11 ms·

Oracle files H-1B visa petitions amid mass layoffs

521 points by kklisura 7mo ago

jmyeet 7mo ago
I personally think that doing a layoff of more than 2% of your workforce or 1000 people, whichever is high, should restrict you from filing for a work visa for a period of 3 years. Or you can buy your way out of that restriction by paying each laid off worker 3 years of wages. Pick one.
pm90 7mo ago
Oracle is a large company. Many of those laid off were outside the US. This is a non-story.
- OrvalWintermute 7mo ago
  Not sure this is truly the “Oracle VP of Workforce Economics” posting on X, but it makes a good thread: https://x.com/gothburz/status/2040142920674656482?s=46 https://x.com/gothburz/status/2040142920674656482?s=46
jrkfofjw 7mo ago
Don't worry, Trump is in Ellison's pocket so this will go through.
OrvalWintermute 7mo ago
H1B is generally a giant scam of Labor Arbitrage
cmiles8 7mo ago
I would expect further H1B crackdowns coming. The $100k fee was just the start.
- toomuchtodo 7mo ago
  Good. Call your reps and ask for more action.
- idiotsecant 7mo ago
  I would absolutely not expect this, especially as long as Oracle and all the other technofeudalists are properly paying their taxes to the count and king.
  - moshegramovsky 7mo ago
    By taxes, do you mean buying Trump's crypto?
- afavour 7mo ago
  I disagree, I think the $100k fee was a deliberate move to make sure the yearly allocation is only available to large companies like Oracle and out of reach of smaller startups. Despite the rhetoric the administration is very friendly to big business and will absolutely help them hire cheaply. Larry Ellison especially.
- Hamuko 7mo ago
  Isn’t Larry friends with the administration?
- qwertyuiop_ 7mo ago
  USCIS says they competed the 2027 quota. Is there any evidence all enrolled paid $100k this year ?
  - trollbridge 7mo ago
    I would assume many were change-of-status from F-1 / OPT etc.
    - QGQBGdeZREunxLe 7mo ago
      The giant gaping loophole they left in place. Renewals and COS (change of status) does not incur the $100k fee.
      - cute_boi 7mo ago
        Then the H-1B wouldn’t make sense. Many holders would have to transfer from one company to another, and if there is a $100,000 requirement, it would just lead to exploitation. The better solution is just stop H1B lottery from next year.
        bushbaba 7mo ago
        They should remove the lottery and make it a bidding war. Highest bidder gets the H-1B visas. Realistically, the H-1B visa program should be terminated all together.
- Dig1t 7mo ago
  Sadly I think you're wrong on this one. Trump's donors benefit from H1B cheap labor. Musk, Elison, etc contributed large sums to Trump's campaign. Just look at Musk's "fuck your own face" tweets from Dec 2024 and you'll see how the people with power feel about this issue. As usual the middle class is being squeezed by the oligarchy. The 100k fee basically does nothing to curb H1B cheap labor. It's a one-time fee, and when you realize that H1B's can't easily leave their job, it's a fee that easily pays for itself. H1B's are paid less for the same job (just google "are H1B's paid less"), and since they can't easily leave, the reduced turnover saves them money as well. If you think that an employee is likely to stay for 4 years, that's only 25k per year and the fact that they are paid about 15%-20% less than an American, the equation still easily comes out in favor of importing the cheap labor. It was a move crafted to look like it was cracking down on abuse, but not actually cause any real pain to the companies abusing the system. Hence why all these mega corps are still filing for H1B's even while laying off their American citizen workers.
  - naveen99 7mo ago
    I thought the $100k h1b fee is annual
    - Dig1t 7mo ago
      It was announced as such, but the administration quietly issued an update the day after it was announced “clarifying” that it was actually a one-time fee.
- dudul 7mo ago
  Absolutely not. The current administration had a chance to do something really radical and they just completely fumbled it. They won't reopen this file.
  - declan_roberts 7mo ago
    Every administration until this one has had a chance to do something about h1b and didn't do jack. At least this administration is doing SOMETHING.
    - dudul 7mo ago
      They barely did anything. They could have done something great. They could have ended the program all together, they could have put a serious cap on it, they could have made the $100k fee a yearly fee, etc But no, they did virtually nothing. I would even be surprised if more than 100 companies paid the one time $100k fee at this point with all the loopholes that were included.
- fooker 7mo ago
  The government is not the friend you think it is. All the new regulations (carefully presented as crackdown) make it easier for large companies to hire immigrants in a more reliable way. All carefully choreographed by big tech. The chances of a specific company being able to sponsor a specific employee through this year's lottery went by significantly (3-4x) compared to the last several years.
- declan_roberts 7mo ago
  Gosh I hope this is true!
slau 7mo ago
I hate Oracle as much as the next guy, but this seems like a nothingburger. Oracle didn’t file “thousands of H1Bs”. Oracle filed 2690 applications in FY2025 (Oct-Sep), and so far filed 436 in FY2026, according to the article. If anything, this would indicate that Oracle slowed down on hiring foreign workforce. Oct-Mar is half of Oracle’s fiscal year, but they only filed 16% of the H1B applications as in 2025? That seems in line with a hiring freeze and subsequent layoff.
rdtsc 7mo ago
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"
- toomuchtodo 7mo ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44880832 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44880832 https://www.jobs.now/ https://www.jobs.now/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44892321 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44892321
  - rdtsc 7mo ago
    I remember seeing it on HN but didn't know if would still be up. Glad it's still going. Thanks!
- pj_mukh 7mo ago
  Just to cut through the headline here. The largest chunk of Oracle layoffs were in India [1]. In comparison, they've barely fired any American workers. Contrary to popular opinion, IT workers aren't interchangeable and there exist a large swath of jobs that very few people qualify for (HN should know this) because of the specialization required. America is at near full employment [2]. Replacing American workers with lower paid foreign workers is already illegal and frequently enforced[3]. This is such a deep distraction but a virulent virus of a narrative, surgically designed to needle our reptilian minds. [1]: https://www.goodreturns.in/news/tech-layoffs-2025-oracle-cuts-jobs-in-india-us-mexico-indian-employees-in-bangalore-pune-hyderabad-w-1449645.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://www.goodreturns.in/news/tech-layoffs-2025-oracle-cut... [2]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/269959/employment-in-the-united-states/?srsltid=AfmBOoq_VmKuqONf8D4Z-XYB7E23IeUALWggq_Z3DX7Vc8DuIeVMiHNJ https://www.statista.com/statistics/269959/employment-in-the... [3]: https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20180501-2 https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20180501-2, https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20180501-2 https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20180501-2
sva_ 7mo ago
They have many departments, and are probably reducing some of them while increasing the workforce in others. The idea that they hire 'those damn foreigners' to push down wages is probably true to some degree, but not the whole story. I also don't believe the majority of these H1B are directly hired in other countries for which there is now a $100k fee, but rather people who studied in the US under F1 visa who are exempt from this rule.
- calculatte 7mo ago
  What magical skills do the "damn foreigners" have that none of those 30,000 laid off employees don't have? What was the intent of the H1B? To find skills that don't exist in this country. What is H1B actually used for? Labor arbitrage, nepotism, kickbacks. There's really no excuse for defending it anymore.
  - moshegramovsky 7mo ago
    H-1B exists to make unfathomably rich corporations and people even more unfathomably rich. That's the only reason. That's why we don't have single payer. How can corporations function if employees don't equate job loss with total economic and social ruin?
    - motbus3 7mo ago
      Not necessarily. Many of the technological revolution started with refugees and immigrants before, during and after ww2. And technically you should even count the NZ that were brought to create the rocket programs Anyway, I feel that you need read this guy comment https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pj_mukh https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pj_mukh
      - moshegramovsky 7mo ago
        I appreciate the information. However, labor Arbitrage affects millions of American workers. It probably affects tens of millions. I just cannot fathom that companies today have any positive ethical reasons for wanting to participate. It gives them another stick to use against both groups of workers. Also, H-1B was started in 1990, so well after World War II.
simianwords 7mo ago
This whole H1B debacle tells me that people don't like it when employees are not fungible but this sentiment only exists selectively. The H1B i140 petition thing requires you to advertise the job before submitting the petition. How does this work if the employee is not fungible?
- some_random 7mo ago
  You advertise in small circulation newspapers, I thought this was well known.
  - RachelF 7mo ago
