Trump to impose $100k fee for H-1B worker visas, White House says

H1B hires are already expensive. Most large tech companies spend quite a lot on legal services.

The assumption that a lot of people make, apparently including Trump, is that companies are hiring H1B for no good reason. Or maybe because they think it's cheaper? It's not. In virtually all cases, H1B hires are because there simply aren't any suitable American applicants with the necessary skills.

Infosys, Tata, and Deloitte are hiring basic programmers. There’s no shortage of American applicants with those skills.

I’m sure people will make the argument about FAANG but there’s plenty of Americans for that too.

Go look at the experience people are having right now with this job market. There were mass layoffs and new grads every year on top of that.

> In virtually all cases, H1B hires are because there simply aren't any suitable American applicants with the necessary skills.

I don’t believe that at all. I believe the opposite, in fact. How do we decide who is right?

In my experience it is actually largely because H1B holders are locked in to their employers, so the balance of power is incredibly favorable for employers.

There are plenty of American citizens and permanent residents with the necessary skills, just not the willingness to put up with bullshit from B-tier employers.

Yeah, I don't understand how people can be arguing that there aren't enough Americans to do this work when we've just gotten off a round of mass layoffs all throughout the tech sector and there are stories about CS grads being unable to find work now.

It's transparently obvious that the draw of these employees isn't skill, it's cost. The bottom/middle rung in this field is being hollowed out when it comes to domestic hiring because companies don't care who fills the position so long as they can keep the salary low and the employee locked in, and H-1Bs are the perfect fit for that.

I suppose we are about to find out.