​The Power of Compound Interest
Albert Einstein purportedly described compounding as the most powerful force in the universe and compound interest as the eighth wonder of the world. 
​
We mostly think of compound interest in the form of finances and growing wealth. And compound interest in that domain is, indeed, quite powerful and important. The crucial aspect of this type of growth is that it relies heavily on time. The more time one has to allow their money to grow at some rate of return (3%, 5%, 8%), the more money they will have at the end of some specified period of time. The earnings that accrue each year (or day, or month, depending on how interest is paid out) adds to the amount the individual invests themselves and also, itself, produces interest and earnings over time.

​An example from the investment learning blog grow illustrates how much of a difference 10 years can make: if a person starts saving $5,000/year for their retirement at age 25, they will end up with more than twice as much retirement savings ($1,300,000) by age 65 as someone who waits until 35 to start ($565,000), assuming an 8% rate of return, compounded annually.

​So, don't wait to invest in your retirement...even if it is $50 or $100 per month. That adds up over time. 

​Exponential Growth & COVID-19
Time matters so much in the world of compound interest as the growth of money in this case is exponential.

You might have heard a bit about the power of exponential growth as it relates to the spread of COVID-19 within a population. While pure exponential growth is not the best way to model the spread of COVID-19 infections, using it as an example demonstrates the point that, again, time matters when it comes to compounding growth of, in this case, a viral infection.

​An example used in the Forbes article linked above nicely illustrates the point of growth in viral spread: if just 1 person is infected on January 1st and the number of infected people doubles every three days (1 person has the ability to infect another in three days time from casual interactions, etc...), 1,024 people will be infected on January 31 (as each newly infected person also infects someone else every 3 days), 2,048 on February 3 (doubling of infections every 3 days), and by March 19th (78 days after the initial infection), 67 million people will be infected! Obviously COVID-19 didn't spread this fast due to various measures to slow the spread but, clearly, exponential growth is scary.

​The point here, and that we learned all too well in 2020, is that if one does not intervene early to stop the spread, the growth of viral spread will produce levels of infection that are nearly impossible to deal with barring some major new intervention like a vaccine, which thankfully, is coming in the case of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the disease that is COVID-19. 

Another interesting bit of research that resurfaced in the media during the spread of COVID-19 was the concept of exponential growth bias - the fact that most people ​consistently underestimate how fact value increases exponentially. In fact, an interesting study published in PNAS found that helping individuals better understand how impactful exponential growth can be for COVID-19 transmission led to increased support for measures to slow the spread of the virus.

​So, while we may struggle to comprehend exponential growth initially, understanding this process better is critical to taking actions that can affect this type of growth, whether we want to harness it for good (i.e., saving for retirement) or combat its negative effects (viral transmission).

Big Things Come from Small Beginnings - Growing Your Professional Presence & Career

​What does exponential growth have to do with your career?

Well, I believe we build our expertise and personal brand over time and can experience outsized returns in our careers if we start early and seek out means of increasing our rate of return, which could include:

1. Publishing your scholarly work (if you are a researcher)
2. Building an online brand and presence (via LinkedIn and/or a personal website)
3. Sharing your work & expertise via online platforms (LinkedIn posts, articles, or blog posts on other platforms)
4. Growing your professional network & reach
5. Developing relationships with professionals in your current or desired career field
6. Communicating your value, expertise, and story broadly, including learning how to communicate to general audiences  

2020...what a year.
Who knew at the beginning we would be here?
Certainly times have been tough and many are apart.
However, these circumstances made us appreciate what we should have from the start.

It’s often the little things that matter in life:
A sunny day, brisk walk, or chats with loved ones be they friends, family, your husband or wife.
In all the noise of our busy lives we often forgot to slow down and see
How much we had to be thankful for...hopefully you agree?

As this year reaches its end
We look forward to rounding the COVID-19 bend.
Science has delivered advances to slow the spread
And brighter days are ahead.

When our lives begin to restart
Let us not forget what we learned while apart:
Connection, love, and hope should be at the heart
Of our society as we chart
A path forward in the year ahead
One full of promise and not dread.

Here’s to a brighter, better future for all of us. ​

Approximately 2 years ago I was navigating a multi-pronged job search where I considered a variety of career paths to pursue after my postdoctoral fellowship at Vanderbilt University. I am now approaching the end of my second year working in postdoctoral affairs at North Carolina State University, which I began in January 2019. 

This piece about my transition from postdoc to working in postdoc affairs originally appeared in the National Postdoctoral Association's online newsletter, The POSTDOCket, in April 2019. I have added some additional thoughts and reflections in bold (red). 

​Like many postdoctoral scholars, I considered a variety of careers during my time as a postdoc at Vanderbilt University. I applied to tenure-track faculty jobs in fall 2017 and 2018, submitting nearly 25 applications each year (read more in my Tales from the Academic Job Market). I also talked with individuals in my immediate and extended network (via informational interviews) who worked in a variety of areas outside academia: medical writing, medical science liaison, & life science consulting.

