[HN Gopher] H-1B Visa Changes Approved by White House
___________________________________________________________________
H-1B Visa Changes Approved by White House
Author : ivewonyoung
Score : 91 points
Date : 2025-08-12 17:58 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newsweek.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newsweek.com)
| piombisallow wrote:
| _IF_ implemented in a sane manner, I don 't see how this is worse
| than a lottery based system.
| jajuuka wrote:
| Instead of it being fair to everyone in the pool it now gives
| an advantage to the wealthy to buy their way into a H1B. Seems
| significantly worse.
| rayiner wrote:
| > The proposed weighted-selection concept echoes a 2021 DHS plan
| under President Donald Trump's first administration that had
| sought to rank and select petitions by wage tiers (OES wage
| levels IV down to I), an approach that the Trump administration
| argued would prioritize higher-paid, highly skilled hires. That
| earlier plan faced opposition, was withdrawn by the Biden
| administration and saw related regulations blocked in federal
| court.
|
| This seems like a no-brainer. Why did Biden withdraw the rule?
| Moomoomoo309 wrote:
| I think the whole "blocked in federal court" part is why.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| Probably because someone told him to. That someone was likely
| using H1b visas to save money instead of because of an actual
| need.
| animitronix wrote:
| That's what they all do. The whole H1B program needs to be
| shelved.
| fredfoobar wrote:
| Do you have examples of these people who are saving money
| using H1B?
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| about 12 years ago I worked at a very large non-tech
| company that had outsourced to contractors to work on some
| code. They had a room in the basement for about 20 kids on
| H1B visas that were clearly right out of college. This was
| in a major city that had plenty of jr developers around,
| they just would expect more money.
|
| I forget the contractors company name but they came up on
| HN at the time for being abusive towards their employees
| who risked deportation if they stood up for themselves. If
| I find specific examples I'll add them later, but you can
| probably just search hn for h1b.
| fredfoobar wrote:
| I'm sure it's ok to give out specifics of something that
| happened 12 years ago, what makes you think this sort of
| stuff is still happening?
| upmind wrote:
| Did they release the salary levels/corresponding weightings?
| dilyevsky wrote:
| best i can tell the rule modification hasn't been published yet
| maest wrote:
| Does salary mean TC or just base? How are discretionary bonuses
| handled?
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| base
| upmind wrote:
| Can they not increase the amount of visas they can give out?
| khuey wrote:
| Congress would have to change the law.
| stackskipton wrote:
| They could but Congress would have to get involved. H-1B visa
| increase is likely to be heavily unpopular with voters. This
| American voter for sure would not be thrilled.
| geodel wrote:
| increase why?
| xnx wrote:
| Why not auction H-1B visas? Isn't that typically the most
| efficient/optimal way to distribute a limited resource?
| HardCodedBias wrote:
| 100% should be the way it should be done.
|
| If there is surplus to being physically in the US, then the US
| should gain some of that surplus.
|
| Let the market decide.
|
| The H1B isn't charity, it is a work visa for specialty
| occupations.
| o11c wrote:
| The status quo is that the H-1B _is_ a charity, given out to
| companies who don 't want to pay what their workers are
| worth.
| fredfoobar wrote:
| Do you have examples of these? they'd be easy targets to be
| sued for breaking the labor laws.
| oldpersonintx2 wrote:
| there are already ways in to the US for people who want to pay
|
| Trump's "golden ticket" for example
| mdasen wrote:
| I'm not the person who proposed the auction, but I read it as
| "let the companies compete for the H1-B visas in an auction,"
| not about the workers buying their way into the US.
|
| For example, if CheapoCorp is looking to replace reasonably
| well paid US workers with H1-B workers, they won't bid much
| for the visas. CheapoCorp isn't trying to get good talent
| from overseas. They're trying to save money, push down wages,
| have a workforce that they can mistreat (since they can't
| easily leave the company given their immigration status
| requires employment), etc.
|
| By contrast, if a company is looking to hire great engineers
| or scientists from overseas because they're in a growing
| industry with a shortage of workers, they would be willing to
| pay a lot more to get the H1-B visas. They're not looking to
| save $20,000/year on someone's salary. They want top talent.
|
| When companies are trying to replace their workforce with
| lower-paid foreign workers who can't complain (lest they lose
| their job and with it their immigration status), that's not
| what the H1-B system was designed for. It certainly is how
| some companies are using it. If you're on an H1-B and lose
| your job, you have 60 days to find a new job or you're gone.
| That's going to make you a much more compliant employee. You
| have little leverage to negotiate raises, you aren't likely
| to quit even if they're overworking you, they can pass you
| over for promotions and you'll quietly accept it.
