I have a crazy idea.

If a corporation lays off any people in a particular job category/title, that corporation should not be allocated ANY H1B visas for that job category/title for the next year.

If a corporation institutes any policy that requires decimation (or any other statistic-based termination program) of employees with a particular job category or title, or if IN EFFECT they perform this (because they will just hide it otherwise), then they will not be allocated any H1B visas for that job category or title, for the next year following any such act.

In essence, the point here is that if a corporation decides it can live without X% of their workforce, then they don't get to go bring in foreign workers. The H1B program is to help find workers for positions that can't be filled; if you're laying off or mass firing people then obviously you CAN find people to fill those jobs.

> In essence, the point here is that if a corporation decides it can live without X% of their workforce

The open secret is that layoffs are also used as a gentle way to fire low performers.

By including people in layoffs, you can give them a potentially very generous severance package and you allow them the courtesy of saying they were laid off as opposed to being fired. They get mixed in with all of the good performers who were laid off due to budget cuts.

Putting a lot of restrictions on a company that does layoffs creates a perverse incentive to fire these people explicitly instead of giving them a gentle landing with a layoff. You would see far more people fired instead of "laid off".

At the extreme, you incentivize companies to start firing people to make budget cuts.

So, this is actually a very bad idea. You do not want to start putting handcuffs on companies who do layoffs instead of constant firings.

In France, if you lay off people collectively for economical reasons, those people have the right to be re-hired first should the company open jobs that are compatible with their qualifications within 1 year after the layoff (it's called "re-hire priority").

It's entirely possible to need to lay off people for one type of work while being unable to staff up for a different skillset. I would expect software developers, of all people, to understand that we're not commodities.

This is indeed a crazy idea (your words, not mine). Why should a foreign worker who can do a job in the US that pays 2,3,4x what they make at home be forced to languish underpaid because of where they were born? And why should the US economy be denied their talent to protect inherited privilege of an American worker who can't compete?

The play devil's advocate, presumably they're fired because they didn't meet standards (in whatever vague way they can justify) and they want foreign workers because local workers didn't meet those standards.

I think this is true already. Companies who lay off do not get to sponsor for green card. I am not sure about h1b

Why can't people just suck, why does it have to turn into some anti-immigrant narrative.