Whenever I hear stupid questions like "Do immigrant engineers depress engineer wages?", I'm tempted to say that it's as simple as supply and demand. But supply and demand are not simple things.
On the one hand, an increased supply of engineers (or flaxseed) in the form of immigrants (or imports) will obviously decrease the market clearing price, and anyone who says otherwise is either ignorant of economics or engaging in sophistry.
But to the extent that engineers spur technological or industrial advances which benefit the entire ecosystem, the presence of additional engineers in the form of immigrants could actually increase the _demand_ for engineers. A concrete example is the marginal increase in engineering demand caused by an immigrant engineer founding a company.
(You could argue, given the example provided, that another company would have been founded in its absence, or that the company displaced an existing company. However, my intuition is that it's a positive-sum game, and that a successful company would created some marginal demand for engineers.)
On the one hand, an increased supply of engineers (or flaxseed) in the form of immigrants (or imports) will obviously decrease the market clearing price, and anyone who says otherwise is either ignorant of economics or engaging in sophistry.
But to the extent that engineers spur technological or industrial advances which benefit the entire ecosystem, the presence of additional engineers in the form of immigrants could actually increase the _demand_ for engineers. A concrete example is the marginal increase in engineering demand caused by an immigrant engineer founding a company.
(You could argue, given the example provided, that another company would have been founded in its absence, or that the company displaced an existing company. However, my intuition is that it's a positive-sum game, and that a successful company would created some marginal demand for engineers.)