Category: Opinion

The Challenges Of Being An International Researcher: Implications For Advanced Degree Labor Markets, Part 2

5/11/2020

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.

Source: Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Characteristics of H-1B Specialty Occupation Workers, Fiscal Year 2016 & 2017 Annual Reports to Congress

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.

Of all those H-1B sponsored employees at institutions or companies with 100+ visas awarded in 2019, 75% of Ph.D. awarded H-1B visas were to those working at nonprofit organizations, including universities.

EXPLORE 2019 AWARDED H-1B 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.

Average of reported median H-1B salaries for sponsoring institutions in 2019. Data are averaged over those employers awarded 100+ H-1Bs in 2019 and also sponsoring Ph.D.s on H-1B visas. Salary is reported by employer as a median across all H-1B holders, regardless of degree.

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.

A separate piece of research investigating the computer scientist labor market, estimated that in the absence of H-1B holders, wages for U.S. computer scientists would have been 2.6-5.1% higher in 2001 AND that employment in the field by U.S. workers would have been 6.1-10.8% higher.

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.

The current H-1B and immigration system in US is under intense scrutiny by the White House. Surely changes to these processes are needed and modification to the awarding of green cards have been proposed in Congress. But in its current form, this legislation may preferentially benefit Indian workers where the green card backlog is over a decade long. In addition a "points-based" system (RAISE Act) to prioritize immigration was introduced in Congress in 2017 but failed to receive necessary levels of support. Canada currently runs such a system and has seen growth in its educated immigrant population as a result.

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?

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The Challenges of Being An International Researcher: Implications for Advanced Degree Labor Markets, PART 1

5/1/2020

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Perspective Piece, Opinion (Part 1 of 2)

While I debated devoting this post to covering online resources and tips as most of the world continues to try to work remotely in response to COVID-19, I have come to realize this crisis has laid bare the unique challenges of one highly-trained and often exploited population in particular. Those individuals are international researchers working under temporary visas in the United States (US). The group encompasses international graduate students and postdocs as well as those working at for-profit companies under H-1B visas.

As this is a complex topic, I have divided it into two posts, to occur over the next two weeks.
First, we'll focus on international researchers in academia.

International Trainees in Uncertain Times

While Canada has taken action to better support some of their international trainee population during this challenging time, the current US administration has been taking steps to curb immigration and many international graduate students and postdocs are nervous about the uncertainty of their future working in the US. Indeed, reports indicate companies are moving some of their visa workforce hiring to Canada. The Canadian government's Express Entry immigration program (including the Skilled Worker pathway) and goal of adding 1,000,000 new permanent residents by end of 2021 will undoubtedly accelerate this trend.

And while I don't have the first-person perspective of an international researcher working in the US, I do interact with many of these individuals in my current work in postdoctoral affairs at NC State University where ~50% of our postdocs have countries of origin outside the US. I empathize with the unique challenges international students and postdocs encounter trying to work in the US while admitting I can never fully know what it is like being them.

I am certainly not the first person to write about international graduate students and postdocs and the unique challenges they face. Here, though, I want to present my and other's perspectives on international temporary workers, including:

the value they bring to research and innovation efforts,
the stress they put on labor markets, and
how more transparency and data regarding their experiences and outcomes can help guide policies to support all advanced degree trainees.

International Researchers Have a Profound Effect on US Academic Institution

International trainees have a large economic and productivity effect on the academic research labor force and higher education (including contributing tuition dollars) in the US, especially in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (the so-called "STEM" fields; see). Many have argued about the need to recruit these highly-trained researchers from other countries to the US. This thesis is based on the notion that the US has a deficit in STEM graduates and thus needs to import labor with that expertise, though whether such a deficit exists is not a straightforward state to measure and has been debated (see also). Indeed, some data indicate Ph.D.-holding US citizens employed in science and engineering has decreased over the period of 1973 to 1991 relative to non-citizens, which is at least partially explained by displacement of citizens with non-citizens within the advanced-degree STEM workforce.

The US is a country of immigrants and it is an important component of American identity. Clearly, we as a country are stronger because of our diversity.

