2w ago

A Trump H-1B crackdown could hit Big Tech hard, with Amazon suffering most.

A Trump H-1B crackdown could hit Big Tech hard, with Amazon suffering most

U.S. tech firms — Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Apple — were the top 10 employers of H-1B recipients in 2024.
Amazon workers bagged the highest number of H-1B visas every year between 2020 and 2024.
U.S. companies have grown exponentially and need more IT talent.
Indian IT firms have scaled back H-1B filings amid increased scrutiny.

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2w ago

A Trump H-1B crackdown could hit Big Tech hard, with Amazon suffering most.

restofworld.org /2025/trump-h1b-policy-big-tech-workers-amazon/

35 comments

Ok, no great loss. If they really want to keep hiring, nothing stops them from opening an office where the candidates are. They are multinational companies after all.
- They're already doing that. Unless they do something about outsourcing this is a meaningless policy.
  
  Exactly, when jobs get outsourced all that money leaves the country and doesn't come back, Asia isn't buying American goods all that much. China is pretty strict about preventing foreign companies from operating in China and India doesn't allow foreign companies to directly do business in India. They have to spin off a profit sharing venture with a local company, that's like 2 billion people right there and now with Trump antagonizing western allies, even Europeans are looking to move away from American businesses.
- If they do that, then they can't threaten them with deportation.
- I was going to say this is good for Canada, but part of the draw to bring engineers here is the path to the H1B. If there is no H1B end-game, maybe they won't bring them to Canada either.
  That said, we have some sizeable offices already established here, so maybe there is still incentive.

"H-1B crackdown"? They wanted more H-1B people because it's essentially slave labor, especially now that deportations are ramped up.
If it weren't for H-1B, Musk would have been left with no staff for Twitter.
This is some weird doublespeak because make no mistake, Trump and Musk are only going to try to increase H-1B labor.
- This honestly is probably the best wedge issue between Musk and the MAGA right.
  We need to keep pushing them to fight each other.
- Once you start the train going down the racism track, it's hard to put the brakes on.
- Now they'll just hire more offshore instead.

its surreal that we’re asked to be sympathetic towards the people exploiting immigrants and not, yknow, the immigrants themselves

There won't be a "Trump H1B crackdown". The oligarch masters love their cheap imported labor a bit too much.
- Trump would do this because he doesn't understand the ramifications outside of himself. He knows cracking down will boost his favorables with his base.
  He wants that more than the promise of more money by the tech bros.
  
  After his master Musk's tirade on Xitter explicitly supporting H1Bs and shitting on the slightest criticism? I highly doubt it.
- Didn't stop him shooting himself in the foot over illegal alien labor.

GOOD

I'm sure there are many cases where tech companies just cannot find local talent, but it wouldn't surprise me if the H-1B provision is also misused to get less expensive labor. This could ultimately make it less attractive for locals to get into the field at all, since they cannot compete on salary. It also contributes to brain drain from developing countries. Personally I'm not going to shed a tear for Amazon in this case.
- Not just salary - H1B are also good at following orders, because if they lose their job, they will get deported.
  
  A good way to stop companies from abusing H1B is to make the visa portable with the worker for a set number of years. If the company is underpaying/overworking them, the worker on H1B can just skip town to another company without fear or deportation. This makes it not worth while for corporations to hire H1B when it costs money and time.
- It's more about control than money.

Isn’t this President Musk’s baby? This will never happen.
It’s the high tech higher money version of taking advantage of migrant workers. It’s like legal indentured service for a visa, and you can bypass some of those pesky labor laws.

I recommend you completely end the program. Time for the tech bros to suffer some financial pain as well.
- Which tech bros are you talking about? Regular workers? Or do you mean the rich fucks like Zuckerberg?
  I assure you no matter what happens the billionaires won’t feel any pain.
- And who do you think will suffer when they start outsourcing jobs, it certainly won't be the rich people running this country. Attacking legal immigrants is meaningless unless they pass laws prevent jobs from getting outsourced and good luck with that

He won't. Musk needs them
- Oh, you think the crackdown would be unilateral and affect fElon companies the same as others? lol no way
  
  I hate how right you are
- There’s a possibility he could end up with slightly fewer hundreds of billions.

This will hit FedEx hard. The vast majority of their IT staff are H1B. They've built and empire on the back of these folks.

I don't think it's a great article. They mention January 17 rule changes without mentioning Biden was still in office. But they do talk about opposing views of Miller and Musk and Trump's waffling.
I don't think many of the commenters so far have read the article.

I'm going to say doubt on there actually being an H-1B crackdown...
But if Trump were to decide to do one, monkeys and typewriters because that's something I'd actually support.
I'm waiting to see how he'd fuck it up and make it worse though.

I hope it does hurt them.
Fine they can open offices elsewhere, but that's expense and time and complication. They need to hurt for bending the knee because that's the only way they learn to fucking stop.

Didn’t they say they wanted the opposite of an H1—B crackdown? I’m pretty sure they already said they want more H1-Bs
- Fuck knows what these morons want these days other than sowing chaos and stealing even more control and wealth away from the working class

Amazon getting hurt? Hell yeah!

35 comments

GOOD