    Another trick I've seen on LinkedIn is job applications open from 12:00 am to 12:01 am. The employer can legally say they advertized the job and had no applicants and need an H1B employee.
    - dwa3592 7mo ago
      that's not how it works- they have to have the petition up for a period of time for it be considered valid.
- cyberax 7mo ago
  > The H1B i140 petition thing requires you to advertise the job before submitting the petition. You're confusing things. I-140 is a green card application, not H1B. H1B petition requires the I-129 form and an LCA from the DoL. No advertisement is required, except posting the LCAs in a conspicuous place in the company office.
- dudul 7mo ago
  You don't know what you are talking about. I-140 is not for H1B. It is very easy to fulfill the "muh we tried to hire! Nobody wants to work!" fake criteria to be able to apply for an H1B.
timedude 7mo ago
[flagged]
mikert89 7mo ago
Where did my standard of living go? Couldnt possibly have to do with imported labor working around the clock under the threat of being kicked out of the country
- maest 7mo ago
  Cheap labour producing goods for the native population at low costs should increase your standard of living, no? It makes the products you buy cheaper. By your logic, if you were the only person in the country, you'd live like a king.
  - toasty228 7mo ago
    That's way too naive, prices never go down, the owner pockets the difference, you pay the same, and once they come to your industry you have more competition
  - sapphicsnail 7mo ago
    Companies are importing labor so they can avoid pay competitive wages to native workers. If you need to hire people from other countries they should have the same pay and protections as everyone else.
  - skippyboxedhero 7mo ago
    By your logic, slavery was one of the finest economic policies. Cheap labour, how about free labour? Have we thought of that? Everything would just be free. In the real world, the evidence is obvious: average productivity/wages drop, incentive to invest in labour-saving technology disappears, and you get multiple decades of stagnation. Every country which had unlimited, unfree labour has had decades of slow growth as a result. Income growth in the working age population in the US since 1990 has been about the same as Japan, a country which is widely regarded as on the verge of economic collapse. US per capita income is probably 20-30% lower than it would be with first-order effects from immigration, likely much more with second order effects. Under any other circumstances with economic policy elsewhere, the US economy would be growing 7%/year now (and ofc, the answer for Japan's ills is apparently, you guessed, lots of immigration). China is seeing secular reductions in production costs because of capital investment, not low wages. The peculiarly statist notion of American capitalists that the route to economic supremacy was large numbers of illiterate Guatemalans should go down as not only an economic failure but a moral one (equally of H1B).
reducesuffering 7mo ago
If you want to hire an H1B and claim there is no American to do that job, what about the 30k employees you just laid off? None of them can do the software engineering, sales, HR, etc. that a company like Oracle works on 99% of the time? It's quite schizophrenic for basic engineering companies like Oracle, Cisco, eBay, Paypal, etc. to claim there are no Americans to do the software engineering they require after they lay off thousands and there are millions of American software engineers looking for work.
- marcher 7mo ago
  Schizophrenic?
- dominotw 7mo ago
  lots ppl are confused in this comment section. h1b doesnt not require looking for a local first.
  - prerok 7mo ago
    Sorry what? Yes, they do. Second-hand knowledge, though.
    - sunnyps 7mo ago
      No, the requirement is that the job is for a speciality occupation and that the H1B be paid the prevailing wage for that job, not that there was an attempt to hire locally first. For an I-140 PERM (employment based green card) however the requirement is that there was an effort made to hire locally first. Most people on HN are uninformed about this, well actually uninformed in general.
      - remarkEon 7mo ago
        The jobs filled via H-1B are not “specialty” positions, everyone knows this. I know that’s what the visa is ostensibly supposed to be used for, but it’s a very silly thing to pretend at this stage. I agree that many are uninformed on this, and my friends who don’t work in tech think someone on an H-1B visa is like a “particle physics PhD” or something, and not “database administrator” or “backend engineer”.
moshegramovsky 7mo ago
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 abusive to both pools of workers. The whole thing really feels like another example of the imbalance between labor and capital in the US. Who originally wanted H-1B/etc? Rich people with money and power? Of course!
- dominotw 7mo ago
  workers dont. but dont speak against it either because they are scared of losing heir jobs from accusations of racism.
  - moshegramovsky 7mo ago
    I work in Bellevue, WA, and there are a lot of Indians. How many are on H-1B? I I don't know. Anyway, I am a life long Democrat, but the Democratic Party needs to do something huge for American workers (like single payer healthcare) or we'll have Trump III or its equivalent or worse than that.
    - dudul 7mo ago
      I don't think "American workers" are the target demographic of the Democratic Party though. And yes, the next round will be "worse than Trump". The reality is Trump ran on certain principles that his voters adhered to, and he didn't deliver. The next logical step will be to support somebody even more "extreme".
      - moshegramovsky 7mo ago
        Unfortunately, you are 100% correct. Trump was never going to deliver because he's the living, breathing embodiment of two things: Dunning-Kruger, and the ethos of disgusting corporate greed/abuse that's ruining the country. Trump and people like him are the most dangerous anti-democratic force ever assembled in America.
civitas_ 7mo ago
[dead]
alephnerd 7mo ago
Meanwhile this March we saw 15k manufacturing jobs, 26k construction jobs, and 91k healthcare and education jobs added [0]. Those are the voters that matter (unionized, geographically spread out, didn't price everyone else out via remote work) - not SWEs. [0] - https://www.ft.com/content/82c1795b-704a-4da3-82ec-2f9cd52de01e https://www.ft.com/content/82c1795b-704a-4da3-82ec-2f9cd52de...
- dominotw 7mo ago
  construction, hospital nurses and daycare workers are the avialble jobs? so depressing and scary
  - guzfip 7mo ago
    Yeah you don’t want to work 60+ hours a week to be even remotely close to what you were making before?
    - alephnerd 7mo ago
      > Yeah you don’t want to work 60+ hours a week These are union jobs where hours worked don't extend beyond 50 hours including overtime and with significantly lower barrier to entry compared to software. Why should American SWEs earn more than Accountants (around $80k), Teachers (around $70k), or Mechanical Engineers (around $80k)? It's this kind of attitude that makes non-techies feel schadenfreude. Techies moan and moan, yet in reality we became the capital elite - a median TC of $190K [0] does make you the capital elite in a country where the median household income is $80k [1]. Even investment bankers have a similar TC to SWEs [2] - especially if you don't work for a Bulge Bracket or Elite Boutique. [0] - https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/united-states https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/united-... [1] - https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2025/demo/p60-286.html https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2025/demo/p60-28... [2] - https://www.levels.fyi/t/investment-banker?countryId=254&country=254 https://www.levels.fyi/t/investment-banker?countryId=254&cou...
      - 7mo ago
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kstrauser 7mo ago
No. Abso-f'ing-lutely not, no way, no how. You cannot force me to believe that the talent they're looking for isn't available here already.
- midnightclubbed 7mo ago
  Until maybe 2 years ago absolutely. Huge demand for tech workers and not enough smart US workers to fill the roles… lots of low quality candidates from crappy colleges but anyone with skills or smarts (and not unreasonable salary expectations) got a job. Since the ai data center cash suck the jobs have dried up… ai productivity gains maybe too, although we’re waiting to see meaningful results there. From a recruitment perspective it’s still difficult to find experienced candidates with specific skill sets because any job openings get flooded with 10,000 ai generated slop applications that have to be screened by ai and the 10 excellent candidates get lost.
  - smsm42 7mo ago
    In my observation, job market wasn't great even before ai. AI made it worse by clogging existing channels - already not that great - with a ton of slop.
deleted 7mo ago
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throwatdem12311 7mo ago
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- motbus3 7mo ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pj_mukh https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pj_mukh You didn't even try to read the comments to get a context. You assumed you were being attacked and you need to hate immigrants. You are just being manipulated.
  - kypro 7mo ago
