(CNN) Trump to impose $100K fee on H-1B visas in new immigration action

[BirdinHand]

Won’t even make a dent.



The gigantic H1B consulting shops will simply increase the fees they charge clients by a small percentage - still undercutting the US labor market and still making a ton of money for the firms.

Accenture and companies like them won’t even blink. Their stock lost like 2% on the announcement…and will correct quickly.

 

[Gatsby]

This isn't like a few years ago. STEM graduates are struggling to find a job right after all the talking head experts told them to go into STEM and never worry about finding a job.

No they aren't.

This is like 2004 all over again.

I don't know what this means, but it wasn't hard for STEM people to find a job in 2004 and it isn't hard today.

We are now no different than China who has a huge oversupply of engineers who will work for peanuts.

I would love it if we had a huge oversupply of engineers who will work for peanuts, but that isn't the case. If China has a huge oversupply, that should be a great opportunity for us to poach their top talent instead of trying to close off immigration pathways.

These STEM graduates are smart people, they will land on their feet one way or another. But their skills are going to be under utilized. That's bad for society. Trump is choosing to invest in America and American workers. I don't see how people can see that as a bad thing.

It's bad because the world you described doesn't actually exist.

 

[Hamish Howl]

This isn't like a few years ago. STEM graduates are struggling to find a job right after all the talking head experts told them to go into STEM and never worry about finding a job.

Weird, I can't find enough STEM graduates.

 

[uptower]

Apart from restricting overseas talent what on earth will this achieve?

 

[TobyOne]

Many companies hire H-1bs because they can't fill roles with domestic talent. Nobody likes it, there's a cost to sponsoring H-1bs and hiring managers don't want to deal with it. There are also cultural and communication challenges. Most hiring managers would prefer to hire domestic candidates. There just aren't enough. Some companies have policies against hiring h-1bs but sometimes you can get around this by bringing them in as contactors. The consulting company sponsors the H-1b.

 

[Gozaburo]

No they aren't.

As a relatively young person who works in STEM and has found relative success in my own career, this is just false. Unemployment among STEM grads is disproportionately high, especially considering the ostensible demand. Some of this is probably due to the speculative nature of the tech industry at the moment, but I don't know that we necessarily suffer from a lack of headcount. What seems more true is that we suffer from a lack of industrial policy and educational infrastructure.

On a selfish, mostly anecdotal level, I don't see how I (as an American citizen) am served by importing millions of H1B's from India. In a field where availability is already outpacing demand (at least among graduates), how am I (or any other American) served by adding more cheap labor? Why rush to crush the STEM field, given that it's the last bastion of accessible and reliable middle to upper middle class wage earning?

I would love it if we had a huge oversupply of engineers who will work for peanuts, but that isn't the case. If China has a huge oversupply, that should be a great opportunity for us to poach their top talent instead of trying to close off immigration pathways.

This is something I'd love to discuss, but summarized I think anyone who has real working experience in tech or adjacent fields understands intuitively why it's a hilariously bad idea to make highly technical and sophisticated industries dependent on slop shop immigration. You think people want to work in 130 IQ+ cutting edge industries for peanuts?

Moreover, I'm going to speak frankly as someone who has worked with consultancies and hiring of H1B candidates: most of the candidates will have slight communication barriers, which would be okay if they were highly skilled, but they often times are not. The consultancies are built to shovel shit and due to lack of resources and experience in logistics and hiring, companies will often have limited options to avoid hiring shit. In the more rare cases where you're hiring true talent, that true talent is often held hostage because while they may deserve higher wages, they're held at gunpoint by their sponsor. The natural conclusion might be to simplify this problem, but that's a catch 22: simplifying the process means you get the top talent but you'll also get a massive influx of the dogshit labor I've mentioned, resulting in a depression of wages and more difficult conditions for graduates and mid levels. Great deal for the capitalist though, at least in the short term.

This relationship is how you get tech hubs like Toronto where the labor pool is so massive relative to demand, that even specialized, educated, and high IQ tech labor make relatively low wages in an extremely expensive geography. Try speaking to a 130 IQ+ immigrant from Hong Kong or China in Toronto. The situation is ****ing horrific because the talent pool is so full of slop and companies have no idea what to prioritize.

 

[Gatsby]

As a relatively young person who works in STEM and has found relative success in my own career, this is just false. Unemployment among STEM grads is disproportionately high, especially considering the ostensible demand. Some of this is probably due to the speculative nature of the tech industry at the moment, but I don't know that we necessarily suffer from a lack of headcount. What seems more true is that we suffer from a lack of industrial policy and educational infrastructure.

