It would be really ironic if we simultaneously banned TikTok, for national security reasons, while also importing a million Chinese workers to build the new energy infrastructure.
Blue collar wages have been increasing for less than a decade after four decades of stagnation. Talk about labor shortages is premature and should be deferred until capital gets a far smaller share of the pie.
Construction jobs are great, but there is also a major nursing shortage in this country, especially with new requirements for staffing and an aging population.. The Philippines have been a major source of health care workers. I imagine there are other countries that could also contribute.
I realized that this is somewhat peripheral to construction jobs and energy, but drawing women into construction does decrease the pool of potential nurses. And having enough nurses should be politically popular, which might carry along increased immigration in other trades.
I'm for a free market in labor, which includes allowing employers and workers to connect across lines in the sand drawn by politicians.
However, emphasizing immigration for "green" jobs does not excite me. Green jobs are largely a boondoggle - subsidizing a factory to build electric cars that nobody wants buy, except perhaps when bribed with even more subsidies.
Batya Ungar-Sargon has taken a different view on Matt’s ending to this associating isolation policies with MAGA. I think that’s mostly wrong. Working class people of long been skeptical of lots of new immigrants competing with them for jobs. Many feel screwed by globalization and have good reason to feel that way. Probably not Slow Boring readers though,
What a nice country we would have if this were politically feasible. It drives me nuts that both parties seem to have succumbed to unwarranted panic over illegal immigration. For most of the country's problems, I figure we've gotten into trouble more often due to incompetence and shortsightedness rather than nefarious maneuvering by power brokers. On immigration though, the solutions--such as the one proposed here--are so obviously good ideas and so obviously not going to happen, that I suspect there really are powerful people who don't want these ideas implemented because they benefit tremendously from the status quo. Illegal immigration = cheap labor. Simple as that.
Thoughts on two questions: How many immigrants do you need long term if robotics follows something close to Moore's law. Do you really need to speak English if AI can dramatically improve translation software.
I’m very pro-immigration in general, but when discussing labor market tightness, I would probably note that current male prime age labor force participation is way below historical levels.
If we had male prime age lfpr like we did in the 60s, that’d be about 5 million additional men in the workforce.
Maybe don’t specifically target your immigration proposal at blue collar workers in the trades?
EDIT: I’d also note what’s going on with real wages for electricians. Per FRED, they haven’t gone up for at least the last 20 years.
Lots of immigrant visa (IV) categories are subject to annual caps, so if you help one particular person get one, that just means someone else won’t. God’s work, but it won’t increase aggregate numbers.
Some categories aren’t capped though, and in theory an immigration attorney could expend effort specifically trying to help people qualify for those.
Lobbyists, politicians, or staffers can work to increase the caps.
You could run a dating service specifically for foreigners looking to marry Americans. (Spouses and minor step-children qualify for uncapped IVs.) Many of these already exist, but presumably like all dating apps to the extent they optimize for earning revenue they often dramatically undercut their nominal purpose, an altruist could do much better.
You could run a business that brings in seasonal workers, or a consulting firm that helps others do the same. These are non-immigrant visas so have a limited duration, but you could hope that some recipients will either overstay illegally or get married while they’re here and adjust status to stay legally.
A Canada-style points based system would be a good starting point. The H1-B visa is problematic insofar as it ties the skilled immigrant worker to a specific employee, thereby minimizing wage negotiation power. Furthermore, it cuts across the intent of the recent FTC decision to ban non-compete provisions in employee contracts.
Let's just offer green cards in those areas where we are suffering from skilled domestic labour shortages.
I'd like to adopt a points system. But I also think we should modify the existing H1-B program. Why not allow such visa holders to leave for a better job after, say, six months (or a year)?
Ben, kudos for *addressing* the political side of the political economy:
"His preferred solution isn’t to just attract foreign workers; it’s to expand job training programs and widen the base of workers that are employed in the manufacturing and construction sector. For example, he said “we’ve got millions of women in this country who we could potentially reach out to and say, you know what, there's actually a pathway for you in the construction industry.” ...
