[groceryheist]

The huge fee won't solve the cheap labor problem, only shift the equilibrium. The USA Tech job market faces increasing competition from Canada and Eastern and Southern European countries with lower wages but competitive talent better than available from generalist outsourcing. The new policy accelerates this trend as companies will seek to transplant workers from the USA into other countries. This is bad for American workers whose status as the geographic center of the organization declines.

In my view, the real problem with the H1-B program stems from the sponsorship system which ties each employee to a particular company and role. Unable to leave their position without threatening their residency, they are more willing to demand abuse (e.g., long working hours, poor leadership, subpar compensation) than the labor market requires.

An improvement to the program would make it easier for people to change job. Perhaps the government could permit highly skilled individuals to qualify personally for the visa so long as they sustain employment in their field.

[Saline9515]

We told everyone to "learn to code", but now it's "ho sorry guys, you're still too expensive so either we'll hire a team of devs in Eastern Europe, or bring in an Indian dev who'll work for less than you".

Yeah of course people are not happy about such bait and switch behavior.

[dotnet00]

This is the same ridiculous dynamic that keeps American manufacturing in the dump. People whine about wanting local manufacturing, then complain it doesn't pay enough, and then are surprised that the rest of the world doesn't pay their price (and funnily enough, are mostly unwilling to bear the price themselves too).

My impression is that Americans are having a hard time coping with the fact that Europe and Japan aren't bombed out husks anymore, China has developed, and India is slowly getting there too. That's why over the decades, Americans have slowly gone through hating every one of them.

Thus, the socialism hating capitalists seek strong isolationist market controls, as anything that doesn't have them winning must actually be unfair.

[Saline9515]

All of the other countries that you mentioned have strong protectionist policies, except maybe Europe, which is losing ground to China anyway.

[lazyasciiart]

> Perhaps the government could permit highly skilled individuals to qualify personally for the visa so long as they sustain employment in their field.

That is kind of how it works: when I was on a H1B I did look at switching jobs and had an offer from a company who would sponsor me. They need to file a Labor Condition Application to show that the position qualified for a H1B worker, but you can start working as soon as the LCA is approved if you already have the visa, while the I129 is processed.

[lovich]

That is mechanically different. All the leverage is in the hands of the companies seeking out cheap labor in that case.

I actually don’t think it should be like the poster you replied to suggested where the immigrant employee in question needs to maintain employment.

I would advocate that we structure employment visas like we do marriage visas which would mean we calculate whatever the total cost of the drain on our system would be if the new immigrant wasn’t working, charge the company that much to have them enter, and then the employee is free to quit immediately if they feel it’s in their interests

[lazyasciiart]

That’s not how marriage visas work in the US.

[colechristensen]

>The huge fee won't solve the cheap labor problem, only shift the equilibrium.

But that's exactly the idea. I don't know what "solving" a cheap labor problem even means.

H1-B is being used for cheap labor, let's use a reasonable yearly fee to put some pressure on that usage to make it less lucrative.