I guess it depends on what counts as STEM grads. I imagine there are going to be lots of regional and career differences between graduates of Computer Science, Petroleum Engineering, Mathematics, Psychology, and Biology...all of which are at least nominally STEM fields.

For full disclosure, my frame of reference is Data Science / Machine Learning / Artificial Intelligence, where it is incredibly easy to find work and where I wish we had lots and lots more immigrants.

On a selfish, mostly anecdotal level, I don't see how I (as an American citizen) am served by importing millions of H1B's from India. In a field where availability is already outpacing demand (at least among graduates), how am I (or any other American) served by adding more cheap labor? Why rush to crush the STEM field, given that it's the last bastion of accessible and reliable middle to upper middle class wage earning?

Skilled immigrants are net job creators. If we bring in lots of skilled people, some of them will be the next Jensen Huang or Elon Musk or Sergey Brin.

This is something I'd love to discuss, but summarized I think anyone who has real working experience in tech or adjacent fields understands intuitively why it's a hilariously bad idea to make highly technical and sophisticated industries dependent on slop shop immigration. You think people want to work in 130 IQ+ cutting edge industries for peanuts?

That's fine, we can bring in skilled immigrants in whatever fields there is demand for them and where immigrants want to come. If the salary in one industry drops because the market is saturated, then consumers will benefit from the now-cheap talent and new workers will pivot to other more lucrative industries.

Moreover, I'm going to speak frankly as someone who has worked with consultancies and hiring of H1B candidates: most of the candidates will have slight communication barriers, which would be okay if they were highly skilled, but they often times are not. The consultancies are built to shovel shit and due to lack of resources and experience in logistics and hiring, companies will often have limited options to avoid hiring shit. In the more rare cases where you're hiring true talent, that true talent is often held hostage because while they may deserve higher wages, they're held at gunpoint by their sponsor. The natural conclusion might be to simplify this problem, but that's a catch 22: simplifying the process means you get the top talent but you'll also get a massive influx of the dogshit labor I've mentioned, resulting in a depression of wages and more difficult conditions for graduates and mid levels. Great deal for the capitalist though, at least in the short term.

I agree, the H-1B system currently sucks and Trump's new fee will just make it worse without replacing it with something better. I would love if we just had more meritocratic green cards, or at least an easy pathway to convert an H-1B into an EB-2 or EB-3 green card.

This relationship is how you get tech hubs like Toronto where the labor pool is so massive relative to demand, that even specialized, educated, and high IQ tech labor make relatively low wages in an extremely expensive geography. Try speaking to a 130 IQ+ immigrant from Hong Kong or China in Toronto. The situation is ****ing horrific because the talent pool is so full of slop and companies have no idea what to prioritize.

Yes, the salaries that skilled immigrants to America can earn are much more impressive than those even in other developed countries like Canada. When Europeans or East Asians find out how much developers can earn in America, they often simply don't believe it. To the extent that we have the same slop problem in America, it's mostly because the H-1B is awarded by lottery, instead of to the most deserving applicants.

 

[Metric Mouse]

This is dumb. H1 bs are specifically for talented persons that fill needed roles...

It's not for farm labor or under the table construction work. Businesses already incure the costs of filing and vetting these individuals... this is a robust legal immigration process... exactly what we say we want.

 

[Koala]

A tax, true. But a tax encouraging using American labour firstly, while not precluding the importation of labour when needed.

There might be merit in this.

I disagree strongly, because the underlying supposition is that the AMerican labor market currently HAS the capabilities and skills that are being imported by these immigrant work visas.

It does not. If it did, companies would naturally prefer to hire Americans that are already here -- any HR manager will tell you that its a hassle, and often a costly hassle, to go through the whole H1B visa process. I in fact its likely to cost more in the end, and is simply a hassle and time consuming, even before the Trump hikes . You cant pay them 3rd world salaries, either, because there are labor laws already on the books to make sure that companies not underpay imported workers.

These problems in no way solve the underlying problem, and in fact will exacerbate the shortages of skilled labor and certain STEMI professions. There is still a shortage in supply of labor for certain types tech workers, for physicians, for engineers, for healthcare professionals of all types. What there is an oversupply of, are Americans with no real skills but a false sense of entitlement to a high salary position because they fell for the college education scam that left them with more debt than in-demand useful skills.

This is the consequence of the long decline in STEMI education, and also a deline in skilled laborers and manufacturing. THAT is the problem you need to fix. H1B visas are a bandaid to help attract manufacturing back to America while you fix the long term issues in education and skill development. Trumps move removes the bandaid, and so the bleeding continues.