News Semiconductor industry proposes new 'Chipmaker's Visa' for H1B program — program would address extreme talent shortages in chipmaking industry

[Admin]

American semiconductor industry needs tens of thousands of foreign workers, so the government has to alter H1-B visa program, U.S. chipmakers believe.

Semiconductor industry proposes new 'Chipmaker's Visa' for H1B program — program would address extreme talent shortages in chipmaking industry : Read more

 

[bigdragon]

If they'll be 67,000 workers short in 2030, then that gives the industry and government a few years to fix the problem. Time to deploy resources to train people to fix the skills gap now. Invest in chipmaking programs at universities and colleges.

I remember touring a nanofabrication lab at Penn State decades ago and being impressed with what they were doing. I also recall there was a problem recruiting students because of a lack of incentives, difficulty of the courses, and perception that domestic companies were outsourcing all fabrication. I couldn't find a single scholarship for chip making, but there were tons of scholarship opportunities for computer science.

Fix the problem by recruiting and improving today's students. Don't fix it via visas that allow companies to abuse their workers and undercut labor costs.

 

[thestryker]

Of all the things in that article I think making it easier for graduates of US universities to stick around is the only semi-rational one.

We absolutely need more scholarship opportunities domestically and more of a push for engineering in general. Intel does a good job around where I live, but that's because they have fabrication here so the ROI is effectively baked in.

 

[ezst036]

There must be people waking up brand new today.

I could have swore I just read a news article on Toms Hardware about how Samsung is planning for (in the near future) completely automated/A.I. fabs when making chips.

That's going to happen everywhere, not just in one Samsung fab. So this whole H1B visa is completely unnecessary. The jobs are going to be destroyed. Let Americans do the jobs while they have 2-3 years left to do them before they are completely gone.

Jobs, once automated, are destroyed forever.

 

[ingtar33]

see, this is how american workers get screwed. if the raised the wages they'd definitely get those positions filled. but they don't want to raise those wages, the CEOs need more gold bath tubs and a new yacht.

 

[sivaseemakurthi]

To folks who say recruit students, A lot of students recruited are foreigners, so they need H1-B VISAs again. Unless companies prefer only American students, the problem comes back to getting H1Bs. Some of those foreign students after recruitment may or many not get picked in H1-B lottery.

 

[George³]

Strange, I couldn't understand one part of the article at all. The companies provide the jobs, pay all sorts of taxes to support the state administration, and yet they have to buy visas for employed foreigners. That they even play an auction for them to get as much money as possible. This is incomprehensible to me.

 

[thestryker]

Strange, I couldn't understand one part of the article at all. The companies provide the jobs, pay all sorts of taxes to support the state administration, and yet they have to buy visas for employed foreigners. That they even play an auction for them to get as much money as possible. This is incomprehensible to me.

The only thing referring to an auction is a policy proposal from these folks: https://eig.org/chipmakers-visa/

Though it wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility as the US government does auction varying things off on a regular basis.

 

[gg83]

Great article. I think the proposals make perfect sense

 

[PEnns]

Those companies do pay those H1B program employees a lower salary, right??

Now we know what they are pushing for such a program, and they have been doing that for decades under the guise of "not finding workers in the US....."

 

[unicorn23]

The level of misinformation in this article is astounding (coz it's another puff piece supporting the India/China immigration lobby, I guess).

Let's apply some fact checks shall we: the H1-B visa is NOT lottery due to the 7% country cap but due to the fact that the no. of visa applications are 5 times the no. of visas and aren't allotted on the basis of highest skill/pay. The very fact that Indians comprise almost 75% of visas allotted makes the statement of country cap a load of bull crap.

The 7% country cap does apply to the Green card process so the permanent immigrants represent the whole world rather than just Indians/Chinese/Mexican as would be the case if the country cap was discarded. Do I want to live in a multicultural society OR one dominated just by 3 communities (I think all of us would pick the former).

Another mathematical fallacy: If the semiconductor industry is so automated and is expected to be short by 67k in 2030, it's an easy fix - just allocate a miniscule 10000 visas from the massive 65k H1-B visas allotted each year to these national security related skills instead of giving some low paid lower skill coding coolie the H1 visa. But no - this article focuses on furthering the immigration lobby's agenda in the guise of national security - what a hoot!

Also if the immigration lobby is so concerned about the welfare of immigrants, why do they NOT allow complete portability of the visa freely once the immigrant is here. Currently all of these H1s are nothing more than modern indentured slaves for the visa duration making these immigration consultants fat along with the tech companies that exploit them with lower wages compared to citizens and green card holders. A twisted and immoral industry supported by an article written in complete bad faith.

 

[hawndude]

Another way for Americans to get screwed. We have enough people here that can fill these roles. We need to take care of our own and stop making excuses to take in more immigrants. I’m a non-white Democrat, by the way, in case someone tries to make this political. Start focusing on better salaries; there’s no reason for CEOs to get paid what they do while they lowball American salaries. It’s disgusting!

 

[thisisaname]

U.S. semiconductor industry needs more cheap workers.

 

[scottscholzpdx]

Complete nonsense. I went from being a navy electronics technician to a field engineer for many different types of semiconductor toolsets with almost no training whatsoever. Arguably the hardest one I learned was the one I did first, photolithography.

Partner with a few large community colleges and you'll get all the technicians and field engineers the industry needs in just over a year.

 

[caseym54]

Maybe they need to pay US workers more.

 

[wbfox]

American workers cost too much, ergo, import foreigners that will be completely dependent upon the corporations that can pay them less, and if they say anything about it, back to where they came from. We can also keep neglecting the US education system because we won't be needing educated American's either. So win win for c-suite, board and shareholders of company XYZ.

 

[bluvg]

The level of misinformation in this article is astounding (coz it's another puff piece supporting the India/China immigration lobby, I guess).

Definitely lots of problems with the system as it stands today, but as John Mearscheimer points out, there are two key things historically that make a country powerful: its economy and its population. Perhaps AI will upend that fact of history, but as western countries like the US struggle with declining populations, there is a huge opportunity to strengthen the country with wise population-increasing true immigration approaches (rather than H1-B 'work here and then please get the heck out' visas).

 

[FoxtrotMichael-1]

As an American tech worker, let me just say that $5-10k is not the difference in salary most companies pay a US citizen vs an H1B holder. If that’s all these companies will pay at Auction, it will still be much cheaper for them to hire H1Bs than US citizens. Second, why should US citizens have to compete with labor from the entire globe when our families and extended families have entirely different cost structures than someone who is from say India or even Argentina? These companies don’t want the law of supply and demand for labor to apply to them and frankly it’s a dirty trick.

 

[bigdragon]

Maybe they need to pay US workers more.

Pay isn't the biggest issue. Tom's has run multiple articles about chipmakers -- TSMC in particular -- demanding unreasonable working hours and uncompensated overtime. People should have lives outside of work. Right now they barely have enough time to sleep, eat, and perform tasks necessary for living (buy food, visit doctors, maintain transport, etc.). Companies should not be rewarded for or empowered to abuse workers.