Tech workers and immigration

Immigration has completely ruined America’s job market. The company culture of high turn over or limited career advancement is primarily due to the over abundance of available job candidates. The sole provider of those candidates is the immigration polices that are in place.

Allowing a large influx of migrants into the labor market relieves companies of the pressure to invest in their existing workforce. Instead, it creates an environment where companies are more likely to narrow their focus on highly specialized skills, making them more inclined to be overly picky during hiring. This results in a quick turnover culture—if a candidate doesn’t fit perfectly, they can be easily replaced.

This behavior leads to:

• Less investment in training: Companies don’t feel the need to train or develop employees because they can just hire someone else with the exact skills they need.
• Weakened company loyalty: Employees don’t have the opportunity to grow within the company, which reduces the likelihood of building a dedicated, long-term workforce.
• Fewer growth opportunities: Employees are less likely to be promoted or given chances to expand their skills within the company, which stifles both personal and organizational growth.
• Stifled innovation: A workforce that lacks diverse skills and experience (because of the overemphasis on narrowly specialized talent) is less likely to foster creative thinking or drive innovation.
• Cultural disconnect: Companies may also miss out on the benefits of building a loyal, skilled team that feels emotionally invested in the company’s success. Without this connection, employees may not be as motivated to go above and beyond or drive positive changes.

By limiting immigration and creating a stronger domestic labor force, you push companies to rethink this model and focus more on employee development, retention, and long-term growth. This could create a healthier, more sustainable workforce and a more innovative, resilient economy.

To correct this attitude and shift the focus back to long-term sustainability, we need to put pressure on companies to ensure they are considering a wider pool of candidates and creating an environment where training and development are prioritized. Here’s how that could be approached:

1. Shift the Focus to Potential, Not Just Experience: Encouraging companies to focus on potential, not just a narrow skill set, could help fill roles with candidates who have the ability to learn. Instead of only hiring based on what the candidate knows now, companies could look for candidates who have the capacity to grow and adapt to new technologies, creating more sustainable long-term employment.
2. Reforming Interview Processes: Companies could be encouraged to adopt less esoteric and more practical interview processes that focus on problem-solving, critical thinking, and learning ability rather than asking highly specific technical questions. This would allow for a more diverse and inclusive hiring process, leading to a more dynamic workforce.
3. Rethink Salary Expectations and Job Descriptions: Companies could be incentivized to offer competitive salaries and benefits to candidates who meet most of the criteria but still need some training. This would encourage companies to focus on filling roles and avoid the trap of waiting for the “perfect” candidate, which only exacerbates the skills shortage.
4. Implement Policies that Favor Local Hiring First: Creating a balance where companies are encouraged to hire American workers first, but still allow immigration when needed, could help address the skills gap without displacing local talent. This would help ensure that Americans have the first opportunity to fill high-tech roles, which can help increase wages and reduce reliance on foreign labor.
5. Promote a Healthy Balance of Immigration and Local Hiring: While immigration is an important part of the global labor market, policies that encourage a balance between local hiring and immigration are necessary to ensure that companies prioritize the growth of the local workforce while still benefiting from the skills and expertise of international talent.

All this could be solved by the simple application of restricting immigration. Make sure companies are focused on Americans first and when the market runs out of candidates, then open the foreign market. But still maintain pressure on businesses. Don’t over saturate the market and allow us back into the same position we are in today.