	8.9
Williamsport	PA	0.1	-2.3	8.8
York	PA	0.1	19.5	8.6
Knoxville	TN	0.1	0.9	8
Fort Walton Beach	FL	0.1	3.2	7.9
Tyler	TX	0.1	21.7	7.9
Athens	GA	0.1	-1	7.5
Lancaster	PA	0.1	12.2	7.4
Sioux Falls	SD	0.1	5.1	5.1

Metro Statistical Area Count =	29.00
H-1B Participation % (Avg) =	0.10
STEM Wages % (Avg) =	1.99
2010 Unemployment Avg =	10.73

Increase/Decline: H-1B Participation > 0.1% and < 0.3%
Metro Statistical Area	State	H-1B Participation %	STEM Wages %	2010 Unemployment
Redding	CA	0.2	-3	15.8
Hickory-Morgantown	NC	0.2	-3.1	13.8
Vineland-Milville-Bridgetown	NJ	0.2	5.8	13.6
Salinas-Sea Side-Monterey	CA	0.2	14.1	12.7
Saginaw-Bay City-Midland	MI	0.2	6.1	12.1
Muncie	IN	0.2	-4.8	11.2
Melbourne-Titusville-Cocoa-Palm Bay	FL	0.2	7.7	11.2
Kalamazoo-Portage	MI	0.2	2.1	10.8
Fort Wayne	IN	0.2	-7.9	10.3
Spokane	WA	0.2	18.2	9.9
Decatur	AL	0.2	-1.7	9.6
Charleston-N.Charleston	SC	0.2	10.4	9.2
Bellingham	WA	0.2	-2.1	9
Sheboygan	WI	0.2	-7.8	8.9
Asheville	NC	0.2	5.7	8.9
Binghamton	NY	0.2	4.6	8.8
Chattanooga	TN-GA	0.2	6.2	8.8
Springfield	MO	0.2	-1.6	8.5
Rochester	NY	0.2	0.8	8.2
Dover	DE	0.2	-4.7	8.1
Springfield	IL	0.2	8.3	8.1
Las Cruces	NM	0.2	-1.3	7.8
Altoona	PA	0.2	15.7	7.6
Anchorage	AK	0.2	2.7	7.3
Eau Claire	WI	0.2	4.5	7.3
Fargo-Morehead	ND-MN	0.2	-10	4.1

Metro Statistical Area Count =	26.00
H-1B Participation % (Avg) =	0.20
STEM Wages % (Avg) =	2.50
2010 Unemployment Avg =	9.68

Increase/Decline: H-1B Participation > 0.2% and < 0.3%
Metro Statistical Area	State	H-1B Participation %	STEM Wages %	2010 Unemployment
Modesto	CA	0.3	0.6	17.2
Visalia-Tulare-Porterville	CA	0.3	2.3	17
Chico	CA	0.3	3.5	13.8
Ocala	FL	0.3	9.3	13.5
Jackson	MI	0.3	-5.4	12.7
Daytona Beach	FL	0.3	3.5	11.6
Brownsville-Harlingen-San Benito	TX	0.3	6.2	11.3
Salem	OR	0.3	10.8	10.7
Greeley	CO	0.3	18.1	10.2
Tacoma	WA	0.3	12.8	9.6
Fayetteville	NC	0.3	-3.2	9.5
Erie	PA	0.3	5.5	9.1
Augusta-Aiken	GA-SC	0.3	6.2	9.1
Savannah	GA	0.3	-5.3	9
Birmingham	AL	0.3	8.9	8.6
Buffalo-Niagara Falls	NY	0.3	5.8	8.5
Jacksonville	NC	0.3	13.3	8.5
Joplin	MO	0.3	10.2	8.3
Bremerton	WA	0.3	15.6	8.2
Utica-Rome	NY	0.3	1.3	8.1
Lafayette-W.Appleton, WI	IN	0.3	4.5	7.8
Kileen-Temple	TX	0.3	6.7	7.7
Tulsa	OK	0.3	7.9	7.7
Appleton-Oshkosh-Neenah	WI	0.3	4	7.4
Lubbock	TX	0.3	13.2	6.3
Cedar Rapids	IA	0.3	12	6.2
Lincoln	NE	0.3	17.2	4.2

