Big Tech’s H1B Arguments Aren’t Just FALSE… They’re Also Immoral.

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Big Tech’s H1B Arguments Aren’t Just FALSE… They’re Also Immoral.

27 Dec 2024 ~~ By William Upton

A fierce debate has broken out between President-elect Donald J. Trump’s very recent tech industry supporters and his long-standing America First base. At the core of the disagreement is the subject of legal immigration—specifically, how Trump should handle so-called “high-skilled” foreign worker programs like the H1B visa.
One of the staunchest proponents of expanding the labor pool in this way is billionaire Elon Musk. In a Christmas Day post on X, Musk exclaimed America needs more than double the 160,000 semiconductor industry engineers said to be required by 2032.

Additionally, Musk-allies and newly-named artificial intelligence (AI) advisors to President-elect Trump, David Sacks, and Sriram Krishnan, have both emerged as loud advocates for more legal immigration, expanding the high-skilled labor supply through changes to the H1B visa lottery.

A FLAWED MORALITY.

While bringing allegedly top talent from around the world to the United States sounds good on its face, this isn’t actually what H1B visas do.
The O-1 visa is actually the program used to grant legal work status to a foreign nation in the United States that is considered a ‘once-in-a-generation’ intellectual talent in a critical industrial sector.
H1B visas apply more to workers with skills that native-born Americans can easily learn through technical training programs or even collegiate classes. Think more programmer or mid-level software engineer than someone trained in semiconductor fabrication.
~Snip~

…AND A COMPLETE SCAM.

Little data actually supports the tech industry’s claims of a worker shortage and a need to end H1B country caps. The data does suggest, however, that big tech is replacing qualified and capable American workers with cheaper foreign labor.
Between 2022 and 2024, Amazon laid off nearly 30,000 high-skilled workers. In the same period—though in compliance with federal law regarding when companies can request H1B visa workers—the online retail giant expanded its workforce by nearly 100,000 foreign workers.
~Snip~
Despite the layoffs, Amazon asked the federal government for a total allotment of 125,000 new H1B visa workers between 2022 and 2024, while they requested to retain around 90,000.
Similar trends are true for Google and Microsoft. Between 2022 and 2024, nearly 60,000 American workers were laid off among the three companies, while the companies increased their H1B employees by over 340 percent.
1735413883931.png

IS THERE A LABOR SHORTAGE?

Ultimately, the entire need for H1B workers is predicated on a supposed domestic worker shortage. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the current native-born American labor force participation is around 63 percent. Meanwhile the foreign-born labor force participation is a stunning 68 percent.
Importantly, per the Wall Street Journal: “…census data show immigrants who arrived since the start of 2020 are more than twice as likely to lack a high-school diploma as U.S.-born workers.”
In January 2007, the overall American labor force participation rate was around 66 percent, but has declined to 62.5 percent. When you examine the data overall, there is a strong suggestion that the high labor force participation among foreign-born workers is actually the cause of the lower rate of participation among native-born workers, pricing them out of the job market through downward pressure on wages.
Additionally, even the big tech companies’ own annual reports suggest they’re not suffering from any significant shortage in skilled labor. Elon Musk’s own Tesla slashed 14 percent of its workforce in 2024. Generally, a company struggling with fulfilling its labor needs might see a small need to cut workers if it cannot hire to keep up with demand, but far more common is the company hiring instead of laying off workers at all. You certainly wouldn’t see around a fifth of a corporation’s labor force being laid off amid a worker shortage.
In November of 2023, tech-giant Apple was sanctioned $25 million in fines and back pay due to American workers who were discriminated against in hiring—with the company essentially rigging its recruitment process in favor of foreign workers.
Conclusively, there are excellent arguments for a more fierce O1B recruiting policy, but the idea of expanding H1B visas for foreign workers should be a total non-starter for MAGA. Not only are the arguments for it untrue, but creating more competition for American workers is not even close to the ‘America First’ philosophy.

Commentary:
Excellent Article by Upton. Seems there are many young guys with IT degrees that can’t get an IT job and they end up in sales or service. Some companies stand up multiple departments with H1B people from India that can barely speak English. Sad fact these companies don’t care to train our youth.
These "indentured servants" take the jobs of American graduates, blocking their entry into their chosen field. While the H1-B Program is technically not an immigration program, they never leave. Having blocked Americans from the entry level jobs, they go on to fill the mid and upper level jobs as well. We have to break this cycle.
The cost of an H1-B Technician (to an employer) should be to pay for the education of an American, and to hire that graduate, as the H1-B is returned to their home country.
Is the answer in the elimination of the H1-B Program, or companies training those young Americans into our workforce.
Like all government Programs, the H1B program serves a need in the US. The problem is not the program.
The problem is that Deep State and corporations have abused and are continuing to abuse the program.
We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
 
This discussion is already underway here

 
Musk exclaimed America needs more than double the 160,000 semiconductor industry engineers said to be required by 2032.

