[HN Gopher] H1-B visas hurt one type of worker and exploit another
___________________________________________________________________
H1-B visas hurt one type of worker and exploit another
Author : 1vuio0pswjnm7
Score : 27 points
Date : 2025-06-28 18:50 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sanders.senate.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sanders.senate.gov)
| downrightmike wrote:
| Outsourcing is 1,000% worse.
| InkCanon wrote:
| If you look at the numbers, tech layoffs are really offshoring.
| India is not only untouched by layoffs, they're actually hiring
|
| https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/microsoft-
| confi....
| spwa4 wrote:
| Well if there's any truth to the idea that "offshoring" to AI
| is about to start, it'll be a short-lived victory.
| fakedang wrote:
| I've heard of layoffs happening in the Indian offices too.
| Just not to the high extents of the US and EU offices, but
| they are happening.
| lispisok wrote:
| Workers are being attacked from every direction capital can
| find.
| jgalt212 wrote:
| Helps explain why the progressive running on pocketbook
| economics and not the neo-liberal running on identity
| politics won the dem nomination for Mayor in NYC.
| linotype wrote:
| It's going to suck to be a worker in the future. That's why
| my wife and I are investing heavily across a broad range of
| assets: we want to be able to work for less (inevitable)
| while maintaining our quality of life as it is through
| investment dividends.
| digianarchist wrote:
| Bernie's right on somethings here and wrong on others.
|
| There's already a "best and brightest" visa and it's not H1B.
| It's O1.
|
| That said H1B is essentially the only reasonable way for people
| to immigrate to the United States through employment. Most
| employers are not going to stick out the convoluted process to
| obtain an EB2/3 immigrant visa for a worker they haven't any
| experience with especially since they can enter the country and
| immediately work for someone else.
| hayd wrote:
| L1 is another option.
| digianarchist wrote:
| As is TN and E3 but L1 is only an option if you can work for
| the company abroad for a year which is only possible if the
| company has some presence in your country.
|
| L1 is also harder to qualify for than H1B in terms of job
| requirements.
| sxp wrote:
| > And one way to help make that happen is to substantially
| increase the guest worker fees large corporations pay to fund
| scholarships, apprenticeships, and job training opportunities for
| American workers. This is something that I have advocated from my
| first days as a U.S. senator.
|
| This is the proper solution. Ideally, the H1-B program would
| remove quotas and lotteries and switch to a pure auction program
| for the fees. E.g, a Dutch auction for the X thousand available
| slots where the fee can be deducted from federal income taxes. If
| companies really want the best talent in the world, they should
| be willing to pay for it.
| digianarchist wrote:
| That's a great way to screw over every industry that isn't
| tech.
|
| Hospitals and labs can't afford to match tech spending to
| obtain H1Bs.
|
| If there's going to be an auction then there needs to be an
| industry or job code cap too.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| You could come up with some other code for industries where
| you actually need people.
|
| You can let capitalism do its thing, and you can put your
| finger on the scale for things that society needs but that
| are not as profitable.
| digianarchist wrote:
| There's already a cap-exemption for non-profits.
|
| Most countries identify industry shortages and tailor their
| immigration needs to bring in people to fulfill those
| roles.
| CincinnatiMan wrote:
| Are there ways these other industries could increase interest
| from citizen workers, in the scenario that they can't obtain
| H1Bs?
| mc32 wrote:
| I'd say add a 25% payroll tax that is earmarked only to train
| and support American citizens in the industry the H1Bs are
| brought into.
| ergocoder wrote:
| I moved to US using H1B a decade ago and worked in FAANG earning
| 300K - 1.2M a year as an IC engineer. It never screams
| EXPLOITATION louder than this.
| InkCanon wrote:
| The situation now is radically different. In the late
| 2000s/early 2010s, _most_ H1B applications got approved
| (something like 80%). For a time before that, the H1B cap wasn
| 't usually maxed out and any application would succeed. If I'm
| being blunt this is because of one country. H1Bs are dominated
| by this country. This country makes up 75% of applications and
| without these, H1Bs would actually be undersubscribed.
|
| The significant shift comes a lot from how this country has
| massive systems in place to perform wage arbitrage through IT
| consultancies. Compared to Chinese industrial outsourcing
| (which requires capex), wage arbitrage is pure profit in that
| there's almost no overhead. So these IT companies got
| phenomenally rich. These companies have a US branch, usually
| having a manager based in the US while the others are based in
| India. So it's no longer getting the best and brightest through
| H1B, but just a way to make money off the vast difference in
| economic conditions between a third and first world country.
| And there's a direct incentive to depress the economic
| conditions of workers, because that's money right there. Then
| this goes into overdrive when many US companies realize it's
| even cheaper to do it themselves and set up shop in this
| country.
|
| What happened to the US industrial base/blue collar workers is
| happening right now to white collar workers, except it'll go
| much faster because there's no physical equipment to move.
| ergocoder wrote:
| I remember. The year that it started maxing out was from
| 2013.
|
| We all know how to solve this problem e.g. ranked by
| compensations maybe with some restrictions and diversifying
| occupations a bit. We know which companies abuse it. The
| number of H1B with their salaries is public.
|
| Yet this article from Bernie grand-stands random stuff.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| If you like this topic then you might also like the investigative
| report dicusseed here:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44404726
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-06-28 23:01 UTC)