Metro Statistical Area Count =	27.00
H-1B Participation % (Avg) =	0.30
STEM Wages % (Avg) =	6.87
2010 Unemployment Avg =	9.70

Increase/Decline: H-1B Participation > 0.3% and < 0.6%
Metro Statistical Area	State	H-1B Participation %	STEM Wages %	2010 Unemployment
Merced	CA	0.5	4.4	18.7
Fresno	CA	0.4	5.7	16.7
Bakersfield	CA	0.4	3.3	15.9
Fort Myers-Cape Coral	FL	0.4	10.4	12.7
Waterbury	CT	0.5	9	12.4
Lakeland-Winterhaven	FL	0.5	-9	12.2
Punta Gorda	FL	0.5	1	12
Decatur	IL	0.4	19.4	11.9
Naples	FL	0.5	29.7	11.6
Greensboro-Winston Salem-High Point	NC	0.5	4.9	11.4
Grand Rapids	MI	0.5	0.8	10.8
Wilmington	NC	0.4	14.6	10.5
Santa Rosa-Petaluma	CA	0.5	15.5	10.5
Peoria	IL	0.5	11.9	10.4
Hagerstown	MD	0.5	7.9	10.1
Lansing-E. Lansing	MI	0.5	2.8	10
Akron	OH	0.5	5.5	9.9
St. Louis	MO-IL	0.5	2	9.8
Colorado Springs	CO	0.5	16.6	9.8
Cincinnati-Hamilton	OH-KY-IN	0.5	10.5	9.7
Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson	SC	0.5	9.2	9.6
Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-Lompoc	CA	0.5	9.1	9.5
Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton	PA-NJ	0.4	8.8	9.2
Cleveland	OH	0.5	2.7	8.9
Milwaukee	WI	0.5	13	8.9
Montgomery	AL	0.5	-3.7	8.8
Wichita	KS	0.5	8.8	8.7
Syracuse	NY	0.4	8.2	8.6
Davenport IA-Rock Island -Moline	IL	0.4	1.4	8.5
Jackson	MS	0.5	10.6	8.5
Albuquerque	NM	0.5	9.8	8.3
Pittsburgh	PA	0.5	2.1	7.8
Norfolk-VA Beach--Newport News	VA	0.5	11	7.5
Baton Rouge	LA	0.4	10.1	7.4
Waco	TX	0.5	13.4	7.2
Little Rock--North Little Rock	AR	0.4	5.8	7
Oklahoma City	OK	0.4	5.9	6.5
Manchester	NH	0.4	-6.2	6.3
Waterloo-Cedar Falls	IA	0.5	4.2	6
Lafayette	LA	0.5	5.2	6
Honolulu	HI	0.4	6.4	5.7
Amarillo	TX	0.4	15.2	5.6
Omaha	NE-IA	0.5	13	5.2

Metro Statistical Area Count =	43.00
H-1B Participation % (Avg) =	0.47
STEM Wages % (Avg) =	7.70
2010 Unemployment Avg =	9.60

Increase/Decline: H-1B Participation > 0.5% and < 0.8%
Metro Statistical Area	State	H-1B Participation %	STEM Wages %	2010 Unemployment
Riverside-San Bernardino	CA	0.6	-0.6	14.3
Santa Cruz	CA	0.7	14.1	12.7
McAllen-Edinburg-Pharr-Mission	TX	0.7	-6.7	12.1
Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater	FL	0.7	6.9	11.9
Los Angeles-Long Beach	CA	0.7	7.3	11.8
Miami-Hialeah	FL	0.7	-0.7	11.3
Macon-Warner Robins	GA	0.6	0.2	10.4
Louisville	KY-IN	0.6	3.7	10.1
Memphis	TN-AR-MS	0.6	14.1	10.1
El Paso	TX	0.7	-2.1	9.8
Tucson	AZ	0.6	10.2	9.4
Columbia	SC	0.6	4.1	9.3
Springfield-Holyoke-Chicopee	MA	0.7	18.8	9.2
Nashville	TN	0.6	12.3	8.8
Bridgeport	CT	0.6	43.4	8.6
Lexington-Fayette	KY	0.7	16.8	8.4
Bloomington	IN	0.6	4.7	7.9
Green Bay	WI	0.6	20.5	7.8
Odessa	TX	0.7	35	7.8
Harrisburg-Lebanon--Carlisle	PA	0.6	13.8	7.7
Albany-Schenectady-Troy	NY	0.7	8	7.4
San Antonio	TX	0.7	10	7.4
Bryan-College Station	TX	0.7	20	6.6