Doesn't sound unreasonable. Maybe I should go back to work! I qualify as a semiconductor engineer. I like that the Repubs are at least having this conversation--- way overdue. This country needs highly skilled people. Of course, they should be Americans or at least immigrants here to live and work as Americans. The thing is that Asians have the edge. Whether native born or naturalized, Americans need to step it up and compete with the brightest and best, sadly, we are handicapped by our government-run education system.

Bottom line is that we need to compete and be COMPETITIVE on the international market ASAP, because the Chinese are coming and they aren't taking any prisoners. We are at a huge disadvantage from years and years of democrats only worrying about wokism, DEI, and proper pronouns.
 

Bingo. Take away the financial incentives. For far too long, America under Prog rule has been exporting all of our work to other countries, and we must now really step up our in house talent so that America more than becomes competitive on the world market again, but that America must resume its position at the forefront of leading technological expertise.
 
Bingo. Take away the financial incentives. For far too long, America under Prog rule has been exporting all of our work to other countries, and we must now really step up our in house talent so that America more than becomes competitive on the world market again, but that America must resume its position at the forefront of leading technological expertise.
Dream on.

Trump has never expressed any interest in training or apprenticeship programs nor has he ever suggested a H1B policy where for every foreign worker a firm must hire and train suitable American workers. Trump doesn't give a fuck about the American people.

I trained to be a programmer in the early 1980s, a three month course with assistance to get a job. Then I got hired as a trainee programmer and went through a one year program where I did useful work but soon became a first class asset and senior programmer and had career prospects where I had none before.

Now the industry has changed but these ideas are still viable but Trump doesn't care, he wants to let industry do what it wants and they want cheap skilled labor.

One doesn't need a degree to become a good software developer either.

Microsoft has some 3,500 H1B workers likely from India and China.
 
Last edited:

Big Tech’s H1B Arguments Aren’t Just FALSE… They’re Also Immoral.

27 Dec 2024 ~~ By William Upton

A fierce debate has broken out between President-elect Donald J. Trump’s very recent tech industry supporters and his long-standing America First base. At the core of the disagreement is the subject of legal immigration—specifically, how Trump should handle so-called “high-skilled” foreign worker programs like the H1B visa.
One of the staunchest proponents of expanding the labor pool in this way is billionaire Elon Musk. In a Christmas Day post on X, Musk exclaimed America needs more than double the 160,000 semiconductor industry engineers said to be required by 2032.

Additionally, Musk-allies and newly-named artificial intelligence (AI) advisors to President-elect Trump, David Sacks, and Sriram Krishnan, have both emerged as loud advocates for more legal immigration, expanding the high-skilled labor supply through changes to the H1B visa lottery.

A FLAWED MORALITY.

While bringing allegedly top talent from around the world to the United States sounds good on its face, this isn’t actually what H1B visas do.
The O-1 visa is actually the program used to grant legal work status to a foreign nation in the United States that is considered a ‘once-in-a-generation’ intellectual talent in a critical industrial sector.
H1B visas apply more to workers with skills that native-born Americans can easily learn through technical training programs or even collegiate classes. Think more programmer or mid-level software engineer than someone trained in semiconductor fabrication.
~Snip~

…AND A COMPLETE SCAM.

Little data actually supports the tech industry’s claims of a worker shortage and a need to end H1B country caps. The data does suggest, however, that big tech is replacing qualified and capable American workers with cheaper foreign labor.
Between 2022 and 2024, Amazon laid off nearly 30,000 high-skilled workers. In the same period—though in compliance with federal law regarding when companies can request H1B visa workers—the online retail giant expanded its workforce by nearly 100,000 foreign workers.
~Snip~
Despite the layoffs, Amazon asked the federal government for a total allotment of 125,000 new H1B visa workers between 2022 and 2024, while they requested to retain around 90,000.
Similar trends are true for Google and Microsoft. Between 2022 and 2024, nearly 60,000 American workers were laid off among the three companies, while the companies increased their H1B employees by over 340 percent.

IS THERE A LABOR SHORTAGE?

