The reduction of immigrants and H-1B visas will cause the U.S. to lose to other nations.

By Michael Randle

I realize I have made this point many times over the last three years. Yet, it bears repeating because no one seems to be reacting to the point. So, here is another look at the argument that this nation's economy is in need of many more people who want to work.

This country is experiencing its lowest fertility rate in decades. Think about that! The largest generation in American history —
Baby Boomers like me — are not being replaced as they age out of the workforce.

The facts: In 2018, on average, 10,200 people retired each day in this country, while 2,230 people turned working age (16) each day. From what I have read, hardly anyone realizes this “silver tsunami” is upon us. What's a silver tsunami? It's when workers age out of the workforce, try and sell their homes, yet a smaller replacement group cannot fill their jobs or buy their homes.

On top of the silver tsunami is another tidal wave. U.S. policy is currently curbing immigration by the hundreds of thousands. In 2018, only 200,000 legal immigrants entered this country, when over the past 10 years that number was on average over a million. This means that a tight labor force of American-born workers is not bolstered by a workforce that is foreign-born.

A recent study by Britta Glennon, a professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, showed that the reduction of H-1B visas per current U.S. policy will lead to global firms offshoring more jobs. The report showed that countries that will benefit the most from a reduced number of U.S. H-1B visas are Canada, India and China. The report also stated that restricting high-skilled H-1B workers and sending those workers back home will not only send jobs offshore, but will reduce innovation and growth. Denial rates for H-1B petitions have increased from 6 percent in fiscal year 2015 to 32 percent in the first quarter of fiscal year 2019, according to the National Foundation for American Policy.

So, at a time when the U.S. cannot replace workers at a rate of almost 8,000 people a day — almost 250,000 people a month or 2.88 million a year — we are reducing legal immigration in this country at a rate of 80 percent, if not more. It's not politics, it is math.

In the report from Knowledge@Wharton, Glennon says this: "What I look at in my paper is that there is this unforeseen additional consequence that has been completely left out of the debate, which is that U.S. multinational firms have this alternative choice. If they can’t get the skilled immigrants that they want in the U.S., they can just hire them abroad at one of their foreign affiliates. If it’s true that they are just going to hire skilled immigrants elsewhere, then those policies restricting them can backfire."

If we cannot add more people to the workforce, the world that we live in now, the world that we know, will be jeopardized. Your Social Security and other benefits will not be available or will be reduced if we cannot find more people to join the workforce in the U.S. Regardless of what you may have heard or believe, this is a global economy. If the U.S. does not have the talent or the numbers in the labor force for growing companies, the multinationals will simply pick some other country to expand their business.