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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

#301

Post by klipklop »

Isn’t this part of the assumed plan? Seems to me the fee would have never been done without the blessing of big tech.

Trump admin gets a perceived win that they are protecting US jobs and big tech gets to fill the massive campuses they recently built in India and Canada (oh gee what are the odds?) with no option for these employees to get higher wages in the US.

Seems like everyone wins but labor… No more additional US tech jobs (seems like a perma-hiring freeze) and visa employees get routed to cheaper areas which is a massive savings for the companies.

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

#302

Post by vidarh »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #258
vidarh wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 10…

You're entirely missing the point, which was to propose this as a workaround for taxes trying to make outsourcing non-competitive.

The point is not that they couldn't, but that a company moving proprietary "services" offshore as a means to cut costs aren't interested in whether the services can be provided locally, but whether they can cut costs by moving them offshore.

If you tax renting labour, then companies seeking to do this will just enter into long enough service contracts to have the outsourcing agency custom-build a SaaS just for you instead.

The market opportunity here is simply to be an outsourced body shop.

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

#303

Post by emodendroket »

chuckadams wrote: post #299
emodendroket wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because the status quo isn’t good doesn’t mean we should blindly support anyone changing it even if their results will be even worse.

I think I'm more likely to become a nun than blindly support anything from the current administration.

Well I’m not sure you will find many people who feel the program is perfect as-is but the natural interpretation of what you said in context seemed to be that we should at least temper our criticism.

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

#304

Post by [deleted] »

Matthias247 wrote: post #293
rayiner wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I know it's not exactly the same. But would he consider becoming an electrician? Trade jobs are definitely getting more and more in demand, and the pay once established is definitely not worse than most engineer positions. Electricians in major canadian areas (e.g. Vancouver) charge 200$ per hour and more.

[deleted]

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

#305

Post by archagon »

zvorygin wrote: post #287
rbanffy wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After all, for the same job, the pay in Canada is way worse. OTOH, you have free universal healthcare - and, the best part is that everyone in Canada gets it. You also have gun-free schools, abortions are considered healthcare, and, on top of all that, a sane government and a population that's considered pathologically nice to each other. Honestly, I'd take the pay cut (in fact, I did - but I live in Ireland instea…

If you have a tech job in America, you have good healthcare, your schools are safe, and you have access to abortions. All the tech jobs are in rich liberal cities. And this "sane government and a population that's considered pathologically nice to each other" is literally just the definition of chauvinism. Sure _you_ like it, and that's great. Let's not be assuming everyone in the world shares our values though.

“If you have a tech job” == good luck when you get laid off or want to start a business.

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

#306

Post by LastTrain »

WarmWash wrote: post #158
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.

"Middle America hates immigrants because they are racists. I don't want H1-Bs because companies use them as cheaper labor, undercutting my value." Absolute peak "lost in the political sauce". Most people aren't aware that Bernie Sanders has historically been very anti-immigration, before just becoming an old guy who echos whatever the current young people vibe is.

Was he “let’s put some limits on the number of H1Bs” anti immigration or was he “let’s deport 100 million people and shoot some innocent citizens in the face while doing it” anti immigration?

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

#307

Post by khriss »

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…

I don't doubt your experience is true. But consider the fact that your experience can be true in parallel with the other scenarios people are highlighting.

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

#308

Post by rayiner »

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…

Remember H1B is a lottery. So yes, some of them will have the qualifications to get hired at places like FAANG. But many (most?) are pretty mediocre. There's also an extra allocation for people who get "advanced degrees" from a U.S. university. That's also a lottery, so most of the spots go to graduates of diploma-mill Master's programs. These programs are very lucrative for third-tier schools.

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

#309

Post by rayiner »

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…

> 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.

It's a lottery system. Yes, by random chance, some of the visas will go to people who can otherwise get a job at FAANG. But most of the industry is "JIRA pushers," and that's where most of the visas go.

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

#310

Post by bigmadshoe »

chaostheory wrote: post #294
bigmadshoe wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just isn't true. Yes, ratio of salary to cost of living is better in the US, setting aside the precarious immigration process, political instability, high rates of gun crime, lack of healthcare, etc. I left this reply to someone else claiming the same thing: You can easily look up the cost of living for e.g. Vancouver: > Cost of Living Including Rent in San Francisco, CA is 57.8% higher than in Vancouver > Rent…

This isn’t a good comparison because a better comparison would be the SF Bay Area (the metro) instead of just SF. Also my point is that the Canadian cost of living is comparable to the US while simultaneously having salaries that are a fraction of the US. I believe your nurses are also going south for the same reason though a few places like Vancouver have started to subsidize their housing.

Then we should compare to the Vancouver metro area, which is also cheaper.

I'm not denying that the cost of living to salary ratio is better in the US. But it is simply false to say that the cost of living in cities like Vancouver (widely considered the most expensive in Canada) is the same as SF or NYC. Rent in SF is roughly double that of Vancouver, which itself has the most expensive rent in Canada.

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