Because H-1B workers had the ability to demand higher compensation via sponsorship and relocation to the US. Employers could say "no we won't sponsor you" but these workers are in demand due to their technical skills and could counter with "then I'll join another company that will".

If you remove the option for sponsorship then these workers will still be working their jobs because they're talented and in demand, they'll just be doing it from their home country instead for lower compensation.

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LPisGood 4 days ago | parent [-]

Clearly companies place a dollar amount on how much they value having people work in country, otherwise they wouldn’t bring people over.

I think this move makes it likely companies will hire more expensive domestic workers.

	▲	588edbdf 4 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		That's a misguided assumption that doesn’t hold up in practice because it assumes H-1B workers were "brought over" based on employer need for a domestic worker. The need isn't for a domestic worker, its for a skilled worker and the skilled workers want to work in the US because it yields higher compensation and opportunity. Many H-1B workers request sponsorship from employers despite having the ability to work from local offices because they have in-demand skills that give the leverage to ask for it knowing that it will result in better opportunities.
	▲	closeparen 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Tech companies are extremely motivated to have people working in person in their Bay Area offices. That's why you see the extraordinary numbers that you do on levels.fyi along with the insistence on RTO. But no matter how high they get, these numbers will never meet highly capable Americans' lifestyle demands, because the Bay Area doesn't have and will never build the housing or commuting infrastructure to support them in that quantity. Wage gains go straight into real estate. The question is, if tech companies can't have their Bay Area offices filled with the caliber of people they want (who will accept being forever-renters or super-commuters), will they relent on US remote / small sites, or will they instead try to shift their trillion-dollar Bay Area office cultures to their Bangalore sites? My money's on the latter.