But while contract labor boosts corporate bottom lines, it will have a devastating impact on workers. Our educational system produces highly skilled workers, who then leave to become the working poor in America, while breaking down our ability to industrialize our own country. We wind up subsidizing U.S. industry. Countering these arguments, high-tech lobbyists claim the industry faces a crippling labor shortage, threatening U.S. economic growth. Employment figures don t show an absolute scarcity of labor in the high-tech industry, however, but a shortage of people willing to provide high skills at the salary industry wants to pay.
Industry also claims that U.S. universities don t turn out enough qualified graduates.
But downward pressure on salaries discourages young people from becoming engineers. And, ironically, U.S. universities train many students from abroad who then become H1-B workers. And because these workers are often hired under individual contracts, U.S. labor law says they don t have the right to organize. U.S. engineers used to consider themselves professionals, a cut above unionized blue-collar workers. Silicon Valley is clearly loath to see those events repeated.