>I suppose the counterargument is that the US educational system is generally so poor that it's not generating enough people with the necessary technical capabilities to meet employer demand...
It's not the quality of the education system, it's the motivation of the students. In the mid-2000s, it was very fashionable to believe that all programming jobs should be offshored to India. People imagined that the startups of the future would have executives living in California and programmers living in India. Some VC firms would even pressure their startups to structure themselves in this way.
Now imagine it's 2006, you're 18, you're American but you're hearing that the future of programming is going to be in India. Are you going to major in Computer Science? Probably not.
Fast forward to 2012. The problems of offshoring to India are much more apparent, plus some of the most successful startups of the mid-2000s (e.g. Facebook) did not rely on offshored talent. So now people want to hire in the US. But now there's a shortage of new CS grads.
But of course, companies/executives/VCs blamed the laziness of American students and the alleged poor quality of the American education system, rather than the messages they themselves had been sending out for the previous 10 years.
>It's also rather noticeable that the VC tech investor sector wants more cheap obedient labor, and doesn't want this point raised.
I've never been able to wrap my head around VCs, executives, and others in the US who have a obvious preference for foreign-born talent, but still complain about the lack of US-born workers.
I think you're exaggerating the idea of offshoring. The reality is that tech is not a sexy sector at all and that's what pushes Americans away from it more than anything.
The people who work in tech are usually people who were never going to fit into mainstream roles anyway. If you went into tech, you weren't ever going to be in sales or marketing. Same for those who went into the arts, they didn't see offshoring of tech jobs and went, "Yeah, I should really pursue the arts."
Most of the decisions people make in the US around careers has more to do with image than it does with financial sense.
> Most of the decisions people make in the US around careers has more to do with image than it does with financial sense.
I've thought the same thing about this, it's kind of depressing. It's like science and tech are both stigmatized. These are fields that have to compensate well, because if they didn't, very few people would take interest in them
And I don't think the problem is under-funding of stem, it's more cultural
I shouldn't be complaining from a money standpoint, but from a national standpoint it's probably bad for places like the DoD which hire mostly domestic citizens
> the US educational system is generally so poor that it's not generating enough people with the necessary technical capabilities to meet employer demand
The US educational system might be generating enough people with those skills, but a very large proportion of them are foreigners who would need visas to work (40-50% of STEM postgrads: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11347)
People on here don't seem to realize what an amazing asset it is that the US has a large pool of talented people that want to move there. I am from Europe and HN folks really like to look down on the European tech sector, but I would argue that the most important reason the US has a much stronger tech sector is because of the talent pool from around the world. Moving to Europe is a lot less interesting for people from around the world because of the language barrier. Honestly, for the EU it would be a gift from heaven if the US closed it's border to this talent pool and left it up for grabs.
I can see how it is an asset to businessowners. I cannot see how it is an asset to, say, qualified engineers who consequently cannot find a job in their field.
What an amazing asset, to not even have a country, just an economic zone where you get to compete with talent from all over the world. To slowly become a despised minority in what used to be your country, but the economy does so well!
I am also from Europe, and I pray the US doesn't give us this "amazing asset".
Immigration will be politically encouraged either way for demographic reasons alone. Pensioners are the strongest voting block in most of Europe and it will stay that way for the foreseeable future. Someone needs to be productive for the pension system to keep on working.
As a European myself, I'd much rather have the comparably educated, motivated and talented immigration Switzerland and the USA get versus what the rest of the EU is currently getting.
wake up we have the lower income of mass immigration coming to western europe just like the US but unlike USA we dont have highly educated immigrants coming to europe
> What an amazing asset, to not even have a country, just an economic zone where you get to compete with talent from all over the world.
Is this what europeans think the US is like? No country, just an economic zone? Mind if I ask how "just an economic zone" manages to produce cultural exports that most of the world has been predominantly consuming for decades? Is it the same "economic zone" that has some of the strongest national identities out there in the modern age? (not that it is an absolute positive or anything, but it would just be weird to claim that an "economic zone" has some national identity)
And competing with talent from all over the world, really? If you frame it that way, sure. I personally see it as getting to collaborate and work together with some of the best talent from all over the world, to accomplish things that often wouldn't be possible otherwise. This is the kind of a thing that makes the US a powerhouse, and not just from the economical perspective.
> To slowly become a despised minority in what used to be your country.
Ah, the european attitude towards immigration has finally shown its face. I can assure you that no american doing anything worthy with their life thinks so. Please tell me who that "despised minority" you are referring to is, and who "my" country used to belong to? Who specifically makes someone feel like a "despised minority" and how? Are you talking about Indian and Chinese software engineers immigrating to Bay Area, who then make rural american midwest farmers feel like a "despised minority"? I am legit confused how any of that tracks, so I assume you are talking about something else, so I am curious to hear you elaborate on that.
Note: I wasn't even born american (but I am white, in case you were trying to pull that "of course you disagree, because you are the minority being referenced" card), and I can assure you that I feel like less of a "despised minority" here than I do in my country of birth (where I grew up and had spent half of my life). And my country of birth was much much more homogenous in every single way compared to most large european countries, let alone the US.
> I am also from Europe, and I pray the US doesn't give us this "amazing asset".
If I were you, I wouldn't worry. Doesn't seem like Europe is going to manage to get there anytime soon, not even if they actually tried. Which they haven't yet, but judging by how well they manage to resolve any significant matters like that in Europe in general, I wouldn't place much hope on it going anywhere.
> Is this what europeans think the US is like? No country, just an economic zone?
Just enforcing your southern border is controversial and critically underfunded. I would say that is a minimum requirement to be considered a country.
> Hint: I wasn't even born american (but I am white, in case you were trying to pull that "of course you don't think so, because you are the minority being referenced" card), and I can assure you that I feel like less of a "despised minority" here than I do in my country of birth
To guarantee that minority status receives appropriate weight, the manual also suggests “placing contributions to diversity high on the list” or even making that “a criterion candidates must pass to make it to the second round”—for example, by “contributing to diversity” or “serving as a role model for URM students.” Since white candidates cannot “contribute to diversity” or “serve as role models” for students of different races, this guarantees that representatives of the correct races will get hired.
If, somehow, a committee still managed to hire white people or the wrong minorities, the manual suggests developing an audit process to identify criteria where “white candidates, male candidates . . . receive higher scores,” so that those criteria can be removed. Particularly, rigorous scientific practices like “publicly posting data, hypotheses and materials to guard against accusations of selectively reporting results or falsifying data” tends to “produce biased results”—namely, the hiring of white men. This was easily solved by “subsequently dropp[ing]” scientific rigor from “evaluation criterion” of candidate searches.
> I suppose the counterargument is that the US educational system is generally so poor that it's not generating enough people with the necessary technical capabilities
But what if it's not a policy/ed system issue but a culture/society/values choice? As a teen today, why go to college when I can try my hand at drop-shipping/digital marketing/content creation/ChatGPT startup/whatever guru du jour's shilling today