|
| But if the employer is competing in an auction for H1-B
| visas, they're more likely to be companies that are seeking
| out top talent rather than seeking out workers they can
| underpay and mistreat.
| Apes wrote:
| It's not hard to imagine a loophole here:
|
| * Someone with a lot of money wants to get U.S. residency.
|
| * They set up or work with a shell company that "hires"
| them under the H-1B program.
|
| * That company uses part of their payment to win the visa
| auction.
|
| * Once in the U.S., the "employee" does whatever they want
| -- the job is just window dressing.
|
| This is essentially what's happened in other visa
| categories when money alone becomes the main filter.
| fredfoobar wrote:
| how does the "employee" survive here by doing whatever
| they want? what with the cost of living and all.
| Apes wrote:
| The "employee" isn't living off an H-1B salary -- they're
| already wealthy enough to bankroll the whole arrangement.
| The company is just a shell to win the auction and
| sponsor them. If an auction system were adopted without
| safeguards, it could turn the H-1B program from a labor-
| market tool into a plaything for the ultra-wealthy.
| fredfoobar wrote:
| seems wasteful, I'm trying to understand why, what is the
| "play" here?
| cnst wrote:
| But the golden ticket requires 5mil. Even in the US, even the
| most talented engineers, probably wouldn't have that much
| until after 5 to 10+ years of work, and outside of the US,
| earning that much money as an engineer is probably next to
| impossible before well over 40+. (And, even then, if all you
| have is just the 5mil, would you really part with that much
| money just for a visa?)
| Apes wrote:
| People want at least the appearance of a holistic process that
| considers a candidate's broader value to society -- even if
| that process isn't perfect. An auction drops the pretense
| entirely and just says: pay to win.
| dgrin91 wrote:
| Because then the bigtechs will buy them all and everyone else
| gets nothing.
| xnx wrote:
| > everyone else gets nothing
|
| More revenue for the treasury and efficient allocation of
| resources
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Creating an artificial market around an artificial
| limitation that dumps cash into the government general fund
| is not what most economists would describe as "efficient
| allocation of resources".
|
| It might create a local maxima around revenue per visa, but
| "google bought all of the H1-Bs to make life harder for
| Apple" is both an entirely foreseeable outcome, and one
| that has such a wide range of negative externalities that
| even in the context of the local maxima, it would be a
| challenge to argue of efficient allocation of resources
| with a straight face (if that argument is, in fact, the
| goal).
| pyb wrote:
| As the meme goes: "You don't need to sell it to me, I was
| already convinced!"
| some_random wrote:
| Would they? I know that they've engaged in a ton of wage
| suppression historically but deliberately paying out the nose
| for H1B visas seems like it wouldn't be worth it.
| dlachausse wrote:
| It's funny how the HN hive mind is against H1-B visas and
| AI because they suppress their wages and take their jobs.
| However, the millions of unskilled illegal immigrants are a
| good thing, because they have that effect on the working
| class instead.
|
| Personally, I think we really need to take a hard look at
| all forms of immigration until average Americans can have
| good paying jobs, affordable housing, and affordable
| healthcare.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > Personally, I think we really need to take a hard look
| at all forms of immigration until average Americans can
| have good paying jobs, affordable housing, and affordable
| healthcare.
|
| You are making big assumptions that the USA is a closed
| system that can generate its own prosperity, and that is
| far from the truth. Wrecking America's competitiveness
| (by not taking in skilled or unskilled immigrants) is
| just going to turn us from a rich country into a poor
| country, your goals are never going to be accomplished.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> is just going to turn us from a rich country into a
| poor country,_
|
| What value is the country getting richer if the people
| are still poor?
|
| Wealth inequality is a real thing, and importing more
| labor competition for the working class people only
| devalues their labor, serving only to make the business
| owning elites richer while keeping workers poor. Bernie
| Sanders even said that himself.
|
| The "line goes up" stock market and GDP numbers are
| abstract numbers for the working class people that don't
| reflect in their purchasing power or quality of life. The
| person flipping burgers at McD for $12 an hour, isn't
| gonna be better off now that Microsoft and Nvidia are
| worth 4 trillion instead of 1 trillion. It literally
| makes no difference to them.
|
| So as long as there's no trickle down, why would people
| care about their country getting richer, when it's just
| the top 10% of the country who are seeing that richness
| and not them?