Only since fall 2018 did I think that a career in postdoctoral affairs was both an option, and an area where I had the necessary qualifications. In retrospect however, I realize I had been steadily building a portfolio of postdoc affairs involvement and professional development knowledge over the past few years.

I got my first in-depth exposure to postdoctoral affairs while working with the Vanderbilt Postdoctoral Association (VPA) as treasurer in 2016-17 and junior co-chair (vice president) in 2017-18. During that time, the VPA executive board and I worked with our newly centralized Office of Postdoctoral Affairs (OPA) to broaden our programming for a wider postdoc audience.

Although developing programming to be broadly relevant and useful to postdocs from varying fields was a challenge, we made progress in reaching a larger and more diverse population of Vanderbilt postdocs through our social and professional development events. While interacting with postdocs in my VPA leadership roles, I began to understand the range of challenges they faced: international employment issues, family care issues, mental health issues, and lack of supervisor/mentor support, just to name a few.

I have subsequently written about some of the challenges postdocs face on this blog.
​See:

• The Challenges of Being an International Researcher: Implications for Advanced Degree Labor Markets
  
  • Part 1
  • Part 2
• ​​Call to Action: Measuring Postdoc Impact

I can't emphasize enough the value of getting involved in something beyond your work/lab/school while a graduate student or postdoc....you learn so much about other skills you have to offer and, through volunteering, have a chance to give back to your community. 

My exposure to the challenges and various levels of support available to postdocs at a national level was broadened by attending the National Postdoctoral Association (NPA)’s Annual Conference in 2017 and 2018. I learned from other postdoctoral offices and organizations about work that they were doing geared toward improving postdoctoral career readiness (i.e., thinking broadly about career options) and outcomes.

In speaking with NPA poster presenters, I learned how they successfully campaigned for higher starting postdoc salaries, organized joint events with nearby institutions to share costs, leveraged alumni networks, and tracked career outcomes. The importance of using data to campaign for change and track interventions was a key lesson I learned from these interactions.

In my current role, I have begun working on better postdoc career outcomes transparency. In fact, I present data on the subject during our mandatory new postdoc orientation at NC State University. By showing postdocs the range of career fields they can move into early in their tenure, I hope to prompt them to realize there are many successful "next steps" available to them after their time as a postdoc.
​
I have also led the development of a Postdoc Climate Survey we launched this year and hope to leverage this data to continue to advocate for initiatives that improve the postdoctoral experience here at NC State. 

Around the time I was becoming more involved in the postdoctoral community at Vanderbilt and beyond, I became interested in a career in science communication and medical writing. At the NPA annual meeting, I learned about The POSTDOCket, the online newsletter for the organization. I began writing for The POSTDOCket following the 2017 NPA annual meeting, where I profiled a workshop I attended by SciPhD.

Over the next few years, I wrote twelve pieces for the newsletter and continue to contribute to it. My interview with Sam Castañeda, a pioneer in postdoctoral support services and resources at the University of California, Berkeley, was particularly inspiring as I learned more about the impact that postdoc offices can have on improving the postdoc experience through community building, personal and professional support services, and advocating at the state and national level.

​In addition, I began writing about my own journey in career exploration for the NIH BEST blog in fall 2018, in hopes that sharing my experiences of the post-PhD job hunt would help current trainees on the job market.

I now serve on the NPA Board of Directors and liaise with The POSTDOCket team. If you are a postdoc or someone who supports postdocs, contributing your ideas and writing to The POSTDOCket is an excellent way to begin establishing yourself as a thought leader in the postdoc affairs space. Offering helpful advice to postdocs in The POSTDOCket is another excellent reason to write for this outlet.  

I had many great examples of career and professional development resources available to me while a postdoc at Vanderbilt. The Vanderbilt Office of Biomedical Research Education and Training (BRET) offers an incredible array of programming to graduate students and postdocs. During my  time as a postdoc at Vanderbilt I assisted in planning some of this programming. In fact, the people I worked with in the BRET Office at Vanderbilt were the ones who directed me towards a job advertisement for a postdoc program manager position for which they thought I was a good fit. After reading the job description they forwarded to me, it seemed to be a job where I could work to help postdocs feel more “career ready” and simultaneously try to improve institutional resources and support for them, which really appealed to me. 

While applying to this and similar program manager positions, I learned from a contact who I met at the NPA Conference (and on her LinkedIn feed, no less—the power of networking and LinkedIn in action!) of the postdoc program manager position at North Carolina State University—the ideal job for me (based on geographic preference and being nearer to family). The story of my first “real job” offer, subsequent soul searching, and eventual acceptance of my current position can be read elsewhere.

