Wasn’t this more related to the Trump era H1B limitations expiring under Biden around 2022? I may be misremembering the timeline since time after 2020 is fucked, but I swear I remember a greater uptick of H1B hires in tech around this time, as well as outsourcing teams to India.
An H1B is valid for up to 6 years, and as far as I know the thing that changed is how hard it is to get a visa in the first place, anyone already hired would be unaffected.
Tech companies spend so much on legal fees for hiring foreign workers, they’re a bit reluctant to get rid of them immediately. It’s also really shitty for the workers if they get laid off, since their visa is tied to employment, and it only gives them like a month to find a new job sponsor or leave the country.
Sorry, I was unclear. I meant the layoffs were related to replacing pandemic hires working from home with cheaper H1Bs willing to RTO/take cheaper salaries, since by then everyone was boostered up and ready for travel, and visa applicationswere actually being processed instead of “backlogged” (ignored) by Trump Admin 1.0.
I find this hard to believe, since I remember those pandemic layoffs already happening around 2023.
Wasn’t this more related to the Trump era H1B limitations expiring under Biden around 2022? I may be misremembering the timeline since time after 2020 is fucked, but I swear I remember a greater uptick of H1B hires in tech around this time, as well as outsourcing teams to India.
An H1B is valid for up to 6 years, and as far as I know the thing that changed is how hard it is to get a visa in the first place, anyone already hired would be unaffected. Tech companies spend so much on legal fees for hiring foreign workers, they’re a bit reluctant to get rid of them immediately. It’s also really shitty for the workers if they get laid off, since their visa is tied to employment, and it only gives them like a month to find a new job sponsor or leave the country.
Sorry, I was unclear. I meant the layoffs were related to replacing pandemic hires working from home with cheaper H1Bs willing to RTO/take cheaper salaries, since by then everyone was boostered up and ready for travel, and visa applicationswere actually being processed instead of “backlogged” (ignored) by Trump Admin 1.0.