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Rather than shove out immigration and killing the golden
| goose, maybe we should focus on other ways of dealing
| with wealth inequality (improving productivity, education
| so our kids can compete on the world stage when they grow
| up, etc...)? And we seemed to have managed it for a
| couple of hundred years, but somehow it doesn't work now
| that the immigrants are no longer primarily white?
| dlachausse wrote:
| The issue isn't race. Typical Americans would be just as
| against illegal immigration if it were white Europeans
| flooding into our country.
|
| The uncomfortable reality is that illegal immigration is
| a net negative for society, particularly when it reaches
| the numbers it did under the Biden administration.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> maybe we should focus on other ways of dealing with
| wealth inequality (improving productivity, education so
| our kids can compete on the world stage when they grow
| up, etc...)?_
|
| Yes we should. And when politicians are gonna fix those
| issues first, then people's opinion on importing more
| competing labor will change. Until then, they'll vote to
| tilt the supply-demand balance in their favor, as per
| democratic process because the business class is also
| doing the opposite so you have a conflict of interest you
| need to fix.
|
| People not seeing the argument of this side of the isle,
| are in a bubble who have never had to compete in a zero
| sum environment against people who will do anything for
| money, and love writing cheques that other people have to
| cash. Which is why you're seeing the backlash from this
| at elections. If you want people to agree with you
| politically, you have to take care of their grievances
| first, before you take care of imported people form
| abroad and business owners.
|
| _> it doesn't work now that the immigrants are no longer
| primarily white?_
|
| Nowhere was the skin color part of the argument till you
| brought that up witch says everything about you and why
| I'm exiting the convo here.
| dlachausse wrote:
| Until we hit zero percent unemployment, we have a surplus
| of labor in this country and have no need to import any
| more. It is up to employers to pay competitive wages and
| train people to fill the vacancies.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| If you do this, you'll have unintended consequences:
|
| - You don't allow the US to import skilled workers
| anymore, and rather than hire locally from a non-existent
| labor pool they simply move the jobs abroad. What's
| worse, hiring someone from India on an H1B to work in
| your AI lab, or moving your AI lab to India?
|
| - You don't allow importing unskilled workers and expect
| farmers to pay $30/hour to have Americans pick apples. Or
| maybe...they'll just figure out how to automate those
| jobs or go out of business since no one wants to pay $5
| for an apple.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> - You don't allow importing unskilled workers and
| expect farmers to pay $30/hour to have Americans pick
| apples._
|
| That's the same argument used against abolishment of
| slavery. _" Who will pick all the cotton?"_
|
| Except today it's not slavery, it's indentured servitude.
| aaronbaugher wrote:
| How many minutes do you think it takes to pick an apple?
|
| The claim is always made that if Americans have to do the
| work, food prices will skyrocket, but it's just not true.
| Labor is a portion of the wholescale cost of food, which
| is a portion of the retail cost. A lot goes to shipping,
| packaging, processing, marketing, etc. If all migrant
| workers were replaced by Americans being paid a
| competitive wage, food prices would go up a little, but
| you wouldn't pay double for apples, let alone several
| times more. Highly-processed foods like cereal and pasta
| wouldn't change noticeably.
| dlachausse wrote:
| HN hive mind...minimum wage for fast food workers should
| be $40 an hour.
|
| Also HN hive mind...if we can't import illegal immigrants
| working for subsistence wages, who will pick our crops?
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > The claim is always made that if Americans have to do
| the work, food prices will skyrocket, but it's just not
| true
|
| My claim isn't that "if Americans have to do the work",
| my claim is that "Americans don't want to do the work",
| even at $30-40/hour most Americans still don't want to
| pick apples, and that is already an unreasonable price.
|
| It might be that (barring automation) we simply don't
| grow/pick apples in the USA anymore, for the same reason
| that other industries/jobs have become obsolete because
| the economics simply don't make sense anymore. Farmers
| will grow something else that is more economical to deal
| with given the labor costs they have to deal with, they
| simply won't grow apples anymore if it no longer makes
| sense.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Zero percent unemployment is viewed as a bad thing by
| almost everyone with a familiarity of the employment
| markets.
|
| Zero percent unemployment means that no one without a job
| is looking for one. It means no new entrants into the job
| market (since by definition, you are unemployed the
| moment you start looking for your first job). And it
| means that no one is transitioning jobs or careers
| without a firm job offer in hand. It means that no
| business ever fails. It means that it is remarkably
| difficult to find employees. It means that there are no
| employees that quit instead of doing something immoral.
|
| You should look into the different types of unemployment,
| as well as the definition of "unemployed", and
| specifically, frictional unemployment since you seem very
| unfamiliar with the base concepts.