If we do that, Walsh admits that he’s open to a conversation about expanding foreign skilled based immigration in the clean energy sector — as long as the jobs offered under the visa program don’t exploit foreign workers or undermine the rights and wages of American workers."
Progress, but you're not there yet! The next step is to *center* the politics. Walsh is not dumb—he knows he is talking to someone more excited about immigration that upskilling, and his base *hates* immigration. So "open to a conversation" should tell you how far you have to go, not that you've arrived. The good policy ideas are trivial: what's hard is moving the political system out of its current anti-immigrant equilibrium despite all the veto points resisting such movement. Providing constructive hypotheses of how change will happen is the work to do, not sketching how beautiful that unreachable world would be.
I agree generally, but don't necessarily believe that the current anti-immigration equilibrium is anti well-managed legal immigration. Public reaction to the absolute shit-show goat rodeo that is our asylum system is understandable, but not necessarily indicative of longer term support for legal immigration, especially if targeted toward areas of economic growth and public benefit.
The article doesn’t appear to require electricians. If I understand it correctly, it’s technicians, and in a job that can be trained for relatively quickly.
Don't understand the comment. I think immigration IS the best way to find many or most of the electricians we need, and I don't think that generalized "anti-immigration" political sentiment will prevent it if is done programatically / legally.
I love the idea but the politics seem really hard. The premise of the column seems to implicitly assume that Biden will be reelected, otherwise we’re probably not expecting Trump to take up the banner here. So for Biden to take a step that would surely be opposed by organized labor (electrical workers unions) seems way out of character. I could see this as part of a bigger immigration deal with lots of get-tough on the Southern border aspects, but in that case why not just go for the bigger win and expand legal skilled immigration across the entire economy rather than just one sector? Narrowly, for the purpose of clean energy, why not something to allow rapid retraining of laid-off workers (maybe throw something in about workers displaced by AI?) in clean energy, perhaps with a more restrictive certification that would allow them to do clean energy work but not other electrician work, which might appease organized labor to a degree and make the training simpler.
I think the point is that we have historically low unemployment, high labor force participation, an aging population that is aging / retiring even faster in the building trades AND a projected shortage of hundred of thousands to millions of workers in critical sectors. It's not clear to me why unions would not welcome the prospect of millions of new members, regardless of their national origin or even their temporary / conditional immigration status.
I think the prime working age LFPR is hovering around 83.5, which is the highest since before the great recession (and we have only ever been above 84 for a few years in the late ‘90s) so not clear there is a lot of space there. I believe good wages in these jobs could pull in more under-employed people, and the trend for young people in building trades is encouraging.
My general philosophy regarding immigration is to incentivize low-skill immigration to work lower-skill, lower-pay jobs, while training Americans to do higher-skill, higher-pay jobs. But to the extent that there is a shortage of Americans to do said higher-skill jobs, we should absolutely allow immigrants who will perform that work
That’s going to increase inequality among the native born population, by undercutting wages for Americans who don’t advance to higher paying jobs, while reducing prices for those who do get higher pay. If you do the opposite, allow in highly skilled high paid immigrants, that decreases inequality, by undercutting wages for highly paid Americans and reducing prices for those who get lower pay.
Undercutting wages / increasing competition for lower-skilled lower-income Americans feeds political opposition to immigration generally, while high-skilled high-wage immigration does not. Trump voters don't really care that 50% of American "unicorn" start-ups are founded by immigrants, for example.
Skills-based immigration seems like a Good Thing.
Take this one out of the oven - it's ready to go!
Wanted to say that I really appreciate Ben consistently getting expert quotes for Take Bakery columns!
It would be really ironic if we simultaneously banned TikTok, for national security reasons, while also importing a million Chinese workers to build the new energy infrastructure.
Blue collar wages have been increasing for less than a decade after four decades of stagnation. Talk about labor shortages is premature and should be deferred until capital gets a far smaller share of the pie.
