UK pretends it still has a navy; "Right wot's all this then", says Admiralty

[Berkut]

And tax H-1B visa holders at 100% once they surpass the 75th percentile wage in their country of origin.  SORRY, ROTW, WE'RE FULL.

Hell, I'd cut the quotas for H1-B. Hire Americans first. Wanting to outsource? That'll be an extra 20% tax on income  Mr. Corporation. No deductions.

There aren't enough qualified Armericans for the jobs that companies bring people in on H1-Bs for though. Right now the company I work is desperately trying to hire more people to do what I do, they pay rather well, and cannot find enough, so are bringing in people from India. WIth the full realization that they won't be as effective as a native speaker.

Unemployment in the technical services sector is effectively zero.

[Ideologue]

Well maybe your dumb company should invest in training its dumb prospective employees.

[The Brain]

I heard that 2Pac is alive in Cuba and will return in 2014.

[Admiral Yi]

Well maybe your dumb company should invest in training its dumb prospective employees.

The problem with this from an employer's POV is that there is no way to guarantee the employee will be around long enough to amortize the training investment.

Maybe we should legalize indentured servitude. 

[Ideologue]

Non-compete clause?

[Berkut]

Well maybe your dumb company should invest in training its dumb prospective employees.

WHy would we train prospective employees? That makes no sense.

Our business is expanding, there simply are not enough current employees or junior level people to move up. Of course they are moving people up, but the idea that a company can simply promote from within to handle growth betrays a certain lack of understanding of how business actually works that is in fact common among people who say things like "ZOMG NO MORE VISAS HIRE AMERIKKANNN!!!!"

[CountDeMoney]

Non-compete clause?

I bet in law school they teach that those things actually work.

[Berkut]

Well maybe your dumb company should invest in training its dumb prospective employees.

The problem with this from an employer's POV is that there is no way to guarantee the employee will be around long enough to amortize the training investment.

The real problem is that if you currently have 10 employees at level 1, 6 at level 2, and 2 at level 3, but you need triple all those numbers, then training and promotion simply does not work to solve that problem, especially when you are also dealing with routine attrition in all those positions as well, which is unavaoidable in a tight labor market.

I love the idea that slogans and populist rhetoric, if stated loudly enough, can somehow solve basic problems of math. There are not enough highly skilled IT workers in the industry. Period. That means we either fail because we don't have the labor to support successful business growth, or we bring in talent from outside the US.

I guess the Ide's can bitcth that the US should be better at turning the low skilled unemployed into highly skilled workers, but that doesn't help out our business much.

[HVC]

Promoting within is horrible for moral too, which is counter intuitive. Jealous employees make bad employees.

[Maximus]

The problem with this from an employer's POV is that there is no way to guarantee the employee will be around long enough to amortize the training investment.

Correct, which makes it a good candidate for a public program to increase the employee pool in these fields. Unfortunately fewer than half of graduates from science and engineering programs go into science and engineering careers. The rate is much higher among foreign-born students than natives, however, so a foreign-born student is actually a better investment.

Also, my personal experience from the job hunt is that people with 5 or more years of experience are in much shorter supply relative to demand than recent grads.

[Razgovory]

Fair enough, but why point out something has nothing to do with us?  Cuba tossed some guy in jail shouldn't bother our relations with them anymore then Germany should be bother because we execute someone in Texas.
And those countries I named tossed their own people in jail all the time.  Who cares?  If it's a game breaker for the US and Cuba why is it not a game breaker for the US and China?

Do you think we should lift our sanctions against Myanmar?  Why should it bother us if they throw some mouthy broad in jail?  How about Syria?  Why should it bother us if shoot some rebels?

Honestly, I don't care that much.  Also I should note that Myanmar is not 90 miles off our coast.  I have noticed that you have conflated sanctions and embargo.  We do not embargo
Syria or Myanmar.  So got anything else?

Oh, I forgot myself.  You never answered my question: "If it's a game breaker for the US and Cuba why is it not a game breaker for the US and China?"

[CountDeMoney]

Myanmar never upset the US casino industry.

[Razgovory]

Myanmar never upset the US casino industry.

More importantly there aren't a bunch of expat Burmese in a swing state for for the GOP to pander to.  It's like Ethanol except they run drugs and guns.

[Iormlund]

Well maybe your dumb company should invest in training its dumb prospective employees.

Another issue is that most people suck no matter how much training they get. There are only so many talented enough individuals within a group to cover certain jobs. So it is a big advantage for the US to be able to lure skilled workers from other groups.

[Ideologue]

Non-compete clause?

I bet in law school they teach that those things actually work.

Sometimes they do.  Sometimes they're against public policy.  I guess in real life, they're almost never enforced.

One was used on me once.  Sigh.

WHy would we train prospective employees? That makes no sense.

Well, they'd just be employees if you hired and trained them, not prospective.

If X industry could not find best-qualified employees in the past, before globalization, before even national labor mobility had entirely developed, what did they do?  Close up shop?  Or did they simply take on more of the responsibility of bringing new employees up to speed than they currently do?