Metro Statistical Area Count =	23.00
H-1B Participation % (Avg) =	0.65
STEM Wages % (Avg) =	11.03
2010 Unemployment Avg =	9.60

Increase/Decline: H-1B Participation > 0.7% and < 1.1%
Metro Statistical Area	State	H-1B Participation %	STEM Wages %	2010 Unemployment
Stockton	CA	1	8	17.3
West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Delray Beach	FL	1	10.9	15.1
Las Vegas	NV	1	0.4	14.1
Detroit	MI	0.8	-0.2	13.9
Atlantic City	NJ	0.8	18.4	12.7
Sacramento	CA	1	17.8	12.5
Sarasota	FL	0.8	6.2	12
New Bedford	MA	0.8	27.6	11.8
Ventura-Oxnard-Simi Valley	CA	1	10.5	10.9
Chicago	IL	1	13.5	10.4
Champaign-Urbana-Rantoul	IL	1	16.1	9.1
Denver-Boulder	CO	1	16.9	9.1
Indianapolis	IN	0.8	5.5	9
Kansas City	MO-KS	0.8	12.3	8.9
Philadelphia	PA-NJ	0.8	16.2	8.9
Wilmington	DE-NJ-MD	1	10	8.9
Columbus	OH	1	12.8	8.7
Olympia	WA	0.8	13.6	8.4
Provo-Orem	UT	0.8	26.3	8
Salt Lake City-Ogden	UT	0.9	4.9	7.9
Richland-Kennewick-Pasco	WA	0.9	15	7.8
Fort Collins-Loveland	CO	0.9	1.9	7.5
Santa Fe	NM	1	21.6	6.5
Columbia	MO	0.9	3.4	6.4
Des Moines	IA	0.9	13.6	6.2

Metro Statistical Area Count =	25.00
H-1B Participation % (Avg) =	0.91
STEM Wages % (Avg) =	12.13
2010 Unemployment Avg =	10.08


Increase/Decline: H-1B Participation > 1.0% and < 2.0%
Metro Statistical Area	State	H-1B Participation %	STEM Wages %	2010 Unemployment
Reno	NV	1.5	10.7	13.1
Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill	NC-SC	1.2	20	11.8
Providence-Fall River-Pawtucket	MA-RI	1.4	11.7	11.7
Orlando	FL	1.3	2	11.3
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood-Pompano Beach	FL	1.4	3.5	11.3
Jacksonville	FL	1.3	13.1	10.9
Portland	OR-WA	1.4	11.5	10.6
San Diego	CA	1.9	15.4	10.6
Phoenix	AZ	1.4	11.8	9.7
New Haven-Meriden	CT	1.5	24.9	9.6
Hartford-Bristol-Middleton- New Britain	CT	1.1	13.9	9.4
New York-Northeastern	NJ	1.2	19.6	9
Boise City	ID	1.8	5.1	9
Baltimore	MD	1.2	16.7	8.3
Dallas-Fort Worth	TX	1.8	17.2	8.2
Ann Arbor	MI	1.8	16.9	8.1
Gainesville	FL	1.1	17.1	8
Richmond-Petersburg	VA	1.1	16.6	7.9
Danbury	CT	1.2	26.1	7.8
Roanoke	VA	1.3	5.3	7.6
Minneapolis-St. Paul	MN	1.3	19.5	7.3
State College	PA	1.1	13.3	6.2
Madison	WI	1.7	20	6

Metro Statistical Area Count =	23.00
H-1B Participation % (Avg) =	1.39
STEM Wages % (Avg) =	14.43
2010 Unemployment Avg =	9.28