    > Federal data shows the tech giant filed for over 3,000 foreign worker visas as it cuts thousands of American jobs. Just trying to understand what context you feel is relevant here... Even if Oracle is also firing people in India the idea that no American can do these jobs in the US should be challenged. Let's assume they do need extremely specialised skills for these roles and are struggling to find those skills in a highly educated country like the US so need to look for employees in countries like India, the question you should then be asking is, well, if they couldn't hire from abroad what would they do instead? Perhaps they would need to give someone who recently graduated a chance? Perhaps they would try to train people working in adjacent fields at Oracle? Maybe they would increase the salary so American's with these skills employed elsewhere would switch jobs? So can you steal-man why I should be in favour of companies hiring abroad given there are clearly smart and educated people in the US who are looking for work or might be tempted to work for Oracle if they offered better salaries or training? Can you explain the advantage to the US workers in allowing this?
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  - throwatdem12311 7mo ago
    > you need to hate immigrants Oracle is immigrants?
- OptionOfT 7mo ago
  And every employer that says they can't find talent fits in the same bucket for me. There is no issue finding talent. There is only an issue finding talent that is willing to work for the too-low pay you're willing to pay.
QGQBGdeZREunxLe 7mo ago
It's always puzzled me that layoffs don't result in a temporary bar from using the H1B system like it does for filing PERMs with the DoL.
- orochimaaru 7mo ago
  The H1B has “speciality” categories. You can lay off in one “speciality” while hiring for others. It’s silly but that’s how it’s setup at the moment. I agree with you. The category list in H1B needs to be trimmed. So that companies have less wiggle room for things like this. The layoffs were also worldwide. Not sure what the impact to US workers was. India was hit hard.
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- PearlRiver 7mo ago
  The US only has two political parties and they are both, secretly, pro immigration. The EU is actually clamping down on it because of populist/far right parties. I know someone who runs a Thai restaurant and he cannot fly in a cook from Asia. He has to find someone from Europe.
  - junofan 7mo ago
    To be fair the US is pro-immigration and that’s no secret. H1-B is a guest worker visa. Those jobs could equally go to immigrants.
    - hash872 7mo ago
      No, H1-B is a dual intent visa- working and a path to a Green Card. It's always been that way
zombot 7mo ago
The MAGA crowd will be ecstatic. They get fired while their president's buddy gets to hire new workers that are cheaper and more susceptible to extortion. Be careful what you vote for.
- motbus3 7mo ago
  Well... If they fact check stuff... The layoffs didn't happen in America https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pj_mukh https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pj_mukh
  - ipaddr 7mo ago
    3,000 Indians were laid off out of 15,000.
- Dig1t 7mo ago
  There was no option to vote for which was actually pro-worker. The other side is just as in-favor of these "high skilled" visas, and also even more pro mass-migration of all kinds. The previous admin sued Texas and Arizona to take down their border walls, and sent forklifts to literally open the barbed wire at the border. There is no evidence that the alternative party would have done anything about this issue. It is obvious that both parties are completely detached from the interests of their constituents.
  - moshegramovsky 7mo ago
    You're definitely not wrong but I still voted for Kamala because I didn't want Trump to burn the country down.
  - NickC25 7mo ago
    We've had the opportunity to have EVerify as federal minimum standard to employment for nearly 4 decades, and it's been shot down multiple times by both parties.
- moshegramovsky 7mo ago
  That's MAGA for you. They're not even complaining (very much) about super high gas prices. They absolutely excoriated Biden when the price went up even a nickel. MAGA will sacrifice absolutely anything for their king.
reenorap 7mo ago
The title is extremely deceitful. They filed H1Bs for 2025 and 2026, but not after or during the layoffs from last week. That’s like saying “Oracle hires tens of thousands and mass layoffs” (* hired during the pandemic)
- SlinkyOnStairs 7mo ago
  > They filed H1Bs for 2025 and 2026, but not after or during the layoffs from last week These kinds of layoffs don't just happen on a whim, certainly aren't supposed to. Oracle's business conditions really didn't change that much over the past year. It's perfectly reasonable to retroactively question a company's choice to hire immigrant workers relatively shortly before layoffs.
  - thesmtsolver2 7mo ago
    The AI world is moving incredibly fast. A lot of SaaS company valuations are down. You can’t honestly say Oracle is operating in the same conditions as last year.
lateforwork 7mo ago
Keep in mind that employers have to pay $100,000 in visa fees (in addition to competitive salaries) for each H-1B visa. Clearly these immigrants are not undercutting US workers. It is $100K cheaper to hire a US worker.
- VectorLock 7mo ago
  Unless they get waivers, which I'm sure Larry has worked out with his buddy.
- ibero 7mo ago
  to clear up confusion, this 100k applies to brand new h1b petitions outside the country. if you are already in the US it currently does not apply to you, or if you are transferring jobs with an existing h1b, or renewing your h1b. source: former h1b side note: as of february it’s estimated only 85 h1b petitions paid the 100k fee. the rest did not fall under the qualification. https://www.staffingindustry.com/news/global-daily-news/100000-fee-for-h-1b-visas-brings-in-85m-as-of-mid-february https://www.staffingindustry.com/news/global-daily-news/1000...
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smetannik 7mo ago
Did oracle manage to circumvent 100k payment per H1B applicant? Also, why they need to do H1B instead of just outsourcing abroad?
jinglebell2025 7mo ago
[flagged]
hackthemack 7mo ago
I find the topic of the morality or effectiveness of having a H-1B a little bit intractable to reason about rationally. Consider a simplified model of the system. You have 2 countries, C1 and C2. Scenario 1: C1 has enough demand for 100 tech jobs. C1 only has 50 qualified natives for 100 tech jobs. The wages of C1 go up because there is more demand than supply. Scenario 2: C1 has enough demand for 100 tech jobs. C1 only has 50 qualified natives for 100 tech jobs. Now you put in a H1-B visa program that will pay the same as the prevalent wage as a local native. C2 has enough candidates to fill the other 50 positions. The wages of C1 will NOT go up because now supply matches demand. Is Scenario 2 fair? Who gets to decide what fair is? Given the above system, I think I would argue that H1-B visa programs cause wage deflation in C1, even if it is filling jobs that would not be filled and even if the jobs paid the exact same as someone working in the native country. I am not dogmatic about that though. Willing to hear a counterpoint to scenario 2.
- finolex1 7mo ago
  It's not so simple because: 1. Companies can hire overseas. There's some cost to it in terms of added friction, but if wages rise enough in C1, then it's worth the friction to hire in C2 instead. 2. Workers also consume and invest, raising demand for other jobs. Employment is not a zero sum game, especially at the macro scale.
- midnightclubbed 7mo ago
  Scenario 2 now has country C1 with 100 tech workers, and they got their pick of the 50 best workers from (lower paying) country 2. Country 1 is now a better place to start a new company or expand your existing company because all the best workers in the field work in country 1. Starting the same business in country 2 will almost certainly fail. This is literally why the Bay Area became the world’s most important tech hub and isolationism will allow (and is allowing) Chinese tech to jump ahead of the US. The government doesn’t care about losing a literal arms race, largely to reduce the political power of California. By no longer educating and welcoming the world’s brightest engineers the USA is going to be reduced to support and manufacturing roles where its large workforce will have to compete with everyone else and salaries will tumble.
- 7mo ago
MrWiffles 7mo ago
What I’m not clear on - how many of these H1B hires are subject to the EO that jacked up the fee to $100k per person? Assuming even just 100 of them were, that’s still ten million USD (assuming I didn’t visualize the zeroes in my head wrong…), and a really large fee to justify to the board if you’re otherwise paying “roughly the same” in salary. Productivity is going to basically break even anyway after a few years. This is why I’m wondering: did the EO get blocked, paused for judicial review or something? Is it even in effect? No intention to make this political, I’m legitimately curious about the status of the law and its actual applicability here. Supposed to be such a steep fine they literally couldn’t afford to do this - not with them already going cash flow negative to build out AI datacenters. So either it’s not applying (why?) or somehow they’re justifying one HUGE fee and somebody is floating them one astronomical loan - which again, why? Where’s the profit in taking that big a risk? Seems absolutely unhinged! We’re missing something here. Or, at least, I am.
- deleted 7mo ago
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- suid 7mo ago
  Remember that there was a "one-time fee" exception for "favored clients" (read: friends of Trump), who could pay a single lump-sum of something like $1 million, and then apply for unlimited H-1B's at the old fee structure.
  - MrWiffles 7mo ago
    I was not aware of this loophole. Thank you. I’ve got some strong opinions but I’m just going to keep those to myself right now. And my dog. She’ll hear me as I scream profanities into the void…
    - declan_roberts 7mo ago
      The loophole does not exist. He's pulling it out of his arse.
emodendroket 7mo ago
All of these companies are hiring constantly even as they do layoffs so this is an easy story to write every time there are layoffs.
