Why not? The market, at least, is signalling that some skills are more valuable than others. How else will we decide?

Bureaucrats and politicians picking interest groups? That's why technology workers are exempt from overtime rules

>How else will we decide?

Opening up the archaic caps on talented H1B labor. Clearly there is demand for it.

Your still rationing. Who works out who is and who doesn't come?

My ideal solution would be a gradual removal of all barriers to entry. However that isn't possible.

So why not make H1B open to all types of workers(not just on job titles/industries), and build in a bidding system based on salary. Maybe a system if you pay a substantial amount of salary, you're allowed unlimited.

Why even implement a bidding system at all?

The auction is a solution to the problem that the cap creates. Remove the cap and you don't need an auction.

H1B visas traditionally have been for skilled labor, under the assumption that these educated workers will help stimulate the economy. This is good as long as the workers don't drive down the wages for citizens working the same jobs, so an immigrant already has to make the same or more than U.S. citizens. Isn't that wage enough to achieve the goal of H1B visas?

"The auction is a solution to the problem that the cap creates."

The cap is a solution to the problem the lack of other controls -- like an auction -- creates. With an auction to allocate the visas to companies that need foreigners with actual rare and highly paid skills, we could drop the cap to a more reasonable level like 10,000 per year instead of the ludicrous and destructive 60k.

That doesn't solve the problem outlined in the article.

No because its easy bypass. List exotic skills no one has, say you can't find anyone then list abroad. That's what happens.

Second you are inhibiting wage growth reducing the incentive for people to train into those professions

H1B isn't capped by skill or position, only by total visas, so I'm not sure what you're talking about with exotic skills.

H1B applicant wages must be higher than existing U.S. citizens, so if anything it's increasing average wages for educated labor and further incentivizing citizens to train for these skilled positions.

To use h1b you have to prove you have no native applicants. You get around that by putting stupidly specific skill in the job spec.

It would cap wage growth for people in the sector, because instead of increasing salary to attract candidates they search abroad for the same wage. It's a cap on wage growth.

>To use h1b you have to prove you have no native applicants

Completely wrong.

It's not capping wage growth. If anything it's incentivizing wage growth by making positive growth more liquid than negative growth.

"If anything it's incentivizing wage growth by making positive growth more liquid than negative growth." I'm sorry but most evidence says it reduces wage growth that particular area of employment.

It may increate economic growth overall, but those particular workers targeted get screwed.

This is why I think it should equally open for every sector, (Everybody gets screwed equally, which means prices will stay down) or bidding.

Price is a supply demand measure. Companies are saying there is a supply issue, while not paying up. Is it really a supply issue?

This would solve that.

There's already a visa that does exactly that, the E-2: http://www.uscis.gov/eir/visa-guide/e-2-treaty-investor/e-2-...