​One organization to keep on your radar if you are interested in a career in graduate or postdoc career & professional development work is the Graduate Career Consortium (GCC).
​I joined GCC shortly after beginning my position at NC State and have found the community very supportive and collaborative. GCCers share resources and ideas about how to help those of us working in PhD career and professional development do our jobs better. Through various committees, GCC members are focused on important topics around grad/postdoc career outcomes as well as developing useful resources for trainees including ImaginePhD, a career exploration platform for the humanities and social sciences. GCC members also share advice on career planning for both trainees and the professionals who serve them through the weekly Carpe Careers column on Inside Higher Ed. In addition, the GCC member message board is great way to learn about job openings in this space. Finally, the GCC offers a trainee membership for grad students and postdocs interested in learning more about a career in grad/postdoc career and professional development. 

The week of September 21-25, 2020 is National Postdoc Appreciation Week, a time for institutions and supervisors to express their appreciation for the contributions postdoctoral scholars make in a variety of areas from research to teaching and mentoring. 

As a quick refresher, a postdoctoral scholar (postdoc) is an individual with an advanced degree (Ph.D.) engaged in a period of additional training to build the skills and experiences necessary to launch themselves into an independent career of their choosing.

While traditionally a postdoc was considered the necessary "next step" in one's training progression to ultimately obtain a faculty position, postdocs move into a variety of careers after their time in postdoctoral training.

​The goal of postdoctoral offices are to support these scholars in their career and professional development. However, many postdoc offices are under-resourced to provide this much needed support to a critical component of the scientific workforce. Many are offices of 1-2 people responsible for supporting anywhere from 300 to 1,200+ postdocs. I believe one of the missing pieces allowing postdoc offices to obtain additional support is to better measure and report on the contributions postdocs make to the academic and research institutions that employ them. 

Postdoctoral scholars contribute much to the scientific enterprise and the research and teaching missions of universities.

Despite the varied and important roles they play, postdocs are often overlooked as a key constituency by administrators and leaders at research and academic institutions in the United States and globally.

I believe that measuring postdoctoral impact on the teaching/training and research/scholarship endeavors of institutions will better illuminate the key role they play in research organizations.
​I also hope this process leads to increased institutional support for the postdoc population.

​The first task is to identify metrics that would be useful to gauge the impact postdocs have on their field, lab, peers, students, and university. Some metrics could include:

1. Papers published (# of papers published, # of 1st-authored papers published)
2. Students mentored (# of students mentored, dissertation/thesis supervision of graduate/undergraduate students)
3. Teaching (# hours lectured, # courses taught, # of students taught, course evaluations)
4. Grant money (% of contribution to advisor’s research grant applications, Co-Principal Investigator (PI) roles on grants, postdoc fellowships received)
5. Contribution to lab and project management (assisting their PI supervisors in managing experiments/projects/timelines, freeing up PIs to focus on other tasks) 
6. Patents filed, intellectual property developed
7. Service performed for the university (sitting on various committees, serving in a leadership role for a campus organization like a postdoctoral association)

​Their are also structural challenges & barriers to measuring postdoc impact in these domains. 

1. Publications are often not published until 6-12 months after the first manuscript submission. Thus, a metric of publications will show postdoc impact in the past and not current impact. Conference presentations and preprint publications by postdocs may be additional metrics one could collect to gauge short-term scholarly impact. 
2. Postdoc mentoring of students is often not formalized (or even officially allowed). While a postdoc may contribute substantially to helping a graduate student in their dissertation work, the Principal Investigator (PI) of the lab (the postdoc's supervisor) is the mentor of record.
3. Regarding teaching, postdocs are often not allowed to be “instructor of record” on courses (except in the case of the small number of teaching postdocs, whose job duties include primarily teaching) and are often discouraged from teaching in place of conducting research work. However, lecturing and other teaching roles postdocs perform should be measured as this contributes to the overall educational mission of universities.
4. In the area of grants, postdocs often contribute substantially to grant applications, whether that be in the form of preliminary data they collect/analyze or assisting PIs in conceiving and/or writing of grant proposals. However, a postdoc cannot serve as a PI (and sometimes, depending on the policy of the training institution, Co-PI) on grant applications as they are not “faculty.” Thus, quantifying postdocs’ contribution to grant money received is complicated. There is no doubt, however, that they play a role (and sometimes substantial one) in many grant applications.
5. Measuring postdoc contributions to lab management is complex. It is the PI’s role to manage their labs. Thus, even if postdocs contribute substantially in assisting them in this role, some PIs may not feel that they can acknowledge this work as it could diminish their perceived role as the lab’s director.

​Many of the challenges of measuring and acknowledging postdoctoral contributions come down to the hierarchy of academia. Postdocs are “under” PIs whose own metrics of success largely mirror that of the postdoc. While this could suggest areas where there should be mutual benefit (both postdoc and supervisor/PI benefit from publications), there could also be cases where this situation introduces conflict. For example, a PI needs to secure external funding in their name to receive tenure at most research intensive academic institutions. Postdocs also need to show the ability (or potential) to secure external funding to transition into independent, tenure-track faculty positions. If postdocs cannot receive credit for their contributions to their supervisor’s grant application(s), however, one cannot truly measure their impact in this regard. This situation can also harm postdocs’ ability to secure independent faculty positions of their own, stifling their career progression.

