H-1B program grew 81 percent from 2011 to 2022

This chart is entirely misleading. In any given year, there are only 85k new H1B visas. That's it, it has not grown nor shrunk.

Reason for increase in population shown here is H1B renewals. Normally the way this works is H1Bs convert to permanent residents, but due to the country caps, Indian/Chinese H1B holders keep renewing their visas contributing to this increase. Again these are people who are already here and got their approval sometime in the past, so its not like in 2022, companies collectively hired 685,117 (which is also why you see the decrease in 2023 since due to covid, a very little bit of backlog for residency cleared).

(Not to mention the sentiment of comments here is entirely disappointing, but I guess that's the vibe these days)

I don't understand the point of this chart. It essentially shows linear growth -- all 65k H-1B visas were allocated every year, until the past two years where layoffs have started impacting this labor pool. The entire tech industry has expanded by far more than 65k FTEs/yr so unless the OP does the leg work to figure out whether a disproportionate fraction of new jobs are being given to immigrants vs eligible Americans I don't see how this is useful.

I'm all for importing top talent to work at American companies. In fact, I think H1-Bs should be allowed to start businesses and move from job to job like anyone else. If it's about innovation, why force them to stay in one job while they're here?

This is an absolute farce.

I'm not so cold hearted or extreme to say 'shut it all down tomorrow', but it feels like at the very very least, in this job climate, we could suspend new entries?

But it just keeps humming along like everything is rosy.

For perspective, in the same time period, The number of employees at Google multiplied by five. I wouldn't be surprised if the growth of the software industry, at least, actually outpaced the increase in H-1B visas.

Serious question: can the case really be made that American CS grads (and other entry-level tech folks) are clearly inferior to the potential pool of H-1B applicants?

If the answer is in the affirmative then we need to study and address why that is.

If not, then I'm curious how many qualified Americans are being pushed out of (ore prevented from entering) the high tech job market by H-1B applicants.

Does this conflate the number of new visas issued to new workers, with the existing visas renewed by already settled-in-US workers (that must be renewed every 3 years)?

Because due to the GC backlog, the existing visas do not go down for 2 major contributing countries.

That's less than 0.2% of the total population (340 million) and about 0.3% of the workforce (163 million).

How much did the entire tech industry grow in that period?

I'm not sure thats even a lot in the context of 2011->2022 tech hiring though?

As someone currently on the H1B program, and working in tech for the past 10 years, how do I navigate the current climate in the US? Especially when sentiment around H1B workers is at an all time low - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44606374 ?

I love working in the cutting edge of tech, but no other part of the world has been able to replicate this model the way Bay Area, SF, Seattle, and now NYC has. Great companies, ambitious people, new emerging tech, and large compensation.

Are there other countries where YC sees companies originate from and they prove with a path to citizenship for software engineers?

For perspective, in the same time period, The number of employees at Google multiplied by five. It seems likely that the number of highly educated positions, in general, increased by quite a bit during that time.

curious how much of the growth is solely due to renewals since the cap on first time H1-Bs has stayed the same at 85k per year.

the green card queue is severely backlogged for India (and to some extent China, Mexico). this causes people who would usually get a green card after 3-5 years be on a continuous H1-B renewal cycle every 3 years.

This phenomenon really frustrates me on behalf of my peers. I'm not sure what the right answer is, but anecdotally I've observed many others struggle to get their first jobs in tech, while, meanwhile, I am mostly being assigned to interview people who require visa sponsorship. Most of my referrals for my low YOE peers are rejected before the recruiter call. I have observed this at both very-big tech and my current medium-sized tech company.

I have also observed that on my team, more than half of the people are either currently on immigrant visas or were previously on immigrant visas. Just to be absolutely clear—these people are great, and I don't fault them or hold any ill will for them having coming here to work.

At the same time, it seems that most hiring is done at the mid and senior level. If we only hire senior talent and rely on immigrant visa labor to fill these ranks, where exactly is each subsequent generation of seniors supposed to come from? I feel there should be some requirements in place to ensure that companies aren't perpetuating this shortage by hiring very few domestic workers at the entry level.

This is the classic problem with american policy, well known to be abused and terribly implemented but too politically difficult to change.

You could easily move from a lottery to a total comp auction process. IMO if your company does layoffs it should automatically void your ability to participate for 5 years. It's pretty gross to see tech CEOs whining about how they can't get the talent they need on a Monday and then mass laying off on a Tuesday.

This is mind boggling considering how rampant unemployment is in tech right now.

Both political parties are selling out citizens employment opportunities to let corporations pay as little as possible and import foreign labor.

I’d like to see percentage of tech workers in SV that were American citizens then vs now. Regardless of whatever cap we talk about - it’s quite obvious that this has changed dramatically over the last 20 years for those under 40.

A better approach would be to implement a significant application fee, less than the $5 million Trump implemented, but indexed to a multiple of the median wage, which would prove an employer's genuine need for talent not found in the U.S. In exchange for this premium, the employee should receive a green card, granting them the freedom to switch employers.

This would create a more honest system, ensuring these highly sought-after professionals are paid competitive market wages and the company has to pay a large premium to hire the foreign worker. Not engage in this fictional market studies to prove they can’t find people to find the role. Make them pay a premium and don’t lock them into the employer.

Further there should be a separate program for graduates of US universities and us university graduates shouldn’t be competing against Tata gaming the system. People invested in the USA that we’ve invested in should get a preference over random people from a consulting company.

In 2023, American colleges graduated 134,153 citizens or green card holders with bachelor's or master's degrees in computer science. That same year, our federal government handed out work permits to at least 110,098 foreign workers in computer occupations through just three major guest worker programs. That's equal to 82% of our graduating class who are guaranteed jobs even before any Americans walk across the stage for their diploma.

for reference india graduates 1.5 million in just 1 year.

[dead]

[dead]