| dlachausse wrote:
| Okay, maybe not literally zero percent unemployment, but
| my point still stands that we do not have a shortage of
| labor in this country and we do not need to import any at
| this time. We should incentivize workers through better
| compensation and retraining to fill skill gaps.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| > It's funny how the HN hive mind is against H1-B visas
| and AI because they suppress their wages and take their
| jobs. However, the millions of unskilled illegal
| immigrants are a good thing, because they have that
| effect on the working class instead.
|
| The hive mind is greatly exaggerated. The existence of
| cognitively dissonant opinions on a website is more
| likely evidence that the site has posters that have
| differing viewpoints, rather than evidence of a group
| thought process that is illogical.
| ecshafer wrote:
| There are plenty of people that are against both types of
| immigration, or against one but not the other in each
| category. The Hive mind is often not that much of a hive.
| stackskipton wrote:
| I mean, would big tech really buy them all? The argument
| against H-1B is it's being used to replace American workers
| with cheaper workers who are locked into their employer.
|
| If H-1B requires massive comp, there would be little reason
| for Big Tech to hire Jr H-1B developers unless the employer
| lock in is worth it.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Has someone mentioned above, you would have to work hard to
| make sure that a few companies did not want to applies the
| H-1B auction.
| nine_k wrote:
| It only works if hiring H1Bs is cheaper, or otherwise much
| more appealing, so that paying the premium on an auction
| makes sense.
|
| It used to be the case, say, 15-20 years ago. It not need to
| be the case today. Since we're talking about big tech, let
| the minimal bid for a company be the median salary across
| _that company 's_ relevant line of work (engineering, sales,
| whatever). This would make hiring an H1B candidate a merit-
| based decision, not a cost-cutting measure. This would make
| hiring a US-born engineer and, say, an India-born engineer
| approximately equally expensive, so the company would hire
| the better engineer, not the cheaper.
|
| If the price arbitrage were gone, I bet there'd remain enough
| H1B slots to invite better researchers, better flute players,
| better sea captains, etc.
| DrillShopper wrote:
| I've been a proponent of levying an excise tax on H1-B
| visas equal to the salary amount paid to the person on that
| visa (including benefits, if any).
|
| If you really need the lower salary worker then sure, you
| can have them, but it will cost you.
|
| I would also make the company sponsoring the H1-B visa
| responsible for all relocation costs when they fire someone
| on the visa.
| riku_iki wrote:
| > Because then the bigtechs will buy them all and everyone
| else gets nothing.
|
| and whats wrong about this? Humans funneled into area with
| higher added value.
| conscion wrote:
| I see this brought up as an issue every time distributing
| H1-Bs by salary is brought up. What is the issue with big
| tech "buying them all"?
| kccqzy wrote:
| It depends on what you are optimizing for. If you are just
| optimizing for making the numbers go up, the yes letting
| big tech hiring all the available foreign workers so that
| they can do even more big tech stuff, increase their
| revenue, lift their share price, produce GDP, increase tax
| revenue etc. But what if you care about the diversity of
| the foreign workers in terms of field or specialty? What if
| for example you have a "Made in America" slogan and want to
| hire manufacturing workers so that we can have a
| renaissance in manufacturing?
|
| The current H1B program is terrible in that it has a
| lottery. A strict salary-based distribution is marginally
| better but I would hope that it should incorporate multiple
| factors.
| slt2021 wrote:
| all visas will go to tech, and no visas will go to Nurses,
| professors, teachers, artists etc
| jdale27 wrote:
| If they're not willing to pay up, then there isn't really a
| shortage.
| slt2021 wrote:
| same could be said of famines like the one in China or
| Soviet Union or ones in Africa: they simply needed to pay
| up for food, if they were _really_ that hungry
|
| your logic erases nuance of the US labor market and
| infinity of specializations and niches, on top or large
| regional differences in labor market.
|
| let's just say that nurses will never be paid on par with
| software engineers just because it is different specialty,
| and it is stupid to force nurses to compete with IT for
| visas
| some_random wrote:
| I had no idea there was a huge shortage of professors,
| teachers, and artists.
| slt2021 wrote:
| there is always a demand for a talent in the US
| some_random wrote:
| Of course, and perhaps if you're having trouble with
| supply in famously poorly paid fields then paying better
| might help.
| 542458 wrote:
| If we think those things have positive externalities (such
| that we want them to happen even if they wouldn't win an
| auction) we should subsidize them.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| Nurses generally can't get an H-1B, and professors are
| exempt. Your argument makes no sense.
| slt2021 wrote:
| approximately 500,000 foreign-educated nurses in the U.S.