One immediate way to address this and that I acknowledge is occurring with many PIs is to include mention of postdoc contributions to successful grant applications in letters of reference the PIs write on their behalf. In this way, a PI can make clear that the postdoc contributed substantially to a successful research grant application and will be capable of serving as PI on their own grants if they transition to an independent faculty position of their own. 

​As the measurement of graduate student and postdoc career outcomes and progression has gained attention, so too should the measurement of postdocs’ contributions in their current roles. Standardization of the metrics used to assess postdoc contributions and impact need to be undertaken to make data robust and comparable across departments and institutions. In addition, a standardized collection method would allow data to be aggregated to quantify postdoc impact at a national or international level. 

Thus, quantifying postdoc impact will allow postdoc offices to better advocate for additional resources to support this important (but often overlooked) population. ​

​While much progress has been made in improving the working conditions and support (stipends) for postdocs in the US driven by many dedicated individuals and the efforts of the NPA, a need to move toward a more structured, data-driven approach to demonstrating their impact is needed. Only by showing the impact postdocs make can the offices who support them effectively advocate for additional institutional resources to enhance the lives and training of postdocs. By doing so, we can more effectively nurture the next generation of researchers and allow them to leverage their skills, interests, and values to improving society in the variety of careers they pursue after their postdoctoral training. 

Publications on Postdoc Impact
Bringing the lab back in: Personnel composition and scientific output at the MIT Department of Biology

Contribution of postdoctoral fellows to fast-moving and competitive scientific research

Postdocs as Mentors - When it comes to everyday mentoring and training in the sciences, postdocs are the new PIs.

Useful tools to quantify publication metrics
Pubmetric - Authorship crawler that document the publishing record for trainees and their PIs via Pubmed

Publons - Track your publications, citation metrics, peer reviews, and journal editing work in a single, easy-to-maintain profile

​SciVal - From Elsevier. Allows you to visualize your research performance, benchmark relative to peers, develop strategic partnerships, identify and analyze new, emerging research trends, and create uniquely tailored reports. 

​See also
​NC State Libraries Research Impact & Metrics Landing Page 

Academic Analytics

NPA Institutional Policy Report & Database - a great model that currently focuses on postdoc offices reporting on postdoc benefits, salaries, and numbers in addition to office size and budgets ​

Perspective Piece, Opinion (Part 2 of 2)

Last week, I discussed the effects of temporary visa holders in the academic workplace. This week, I turn to discuss the H-1B visa system in more detail and how for-profit employers utilize this mechanism for better and worse. ​

H-1B Visa Overview
The majority of advanced degree holders working in the United States (US) are sponsored under an H-1B visa for "specialty occupations". The program is administered through the United States Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) and a job must meet one of the following criteria to qualify as a specialty occupation:

• Bachelor’s or higher degree or its equivalent is normally the minimum entry requirement for the position
• The degree requirement for the job is common to the industry or the job is so complex or unique that it can be performed only by an individual with a degree
• The employer normally requires a degree or its equivalent for the position
• The nature of the specific duties is so specialized and complex that the knowledge required to perform the duties is usually associated with the attainment of a bachelor’s or higher degree.

​Currently there is a "cap" on H-1Bs granted each year to for-profit companies and a lottery is used to allot the 85,000 visas available to advanced degree holders. The H-1B pool open to all applicants is 65,000 with an additional 20,000 visas available only to those with at least a Master's degree.

The success rate of "winning" the lottery hovers around 25% to 35%.
An employer who seeks to hire a foreign worker on an H-1B visa, then, must literally take a chance on them by entering a lottery to be assigned a visa for said employee. Even then, a company's paperwork might be filed improperly and the H-1B denied (a more common process in recent years as these visas have been scrutinized in more detail). All these steps require time and money to navigate, which dis-incentivizes companies from pursuing this path for a potential employee. 

However, university and nonprofits are exempt from the H-1B cap (see last week's post for more on this), encouraging many nonimmigrant advanced degree holders to occupy positions in these institutions after completing their schooling. 

Changes to H-1B Selection Process for Fiscal Year 2021
USCIS has taken some action to make the H-1B application process more efficient. This includes allowing employers to pre-register for a potential visa without the full paperwork being required until they have been notified whether they have been selected in the lottery. This change took effect for fiscal year 2021.
​Another significant change for this fiscal year includes one that seeks to increase the odds for advanced degree (Master's or Ph.D.) holders being selected.