BeetleB 7mo ago
To all the folks here complaining that there is plenty of talent in the US to fill those roles: Honestly tell me: Would you ever apply to Oracle for a job?
- throwaway613746 7mo ago
  [dead]
- avidiax 7mo ago
  I actually have applied, and I got the offer. And I didn't take it. Because Oracle is known for poor working conditions. Why can Oracle continue to hire good talent despite offering poor working conditions? H1-B. Is it circular? Absolutely. There really should be a strict maximum percentage of visa hires for any particular job type at a company. Say, 2x the overall average for that job category, and never to exceed 30%. If they still need more labor, then they need to attract and train local talent rather than relying solely on overseas talent.
  - declan_roberts 7mo ago
    They have no incentive to improve their compensation and working conditions while they can import unlimited indentured servants from poor countries.
  - ghighi7878 7mo ago
    Do you think they would instead shift to India if these measures continue. The talent is there. 80% of the for talent is currently in US due to H1b but will move back to India. And it might be cheaper to just shift offices to India
    - 0x1ceb00da 7mo ago
      No way. Because then the executives will have to move to india as well.
      - 7mo ago
fooker 7mo ago
This article is deliberately written in a way to aggravate people who do not understand how the visa process works.
thumbsup-_- 7mo ago
Most of these would just be visa renewals. Though it wouldn’t be click bait enough to mention in article title
- dudul 7mo ago
  What is the difference with new visa applications? H1B are supposed to be temporary when a company can't find employees in the country. Renewals are not meant to be automatic.
  - thumbsup-_- 7mo ago
    Renewals for people who are already working for an employer. Renewals don’t require searching for an american employee. Also, h1-b is limited to 6 years (one renewal) unless I-140 (green card) has been filed for the employee. In which case, renewals become unlimited until green card is granted. For Indians the GC queue is nearly infinite, hence too many renewals.
    - dudul 7mo ago
      My question was rhetorical. Renewals shouldn't be treated differently from new applications in spirit. The H1B worker is meant to temporarily fill a gap. If there is available US talent, the H1B worker should leave and be replaced by a citizen/permanent resident.
ericye16 7mo ago
It's very sad how illiberal hackernews gets when it comes to H-1B visas and immigration in general. People will say that they are concerned about the welfare of H-1B holders because they can't leave their jobs but I've literally never heard anyone suggest an improvement (better portability, etc). Instead all anyone talks about is how bad it is that they have to compete against people from around the world. I think people are just afraid of a true meritocracy and maybe that's a bearish signal for the industry overall.
- dudul 7mo ago
  That's a silly comment. A simple search would show you that commenters often highlight that H1B are used to "chain" temporary workers to their job. And in past years, many called for changes to allow H1B workers to change jobs more easily. However, we are not in the same economy we were 5 years ago. The job market is very tough and the H1B program makes less sense every day. Why would Americans have to compete with the rest of the world exactly? The purpose of a country is to serve and protect its citizens first, not become a giant open bar for the entirety of humanity.
- Der_Einzige 7mo ago
  Correct.
- remarkEon 7mo ago
  Bizarre and entitled comment. It is not a human right to immigrate to the United States. The government here is supposed to set policies that are for the betterment of people who are from here. It’s not anti meritocracy to observe that it’s insane and stupid to pretend that every college grad in the United States needs to compete, in their own home country, with a billion people from India and China for work. The only “illiberal” thing I notice when this topic comes up here is that people seem to think the laws of supply and demand don’t apply when we talk about immigration, and thus there’s no effect on wages (wrong). Something must’ve changed, though, since that sentiment is mostly absent in this thread.
pvelagal 7mo ago
H1B is used to hire the best talent that gets paid big bucks as well as cheap talent that is paid less. Both are true. It depends on the company. I haven't seen Google or FB or Amazon or other top tech companies pay H1B any less. They get paid pretty well. But firing people (some might be on H1B too) and hiring H1B at the same time is meaningless. Btw, if you want to stop people from getting fired, J Powell needs to be fired. He is keeping interest rates high for any sort of hiring. These same companies hired like crazy during 0% interest rate environment.
- midnightclubbed 7mo ago
  Lowering interest rates to juice the economy is done when unemployment rises … which hasn’t happened yet in the wider economy. Juiced economy and free cash is what led to massive inflation. Powell is trying to save hay until winter - when we get a recession the interest rates cuts are the only knob he has to turn to soften the blow.
  - pvelagal 6mo ago
    He inflated the market on purpose for longer than needed. Every economist was screaming to stop and he also played games during elections by lowering interest rate when it was not needed. This only resulted in rates being higher for longer.
- bushbaba 7mo ago
  I've worked at Google and Amazon. Both paid H-1B less than their american counterparts. In particular because the H-1B workers didn't jump companies as frequent.
  - pvelagal 6mo ago
    All H1B salaries are posted online. First of thats the law. Google , Facebook etc all post salaries of every H1B application. The salaries are always in top 5% of Software engineering salaries. You are making stuff up or ignorant of H1B process.
neoz 7mo ago
Oracle laid off 12,000 people in India as well. What is this news on about? If all they wanted was cheap labor, why would they fire people in India and then also bring H-1B from overseas and pay them more? This is just ragebait.
givemeethekeys 7mo ago
Lawnmower strikes again.
renewiltord 7mo ago
All foreigners, pay attention to the people in this thread. They will often ask you to form unions with them. But what would such a union do? Well logically it would do what these people are asking them to do. And what do you see around you? Does it look like they're in favour of you. Do you think you'd be better off? Remember that the Hyundai workers in Georgia were deported at the best of the local union. Right now, foreigners are a large portion of this field's workforce. If you are to join with a union, you will rapidly find that it absorbs the remainder of the workforce through being "a union shop". You will rapidly find that such a union will expand to include all these people. And then they will ask for you to be deported. It wouldn't be the first time. The reason Chinese and Indians couldn't be citizens for a long time is because the predecessor to today's AFL-CIO lobbied to block that. Choose wisely. The danger is looking you right in the face and saying "I am the danger".
- Der_Einzige 7mo ago
  Yup. Being a supporter of unions means being the opposite of a supporter of globalism. I’m a globalist and fully understand modern disliking of unions.
  - renewiltord 7mo ago
    It wouldn’t be the first time that “labour” found itself completely undone through idealistic foolishness. Bernie Sanders wants to end the H-1B with no replacement lined up. Labor was slain by the Ayatollah in Iran.
    - remarkEon 7mo ago
      I’m confused, why would we need a replacement for the H-1B “lined up”? The O-1 visa already exists.
      - renewiltord 7mo ago
        If you’re a foreigner, pay attention to this commenter. He is fairly typical of who your fellow union member will be if you decide to join a union. If you are on a H-1B note that you will have to leave. Understand carefully the consequences of joining a union. Once empowered this is what will happen to you. Keep your eyes wide open. Remember what the Ayatollah did to his young anti-shah allies.
dgrin91 7mo ago
What I don't get is, how does this economically make sense? Isn't there a 100k fee for h1bs now? So 3k h1bs would cost $300 Mil... Before you even start paying salary
youknownothing 7mo ago
This is unnecessarily incendiary, didn't get passed the first paragraph because this is so misleading: > Oracle [...] has filed thousands of petitions for H-1B visas in the past two fiscal years, even as it lays off thousands of American workers Oracle is laying off workers of _all_ nationalities, not just Americans. I know people at Oracle with H1B visas that were laid off. Trying to paint it as if they're replacing Americans with foreigners is just unnecessary fear mongering.
dwa3592 7mo ago
Misleading title. People who are wondering about $100k fee- it only applies if you are bringing people from overseas for this job; meaning if an immigrant is already in the country (eg: on a student visa), they don't have to pay $100k. It's just a visa change for them. There have also been murmurs about pay-to-play system, not sure how it works though. People who got pissed reading the title- majority of the visas sponsored were last year and not last week's layoffs.
frugalmail 7mo ago
Sounds like Trump needs to add a $200k/yr premium to each H1B
intensifier 7mo ago
They both happened in separate timeline. Headline is misleading.
e40 7mo ago
I need to bookmark this so when maga nuts claim this never happens I have ready proof.
ojbyrne 7mo ago
it would probably be useful to know how many of the current layoffs were people on H-1Bs.
Bratmon 6mo ago
Abolish the H1B. Now.
ryguz 6mo ago
[dead]

