US President Donald Trump’s decision to revise the H-1B visa regulations, imposing a sweeping $100,000 fee, is likely to benefit three major countries, with Canada being the primary beneficiary. Interestingly, the two other countries that could benefit from Trump’s decision are India and China, according to experts.
The mammoth $100,000 fees for the new H-1B applications will send more tech jobs to Canada and could also be a windfall for India and China, as it could prompt their highly skilled workers to stay or return home rather than work in the US after graduation, according to Fortune. According to an analysis by Pew Research, Indian and Chinese nationals make up 85% of H-1B visa recipients.
“Cities like Vancouver or Toronto will thrive instead of American cities,” Garry Tan, CEO of prominent San Francisco startup incubator Y Combinator, said in a now-deleted X post. Royal Bank of Canada CEO Dave McKay also believes that Trump’s H1-B rule will help Canada retain students in their universities, who would have otherwise gone to Silicon Valley.
As per the new norms, only applications by employers who pay high wages would get the visa if annual requests exceed the 85,000 cap. Trump’s norms come in the wake of criticism that the visa programme was being used to bring in cheaper foreign labour for skilled jobs, thereby overlooking American talent.
Why Canada
The North American country has a comparatively predictable, company-friendly approach. Toronto is also North America’s third-largest tech hub behind Silicon Valley and New York. Montreal and Edmonton, Alberta, have emerged as major artificial intelligence hubs.
Besides the government incentives, a weak Canadian dollar and loose immigration policy are factors that favour Canada. Many US tech firms have opened satellite offices in Canada due to their proximity to US cities.
Case in point: Microsoft opening a software development centre in Vancouver in 2007 and 2014 due to hassles with H1-B.
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India's ' talent pool
After Amazon, the second-largest recipient of H1-B visas was Indian tech giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), with just over 5,500 approved petitions. Madhavi Arora, chief economist at Emkay Global Financial Services, believes the policy could have an unexpected upside for India, potentially bringing talent back home. She believes that this will help concentrate top professionals within India’s largest tech firms, which could catalyse India’s transformation into a more powerful global innovation and delivery hub.