Oracle files H-1B visa petitions amid mass layoffs • Hacker News Board

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

#301

Post by b112 » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 12:37 PM UTC

AlexCoventry wrote: post #204

b112 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same issue in my country with employment rates. Yes, some of those have been looking for work for so long that they slide from looking to "not looking" automatically. However at the same time, some of those people actually don't want to work . And if they don't want to work, why would that impinge upon full employment, because what is the plan? Force people to work who are retired, or don't want to? Work or go to jai…

Giving up looking is not necessarily the same as not wanting a job.

Yes, that's why I specifically mentioned it.

If the best data you have is conjoined, then you must either figure it out, or ignore it.

Do you know what percentage, exactly, are retired vs "giving uo"?

No?

Then when someone says full employment, they're right unless you have specific and precise data to counter that.

We could also discuss people too sick to work. Or on maternity leave. Or wealth vs desire to work. Or 100 other factors.

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

#302

Post by pandaman » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 1:21 PM UTC

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…

Most, if not all, politicians have a higher education of some kind. Higher education institutions make big money from international students, who only go for their overpriced education because of the possibility to work in the US. And it's not because the US employees prefer American education but because of OPT program, which let's one work in the country for 1/3 years depending on the degree (and it's cheaper to hire an OPT worker who is exempt from FICA taxes, paid by the employer for citizens and other visa categories) and then H1B.

Schools are the main beneficiary of the program: there are 1M foreign students in the country, each paying full tuition and living expenses. Without H1B the number would have been orders of magnitude lower. For example, in China, where education is literally 10x cheaper, there are just 0.25M foreign students, because there is no immigration pathway for those. So any politician trying to clamp down on this program would have to explain to his or her alma mater why does he or she hate it so much.

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

#303

Post by foldr » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 1:31 PM UTC

remarkEon wrote: post #279

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why does it take months and months for even experienced devs to land a job? Software is undergoing a secular downsizing. It increasingly looks like we have too many SWEs, and that we need to support them retraining. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a labor shortage in other industries.

I'm not disputing what you're saying in your comment necessarily, and supposing it's true for a moment ... why are we granting any visas at all here?

The presupposition behind that question is that immigration is a necessary evil to be limited as much as possible. I am not American, but that strikes me as an ironic position for Americans to take.

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

#304

Post by youarentrightjr » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 1:46 PM UTC

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #233

toomuchtodo wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rural America is not the majority of America (81.7 million people, 24.4 percent of the U.S. population). ~70% of US GDP is from “blue” counties. https://www.fhfa.gov/blog/insights/who-lives-in-rural-americ... https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2017/08/rural-america...

You can turn the numbers anyway you want but the results of the 2024 election speaks for themselves. Like I said this is the country that the citizens want. Before the retort starts that “if that’s what I think then why don’t I leave?”, corporate America has been decent to me. But I’m in my 50s and working on my exit plan and have been in the country I plan to retire to now for six weeks.

> corporate America has been decent to me. But I’m in my 50s and working on my exit plan and have been in the country I plan to retire to now for six weeks.

Crazy take to think the morally correct move is to capitalize on the virtuous parts of America, then leave when it's at its most vulnerable.

Here's to hoping the rest of your generation is willing to fight to bring back the country that allowed you to prosper.

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

#305

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 1:50 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #267

dangus wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And let’s not forget that single income households converted to dual income households, from 47% to 66% of married couples. https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/america-has-becom... (Not my favorite think tank but they have a nice chart.)

The real-wage data above aren’t household statistics.

[deleted]

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

#306

Post by dangus » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 1:54 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #264

dangus wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumer price index is probably the most common one and it doesn’t include housing.

> Consumer price index is probably the most common one and it doesn’t include housing Almost all BLS price indices, including CPI, include housing. (CPI measures the “rent of primary residence, owners' equivalent rent, utilities, bedroom furniture” [1].) [1] https://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/cpi/concepts.htm#the-cpi-as-a-c...

Serves me right for asking AI.

Of course, CPI doesn’t capture whether people have roommates or have made other adjustments to keep their housing costs within income limits.

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

#307

Post by rdtsc » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 2:09 PM UTC

supliminal wrote: post #185

rdtsc wrote: post #8

Wherever their major offices are look for newspapers in the small towns nearby advertising for "Software developers for Oracle" all written in the tiniest print, right next to classified that sell used bikes, car parts and other stuff. - "Well, Uncle Sam, we looked so hard in US and nobody answered our job posts, we have to go to ... $othercountry to hire, there is no other way"

Do you have any evidence to back that up?

I do

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

#308

Post by mahogany » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 2:14 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #159

noosphr wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If America was near full employment you'd be seeing real wage growth. Something that's not existed since the 1970s.

> real wage growth. Something that's not existed since the 1970s Real wages are 15% higher than they were in 1979 [1]. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

Honestly, even if that takes into account housing and everything, doesn't that seem... pathetic? All of the automation and technological advancement and productivity gains over the past 45 years, and average workers in the US see a measly 15% higher real wage over that timespan. Compared to the obscene (real) wealth increase by those at the top during the same span, this seems pathetic to me.

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

#309

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 2:18 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #229

noosphr wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look very carefully you can notice that 2006 is not 1970. >Source? These data show hours worked are down [3]. https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2018/october/how-h...

Do you have the underlying data? I’m curious if per capita is being averaged across whole population or workers. If the former, that seems to penalize younger-aged countries.

[deleted]

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

#310

Post by fooker » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 2:19 PM UTC

mtlynch wrote: post #298

fooker wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your factory analogy is great because that's exactly how it happened and we outsourced everything to China. It's significantly easier to outsource white collar work. And you can keep playing the regulation game until there are no companies left.

I don't understand what you're advocating. Do you think it's a bad thing that the US implemented occupational safety laws? I agree that it's not great that many of those risks just shifted overseas, but it's certainly a net positive that American employers can no longer let workers die or get permanently injured and just let the workers absorb those costs. The H1B visa system isn't just a natural part of capitalism t…

I don't think it's specifically bad to have occupational safety laws, but overregulation in general has a choking effect.

By the time it'll take you to navigate the system to build anything physical in the US, you can have two iterations of the product in China.

The US way of handling this to go per incident and make one more rule, no matter how improbable that situation is. Eventually you end up with a system that needs a team of lawyers.