this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2025
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[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 day ago (12 children)

LOL. This isn't going to happen. Trump himself is an idiot but I'm sure there's someone on his staff who realises that this would decimate the US tech industry. This is another one of those TACO art of the deal type situations.

[–] Bonskreeskreeskree@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (3 children)

How many American tech workers are unemployed right now?

[–] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

Plenty, and that’s actually part of the problem. The tech industry has used “there are no local workers so we need H1B’s” as an excuse to keep wages artificially lowered and working conditions in the fucking toilet. There are plenty of skilled tech workers in America… They just don’t want to put up with the bad pay and 80 hour crunch weeks that the industry is demanding.

The H1B system has been a conduit for worker abuse for a long time, because it ties the worker’s legal status to their job. So they’ll be willing to put up with awful working conditions, because quitting means they’ll be facing deportation. The same way that the agriculture industry relies on illegal immigrants to cheaply harvest crops, the tech industry relies on H1B workers to keep wage expectations suppressed.

Honestly, this feels a little like a “broken clock is right twice a day” moment. Trump is doing this for all the wrong reasons, (he’s probably trying to recoup a portion of the massive tax cuts he gave to the rich, and have some leverage to use against the tech industry to get them to fall into line with the regime), but I do think it’ll be a net benefit for American tech workers. I foresee it hurting the smaller startup companies the most… But that’s because Trump is likely going to go “if you agree to fall in line, I’ll waive the fees.” But that will only apply to the big companies that Trump actually cares about.

The bigger concern is actually academia. There are a lot of H1B visas in universities, and those visas are largely earned. These are well respected researchers and professors who are the best at what they do, and deserve those visas because the university can make a genuine “this talent isn’t available in our country” argument. And Trump almost certainly won’t offer any kinds of waivers to the universities, because conservatives hate higher education. These tech industry will shift towards outsourcing, (which is already extremely common), but academia won’t be able to do that.

[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago

All the ones that will still be more expensive than Chinese ones I guess.

[–] stoly@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

I suspect that these are fully separate things. They won't find people in the US with the required knowledge of skills and hire them in other countries instead.

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