[guyzero]

Everyone in these threads always points out all sorts of issues with the H1B system, which are mostly true, but it's not like there's a suggestion for a replacement here. This is a de facto shutdown of the program, not a reform. I'd be happy to see a reformed skilled immigration program for the US, but this isn't it.

The US makes up about 4.5% of the global population and it seems silly to think that the FAANG companies and the new AI startups chasing behind them are going to restrict their hiring to this tiny slice of the global talent pool.

The only effect this is going to have is accelerating the offshoring of jobs through more hiring in India, Europe and Canada, which is a net loss for the US.

I myself became a US citizen two years ago after being on a H1B. I was paid the same as all my peers and for all its shortcomings the program worked for me. It stunning to think this has been closed off, killing the main path for skilled immigration into the US.

[llm_nerd]

> This is a de facto shutdown of the program

Is it?

Some AI recruitments have seen 9-figure contracts. $100K is actually a surprisingly well-considered number and would still see the intake of legitimate talents, obviously contingent on the specific details. Indeed, those people wouldn't have to compete with masses of consultant trash and the whole lottery system could be done away with.

$100K actually seems perfectly coherent with forcing the program to winnow down to actual talents. People truly good enough to get the employer to pony up $100K to pull them in -- presuming there isn't some kickback fraud happening -- will truly be the best of the best.

> The only effect this is going to have is accelerating the offshoring of jobs through more hiring in

Paradoxically the #1 reason H1B employers bring in H1Bs is to bridge offshoring work. Pull in a dozen Indians and they're your bridge to the big Indian office, which is precisely why Infosys, Tata et al are such H1B users.

[guyzero]

> Some AI recruitments have seen 9-figure contracts.

These are crazy outliers who would go through a different visa path anyway. US tech companies still need mid-level workers making low-to-mid six figures. Weirdly O1 visa holder spouses will get an O3 which doesn't allow them to work, making it worse than the H1B/H4 visa for some set of people. (H4s allow spouses to work)

[mrheosuper]

> People truly good enough to get the employer to pony up $100K to pull them in -- presuming there isn't some kickback fraud happening -- will truly be the best of the best.

And what stops those people, best of the best, working somewhere else, with much better living standard(EU) ?

In the past, it's because of salary, but now, the 100k/year will either make company to lower their package, or try to extract much more from the employee.

[PeterHolzwarth]

$100,000 per year.

[ponector]

There is a separate talent visa, why should they use H1B and pay extra 100k instead of using it?

[geye1234]

> The only effect this is going to have is accelerating the offshoring of jobs through more hiring in India, Europe and Canada, which is a net loss for the US.

Offshoring can, and ought to be, heavily tariffed.

[ponector]

Do you know what tariff is? How is it applicable to hiring people in offshore offices?

[sinuhe69]

The tariffs are illegal and void. Even if it's implemented, how do you rise tariffs on intangible works? For the planned tariff, US consumers are the ones to bear the brunt of the costs.

[kristopolous]

In this supposed competition with China, Trump is deeply dedicated to giving China every advantage possible.

From defunding science, fining the biggest universities, defunding green energy, making hiring ambitious foreign workers economically unfeasible, replacing technocratic administrators with incompetent lackies with quite literally zero experience, imposing inordinate tariffs ... It's just win after win for the CCP.

Couldn't possibly be more generous

[remarkEon]

Sad that we're doing this. The United States couldn't compete and was a poor country with minimal scientific achievement until the H-1B visa was created in 1990.

[mrtksn]

Yes, but all these things will have bad long-term effects. The short-term effect would be payment into the federal budget and increase in local employment.

Even with tariffs, the initial effect was to increase purchases before the tariffs hit. Later the companies started eating from their margins instead of increasing prices right away. So it all resulted in increased economic activity and then increased tax payments into the federal government. However, because this is tax on consumption, it will eventually reduce business profits and personal wealth of the consumers. Meanwhile, Trump can claim that the economy is booming and he is collecting huge tax revenues without any negative effects.

[kelnos]

> This is a de facto shutdown of the program

Is it? $100k per hire isn't much of a cost to pay for large companies. Smaller companies may -- may -- end up having some trouble with this, but consider that $100k often amounts to less than a yearly base salary (and will pretty much always be less than a year of total comp/total employee cost), not to mention the costs of legal staff that they're already paying to deal with this stuff.

What this may do is cause some of the "body shop" consultancies to drop some of their "low end" business, so they'll focus more on targeting positions with higher salaries. That's... probably a good thing.

