Immigrant Tech Workers Don't Steal American Jobs

Under the H-1B visa program, companies in the United States can hire on a multi-year basis engineers, scientists and other specialized workers from other countries, notably from China and India.

The companies argue that the US doesn't produce enough qualified candidates to fill all their domestic needs, and that immigrant innovators actually create more jobs through the work they produce. Critics disagree, saying H-1B is just an excuse for companies to hire talented workers at cheap labor rates, screwing our own citizens in the process.

Harvard Business School professor William Kerr, an expert on the impact of immigration on American innovation, wanted to help answer these questions. Namely:

1. Does the H-1B program generate more innovation for US companies? (thus making them more competitive in the global marketplace.)
2. Does it take away jobs from Americans?
3. Does it create more jobs for Americans?

To answer question No.1, Kerr correlated the growth in US patents, a proxy for innovation, with a rise in H-1B visas. He was able to make reasonable estimates as to which patents were received by immigrants by looking at surnames. The answer: increasing H-1B admissions by 10 percent resulted in a 1 percent increase of total patented inventions, innovations that companies in the US could use to compete in the global economy.

As to questions 2 and 3, the answer was "no"; there was no proof that the H-1B program either took away jobs from Americans or created new jobs for Americans.

"We come out with this overall conclusion that says that US innovation increases with letting in more immigrant scientists and engineers, primarily due to the contributions of these immigrant scientists and engineers," Kerr tells writer Carmen Nobel, writing in HBS Working Knowledge.

As congress continues to debate the issue, I'd like to hear your opinion. Are American engineers going begging for jobs that are instead being given to lower paid, younger, but highly skilled immigrants? Or do you believe professor Kerr's research demonstrating that the H-1B program is good for U.S. innovation and appears to have no impact on domestic jobs?

Related Reading

• Immigrants are Good for American Jobs
• What is the Value of U.S. Citizenship?

(Photo of immigration swearing-in courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society, CC 2.0)