[HN Gopher] Oracle Files H-1B Visa Petitions Amid Mass Layoffs
___________________________________________________________________
Oracle Files H-1B Visa Petitions Amid Mass Layoffs
Author : kklisura
Score : 258 points
Date : 2026-04-03 20:21 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nationaltoday.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (nationaltoday.com)
| jmyeet wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Oracle is a large company. Many of those laid off were outside
| the US. This is a non-story.
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| 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
| jrkfofjw wrote:
| Don't worry, Trump is in Ellison's pocket so this will go
| through.
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| H1B is generally a giant scam of Labor Arbitrage
| cmiles8 wrote:
| I would expect further H1B crackdowns coming. The $100k fee was
| just the start.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Good. Call your reps and ask for more action.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| By taxes, do you mean buying Trump's crypto?
| afavour wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Isn't Larry friends with the administration?
| qwertyuiop_ wrote:
| USCIS says they competed the 2027 quota. Is there any evidence
| all enrolled paid $100k this year ?
| trollbridge wrote:
| I would assume many were change-of-status from F-1 / OPT etc.
| QGQBGdeZREunxLe wrote:
| The giant gaping loophole they left in place. Renewals and
| COS (change of status) does not incur the $100k fee.
| cute_boi wrote:
| 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.
| Dig1t wrote:
| 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.
| slau wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44880832
|
| https://www.jobs.now/
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44892321
| rdtsc wrote:
| I remember seeing it on HN but didn't know if would still be
| up. Glad it's still going. Thanks!
| pj_mukh wrote:
| 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-
| cut...
|
| [2]: 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
| saulpw wrote:
| From your first link, it says 10% of 28k employees in India
| were cut. I personally know several people who were laid off
| from Oracle this week (OCI). One person who's still there
| described it as a "bloodbath across our division" and says he
| counted 15k. I don't know what exactly he was counting but as
| we're in North America I am assuming they're all here.
| Whereas India layoffs were fewer than 3k. So that directly
| disputes your statement that "they've barely fired any
| American workers".
| pj_mukh wrote:
| Yes 15k is the global number including massive
| international call centers all becoming obsolete.
|
| This is what a generational specialization swap out looks
| like.
|
| Oracle is hiring as many people in America as H1B filings
| this year [1] (though most H1B filings will fail, something
| the article conveniently leaves out) this is literally the
| pie growing from all sides but just becoming a blueberry AI
| pie from an apple pie
|
| [1] https://careers.oracle.com/en/sites/jobsearch/jobs?loca
| tion=...
| iugtmkbdfil834 wrote:
| << HN should know this
|
| HN does know. Some of us question whether brave and
| courageous leadership knows.
| pnw wrote:
| Oracle laid off 491 people in Seattle this week.
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| Your [3] shows that the government enforces paying H1-Bs
| competitive salaries, not that it cares about the Americans
| they replaced.
| starik36 wrote:
| > America is at near full employment
|
| Then why does it take months and months for even experienced
| devs to land a job?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| > America is at near full employment [2]. Replacing American
| workers with lower paid foreign workers is already illegal
| and frequently enforced[3].
|
| _Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US
| citizens_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45223719 -
| September 2025 (526 comments)
|
| _Job Listing Site Highlighting H-1B Positions So Americans
| Can Apply_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44892321 -
| August 2025 (108 comments)
|
| _H-1B Middlemen Bring Cheap Labor to Citi, Capital One_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44398978 - June 2025 (4
| comments)
|
| _Jury finds Cognizant discriminated against US workers_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42385000 - December 2024
| (65 comments)
|
| _How middlemen are gaming the H-1B program_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41123945 - July 2024 (57
| comments)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42454509 (additional
| citations)
| pj_mukh wrote:
| All these articles talk about how the justice department
| has a fantastic hit rate in suing these companies to
| kingdom come. _Good_. The law is working as intended. That
| is my point.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I suppose we simply disagree, and that is fine. I think
| the H-1B should be eliminated in favor of the O-1, the
| domestic labor exists, corporations would simply prefer
| "optimize their labor costs" and employ workers with
| reduced mobility via the H-1B. The data is clear from the
| salaries paid, which is public data.
