Employees aren't fungible though. You can't convert an accountant into an engineer. Or a marketer to an engineer. Or a recruiter to an engineer.

But sensationalism and click bait sells more ad impressions so let's play that up as much as possible.

And the last thing you need is those recruiters finding qualified employees in the US when you hire by h1..

I find that companies are very much opposed to seriously finding those matches where the employees are convertable since longterm employees cost twice as much as the untrained new hire in a role that now uses half their abilities. Further, if they are "certified" as competent in both fields instead of eliminated from the market as tainted goods, they can be snatched by better managed rivals who know how to get full value of a programmer-accountant instead of paying for both skillsets and not being competent to consistently manage profit from either one.

401k plans managed fairness by making sure your top and lowest employees got reasonably comparable benefits. It helped, but also lead to outsourcing the low roles. In this case, I think companies should be limited to h1s that cost more than the greater of: the average inflation adjusted salary they've laid off, the average salary they still have and the average market salary for the specific role. If that's too expensive for them, maybe its fine to let them workout their problems without crying about the labor market not matching their inconsistent needs.

Correlation doesn't imply causation.

Much as I loathe companies that do this sort of thing, I read this article as being not much better than link bait. Though doubtless there will be further layoffs, these seem to be finance, supply chain and a smattering of marketing. None of which are very good fits for H1B employees. I'm guessing most of the H1B applications are for the usual knucklehead services reqs.

Isn't this exactly not what H1B is supposed to be used for? And isn't this against the law already?

I have no confidence that our "monetrocracy" (legalized bribery, money=speech, etc.) will ever do anything ever again to penalize such chintzy corporate nastiness in a substantial manner.

However, all is not lost: one can look at such corporate actions as a financial signal that they are on the path to decline (e.g. IBM). Their next acts will likely comprise of executive bonuses, more layoffs, more employee churn, reduced quality, customer losses, and opportunities for new and interesting companies that are interested in ability instead of financial engineering. Depending on the horizon and personal wealth, this can serve as an opportunity to short such stocks.

Is "plutocracy" the word you're looking for.

I think I meant monetocracy: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Monetocracy , https://votesmart.org/public-statement/1043156/the-super-pac... . I thought I was guilty of a neologism but apparently the term has been in use since 2012 afaict.

eh, it takes a lot more than this to successfully short a stock. layoffs, more debt for buybacks, these long term losing strategies are often bullish for shares in the short term.

This is why I mentioned the time horizon in my original statement. I also mentioned the opportunity for new businesses (startups) that will hopefully blaze new trails while these enterpri-corpses continue down their path of decline.

The layoffs maybe in different occupations like accountant vs an H1B software engineer so it is not likely the could allow a transfer.

To Dell

http://imgur.com/RqPywQR