all the tech companies are filled to the brim with h1b visa holders working around the clock for average pay. this has nothing to do with ai, and everything to do with importing workers that are desperate to be here, and so work like dogs. fresh college grads are competing with foreign visa holders that have years of experience
Not sure why you're getting downvoted (maybe by h1bs). Big companies abusing h1b has been all over the news. Heck a Walmart manager was just arrested for taking kickbacks related to h1bs (from the country of his origin)...
Job prospects down, immigration up. Someone make it make sense.
> immigration up "In January 2025, 53.3 million immigrants lived in the United States – the largest number ever recorded. In the ensuing months, however, more immigrants left the country or were deported than arrived. By June, the country’s foreign-born population had shrunk by more than a million people, marking its first decline since the 1960s" [1]. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/21/key-findi.…
This could be the next iteration of stealing talent to prevent others from owning the market. An actually intelligent investor could dominate by bucking the trend and hire lots of smart, eager junior candidates. When other tech companies realize GenAI will never produce what they want, there will be a rush to re-hire developers. Top talent all started as junior talent. Grab that pool so nobody else will have it.
> This could be the next iteration of stealing talent to prevent others from owning the market. An actually intelligent investor could dominate by bucking the trend and hire lots of smart, eager junior candidates.
First, they'd have to identify them, which the interview process at most companies is terrible at.
Perhaps you have it backwards, and the future is gloomy because AI is wrecking young american's job prospects. Is it possible to stay better than AI? Maybe for some people. Not for the average person. The results of that are one of the largest contributors to the gloomy future (among other things).
The future is gloomy because the American economy has largely been in a state of "jobless recovery" since thr great recession. Stock prices are up thanks to corporate tax cuts, ZIRP, AI hype etc, but discretionary income is either stagnant in many sectors or are being chipped away from every angle: rent, healthcare, transport, childcare or leisure.
> discretionary income is either stagnant in many sectors or are being chipped away from every angle: rent, healthcare, transport, childcare or leisure
This is false.
Real disposable personal income is higher today than any time before March 2020 [1]. Covid stimulus first dramatically raised (March '20 to '21) and then lowered (March '21 to June '22) that figure. But we hit a local maximum in April '25, after which real DPI started falling, though nevertheless only to the level we saw in spring '21 and early '25, and no point before.
(Real median household figures are more laggy. But they show the same trend [2]. On a national level, these figures are up.)
> companies are just now trending towards running leaner vs hiring every good engineer available during ZIRP This sounds more like overproduction of entry-level computer scientists than anything AI or hiring managers are up to.
Absolutely, and this trend didn't start with the current AI boom. It started getting tough for people around ~2017 (with some exceptions in between). Before that you could likely get a job right out of a boot camp. Supply now has far outweighed demand on the junior level.
Nothing new. Circa the great recession, most of my fellow grads at a top-5 engineering school could not get jobs. Out of my friends, most of whom had internships, co-ops, and top ~10% of class, it mostly took us 6 months or so to secure a job as all our co-ops/internships cut off hiring before graduation. Many people did stuff like drive forklifts or work at walmart for awhile. Another friend of mine with a dual engineering major summa-cum-laude worked sorting screws in a screw factory, a position normally occupied by people in that town with serious mental handicaps.
IMO AI is going eat most jobs - including the experienced ones - it's just a matter of time. There is no sugar coating this unfortunately.
When AI takes all the jobs, it better start ordering junk from Amazon, have a Costco membership, order in Tacos on Tuesday and watch Instagram reels all day on its brand new iPhone because all the jobless people won’t be able to.
Job prospects down, immigration up. Someone make it make sense.
> immigration up "In January 2025, 53.3 million immigrants lived in the United States – the largest number ever recorded. In the ensuing months, however, more immigrants left the country or were deported than arrived. By June, the country’s foreign-born population had shrunk by more than a million people, marking its first decline since the 1960s" [1]. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/21/key-findi.…
So now it's only 52 million? Thank goodness, problem solved!
How many people are just assuming the study is true or false based on what you already think is the case? Better instead to use our collective brain power for something more productive. Such as digging into the various possible causal factors and understanding if the paper properly addresses and disentangles them.
Maybe, just maybe, the reason is that the economy is moving towards the dumps and nobody is hiring or firing, because they know the future is gloomy. But it makes it much nicer to say its AI that's stealing jobs to create even more hype.
Why do you think the future is gloomy from a business perspective?