521 points by kklisura 7mo ago

I personally think that doing a layoff of more than 2% of your workforce or 1000 people, whichever is high, should restrict you from filing for a work visa for a period of 3 years. Or you can buy your way out of that restriction by paying each laid off worker 3 years of wages. Pick one.

pm90 7mo ago

Oracle is a large company. Many of those laid off were outside the US. This is a non-story.

OrvalWintermute 7mo ago
Not sure this is truly the “Oracle VP of Workforce Economics” posting on X, but it makes a good thread: https://x.com/gothburz/status/2040142920674656482?s=46 https://x.com/gothburz/status/2040142920674656482?s=46

jrkfofjw 7mo ago

Don't worry, Trump is in Ellison's pocket so this will go through.

OrvalWintermute 7mo ago

H1B is generally a giant scam of Labor Arbitrage

cmiles8 7mo ago

I would expect further H1B crackdowns coming. The $100k fee was just the start.

toomuchtodo 7mo ago
Good. Call your reps and ask for more action.
idiotsecant 7mo ago
I would absolutely not expect this, especially as long as Oracle and all the other technofeudalists are properly paying their taxes to the count and king.
- moshegramovsky 7mo ago
  By taxes, do you mean buying Trump's crypto?
afavour 7mo ago
I disagree, I think the $100k fee was a deliberate move to make sure the yearly allocation is only available to large companies like Oracle and out of reach of smaller startups. Despite the rhetoric the administration is very friendly to big business and will absolutely help them hire cheaply. Larry Ellison especially.
Hamuko 7mo ago
Isn’t Larry friends with the administration?
qwertyuiop_ 7mo ago
USCIS says they competed the 2027 quota. Is there any evidence all enrolled paid $100k this year ?
- trollbridge 7mo ago
  I would assume many were change-of-status from F-1 / OPT etc.
  - QGQBGdeZREunxLe 7mo ago
    The giant gaping loophole they left in place. Renewals and COS (change of status) does not incur the $100k fee.
    - cute_boi 7mo ago
      Then the H-1B wouldn’t make sense. Many holders would have to transfer from one company to another, and if there is a $100,000 requirement, it would just lead to exploitation. The better solution is just stop H1B lottery from next year.
      - bushbaba 7mo ago
        They should remove the lottery and make it a bidding war. Highest bidder gets the H-1B visas. Realistically, the H-1B visa program should be terminated all together.
Dig1t 7mo ago
Sadly I think you're wrong on this one. Trump's donors benefit from H1B cheap labor. Musk, Elison, etc contributed large sums to Trump's campaign. Just look at Musk's "fuck your own face" tweets from Dec 2024 and you'll see how the people with power feel about this issue. As usual the middle class is being squeezed by the oligarchy. The 100k fee basically does nothing to curb H1B cheap labor. It's a one-time fee, and when you realize that H1B's can't easily leave their job, it's a fee that easily pays for itself. H1B's are paid less for the same job (just google "are H1B's paid less"), and since they can't easily leave, the reduced turnover saves them money as well. If you think that an employee is likely to stay for 4 years, that's only 25k per year and the fact that they are paid about 15%-20% less than an American, the equation still easily comes out in favor of importing the cheap labor. It was a move crafted to look like it was cracking down on abuse, but not actually cause any real pain to the companies abusing the system. Hence why all these mega corps are still filing for H1B's even while laying off their American citizen workers.
- naveen99 7mo ago
  I thought the $100k h1b fee is annual
  - Dig1t 7mo ago
    It was announced as such, but the administration quietly issued an update the day after it was announced “clarifying” that it was actually a one-time fee.
dudul 7mo ago
Absolutely not. The current administration had a chance to do something really radical and they just completely fumbled it. They won't reopen this file.
- declan_roberts 7mo ago
  Every administration until this one has had a chance to do something about h1b and didn't do jack. At least this administration is doing SOMETHING.
  - dudul 7mo ago
    They barely did anything. They could have done something great. They could have ended the program all together, they could have put a serious cap on it, they could have made the $100k fee a yearly fee, etc But no, they did virtually nothing. I would even be surprised if more than 100 companies paid the one time $100k fee at this point with all the loopholes that were included.
fooker 7mo ago
The government is not the friend you think it is. All the new regulations (carefully presented as crackdown) make it easier for large companies to hire immigrants in a more reliable way. All carefully choreographed by big tech. The chances of a specific company being able to sponsor a specific employee through this year's lottery went by significantly (3-4x) compared to the last several years.
declan_roberts 7mo ago
Gosh I hope this is true!

slau 7mo ago

I hate Oracle as much as the next guy, but this seems like a nothingburger. Oracle didn’t file “thousands of H1Bs”. Oracle filed 2690 applications in FY2025 (Oct-Sep), and so far filed 436 in FY2026, according to the article. If anything, this would indicate that Oracle slowed down on hiring foreign workforce. Oct-Mar is half of Oracle’s fiscal year, but they only filed 16% of the H1B applications as in 2025? That seems in line with a hiring freeze and subsequent layoff.

rdtsc 7mo ago

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"

toomuchtodo 7mo ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44880832 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44880832 https://www.jobs.now/ https://www.jobs.now/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44892321 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44892321
- rdtsc 7mo ago
  I remember seeing it on HN but didn't know if would still be up. Glad it's still going. Thanks!
pj_mukh 7mo ago
Just to cut through the headline here. The largest chunk of Oracle layoffs were in India [1]. In comparison, they've barely fired any American workers. Contrary to popular opinion, IT workers aren't interchangeable and there exist a large swath of jobs that very few people qualify for (HN should know this) because of the specialization required. America is at near full employment [2]. Replacing American workers with lower paid foreign workers is already illegal and frequently enforced[3]. This is such a deep distraction but a virulent virus of a narrative, surgically designed to needle our reptilian minds. [1]: https://www.goodreturns.in/news/tech-layoffs-2025-oracle-cuts-jobs-in-india-us-mexico-indian-employees-in-bangalore-pune-hyderabad-w-1449645.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://www.goodreturns.in/news/tech-layoffs-2025-oracle-cut... [2]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/269959/employment-in-the-united-states/?srsltid=AfmBOoq_VmKuqONf8D4Z-XYB7E23IeUALWggq_Z3DX7Vc8DuIeVMiHNJ https://www.statista.com/statistics/269959/employment-in-the... [3]: https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20180501-2 https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20180501-2, https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20180501-2 https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20180501-2

sva_ 7mo ago

They have many departments, and are probably reducing some of them while increasing the workforce in others. The idea that they hire 'those damn foreigners' to push down wages is probably true to some degree, but not the whole story. I also don't believe the majority of these H1B are directly hired in other countries for which there is now a $100k fee, but rather people who studied in the US under F1 visa who are exempt from this rule.

calculatte 7mo ago
What magical skills do the "damn foreigners" have that none of those 30,000 laid off employees don't have? What was the intent of the H1B? To find skills that don't exist in this country. What is H1B actually used for? Labor arbitrage, nepotism, kickbacks. There's really no excuse for defending it anymore.
- moshegramovsky 7mo ago
  H-1B exists to make unfathomably rich corporations and people even more unfathomably rich. That's the only reason. That's why we don't have single payer. How can corporations function if employees don't equate job loss with total economic and social ruin?
  - motbus3 7mo ago
    Not necessarily. Many of the technological revolution started with refugees and immigrants before, during and after ww2. And technically you should even count the NZ that were brought to create the rocket programs Anyway, I feel that you need read this guy comment https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pj_mukh https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pj_mukh
    - moshegramovsky 7mo ago
      I appreciate the information. However, labor Arbitrage affects millions of American workers. It probably affects tens of millions. I just cannot fathom that companies today have any positive ethical reasons for wanting to participate. It gives them another stick to use against both groups of workers. Also, H-1B was started in 1990, so well after World War II.

simianwords 7mo ago

This whole H1B debacle tells me that people don't like it when employees are not fungible but this sentiment only exists selectively. The H1B i140 petition thing requires you to advertise the job before submitting the petition. How does this work if the employee is not fungible?