Read more about this motto of the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_pluribus_unum

This is supported by important work showing the impact traditionally under-represented groups, including international trainees, have on scientific innovation and productivity. Other data indicate that non-English/European/domestic graduate students and postdocs authored nearly 59% and 54% of first-author publications, respectively, in the prestigious journal Science from November 2007 to May 2008. And there is data showing immigrants to the US are more entrepreneurial and innovative, contributing disproportionately to STEM research breakthroughs. Amazingly, 39% of US Nobel Prize winners in chemistry, medicine, and physics since 2000 were immigrants.

Top countries of origin of temporary visa-holding PhD recipients in US in 2018: China (36.1%), India (11.9%), South Korea (6.0%), Iran (5.5%)

1/3 of Ph.D.s from US institutions are not citizens...17,500 people in 2018!

Stay rates of Ph.D.s in US hover around 70%

~14% of the ENTIRE US scientific & engineering workforce with Ph.D.s are not US citizens

>50% of US postdocs are temporary visa holders

International Trainees by the Number

In the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Survey of Doctorate Recipients (SDR) conducted in 2017 (the most currently available data), ~14% of the ENTIRE science and engineering US-earned doctorate workforce is occupied by non-US citizens (permanent or temporary residents). This percentage is nearly 28% in computer and information science fields and ~24% in engineering fields. Temporary residents on "student" F-1, "exchange visitor" J-1, or "worker" H-1B visas represent about a 1/3rd of that population, translating to over 36,000 individuals across all science and engineering sectors reporting in 2017.

Approximately 1/3rd of US doctorate (Ph.D.) recipients reported to the NSF in its 2018 Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED) were not US citizens...over 17,500 individuals. While many leave the US for employment, the majority do not intend to.
NSF's 2018 SED data reports ~72% of temporary visa holding Ph.D. recipients intend to stay in the US after they receive their degree. And this number has remained quite stable since 2012, averaging between 70% and 74%. Furthermore, 5 and 10-year stay rates from doctorate recipients in 2005 & 2010 range between 66% and 76% in science and engineering fields.

Many recently graduated international Ph.D. students take positions as postdoctoral researchers (postdocs) in the US. In fact, starting in the mid-1990s the percentage of postdocs who were temporary visa holders surpassed those who were US citizens or permanent residents.

In the mid-1990s the percentage of the U.S. postdoctoral population that were held by temporary visa holders surpassed that of U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Source: NSF GSS survey data, https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/srvygradpostdoc/

Why Postdoc? Career Prospects of International Graduate Students are Limited

Do more international students pursue a postdoc than their domestic peers? Or are the temporary visa holding postdoc numbers driven by the many internationally-trained individuals who come to the US to postdoc? Data from the NSF SED, see below figure, suggest that traditionally more temporary visa holders pursue a postdoc after completing their Ph.D. in the US.

After earning their Ph.D. in the US, temporary visa holders consistently pursue postdoctoral employment at higher rates than US citizens or permanent residents, though the gap has narrowed. Source: NSF Survey of Earned Doctorates 2018, https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/srvydoctorates/

In addition, one study found that the status of "temporary resident" was the strongest predictor of which US Ph.D.s pursued a postdoc within 3 years of completing their terminal degree. A variety of conditions exist to push international students on temporary visas into postdocs. Part of this is due to a systematic arrangement that allows non-profits and universities to employ an essentially infinite number of international trainees as they can access a "cap-exempt" H-1B visa pool unavailable to for-profit companies. Most international postdocs in the US are sponsored on "student" F-1, "exchange visitor" J-1, or worker H-1B visas, all of which are contingent on the visa-holder maintaining a specific status in order to continue to study and work in the US. As a postdoctoral position is both employment and training, this diverse group of visa types are available to this workforce allowing more paths to employing temporary visa holders as postdocs.
A working paper from George Borjas at the National Bureau of Economic Research has found that "a 10% increase in immigration-induced supply of doctorate recipients lowers the wage of competing workers by 3-4%, with about half of this adverse wage effect being attributed to the increased prevalence of low-pay postdoctoral positions." Indeed pursing a postdoc in general has been associated with lower initial and lifetime earnings though it is often an essential training step for those pursuing faculty positions and can be useful for one's career advancement.

