infinity ag said:
aggie93 said:
infinity ag said:
aggie93 said:
infinity ag said:
No, this is not from last week. This is fresh news from today.
Meta will push out Americans and hire H1Bs and people in India.
And we will let it happen and tell ourselves that CEOs know what they are doing, they must know as they are rich and successful, the government must not interfere in corporate matters, how no one is assured a job, how we are capitalists, how we believe in free markets, how we abhor "socialists", how we must tell our kids to become HVAC guys, plumbers, painters, electricians and front-desk receptionist hotties as AI cannot do those jobs.
Any more copes we fall back on? That's what just came to mind.
Meta to cut 10% of staff as it pours billions into AI
https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/23/tech/meta-layoffs-10-percent-staff-ai
Quote:
Meta said on Thursday it plans to lay off roughly 10% of its workforce, or about 8,000 people, the latest in a string of tech industry layoffs fueled in part by artificial intelligence.
The company is also closing around 6,000 open roles, Janelle Gale, Meta's chief people officer, wrote in a memo published by Bloomberg that Meta confirmed to CNN.
The layoffs will go into effect on May 20.
"We're doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we're making," Gale wrote.
Meta, along with other tech giants, has been on an aggressive AI spending spree. The company spent $72.2 billion on capital expenditures in 2025, or costs related to data centers and other AI infrastructure. That number is expected to climb to at least $115 billion in 2026, Meta said in its January earnings report.
The company has also been splurging on talent for its superintelligence lab and has acquired buzzy AI startups like Moltbook and Manus as part of its ongoing efforts to compete with OpenAI and others.
There is no mention of H-1s I can see. Lots of companies are cutting back or re-assessing based on AI, it's inevitable. The question is whether that means they will hire more senior people that are able to be more productive using AI or they are going to hire more junior people less expensively. It's a big topic I'm seeing now. In the end the change is coming but we don't know exactly who will benefit or lose. I'd stay the hell away from an area like Data Science though.
Still seeing less and less H-1s hired now btw, even those with some pretty outstanding qualifications. I am seeing some US Citizens getting hired that likely would not have 6 months ago, more willingness to train a citizen than mess with an H-1.
Just a lot of change happening at the same time from multiple fronts.
Corps are clever, they will try to make it hard to figure out. Yes, they are cutting people and spending some of it on data centers and building AI infra. But they are also using AI as a cover to hire H1Bs and offshore, because they know gullible people will easily buy their excuse because they don't know any better.
I agree with you that fewer H1Bs are hired now, my friend who is at Walmart Tech in the Bay said that yesterday. But there are too many in the country and I am sure they are getting renewed without leaving the country. I just got a call myself from a well known fintech company whose range is 5 times my current salary and more than double my highest ever salary. Never happened before, maybe companies are forced to look within. But Meta is a scammy company with Zuck very sneaky.
Here is where we are with Meta for 2026.
https://h1bgrader.com/h1b-sponsors/meta-platforms-inc-w2xp7xj6k3
All that shows is a dramatic decrease in 2026. That said it's too early, applications are out, decisions are in June, then visas start in October. The policies of the last 6 months are making an impact but it's going to take a while before we can make real sense of it. Some companies will hire more H-1s than others of course. Offshoring is happening of course but that's nothing new and much harder to stop. AI in theory at least works against offshoring though because the key is having highly productive employees where the cost of the employee is less of an issue. It's cheaper to pay one guy $300k instead of 10 guys $100k each. Offshoring (esp to India) is also notoriously known for needing to give specific instructions that are executed or for providing 24/7 support. The former type of employee is the most vulnerable to AI replacement.
Still the real issue here is companies are trying to see if they can cut workers or slow hiring and still maintain or increase productivity using AI. Too early to tell how that will turn out.
Don't disagree with you that Zuck is a weasel and Meta is not a company that loves its employees. They also made some big bets and some have paid off and some have flopped badly.
Lots of moving parts.
aggie93, I believe you know the most about this visa issue among the folks here including myself. So here is a question for you. Please explain this to me because it doesn't make sense to me.
Watch the Vance video here
https://www.reddit.com/r/EB3VisaJourney/comments/1smc5zc/vice_president_jd_vance_new_h1b_visas_is_down_by/
Vice President JD Vance:
Quote:
"New H-1B Visas Is Down By 90%"
What does this mean? While the number of applications may be down (90% or some other number), the number of people given H1B visas this year will still be 85k, same as last year. All that happened is fewer people were competing for the 85k slots. How does it matter to us in the US?
Is this what actually happened? It would show progress if 85k H1Bs went down to 8.5k new visas issued in 2026 but I don't think he is saying that.
What do you think?
I am not sure but I believe the 85k number is part of a bill passed by Congress, thus appealing it is challenging. What is definitely happening is the Trump Admin is putting immense pressure on companies not to hire H-1's and making it more expensive than ever. It's not a "snap your fingers" solution to something that took decades to get us here and there are many parts to the issue. I am also waiting to see what happens to the big H-1 consulting houses like Cognizant and Tata but they have a lot of influence in DC too.
The overall thing I am seeing is that only really exceptional folks are going to find companies willing to sponsor them but it's not absolute. A LOT of companies that hired H-1s in droves now are hiring none or a microscopic number. You also have folks at companies that are on OPT and have been working at a company for a couple of years applying for visas, companies are more willing to go through an H-1 for them because they have a lot invested already and ironically if you get someone on H-1 now they are less likely to leave.
Just a lot of issues going on here. Something to keep in mind though is the attitude towards H-1s is the most negative by far of any time I have been in the business and it's not likely to change. That is actually more powerful than the law similar to how companies often enacted DEI policies not because of fear of being sued or the government cracking down on them as much as the bad optics of not doing so. Companies tend to choose the least abrasive path.
This is a complex situation with a lot of money and power involved on both sides. I can tell you that I've seen some liberal CEOs that are immigrants themselves cracking down hard, in the end business and money rule the day. We will have to see but I think it will be very hard to get a full picture for a good while simply because you have so many folks already in the system so short term there will be numbers that don't look like much is happening if you focus on the wrong data. One interesting thing to me fwiw is most Asians so far as I can tell aren't looking at needing H-1s as a hill to die on. Many see how they got here and if H-1s are severely limited the folks that have gotten PR and Citizenship actually benefit more than anyone. I've seen more "US Citizen" or US Permanent Resident" plainly put on resumes than ever for folks with Asian names.
"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
Ronald Reagan