Increase/Decline: H-1B Participation >= 2%
Metro Statistical Area	State	H-1B Participation %	STEM Wages %	2010 Unemployment
San Francisco-Oakland-Vallejo	CA	2.7	25.5	10.3
Atlanta	GA	2	9.1	10.1
Seattle-Everett	WA	3.1	24.1	9.6
Worcester	MA	2.9	6.6	8.9
Raleigh-Durham	NC	3.4	17.3	8.8
Houston-Brazoria	TX	2.1	19.2	8.5
Trenton	NJ	2	17.7	7.9
Bloomington-Normal	IL	2.6	13	7.8
Boston	MA-NH	2	23.9	7.5
Huntsville	AL	3.2	28.1	7.3
Austin	TX	3.5	25.3	7.1
Fayetteville-Springdale	AR	2.7	36.8	6.5
Washington	DC-MD-VA	2.8	28.6	6.5
Rochester	MN	2.9	8.4	6.2


Metro Statistical Area Count =	14.00
H-1B Participation % (Avg) =	2.71
STEM Wages % (Avg) =	20.26
2010 Unemployment Avg =	8.07

The following list could not be mapped to the 372 MSAs listed at http://www.bls.gov/lau/lamtrk10.htm, or were otherwise duplicative of other MSAs, the count of MSAs used in the WSJ article is 280.

Unused Non Standard or Duplicate MSAs
Metro Statistical Area	State	H-1B Participation %	STEM Wages %	2010 Unemployment
Jamestown-Dunkirk	NY	-0.1	-9.2	N/A
Sharon	PA	0	-7.8	N/A
Fort Pierce	FL	0.1	-2.8	N/A
LaCrosse	WI	0.3	-7.6	N/A
Kenosha	WI	0.3	14.4	N/A
Monmouth-Ocean	NJ	0.5	12.2	N/A
Hamilton-Middleton	OH	0.7	5.8	N/A
Galveston-Texas City	TX	1	12.8	N/A
Brockton	MA	1.3	6.7	N/A
Nashua	NH	1.5	12.2	N/A
Yolo	CA	1.8	10.5	N/A
Dutchess Co.	NY	2.2	30.3	N/A

Metro Statistical Area Count =	12.00
H-1B Participation % (Avg) =	0.80
STEM Wages % (Avg) =	6.46
2010 Unemployment Avg =	N/A

Computer Occupations 2013: Winners & Losers

2014-05-14T18:15:00.001-07:00

Winners and losers in the Computer-occupations for May 2013 from the BLS, Occupational Employment Statistics. The overall employment level growth for the period was, 116,620. In comparison, Employment growth for the prior year was 143,890 (May 2011 to May 2012).

					Educational Requirement
Occupation code	Occupation title	Level	Employment 2013	Employment 2012	Associate	Bachelor	Postgrad
15-1100	Computer Occupations	minor	3,573,120	3,456,500	22,620	94,500	-500

15-1111	Computer and Information Research Scientists	detail	24,380	24,880			-500
15-1120	Computer and Information Analysts	broad	585,120
15-1121	Computer Systems Analysts	detail	507,100	482,040		25,060
15-1122	Information Security Analysts	detail	78,020	72,670		5,350
15-1130	Software Developers and Programmers	broad	1,442,500
15-1131	Computer Programmers	detail	312,340	316,790		-4,450
15-1132	Software Developers, Applications	detail	643,830	586,340		57,490
15-1133	Software Developers, Systems Software	detail	373,510	391,700		-18,190
15-1134	Web Developers	detail	112,820	102,940	9,880
15-1140	Database and Systems Administrators and Network Architects	broad	618,480
15-1141	Database Administrators	detail	114,910	111,590		3,320
15-1142	Network and Computer Systems Administrators	detail	362,310	350,320		11,990
15-1143	Computer Network Architects	detail	141,270	137,890		3,380
15-1150	Computer Support Specialists	broad	706,360
15-1151	Computer User Support Specialists	detail	541,250	525,630	15,620
15-1152	Computer Network Support Specialists	detail	165,100	167,980	-2,880
15-1199	Computer Occupations, All Other	detail	196,280	185,730		10,550
					22,620	94,500	-500

The May 2013 Occupational Employment Statistics data were released on April 1, 2014 and are available at www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm.

As of this writing, the 2013 H-1B Characteristics report has not been published.

