What an incredible own-goal this will be to the US economy. Is there any possible way that keeping skilled workers out of the country will help the economy.
I’m having a tough time believing either of these statements:
Trump told reporters at the White House in January that he understands “both sides of the argument” on H-1Bs.
What was the fee before, and what percentage increase is it?
It’s in the supplied link.
Answer:
Soooo, an increase of 66.7 times the current rate.
Does the check have to be made payable to Trump? Asking for a friend…
Then make our universities less expensive and more accessible for US citizens (bet they are not doing that). Forgive debt (some or all) it costs to go to university. Let US citizens be able to discharge that debt in bankruptcy court. Improve US high schools. Get rid of No Child Left Behind. Increase teacher salaries?
Chat GPT is telling me that - surprise – H1B fees are set by law. Please correct me if wrong, but I think this today is just one more instance of Trump acting as a dictator.
I agree but, so far, the US Supreme Court and congress are letting him get away with all of it.
I am astonished that congress is not jealously guarding their powers as legislators and instead handing it all over to Trump.
I think it actually gets even worse than I first noted. Per the below article:
“The Secretary of Homeland Security can waive this for ‘an individual alien, all aliens working for a company, or all aliens working in an industry’ if employing them as H-1B specialty occupation workers is in national interest, and if it does not pose a threat to the security or welfare of the nation.”
So - Trump can grant allowances to the $100,000 annual fee to companies that he favors. This actually just seems like a way to control things even more. If your company needs to import engineers or whatever - you better make sure your donations to the republicans are in good order.
I’m not an attorney, but I was the primary point of contact with my company’s immigration attorney and I was the guy who would speak to hiring managers about the process should they hire someone who needed sponsorship. At least at my company, there is not a single position we have where it makes economical sense to spend $100,000 for even a three year visa let alone pay that fee each and every year of sponsorship. (I’m not sure how the yearly fees are supposed to work. An H-1B is good for three years, and we only paid for the visa when it was first approved or when it was renewed.)
My company sponsors about .5% of their employee population at any given time. If this additional fee stands, those people are going to be sent packing. Money is tight at work, we’re going to be laying people off I suspect, and there’s no way to justify $100,000 for the H-1B workers. It’s going to make it harder for us to do business when things are tough already.
This is the one and only thing that Trump has done that I agree with. I’m retired now, but in the sector where I worked, importing workers in an effort to lower wages was definitely a thing. Wages were booming (in the 80s) until lots of foreign workers started to flood the industry. I love them, they’re great people, I’m friendly with many of them; and some of them genuinely had admirable skills. Most of them were not any more skilled than anyone already here, and some were just so-so.
I can’t imagine businesses are happy with this:
Employees at major tech and financial companies on H-1B visas were told to stay in the US following President Donald Trump’s surprise executive order that makes it far more expensive — and potentially impossible — for them to return if they travel abroad.
Amazon, Microsoft, JPMorgan, and Meta are among those companies, per employees and internal communications reviewed by Business Insider.
I get that. But I think what’s likely to happen with this new policy is not “U.S. companies are going to hire American employees to replace their H-1B employees;” it’s going to be “U.S. companies are going to just offshore those jobs,” and “some companies will suck up to Trump and pay him for exemptions on the new H-1B fee.”
Either way, the net effect is not going to be “lots of Americans will get good high-paying jobs that had been going to foreigners.”
Especially as the Republicans complained when Obama legally use the legislative powers Congress has allowed the Executive Branch.
I suggest you look into US abuse of H-1B visas by American companies and abuse of H-1B visa holders by their own employers. Specifically in the corporate IT industry. They cite labor shortages, which means “We can’t find enough workers at the pissant wages we want to pay.”
Basically they’re a way for US companies to drive down salaries of US workers by hiring cheaper foreign H-1B holders and working them like slaves. There’s not much of anything good there for anyone other than pinny-pinching companies and unscrupulous foreign consulting firms like Tata and Infosys.
In the relatively rare case that H-1B visa holders actually have advanced skills that are hard to come by, you’d think their employers would actually be willing to pay 100k for those people.
I would certainly agree there are legitimate concerns regarding H-1Bs with wage suppression and worker replacement being the main ones. At my own company, I’ve got an Indian hiring manager who seems very keen on hiring other Indians who need sponsorship. Asians only make up 2% of the population here, so when 80% of your subordinates are Indian it kind of raises some red flags.
Unfortunately Trump is handling it in his characteristically ham-fisted manner and I can’t help but think it’s a deliberate effort to harm American businesses. Or at least those businesses who aren’t bending the knee in a sufficient manner. Changing the rules for H-1B visas on such short notice is disruptive because it’s not a reasonable amount of time to change plans.
Trump isn’t doing this to help American workers. He’s doing it to solidify power.
This bears repeating. He’s calling the shots.
As part of every H1B petition, the US government spends months analyzing the labor market. It then determines the MINIMUM wage that should be proffered for that position. This wage is already highly competitive and is what would be proffered to a US citizen with similar skills for the same job. That’s the whole purpose of the LCA - ensure that no wage undercutting takes place.
Most companies will actually pay the H1B beneficiary a little more than that.
Are you saying this analysis is incorrect? Is the “prevailing wage” (as the DHS calls it) being deliberately pegged lower to benefit H1Bs employees while putting US citizens at a disadvantage? And why the heck would the US government do it to its own citizens? Are the people doing this work incompetent, sold out, or malicious? Maybe they are on KGB payroll?
No - none of this is sensible. If the US government says, “X is the prevailing wage” and companies pay X or more, there can be no wage depression. It does not matter if the said company is an Indian consultancy or MAANG.
And it’s beyond belief that the rule comes into effect less than 48 hours after it was issued. That means employees on vacation - those who have lives, properties and family here - cannot return. What kind of inhumanity is this? Ok we get it that you’d like us to leave. Fair enough. You could just cancel our visas and give us a grace period to wind up and leave. And how about stopping the H1B program altogether? Why the fuck is the US still issuing visas if there is such a deep labor crisis here?