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Government
Trump Says We Don’t Have Enough American Workers to Fill Skilled Labor Jobs
2020-01-14
[BREITBART] President Donald Trump
...the Nailer of NAFTA...
 told Fox News TV host Laura Ingraham on Friday his 2021 plans to welcome more foreign graduates will not flood the labor market for U.S. college graduates.

"I have so many companies coming into this country, you’re not going to have to worry about it," Trump said in the interview, adding, "It is always going to be a shortage ... We have so many companies coming in, from Japan ... [and] China now is going to start building a lot of things."

Trump and Ingraham did not find common ground, likely because they were talking about different parts of the immigration problem. Also, neither mentioned Ivanka Trump’s campaign to prod companies to train their own American employees for high-tech jobs.

Ingraham began the exchange by noting American graduates’ salaries have been suppressed by the flood of foreign graduates:

We don’t have a tight labor market. If we had a tight labor market, we would be seeing real increases in wages. I hear that your team is planning on advocating more foreign workers coming in for some of these high-tech companies.

Ingraham rejected business claims of shortages: "We’re seeing a plateauing of wages ... There’s a never-ending appetite on the part of corporate America to bring in as much cheap labor as possible to drive down wages."

"I’m not talking about cheap ‐ I’m talking about brainpower," Trump responded. "They want to hire smart people. And those people are thrown out of the country ‐ we can’t do that," he said, referring to foreign graduates of U.S. colleges.

Trump seems to want to help companies import a relatively small number of very clever people, such as Ivy League valedictorians. In contrast, Ingraham is trying to block companies’ effort to cut payrolls by replacing well-paid American professionals with cheap foreign graduates who have just enough skills to get the job done, regardless of quality.

"We have to allow smart people to stay in our country ‐ if you graduate number one in your class at Harvard, [if] you graduate from the Wharton School of Finance," Trump said. "If we tell smart people to get the hell out, that’s not America first."

Posted by:Fred

#13  Same old story...nothing much changes.
Posted by: crazyhorse   2020-01-14 11:55  

#12  Oh, I think he's right. Companies around here are begging for iron workers, welders, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, and several others.

Not one of which requires a university education, much less a STEM degree. This is about the elite cutting their technical labor costs in half (or more in CA) and pocketing the difference. Same thing that happened since the 1990s to the blue collar work force, but moving up the value chain.
Posted by: Elmique Uloluck7261   2020-01-14 11:19  

#11  But I have a PhD in Intersectionality! I can't live in Mama's basement forever!

Not me, BTW: I'm retired.
Posted by: Bobby   2020-01-14 10:51  

#10  Deacon hits the nail.

The problem is defining skills. All the left thinks of is programmers and SJW teachers.

We need to develop more of a trade school approach to highlight those trades that need more trained people.

You can, for example, get a fully trained programmer in 6 months with the right course.

Companies don't need PHD whiners.

Posted by: AlanC   2020-01-14 08:45  

#9  Oh, I think he's right. Companies around here are begging for iron workers, welders, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, and several others.
Posted by: Deacon Blues   2020-01-14 08:35  

#8  perhaps but only if they'll pay wages above average for the country.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles   2020-01-14 05:51  

#7  Kick the foreign students out of the universities and things will be fine.
Posted by: gorb   2020-01-14 03:48  

#6  Non-tribe educators, somewhat like Jalapeño flavoured coffee, really never has caught on in some segments of society. Learning be hard.... when you have a race based hatred for the teacher. Getting tribal educators across the finish line requires some adjustments to the standards. There, I said it.
Posted by: Besoeker   2020-01-14 03:16  

#5  Yale Pumps Millions into Faculty Diversity Hiring Efforts
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2020-01-14 03:06  

#4  at the same time that tens of thousands of our domestically-trained PhDs can't get jobs here

Trained in universities whose stated goals are to increase women & minorities (as long as they're not Asians) participation in STEM. Trained in intersectionality and anti-white privilege. Taught, since K-12, by (semi-illiterate) teachers of gender & color.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2020-01-14 02:50  

#3  They've had this argument since the 80s and tech workers. What business have done is to suppress the market and incentives to pursue the careers for over 4 decades. Tell them to grow their own if they can't find them. [Gee, that's exactly what the military does through many different programs]
Posted by: Procopius2k   2020-01-14 02:35  

#2  BS. There are plenty of skilled, high level candidates. Companies just want to get cheaper ones from offshore.
Posted by: KBK   2020-01-14 01:27  

#1  Bad call. Complete, total BS.

Impossible to argue we have a skilled worker shortage at the same time that tens of thousands of our domestically-trained PhDs can't get jobs here.
Posted by: Lex   2020-01-14 00:28  

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