A labor shortage has a temporary effect of creating an upward pressure on the 900 jobs, but there’s a ceiling and the long term effects are complex. I may have to pay 900 jobs 1.5x to attract and retain the talent as a business, but that cost will be eaten by other functions where there’s a surplus. Or long term, the businesses will find ways to either automate or ship the jobs away.
Additionally there will be a loss in productivity for business and the 900 jobs will have more work on their plates, so in a way they could be underpaid for the job they do. This is just scratching the surface, but I assume there’d be a lot of second order effects.
> the businesses will find ways to either automate or ship the jobs away
Both are acceptable terms for me compared to importing cheap labor. If they automate, then at least it creates new high end jobs, and if they ship jobs away then they now have to deal with foreign cultures, foreign courts and legal system, etc that will hamper their business.
That’s because you’re automatically assigning “cheap labor” tag to all workers on visa. Which in itself is not accurate. But these same workers after following the above process become permanent residents and citizens. (Which implies these are the people companies want to retain and move them off a visa by sinking 10s of thousands of dollars) The reality is much more nuanced.