Talk about tariffs. While consumers were worrying about bearing the cost of the fees on imported goods, employers may be more alarmed by the Trump administration’s latest scheme – an eye-watering fee on certain visa applicants.
US president Donald Trump has got himself worked up about H-1B visas, which are typically issued to highly skilled workers in tech and pharma, filling gaps where US skills have yet to extend. According to Trump, the system is being exploited and US workers are being edged out by lower-cost, lower-skilled staff from overseas.
To combat this, Trump says he will introduce a new $100,000 (€85,000) application fee for employers.
That may well price the US out of the labour market. The H-1B scheme is generally seen as vital for high-tech companies, particularly in Silicon Valley, which is heavily dependent on the stream of skilled workers that the H-1B visas bring in.
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But Silicon Valley’s difficulty could be this State’s opportunity. The silver lining could be that Europe is suddenly a more attractive place for investment. Only 213 of the new H-1Bs issued last year were to Irish workers; three-quarters of the new visas last year were issued to workers from India. Could some of the investment in jobs intended for the US make its way here instead?
You would have to think it might be a possibility. Topping the list of approvals for the H-1B visa programme consistently since 2020 was Amazon. Microsoft, Google and Apple also have thousands of applications approved each year. All of them have extensive operations in the Republic, making it a potential alternative location for jobs should the US system prove too onerous.
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Of course, the new system has yet to be fully implemented. Aside from the potential legal challenges to the plan, Trump has given himself a handy get-out clause by granting Kirsty Noem, his homeland security chief, the discretion to waive the fee.
But the damage to the US’s reputation as a business-friendly environment may well be permanent. This latest move comes only days after South Korean workers were detained in an immigration raid on a Hyundai plant. The workers were there to train US employees, as part of a significant investment in its US facilities that Trump had pushed for.
Both companies and job seekers alike would be forgiven for now taking the view that the US is too unstable to take a risk, even if investing elsewhere incurs the further ire of Trump.
In the meantime, expect to see more tech executives and multinationals bending the knee to Trump as they try to mitigate the damage the “very stable genius” has wrought on their industry.