• The 65,000 general visa pool will be drawn first
• Followed by the 20,000 advanced degree pool draw

This order is the reverse of the previous process and USCIS estimates that it will result in an increase of up to 16% (or 5,340 workers) in the number of selected petitions for H-1B beneficiaries with a Master’s degree or higher from a US institution of higher education.  

Immigrants & the Economy
The main goal of the US's H-1B program is to fill gaps in the US workforce. 

There is certainly debate around whether encouraging more advanced degree holders to enter the US has a positive impact on the economy. Some reports make a strong case for the value of advanced degree immigrants: showing they contribute more in taxes than they consume in benefits and their presence correlates with a higher number of American jobs. Others refute the interpretation of these data.

Indeed, there are many reports of how the H-1B visa program is being used to supplant American workers with visa holders, often with a cost savings to the employer.  

H-1B Prevailing Wage and Fair Compensation 
H-1B sponsored employees must be paid the "prevailing wage" for their work ​area, level of expertise, and geographic location of work. This presumably prevents a company from using the H-1B visa as a source of cheaper labor than hiring a US citizen. However, this determination of prevailing wage is open to much interpretation and abuse. In fact, some have argued and data have shown that H-1B employees at for-profit companies make lower salaries than their peers and that this mechanism is used to, potentially, suppress wages for all employees.

Furthermore, outsourcing Informational Technology (IT) consulting companies including Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Deloitte Consulting, and Cognizant are often used to circumvent some of the prevailing wage rules that apply to H-1B visas. And these consulting firms employ large numbers of H-1B visa holders (though mostly those holding a Bachelor's Degree). In the most recent 2019 H-1B data, the four aforementioned consulting firms employed 32,357 H-1Bs...the top four other for-profit employers (Amazon, Google, Microsoft, & Facebook) employed 22,202.  
 
So, how much are H-1B holders being paid?
​Data from NSF's Science & Engineering Indicators 2018 reports median income of H-1B visa holders for initial employment obtained from USCIS. Below are data taken from USCIS for fiscal years 2016 & 2017.

The relatively low earnings of life scientists probably reflects their presence in postdoctoral positions at universities...~60% postdocs are in the life sciences (see Fig 2-2 in this report). While universities and other nonprofit or governmental research institutes are exempt from the H-1B cap, they still must report H-1B information for those they employ to USCIS. Thus, this and the following data also contain salary information for H-1Bs employed at universities, non-profits, and government research institutes. 

Diving into 2019 H-1B Data from USCIS
USCIS has extensive data on those receiving H-1Bs over the past several years on its website.
Below, I present some details from the "Approved H-1B Petitions by Employer" data from 2019. First, the cap-exempt nature of nonprofit institutions, which includes universities, academic medical centers, hospitals, and government institutes and labs, results in these employers representing a majority (75%) of Ph.D. H-1B employers in 2019 data.

The USCIS H-1B data also requires employers to report median salary of the H-1B-sponsored employees. Note, this averages earnings over the full population, including those with Bachelor's degrees, Master's degrees, and Ph.D.s. Looking at these data, you can see median salaries are much higher in those working at for-profit companies.

The lower salaries for H-1B employees at university and nonprofit/governmental agencies could be the result of a a variety of factors. The most likely is that this population is heavily enriched with postdoctoral researchers, whose salaries hover around $45,000-$50,000 at most universities. 

And as most H-1B holders in for-profit companies ("industry") are working in the computer science and engineering space (~60% of all H-1B holders, see report) where salaries are rather high, it is unsurprising that their industry salaries are well over $100,000 (where the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports mean annual earnings of ~$94,000 and ~$101,000 across all employees in the computer/mathematical and engineering sectors, respectively). 

Interestingly, and supportive of the notion that job outsourcing companies may be used to suppress wages, the average median salary of H-1B holders employed by Cognizant, Tata Consultancy Services, Deloitte Consulting, and Infosys was $90,798 (+/- $14,340) versus $139,358 (+/- $8,407) employed at the four largest other for-profit employers (Amazon, Google, Microsoft, & Facebook). Note, this is not a perfect comparison as the 4 outsourcing/consulting companies rarely employ Ph.D.-holders. 

Which for-profit companies employ the most H-1Bs with Ph.D.s?
Relevant to my work supporting postdoctoral researchers, who all possess Ph.D.s, I wanted to better understand which for-profit companies employ Ph.D.s on H-1B visas.

The list is dominated by big-tech (see chart, below). In fact, Google, Intel, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft employ ~56% of ALL H-1B holding Ph.D.s in for-profit companies (of those sponsoring at least 100 visas) in 2019.
​
​Indeed, an earlier report looking at occupational groups by H-1B cap status in 2010-2011 found that computer science related occupations represented ~51% of all capped (for-profit) H-1B employees, followed by those occupying engineering roles (~9%) or working in financial services (~6%). This distribution differs when looking at H-1Bs awarded in the cap-exempt category utilized by universities and nonprofits: life scientists (~28%), postsecondary teacher (23%), health practitioners (14%), and physical scientists (7%) were the most common categories.
​
Clearly, roles that focus on computer science, technology, and engineering are disproportionately represented in for-profit H-1B sponsorships. So, if you are an international student or postdoc seeking employment with a company in the United States, you should work on developing your data science, coding, and other analytical skills that are in demand.