| utilize the H-1B visa (per google AI overview)
| lostmsu wrote:
| I did not even know you can practice nursing in US
| without US-based degree.
| slt2021 wrote:
| Well canadian medical degrees are recognized fully, even
| canadian medical residencies are recognized fully in the
| US
|
| Probably something similar to nursing programs
| gruturo wrote:
| So nurses, professors, teachers and artists will be in higher
| demand and they'll have to pay them a better salary to fill
| positions? which may attract people who currently avoid those
| career cause they lead to poverty? Yup I'm sold.
|
| And as others said, add a cost factor to train an citizen for
| every H-1B issued. Actually, slap a 350% tax on all the
| salaries paid to H-1Bs except for the first 15 people (or, I
| don't know, 3% of the overall staff, whichever is higher) and
| make sure it's hard to game with shell companies, body shops
| and subsidiaries.
|
| Precisely 0% chance it'll happen in the current
| administration, and it's anyone guess if there will be
| administrations after this one, but a few hours of additional
| thinking around this solution (this is the first 3 minutes
| roughly) could make it work way better. Remove limits, make
| it really expensive, give some rights to the people who come
| on it, use the money to address real shortages, and watch
| companies stop abusing it.
|
| P.S. European here, with 0 interest in coming to work in the
| US.
| skrtskrt wrote:
| Optimal for who? These are humans not math problems
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| For the economy. We use money as a proxy for economic value.
| Apes wrote:
| It's not even clear that an auction would be the most efficient
| way to allocate H-1Bs if we define efficiency as maximizing
| long-term economic and societal value, not just short-term
| revenue. An auction favors companies with deep pockets right
| now -- meaning a startup looking to bring in a world-leading
| PhD in a critical field could lose out to a much larger firm
| simply filling headcount. That's hardly an optimal outcome for
| innovation or competitiveness.
| mgh95 wrote:
| A "world-leading PhD in a critical field" should come under
| an O1-A visa (see: https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-
| united-states/temporary...):
|
| "O-1A: Individuals with an extraordinary ability in the
| sciences, education, business, or athletics (not including
| the arts, motion pictures or television industry)"
| Apes wrote:
| That's technically true, but I have seen PhDs hired under
| H1B - I've never heard of, let alone seen someone hired
| under the O-1A program.
| mgh95 wrote:
| I have met people hired under the O1-A and they fit the
| bill pretty neatly. Think R1 profs publishing in
| Nature/Science/domain equivalents. If you have
| exceptional talent, you can 100% get in.
|
| I think the issue is expecting a masters/phd to ensure
| access to th US labor market. This greatly distorts the
| fact that for most software engineering positions a
| bachelors is enough (if necessary at all), crowding the
| domestic market.
|
| The US should not allow the pipeline of jr->sr engs to be
| culled for the sake of accessing cheap foreign labor.
| Given the necessity of software to run the modern
| economy, it really is a national security issue.
| xnx wrote:
| > meaning a startup looking to bring in a world-leading PhD
| in a critical field could lose out to a much larger firm
| simply filling headcount.
|
| Is it unfair that a big company could afford to pay more to
| hire a desirable employee than a small startup?
| spullara wrote:
| This change basically makes it an auction.
| bluGill wrote:
| I want them auctioned by how much you pay the person hired.
| Want top talent, a million ensures you win and they get
| compensated well. Want cheap labor - train someone locally as
| you won't win the auction.
|
| there is the downsides of what if they treat the emplopee
| baddly, of the emblopee commits fraud - I'm not sure how to
| handle that. However I still think the idea is right despite
| that issue.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Salary based auctions would also create a perverse incentive
| to pressure employees for kickbacks.
|
| "We could pay you more and ensure you're able to get that
| visa, but then we'd need you to pay 20% of your salary
| back..."
| lesuorac wrote:
| Do keep in mind.
|
| H-1B is for when you cannot find an American to fill a role so
| somebody comes into the US on a visa to fill that slot.
|
| O-1 [1] is a for when somebody non-American has a lot of skill
| and is allowed to immigrate into the US to perform it.
|
| I still think H-1B visas should require some kind of additional
| fee proportional to training an American to fill that role.
| Afaik, most of the H-1B visas are just abuse where you hire
| somebody at a low wage than you'd need to for an otherwise legal
| resident so there needs to be some kind of higher opportunity
| cost to the company.
|
| [1]: https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-
| states/temporary...
| 30minAdayHN wrote:
| I agree with your broader point about companies abusing H1-Bs.
| But I'm not sure if the abuse happens through hiring at lower
| wage. For example, if you look at FANG, they pay as much for an
| H1-B as they would pay any other employee. Where is this
| perspective that you can hire someone at lower wage because
| they come with H1-B? Would love understand the loophole.
