low. and yet not uncommon!

Those salary figures if for people newly licensed or post grad are pretty typical. I wouldnt say "low".

It's probably worth it for me comment that I don't actually believe that it is possible for schools to turn out too many architects for the US market over the long term. I trust in the concept of free markets. Within the US, information is pretty good about what careers are "hot" and which one's aren't, and applicants to the various B.Arch and M.Arch programs reflect people's assessment of their potential for future employment, weighted for their assessment of the risks and returns of that employment. A case in point is the 70%+ declines in applicants most real estate development specialist programs saw over the last two years. No more jobs = no more students. It might take a year or two for people to figure out what's going on, and thus a few will experience misery in the interim, but, in the longterm, things will sort themselves out. If demand for architects is truly shrinking over the longterm, so will the number of people going back to arch school.

I do think we need to fix loopholes, like the government apparently designating architecture as a priority labor shortage area and failing to adjust that designation for present realities, and thus accidentally issuing lots of new visas to foreign guest workers when there are no jobs.. something that firms are all too eager to exploit by paying increasingly desperate people . I also hope the NCARB is keeping up with the accredition standards, and not accrediting new programs quite as quickly.

well, urbanist, you generally seem to have the facts right...

A company can't hire a foreigner and pay him/her lower than average salary because that would open a whole can of worms, obviously. They are legally required to pay visa specific prevailing wage salary which for the lowest level is $51,854 year in NY metropolitan area, for example.
I understand the emotion surrounding this issue, but this is not what's undermining the industry. I am in fact curious if there are many of these people left working in architecture.

wow... i've known US citizens who have worked in New York City for WAY less than $51,854.

exactly!
that is the point of the "prevailing salary" - it's a way for the system to regulate itself and you have to be quite exceptional to get an H1B in times like these.
these numbers are updated annually (and they keep growing, despite the fall in salaries since the downturn)

it's also the reason it's much easier for foreigners to find work with big corporate firms that usually pay more than smaller firms.

Actually, ckl, the geographically-based prevailing wage system was legally ditched in 2005. It was replaced by four national skill levels, based on employer classification alone, to the effect that most employers just classify all of their guest workers at the lowest skill level (since there's legally new review or enforcement thereof).

DHS statistics show no decline in visas issued in our sector given the recession so I do not believe that your statement above that you have to be "quite exceptional to get an H1B in times like these" is any more valid than it ever was, and, given that the visa cap is still being 100% utilized and the number of jobs available has clearly decreased, that statement is apparently invalid.

This isn't really a debate about whether people who get H1B's deserve them or not... I brought up this issue to provoke a discussion about national policy in a time when, as the topic of this thread pointed out, there appear to be too many architects. Maybe H1Bs won't make the biggest difference or maybe they do, but whether they do or not is beside the point. The basic policy question still remains: should we open a discussion on whether American jobs should first be offered to American citizens (including permanent residents) as a matter of principle? Should employment (or at least the marginally higher chance of getting employment) be a benefit of citizenship?

I'm not even saying that it is.. I don't know for sure how I think about it. I'm just a little bothered and so I'm just asking the question and seeking people's input.

I think there are so many hurdles in hiring a foreigner that american citizens have the first chance of being hired and that is absolutely normal.

The prevailing wage is very much still in place, I have been twice through this process since 2006.
I find it hard to believe that numbers of H1B visas have not declined.
Yes, the cap is still being reached, but they are not awarded separately by field and I believe most of those are IT people. If not, that sounds good to me but I know it's not the case.
The discussion remains relevant though.

hmm.. not what the DHS website says about current interpretations of the prevailing wage policy, but I'll concede the point as I obviously don't have personal experience with the process. It may be some firms are choosing to stick to the older standard voluntarily. But again, as I said above, I didn't want this convo to become about wages. Wages came up because I cut and pasted a table, the most valuable info on which was the 2009 new visas issued stats. And no, DHS stats clearly show that there has been no shift to IT (which is also suffering, by the way). Our industry (which includes building engineers, surveyors and a few other categories) is still around 12% of visas issued.

But again, this is beside the point.

Last year, on two occasions, my firm tried to put me in charge of projects in Europe, because those projects required skills that, within I firm, I was best suited for. In both cases, I was unable to assume my delegated responsibilities for the required lengths of time because Italy and Spain, respectively, refused to give me what should've been routine temporary visas to enter their countries for business purposes - to manage design projects (you can't legally do that on a standard tourist visa, so large firms won't let you break the law and do that even though there would be no real way for you to get caught). The reason given in both cases was that they wanted the firm to hire their nationals to do that work even though, at my firm, I am the person who was supposed to be doing their work. They had no problems saying this, frankly. This in turn endangered my own job, since I was prevented from doing mine. Fortunately, for me, my firm chose (so far) to keep me around anyway, and I mostly work on domestic stuff (and some Asian stuff, since most of those countries don't have to tighten up, as their economies are generally healthier).

