Wow, I had no idea the reason my peers and I can't find another position in less than 12 months is because the market for software developers is growing faster than average!

▲ dfadsadsf an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Every year US absorbs 120k+ H1B+L1+OPT new visa holders. Considering there are 1.9M software engineers, market has to grow by 5% every year just to stand still. Add US graduates and you are talking about 10% growth required just to maintain employment. It's not realistic long term.

Congress/president should pause H1B visas or hike up fee to 200-500K so that only truly exceptional talent are allowed in. Right now it's just give away to corporations that are laying off people by tens of thousands.

▲ knuppar 17 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

you're not factoring in a few specific things:

1) how many of these people leave the country in this analysis.

2) OPTs likely will get h1b/l1s/leave the country and are being counted distinctly.

3) not all h1b/l1/OPTs are for tech. majority for sure, but there's a conversation factor.

specially in the current situation that green cards are much harder to obtain and many OPTs don't find a job, I expect 1 to be much larger than in the past.

as a more general observation, this line of reasoning does fit lump of labor fallacies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy

▲ shagie 24 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That makes the assumption that every H1B, L1, and OPT is going into software development.

https://apnews.com/article/teacher-jobs-h1b-j1-visa-online-s...

    Like many school systems facing teacher shortages, South Carolina’s Allendale County has looked overseas for help. A quarter of the teachers in the rural, high-poverty district come from other countries.

    The superintendent praises the international educators — mostly from Jamaica and the Philippines — for their skill and dedication, but she is preparing to lose some of them as the Trump administration reshapes visa programs.

    Facing higher visa sponsorship costs and uncertain immigration policies, Superintendent Vallerie Cave said it feels too risky to extend some international teachers whose contracts are up or bring on others.

	▲	doomslayer999 21 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Are you an immigration lawyer? Why are you trying to stir up sympathy for these visas? "think of the random jamaican doctor/nurse/teacher helping kids in kentucky" >80% of these alphabet soup visas go to Indians working in IT. Specifically from the Hyderabad area.

▲ bequanna 35 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Are new H1Bs a thing anymore?

Since the fee went up to $100k, I’m not aware of any companies still sponsoring hires who need a new H1B

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buzer 17 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

As far as I understand the $100k fee applies only to consulate issued H1Bs. L1 -> H1B path (via AOS) is possible without fee. (Recent) US university graduates can also use similar path from what I understand.

We will see how much the $100k fee affects things during this H1B lottery round in few weeks.

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Dig1t 19 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We have hit the cap for H1B's every year and we will always do so until we get rid of the program. Cheap labor will always be in demand.

A 100k one-time fee is nothing for big employers. That's 25k/year for 4 years, and if you realize that H1B's can't easily leave their job it's obviously worth it.

Compare hiring an H1B that is stuck at their job, to an American who can leave at any time. You can pay the H1B a lower wage to compensate for the fee you paid to get them into the role. 25k/year for 4 years is worth it for not only the reduced churn that comes with training a new person, but also you don't have to pay any of the incentives that come with getting a new employee into the role like sign-on bonuses, wage bumps, benefits etc.

	▲	guywithahat 8 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		There's an X account which just posts universities hiring H1B's for ~half of what it would normally cost to hire people. An 80k/yr senior software developer will always be in demand, especially if the team is already predominantly non-american

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guywithahat 13 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

I think a lot of people have just moved to L1/O1/etc visas to get around it as OP pointed out, although a lot of people are still hiring H1B's. Amazon has applied for over 2000 H1B's so far this year, which puts them on track for ~7000 for the year https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-studies/h-1b-employe...

▲ doomslayer999 24 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

▲ dijit an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"Than average".

There's lies, damned lies, and then: there's statistics.

You have to counter the growth in jobs based on how many new people there are to take them, the location in which they are, and somewhat weirdly other jobs.

Plenty of people feel so dejected at the current state of things that they leave computer work entirely making "openings" where there isn't actually any growth.

Like all things that you try to understand: a single datapoint, when averaged, is like trying to calculate the heat from the sun by looking through a telescope at jupiter. It will give you a far-out tiny facet of data that only makes sense when coalesced with a hundred other ones.

▲ nerdsniper 18 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Data is from 2024.