some_random 7mo ago
You advertise in small circulation newspapers, I thought this was well known.
- RachelF 7mo ago
  Another trick I've seen on LinkedIn is job applications open from 12:00 am to 12:01 am. The employer can legally say they advertized the job and had no applicants and need an H1B employee.
  - dwa3592 7mo ago
    that's not how it works- they have to have the petition up for a period of time for it be considered valid.
cyberax 7mo ago
> The H1B i140 petition thing requires you to advertise the job before submitting the petition. You're confusing things. I-140 is a green card application, not H1B. H1B petition requires the I-129 form and an LCA from the DoL. No advertisement is required, except posting the LCAs in a conspicuous place in the company office.
dudul 7mo ago
You don't know what you are talking about. I-140 is not for H1B. It is very easy to fulfill the "muh we tried to hire! Nobody wants to work!" fake criteria to be able to apply for an H1B.

timedude 7mo ago

[flagged]

mikert89 7mo ago

Where did my standard of living go? Couldnt possibly have to do with imported labor working around the clock under the threat of being kicked out of the country

maest 7mo ago
Cheap labour producing goods for the native population at low costs should increase your standard of living, no? It makes the products you buy cheaper. By your logic, if you were the only person in the country, you'd live like a king.
- toasty228 7mo ago
  That's way too naive, prices never go down, the owner pockets the difference, you pay the same, and once they come to your industry you have more competition
- sapphicsnail 7mo ago
  Companies are importing labor so they can avoid pay competitive wages to native workers. If you need to hire people from other countries they should have the same pay and protections as everyone else.
- skippyboxedhero 7mo ago
  By your logic, slavery was one of the finest economic policies. Cheap labour, how about free labour? Have we thought of that? Everything would just be free. In the real world, the evidence is obvious: average productivity/wages drop, incentive to invest in labour-saving technology disappears, and you get multiple decades of stagnation. Every country which had unlimited, unfree labour has had decades of slow growth as a result. Income growth in the working age population in the US since 1990 has been about the same as Japan, a country which is widely regarded as on the verge of economic collapse. US per capita income is probably 20-30% lower than it would be with first-order effects from immigration, likely much more with second order effects. Under any other circumstances with economic policy elsewhere, the US economy would be growing 7%/year now (and ofc, the answer for Japan's ills is apparently, you guessed, lots of immigration). China is seeing secular reductions in production costs because of capital investment, not low wages. The peculiarly statist notion of American capitalists that the route to economic supremacy was large numbers of illiterate Guatemalans should go down as not only an economic failure but a moral one (equally of H1B).

reducesuffering 7mo ago

If you want to hire an H1B and claim there is no American to do that job, what about the 30k employees you just laid off? None of them can do the software engineering, sales, HR, etc. that a company like Oracle works on 99% of the time? It's quite schizophrenic for basic engineering companies like Oracle, Cisco, eBay, Paypal, etc. to claim there are no Americans to do the software engineering they require after they lay off thousands and there are millions of American software engineers looking for work.

marcher 7mo ago
Schizophrenic?
dominotw 7mo ago
lots ppl are confused in this comment section. h1b doesnt not require looking for a local first.
- prerok 7mo ago
  Sorry what? Yes, they do. Second-hand knowledge, though.
  - sunnyps 7mo ago
    No, the requirement is that the job is for a speciality occupation and that the H1B be paid the prevailing wage for that job, not that there was an attempt to hire locally first. For an I-140 PERM (employment based green card) however the requirement is that there was an effort made to hire locally first. Most people on HN are uninformed about this, well actually uninformed in general.
    - remarkEon 7mo ago
      The jobs filled via H-1B are not “specialty” positions, everyone knows this. I know that’s what the visa is ostensibly supposed to be used for, but it’s a very silly thing to pretend at this stage. I agree that many are uninformed on this, and my friends who don’t work in tech think someone on an H-1B visa is like a “particle physics PhD” or something, and not “database administrator” or “backend engineer”.

moshegramovsky 7mo ago

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 abusive to both pools of workers. The whole thing really feels like another example of the imbalance between labor and capital in the US. Who originally wanted H-1B/etc? Rich people with money and power? Of course!

dominotw 7mo ago
workers dont. but dont speak against it either because they are scared of losing heir jobs from accusations of racism.
- moshegramovsky 7mo ago
  I work in Bellevue, WA, and there are a lot of Indians. How many are on H-1B? I I don't know. Anyway, I am a life long Democrat, but the Democratic Party needs to do something huge for American workers (like single payer healthcare) or we'll have Trump III or its equivalent or worse than that.
  - dudul 7mo ago
    I don't think "American workers" are the target demographic of the Democratic Party though. And yes, the next round will be "worse than Trump". The reality is Trump ran on certain principles that his voters adhered to, and he didn't deliver. The next logical step will be to support somebody even more "extreme".
    - moshegramovsky 7mo ago
      Unfortunately, you are 100% correct. Trump was never going to deliver because he's the living, breathing embodiment of two things: Dunning-Kruger, and the ethos of disgusting corporate greed/abuse that's ruining the country. Trump and people like him are the most dangerous anti-democratic force ever assembled in America.

civitas_ 7mo ago

[dead]

alephnerd 7mo ago

Meanwhile this March we saw 15k manufacturing jobs, 26k construction jobs, and 91k healthcare and education jobs added [0]. Those are the voters that matter (unionized, geographically spread out, didn't price everyone else out via remote work) - not SWEs. [0] - https://www.ft.com/content/82c1795b-704a-4da3-82ec-2f9cd52de01e https://www.ft.com/content/82c1795b-704a-4da3-82ec-2f9cd52de...

dominotw 7mo ago
construction, hospital nurses and daycare workers are the avialble jobs? so depressing and scary
- guzfip 7mo ago
  Yeah you don’t want to work 60+ hours a week to be even remotely close to what you were making before?
  - alephnerd 7mo ago
    > Yeah you don’t want to work 60+ hours a week These are union jobs where hours worked don't extend beyond 50 hours including overtime and with significantly lower barrier to entry compared to software. Why should American SWEs earn more than Accountants (around $80k), Teachers (around $70k), or Mechanical Engineers (around $80k)? It's this kind of attitude that makes non-techies feel schadenfreude. Techies moan and moan, yet in reality we became the capital elite - a median TC of $190K [0] does make you the capital elite in a country where the median household income is $80k [1]. Even investment bankers have a similar TC to SWEs [2] - especially if you don't work for a Bulge Bracket or Elite Boutique. [0] - https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/united-states https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/united-... [1] - https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2025/demo/p60-286.html https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2025/demo/p60-28... [2] - https://www.levels.fyi/t/investment-banker?countryId=254&country=254 https://www.levels.fyi/t/investment-banker?countryId=254&cou...
    - 7mo ago

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kstrauser 7mo ago

No. Abso-f'ing-lutely not, no way, no how. You cannot force me to believe that the talent they're looking for isn't available here already.

midnightclubbed 7mo ago
Until maybe 2 years ago absolutely. Huge demand for tech workers and not enough smart US workers to fill the roles… lots of low quality candidates from crappy colleges but anyone with skills or smarts (and not unreasonable salary expectations) got a job. Since the ai data center cash suck the jobs have dried up… ai productivity gains maybe too, although we’re waiting to see meaningful results there. From a recruitment perspective it’s still difficult to find experienced candidates with specific skill sets because any job openings get flooded with 10,000 ai generated slop applications that have to be screened by ai and the 10 excellent candidates get lost.
- smsm42 7mo ago
  In my observation, job market wasn't great even before ai. AI made it worse by clogging existing channels - already not that great - with a ton of slop.

deleted 7mo ago

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throwatdem12311 7mo ago

[flagged]

motbus3 7mo ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pj_mukh https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pj_mukh You didn't even try to read the comments to get a context. You assumed you were being attacked and you need to hate immigrants. You are just being manipulated.
- kypro 7mo ago
  > Federal data shows the tech giant filed for over 3,000 foreign worker visas as it cuts thousands of American jobs. Just trying to understand what context you feel is relevant here... Even if Oracle is also firing people in India the idea that no American can do these jobs in the US should be challenged. Let's assume they do need extremely specialised skills for these roles and are struggling to find those skills in a highly educated country like the US so need to look for employees in countries like India, the question you should then be asking is, well, if they couldn't hire from abroad what would they do instead? Perhaps they would need to give someone who recently graduated a chance? Perhaps they would try to train people working in adjacent fields at Oracle? Maybe they would increase the salary so American's with these skills employed elsewhere would switch jobs? So can you steal-man why I should be in favour of companies hiring abroad given there are clearly smart and educated people in the US who are looking for work or might be tempted to work for Oracle if they offered better salaries or training? Can you explain the advantage to the US workers in allowing this?
- deleted 7mo ago
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- throwatdem12311 7mo ago
  > you need to hate immigrants Oracle is immigrants?
OptionOfT 7mo ago
And every employer that says they can't find talent fits in the same bucket for me. There is no issue finding talent. There is only an issue finding talent that is willing to work for the too-low pay you're willing to pay.

