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

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

#251

Post by geodel »

rgbrgb wrote: post #230
petcat wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economics don’t make any more sense for Canada or the EU than they do for the US. The the new $100k H1B fee was imposed because companies have a huge financial incentive to import semi-skilled workers from lower-wage markets rather than hire domestically. Canada and the EU face the same problem. In tech, it's about the kinds of work inexperienced/cheap developers are often doing: assembly line, JIRA-ticket-taker…

> semi-skilled workers fwiw the h1-b workers I encountered in bigtech were totally on-par with their US citizen equivalents in both coding and english communication. many teams were about 50/50 in my office (SF, non-HQ). my current talent/placement company works mostly with AI startups who are usually too early to support visa requirements [0]. being able to support the lead-time and planning for international applic…

Yeah, it is not much worth because issue is not that top talent on H1 matches local talent but how average is the rest but get brought to US in name of high skill immigration.

The debate by supporters is set like: Look at these 5 top guys they are best in class in every aspect so why shouldn't they be here. And now don't look over there 500 guys which are business analyst, basic enterprise coders, testers application support engineers lest question maybe asked how come they are considered highly skilled.

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

#252

Post by Ajedi32 »

philipallstar wrote: post #224
davidw wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the 'squeeze' comes from things like housing and health care. The former driven by NIMBYs pulling the ladder up after them in so many desirable places.

A huge amount of housing demand comes from immigration. You can't call people who like their neighbourhoods "NIMBYs" for not wanting their nice area to triple in population to solve a problem. They aren't the problem. The demand is the problem.

So lack of supply isn't the problem, it's the people who want a place to live who are the problem? Would you make this same argument if the increased demand was from people being born rather than immigration (because it is both)?

I think if you want to be able to block your neighbors from building denser housing on their property then that should only be enforceable if it was agreed to by everybody in advance when they bought the place (e.g. via an HOA contract or some similar type of restriction on the property deed). Otherwise this is tantamount to allowing Walmart to get a vote on whether to allow Target to set up next door.

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

#253

Post by dh2022 »

mritun wrote: post #218
petcat wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economics don’t make any more sense for Canada or the EU than they do for the US. The the new $100k H1B fee was imposed because companies have a huge financial incentive to import semi-skilled workers from lower-wage markets rather than hire domestically. Canada and the EU face the same problem. In tech, it's about the kinds of work inexperienced/cheap developers are often doing: assembly line, JIRA-ticket-taker…

Patently false narrative, equivalent to saying all americans are fat - both are extremely cheap uneducated arguments. Every single H1B I worked with was brilliant in their field - and paid extremely well often in excess of $400K. I know several that are earning well past $500K. If you claim these are generic Jira pushers, well you are showing ignorance. The $100K fees isn’t material to them but the whole vitriolic no…

The H1B coworkers I work with really go the entire spectrum. The laziest programmers I met are H1B. And there are also some pretty smart ones that I learned a lot from and I continue to learn from.

To say that the H1B are all brilliant is hyperbole.

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

#254

Post by profdevloper »

jasonlotito wrote: post #150
aluminussoma wrote: post #44

On the whole, this is a good thing. There are policy responses that can be enacted as needed, in an easier and more humane way. The goal of the US government should be to protect the interests of the American citizen, as much as the goals of India or China should be to protect their own interests.

> The goal of the US government should be to protect the interests of the American citizen Except this is doing the opposite. Pushing jobs offshore does not help American citizens.

I think it lessens the damage -- offshore workers do not consume finite resources in their host countries (e.g. housing, medical care) leaving those to the native citizens. Eventually AI will replace the "need" for these visa holders -- cancelling a contract with an offshore firm is more tenable than remigrating thousands of families.

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

#255

Post by philipallstar »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #252
philipallstar wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A huge amount of housing demand comes from immigration. You can't call people who like their neighbourhoods "NIMBYs" for not wanting their nice area to triple in population to solve a problem. They aren't the problem. The demand is the problem.