However, the FY 2012, H-1B Characteristics Report shows:

Computer-related occupations, Initial Employment Approvals FY 2012 = 83,444
Computer-related occupations, Continuing Employment Approvals FY 2012 = 71,425

The H-1B initial approvals were 57.99% of employment growth for 2012. If the H-1B numbers for FY 2013 come in similar to FY 2012, the H-1B share of employment growth will be 71.55%
Looking a bit closer at the table below, the H-1B visa is for positions that require a Bachelors degree or above, in theory only 94,000 of the this employment growth should be eligible to the H-1B visa program.

The following Chart shows year by year growth levels from 2010 to 2012. Computer Occupation employment growth for the period was 241,630 and H-1B initial employment approvals (3 year) was 166,675 (69%). When isolating just the year 2010, we see that 39,350 jobholders lost their positions to the recession and another 31,661 lost their positions to new H-1B approvals.

Economic Immigration Dilemma

Debunking Forbes: 14 In-demand Tech Jobs Employers Are Struggling To Fill

The problem is that GlassDoor only has a total of 441,693 listings

GlassDoor: All Job Openings 441,693 Jobs

Disinformation (brought to you) By Code.org

Disinformation IS Published by Code.org

Table 1:

Math & Computer Science factoid:

Table 2

H-1B: How many continue beyond the six years?

H-1B: How many continue beyond the six years?

In Computer Occupations, 22,000 second extensions granted annually.

Not in Labor Force NILF -- November 2016

Not in Labor Force (NILF) -- November 2016

Finding the hidden unemployment rate?

Armed with the knowledge that the U-3 Unemployment Rate is subjective rather than objective, the nagging question is, "How do we compare current unemployment rates with historical unemployment rates?"

What President Trump Can Do About H-1B?

What President Trump Can Do About H-1B?

The Secretary of Labor needs to consider available data.

H-1B initial employment (Computer related)

Unemployment

Employment growth

College degree production

The damage

Turns out, an education in Tech can be a curse rather than benefit

Turns out, an education in Tech can be a curse rather than benefit.

Patriot at the end of his rope, help needed.

H-1B Lottery Application Abuse

H-1B Lottery Application Abuse

H-1B applications nine times the amount of job growth.

Giveaway to H-1B Employers Opens Huge Hole in USCIS Budget

Working Age Employment Levels Still Below 1999 Levels.

Working Age Employment Levels Still Below 1999 Levels.

Dismal Employment Outlook for Ages 25 to 54

Employment levels

Population

Employment to population ratio

Unemployment rate

Labor force with Employment levels

Working Age Employment Levels Still Below 1999 Levels.

Working Age Employment Levels Still Below 1999 Levels.

Dismal Employment Outlook for Ages 25 to 54

Employment levels

Population

Employment to population ratio

Unemployment rate

Labor force with Employment levels

How many H-1B in the United States?

How many H-1B in the United States?

Many more H-1B than the experts have estimated

Immigration Moratorium: Chapter 2

Immigration Moratorium

Chapter 2: Expected Useful Lifetime of STEM Degree

1 million new STEM jobs projected by 2022, 5.9 million new American graduates will apply for them.

Immigration Moratorium; Chapter 1

Immigration Moratorium

Chapter 1: College Outcomes vs. Employment Growth

Job Openings Data Misrepresented

Job Openings Data Misrepresented

Think tank personnel cannot read a simple chart, desperate to fool public?

Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS)

Unemployment: less than a bachelors degree

Unemployment: bachelors degree and above

An open search for advertised positions on Dice.com, the premier job website for technical employment yields 86,858 job listings, this is basically identical to pre-recession levels.

Microsoft Uses Women's Soccer Team to Regurgitate Faulty Data

Microsoft Uses Women's Soccer Team to Regurgitate Faulty Data

Microsoft's use of the US Women's Soccer Team and faulty data to try to increase immigration falls to a new low.

Misleading Employment Situation Report

Debunked: Shortage in Math and Computer Science

Debunked: Shortage in Math and Computer Science

Shortage of Computer Science and Mathematics Debunked -- Professionals crowded out by H-1B

Math & CompSci 1992 - 2013

Employment levels

Growth levels

Employment deficit = 486,705 (13.17%)

Math & CompSci Deficit Update 1992 - 2015

Employment levels

Growth levels

Employment deficit = 483,192 (12.06%)

Degrees & Certs, Math & CompSci 1992-2015

Wages as Percent of GDP
(as mass-immigration resumes in 1970, wage share declines)