If media sources are anything to go by, there is a gaping hole; the size of a crater, lying among employees working in the U.S. Future doesn’t seem as rosy anymore with many tech companies retrenching jobs of H1-B visa holders and employees scurrying for cover.
Layoffs and mass layoffs are distinctly making their presence felt with pink slip fever coming into prominence once again; this time with a severity not witnessed before. This is due to an overwhelming number of employees having been given jobs during the pandemic, mostly with an underlying promise of what lay ahead in the future, which was not to be; the most subtle fallout being E-commerce hype, which did not live up to its splendor.
This is for those Indians who make up a sizeable number of expatriates who came to the land of opportunities chasing the American dream. H1-B visa gives the holders a non-immigrant status while letting them hold on to their jobs in US companies. This is the soft center that the US companies are decidedly targeting with 0-3 years being the duration of stay in the country.
Indian immigrants totaled 3.01 lakh visas during 2021 nearing 74 percent of the total number of visas issued. The catch here is the 60-day grace period, offered to those losing their jobs, in which event they have to find an alternate job or risk leaving the country. A cushion to this is the green card which guarantees a stay permanently in the U.S. but with seven lakh Indians still waiting for it, it does look like a vessel with a false bottom!
Think of a thousand ways the industries are losing face. This is yet another of those bills that end up threatening the very existence of the fourth estate. Here Facebook Parent Meta will remove news from its platform if the U.S. congress passes a proposal that aims to make news organizations reach out to other companies such as Googl. O (Google) and Facebook.
This is in consideration of the journalism competition and preservation act to help the struggling local news fraternity. Facebook parent Meta has unilaterally considered removing news from its platform altogether concerning the government-authorized mandates that disregard the valuable nuggets that we pass onto the news outlets vis-à-vis increased traffic and subscriptions.
It pays to have Facebook as the news re-router, for having an undesignated number of readers, which increases traffic to the concerned news website in question. This reminds everyone of a private cartel that refers to resizing one business entity in the hope of providing business to other firms, a business direction that appears to be flawed from the word go.
However the fourth estate is of the view that the big technology firm’s wings have to be clipped else the social media channels will become a universal source for all news imprints relayed.