Comment by pc86
8 hours ago
In the best case we could hope this will lead to increased wages to American citizens, but realistically I think the most likely impact is it pisses a lot of people off, causes a lot of headaches for a lot of people, and has no real impact for most.
Edit: Would love to hear a coherent argument as to why my comment is off topic and deserving of downvotes but I'm sure that won't happen.
I hope it causes some people to return to Europe and do some good work over here.
I'm never sure how to feel about this kind of thing. On one hand, it's kind of interesting to see the self-destruction, and having qualified people return to Europe can only be a good thing for Europe. OTOH, it's scary to see, and I'm unsure whether I prefer a world where China gains much more power.
This ruling is not targeted towards Europeans. I doubt this will significantly affect European workers in the US. The reality is there aren't that many European immigrants in the US and not many at all on H1-Bs. The vast majority of immigrants are from the Americas (with over 22% from Mexico), India and China. European migrants as of ~2023 total around 10% and have been slowly decreasing over the past few years. Bear in mind a lot of people are still here from the post-WW2 period when immigration was much more liberal.
Anecdotally from the people I've met, the majority of Europeans are here for academia on F/J/O, entertainment, are spouses of US citizens or get temporary transfer visas like the L1. Those who go to the US because of high salaries can afford to figure out employment based green cards and they don't have multiple year waiting periods. Otherwise it's a huge pain to get permanent residency or even a normal work visa compared to the EU, but qualified Europeans generally don't have much trouble.
I think there are plenty of qualified and hard-working people in China, I'm not sure this change would increase the number of people there the same way it might in places like Europe or India.
For about 5-6 decades all the qualified and hard-working people in China came to the U.S, because they could enjoy more freedom, fewer arbitrary government dictates, and better economic opportunities. This brain drain was a huge factor in U.S. global dominance.
That conveyor has now reversed, because all of the drivers have reversed as well. China will be fine; it's the U.S. I'm concerned about.
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Is this the same Europe that's cutting work visas, tightening restrictions, and increasing naturalization requirements across the board?
What's really interesting to see is your blindness to that self destruction.
A European returning to Europe from abroad doesn't need any visa, and doesn't face any restrictions.
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"I like burgers."
"Why do you hate pizza, jackass?"
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That won't happen. There is no reason for it to happen anyway given that AI agents are more efficient anyway.
Microsoft and others are more focused on building data centers (homes for AI agents) than hiring humans at this point.
Fewer people means less qualified applicants for the same jobs, which means wages go up. Maybe companies like Microsoft have enough dead weight that they will just absorb the losses in growth but most companies don't have that luxury and this is hitting staff aug body shops so it will hit mid market and small employers as well unless it gets overturned.