Construction jobs are great, but there is also a major nursing shortage in this country, especially with new requirements for staffing and an aging population.. The Philippines have been a major source of health care workers. I imagine there are other countries that could also contribute.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/04/24/1246628171/nursing-home-staffing-final-rule-medicare-medicaid
I realized that this is somewhat peripheral to construction jobs and energy, but drawing women into construction does decrease the pool of potential nurses. And having enough nurses should be politically popular, which might carry along increased immigration in other trades.
I'm for a free market in labor, which includes allowing employers and workers to connect across lines in the sand drawn by politicians.
However, emphasizing immigration for "green" jobs does not excite me. Green jobs are largely a boondoggle - subsidizing a factory to build electric cars that nobody wants buy, except perhaps when bribed with even more subsidies.
Batya Ungar-Sargon has taken a different view on Matt’s ending to this associating isolation policies with MAGA. I think that’s mostly wrong. Working class people of long been skeptical of lots of new immigrants competing with them for jobs. Many feel screwed by globalization and have good reason to feel that way. Probably not Slow Boring readers though,
My bad this was Ben. Got it.
What a nice country we would have if this were politically feasible. It drives me nuts that both parties seem to have succumbed to unwarranted panic over illegal immigration. For most of the country's problems, I figure we've gotten into trouble more often due to incompetence and shortsightedness rather than nefarious maneuvering by power brokers. On immigration though, the solutions--such as the one proposed here--are so obviously good ideas and so obviously not going to happen, that I suspect there really are powerful people who don't want these ideas implemented because they benefit tremendously from the status quo. Illegal immigration = cheap labor. Simple as that.
Thoughts on two questions: How many immigrants do you need long term if robotics follows something close to Moore's law. Do you really need to speak English if AI can dramatically improve translation software.
I’m very pro-immigration in general, but when discussing labor market tightness, I would probably note that current male prime age labor force participation is way below historical levels.
If we had male prime age lfpr like we did in the 60s, that’d be about 5 million additional men in the workforce.
Maybe don’t specifically target your immigration proposal at blue collar workers in the trades?
EDIT: I’d also note what’s going on with real wages for electricians. Per FRED, they haven’t gone up for at least the last 20 years.
Are there any careers that can help increase immigration? I am nearly fluent in spanish. Biotechnology degree😂.
In addition I imagine many bus drivers would be happy to move to US to fix shortages we have.
Lots of immigrant visa (IV) categories are subject to annual caps, so if you help one particular person get one, that just means someone else won’t. God’s work, but it won’t increase aggregate numbers.
Some categories aren’t capped though, and in theory an immigration attorney could expend effort specifically trying to help people qualify for those.
Lobbyists, politicians, or staffers can work to increase the caps.
You could run a dating service specifically for foreigners looking to marry Americans. (Spouses and minor step-children qualify for uncapped IVs.) Many of these already exist, but presumably like all dating apps to the extent they optimize for earning revenue they often dramatically undercut their nominal purpose, an altruist could do much better.
You could run a business that brings in seasonal workers, or a consulting firm that helps others do the same. These are non-immigrant visas so have a limited duration, but you could hope that some recipients will either overstay illegally or get married while they’re here and adjust status to stay legally.
A Canada-style points based system would be a good starting point. The H1-B visa is problematic insofar as it ties the skilled immigrant worker to a specific employee, thereby minimizing wage negotiation power. Furthermore, it cuts across the intent of the recent FTC decision to ban non-compete provisions in employee contracts.
Let's just offer green cards in those areas where we are suffering from skilled domestic labour shortages.
I'd like to adopt a points system. But I also think we should modify the existing H1-B program. Why not allow such visa holders to leave for a better job after, say, six months (or a year)?
Ben, kudos for *addressing* the political side of the political economy:
"His preferred solution isn’t to just attract foreign workers; it’s to expand job training programs and widen the base of workers that are employed in the manufacturing and construction sector. For example, he said “we’ve got millions of women in this country who we could potentially reach out to and say, you know what, there's actually a pathway for you in the construction industry.” ...