So lack of supply isn't the problem, it's the people who want a place to live who are the problem? Would you make this same argument if the increased demand was from people being born rather than immigration (because it is both)? I think if you want to be able to block your neighbors from building denser housing on their property then that should only be enforceable if it was agreed to by everybody in advance when th…

> So lack of supply isn't the problem, it's the people who want a place to live who are the problem? Would you make this same argument if the increased demand was from people being born rather than immigration (because it is both)?

I totally agree it's both, although most first world populations have low birth rates (until you add in generational immigration from high birth rate cultures), so slow building works well.

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

#256

Post by davidw »

happytoexplain wrote: post #245
davidw wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the 'squeeze' comes from things like housing and health care. The former driven by NIMBYs pulling the ladder up after them in so many desirable places.

The subcategory of NIMBY hate regarding overdevelopment of existing communities (as opposed to things like datacenters, multi-home owners concerned about investment, etc etc) is mostly hatred of the average citizen, which is not a great category of people to decide to hate. 90% of people would react the same ways in the same situations. The obvious problem is that you can only develop a "desirable" area so much befor…

It's not hate, it's just something that changed in the US in about the 1970ies. In the past, you'd have a booming area and people would build homes as a result and things weren't perfect, but kind of balanced out in terms of housing.

Then we stopped doing that, with devastating consequences for many people wishing to move to places with better opportunities: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20170388 - as well as the economy as a whole.

You can read about it in books like Arbitrary Lines https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9781642832549/ar... or Zoning Rules https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/books/zoning-rules/

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

#257

Post by bpt3 »

embedding-shape wrote: post #235
bpt3 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pay and money are why people work, so yeah they're pretty important.

Money is just a tool to get what you actually want, the goal itself shouldn't be "more money", unless you want to miserable, because that hole you feel never gets filled by shoveling more money down it.

More money generally equals more freedom, even if you don't know what you want specifically, but you're ultimately talking about a bigger, unrelated issue.

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

#258

Post by toomuchtodo »

vidarh wrote: post #246
toomuchtodo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"SaaS taxes" are just sales taxes. They would apply if you create a SaaS for the stuff you want to outsource, sure. Except for it to be expensive enough to make outsourcing services unattractive you'd have to make them many times higher than they are today. > Out of country services can be cloned with LLMs if needed. Good luck cloning services whose endpoints are unavailable and documentation non-existent and that th…

> Good luck cloning services whose endpoints are unavailable and documentation non-existent and that there would be no customers for, as they're built as a means of working around taxation of outsourcing.

What services can only be procured from offshore businesses and service providers that aren't for cutting costs? Honestly, what can be provided by someone in the UK, Europe, or LATAM that cannot be done by one of 100M people in the US labor force? I am genuinely interested, both as a scholar and as market opportunity.

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

#259

Post by geodel »

mritun wrote: post #218
petcat wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economics don’t make any more sense for Canada or the EU than they do for the US. The the new $100k H1B fee was imposed because companies have a huge financial incentive to import semi-skilled workers from lower-wage markets rather than hire domestically. Canada and the EU face the same problem. In tech, it's about the kinds of work inexperienced/cheap developers are often doing: assembly line, JIRA-ticket-taker…

Patently false narrative, equivalent to saying all americans are fat - both are extremely cheap uneducated arguments. Every single H1B I worked with was brilliant in their field - and paid extremely well often in excess of $400K. I know several that are earning well past $500K. If you claim these are generic Jira pushers, well you are showing ignorance. The $100K fees isn’t material to them but the whole vitriolic no…

Well, if this small fee can help brilliant folks to explore their horizons outside US, it would be all worth in end.

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

#260

Post by dh2022 »

rayiner wrote: post #91
orangedog wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Canada not already have an issue with not enough jobs available?

My uncle is a skilled immigrant to Canada (electrical engineer) and was never able to find an engineering job. They live in an immigrant-heavy subsidized housing neighborhood full of people in the same situation.

Plus one. My parents experience as well in Montreal. My dad could not understand why Canada bothered to move him and his family and the keep him on welfare. BTW - life on welfare in Canada was 5 times better than life as an electrical engineer in România. My parents never stopped thinking it was a really good idea to migrate to Canada.
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