Ultimately, the entire need for H1B workers is predicated on a supposed domestic worker shortage. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the current native-born American labor force participation is around 63 percent. Meanwhile the foreign-born labor force participation is a stunning 68 percent.
Importantly, per the Wall Street Journal: “…census data show immigrants who arrived since the start of 2020 are more than twice as likely to lack a high-school diploma as U.S.-born workers.”
In January 2007, the overall American labor force participation rate was around 66 percent, but has declined to 62.5 percent. When you examine the data overall, there is a strong suggestion that the high labor force participation among foreign-born workers is actually the cause of the lower rate of participation among native-born workers, pricing them out of the job market through downward pressure on wages.
Additionally, even the big tech companies’ own annual reports suggest they’re not suffering from any significant shortage in skilled labor. Elon Musk’s own Tesla slashed 14 percent of its workforce in 2024. Generally, a company struggling with fulfilling its labor needs might see a small need to cut workers if it cannot hire to keep up with demand, but far more common is the company hiring instead of laying off workers at all. You certainly wouldn’t see around a fifth of a corporation’s labor force being laid off amid a worker shortage.
In November of 2023, tech-giant Apple was sanctioned $25 million in fines and back pay due to American workers who were discriminated against in hiring—with the company essentially rigging its recruitment process in favor of foreign workers.
Conclusively, there are excellent arguments for a more fierce O1B recruiting policy, but the idea of expanding H1B visas for foreign workers should be a total non-starter for MAGA. Not only are the arguments for it untrue, but creating more competition for American workers is not even close to the ‘America First’ philosophy.

Commentary:
Excellent Article by Upton. Seems there are many young guys with IT degrees that can’t get an IT job and they end up in sales or service. Some companies stand up multiple departments with H1B people from India that can barely speak English. Sad fact these companies don’t care to train our youth.
These "indentured servants" take the jobs of American graduates, blocking their entry into their chosen field. While the H1-B Program is technically not an immigration program, they never leave. Having blocked Americans from the entry level jobs, they go on to fill the mid and upper level jobs as well. We have to break this cycle.
The cost of an H1-B Technician (to an employer) should be to pay for the education of an American, and to hire that graduate, as the H1-B is returned to their home country.
Is the answer in the elimination of the H1-B Program, or companies training those young Americans into our workforce.
Like all government Programs, the H1B program serves a need in the US. The problem is not the program.
The problem is that Deep State and corporations have abused and are continuing to abuse the program.
We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.


I have two sons in the tech field. Jobs are hard to come by. The labor shortage is a big lie.
 
I have two sons in the tech field. Jobs are hard to come by. The labor shortage is a big lie.
Imagine training as an attorney or a doctor and then finding that once you get out into the job market, thousands of foreigners with an H1B are flooding the job market. That lowers wages, reduces the quality of life for Americans. Now this doesn't happen with law or medicine (because those need a specific US training) but it does with technology.

I'm here in Arizona ten years ago because I was unbale to get a decent role in Delaware/Philly and when I sent my resume to recruitment firms the responses always came back from people with Indian sounding names! So I said "fuck it" I'll have to relocate.

Recruitment firms get back handers when they can get a foreign candidate in under an H1B. I've seen it in action, Indians hiring other Indians, it goes on.

If Microsoft were only allowed 100 H1B Visa workers at a time, would they go bankrupt? Fuck no, they'd have to find a way to hire Americans and perhaps train them etc, and raise wages.
 
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Imagine training as an attorney or a doctor and then finding that once you get out into the job market, thousands of foreigners with an H1B are flooding the job market. That lowers wages, reduces the quality of life for Americans. Now this doesn't happen with law or medicine (because those need a specific US training) but it does with technology.

I'm here in Arizona ten years ago because I was unbale to get a decent role in Delaware/Philly and when I sent my resume to recruitment firms the responses always came back from people with Indian sounding names! So I said "fuck it" I'll have to relocate.

Recruitment firms get back handers when they can get a foreign candidate in under an H1B.

I wouldn't count on doctors being safe for much longer. I hear there are a lot of migrant doctors in the UK now.
 
I wouldn't count on doctors being safe for much longer. I hear there are a lot of migrant doctors in the UK now.
It's true, and nurses. Because India was a former colony once too, there are close ties when it comes to how medicine is taught. There are superb doctors from India and Pakistan but there should be much stricter rules when it comes to justifying foreign hires.
 
This guy gave my wife spinal surgery when she was working in Britain, he speaks perfect English with an English accent yet is from Pakistan. He is one of the foremost spinal surgeons in the world and teaches the subject at Oxford University. He's one of the few surgeons to specialize only in spinal surgery.

By the way, that surgery cost us zero dollars.


 
It's true, and nurses. Because India was a former colony once too, there are close ties when it comes to how medicine is taught. There are superb doctors from India and Pakistan but there should be much stricter rules when it comes to justifying foreign hires.

H-1B visa lawyers would be hilarious. The tears, gnashing of teeth, and rending of garments would be epic.
 
H-1B visa lawyers would be hilarious. The tears, gnashing of teeth, and rending of garments would be epic.
Hey, what about H1B Police Officers then...or even H1B immigration attorneys that manage the processing of H1B applicants...
 
