[echelon]

Shouldn't we all want H1B rather than offshoring?

That keeps the facilities here, the local employment options here, the growth here, the tax base here...

We should want more smart people moving to this country. More business creation, more capital, more labor, more output.

Immigration is total economic growth for America, non zero-sum. Offshoring is not only economic loss, but second order loss: we lose the capacity over an extended time frame.

[johnnyanmac]

I want the loopholes on H1Bs to be closed. H1B is a great concept to get foreign talent that found domestically. But these days is a shell game that's turned into a way to put shackles on employees who can't job hop. It hurts both groups in the long run.

[FilosofumRex]

> want the loopholes on H1Bs to be closed. H1B is a great concept...

There are no loopholes on H1B, it's working exactly as it was intended - replace, not just supplement - American workers with cheaper, more obedient tech slave workers dependent of their master-employer for their survival.

The talent visa is called O-1 not H1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=envbbUc4LhU

[dlahoda]

would job hop allowance help?

[toomuchtodo]

Yes, but also salary minimum at top industry percentile to prevent use for wage suppression domestically.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45229180 (Top 40 H-1B employers)

Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45223719 - September 2025 (526 comments)

Job Listing Site Highlighting H-1B Positions So Americans Can Apply - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44892321 - August 2025 (108 comments)

H-1B Middlemen Bring Cheap Labor to Citi, Capital One - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44398978 - June 2025 (4 comments)

Jury finds Cognizant discriminated against US workers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42385000 - December 2024 (65 comments)

How middlemen are gaming the H-1B program - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41123945 - July 2024 (57 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42454509 (additional citations)

[aprilthird2021]

Several of the links of yours are about PERM applications, not H1B.

I agree abusers (employers) should be put on he H1B visa blacklist which already exists.

H1B already mandates that employees be paid within the wage window of their peers. And anecdotally I know several who make more than their citizen peers in the same company same level

[johnnyanmac]

Not fully, the problem is much deeper than compensation. Let's not have large companies game around the slots allotted and using various means to get more slots. And put some serious enforcement on how they justify their H1b's to begin with as a start.

[Gibbon1]

> Shouldn't we all want H1B rather than offshoring?

That's my opinion.

However there are issues with who's sucking the tit. If you bring in a bunch of people from outside instead of hiring locals that's not a win for the locals. On the other hand whats the difference for someone in San Francisco if Apple hires a guy from India vs New Jersey? Not much.

And H1B visa's can be low grade indentured servitude.

[learingsci]

Guy in San Francisco can move to NJ easier than Mumbai.

[autokad]

I am not so sure on that. They raise inflation, home prices, etc. The locals see no real benefit except having to pay more for everything. While more taxes are collected, most of that goes to offsetting just some of the economic pain induced by the people living there.

and it is in fact zero sum. every spot filled in university or company is a spot not taken by a local, as its obvious by the numbers, more local people are not getting admitted into CS programs nor are they being hired. its 100% zero sum when we are looking at these numbers and %s.

[echelon]

Companies want to cut costs. They will.

If you don't bring more fungible labor into the US, the jobs will be offshored.

Look at what just happened to film labor in 2022-2023. The industry was burgeoning off the heels of the streaming wars and ZIRP. Then the stikes happened.

Amazon and Netflix took trained crews in the Eastern Europe bloc and leveraged tax deals and existing infra in Ireland and the UK. Film production in LA and Atlanta are now down over 75%. Even with insane local tax subsidies - unlimited subsidies in the case or Georgia.

Software development will escape to other cheaper countries. They're talented and hard working. AI will accelerate this.

Then what? America lost manufacturing. I think we've decided that was a very bad idea.

We need to move the cheaper labor here. More workforce means more economic opportunities for startups and innovation. Labor will find a way as long as the infrastructure is here.

De-growth is cost cutting and collapse. Immigration is rapid growth, diversification, innovation, and market dominance.

All those people start buying from businesses here. They start paying taxes here. It supercharges the local economy. Your house might go up in price, but way more money is moving around - more jobs, more growth, second order effects.

America doesn't have the land limits Canada has. And we can set tax policy and regulations to encourage building.

I'd rather be in an America forecasted to hit 500 million citizens - birth or immigration. And I want to spend on their education. I want capital to fund their startup ideas. I want the FTC/DOJ to break up market monopolies to create opportunity for new risk takers and labor capital.

That was the world the Boomers had. Exciting, full of opportunity. That was the world of a rapidly industrializing America.

Right now, the world we have ahead looks bleak. People aren't having kids and we aren't bringing in immigrants. We'll have less consumerism, less labor, and everything will shrink and shrivel and be less than it was.

[coredog64]

> If you don't bring more fungible labor into the US, the jobs will be offshored.