​See these pieces and personal accounts of those who successfully transitioned to a career in data science. 

However, as a fraction of all H-1Bs employed, the Ph.D. labor pool is rather small at some of these companies. For example, only ~9% of all H-1Bs employed by Google in 2019 hold Ph.D.s and that percentage at Intel and Apple is 14% and 10%, respectively. Looking at which company H-1B employee pools are most represented by Ph.D. holders, we get a slightly different group of employers.
​
Kelly Services, which contracts with the federal government to staff a variety of roles in government agencies, has the largest percentage of its H-1B workers occupied by those with Ph.D. degrees. Several pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies (Bristol-Myers Squibb, Abbvie, Genentech) appear on this list as do some companies that might be less well known to the casual Ph.D. student or postdoc: KLA Tencor and Global Foundries. 

​H-1Bs, For-Profit Companies, and Labor Market Effects
What effect does utilizing H-1Bs have on their sponsoring employers and co-workers' earnings? 
​​Much commentary has called into question whether the H-1B program is a net benefit or detriment to labor markets with some researchers describing a reduction in estimated wages and domestic employment in high tech sectors without the program.

Data looking at the effects of H-1B workers in for-profit companies suggest that payroll per employee may be slightly reduced for those companies who "win" the H-1B lottery. In addition, corporate profits are higher in those companies employing H-1Bs. Indeed, one report estimates usage of skilled H-1B holders placed in discounted prevailing wage levels, which the employer is allowed to select with little oversight or vetting, can save employers around $40,000 per employee per year (see details here). And stories of H-1B holders replacing US domestic workers in tech are plentiful. 

Whether companies actively use the H-1B program to curtail labor costs, among other complaints, is a complex question to answer, especially when comparable salary data for positions at for-profit companies is unknown. Some work has tried to address the issue, though. 

A study comparing computer scientists and electrical engineers previously on F-1 visas versus domestic workers found a reduction in salary of 6% in visa holders working in computer science but no difference in salary in the electrical engineer group. Others have found H-1B holders earn higher salaries and occupy jobs that are difficult to fill.

That study went on to show that Information Technology goods prices and output benefited from immigrant labor by between 1.9 and 2.5%, benefiting companies and consumers. This finding highlights the possibility that immigrant labor and work visas may be a net benefit for the US economy while being detrimental to the visa workers themselves. 

Paths to Citizenship & Needed Reforms
Many temporary workers on H-1B visas wish to transition to permanent residency status in the US (i.e., obtain a green card). Many for-profit employers will sponsor green card applications for their H-1B employees. Those with advanced degrees can purse the EB-2 "exceptional ability" employment-based immigration path to permanent residency. However, country-specific caps make queuing for one of these immigrant visas a long process. ​

While H-1B reform often has bipartisan support, the politics and special interests behind visa and immigration reform are complex. However, most would agree the current system doesn't work as intended and is subject to some abuse.
​
Big tech and business interests are often involved in shaping the visa and immigration reform conversation via groups such as FWD.us. The large IT outsourcing firms that employ H-1Bs have also engaged in lobbying​ to prevent changes to the H-1B system. Certainly some of these business leaders, at least partially, mean well in their efforts. But to pretend there are not vested financial interests in ensuring a steady supply of often under-paid immigrant labor, who then depend on being "in good standing" with their employer for green card sponsorship, would be naive to any impartial observer. And the long backlog for green card processing for some groups, especially Indian workers, has also been suggested by some as another way companies may "lock in" their employment for many years. These workers have little career mobility and negotiating power as they wait on their employer-sponsored green cards to process...which can take over 10 years to occur, even for those in the exceptional ability EB-2 category.  

With all this said, perhaps it is unsurprising that some have likened the current work visa system to modern-day slavery or indentured servitude (see also) as the workers' ability to remain in the US depends on their current employment with a set employer. This employer-employee power imbalance is highly problematic and may prevent visa  workers from raising any employment concerns with authorities for fear of their sponsorship being revoked. ​Reforms clearly are needed. 

Looking Toward the Future
Clearly, balancing the positive impact of temporary and immigrant workers on firm productivity and innovation with their potential negative effects on US labor markets and the well-being of the visa workers themselves is a difficult task. Diversity has been linked to greater creativity and innovation. However, the accounts referenced in this post suggest some for-profit entities utilize the H-1B and future citizen sponsorship to lock immigrant workers into roles that are underpaid with little room for advancement. 
​
While the current political climate in the US has resulted in serious changes in how the H-1B visa system operates (for better or worse; see also), most would agree that the spirit of this system is a good one: encourage high-skilled workers to bring their talents (and associated spending and tax base) to the US.