| mgh2 wrote:
| Are the H1B salary reports self-reported by company,
| employees or are actual numbers based on W-2s, tax filing?
| tyre wrote:
| From my experience hiring as an EM at one company (Stripe)
| immigration status does not factor into offers.
|
| You're competing for this talent against every other
| company. If they're good, you (and others) want to hire
| them.
|
| Again: data set of one, at a high-paying company who
| generally has a strong ethical bent. There seem to be a lot
| of other experiences with the system.
| mgh2 wrote:
| This is what policy says, but behind doors it is
| completely different:
| https://www.linkedin.com/posts/gonza-penovi_a-recruiter-
| play...
| happytoexplain wrote:
| Wages are not straightforward, as much as businesses would
| like to pretend they are. What do you mean by "would pay"?
| They don't just make up a number. The willingness of
| applicants to accept a lower wage lowers the wage they
| "would" pay ("our wages are competitive").
| code_runner wrote:
| not every company is FANG. there are tens of thousands of
| companies operating at sub trillion dollar valuations which
| absolutely positively do this. FANG (or even "big tech") is
| far too narrow to draw any meaningful conclusions in the
| broader market.
| some_random wrote:
| You can work an H1-B nearly to death, Elon has all but
| explicitly said so for instance. If they're fired it's very
| unlikely that they'll be able to get a new job before being
| forced to leave the country at which point they're unlikely
| to ever get the chance to come back and they know this.
| lesuorac wrote:
| Perhaps, FAN pay as much. G is alleged to pay less.
|
| https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-widespread-
| wage...
| fredfoobar wrote:
| Yeah, there's plenty of abuse with H1B with those consulting
| companies operating out of India and shipping people overseas,
| I don't believe many of them would qualify for the H1B. That
| said, many folks who come here to study and get hired by
| companies (usually, for their specialization in a masters
| degree for most foreign students) also apply for a H1B.
|
| I don't understand your "low wage" argument though, aren't
| there laws against it currently? they need to be paid at least
| the prevailing wage in their location/job level.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| From https://www.epi.org/publication/h-1b-visas-and-
| prevailing-wa...
|
| Quote The statute creating the H-1B visa--
| which allows U.S. employers to hire college-educated workers
| as well as fashion models from abroad--contains language
| establishing a "prevailing wage."4 This prevailing wage
| requirement is intended to protect the wages of U.S. workers
| in occupations requiring a college degree from adverse
| impacts and to prevent college-educated migrant workers from
| being underpaid and exploited. Corporate lobbyists and other
| H-1B proponents often cite this prevailing wage requirement
| in the H-1B law as evidence that H-1B workers cannot be paid
| less than U.S. workers. However, the reality is that the H-1B
| statute, regulations, and administrative guidance allow
| employers wide latitude in setting wage levels....
| Although salary information that corresponds to requested
| positions on LCAs has been made available by DOL for a number
| of years through the Office of Foreign Labor Certification's
| LCA disclosure data, until recently the prevailing wage
| levels selected by employers were not readily available. In
| 2011, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) for the
| first time reported what some had suspected and speculated
| about but to that point were not able to officially confirm:
| The vast majority of H-1B jobs were being certified by DOL at
| the two lowest wage levels.
| fredfoobar wrote:
| any update since 2011?
| lesuorac wrote:
| > they need to be paid at least the prevailing wage in their
| location/job level.
|
| I mean if you follow the law sure.
|
| It's easy to either just pay them below market or hire them
| at a lower title than the role actually requires.
|
| https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/h1b_visa_fraud/
|
| https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-widespread-
| wage...
| fredfoobar wrote:
| Fraud should be curbed and punished, but I don't understand
| why the visa itself is bad because of this, that's like
| saying people speed and break traffic laws, therefore we
| must ban vehicles entirely.
| lesuorac wrote:
| Afaik, the federal rule doesn't propose banning H1-B
| entirely. Nor was I proposing that.
|
| So, it's more like saying "people speed and break traffic
| laws, therefore we're going to improve enforcement".
| Reasonable statement to me.
| fredfoobar wrote:
| agreed
| const_cast wrote:
| Or the ultimate work-around, pay then the same and work
| them twice as hard. Boom, half the wage and nobody can
| tell!
|
| How many of these consulting companies just have the most
| awful, toxic company culture imaginable? I don't think
| that's a coincidence - that's a purposefully engineered
| cost saving strategy.
| fredfoobar wrote:
| That won't work as well as you think it does. This would
| come off as them being skilled enough to do the work in
| half the time an American would.
