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Trump Freezes Green Cards, Many Work Visas Until End Of Year:
President Trump on Monday extended a freeze on green cards for new immigrants and signed an executive order to suspend new H-1B, L-1, J and other temporary work visas for skilled workers, managers and au pairs through the end of the year.
The goal of the move is to protect 525,000 jobs as part of the White House response to job losses caused by the coronavirus pandemic, said a senior administration official, who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity. NPR first reported the impending order on Saturday.
"Americans have been hurt through no fault of their own due to the coronavirus," the official said. "And the president is prioritizing getting them back into the labor supply and getting them to work and standing on their own two feet again."
[...] But other workers will also be affected, including foreign au pairs who provide child care. Professors and scholars are not to be included in the order, the official said. There will be a provision to request exemptions. The order is not expected to affect immigrants and visa holders already in the United States.
[...] The order did not apply to H-2A agriculture workers, who Trump says are necessary to ensure grocery store shelves remain stocked with fruits and vegetables. Health care workers involved in treating coronavirus patients will also be exempt.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Wednesday June 24 2020, @06:34AM (2 children)
No, he won't. There'll be jobs for cable monkey, but not as a programmer, that's what he was whinging for.
I mean... look... WFH showed that telecommuting is OK, so if a keyboard monkey is OK to get in daily meetings @ wee-hours in the morning and does his job, one doesn't even need a visa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Interesting) by zocalo on Wednesday June 24 2020, @07:43AM (1 child)
Once firms realise - assuming that they haven't done so - that this approach can also allow for US-based managers to task outsourced overseas workers in the evening and have the work done when they get back into the office the following morning, it's a slam dunk. As a bonus, there's less HR paperwork (further headcount reductions!), and having fewer local employees removes also some of the bad press that tech companies are getting for their employees driving up house prices/rentals. Stopping H1-Bs solves part of the problem, but unless the other shoe drops and there is a clamp down on overseas outsourcing as well I suspect it's going to do a lot more harm than good - once those jobs have gone overseas they are almost certainly not going to be coming back.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by quan2mst8 on Wednesday June 24 2020, @11:47AM
It sounds great to the management class. They've tried it before, but it didn't work out.
There are several reasons:
1. Lower standards - Indian firms have a lower standard of work and work acceptability. This can remedied over time, similar to Chinese steel works, but it's not ready yet.
2. Lower trust and enforcement - IP is everything to an IT based business, as much as I hate the current IP regime in Western countries, they provide no protections from a firm stealing your work/ideas and presenting them as their own and then presenting them both in the US and the Indian markets.
3. Collaboration - Currently, due to the lower level of acceptable work, the ability of Indian firms to collaborate is terrible. Resulting in poor attainment of deadlines and the use of at least twice as many people. This further lowers the standard code quality by increasing the inefficiency of production through the network effect of communication.
It's a threat on the horizon, and it's got a tail wind heading straight for us. Take advantage of the lead and get yourself out of dependence of those who own the capital, or you too will be more grist for the mill.