[cogman10]

Because I don't really want to penalize a company for bringing in foreign labor. If a company can't find someone for a specific job or role then I don't care if they go abroad to find that person.

What I care about is the current system isn't being used to find hard to find labor, it's used to bring in cheap labor in an abusive situation.

We as a nation are really better off if we bring in the best in the world to work here with a cushy salary.

[leopoldj]

Multiple registrations are being filed for the same person in order to game the system. This is discussed in some details in a USCIS report [1]. The increased application fee is presumably to stem that practice.

https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary...

[cogman10]

Honestly, with a much higher minimum salary I don't see a reason why the cap couldn't simply be eliminated removing the need to play such games.

[loverofhumanz]

"If a company can't find someone for a specific job or role then I don't care if they go abroad to find that person."

You're believing and repeating the propaganda. The H1B was sold to Americans as for this purpose and then very deliberately turned into a loophole for importing massive amounts of foreign labor.

How silly is it to accept the idea that Big Tech companies like Google, Microsoft, and Tesla are not be able to hire Americans for any role they want. They're the richest companies on the planet!

These companies use the H1B to increase their labor supply, suppress wages, and gain indentured workers.

If they couldn't cheat by importing cheaper foreign labor they would have to compete against each other much more than they do for American workers.

This is all about big companies rigging the system. They do not care if it's good or bad for America, the foreign workers, or anyone else. It's simple greed.

[8note]

this is also believing and repeating the propaganda, just a different propaganda.

and entirely different propaganda is that without being able to hire so many people constantly, the work just doesnt happen, and companies downsize to save money rather than grow to make more money.

a greedier facebook doesnt dump a ton of money into VR or ai glasses.

[oytis]

US has the highest salaries for software engineers in the world. If this is what suppressed salaries look like, then what do you think they should be paying? I think if the labour pool is further restricted by measures like this one, it can only lead to companies doubling down on opening R&D offices abroad.

[loverofhumanz]

They've almost all already doubled down and opened R&D offices abroad. They will do absolutely whatever helps them maximize profits. There are no ethics to it.

American companies shouldn't be able to bribe American politicians into letting them cheat the market at the expense of Americans.

If companies couldn't cheat by importing foreign workers they would have to hire and pay Americans more. They would also lobby for good things, like educating even more Americans to work for them.

The system is corrupt.

[dbish]

The fee should help ensure that only higher paying jobs or truly hard to find roles would be worth paying for as well (not that this is the right option, but playing it out). You would gladly pay 100k if the role already is high paying, it will be a small fraction of the cost, you won’t do that if it’s a couple year salary. It will also help curb abuse through multiple applications. I agree hard to find jobs for highly talented people (who are paid well) should be brought in.

[cogman10]

Well, again, I don't really care about prioritizing local hires. The 100k fee really only penalizes the company from hiring abroad.

I'd much rather push everything into the salary of the person being hired. Both because it ends up raising the median salary for local workers and because it stimulates the local economy where that person is brought in. It's also a yearly fee. I think there's value in getting a very capable person working in your company and having a high salary is one way to make such roles highly competitive. A highly capable person will ultimately make everyone they work with more capable.

[llm_nerd]

>If a company can't find someone for a specific job or role then I don't care if they go abroad to find that person

It was never, ever that they "can't find someone".

[victorbjorklund]

If country has 10 qualified people but 15 positions to fill you cant find it by just hiring in the country. Then you just end up with a circle where the people move around.

[llm_nerd]

Yes, I also can make up imaginary math. 6 is bigger than 3. But 9 is less than 12.

There are extraordinarily few roles handed out to H1Bs where there aren't enormous numbers of domestic options. Indeed, by far the biggest users of H1Bs in tech are shitty consulting firms like Cognizant, Infosys and Tata doing absolute garbage, low skill development.

Yes, there are exceptions. There are truly unique talents in the AI space, for instance. Not someone to build Yet Another agent, but someone who actually understands the math. They are extraordinarily rare in that program. And for those exceptional talents, a $100K fee would be completely worth it. But they aren't going to pay it for an army of garbage copy-paste consultant heads.

In actual reality it's just a way to push down wages by forcing Americans to compete with the developing world in their own country. In Canada we have "TFWs" filling the same role. It is a laughably unjustified, massively abusive program.