GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving blamed Silicon Valley’s use of H-1B visas on the “technical illiteracy” of Americans in a post on his official blog.
“This week I’ve heard a myth resurface suggesting that if we gut the visa system, we can simply retrain US workers to fill the open roles. Unfortunately, that bromide is incredibly unrealistic,” claimed Irving in the blog post, entitled, “The Assured Cost of Clamping Down On H-1B ‘Genius’ Visas.”
“America is a country full of brilliant people, but a typical 18-month retraining program couldn’t scratch the surface of the technical skills an individual would need to acquire,” Irving continued. “The average American worker—hell, even the most advanced American worker can’t develop new master’s degree level expertise in a such a short time.”
“Ideal candidates for these roles start their focus on math and science in their early education and dedicate years of study to reach elite status,” he concluded. “If we want more Americans to compete with elite non-US workers (and I believe we do) the solution has to begin with significantly better STEM education from K-12. Our kids entering high school currently rank 35th in the world in math and they don’t fare much better in science. And our high school graduates now compete in STEM skills with some of the most struggling developing nations. With so much technical illiteracy in the US, the H-1B visa program has become America’s secret weapon warding off economic catastrophe.”
According to a report published this week, jobs in the computer science field “would be up by as much as 11%” while “wages would have increased by 5% if the H-1B visa system allowing companies to employ foreign workers in high-skilled fields had not been introduced.”
“Silicon Valley companies have benefited from the use of H-1B visas for some time. The Trump administration has many tech companies on edge as rumors of an executive order aimed to stop the H-1B visas surfaced last month,” reported Breitbart Tech’s Lucas Nolan. “Bloomberg Technology reported in January that the Trump administration had drafted a new executive order reportedly aimed at tightening and re-working the H-1B visa system, which is used by many Silicon Valley tech companies to hire workers from overseas.”
Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook.
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