Tesla has replaced some of its US employees who were let go as part of a big wave of layoffs...

Summary

Tesla replaced many laid-off U.S. workers with foreign H-1B visa holders after a 2024 wave of layoffs affecting 15,000 employees.

These visas, tied to employer sponsorship, often lower compensation and give employers significant leverage over workers.

Critics argue this displaces U.S. employees, as senior engineers were replaced by lower-paid junior engineers.

CEO Elon Musk, while advocating for expanding H-1B visa caps, faces backlash, especially from conservatives, for “job-stealing” concerns.

Musk contends there’s a U.S. skill shortage, but critics highlight potential exploitation tied to Tesla’s demanding work culture and visa dependence.

  • ChlkDstTtr@lemmy.world
    412·
    3 days ago

    While there are obvious benefits to bringing skilled workers into the US, people are divided on the issue because those workers are often paid less than US workers, putting negative pressure on compensation, especially in the tech industry, on top of the moral questions about holding visas over the heads of foreign workers.

    This is a good summary of H-1B issues. I don’t think they’re bad in principle since bringing in talent is great for the economy, but in practice they can be abused and push down wages of American workers.

    • NobodyElse
      32·
      3 days ago

      Which all comes from the temporary and restrictive nature of the visa. They’re tied to a specific employer and must leave the country if their employment with that company ends (or set up another visa with another company in a very short time).

      If these people represent deficiencies in our country’s skill set, then we should be welcoming them with open arms not locking them into an exploitative indentured servitude.

      Of course, removing the strong tie to a specific sponsoring employer would let them leave the company for more competitive pay and work environment, which makes the whole thing less appealing to companies. It’s also at odds with the idea of the visa serving to bring in extraordinary talent not available in the country. Needing extraordinary talent and skimping on pay don’t exactly go hand in hand.

    • takeda@lemm.eeEnglish
      10·
      3 days ago

      I think H1B should be reformed. We should still have set limit, but instead of picking people randomly to grant visas, the employers should have a bidding war and only grant visas for the employees that will receive the highest compensation. This will once again promote experts and also ensures they will be paid their true worth.

      Also the window to be able to find another job should be extended, to allow them to switch if they get exploited.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      3 days ago

      This is a good summary of H-1B issues. I don’t think they’re bad in principle since bringing in talent is great for the economy, but in practice they can be abused and push down wages of American workers.

      A fairly obvious workaround to the obvious problem inherent in the scam that is H-1B is to kill H-1B dead and work towards enabling people to emigrate here as permanent citizens and fill in this supposed need companies cry about.

      Since the entire “problem” is mostly bullshit, that’s not what the moneyed interests are trying to do here. They want to break the back of the American engineer.

    • ofcourse@lemmy.ml
      24·
      3 days ago

      I would love to see a source of this claim from the article for high skilled jobs. The H1B application requirements are so strict that you cannot hire them at lower wages than US workers.

      This has more to do with replacing experienced workers in “senior roles” with new workers in “junior roles”, except with the same role expectations.

      But yes, it is the case that H1B holders are more willing to be knowingly exploited to work in junior roles and lower salaries despite being fully aware of the shitty company practices. They are simply trying to live in a country they moved to legally, often studied in universities here, were included in the same layoffs, have to pay off the same mortgages, and often pay more taxes than equivalent domestic workers because none of the tax loopholes are available to them.

      So why blame them when it’s the employers who are skirting the law by misrepresenting role requirements rather than H1B workers stealing jobs?

      • ChlkDstTtr@lemmy.world
        8·
        3 days ago

        I don’t think any reasonable person is blaming the workers. In my experience the employers do two things:

        1. They hire H-1B workers at the bottom of the pay range (or as you said misrepresent the job)
        2. They do a half-assed (or no-assed) job of trying to fill the position with an American. They’re supposed to post the job and take applications, but I worked for a large corporation (for less than 2 years because I couldn’t stomach the culture) that would just post the job internally on bulletin boards knowing there were no eligible internal candidates that would see the physical posting.

        This is definitely an employer abuse problem, not a candidate problem.

        • ofcourse@lemmy.ml
          22·
          3 days ago

          The way this article is written though makes it appear like a domestic vs foreign worker issue. You can just look at all the comments here shitting on foreign workers.

          An employer only posting jobs internally is definitely against the law so the entire focus here should be on

          1. Employers doing illegal shit
          2. USCIS rules that make it possible for this exploitation to occur - through role responsibility misrepresentations, starting a ticking clock of 60 days for laid off H1B workers to find a new job, and not allowing them to start their own businesses (unless ofc you have daddy’s money to lie on your visa applications).