And yeah, we may see some higher rates of offshoring, but I don't think that will be significant. And I'm not even really convinced: offshoring is already possible, and in strict dollar terms is already cheaper than going through the H-1B process to bring someone to the US. If companies preferred offshoring, they'd be doing it; clearly the already-higher-cost H-1B program is still their preference.

I agree that this isn't going to fix the H-1B visa system, and is not a reform or even a particularly positive step toward a reform, but I think you're overestimating the negative impact. I really don't think this will change things much at all.

[Aurornis]

$100K per hire per year.

That's almost as much as the media H1B salary. It's a huge cost overhead. I don't understand how you can be dismissive of a number almost as high as hiring another engineer.

[enraged_camel]

>> Is it? $100k per hire isn't much of a cost to pay for large companies.

It is $100k per hire per year.

https://apnews.com/article/h1b-visa-trump-immigration-8d3969...

[huevosabio]

$100k for a startup is a no-go from the onset. This makes foreigners basically unhireable for startups, and probably shuts down founding startups as well?

[ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7]

> Smaller companies may -- may

Really? 100k on top of a salary per year? Why would anyone do that?

[fooker]

[flagged]

[the_real_cher]

Yeah but no offense if you're paid the same as your peers, you're not necessarily exceptional.

There's literally millions of talented Americans out of work in the tech industry right now while companies continue to hire H1B.

The companies post impossible requirement job ads in obscure locations..to get around the requirements to hire Americans first.

[guyzero]

There's between 5 and 16 million tech workers in the US depending whose definition you use. The tech sector unemployment rate is 2.8% per https://www.comptia.org/en-us/about-us/news/press-releases/t...

That is, at most, less than half a million people in the field and the majority of those jobs aren't the ones looking for overseas hires anyway. If we take CompTIA's number of roughly 5M tech workers it's 140,000 people, not "literally millions."

If you have better numbers, please, let us know.

[afavour]

To be clear the H1B is not for exceptional workers. There’s a separate visa category for that.

[guyzero]

> Yeah but no offense if you're paid the same as your peers, you're not necessarily exceptional.

Says you. I work in Lake Wobegon.

[Gud]

If you're exceptional, by definition so are your peers.

[TMWNN]

>The only effect this is going to have is accelerating the offshoring of jobs through more hiring in India

Such offshoring was possible before and after today.

Put another way, if all the H-1B jobs really can be offshored quickly and easily the way so many Indians and anti-Trump people here and elsewhere confidently predict, *that would have happened already*.

[Jyaif]

The offshoring has started happening in the last 2 years in some of the big companies, by for example opening offices in Eastern Europe.

I suspect it didn't happen before because these companies were more focused on growth than efficiency.

That being said, thanks to AI parts of the big companies are again focused on growth at all cost.

[hx8]

> This is a de facto shutdown of the program

No, this is just another tariff. If it costs $200k/yr to employee an H1B Software Engineer, and you expect them to work for you for 3 years, it raises the cost of employment from $200k/yr to $233k/yr. It'll discourage people from applying on the margins, which will bring the application rate down and acceptance rate up.

[dbmnt]

It's an annual fee. It would raise the cost to $300k/yr.

https://apnews.com/article/h1b-visa-trump-immigration-8d3969...

[alecst]

AP is reporting that It's $100k/yr. So it wouldn't amortize like that.

[cerved]

It's not a tariff

[smt88]

Big Tech chose to get elect an anti-immigrant candidate while relying on immigrant labor. Let them burn themselves down.

[callc]

> The only effect this is going to have is accelerating the offshoring of jobs through more hiring in India, Europe and Canada, which is a net loss for the US.

I’m honestly tired of hearing the argument “if we do X then business will move to another state or out of US”.

Good riddance to the companies that flee from jurisdictions enforcing workers rights, don’t allow exploitation, etc.

The most important thing is protecting people, not fearing the cries of money-making machines.

[spacebanana7]

Particularly in tech, where the network effects and first mover advantages are so strong.

California could introduce a million dollar minimum wage for software engineers, ban electricity on Thursdays, raise corporate taxes to 60% and still probably have more new unicorns founded in the subsequent year than Europe.

[digianarchist]

They'll still end up in the US as they can work a year abroad and come in using L1-B program for 5 years (3 + 2 years on renewal).

L1 has no PWD, no min wage requirements (beyond min wage law in US) and is completely uncapped.

[gmueckl]

The business must go where the talent pool is if the talent can't be brought to the money. This H1B change is intended to remove a sizable portion of the talent pool from the US, so companies will have to follow (and spend US investor money on wages abroad).

[AbstractH24]

So who is going to pay taxes to fund the country? Particularly as the population ages, meaning more costs and fewer workers.