The tech industry just keeps piling up the abuse against American workers. In the latest news, Infosoft Solutions Inc., a tech recruiting company that operates as KForce Tech LLC, settled claims of discrimination against American workers. They posted job advertisements that excluded Americans, instead seeking only foreign workers. This is only the latest news that obliterates the lie of a labor shortage. At some point, we have to just laugh at the continued insistence that a labor shortage is driving the push for foreign workers.
The Wall Street Journal recently published an article announcing that the percentage of foreign workers in the United States workforce has reached a new high. They claim that the lower percentage of Americans working is due to retirements and slow population growth. However, let’s take a look at the actual pesky facts.
The tech industry is simultaneously breaking records for tech visa applications and expanding layoffs. These layoffs and visa application records are also occurring while the examples of discrimination against American workers in tech also grow. Facebook settled with the Department of Justice (DOJ) for discrimination against American workers. Larsen & Toubro settled a class action alleging discrimination against American workers. SpringShine Consulting settled with the DOJ for, you guessed it, discrimination against American workers. Secureapp Technologies LLC settled for discrimination against American workers as well. Also add Amtex Systems Inc. and Technology Hub Inc. to the laundry list of employers discriminating against American workers in recruitment.
This is not a list of discrimination in tech over decades, nor is it exhaustive. So while they are laying off Americans they already employ, they are exclusively recruiting foreign workers instead of attempting to hire other Americans. Yet somehow, the businesses and media keep saying the problem is a shortage of American workers. It is well past time to laugh this canard out of the room. Layoffs and discrimination against American workers is the source of the shortage of Americans working in tech.
Anyone claiming labor shortages are the source of the growing foreign worker boom in the labor market is being duped, in denial, or flat out lying. There is no other explanation given the facts we are seeing in the real world. It is, of course, not just the tech industry. We are seeing child labor and forced labor becoming common themes. Wage theft is being tallied in the billions across the country. The only reluctance from American workers is the understandable reluctance to be exploited.
The shortage is of employers willing to pay fair market wages and provide safe working environments. What we are seeing is the reverse of outsourcing. Instead of shipping jobs overseas to exploit vulnerable workers, the companies now are demanding United States immigration policy import the vulnerable workers so they can be exploited here. American workers, when they are not discriminated against entirely, are being forced to choose between accepting exploitation or joblessness. The United States is building an economy based on fraud, theft, and exploitation. Until this narrative of labor shortages is punctured, the worker exploitation bubble will just keep expanding. It is time to reject the phony worker shortage narrative and focus on punishing the overabundance of greedy exploitative employers that are seeking to deflate wages of workers when they aren’t discriminating against them outright.
JARED CULVER is a Legal Analyst for NumbersUSA