If we do that, Walsh admits that he’s open to a conversation about expanding foreign skilled based immigration in the clean energy sector — as long as the jobs offered under the visa program don’t exploit foreign workers or undermine the rights and wages of American workers."
Progress, but you're not there yet! The next step is to *center* the politics. Walsh is not dumb—he knows he is talking to someone more excited about immigration that upskilling, and his base *hates* immigration. So "open to a conversation" should tell you how far you have to go, not that you've arrived. The good policy ideas are trivial: what's hard is moving the political system out of its current anti-immigrant equilibrium despite all the veto points resisting such movement. Providing constructive hypotheses of how change will happen is the work to do, not sketching how beautiful that unreachable world would be.
I agree generally, but don't necessarily believe that the current anti-immigration equilibrium is anti well-managed legal immigration. Public reaction to the absolute shit-show goat rodeo that is our asylum system is understandable, but not necessarily indicative of longer term support for legal immigration, especially if targeted toward areas of economic growth and public benefit.
If you have any better ideas on how to find one million electricians in six years, we’re listening
The article doesn’t appear to require electricians. If I understand it correctly, it’s technicians, and in a job that can be trained for relatively quickly.
Don't understand the comment. I think immigration IS the best way to find many or most of the electricians we need, and I don't think that generalized "anti-immigration" political sentiment will prevent it if is done programatically / legally.
Sorry I meant to reply to another comment above
I love the idea but the politics seem really hard. The premise of the column seems to implicitly assume that Biden will be reelected, otherwise we’re probably not expecting Trump to take up the banner here. So for Biden to take a step that would surely be opposed by organized labor (electrical workers unions) seems way out of character. I could see this as part of a bigger immigration deal with lots of get-tough on the Southern border aspects, but in that case why not just go for the bigger win and expand legal skilled immigration across the entire economy rather than just one sector? Narrowly, for the purpose of clean energy, why not something to allow rapid retraining of laid-off workers (maybe throw something in about workers displaced by AI?) in clean energy, perhaps with a more restrictive certification that would allow them to do clean energy work but not other electrician work, which might appease organized labor to a degree and make the training simpler.
I think the point is that we have historically low unemployment, high labor force participation, an aging population that is aging / retiring even faster in the building trades AND a projected shortage of hundred of thousands to millions of workers in critical sectors. It's not clear to me why unions would not welcome the prospect of millions of new members, regardless of their national origin or even their temporary / conditional immigration status.
Our labor force participation isn’t particularly high at the moment. We have plenty of room to grow and lots of underemployed people.
I also do not expect older people to retire nearly as quickly as they have in the past.
And we currently have an increase of younger people going into the trades.
I think the prime working age LFPR is hovering around 83.5, which is the highest since before the great recession (and we have only ever been above 84 for a few years in the late ‘90s) so not clear there is a lot of space there. I believe good wages in these jobs could pull in more under-employed people, and the trend for young people in building trades is encouraging.
Men’s prime age labor force participation is actually lower than historical levels, which were at 98% in 1954 and are currently around 89%. See a pretty interesting discussion at https://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/why-some-prime-age-men-are-out-of-work/
Essentially, we have room to grow.
Will read - thanks
My general philosophy regarding immigration is to incentivize low-skill immigration to work lower-skill, lower-pay jobs, while training Americans to do higher-skill, higher-pay jobs. But to the extent that there is a shortage of Americans to do said higher-skill jobs, we should absolutely allow immigrants who will perform that work
That’s going to increase inequality among the native born population, by undercutting wages for Americans who don’t advance to higher paying jobs, while reducing prices for those who do get higher pay. If you do the opposite, allow in highly skilled high paid immigrants, that decreases inequality, by undercutting wages for highly paid Americans and reducing prices for those who get lower pay.
And why are either of those outcomes a problem?
Undercutting wages / increasing competition for lower-skilled lower-income Americans feeds political opposition to immigration generally, while high-skilled high-wage immigration does not. Trump voters don't really care that 50% of American "unicorn" start-ups are founded by immigrants, for example.