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It is widely claimed that the H-1B program "takes away jobs from Americans." For example, here's a message posted in the Academia chat room by SSimon not long ago:

The way I understand it when H-1B's are brought into the country it takes away jobs from college graduates. They graduate after 4 years thinking they will a job in the sciences and find they are all mostly going to H-1B's allowed in the country.

Here are a few more examples of that claim:

However, I have also heard claims to the contrary. For example, this fact sheet: Debunking the myth that immigration harms America.

The main piece of academic research that is cited on this subject is Immigration and American Jobs, by Madeline Zavodny, which claims that hiring H1B workers results in more jobs being created for native US workers. However, this work has been criticized for being highly sensitive to the time period under consideration (and for other reasons).

Another paper, The Supply Side of Innovation: H-1B Visa Reforms and US Ethnic Invention by William R. Kerr and William F. Lincoln, looks at patent trends and concludes that "natives are not likely being crowded-out in large numbers by higher H-1B admissions".

A more recent (February 2016) paper, The Effects of High-Skilled Immigration Policy on Firms: Evidence from Visa Lotteries by Kirk Doran, Alexander Gelber, and Adam Isen, makes the opposite claim: that "H-1Bs appear to crowd out similar workers". However, this paper is limited to small and medium-sized firms, while most H-1B visas go to outsourcing companies and large firms, where the effect may be different (e.g. the outsourcing companies' employees may not be perfect substitutes for U.S. workers, the large firms may be better placed to build up additional U.S. jobs around foreign workers, etc.)

Does the H-1B visa program cause a net decrease in the employment prospects of skilled U.S. job applicants in STEM fields?

ff524
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    Would a link to coverage of Disney's laying off a bunch of US workers after making them train their H1B replacements count? That's an example of jobs held by Americans that were lost due to what should really be abuse of the H1B visa system. – Patrick87 Apr 06 '16 at 10:29
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    @Patrick87 No, while I don't doubt that instances of abuse exist, that says nothing about *net effect* on employment prospects. – ff524 Apr 06 '16 at 10:37
  • Wait, did you answer your question, in your question? – George Chalhoub Apr 06 '16 at 11:05
  • @George None of the sources in my question seem to reliably indicate net effect one way or the other, at least on my casual reading. (I mentioned after each source I cited, what the problem with it is.) – ff524 Apr 06 '16 at 11:08
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    The problem is that this is hard to research well. How do you account for hiring managers' going through the motions to pretend to consider non-H1Bs to satisfy the requirements of the employment law, but "under the covers" choosing cheaper H1Bs under some plausible excuse after going through the process motions? How do you account for H1Bs - being lower paid - being the less likely to be let go during downsizing? How do you account for H1B holders from specific demographics preferencing other H1Bs due to unconscious bias or networking effects? – user5341 Apr 06 '16 at 17:32
  • The question is likely too broad. That's a whole lot of different jobs included under STEM, some of them might be scarce and some abundant. Clearly H1B can't be a problem if there are more jobs than applicants. The premise is that there's a job scarcity. – Sklivvz Apr 07 '16 at 00:49
  • @Sklivvz I'd be happy to see an answer one way or another for any kind of STEM job. – ff524 Apr 07 '16 at 01:01
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    @user5341: H1-Bers being "cheaper" has been debunked multiple times. _"H-1B visa holders earn more than comparable native-born workers. H-1B workers are paid more than U.S. native-born workers with a bachelor’s degree generally ($76,356 versus $67,301 in 2010) and even within the same occupation and industry for workers with similar experience."_ – vartec Apr 07 '16 at 23:25
  • @user5341: http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Research/Files/Papers/2013/05/10-H1B-visas-STEM/Table-1_Revised.jpg – vartec Apr 07 '16 at 23:27
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    @vartec Which doesn't look at the hours they actually work. If you replace an American working 40 hr/wk with a H1-B working 60 or 80 hr/wk it looks ok by the rules but isn't. You're also assuming the hires match the job description. – Loren Pechtel Apr 08 '16 at 00:02
  • @LorenPechtel you're wrong assuming that Indian sweatshops are then only ones using H1-Bs. Yes, they are the ones _abusing_ the system, but there are plenty of Bay Area companies who use H1-Bs. Also, it would be much easier to abuse L1 than H1-B. – vartec Apr 08 '16 at 00:08
  • @vartec I'm simply saying there is clear abuse, not that every H1-B is abusive. – Loren Pechtel Apr 08 '16 at 00:11
  • @LorenPechtel so let's say half H1-Bs are abusive — would 32,000 really make any significant dent in a market that has demand for 1mln a year? – vartec Apr 08 '16 at 00:14
  • That would be 20% of the market--certainly enough to have an effect. – Loren Pechtel Apr 08 '16 at 00:19
  • I fail to see how 32,000 is 20% of 1mln. It's 3.2% by my math. – vartec Apr 08 '16 at 03:40
  • @Loren Pechtel: Where do you find a tech job where you only work 40 hours per week? It may be possible, but in my experience, it's sure not the norm. – jamesqf Apr 08 '16 at 05:06
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    Possible duplicate of [Are there more open jobs than available developers?](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/27590/are-there-more-open-jobs-than-available-developers) – vartec Apr 08 '16 at 06:42
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    If companies did not prefer H1-Bs over Americans you wouldn't find this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx--jNQYNgA – Loren Pechtel Apr 08 '16 at 19:40
  • I'll try to answer this later tonight, I would assume it has to do with companies moving some operations countries where labor supply and costs have a better outlook – Nik Apr 24 '17 at 19:01
  • @Nik Why would it have to do with _that_? From what I've read, the disagreement re: net effect, seems to be about which is greater: H1B visa holders filling jobs that would otherwise have been filled by US workers (negative for US workers), vs. H1B visa holders growing their industry thereby creating more jobs for US workers (positive for US workers). – ff524 Apr 24 '17 at 19:20
  • Yes but there will be a lower supply of, say, highly skilled software engineers in the US market (we cant import the workers) further ballooning already relatively high prices. Then firms begin to export operations to more supply saturated markets. – Nik Apr 25 '17 at 04:31

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