|
| That said, consulting companies out of India are
| horrible, I don't think they'd be more productive even if
| they worked twice as hard.
| paxys wrote:
| > H-1B is for when you cannot find an American to fill a role
|
| No, this is a myth. Employers can sponsor H-1B visas for any
| "speciality occupation" regardless of whether a citizen is
| available to do the job or not. Legally there are no
| restrictions in place re: criteria. The only thing they are
| required to do is pay the prevailing wage. Tests for whether a
| citizen can do the job only come into play later when they are
| sponsoring a green card.
| fredfoobar wrote:
| Some of these posts make it seem like software engineering is
| a low skilled job, I beg to differ, it's still a very high
| skilled job, < .5% of the world knows how to code.
| lesuorac wrote:
| Is it that skilled when it gets taught in 4 years in
| college while an Electrician has to apprenticeship for 7?
|
| That said, whether software is high-skill or not is
| tangential to the point I'm making. Which is, H1-B is being
| used to depress wages and that reworking it shouldn't
| affect jobs that actually have few people that can do it
| because O-1 allows them to work that job.
| fredfoobar wrote:
| I don't think this is a fair comparison, software
| development is very complex, but an electricians job
| isn't, it's very simple but it's high consequence.
|
| Software development may seem simple for a lot of people
| here on HN, but trust me, I can do the electricians job
| easily, but an electrician won't be able to do my job.
| The regulatory environment which requires the
| "apprenticeship" is a totally different topic and doesn't
| inform anything on the skill required to do the job.
| Also, the electrician apprentice gets paid while learning
| on the job, the software developer in training doesn't.
| xnx wrote:
| > I can do the electricians job easily, but an
| electrician won't be able to do my job
|
| Watch out. Soon AI can do your job easily, but it can't
| do an electrician's job.
| fredfoobar wrote:
| > Soon AI can do your job easily, but it can't do an
| electrician's job. [he said gleefully]
|
| do you really want an Amercian to lose a job to AI??
| Also, why do you think I can't become an electrician
| after AI apparently "does my job" (or a plumber, I'm a
| better plumber than an electrician)
|
| anyway, it's fine, you don't seem to have any idea about
| software development or how AI is actually going to help
| me more.
| fredfoobar wrote:
| To the poster (nunez?) who was lamenting about me
| apparently claiming blue collar jobs are easier (and then
| deleted it when I was writing this reply):
|
| 1. I didn't claim that.
|
| 2. Yes, I did say it's "high consequence", but
| technically, comparing skill to skill, it's MUCH easier.
| I've done a ton of electrical work (along with plumbing)
| on our old home, there are a great set of safety rules to
| follow (and gear to use) before "touching the wrong
| wire".
| mvieira38 wrote:
| Not to mention the EU countries already do effectively the same
| thing. If your wage is below a certain treshold (based on
| profession), you can't compete fairly with europeans (i.e. the
| company has to prove they couldn't find anyone), but if you're
| above it then you're eligible for the Blue Card program and get
| to compete fairly. Very similar to Trump's changes in intent
| lgleason wrote:
| There is no requirement to demonstrate that you cannot find an
| American to do the job to get an H1b visa approved. If that
| person applies for a PERM position (needed to convert to a
| green card) there is. Hence the H1b is easy to game by
| employers to get cheap indentured servants.
|
| With PERM (converting to a green card) they try to hide the job
| postings so that people will not apply so that they can get the
| green card approved. Some of the tricks include putting ads in
| the newspaper, using esoteric websites and other media such as
| radio instead of job boards where tech people actually look for
| jobs. Some Americans who have trouble finding jobs in the
| current market took on a side project of scraping newspaper ads
| and these job boards and created https://www.jobs.now/ which
| lists these jobs. If enough Americans that meet the minimum
| qualifications apply for a listed job it stops the green card
| process for that position, usually for 6 months before the
| sponsor may try again.
|
| Also, there are a lot of stories about people getting O-1 visas
| via fake credential mills and research papers. Both can and are
| being gamed to get O-1's.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| A lot of these jobs are from places like Stripe or Big-4
| accounting.
|
| Are they hiding jobs?
| lgleason wrote:
| They are making these specific jobs tough to find because
| they are for a PERM test and don't want to get applicants.
| This video is old, but the same thing is happening today.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU
| mythrwy wrote:
| I live in a remote, low education, low income, low
| population area and they frequently take out classified
| ads specifically here.
|
| I haven't bothered to ever apply because to me it seemed
| obvious what is going on.