I have two sons in the tech field. Jobs are hard to come by. The labor shortage is a big lie.
I made some good coin in the mid-90's as a network troubleshooter and contract tech geek in Seattle. I worked for one of the top tech companies in Seattle, and I temped at some of the pioneering companies in computer technologies, building out the infrastructure.

Microsoft was the leading edge of the H1B boom. Good IT people were in high demand and made good money, and Microsoft did not like that.

The boom lasted about 5 years, and then the profession had been pretty much commoditized by the influx of H1B workers from India and the outsourcing of tech support to call centers in Bangalore.

In the 80's we outsourced our manufacturing, and were told the future was all about "information technology". In the 90's we outsourced our IT work, and were told the future was all about "financial services".

We know how that one worked out...
 
Commentary:
Excellent Article by Upton. Seems there are many young guys with IT degrees that can’t get an IT job and they end up in sales or service. Some companies stand up multiple departments with H1B people from India that can barely speak English. Sad fact these companies don’t care to train our youth.
These "indentured servants" take the jobs of American graduates, blocking their entry into their chosen field. While the H1-B Program is technically not an immigration program, they never leave. Having blocked Americans from the entry level jobs, they go on to fill the mid and upper level jobs as well. We have to break this cycle.
The cost of an H1-B Technician (to an employer) should be to pay for the education of an American, and to hire that graduate, as the H1-B is returned to their home country.
Is the answer in the elimination of the H1-B Program, or companies training those young Americans into our workforce.
Like all government Programs, the H1B program serves a need in the US. The problem is not the program.
The problem is that Deep State and corporations have abused and are continuing to abuse the program.
We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

The question is, why do Companies (not the "Deep State", whatever that is) prefer H1B to American Tech grads?

Yes, I am sure that the element of sponsorship increases loyalty among H1B workers. An American can walk off the minute someone offers them more money. An H1B person is less likely to swap jobs, as it means getting sponsorship all over again.

I think the other problem is work ethic. A lot of Americans, particularly Gen Z, have shit work ethics.
 
Look

1735418842182.png


Let's be conservative and say they average earn about 100K a year, well that's half a billion dollars that's likely shipped out and not spent here in the US. Most H1B workers stay no more than a firs term (4 years) and head back to India or wherever.
 
The question is, why do Companies (not the "Deep State", whatever that is) prefer H1B to American Tech grads?

Yes, I am sure that the element of sponsorship increases loyalty among H1B workers. An American can walk off the minute someone offers them more money. An H1B person is less likely to swap jobs, as it means getting sponsorship all over again.

I think the other problem is work ethic. A lot of Americans, particularly Gen Z, have shit work ethics.
You're right, a H1B locks you down very very tightly to a single employer. But having said that, employers hire at will and if they can't retain American staff at competitive rates then that's their problem I think. They'll have no qualms about dumping a worker whenever they see fit, like after a merger or the end of some big project, things are always favoring the employer never the employee.
 
Imagine training as an attorney or a doctor and then finding that once you get out into the job market, thousands of foreigners with an H1B are flooding the job market. That lowers wages, reduces the quality of life for Americans. Now this doesn't happen with law or medicine (because those need a specific US training) but it does with technology.

I'm here in Arizona ten years ago because I was unbale to get a decent role in Delaware/Philly and when I sent my resume to recruitment firms the responses always came back from people with Indian sounding names! So I said "fuck it" I'll have to relocate.

Recruitment firms get back handers when they can get a foreign candidate in under an H1B. I've seen it in action, Indians hiring other Indians, it goes on.

If Microsoft were only allowed 100 H1B Visa workers at a time, would they go bankrupt? Fuck no, they'd have to find a way to hire Americans and perhaps train them etc, and raise wages.

Actualy, that's not entirely true. A lot of Doctors I've had have been from the Indian Subcontinent.

As far as Indians hiring other Indians, given America has been white people hiring other white people, I'm not sure there's much of a complaint to be made.
 
I made some good coin in the mid-90's as a network troubleshooter and contract tech geek in Seattle. I worked for one of the top tech companies in Seattle, and I temped at some of the pioneering companies in computer technologies, building out the infrastructure.

Microsoft was the leading edge of the H1B boom. Good IT people were in high demand and made good money, and Microsoft did not like that.

The boom lasted about 5 years, and then the profession had been pretty much commoditized by the influx of H1B workers from India and the outsourcing of tech support to call centers in Bangalore.

In the 80's we outsourced our manufacturing, and were told the future was all about "information technology". In the 90's we outsourced our IT work, and were told the future was all about "financial services".

We know how that one worked out...

The new future is AI/ machine learning.
 

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