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New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore

#71

Post by andy99 »

binlog wrote: post #21

The H1B problem could be fixed overnight if the government handed them out by a simple test of ability rather than an idiotic lottery. Having world class researchers and engineers who command million dollar salaries enter the same line as a $60K worker at a slop factory like Infosys or TCS is beyond idiotic. And a high visa fee ultimately hurts more than it helps because it drives away both groups, and US tech needs…

I’m not super familiar with the options, but isn’t there O-1 for anyone who’s world class commanding a million dollar salary? The impression I have (mostly from online discussion) is that H-1B is basically only for (comparatively) low skill workers to come work for lower salaries. Are there cases where globally competitive people would come on a H-1B?

Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore

#72

Post by schnitzelstoat »

lokar wrote: post #37
cogman10 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh that's a really good way to handle it that would actually follow the intent of the program. You can't find someone to do a job? Then you need to compete on wage with other companies to bring someone in. Or, you know, raise your salary for local employees.

A simple stack rank and cut has the problem of where to draw the line. Also, how to value pre-ipo stock There are other good options as well (an auction, etc). They all have problems, but there are mitigations. It could be vastly improved even if it’s not perfect. It’s just the will to do it.

But at the moment there are quotas right? So it's basically the same - there are N visas to give out so you rank by salary and pick the top N.

Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore

#73

Post by gamessucknow »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #43
vidarh wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you'd move companies overseas and buy services instead of outsourcing work. It's really hard to do this in a way that won't be trivial to work around, and often in ways where you're likely to like the work around even less.

The US can tariff those out of country services if needed (through a combination of mandatory tax reporting and payment rails monitoring). An example of this today is SaaS taxes [1]. Please provide a non US service as an example and I'll propose how to rapidly replace it domestically. Out of country services can be cloned with LLMs if needed. The US government could sponsor tokens to US entities who employee US worke…

> This is what laws are for. "You can just do things."

“China” “National Security”

And with that, you’re argument is dead in the water.

Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore

#74

Post by emodendroket »

Nobody is willing to state this but it’s pretty clear if you look at the way officials behind the policy talk: they’re OK with this. They don’t mind economic harm. The purpose has nothing to do with protecting workers and everything to do with creating a more ethnically homogenous country.

Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore

#76

Post by lokar »

triceratops wrote: post #66
lokar wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another problem: different industries and roles natohace different pay ranges. If you decide on a single pay cutoff software engineers will starve everyone else out. And there are of course great, well paid people in other hard to hire industries.

Maybe that's ok? It would raise pay in other industries.

I doubt it. Most are limited by the economics. They just don’t make as much per employee as software.

Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore

#77

Post by jvanderbot »

unified101 wrote: post #5

I think this will go hand in hand with tech compensation and jobs falling off a cliff. In the AI world too, we can't have our cake and eat it.

Yeah, fine. Honestly I think most of us have been overpaid our entire career. But I'm not sure I see it necessarily. Take these stats, which can cut either way on this topic:

In USA there are more software engineers than all other engineers combined.

There are 10x more software engineers than the next highest engineering discipline.

If you could subdivide s/w engs into 10 equal categories ("I'm not just a run of the mill s/w eng"), each of those would be the top engineering employment category.

The top 10% of software engineers outnumber the next highest engineer class.

At 10% unemployment, there are more unemployed software engineers than the next highest employed engineer category.

Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore

#78

Post by superxpro12 »

cogman10 wrote: post #60
Sol- wrote: post #29

It's funny how quickly tech employees turn MAGA when it comes to qualified immigration. Bad zero-sum intuitions about work abound across all strata of society, it seems.

This isn't a MAGA thing. H1-B is a bad program. I have no problem with someone getting a green card, citizenship, TPS, etc in the US. I think there should be a lot faster routes for that. Let the software devs come in and become citizens or permanent residents, I don't care about that. What I do care about is the fact that H1-B locks immigrants to a company and tie their residence in the us to their employment. That…

I remember when twitter was sold and Elon "Nazi" Musk fired like 4/5 of the staff, all that remained were H1B's

Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore

#79

Post by emodendroket »

cogman10 wrote: post #14
foxtrot8672 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yep. I see the same thing. Trump isn't wrong to hike fees for H1-B. For companies that shift development overseas they should face tariffs as well.

Yeah, I'm generally pretty pro-immigration and I'm very anti-H1B. It's very abusive to the workers hired as H1-B and it's designed for wage suppression. You can stay an H1-B for years. If you lose your job, you'll face deportation. It gives your employer a VERY large amount of leverage over your life. It's supposed to be about bringing expertise when local expertise isn't available, but in practice it's companies say…

They’re doing the opposite and floating the idea of making the program more coercive by ending the grace period to find a new job, so that essentially ICE could wait outside an office after layoffs and start cuffing people. This is because “protecting workers” is a pretext and not their actual goal.

Re: New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore

#80

Post by throwawalien »

alistairSH wrote: post #31
foxtrot8672 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yep. I see the same thing. Trump isn't wrong to hike fees for H1-B. For companies that shift development overseas they should face tariffs as well.

How do you determine the "correct" location of a job? My employer sells software internationally - are you claiming any international job should be subject to some sort of fine simply because the company is HQed in the US? I suppose we could try slicing revenue or profit by sales region and comparing against headcount expense per region? But with salaries abroad being a fraction of in the US, that math might still wo…

devil's advocate - if they are HQ'd in the US, is hiring US citizens that big of an ask? why do they need cheap overseas labor?
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