|
| As I've commented previously:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46257889 "I am
| calling for a temporary moratorium for issuing new worker
| visas based on the current economic macro and existing
| immigrant worker base in the US companies can pick from,
| yes. I support the current $100k H-1B fee, in perpetuity.
| The domestic workforce exists, it is a choice to not pick
| from the domestic labor pool. Choices have consequences."
|
| The US has an obligation to its citizens, not
| corporations, not immigrant labor (already on US soil, or
| desiring to be on US soil). Shareholder returns go to the
| top 10% of Americans (who own 90% of US equities), so any
| argument about prosperity impairment from impaired
| immigration is going to fall on deaf ears in this
| context. Again, we may disagree on this, but I think I
| can find a majority of Americans who do agree with this
| sentiment (considering the current macro and
| affordability crisis in the US).
| Avicebron wrote:
| > The US has an obligation to its citizens
|
| In an ideal world the US _is_ it's citizens. Importing
| thousands of "guest" workers on h1b visas who never end
| up leaving seems borderline seditious.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| Just for reference, if you're in tech and a senior even
| in a 2nd tier city, you're probably not "the little guy",
| you're probably in the top 10% if you make more than
| around $160K
|
| https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I have personally been in the room when illegal labor
| decisions were made around H-1B hiring and immigration
| law, which I reported to USCIS. But that doesn't scale
| unless you can get into more places where these decisions
| are made. So, when all you have is a hammer, you have to
| hit whatever is within reach of the target outcome.
|
| > you're probably not "the little guy", you're probably
| in the top 10% if you make more than around $160K
|
| I am closer to a blue collar worker than a CEO or other
| very wealthy/empowered person driving these anti labor
| decisions, so your argument is not compelling, I know who
| these people are behind closed doors. It's always about
| some combination of wealth, profit, status, power, and/or
| control.
| socialcommenter wrote:
| > Shareholder returns go to the top 10% of Americans (who
| own 90% of US equities), so any argument about prosperity
| impairment from impaired immigration is going to fall on
| deaf ears in this context.
|
| "We fail to tax our corporations adequately, so the
| proceeds of rampant deregulation and profiteering don't
| benefit the general populace".
|
| I don't necessarily disagree with your stance but this
| seems like a weak justification (it's pragmatic, to be
| fair)
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| > it's pragmatic, to be fair
|
| Highest praise. This is what I optimize for in a dynamic,
| imperfect, and more often than not, unjust world. Move
| fast, break systems.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| It is not illegal to lay off Americans and expand offices
| overseas. I'm not saying that's what Oracle is doing.
| luckydata wrote:
| If America is at near full employment why don't I have a job
| after looking for 6 months. This is a load of nonsense.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| Because the employment is full, sorry, no more jobs
| available /s.
|
| (Im in the same boat, but much longer than 6 months)
| 999900000999 wrote:
| Have you been down to Amazon. Not Amazon corporate, Amazon
| Warehouse or Amazon flex delivery.
|
| With the gig economy as long as you can make 50$ a day via
| Uber Eats , you might be considered "employed".
|
| For the days I need to be in the office, my commute is well
| over 2 hours each way. Pay cuts, horrible commutes.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Also to cut through the headlines once again. What the
| article actually says:
|
| > Federal data shows Oracle filed for 2,690 H-1B visas in
| fiscal year 2025 and 436 so far in fiscal year 2026, totaling
| over 3,100 visa requests.
|
| There is no proof that these people were also not part of the
| layoffs. Typically in layoffs, until the day off the
| announcement, it's just business as usual. Which means people
| keep getting hired and H1B petitions being filed. The article
| doesn't say they filed these petitions AFTER the layoffs.