By design, a postdoctoral position is both research and training and, as such, postdoc compensation has, historically, been low (see MD residents versus attending MDs as a somewhat comparable example). However, international postdocs often face even lower salaries. A Sigma Xi postdoc survey published in 2005 found temporary visa holding postdocs had a salary that was, on average, $2,000 lower than the median postdoc salary of $38,000. This data suggest international postdoc salaries could be ~5% lower than their peers.

This salary discount is potentially the result of postdocs on temporary visas accepting lower "market" rates for their positions, which may potentially deflate postdoc pay across the system. Indeed, work by Xiaohuan Lan at the University of Virginia reports that a 1% increase in the share of temporary immigrants among new Ph.D.s decreases the relative wage of native postdocs to non-postdocs by 0.9-2%.
As more temporary visa holders with Ph.D.s enter the system, they inflate the postdoc labor pool "supply" and decrease potential postdoc wages.

Many of these visa-holding individuals would not pursue a postdoc if their visa status was more permanent. Lan also showed that holding a permanent visa decreases the probability of postdoctoral participation relative to temporary visa holders by 24%. This is evidence that the temporary visa system, specifically the availability of more temporary visa types and "cap-exempt" H-1B visas in academic institutions, pushes non-citizen Ph.D.s into postdoc positions that are easier to obtain under the current system.

These data suggest visa policy changes could play a role in decreasing the number of postdoctoral positions as well as increasing the wage of all US postdocs.

Certainly required minimum postdoc salaries and initiatives that have prompted the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to consistently increase its NRSA postdoc stipend level (a common benchmark for postdoc salaries) are reducing salary inequities among postdocs. However, since these are suggested (for trainees not funded via NRSAs) or minimum (as determined by each university) salary levels, the degree to which compensation inequities exist between international and domestic postdocs remains largely unknown.

International Trainees at Academic Institutions are Especially Vulnerable

While pursuing a graduate degree and postdoctoral work is an inherently stressful experience with known mental health effects on many, international trainees face specific and unique challenges.
It is important to emphasize there exists a power dynamic in any academic research lab where the supervisor/principal investigator controls the fate of their trainees (by providing letters of recommendation, mentorship experiences, funding, etc...), which includes graduate students and postdocs. This dynamic can be even more imbalanced when the trainees are international and on either student or work visas. In fact, it crosses the line to exploitation more often than anyone in academia would like to admit.

One may wonder why would a supervisor exploit young researchers trying to advance their careers? The fact that academic research is so pressure-filled doesn't help. Supervisors are normally faculty on the tenure-track trying to keep their own carers afloat. Some are still struggling to obtain tenure, others need that next grant to come through to pay a portion (or all of) their salaries or keep their lab open.
It is not uncommon for postdocs, especially those on temporary visas, to report long work hours as they strive to support their lab's work.

It is not surprising that employer-tied visas such as H-1Bs, and F-1 visas tied to being a graduate student in good standing can lead to extreme power imbalances in the visa holder-employer/student relationship. If you ability to stay in the US is contingent on being in good standing with your employer or institution, you probably won't complain about your working conditions. This is especially problematic in academic research settings but undoubtedly happens in other employment areas.

Another important point beyond the scope of this piece is that individuals who are not US citizens or permanent residents are ineligible for applying for research grant funding from most federal agencies (but see this list of agencies supporting non-citizen researchers). This prevents international postdocs wishing to remain in the US from obtaining a research funding track record needed for most faculty positions at R1 universities.

The plight of international researchers reflects a systematic problem: academic research and career advancement is under-supported.

The H-1B Visa: Pathway to Opportunity or Tool to Consolidate Employer Power

At many US institutions, the postdoc position is a temporary one with limits on how long a person can be employed as a postdoc. So, what becomes of the large, international postdoctoral population after their postdoc positions end? The short answer is we don't really know as tracking postdoc outcomes has not been a priority at most institutions.