QGQBGdeZREunxLe 7mo ago

It's always puzzled me that layoffs don't result in a temporary bar from using the H1B system like it does for filing PERMs with the DoL.

orochimaaru 7mo ago
The H1B has “speciality” categories. You can lay off in one “speciality” while hiring for others. It’s silly but that’s how it’s setup at the moment. I agree with you. The category list in H1B needs to be trimmed. So that companies have less wiggle room for things like this. The layoffs were also worldwide. Not sure what the impact to US workers was. India was hit hard.
- deleted 7mo ago
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PearlRiver 7mo ago
The US only has two political parties and they are both, secretly, pro immigration. The EU is actually clamping down on it because of populist/far right parties. I know someone who runs a Thai restaurant and he cannot fly in a cook from Asia. He has to find someone from Europe.
- junofan 7mo ago
  To be fair the US is pro-immigration and that’s no secret. H1-B is a guest worker visa. Those jobs could equally go to immigrants.
  - hash872 7mo ago
    No, H1-B is a dual intent visa- working and a path to a Green Card. It's always been that way

zombot 7mo ago

The MAGA crowd will be ecstatic. They get fired while their president's buddy gets to hire new workers that are cheaper and more susceptible to extortion. Be careful what you vote for.

motbus3 7mo ago
Well... If they fact check stuff... The layoffs didn't happen in America https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pj_mukh https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pj_mukh
- ipaddr 7mo ago
  3,000 Indians were laid off out of 15,000.
Dig1t 7mo ago
There was no option to vote for which was actually pro-worker. The other side is just as in-favor of these "high skilled" visas, and also even more pro mass-migration of all kinds. The previous admin sued Texas and Arizona to take down their border walls, and sent forklifts to literally open the barbed wire at the border. There is no evidence that the alternative party would have done anything about this issue. It is obvious that both parties are completely detached from the interests of their constituents.
- moshegramovsky 7mo ago
  You're definitely not wrong but I still voted for Kamala because I didn't want Trump to burn the country down.
- NickC25 7mo ago
  We've had the opportunity to have EVerify as federal minimum standard to employment for nearly 4 decades, and it's been shot down multiple times by both parties.
moshegramovsky 7mo ago
That's MAGA for you. They're not even complaining (very much) about super high gas prices. They absolutely excoriated Biden when the price went up even a nickel. MAGA will sacrifice absolutely anything for their king.

reenorap 7mo ago

The title is extremely deceitful. They filed H1Bs for 2025 and 2026, but not after or during the layoffs from last week. That’s like saying “Oracle hires tens of thousands and mass layoffs” (* hired during the pandemic)

SlinkyOnStairs 7mo ago
> They filed H1Bs for 2025 and 2026, but not after or during the layoffs from last week These kinds of layoffs don't just happen on a whim, certainly aren't supposed to. Oracle's business conditions really didn't change that much over the past year. It's perfectly reasonable to retroactively question a company's choice to hire immigrant workers relatively shortly before layoffs.
- thesmtsolver2 7mo ago
  The AI world is moving incredibly fast. A lot of SaaS company valuations are down. You can’t honestly say Oracle is operating in the same conditions as last year.

lateforwork 7mo ago

Keep in mind that employers have to pay $100,000 in visa fees (in addition to competitive salaries) for each H-1B visa. Clearly these immigrants are not undercutting US workers. It is $100K cheaper to hire a US worker.

VectorLock 7mo ago
Unless they get waivers, which I'm sure Larry has worked out with his buddy.
ibero 7mo ago
to clear up confusion, this 100k applies to brand new h1b petitions outside the country. if you are already in the US it currently does not apply to you, or if you are transferring jobs with an existing h1b, or renewing your h1b. source: former h1b side note: as of february it’s estimated only 85 h1b petitions paid the 100k fee. the rest did not fall under the qualification. https://www.staffingindustry.com/news/global-daily-news/100000-fee-for-h-1b-visas-brings-in-85m-as-of-mid-february https://www.staffingindustry.com/news/global-daily-news/1000...

deleted 7mo ago

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smetannik 7mo ago

Did oracle manage to circumvent 100k payment per H1B applicant? Also, why they need to do H1B instead of just outsourcing abroad?

jinglebell2025 7mo ago

[flagged]

hackthemack 7mo ago

I find the topic of the morality or effectiveness of having a H-1B a little bit intractable to reason about rationally. Consider a simplified model of the system. You have 2 countries, C1 and C2. Scenario 1: C1 has enough demand for 100 tech jobs. C1 only has 50 qualified natives for 100 tech jobs. The wages of C1 go up because there is more demand than supply. Scenario 2: C1 has enough demand for 100 tech jobs. C1 only has 50 qualified natives for 100 tech jobs. Now you put in a H1-B visa program that will pay the same as the prevalent wage as a local native. C2 has enough candidates to fill the other 50 positions. The wages of C1 will NOT go up because now supply matches demand. Is Scenario 2 fair? Who gets to decide what fair is? Given the above system, I think I would argue that H1-B visa programs cause wage deflation in C1, even if it is filling jobs that would not be filled and even if the jobs paid the exact same as someone working in the native country. I am not dogmatic about that though. Willing to hear a counterpoint to scenario 2.

finolex1 7mo ago
It's not so simple because: 1. Companies can hire overseas. There's some cost to it in terms of added friction, but if wages rise enough in C1, then it's worth the friction to hire in C2 instead. 2. Workers also consume and invest, raising demand for other jobs. Employment is not a zero sum game, especially at the macro scale.
midnightclubbed 7mo ago
Scenario 2 now has country C1 with 100 tech workers, and they got their pick of the 50 best workers from (lower paying) country 2. Country 1 is now a better place to start a new company or expand your existing company because all the best workers in the field work in country 1. Starting the same business in country 2 will almost certainly fail. This is literally why the Bay Area became the world’s most important tech hub and isolationism will allow (and is allowing) Chinese tech to jump ahead of the US. The government doesn’t care about losing a literal arms race, largely to reduce the political power of California. By no longer educating and welcoming the world’s brightest engineers the USA is going to be reduced to support and manufacturing roles where its large workforce will have to compete with everyone else and salaries will tumble.
7mo ago

MrWiffles 7mo ago

What I’m not clear on - how many of these H1B hires are subject to the EO that jacked up the fee to $100k per person? Assuming even just 100 of them were, that’s still ten million USD (assuming I didn’t visualize the zeroes in my head wrong…), and a really large fee to justify to the board if you’re otherwise paying “roughly the same” in salary. Productivity is going to basically break even anyway after a few years. This is why I’m wondering: did the EO get blocked, paused for judicial review or something? Is it even in effect? No intention to make this political, I’m legitimately curious about the status of the law and its actual applicability here. Supposed to be such a steep fine they literally couldn’t afford to do this - not with them already going cash flow negative to build out AI datacenters. So either it’s not applying (why?) or somehow they’re justifying one HUGE fee and somebody is floating them one astronomical loan - which again, why? Where’s the profit in taking that big a risk? Seems absolutely unhinged! We’re missing something here. Or, at least, I am.

deleted 7mo ago
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suid 7mo ago
Remember that there was a "one-time fee" exception for "favored clients" (read: friends of Trump), who could pay a single lump-sum of something like $1 million, and then apply for unlimited H-1B's at the old fee structure.
- MrWiffles 7mo ago
  I was not aware of this loophole. Thank you. I’ve got some strong opinions but I’m just going to keep those to myself right now. And my dog. She’ll hear me as I scream profanities into the void…
  - declan_roberts 7mo ago
    The loophole does not exist. He's pulling it out of his arse.

emodendroket 7mo ago

All of these companies are hiring constantly even as they do layoffs so this is an easy story to write every time there are layoffs.

