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Comment by cj | Hacker News Reader

H1B workers can still switch employers, they’re not tied to the employer who originally sponsored them.

There's significant paperwork and delays involved in switching one's H1B permit to the new employer. For that reason, the companies you can potentially move to are limited to those that have internal processes for handling H1B-based employment.

I’ve personally (and successfully) brought a H1B employee from a BigCo into my 15 person startup (we were actually 7 people at the time of hiring them).

There’s some paperwork, but it’s not a major hurdle. Maybe a few grand in legal fees and a few hours of work on the employer side.

And yet many employers refuse to do that work and will just pass on candidates that need an H1B transfer.

and your personal experience shows what? just go to any job anncouncment website and see how many specifically say that Visa Support is not available (thus requiring US Residence) and how many say it is. the Ratio from a glance is maybe 1/100 has a Visa Program.

> Probably, because it’s the minority of workers.

How small of a minority was it for Twitter after Elon fired a supermajority of the regular FTEs?

Thanks, I removed that part of my comment. The point still stands.

Not if they're trying to get a green card.

Its not trivial, or guaranteed to be approved, and takes weeks in the best case

It also depends on where they are in H1B process. These days perm and i140 approvals are taking ages(2 years). Basically engineer is stuck while they come out at the other side.

Also a lot of employers who had layoffs aren't sponsoring new Green cards because u know...

It is no fun being on H1B...

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