Given their limited work options within the US, though, international postdocs who wish to stay have few employment options. This most often means taking research-related positions at academic institutions with titles such as research associate, research scholar, or research assistant professor. And whether these positions represent career advancement from a postdoc is questionable. Some see these roles as means to skirt the term limit rules for postdoc positions (typically around 5 to 6 years, see) while others see a path toward professionalization of researcher roles for former postdocs (see also). Further tracking of postdoc outcomes and career progression is needed to support these arguments.

What we do know from data collected in a 2016 national postdoctoral survey is that "residency status in the U.S." is a significant predictor of postdocs' career choices. Clearly, the career paths open to temporary resident postdocs are different from their permanent resident or US citizen peers.

The H-1B work visa is a common path to employment for advanced degree holders seeking to remain in the US. H-1B sponsored employees, including postdocs, must be paid the "prevailing wage" for their work area, level of expertise, and geographic location of work. However, this determination of prevailing wage is open to much interpretation. 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.

Currently there is a "cap" on H-1Bs granted each year to for-profit companies and a lottery is often used to allot the 85,000 visas available to advanced degree holders. The success rate of "winning" the lottery hovers around 25 to 35%. However, university and nonprofits are exempt from this cap. The current system, then, incentivizes advanced degree holders to continue working in a university or nonprofit setting on a "cap-exempt" H-1B visa if they want to remain in the United States. And many of these academic researcher positions are often underpaid and unstable given they are commonly supported by research grant funding.

So, the H-1B cap-exempt status of universities may contribute to the under-employment of international trainees, locking them into academic research support positions, especially given the low rates of these (and most Ph.D.-holding) individuals transitioning to more well-paid and stable tenure-track roles. Data from the US Department of Education show 3-3.5% of all tenure-track (Assistant Professors) and tenured professors (Associate or Full Professors) at US post-secondary institutions (universities and colleges) are not citizens or permanent residents. Looking just at the tenured professor population, the percent that are not US citizens/permanent residents is only ~1.4%. Obviously, there are various reasons for temporary researchers to not pursue a faculty position in the US from a desire to return to their home country to making the decision to not pursue a faculty route for employment in the US. However, for the international immigrant and temporary visa holding population to go from representing >50% of US postdocs to approximately 1.4% of tenured faculty and 6.5-7.0% of tenure-track faculty (definitely a better number in this younger population) at US institutions represents serious issues in career advancement that require further study and scrutiny.

Closing Thoughts: Complex Problems Have No Straightforward Solutions

Clearly, the visa landscape and its intersection with international trainees pursuing postdoctoral positions, their job prospects, and the effects on wages (more in Part 2) is quite complex. In no way is this piece suggesting that temporary visa holders are the problem. Rather, the system is set up in such a way as to limit opportunity for many advanced degree holders, especially temporary visa holders. These individuals often pursue postdocs and stay employed in various research roles (research associate, research assistant professor, etc...) because these roles are most accessible to them given the cap-exempt nature of H-1B visas for universities and non-profit organizations, among other factors.

The National Research Council laid out policy recommendations for international graduate students and postdocs in 2005 including further study on the effect these populations have on U.S. research productivity and innovation and the larger economy (i.e., the employment they pursue if they remain working in the US, or elsewhere).

Fifteen years after that report, while some studies, including those referenced in this piece, have been completed, MUCH remains unknown about the the international researcher population and whether it is a net positive or negative for the research enterprise. Some institutions have begun reporting outcomes data of their Ph.D. students & postdocs, which can in some cases be filtered by international status - see the Coalition for Next Generation Life Science initiative. But more outcomes tracking of the international trainee population in the US is needed, especially those who received their graduate degrees outside the country and pursued a postdoc in the US (as NSF's Survey of Doctorate Recipients and Survey of Earned Doctorates focus on US Ph.D. recipients only).

Work that lays out career pathways & outcomes for trainees such as this one for biomedical Ph.D.s from ASCB are necessary moving forward. Source: https://www.ascb.org/careers/where-will-a-biology-phd-take-you/

Another challenge in supporting international researchers is allowing them to effectively transition from trainee (graduate student or postdoc) to stable employment.

