3 C
New York
Thursday, January 2, 2025

Tesla changed laid off US employees with overseas employees utilizing H-1B visas that Musk wish to enhance


Tesla has changed a few of its US workers who have been let go as a part of a giant wave of layoffs earlier this yr with overseas employees utilizing H-1B visas, which CEO Elon Musk is now campaigning to extend.

Over the past week, Elon Musk has been selling the rise of H-1B visas, that are used to convey overseas employees into the US for “specialty occupations.”

Certified overseas employees should be sponsored by an organization to get the visa, which lasts three years, extendable to 6 years, after which the holder must reapply.

The visa holder should preserve employment on the visa sponsor to retain the work visa. The employee must go away the nation if the employment ends for no matter motive. This has led to some criticism because it offers super energy to the employer and might result in a contemporary model of indentured servitude.

Whereas there are apparent advantages to bringing expert employees into the US, persons are divided on the difficulty as a result of these employees are sometimes paid lower than US employees, placing adverse stress on compensation, particularly within the tech trade, on high of the ethical questions on holding visas over the heads of overseas employees.

That’s why the US Congress has mandated a 65,000 visa cap limiting the variety of H-1B visas that may be issued every fiscal yr, plus an additional 20,000 for overseas folks popping out of graduate applications at US universities.

Tesla has been a giant consumer of these visas, and its CEO, Elon Musk, has been utilizing his newfound political affect to advertise growing the cap of H-1B visas. He acquired vital pushback from his new pals on the best facet of the political spectrum within the US, who see this visa as getting used to steal jobs from Individuals.

He’s fairly passionate concerning the challenge, to say the least:

To be truthful, Musk didn’t come to the US on a H-1B visa. He got here on a pupil visa, and later, his personal brother admitted that they have been unlawful immigrants within the early days of launching their Zip2 startup within the US.

Tesla’s use of H-1B visas

Over the previous couple of days, a number of present and former Tesla employees reached out to Electrek to disclose that Tesla ramped up its use of H-1B visas to interchange US employees it let go throughout a wave of layoffs earlier this yr.

We reported that roughly US 15,000 workers have been let go at Tesla round April 2024. Each division was affected, however the layoffs have been concentrated in Texas and California, the place Tesla has extra employees than anyplace else.

Present and former Tesla workers mentioned that most of the laid-off US employees have been changed by overseas employees utilizing H-1B visas.

These claims are backed by US Division of Labor information, which present that Tesla requested over 2,000 H-1B visas throughout the time it was shedding US employees (by way of Reddit):

Once more, there’s a cap of 65,000 visas for the complete US yearly, and Tesla alone tried to recover from 3% of them.

Tesla employees mentioned that many workers let go have been extra senior engineers with greater compensation they usually have been changed with junior engineers from overseas international locations at a decrease pay.

Electrek’s Take

To be clear, I’m not taking a stance on H-1B right here. It looks like there must be good makes use of for this visa, however it actually may be abused. My purpose is to share extra info that might clarify why Elon would need extra of this visa for his companies, and possibly not for the best causes.

On the core, folks see the issue of hiring employees from different international locations who’re prepared to work for decrease pay than US employees – taking jobs from Individuals and placing stress on general compensation within the US.

There’s actually worth to the argument. Elon’s counterargument is that the US doesn’t have sufficient expert employees, and he wants to rent folks from different international locations to compensate.

This argument additionally has some worth, particularly for particular sectors, like manufacturing engineering, which has change into much less widespread within the US.

Nevertheless, at Tesla and with Elon, the issue is far deeper than this.

The issue stems from the employer’s weight over the employees as a sponsor of their visas. Elon is famously laborious on employees, and he doesn’t like the standard 40-hour workweek. He usually pushes Tesla workers to work 60 to 80 hours per week.

Many Tesla workers have fortunately performed this for years, and the principle motivator has been the idea in Tesla’s mission to speed up the appearance of electrical transport so as to curb local weather change.

Some folks nonetheless imagine on this mission, however Elon has eroded it over the previous couple of years by shifting give attention to self-driving and advocating for eradicating EV incentives within the US. It’s changing into more durable to make folks imagine that Tesla’s major purpose is to speed up the appearance of EVs when its CEO is speaking extra about Tesla changing into “essentially the most invaluable firm on the earth” than its influence on local weather change. And let’s not neglect that he has spent an incredible quantity of effort and cash during the last yr to get deniers of the human influence on local weather change elected.

However he has discovered one other efficient method to encourage employees to work more durable and for longer hours: maintain a visa over their head.

The character of the H-1B visa being connected to your employer places super stress on the employees.

On high of it, Tesla, like many different firms utilizing H-1B visas, tends to rent from international locations the place longer workweek are already the norm. For instance, India is already totally on a 6-day workweek.

I don’t prefer to Tesla employees killing themselves working 80 hours per week, but when they do it passionately, by alternative, for what they imagine to be a terrific mission, it’s laborious to argue towards that. It’s their alternative.

But when they do it as a result of they need the “American dream” and they’re afraid that getting let go will kill or decelerate their probability of immigrating as a result of they’re within the nation on a H-1B visa, that looks like exploitation to me.

FTC: We use earnings incomes auto affiliate hyperlinks. Extra.

Related Articles

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Latest Articles