showing that, in fact, there is no shortage of high-tech engineers here in America.: companies are using the H-1B program to drive down domestic wages

The Great Labor Shortage Lie | David Sirota | April 11, 2007

David Sirota is the co-chair of the Progressive States Network, a research and advocacy organization that supports state lawmakers. He is also the author of Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government—And How We Take It Back.

I've said many times before that the best place for information is the business press. The material is written for people who need cold, hard information in order to make money, rather than for the professional political pontificators who are aroused by Beltway spin. The only challenge when reading the business press is to get through the corporate PR. But if you have the patience, you will find out what's really going on and who is lying to you. This week's piece in Business Week on the job market is a good example.

The article begins with a sensationalist headline that only Bill Gates and Tom Friedman could love: "Where Are All The Workers? Companies worldwide are suddenly scrambling to manage a labor crunch." This is the public rationale from corporate executives (especially in the high-tech industries) for massive job outsourcing and exploitation of the H-1B program: We can't find the workers we need.

We are expected, for instance, to ignore academic studies published recently by the National Academy of Sciences showing that, in fact, there is no shortage of high-tech engineers here in America. We are expected to ignore the data showing that companies are using the H-1B program to drive down domestic workers' wages by forcing them into competition with imported workers from impoverished countries. We are expected, in short, to believe that layoffs, wage stagnation and pension/health care cutbacks have absolutely nothing to do with corporate executives trying to line their own pockets, and everything to do with workers themselves—and we are expected to believe all this at the very same time new government data shows that the share of national income going to wages is at a record low, and the share going to corporate profits is at a record high. ...