In my opinion, we are doing these individuals a disservice by allowing them to come to our institutions within the US to train and then not being able to easily support them in their career transitions when the data suggest a vast majority (70%+) wish to stay and work in the US. Expecting the number of individuals we train each year to be able to secure one of the ~85,000 H-1B visas sponsored by a for-profit company (more on this in next week's post) seems irresponsible. And if a company has to enter a lottery for the ability to even hire someone on an H-1B, we dis-incentivize them from using the mechanism effectively.

Thus, the pathway remains heavily tilted toward temporary visa holders remaining to work in academic settings, often in contingent labor positions, as postdocs, research associates, research scholars, research assistant professors, lecturers, etc... These positions often lack the ability for career advancement and pay wages that are below market value for these highly-trained researchers. The system allows these positions to exist, though. Academia is not immune to the pull of cheap labor.

In these uncertain times, being an international trainee is even more problematic. Traveling back to one's home country is not even feasible at the moment with the restrictions in place due to COVID-19. How we as institutions respond to the challenges of this vulnerable population will, I believe, be telling of how we deal with the coming issue of supporting the vast number of advanced-degree holders we produce each year.

Will we be bold and seek to make the difficult choices needed to sustain and support graduate education and postdoctoral training? Or will we continue to ignore the real challenges those we train face in securing meaningful employment? In the end, our trainees' outcomes will be the ultimate judgement of the "success" of our system. Through greater transparency and accountability, we can correct course, though, and fulfill our mission of advancing the lives of the students and postdocs from around the world who entrust their training to us.

MORE on H-1B Effects in For-Profit Companies and their Economic Impact Next Week

For further reading:
International Student Precarity in the Humanities Academy

International Students and COVID-19

The Economics of University Lab Science and the Role of Foreign Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars

Internationalization of the postdoctorate in the United States: analyzing the demand for international postdoc labor

Permanent Visas and Temporary Jobs: Evidence from Postdoctoral Participation of Foreign PhDs in the United States

Choice of Country by the Foreign Born for PhD and Postdoctoral Study: a Sixteen-Country Perspective

Reports & Briefs on High Skill Immigration from the National Foundation for American Policy

The Future of the Postdoc

National Academies of Sciences. The Next Generation of Biomedical & Behavioral Sciences Researchers: Breaking Through Report

Resources
National Postdoc Association's International Postdoc Survival Guide

Resources to address challenges for international students and postdocs (ASCB)

Coronavirus resources for international trainees from NAFSA

National Science Board Science & Engineering Indicators (2018)

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The end of work as we know it: How an increasingly automated world will change everything

12/16/2019

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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?

A 2017 McKinsey Global institute study concluded up to 800 million workers worldwide could lose their jobs to automation by 2030.

Workforce Transitions in a Time of Automation (McKinsey, Dec 2017)
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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.

"AI exposure will likely lower wages and lead to job replacement if human workers can no longer bring "extra value" that AI can't."
- Mark Muro, Senior Fellow & Lead Author of the Brookings report

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.

Even the hot career field of data science is focused heavily on communicating insights from analyses. This skill may become even more critical as computers takeover the work of data preparation and analysis, leaving the humans to extract insights from the work.

Ph.D.-trained scientists are uniquely poised to be the data interpreters we will need in the 21st Century.

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.

Final Thoughts
While the future of work in the age of automation may seem scary, there is the real possibility that increased efficiencies will free us to do tasks that are mentally stimulating and personally rewarding. Instead of slaving over data we will be able to spend our time thinking about how it can be used to better the human condition. We will be able to spend more time interacting with one another instead of at our screens doing the menial tasks that often accompany knowledge-based work.

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

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Reflections Blog

The Challenges Of Being An International Researcher: Implications For Advanced Degree Labor Markets, Part 2

The Challenges of Being An International Researcher: Implications for Advanced Degree Labor Markets, PART 1

The end of work as we know it: How an increasingly automated world will change everything

A 2017 McKinsey Global institute study concluded up to 800 million workers worldwide could lose their jobs to automation by 2030.

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