| nine_k wrote:
| Thanks for the jobs.now!
|
| I still think that you mix up the "green card" and the "H1B
| visa".
|
| The green card is a status of a permanent resident. A person
| legally living in the US for enough time (5 years or so) on a
| variety of visas can apply to get it. It costs significant
| money so an employer usually helps with that.
|
| The H1B visa is a visa for a worker on a position for which a
| company fails to hire a worker in the US. That worker may
| become or not become a permanent US resident afterwards.
| lgleason wrote:
| I updated my comment to clarify what I meant by PERM, which
| is a green card application.
|
| "The H1B visa is a visa for a worker on a position for
| which a company fails to hire a worker in the US."
|
| The H1B visa application has no requirement to try to
| recruit US workers which makes it easier to game the system
| to pay the lowest wage possible.
| fredfoobar wrote:
| so, you believe that the H1B worker shouldn't get a
| greencard?
| lgleason wrote:
| If there are qualified American workers who are looking
| for work and applying for these positions then no, they
| should not. Legally they cannot either. Now on the flip
| side, if there is an actual shortage of qualified workers
| then sure. But right now, there is no shortage of
| qualified workers in most of these slots, especially if
| companies are willing to pay a competitive wage.
| mtrovo wrote:
| Is that really true? My impression is that companies tries as
| much as possible to not use the O-1 route, not sure because the
| requirements are by design too high or process and cost are not
| worth it compared to other routes.
|
| O(1) data point: got offer from FAANG to join on the H-1B
| lottery, later moved to L-1 because the timing was not going to
| work well for the H-1B process and L-1 at least would give my
| partner the chance to also work, I later decided to not migrate
| and keep working from a different country.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I have personally seen H-1B visas used to displace US workers
| for labor cost optimization. Bloomberg has even done a piece on
| this.
|
| _H-1B Middlemen Bring Cheap Labor to Citi, Capital One_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44398978 - June 2025
| phyzix5761 wrote:
| > H-1B is for when you cannot find an American to fill a role
| so somebody comes into the US on a visa to fill that slot.
|
| The job market would disagree with you right now. I know so
| many US citizens who have 10+ years of work experience and work
| in modern stacks that have been out of a job for 6+ months yet
| companies are still hiring H-1B workers because its cheaper.
| ipozgaj wrote:
| Any change that hurts WITCH (Wipro, Infosys, TCS, Cognizant, HCL)
| is a good change. If they just plain banned those five, there
| probably wouldn't even be a lottery.
| fredfoobar wrote:
| I think this is true as well.
| geodel wrote:
| Hearing from multiple sources that there is big uptick in
| "offshore / global development centers" in India to support US
| companies who are currently using H1B in sizable numbers.
|
| With the increasing standardization of application stacks,
| automation, AI (seems mostly just hype), companies are thinking
| even if they need developers in larger numbers they can most
| definitely do with cheaper offshore developers.
|
| So US government, offshoring nation's government and American
| companies and their vendors are ironically on same page that
| H1B is going out. Even if they have different benefit or loss
| with current system.
| cute_boi wrote:
| And these companies abuse employee a lot. It is a time
| government start targeting these 4 sweat shops.
| TimPC wrote:
| Ranking by Salary probably makes the most sense if you're going
| to cap the numbers you want the most productive people who
| contribute the most to the tax base.
| rahulgoel wrote:
| Welcome change. I studied engineering at a U.S. university, came
| here 10 years ago, and still did not make it through the lottery
| (while the ones gaming the system did).
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > [Microsoft] applied for 9,491 H-1B visas during the last fiscal
| year, all of which were approved. The company has laid off nearly
| 16,000 people in total this year, out of a 228,000-strong global
| employee base.
|
| It shouldn't be able to get new H-1B's if it's laying people off.
| Hard to believe that the new H-1B hires are more qualified than
| the people that were laid off.
|
| At the same time we see articles about how after being told to
| get a STEM degree, new CS grads can't find jobs.[0]
|
| I sympathize with those in India wanting to get a higher pay job
| in the US, but it does perpetuate abusive behavior by companies
| (who have that employee under their thumb because their visa is
| tied to their employment), and it makes things much harder for
| new grads in the US (especially given college tuition costs) to
| get jobs.
|
| [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/10/technology/coding-ai-
| jobs...
| ojosilva wrote:
| Off-topic, the article looks like AI slop: "Why it matters?"
| "What happens next?" Either AI is now running Newsweek, which is
| something we could even come to expect from a decaying magazine,
| or journalists are writing like that to compete with AI and/or
| sound natural to what readers come to expect lately.
|
| Really concerning.
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