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Oracle files H-1B visa petitions amid mass layoffs

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Re: Oracle files H-1B visa petitions amid mass layoffs

#81

Post by infamouscow »

dexwiz wrote: post #39
moshegramovsky wrote: post #22

I don't understand why American workers would support this program at this scale. Furthermore, I believe universities and other similar researchy/affiliated non-profits are exempt from the hiring caps. I just cannot imagine executives at tech companies/body shops having any positive ethical motivations. More like "they'll do what we say without complaining or they'll go home". There's no way it's not just a hugely ab…

Because our government is not run for the workers but the owners. Full stop.

Owners are a minority of voters, which raises an obvious question: why does the majority tolerate it?

Every serious attempt to answer that ends up admitting something uncomfortable, that democracy only functions as intended if voters are consistently rational and informed. But that assumption doesn’t hold. It never has. Even the Athenians put Socrates, father of Western civilization, to death.

If society were at all rational, we'd see a lot more people swing from lampposts.

Re: Oracle files H-1B visa petitions amid mass layoffs

#82

Post by kypro »

motbus3 wrote: post #47
throwatdem12311 wrote: post #42

[flagged]

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pj_mukh You didn't even try to read the comments to get a context. You assumed you were being attacked and you need to hate immigrants. You are just being manipulated.

> Federal data shows the tech giant filed for over 3,000 foreign worker visas as it cuts thousands of American jobs.

Just trying to understand what context you feel is relevant here...

Even if Oracle is also firing people in India the idea that no American can do these jobs in the US should be challenged.

Let's assume they do need extremely specialised skills for these roles and are struggling to find those skills in a highly educated country like the US so need to look for employees in countries like India, the question you should then be asking is, well, if they couldn't hire from abroad what would they do instead?

Perhaps they would need to give someone who recently graduated a chance? Perhaps they would try to train people working in adjacent fields at Oracle? Maybe they would increase the salary so American's with these skills employed elsewhere would switch jobs?

So can you steal-man why I should be in favour of companies hiring abroad given there are clearly smart and educated people in the US who are looking for work or might be tempted to work for Oracle if they offered better salaries or training?

Can you explain the advantage to the US workers in allowing this?

Re: Oracle files H-1B visa petitions amid mass layoffs

#83

Post by peyton »

PearlRiver wrote: post #65
QGQBGdeZREunxLe wrote: post #43

It's always puzzled me that layoffs don't result in a temporary bar from using the H1B system like it does for filing PERMs with the DoL.

The US only has two political parties and they are both, secretly, pro immigration. The EU is actually clamping down on it because of populist/far right parties. I know someone who runs a Thai restaurant and he cannot fly in a cook from Asia. He has to find someone from Europe.

To be fair the US is pro-immigration and that’s no secret. H1-B is a guest worker visa. Those jobs could equally go to immigrants.

Re: Oracle files H-1B visa petitions amid mass layoffs

#84

Post by nobodyandproud »

pj_mukh wrote: post #79
Noumenon72 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your [3] shows that the government enforces paying H1-Bs competitive salaries, not that it cares about the Americans they replaced.

[flagged]

Easier to fire? Still costs less? Do what they’re told, because they’re chained to the company and job?

Re: Oracle files H-1B visa petitions amid mass layoffs

#85

Post by OptionOfT »

throwatdem12311 wrote: post #42

[flagged]

And every employer that says they can't find talent fits in the same bucket for me.

There is no issue finding talent. There is only an issue finding talent that is willing to work for the too-low pay you're willing to pay.

Re: Oracle files H-1B visa petitions amid mass layoffs

#86

Post by pj_mukh »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #80
pj_mukh wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to cut through the headline here. The largest chunk of Oracle layoffs were in India [1]. In comparison, they've barely fired any American workers. Contrary to popular opinion, IT workers aren't interchangeable and there exist a large swath of jobs that very few people qualify for (HN should know this) because of the specialization required. America is at near full employment [2]. Replacing American workers with…

> America is at near full employment [2]. Replacing American workers with lower paid foreign workers is already illegal and frequently enforced[3]. Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45223719 - September 2025 (526 comments) Job Listing Site Highlighting H-1B Positions So Americans Can Apply - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44892321 - August 2025…

[flagged]

Re: Oracle files H-1B visa petitions amid mass layoffs

#87

Post by mulmen »

pj_mukh wrote: post #79
Noumenon72 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your [3] shows that the government enforces paying H1-Bs competitive salaries, not that it cares about the Americans they replaced.

[flagged]

Because their H1B status is tied to their job so they will put up with way more abuse.

Re: Oracle files H-1B visa petitions amid mass layoffs

#88

Post by sapphicsnail »

alephnerd wrote: post #61
guzfip wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah you don’t want to work 60+ hours a week to be even remotely close to what you were making before?

> Yeah you don’t want to work 60+ hours a week These are union jobs where hours worked don't extend beyond 50 hours including overtime and with significantly lower barrier to entry compared to software. Why should American SWEs earn more than Accountants (around $80k), Teachers (around $70k), or Mechanical Engineers (around $80k)? It's this kind of attitude that makes non-techies feel schadenfreude. Techies moan and…

Just because someone has it worse doesn't mean you should accept bad things happening.

Re: Oracle files H-1B visa petitions amid mass layoffs

#89

Post by anonym29 »

pj_mukh wrote: post #79
Noumenon72 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your [3] shows that the government enforces paying H1-Bs competitive salaries, not that it cares about the Americans they replaced.

[flagged]

Because H1b is an arrangement that more or less amounts to indentured servitude where vulnerable people have their visa status glued to their at-will employment agreement, resulting in a dynamic where employers can and frequently do expect unpaid overtime, fewer sick days, and otherwise disproportionately greater value from h1b employees, and those who fail to meet these unfair expectations are let go and effectively evicted from the country as it is extraordinarily rare to to secure another h1b job within 60 days.

The number on two paystubs can be the exact same while one person is being brutally overworked and the other given a leisurely, comfortable WLB, which effectively amounts to underpaying the foreign labor, per unit of output, devaluing each unit of labor of domestic output.

Re: Oracle files H-1B visa petitions amid mass layoffs

#90

Post by nobodyandproud »

motbus3 wrote: post #53
reducesuffering wrote: post #21

If you want to hire an H1B and claim there is no American to do that job, what about the 30k employees you just laid off? None of them can do the software engineering, sales, HR, etc. that a company like Oracle works on 99% of the time? It's quite schizophrenic for basic engineering companies like Oracle, Cisco, eBay, Paypal, etc. to claim there are no Americans to do the software engineering they require after they…

Read this guy comment before taking it to this level https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pj_mukh

[flagged]
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