| MSM wrote:
| Either I'm stupid or [2] doesn't actually say anything at
| all. It starts with "in 2025..." And later talks about how
| estimates are expected to rise in 2023 and beyond while
| referencing data that ended in _1988_. What am I missing?
|
| "In 2025, it was estimated that over 163 million Americans
| were in some form of employment, while 4.16 percent of the
| total workforce was unemployed. This was the lowest
| unemployment rate since the 1950s, although these figures are
| expected to rise in 2023 and beyond."
| janalsncm wrote:
| Unemployment rate is tricky because there's a lot of
| related statuses a person could have. So the Fed has 7
| different rates U1 through U7.
|
| Here is U6 which is a better reflection imo:
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U6RATE
| janalsncm wrote:
| > America is at near full employment
|
| Pretty sure that is the U3 rate which only counts people as
| unemployed if they are actively looking for a job. The U6 is
| better and rarely falls below 5%:
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U6RATE
| cineticdaffodil wrote:
| How does indian software indus try handle the llm wave?
| ergocoder wrote:
| Stanford also filed an H1B this year to hire an IT person.
|
| https://x.com/chrisbrunet/status/2037376353461567734
|
| Apparently, no citizen wants to do this job? Why do we allow
| things like this?
| andriy_koval wrote:
| "we" don't allow, but also don't enforce (violators are
| rarely punished).
| ergocoder wrote:
| I feel like this is legal i.e. we allow it.
|
| Stanford wouldn't blatantly violate laws like this.
| andriy_koval wrote:
| it could be not blatant violation, but they more like
| don't track this on their side because don't think it is
| a big deal, so some individual can act like that.
|
| Blatant violation would be if they do it on many cases
| and large scale.
| jltsiren wrote:
| Without knowing anything about that particular case, I would
| assume that the person was initially hired as an F-1 student
| and later changed to OPT status. University IT tends to hire
| students to entry-level positions all around the world. And
| now Stanford wants to keep the proven employee instead of
| going through the uncertainty of hiring a new person.
|
| So maybe the actual question is what kind of a Stanford
| undergraduate would choose a university IT position in ~2021
| instead of aiming for more lucrative tech roles. Perhaps the
| kind that wants to maximize their chances of getting H-1B.
| sva_ wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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
| moshegramovsky wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| You advertise in small circulation newspapers, I thought this
| was well known.
| RachelF wrote:
| 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.
| cyberax wrote:
| > 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.
| timedude wrote:
| Turns out it was true all the layoffs were because of AI (actual
| indians).
| mikert89 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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).
| satvikpendem wrote:
| For tech jobs specifically? Compensation has been increasing
| since the turn of the millennium, what standard of living do
| you mean? If you mean housing, that's due mainly to NIMBYism
| from native labor buying and owning houses, especially before
| the tech boom, not imported labor.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Schizophrenic?
| dominotw wrote:
| lots ppl are confused in this comment section. h1b doesnt not
| require looking for a local first.
| prerok wrote:
| Sorry what? Yes, they do. Second-hand knowledge, though.
| motbus3 wrote:
| Read this guy comment before taking it to this level
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pj_mukh
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| He's a shill.
| moshegramovsky wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| workers dont. but dont speak against it either because they are
| scared of losing heir jobs from accusations of racism.
| moshegramovsky wrote:
| 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.
| dexwiz wrote:
| Because our government is not run for the workers but the
| owners. Full stop.
| iugtmkbdfil834 wrote:
| There are days I think what we need is a slightly bigger font
| for heavily upvoted comments.
| infamouscow wrote:
| Owners are a minority of voters, which raises an obvious
| question: _why does the majority tolerate it?_
|
| Every serious attempt to answer that ends up admitting
| something uncomfortable, that democracy only functions as
| intended if voters are consistently rational and informed.
| But that assumption doesn't hold. It _never has._ Even the
| Athenians put Socrates, father of Western civilization, to
| death.
