US President Donald Trump’s plan to ban spouses of high-skill visa holders from working will likely push 100,000 people out of jobs and negatively affect the visa holders and their employers, according to a new study.
The Trump administration has been tightening the rules for H-1B visas, which allow foreign workers to take jobs in the US for several years, and plans to revoke the ability of spouses to work as part of the effort.
In that context, Christopher Cunningham of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Pooja Vijayakumar from the Kemmy Business School at the University of Limerick set out to study the implications of such a policy change.
They found that such a shift would likely isolate spouses socially, raise domestic tensions and strain the family’s financial resources. It would also probably hurt the visa holder’s satisfaction and increase the risks that they continue in a foreign posting.
The cost of failed expatriate assignments ranges from US$250,000 to US$1 million, in addition to indirect costs, they wrote.
“Policy changes like the one being considered for America are often made in the absence of complete information that might help policymakers better understand the true breadth of likely consequences,” the study said.
The US began allowing spouses of H-1B visa holders to work in 2015, under then-US president Barack Obama’s administration.
For their research, the authors studied the experiences of H-1B families in 2014. They contacted 1,800 Indian expatriates to participate in the research and the final sample consisted of 416.
The work visa programs, which date back to 1952, were originally designed to allow US companies to hire workers from abroad temporarily when they could not find qualified Americans, but the programs evolved with many allegations that companies, particularly India’s outsourcing giants, had been abusing the visas to get less expensive labor.
Trump came into office vowing to overhaul the programs and protect US workers.
In that context, the US Department of Homeland Security began the process of reversing the eligibility of H-1B spouses to work. Technology industry groups — which represent Google and Amazon.com among others — have pushed back against the plan, arguing it would hurt spouses, typically women, as well as the visa holders.
H-1B visa holders explained myriad problems when spouses could not work.
“Very unfair to her, so going back to India,” one told the researchers.
“My wife is frustrated that she is unable to further her career,” another said.
The researchers said that a reinstated ban likely “will be more critical and difficult for expatriate families than what was experienced in 2014, as many of these individuals who were temporarily benefited by the previous presidential administration’s immigration policies may have, in this time, bought a home or started their own businesses.”
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
ECONOMIC BOOST: Should the more than 23 million people eligible for the NT$10,000 handouts spend them the same way as in 2023, GDP could rise 0.5 percent, an official said Universal cash handouts of NT$10,000 (US$330) are to be disbursed late next month at the earliest — including to permanent residents and foreign residents married to Taiwanese — pending legislative approval, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The Executive Yuan yesterday approved the Special Act for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience in Response to International Circumstances (因應國際情勢強化經濟社會及民生國安韌性特別條例). The NT$550 billion special budget includes NT$236 billion for the cash handouts, plus an additional NT$20 billion set aside as reserve funds, expected to be used to support industries. Handouts might begin one month after the bill is promulgated and would be completed within
The National Development Council (NDC) yesterday unveiled details of new regulations that ease restrictions on foreigners working or living in Taiwan, as part of a bid to attract skilled workers from abroad. The regulations, which could go into effect in the first quarter of next year, stem from amendments to the Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及僱用法) passed by lawmakers on Aug. 29. Students categorized as “overseas compatriots” would be allowed to stay and work in Taiwan in the two years after their graduation without obtaining additional permits, doing away with the evaluation process that is currently required,
IMPORTANT BACKER: China seeks to expel US influence from the Indo-Pacific region and supplant Washington as the global leader, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said China is preparing for war to seize Taiwan, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said in Washington on Friday, warning that Taiwan’s fall would trigger a regional “domino effect” endangering US security. In a speech titled “Maintaining the Peaceful and Stable Status Quo Across the Taiwan Strait is in Line with the Shared Interests of Taiwan and the United States,” Chiu said Taiwan’s strategic importance is “closely tied” to US interests. Geopolitically, Taiwan sits in a “core position” in the first island chain — an arc stretching from Japan, through Taiwan and the Philippines, to Borneo, which is shared by
RSS