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Trump to impose $100k fee for H-1B worker visas, White House says

reuters.com

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Re: Trump to impose $100k fee for H-1B worker visas, White House says

#681

Post by comp_throw7 »

bhouston wrote: post #531

This is actually smart. Many H1B visas are used to undermine fair labor wages for already local talent. We should ensure that H1B visas are for actual unique talent and not just to undercut local wages. H1B is ripe with abuse - this article by Bloomberg says that half of all H1-B visas are used by Indian staffing firms that pay significantly lower than the US laborers they are replacing: - https://www.bloomberg.com/g…

The trivial way to fix that issue would've been to ORDER BY offered_salary DESC LIMIT $h1b_cap, not this.

Re: Trump to impose $100k fee for H-1B worker visas, White House says

#683

Post by markmark »

jrockway wrote: post #667
bhouston wrote: post #531

This is actually smart. Many H1B visas are used to undermine fair labor wages for already local talent. We should ensure that H1B visas are for actual unique talent and not just to undercut local wages. H1B is ripe with abuse - this article by Bloomberg says that half of all H1-B visas are used by Indian staffing firms that pay significantly lower than the US laborers they are replacing: - https://www.bloomberg.com/g…

Are H1B visas undercutting wages significantly? I haven't really looked since the zero interest rates era, but back then H1Bs were getting paid the same as everyone else. I got the impression that companies would like to hire citizens (for their own convenience), but there were more jobs than people. The economy kind of sucks right now but it ain't H1B visa holders that are the problem.

Any addition of labor will push down wages just be increasing competition for jobs, even if they are all paid the same.

Re: Trump to impose $100k fee for H-1B worker visas, White House says

#684

Post by stephen_cagle »

wonderwonder wrote: post #603
stephen_cagle wrote: post #581

This straight 100k to the top is not a good way to implement this. It should be a percentage (say 50%, we can talk about what the number should actually be) of the total compensation that is being paid to the H1B. We should also just completely remove caps on H1B. This allows companies that truly want extraordinary talent to pay a premium to acquire it with no red tape . It also makes it far less likely that they can…

I disagree, why would they then not just hire the H1B at 50k and pay a 25K fee. 100k flat annual fee plus the new minimum 150k salary returns the H1B program to its original purpose of allowing US companies to hire truly exceptional foreign workers who have skills US workers do not. This allows companies to do just that and pay for it and at the same time protects the jobs and job prospects of US workers

I'll be honest that I read a different article on the same topic and did not know about the salary floor. So I wasn't thinking about that. I'm... mixed on that, but it does add a wrinkle to the equation.

I prefer a purely compensation relative approach because it let's the market decide what the actual salary for a software engineer is (with a percent of compensation premium for a foreigner and a 0 extra cost for a native). The market can dynamically adjust what a software engineer makes (not fixed price control) but it just cost more to hire foreign people.

In direct response to your first sentence, I think even foreign workers (who largely work harder and have more on the line than domestic workers) would question the wisdom of working for 50k a year as a software engineer in the US. They are actors in this system as well, and you can't just assume that you could offer 50k and get them to accept.

Re: Trump to impose $100k fee for H-1B worker visas, White House says

#685

Post by Tiktaalik »

LPisGood wrote: post #514
osnium123 wrote: post #511

Won’t this mean that companies will move jobs to India, China or even Canada?

Why did they not do that before, if it was feasible?

They do already. British Columbia is a really good place to open up shop because it's on the same time zone as Silicon Valley. Many companies have done so. I'm surprised there haven't been more tbh, but maybe now with this change we'll see an acceleration.

Re: Trump to impose $100k fee for H-1B worker visas, White House says

#687

Post by bhouston »

comp_throw7 wrote: post #681
bhouston wrote: post #531

This is actually smart. Many H1B visas are used to undermine fair labor wages for already local talent. We should ensure that H1B visas are for actual unique talent and not just to undercut local wages. H1B is ripe with abuse - this article by Bloomberg says that half of all H1-B visas are used by Indian staffing firms that pay significantly lower than the US laborers they are replacing: - https://www.bloomberg.com/g…

The trivial way to fix that issue would've been to ORDER BY offered_salary DESC LIMIT $h1b_cap, not this.

not a bad idea.

Re: Trump to impose $100k fee for H-1B worker visas, White House says

#689

Post by digianarchist »

nelox wrote: post #632

The actual proclamation [1] is very narrow: a $100k surcharge on new H-1B petitions for workers outside the US. It’s a one-time hit tied to the petition. It does not say “annual.” It does not drag in renewals or transfers for people already in status. Boundless is technically right that a $100k fee exists, but the piece glosses over the narrow scope and leans into speculation. It frames the fee like an ongoing tax on…

AP is reporting the amount as an annual fee

https://apnews.com/article/h1b-visa-trump-immigration-8d3969...

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/trump-mulls-a...

Re: Trump to impose $100k fee for H-1B worker visas, White House says

#690

Post by [deleted] »

huevosabio wrote: post #624
bhouston wrote: post #531

This is actually smart. Many H1B visas are used to undermine fair labor wages for already local talent. We should ensure that H1B visas are for actual unique talent and not just to undercut local wages. H1B is ripe with abuse - this article by Bloomberg says that half of all H1-B visas are used by Indian staffing firms that pay significantly lower than the US laborers they are replacing: - https://www.bloomberg.com/g…

Strong disagree. This is a dumb move in that the US wins wins when people move to the US, especially young, skilled people. There are big issues with the h1b, particularly how strongly tied to the employer the employee is and how few of these we give away. But this basically closes the door for hiring foreign talent to anyone but BigCo. It is a sad shotgun shell on the right foot on a long streak of the US feet shoot…

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