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The H1B program has been abused by employers for a long time. Nobody can reasonably defend it at scale. Some fear mongering now that the party is over, but unli
by JCM9 1y ago
The H1B program has been abused by employers for a long time. Nobody can reasonably defend it at scale. Some fear mongering now that the party is over, but unlikely doomsday is coming for US tech.
Is this a unilateral change that will have some collateral damage? Yes.
Is this going to total ruin the US tech sector? Unlikely.
Will all these jobs just go to India directly? Almost certainly not. That option was always on the table and lots of reasons why employers aren’t sending more jobs to India, including deep structural challenges in the country that aren’t close to being solved.
Will they get offshored elsewhere? Mostly not. Maybe a bit, but those jobs were already at risk of being offshored. The H1B change won’t make a huge difference there. More likely is 15% of roles offshore, 15% were truly needed and employers pay up, 15% are just eliminated and absorbed into existing workers, and the rest stay in the US. Thats still a big net win for the United States.
What will happen? Not completely clear yet, but over time this simply raises the bar for claiming you need to import somone to do a job. India will lose the most as it puts big hurdles to folks there getting highly desirable jobs in the US. There may be some very limited movement of roles elsewhere but those will likely go to Canada, the UK, and maybe a few other places.
The administration is calling the bluff of these companies crying foul, and very likely these companies will cave. Expect to see anyone that does actually try to move things abroad to simply be slapped with tariffs that make such moves unprofitable. These companies value access to the US market much more than employing a few H1Bs.
Not saying I agree with everything happening, but the idea that this was some poorly researched jerk reaction dangerously underestimates the playbook being used here. The administration knows exactly what they’re doing.
- HankStallone 1y agoYeah, offshoring has been going on for three decades. What could be profitably offshored has been, and then some, because some executives just like the idea a lot. There are reasons that companies have been abusing guest worker visas and clamoring for more, instead of offshoring those jobs. This may cause a bit more offshoring at the margins, but not a massive change. The fear-mongering is propaganda.
- KaiserPro 1y ago> Nobody can reasonably defend it at scale I mean its perfectly defendable, its a way of depriving the rest of the world of highly skilled, motivated people. As we've seen several times before, all it takes to turn a country into a backwater is brain drain. Vienna was _literally_ the centre of arts, culture and commerce, until it wasn't. > These companies value access to the US market much more than employing a few H1Bs. I think thats the point, its going to be used as a tool of favour/coercion. "good companies" will get h1bs, "bad companies" will not.
- JCM9 1y agoThere are lots of other pathways to do this outside the H1B. The US doesn’t need H1Bs to suck brain drain from elsewhere.
- alephnerd 1y agoL1 is backlogged, O1 is backlogged, and the eb1/2-to-greencard (not citizenship) backlog is reaching 20 years for those born in India and China. On top of that salaries have gotten significantly higher in both countries now ($60k-80k TC mid career) At this point, most H1B sponsorship is for a candidate on an OPT, but now there is an incentive to relocate those employees back to a foreign office (Canada, India, Singapore, etc). And, leaving aside tech - healthcare workers like nurses and doctors, along with academics are overwhelmingly sponsored via H1B - not O1. Say goodbye to the Phillipines-to-US pipeline that was helping keep rural healthcare infra on it's last legs.