|
| If society were _at all_ rational, we 'd see a lot more
| people swing from lampposts.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Wealth can be spent on influence. That includes news
| converage / ads / or donations.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| To be clear too, this is not capitalism. This is corporatism.
| Large companies dictating economic companies is anti-
| innovation. It can only end with disaster and more
| control/corporatism because lower-productivity workers does
| not produce higher long-term growth. Temporarily you are able
| to get your bonus and stock options from the spread between
| imported and native workers but, eventually, demand and
| supply stop (and the US reached this point a while ago, which
| is why central bankers and politicians have had to intervene
| heavily to keep it going).
|
| The end game for corporatism is shown in Europe where you can
| see a clear gap between countries that are built on non-zero
| sum systems which are thriving, everything just works...and
| then other countries which have been heavily corporatist for
| multiple decades, everything is collapsing, government
| function is both non-existent in many areas and reaching new
| highs of intervention into markets. Unfortunately, the
| Chinese were right.
| some_random wrote:
| It was really easy to support when tech jobs were plentiful,
| well compensated, and fun.
| fooker wrote:
| There's not much preventing you from starting a company and not
| hiring immigrants.
|
| This is something I'd encourage everyone with strong opinions
| about work visas to try and accomplish.
|
| You don't change a system by crying about it on anonymous
| internet forums, you do it by competing against it and making
| it redundant.
| kstrauser wrote:
| 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.
| alephnerd wrote:
| 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-2f9cd52de...
| dominotw wrote:
| construction, hospital nurses and daycare workers are the
| avialble jobs? so depressing and scary
| guzfip wrote:
| Yeah you don't want to work 60+ hours a week to be even
| remotely close to what you were making before?
| alephnerd wrote:
| > 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-...
|
| [1] - https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2025/demo
| /p60-28...
|
| [2] - https://www.levels.fyi/t/investment-
| banker?countryId=254&cou...
| sapphicsnail wrote:
| Just because someone has it worse doesn't mean you should
| accept bad things happening.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > so depressing and scary
|
| Union jobs with set hours and lower barriers to entry than
| software while offering middle class salaries? It's so
| horrible /s.
|
| It's this attitude that makes people who don't have stakes in
| the software industry feel schadenfreude.
| throwatdem12311 wrote:
| Everyone that supports the H1-B program because they "can't find
| talent" is my enemy.
| motbus3 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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?
| throwatdem12311 wrote:
| > you need to hate immigrants
|
| Oracle is immigrants?
| OptionOfT wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| PearlRiver wrote:
| 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.
| peyton wrote:
| 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.
| p_l wrote:
| They should also trigger holds on bunch of other operations,
| like stock buyouts or sales by people with active or recent
| relationship to the company
| fooker wrote:
| When you are puzzled about something, the first step is to find
| out why something works like it does. :)
|
| With green cards, the government is concerned about permanent
| residents being dependent on the state if a company ceases to
| exist or fails to pay salaries or lays people off.
|
| This worry is largely not present for limited term work visas.
| zombot wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Well... If they fact check stuff... The layoffs didn't happen
| in America
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pj_mukh
| ipaddr wrote:
| 3,000 Indians were laid off out of 15,000.
| Dig1t wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| You're definitely not wrong but I still voted for Kamala
| because I didn't want Trump to burn the country down.
| moshegramovsky wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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)
| lateforwork wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Unless they get waivers, which I'm sure Larry has worked out
| with his buddy.
| ibero wrote:
| 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/1000...
| jinglebell2025 wrote:
| America has an H1b invasion problem
| hackthemack wrote:
| 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.
| smetannik wrote:
| Did oracle manage to circumvent 100k payment per H1B applicant?
|
| Also, why they need to do H1B instead of just outsourcing abroad?
| MrWiffles wrote:
| 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.
| suid wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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...
| emodendroket wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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?
| fooker wrote:
| This article is deliberately written in a way to aggravate people
| who do not understand how the visa process works.
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