BeetleB 7mo ago

To all the folks here complaining that there is plenty of talent in the US to fill those roles: Honestly tell me: Would you ever apply to Oracle for a job?

throwaway613746 7mo ago
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avidiax 7mo ago
I actually have applied, and I got the offer. And I didn't take it. Because Oracle is known for poor working conditions. Why can Oracle continue to hire good talent despite offering poor working conditions? H1-B. Is it circular? Absolutely. There really should be a strict maximum percentage of visa hires for any particular job type at a company. Say, 2x the overall average for that job category, and never to exceed 30%. If they still need more labor, then they need to attract and train local talent rather than relying solely on overseas talent.
- declan_roberts 7mo ago
  They have no incentive to improve their compensation and working conditions while they can import unlimited indentured servants from poor countries.
- ghighi7878 7mo ago
  Do you think they would instead shift to India if these measures continue. The talent is there. 80% of the for talent is currently in US due to H1b but will move back to India. And it might be cheaper to just shift offices to India
  - 0x1ceb00da 7mo ago
    No way. Because then the executives will have to move to india as well.
    - 7mo ago

fooker 7mo ago

This article is deliberately written in a way to aggravate people who do not understand how the visa process works.

thumbsup-_- 7mo ago

Most of these would just be visa renewals. Though it wouldn’t be click bait enough to mention in article title

dudul 7mo ago
What is the difference with new visa applications? H1B are supposed to be temporary when a company can't find employees in the country. Renewals are not meant to be automatic.
- thumbsup-_- 7mo ago
  Renewals for people who are already working for an employer. Renewals don’t require searching for an american employee. Also, h1-b is limited to 6 years (one renewal) unless I-140 (green card) has been filed for the employee. In which case, renewals become unlimited until green card is granted. For Indians the GC queue is nearly infinite, hence too many renewals.
  - dudul 7mo ago
    My question was rhetorical. Renewals shouldn't be treated differently from new applications in spirit. The H1B worker is meant to temporarily fill a gap. If there is available US talent, the H1B worker should leave and be replaced by a citizen/permanent resident.

ericye16 7mo ago

It's very sad how illiberal hackernews gets when it comes to H-1B visas and immigration in general. People will say that they are concerned about the welfare of H-1B holders because they can't leave their jobs but I've literally never heard anyone suggest an improvement (better portability, etc). Instead all anyone talks about is how bad it is that they have to compete against people from around the world. I think people are just afraid of a true meritocracy and maybe that's a bearish signal for the industry overall.

dudul 7mo ago
That's a silly comment. A simple search would show you that commenters often highlight that H1B are used to "chain" temporary workers to their job. And in past years, many called for changes to allow H1B workers to change jobs more easily. However, we are not in the same economy we were 5 years ago. The job market is very tough and the H1B program makes less sense every day. Why would Americans have to compete with the rest of the world exactly? The purpose of a country is to serve and protect its citizens first, not become a giant open bar for the entirety of humanity.
Der_Einzige 7mo ago
Correct.
remarkEon 7mo ago
Bizarre and entitled comment. It is not a human right to immigrate to the United States. The government here is supposed to set policies that are for the betterment of people who are from here. It’s not anti meritocracy to observe that it’s insane and stupid to pretend that every college grad in the United States needs to compete, in their own home country, with a billion people from India and China for work. The only “illiberal” thing I notice when this topic comes up here is that people seem to think the laws of supply and demand don’t apply when we talk about immigration, and thus there’s no effect on wages (wrong). Something must’ve changed, though, since that sentiment is mostly absent in this thread.

pvelagal 7mo ago

H1B is used to hire the best talent that gets paid big bucks as well as cheap talent that is paid less. Both are true. It depends on the company. I haven't seen Google or FB or Amazon or other top tech companies pay H1B any less. They get paid pretty well. But firing people (some might be on H1B too) and hiring H1B at the same time is meaningless. Btw, if you want to stop people from getting fired, J Powell needs to be fired. He is keeping interest rates high for any sort of hiring. These same companies hired like crazy during 0% interest rate environment.

midnightclubbed 7mo ago
Lowering interest rates to juice the economy is done when unemployment rises … which hasn’t happened yet in the wider economy. Juiced economy and free cash is what led to massive inflation. Powell is trying to save hay until winter - when we get a recession the interest rates cuts are the only knob he has to turn to soften the blow.
- pvelagal 6mo ago
  He inflated the market on purpose for longer than needed. Every economist was screaming to stop and he also played games during elections by lowering interest rate when it was not needed. This only resulted in rates being higher for longer.
bushbaba 7mo ago
I've worked at Google and Amazon. Both paid H-1B less than their american counterparts. In particular because the H-1B workers didn't jump companies as frequent.
- pvelagal 6mo ago
  All H1B salaries are posted online. First of thats the law. Google , Facebook etc all post salaries of every H1B application. The salaries are always in top 5% of Software engineering salaries. You are making stuff up or ignorant of H1B process.

neoz 7mo ago

Oracle laid off 12,000 people in India as well. What is this news on about? If all they wanted was cheap labor, why would they fire people in India and then also bring H-1B from overseas and pay them more? This is just ragebait.

givemeethekeys 7mo ago

Lawnmower strikes again.

renewiltord 7mo ago

All foreigners, pay attention to the people in this thread. They will often ask you to form unions with them. But what would such a union do? Well logically it would do what these people are asking them to do. And what do you see around you? Does it look like they're in favour of you. Do you think you'd be better off? Remember that the Hyundai workers in Georgia were deported at the best of the local union. Right now, foreigners are a large portion of this field's workforce. If you are to join with a union, you will rapidly find that it absorbs the remainder of the workforce through being "a union shop". You will rapidly find that such a union will expand to include all these people. And then they will ask for you to be deported. It wouldn't be the first time. The reason Chinese and Indians couldn't be citizens for a long time is because the predecessor to today's AFL-CIO lobbied to block that. Choose wisely. The danger is looking you right in the face and saying "I am the danger".

Der_Einzige 7mo ago
Yup. Being a supporter of unions means being the opposite of a supporter of globalism. I’m a globalist and fully understand modern disliking of unions.
- renewiltord 7mo ago
  It wouldn’t be the first time that “labour” found itself completely undone through idealistic foolishness. Bernie Sanders wants to end the H-1B with no replacement lined up. Labor was slain by the Ayatollah in Iran.
  - remarkEon 7mo ago
    I’m confused, why would we need a replacement for the H-1B “lined up”? The O-1 visa already exists.
    - renewiltord 7mo ago
      If you’re a foreigner, pay attention to this commenter. He is fairly typical of who your fellow union member will be if you decide to join a union. If you are on a H-1B note that you will have to leave. Understand carefully the consequences of joining a union. Once empowered this is what will happen to you. Keep your eyes wide open. Remember what the Ayatollah did to his young anti-shah allies.

dgrin91 7mo ago

What I don't get is, how does this economically make sense? Isn't there a 100k fee for h1bs now? So 3k h1bs would cost $300 Mil... Before you even start paying salary

youknownothing 7mo ago

This is unnecessarily incendiary, didn't get passed the first paragraph because this is so misleading: > Oracle [...] has filed thousands of petitions for H-1B visas in the past two fiscal years, even as it lays off thousands of American workers Oracle is laying off workers of _all_ nationalities, not just Americans. I know people at Oracle with H1B visas that were laid off. Trying to paint it as if they're replacing Americans with foreigners is just unnecessary fear mongering.

dwa3592 7mo ago

Misleading title. People who are wondering about $100k fee- it only applies if you are bringing people from overseas for this job; meaning if an immigrant is already in the country (eg: on a student visa), they don't have to pay $100k. It's just a visa change for them. There have also been murmurs about pay-to-play system, not sure how it works though. People who got pissed reading the title- majority of the visas sponsored were last year and not last week's layoffs.

frugalmail 7mo ago

Sounds like Trump needs to add a $200k/yr premium to each H1B

intensifier 7mo ago

They both happened in separate timeline. Headline is misleading.

e40 7mo ago

I need to bookmark this so when maga nuts claim this never happens I have ready proof.

ojbyrne 7mo ago

it would probably be useful to know how many of the current layoffs were people on H-1Bs.

Bratmon 6mo ago

Abolish the H1B. Now.

ryguz 6mo ago

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