Offshoring is not always a substitute for an employee chained to the job by a visa. I'm sure you can get a million and one anecdotes here on HN about the perils of working across timezones, cultures, and legal systems.

[johnnyanmac]

If you really think that companies are moving out of country because "there's not enough talent", despite having some of the more relaxed tax codes and most talented universities here: well, sure. That would be hopeless. It also sounds like you're buying snake oil.

They had decades to off shore, and they chose not to. I don't think Ai in the near term (<15 years) is going to change that dial much. If they do leave, there's plenty of talent to fill the void.

[aprilthird2021]

> If you really think that companies are moving out of country because "there's not enough talent", despite having some of the more relaxed tax codes and most talented universities here

The US has a huge delta between its great universities and its mediocre ones. There are some smart and sharp kids everywhere in even the lowest ranked schools. But altogether the amount of people who can pass a code screen in the US is pretty low. If you ever interviewed people for a software position in a big tech firm, you'd realize this.

[SJC_Hacker]

>The US has a huge delta between its great universities and its mediocre ones. There are some smart and sharp kids everywhere in even the lowest ranked schools. But altogether the amount of people who can pass a code screen in the US is pretty low. If you ever interviewed people for a software position in a big tech firm, you'd realize this.

I'm convinced that the code screen functions as a somewhat arbitrary filter/badge of honor.

FAANG and equivalents get tens of thousands of applicants and they cannot hire them all

If too many pass the code screen, they will just make it harder, even though the job hasn't gotten any more difficult.

Or they get failed at system design. Which is BS in many cases.

[aprilthird2021]

It's a necessary filter. Again, you need to interview candidates for these jobs to understand. Our industry doesn't have any qualifications, any exam to pass to certify, so there are just a ton of people who can't do the basic job but think they are qualified because we don't have a good way to screen people for this work.

[johnnyanmac]

>The US has a huge delta between its great universities and its mediocre ones.

Like any other country, yes.

>But altogether the amount of people who can pass a code screen in the US is pretty low. If you ever interviewed people for a software position in a big tech firm, you'd realize this.

Compared to India? Or is it fine to lower standards of quality when you are paying an 8th of the cost and it turns out most people don't need to be from MIT to contribute?

That's perfectly fine and dandy. But that's not what H1Bs are for.

[aprilthird2021]

H1Bs aren't paid 1/8 their counterparts in the same company.

And no, the same applies to India and to China but because the number is small here we pick the small numbers from the rest of the world as well. We don't only hire people from India and China in tech they are just more populous countries so their best workers are far more numerous.

Go to any FAANG in the US and you will see people on H1B from all over Europe, Africa, South America, etc. but Indians and Chinese are the largest group because they are the largest population countries with established pipelines from schools there to schools here to jobs here.

[dzonga]

> We need to move the cheaper labor here

Very smart & pragmatic.

however political sentiment is going the other way - which is an own goal

[Analemma_]

You could use this exact argument to say nobody should ever have children-- children also raise inflation, home prices, etc. And the majority of your property taxes go specifically towards programs which would be unneeded if nobody had any children.

The fact that naive anti-immigration arguments can be copy-pasted unchanged into arguments against having children is a sign that maybe those arguments are stupid. To understand why, you might start with the fact that immigrants also purchase goods and services, and hence pay the salaries of the ~70% of people in this country employed in some way or another by consumer spending.

[mc32]

Children are future taxpayers the majority with parents who were not a tax burden --net positive tax contribution. People without Children benefit from the taxes paid by the children of people who rear children -i.e. people without children aren't "cashing out" their tax contributed retirement --that contribution went to other retirees.

[repstosb]

And citizens benefit from the taxes paid by non-citizen immigrants, whether documented or undocumented. Not just income and payroll taxes that might be dodged by under-the-table arrangements, but sales taxes, property taxes (perhaps paid indirectly via rent to a taxpaying landlord), the consumer share (nearly 100%) of tariffs, etc. And much of that tax base is spent on benefits and services that are not accessible to taxpaying non-citizens.

So from that standpoint, immigrants are a /better/ economic deal for the public than children are. At the end of the day, though, it shouldn't matter where people were born if they're contributing to society, and the grandparent post is 100% correct that the whole debate is stupid.

[irishcoffee]

Sales tax is actually paid by the vendor, they just pass the cost along. The landlord pays the property tax, they just pass the cost along.

It is absolutely impossible for an undocumented alien to meaningfully contribute towards their tax burden in any meaningful way.

[lovich]

Oh, in that case no w-2 employee pays income taxes, their employer does. I guess we’re all just mooches on society and only the company owners do anything.

[int_19h]

> Sales tax is actually paid by the vendor, they just pass the cost along. The landlord pays the property tax, they just pass the cost along.

This is sophistry. Ultimately the tax is paid by the person that brings their money to the table.