Certainly some recent changes to how H-1B visas are reviewed and approved have been good. For example, there has been a decrease in the number of H-1Bs awarded to IT outsourcing consulting firms (traditionally, the bad actors in the system) and subsequent rise in those awarded to large tech companies in recent years. 

More needs to be done to improve our H-1B visa and immigration system.
The economic and demographic consequences of not doing so are many. This includes the important effects of immigration on US population growth and workforce participation, while saying nothing about their effects on technological innovations and discoveries in STEM.  

Is America Still the Land of Opportunity?
America bills itself as the land of opportunity and many highly skilled and educated individuals from across the world come here to better their lives - to pursue the proverbial American Dream.

In addition, most (78%) Americans support high-skilled immigration to the country. However, we as a nation must do better to provide true opportunity to those who come to the US to study and work and ultimately wish to contribute their talents and abilities to the US workforce. We must also resist the influence of corporate interests and political operatives who seek to shape the work visa and immigration process to serve their own needs.

Our current processes negatively affects highly skilled and motivated individuals who have frequently trained for advanced degrees at US institutions. We as a nation have invested in these individuals and stand to gain financially for allowing them to live and work here. International trainees and workers have also made the often difficult choice of coming to this country to better their lives and, in the process, the lives of others including their current or future children and American citizens. The least we can do is create a system that helps them do so.  

Only then can we fulfill our full potential as truly the land of opportunity to all. 
​

For Further Reading
The H-1B Visa Program: A Primer on the Program and Its Impact on Jobs, Wages, and the Economy

The H-1B Visa Issue Explained

The H-1B Visa Debate, Explained

U.S. Degree? Check. U.S. Work Visa? Still A Challenge

The Pandemic’s Effects on Recruiting International STEM Trainees

Are foreign students the ‘best and brightest’? Data and implications for immigration policy

​Guestworkers in the high-skill U.S. labor market. An analysis of supply, employment, and wage trends

Is There Really a Shortage of Skilled Workers?

STEM crisis or STEM surplus? Yes and yes

The Skills Gap: Is it a Myth?

Paying Skilled Workers More Would Create More Skilled Workers

Upcoming H-1B lottery gives US-based advanced degree candidates an edge over foreign degree ones

RESOURCES
USCIS H-1B Employer Hub (search for companies who have sponsored H-1B visas)
​Additional H-1B Data

​US Department of Labor H-1B Willful Violator List
              What is a willful violator?

Career & Professional Development, Opinion

In a few short weeks we will be entering a new decade.

What will the 2020s hold? Technological advances continue to take shape at a blistering pace and will have effects on nearly all aspects of our lives. While most of these tech advances will be a clear benefit (improved healthcare, faster connectivity with 5G wireless, and greater access to online learning), others offer a potentially existential challenge to something most of us do for more than a third of our lives: work.  

Work in the Age of AI
The nature of work is changing rapidly. Automation and artificial intelligence (AI) are allowing machines and computer programs to take on an extraordinary variety of tasks.

We think of this as a blue-collar issue with robots now doing most of the assembly at automobile plants across the world and autonomous vehicles coming to take truckers jobs soon. The truth is, though, very few jobs are safe from automation as many jobs are quite routine and skills-based.

Any job requiring technical skill alone may eventually be subsumed by advances in AI. This leads to the important question of how does one prepare for this sea change? How can you make yourself un-replaceable by a machine?

What Skills Will Be Valued in Future Work?
While it seems logical to assume that increases in AI would necessitate increased training in technical skills like computer programming, coding, engineering, or other scientific fields, the fact of the matter is that those technical skills themselves may be unsafe from the evolving capability of our machines.

Specifically, a report by the Brookings Institute where job descriptions were compared against AI-related-patents (see paper by Michael Webb at Stanford University for empirical details) found that white collar, data-intensive jobs in business, technology, engineering, and science are at greatest risk of being impacted by AI. The report quantified impact as having job duties that could be subsumed by coming AI advances. This doesn't mean AI would replace the job completely...in fact, AI may just supplement work in fields such as finance and scientific research. What is clear, though, is that only being good at a skill or technique that eventually can be automated is NOT a winning strategy. 

Transferable, Human-Centered Skills are Irreplaceable (for now)
What will be in demand for the foreseeable future are transferable skills. These types of skills aren't technical but rather refer to intra- and inter-personal skills that we use to get our work done efficiently, by ourselves or with others.
​
LinkedIn found these 5 transferable skills to be most in demand in 2019 (based on job postings on the platform):
5. Time Management
4. Adaptability
3. Collaboration
2. Persuasion
1. Creativity

In addition, as more and more employees become tech-savvy, backgrounds that give employees perspective — historical, global, or otherwise — will become increasingly valuable. We will need to increasingly think about how our machines and interfaces are designed to interact with humans.

