> Considering how many of these adds have more than a hundred of local applicants, and still end up hiring people that are not from North America it is quite clear they do not intend to follow the intent of the law.
You’re assuming without evidence that for any given job, that there will be qualified Americans willing to perform that job who aren’t already happily employed. You haven’t established that.
Hell, ask restaurateurs. They frequently have difficult hiring qualified local labor, too, even though the bar isn’t nearly as high as for a technologist, in major cities.
You're arguing in poor faith. Microsoft has laid off thousands of workers this year alone. As has nearly every large tech company.
There's no shortage of qualified US tech workers. Microsoft and many other tech companies (cough Accenture cough) abuse this system. They want workers who cannot easily get jobs with another company due to the visa system and will take the lowest of wages.
> Microsoft has laid off thousands of workers this year alone.
If I lay off experienced buggy whip makers because the market for horse-drawn buggies is shrinking, and I need to hire experienced aluminum workers instead to meet my customers' demands, it doesn't necessarily mean I can hire the buggy whip makers back for that job. Labor is not necessarily substitutable like that. Not even software developers.
It's also worth noting that companies often use layoffs as a way to efficiently trim the worst-performing labor cohort. They don't do it because they want to hire cheaper labor; it's because they want to let these workers go without the overhead of going through the formal termination process for each one individually.
> There's no shortage of qualified US tech workers.
This statement is so broad it's difficult to evaluate. There might be plenty of US tech workers, and there might be a surplus of US tech workers qualified for some job, but it doesn't necessarily mean they are qualified for the specific job openings.
Speaking from my own experience, my team is hiring several senior SREs, and we're not seeing a flood of qualified candidates. We get a flood of resumes, but the signal to noise ratio is low. The candidates' CVs claim the requisite qualifications, but when we actually evaluate the candidates for role fit, we are finding that their actual skills aren't those we need for success in these roles.
> You’re assuming without evidence that for any given job, that there will be qualified Americans willing to perform that job who aren’t already happily employed.
You can offer them more money, better work/life balance, a more fulfilling job, etc. When the government allows the hiring of foreign workers on visas, it's tilting the playing field in favor of employers. Why offer a better wage when you can just cry to the government and get an indentured servant at a discount?
Exceptional talent is a different argument - most H1bs are average at best. Claiming to be unable to hire for an entry or mid-level software engineer job is absurd.
> You can offer them more money, better work/life balance, a more fulfilling job, etc.
If the qualified workers are already fully employed, how will this result in more of them in the short term?
> Why offer a better wage when you can just cry to the government and get an indentured servant at a discount?
The law requires H1B workers be paid the prevailing wage (20 CFR 655.731), and studies indicate that they're paid pretty close to the average wage (https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w34793/w347...). If we keep in mind that half of all citizens holding a particular job are paid below the average wage, too, then perhaps the hue and cry over pay is overblown.