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Comment by magtux | Hacker News Reader

I mean it makes sense to me. I chose to work in Ireland in tech rather than America. Yes I took a 20% paycut after adjusting for COL but as an Indian, it's a much nicer country. There is a clear, well defined process. You get a permanent residency after 2 years and can apply for naturalisation after 5. The government is not actively hostile to immigrants, no stste violence, negligible prejudice and a very friendly people.

A lot of my friends who did their masters in the US are trying to move out as well due to the visa process. You can't live forever on a H1B. Canada seems to be the country of choice for those moving out. Money can only go so far, you need peace of mind. You can't build your life on a temporary foundation.

Also one other recent phenomenon is that you can make boatload of money staying in India and working for a startup. So the incentive to go to the US is lesser atleast for the cream of the talent from the top universities.

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Totally agree. USA was the default option in the 2000s but in 2020 there are a lot of competitive options for high skilled employment (including staying back in India). There seems to be lot more awareness in India about H1B issues and the impossibility of getting PR in the USA for indians.

> I mean it makes sense to me.

All the reasons you citied for why it makes sense were true in april of 2020 too when H1B was oversubscribed by multiple factors.

So how does it make sense to you?

Its not like indians were getting Green cards in 2 yrs in april.

Correct explanation imo is drop in outsourcing contracts due to pandemic. TCS, Wipro don't need h1b anymore.

https://infotechlead.com/bpo/infosys-reveals-some-clients-se...

The vast majority of those H1Bs are obtained by outsourcing firms in India. Since it's a lottery, they file a massive pool of applications and send the ones who get picked.

Now since a H1B visa can't be issued if you're outside the USA (executive order), all those picked applications will be abandoned.

This is on top of another trend where EU and Canada are competing for high skilled immigrants and making it easier to move there.

I hope you do know that the Indian WITCH companies hire a lot of people from US on h1b. From what I heard, most of the companies such as Infosys stopped bringing people from India 1.5 to 2 years ago. One team I know has been hiring only US MS H1Bs at least since 2010. Its actually easier for them to hire foreign MS students straight out of US colleges, because they are desperate for h1b, than bringing someone from India. The MS graduate can be placed in projects right away, while it will take several months to bring someone from India. Many of these students will accept whatever salary they are offered if they are running out of OPT or whatever its called. So when you are seeing Infosys got x visas, that doesn't mean they are bringing x people from India. Probably half or more of them were h1bs hired in US - either students or h1bs who are changing jobs while in US.

Most of H-1Bs are indeed from AOS or COS process, however there are still 15% of consular processing applications according to the USCIS [1]. It's rational to assume that 15% of selected in the lottery were also consular processing and as they dropped out it would create ~13000 vacant spots (15% of 65K+20K total cap).

1. https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/reports/U...

Agreed, I was speaking more to the general trend. The sharp fall off is probably some combination of reaction to the executive order and the pandemic itself making travel impossible. Though I think lesser people will immigrate in the future also, especially if remote work is embraced to a greater degree.

This is clearly the main cause this year, but the lottery success rate has been climbing for several years due primarily to fewer applicants. I think this is probably a reaction to the political environment, along with the trump administration being actively hostile toward approving the visas that do make it through the lottery to the point they had to be sued over it.

> lottery success rate has been climbing for several years due primarily to fewer applicants.

Is this actually true? I found this on google

https://redbus2us.com/h1b-visa-cap-reach-dates-history-graph...

Looks like it actually skyrocketed after trump took office. Its the highest under his administration than any point in history.

Are you just trolling? If so, why?

Pretty much all our H1B employees from India are looking to move to Canada but our Canadian offices have run out of space. Ireland may be a good suggestion as well.

Add in visa free travel to all of Europe and it’s probably a great experience.

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