​Currently, machines cannot think like human beings. The AI we have today is so-called "narrow AI,” performing objective functions using data-trained models. The AI from science fiction movies where machines have human-like intelligence, so-called "artificial general intelligence," is far from a reality and may never be achieved. So, we will need people to serve as the interpretational bridge between AI and society and back again...to insert humanity into our machines and their decisions.  

Technical Training is NOT Enough:
The Role of Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, Data Synthesis, & Presentation Skills 
There has been an increased emphasis and interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics) education to prepare the next generation for a new age of work. Colleges, particularly technical schools and community colleges, have invested heavily in career and technical education that seeks to broaden technical skills currently in demand (coding, software engineering, etc...). Ironically, though, being trained in the liberal arts and humanities may be more useful in the age of AI. In addition, there is data suggesting a surplus of STEM majors in some fields (see also this piece from The Atlantic). 

It won't be so much our technical skills that differentiate us in the 21st Century economy. Rather, being able to think critically, synthesize information, present arguments persuasively, and work effectively with others will be increasingly valued. 

Anyone working in the sciences knows that our knowledge and tools change fast. So, it may not be surprising to consider the skills we value now in coding, data manipulation, and analysis may not be what is needed 20 or even 10 years from now. 

"It is not only what you know but how you learn that will set you apart."
- Thomas Friedman, author of The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century

Graduate Students & Postdocs Have the Skills Needed for the 21st Century Economy 
Having the skills to quickly dissect a problem, synthesize and interpret data, and clearly present insights and recommendations from your work are incredibly valuable. Luckily, if you have been pursuing a graduate degree or postdoctoral work, you have experience in all these areas. Each day you are working to troubleshoot problems, synthesize your data with what is already known, and form coherent narratives around your findings. You are uniquely poised to make sense of the flood of data that is and will be produced and stored from the countless scientific publications, device interactions, and web searches that occur each day. 

How to Hone & Leverage Your Transferable Skills Into Meaningful Work 
A changing world demands individuals who can change with it. Flexibility and the ability the learn and adapt to new technology will be crucial. Scientists possess these and other transferable skills but need to more effectively hone and communicate them to potential employers.
​In addition, current graduate students and postdocs must avoid becoming so focused in one domain or technique that they don't develop the transferable skills needed to succeed in the 21st Century economy. 

How can current trainees practice and perfect their transferable skills? 
Develop Teamwork & Leadership Skills
Taking leadership roles or volunteering in organizations that you are passionate about (including graduate student and postdoc associations) allows you to give back to your community while also honing your teamwork and leadership skills (for example, see). You can look to get involved with local or national organizations or local chapters of national organizations, potentially in research or career areas that interest you. 
​ 
Volunteering within an organization while continuing in your current role will also force you to improve your time and project management skills as you seek to fulfill your many obligations. In addition, working with others in these organizations, especially those from different backgrounds than yours, will teach you the importance of effective communication skills (listening, synthesizing, presenting), leadership, and consensus building to achieving success. 

Check out Volunteer Match for community volunteering opportunities. ​

Communication Skills
You should also seek out opportunities to practice and demonstrate your communication skills. Join Toastmaters to practice your public presentation skills or volunteer to deliver a talk to a general audience (local science cafes/clubs are a great venue). You can also start posting articles on the web to demonstrate your written communication skills (LinkedIn has a great self-publication feature). Showing you can speak to a general audience and not just academics is crucial. Your future coworkers and customers will have a variety of backgrounds and speaking to them in an accessible way will increase the rapport you can build with them.  ​

A more automated and efficient world will provide us more time to do what we enjoy and give back to others: to do meaningful work. By freeing us of routine, tedious tasks, AI also has the ability to unlock the vast untapped potential in so many of us...to allow us to pursue work and activities that are not motivated so much by their utility and profitability (as the machines will do much of that) as by their ability to bring happiness to our and others lives.
That is certainly a future worth aspiring towards.   

Further Reading
AI & Work
Where Machines Could Replace Humans - and where they can't (yet)

What jobs are affected by AI? Better-paid, better-educated workers face the most exposure

Is Technology About to Decimate White-Collar Work?

When Will AI Exceed Human Performance? Evidence from AI Experts

​In the Age of AI (PBS Frontline documentary)

Human Flourishing in the AI Age - We Need a New Story

Education & the 21st Century Labor Market 
The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage
​
STEM Crisis of STEM Surplus? Yes & Yes

A Humanities Degree is Worth Much More Than You Realize

The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labor Market

You Can Do Anything: The Surprising Power of a "Useless" Liberal Arts Education (book)

The Future of Work
​Meaningful Work: Viktor Frankl's Legacy for the 21st Century (book)

Life's Great Question: Discover How You Contribute to the World (book)

The Globotics Upheaval: Globalization, Robotics, & the Future of Work (book)

MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy