There is NO skills gap…
As evidence accumulates that many of the policy decisions of the past that benefited particular business interests are shown to be false or harmful, a resilient farce is the idea that workers lack the skills needed by industry and thus we must look to other countries to supply the needed talent. If this argument could hold water, then the skilled would enjoy full employment and the unskilled would suffer from high rates of unemployment. Here we have a partial truth at work… the educated enjoy a lower rate of unemployment than those of lesser education yet there is still significant numbers of educated people that remain unemployed, not to mention under-employed. While the unemployment rate for the less educated is double that of those that have a bachelor’s degree or higher, recent petitions to increase H-1B visas limits implies that the supply of workers is insufficient to meet the demand of industry. However, a story by Martin Kaste from NPR notes that the H-1B visas are granted not to cutting edge tech giants… but to consultancies aimed at temp workers and project consultancies. The result of review H-1B visas by sector is that hiring is NOT to fill permanent skill needs, but to replace higher priced American workers through temporary assignments.