[15155]

The vast majority of adults and their children will never pay their tax burden proportionately.

[irishcoffee]

How do you figure that?

[15155]

Grade school math. Look at income tax receipts: the top 5% pay >61% of all income taxes.

You can try and split hairs with "sales taxes" and "payroll taxes" and try to shimmy things into some anti-capitalist stance ("but the companies benefit from their labor!!!," "renters pay property taxes indirectly!"), but the overwhelming majority of all tax payments come from a small percentage of individuals.

[milch]

Immigrants pay social security taxes, unemployment taxes, ... that they also will never be able to benefit from. Those are purely for the benefit of US citizens

[mc32]

There is a good case for vetted legal immigration (there is need and they fill that unmet need), no question; however, that should not be at the expense of the local population, regardless of country. In other words, the locals should not suffer a depressed job market because of immigration. The whole reason for a state to exist is to first and foremost look after the wellbeing of its citizens that elect the bodies of government.

[milch]

I'm not sure where you're getting that from in my comment. I never said US citizens should want H1Bs for everyone with zero vetting, only that they are a net tax positive.

It's not a dichotomy of maintaining the status quo or getting rid of H1b completely. At least in big tech companies, they do follow labor market tests and prevailing wage tests and so on that are designed to vet that there is an unmet need and that visa holders aren't underpaid. I won't deny there are visa mills and consultancies that game the system and pretty much explicitly just hire cheap foreign labor, but this is a thread about H1B in the context of Amazon layoffs, not InfoSys layoffs.

[Saline9515]

It depends if the immigrant is hired because the native worker is deemed too expensive. In this case, it contributes to reducing contributions through wage suppression.

[milch]

If you have access to data that shows big tech is preferentially hiring visa holders over US citizens you should get on that class action lawsuit right away. That's probably hundreds of thousands or even millions per person in lost wages, and even after lawyers take their 30% cut, that's still a sizable chunk.

[learingsci]

GDP matters very little when I’m homeless.

[aprilthird2021]

If you're homeless due to losing your job, then you'll be homeless whether your job goes overseas or to someone else in the US.

At least in the latter scenario the job is still here for you to get back one day

[learingsci]

Based on the "Worst Case Housing Needs: 2025 Report to Congress" released in late 2025, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) found that foreign-born population growth accounted for approximately two-thirds of the increase in nationwide rental demand between 2021 and 2024.

[aprilthird2021]

Of course. In any growing services-based economy you will have foreign born population growth. If you eliminate that population growth, economic growth will decline with it.

If we were a growing manufacturing-based economy that wouldn't be the case as much.

I'd also recommend you read this. Many government reports since Trump took over and fired long standing professionals and hired loons are suspect: https://www.nashville.gov/sites/default/files/2025-12/2025_1...

[jimbob45]

Yep. The negativity around H-1Bs is centered around using them for low/mid-level roles in the pursuit of wage suppression, racial/caste discrimination with hiring managers abusing the system to get their friends in, and the tech industry unnecessarily hogging them when we really need them in niche industries (e.g. nuclear engineering).

Trump made the cost change some months ago to address those concerns but I haven’t seen any studies showing whether or not those changes had a positive effect or not.

[incr_me]

Wait why doesn't India get to have these things, too?

[int_19h]

There's no reason why it shouldn't, but why should American corporations subsidize it?

[IncreasePosts]

Because they can hire 5 programmers in India for the cost of 1 in America, and American programmers aren't 5x better than Indian ones ? Amazon is an online shop, not a jobs program. I'm sure they would rather eliminate a position altogether even more than sending it to India.

[int_19h]

Let me rephrase that. Why should American citizens allow American corporations to do that?

[incr_me]

Seems just to me, honestly.

[KerrAvon]

We should want open borders. Immigration is a significant net positive. But we can settle for controlled immigration with liberal limits.

H1-B is stupid on its face. You're seriously telling me that this software engineering job absolutely cannot be filled by an American? That doesn't pass the laugh test.

[jandrese]

> H1-B is stupid on its face. You're seriously telling me that this software engineering job absolutely cannot be filled by an American? That doesn't pass the laugh test.

The job description is a senior full stack product developer fluent in all programming languages and frameworks. Salary is $70,000/year. Somehow they can never find Americans to fill those jobs. They'll go on Linkedin complaining that Americans are too lazy and don't have the right hustle culture and talk about made up concepts like work life balance when the bosses demand 100 hour work weeks without overtime pay.

[draygonia]

That seems low. Is it a corporate strategy to set a low salary and when nobody local fills it (because it's below the competitive rate) they get to hire H1-B?

[milch]

No, because H1B has pay requirements. As someone who went through the process with Amazon I can confirm that they definitely do offer you a salary that is in line with the local market. There might be lower incentive for raises down the line, but that's a conspiracy theory at best

[breakpointalpha]

Yes.