Overall, Americans at my firm whose job responsibilities require them to move between the US and Europe for terms of time have found it very difficult, of late, because of visa tightening on the European side. We've even had personnel who've been harassed at the Canadian border when they arrived for routine reviews, and told, for the first time ever, that they needed to process temporary work visas to attend meetings legally in Canada. They were asked questions at border control like "why can't what you are here to do be done by a Canadian?"

The US has chosen not to retaliate, and still welcomes guest workers in architecture. A foreign grad from a US school seems to be just as likely as his American counterpart to be hired by an American firm. Firms seem to be able to count on the the rules staying the same.

I'm not saying that this is wrong, but still, the questions have to be asked. Why can I be replaced by a foreigner when I cannot a replace a foreigner in his or her own country?

These questions aren't relevant in an environment where there is full employment, and labor shortages are the biggest issue - the environment which saw the introduction of the guest worker laws. A world in which the US may be facing structural unemployment of around 10% for the foreseeable future is a very different place, and perhaps some of the old rules and assumptions need to be revisited. And again, I'm not urging that anyone's visas be cancelled, but rather that consideration be given to reducing the number of visas available going forward. To reply to outed's scenario, we can still have an exemption for language skills, or whatever.

Urbanist I think you said you believe in the free market.

I think you also said that you don't think the schools are graduating too many.

How can you say this if you believe in the free market when Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations clearly illustrates how oversupply leads to decreased demand which directly causes wage depreciation and unemployment?

I like the idea I heard the other day somewhere in this forum. Someone was proposing the MArch degree be made into a JD type thing where after the bachelor's program the expectation would be to specialize in a particular typology.

I think its pretty obvious that this would make the profession viable again in the marketplace and it would happen very quickly.

Of course the number of accredited schools need to be cut at least in half.

And last I checked NAAB accredits the schools, not NCARB. Unless things have changed. Of course, the AIA has its grubby hands in all the major professional players be they NAAB, NCARB, ACSA, the state boards, etc. ad nauseum.

your last 'of course' is false, winstonsmith. if you see the leaders of these organizations together, you'll see that they guard closely held fiefdoms. ncarb and aia, for instance, don't necessarily get along even. not that this is better, but it's a different dynamic than what you're suggesting.

a word on those salaries: most of those firms are definitely based in large cities, where those numbers are basically at the poverty line. don't be fooled, it's really not that much money.

that's a good point le bossman. I wasn't lying when I said those numbers sounded low to me. Pre-crisis, a CA licensed architect with ten+ years post-grad experience (and about 15 years in total experience) and a GSD M.Arch working for a top firm in San Fran shouldn't be making only $67k, even if she is a Chinese national here on one of those miracle visas, assuming she's reasonably good. Before this crisis, new M.Arch grads going into top firms in NY and San Fran were routinely being offered $55k packages. In fact, that was the standard package for a while. With 3-5% annual increases (including promotion bumps), that person should be doing, at worst, $75-85,000 after a decade of practice plus licensure. There should be another big bump after she makes associate.

Remember, after taxes, her $67k is about $45k. Her big city rent (unless she's sharing or living in a hovel) would be around $27k. She's living on $18k. After fixed expenses and loan payments and all that, that's probably (guessing here) disposable income of under $500 a month, unless you're saying that a 38 year old should be sharing an apartment and living like a student.

The fact is, because of her visa status, it's dubious they would ever promote her beyond a certain point and her increases will be less than what her peers are getting.

$27k?!?

Dude, you can get a luxury apartment (1 bedroom) in San Fran for around two grand.

1 bedroom, 700 square feet in Trinity Tower for $1899.

Archstone at Fox Plaza is advertising 600 sq ft 1 bedrooms for $2099.

SOMA residences on Mission is charging $1495 for studios.

Urbanist, I love you for the female pronoun throughout that post. And, of course, your unfailingly intelligent posts here.

I'm going to assume Urbanist is basing those figures on living in Manhattan, in which case $2300 a month for an apartment is probably somewhat reasonable, at least if we are to assume person living alone.

well.. I reasonable professional lifestyle in NYC or San Fran, I think. $2300 a month is not too far off for either city, at least up until a year or so ago. Now you can probably get a decent place for $2000 or slightly less.

mont, the context here is what people were getting paid and paying for rent pre-crisis. Rents are much lower now since landlords are desperate, but that's a recent development. Manhattan rents are down by about 30-40% from their peak in some market segments.