[esseph]

That's the commonly used method for more than a decade, yes.

[pc86]

Link the job description because I don't believe this is real.

[cyberax]

> Salary is $70,000/year

The lowest allowed limit for such a job is around $140k in areas like Seattle.

[ThePowerOfFuet]

Allowed by whom?

[cyberax]

By law. H1b requires the wages to be greater than the prevailing wage for similar positions in the region. They are published by DoL: https://flag.dol.gov/wage-data/wage-search

For this kind of experience, you'd be looking for level 2 _minimum_ and likely level 3. For King County in WA it's right now $149240 and $180710 respectively. Level 4 wage is $212202, btw.

[lotsofpulp]

The H1B requirements are even higher, but also WA state law requires software developer salaries to be 3.5 x minimum wage x 52 weeks per year. Currently, that is $124k+, because minimum wage is $17.13 per hour.

https://app.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx?cite=296-128-535

https://www.lni.wa.gov/forms-publications/f700-207-000.pdf

[echelon]

Our competitors in another country will have no problem building those products.

Then they'll be sold in America to American consumers.

Then our industry deflates, because we can't compete on cost or labor scale / innovation.

If we put up tariffs, we get a short respite. But now our goods don't sell as well overseas in the face of competition. Our industries still shrink. Eventually they become domestically uncompetitive.

So then what? You preserved some wages for 20 years at the cost of killing the future.

I think all of these conversations are especially pertinent because AI will provide activation energy to accelerate this migration. Now is not the time to encourage offshoring.

[bluecheese452]

If my job is shipped to India today why would I care that twenty years later the boss is Indian instead of American?

[echelon]

> If my job is shipped to India today

Immigration isn't "shipping the job to India". It's bringing the labor here and contributing to our economy. This might have a suppressive force on wages, but it lifts the overall economy and creates more opportunity and demand.

Offshoring is permanent loss. It causes whatever jobs and industry are still here to atrophy and die. The overall economy weakens. Your outlook in retirement will be bleaker.

If you have to pick between the two, it's obvious which one to pick.

[thewebguyd]

> This might have a suppressive force on wages

And that's the general problem. People don't care about the overall economy when wages are going down and cost of living is going up. Even myself, I couldn't care less about the overall health of the economy. I care about being able to subsist mine and my family's life style, put food on the table, someday own a home, not live paycheck to paycheck because all the jobs are paying below a living wage, etc.

I'm extremely fortunate to make the salary that I do, but I know plenty of others not so fortunate, in other fields that don't pay nearly as well as tech does, and probably never will. The answer can't be "go into tech" nor should it be "let's suppress wages so labor isn't so expensive for our domestic companies." And obviously offshoring isn't great either.

We can still import talent without suppressing wages, by not abusing the program and actually only importing for roles that truly, beyond all reasonable doubt, could not be filled by a domestic worker.

[Saline9515]

Usually the next step of this failed discourse is to explain that locals are so entitled that they don't want to do hard jobs for the minimum wage, due to decades of wage suppression done thanks to immigration.

In France, being a cook used to pay very well, now that most cooks in Paris are from India or Sri Lanka, often without a proper visa or at the minimum wage, no local wants to do this anymore (working conditions are awful).

The industry then whines loudly about "the lack of qualified (cheap) workers"

[jandrese]

Turns out this is a difficult problem with no one good solution. Subjecting labor to a race to the bottom is probably the most efficient individual system from a capitalist standpoint, but it destroys itself just as much as your customers can no longer afford to buy most of the products made. The selfish strategy ruins the entire system if everybody does it.

Capitalism and Communism have opposite problems. Communism attempts to manage the markets from a top down approach, making it relatively easy to handle systemic problems but almost impossible to optimize for efficiency because there is far too much information that doesn't make it to the top. Capitalism by contrast pushes the decisions down to where the information is, allowing for excellent efficiency but leaving it blind to systemic problems.

So the best solution is some kind of meet in the middle approach that is complex and ugly and fosters continual arguments over where lines should be drawn.

[johnnyanmac]

Innovation is why american salaries in tech are so high. They funded trillion dollar companies.

If that becomes so much of a commodity that some other countries can do it for pennies on the dime, then yes. Salaries will deflate. But we sure aren't offshoring (nor using most H1bs) to see more innovation. Quite the opposite.

Tech isn't manufacturing where the biggest supply line wins by default. That's why I'm not holding my breath that the US isn't going to be outcompeted on talent anytime soon. Of anything, its own greed will consume it.

[pc86]

You say "we should want open borders" then argue for something that is objectively not open borders. "Open borders" and "controlled immigration" are diametrically opposed things, regardless of whatever liberal limits you're imagining. Almost nobody is arguing for zero immigration.