H1B or No H1B. That is the Question.

Hiring hasn't gotten any easier in the past few years, and it appears challenges will continue well into the future.

Recently, the social networks have filled with discussions of using the H1B Visa process to retain skilled labor from overseas. Like everything else, nobody seems happy about the program.

In our first 2025 episode of Books & The Biz, we will break down the H1B visa program to look at its merits, and its problems.

[00:00:11.08] - Alice

Hello. Welcome to Books in the Biz, a podcast that looks at both the financial and operational sides of success. Please welcome our hosts, Dan Paulson and Richard Beltré. Dan is the CEO of Envision Development International, and he works with leaders to increase sales and profits through great cultures with solid operations. Rich is CEO of the Veltri Group and a financial strategist working with companies to manage their money more effectively. Now on.

[00:00:43.29] - Dan Paulson

Welcome back to Books in the Bid, 2025 Edition. Rich, how are you?

[00:00:48.19] - Rich Veltre

I'm good, Dan. How are you?

[00:00:50.23] - Dan Paulson

I am good. Are you all rested up from your Christmas and New Year's activities? Did you party too much? Did you have too much champagne?

[00:00:59.11] - Rich Veltre

I'm glad they're over.

[00:01:05.02] - Dan Paulson

I think a lot of people are, especially when they fall in the middle of the week, because let's face it, nothing gets done for 2-3 weeks. It's bad enough when it's on a weekend because you only usually lose the week in between Christmas and New Year's. But I think when it falls on a Wednesday, it's like, well, nobody wants to work Monday and Tuesday, and then nobody wants to work after Christmas, and then nobody wants to work before New Year's. And then after New Year's, again, you got two days left. It's pretty much.

[00:01:31.24] - Rich Veltre

They might be there, but they're not really there.

[00:01:34.17] - Dan Paulson

They're not there. I found that out the hard way in some cases. Well, welcome back. This is our first episode of the New New Year. So 25 is off to a bang and start. Since I couldn't talk with people because they didn't want to talk to me anyway, I was listening to the news and I thought, well, for the first part of the year, one thing that's going around a lot is this H-1B visa thing. I'm like, I actually have some experience with that. And I think you might, too, or at least have some knowledge of it. But maybe to just let people know, I got the article here. Let me see if I can pull something up, share the screen, show you what I'm talking about. And of course, our good friend Elon Musk. He's the pseudo President of the United States. I think he's been very vocal since Trump has been elected. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, the subject of H-1B visas came up. And what was interesting is it seemed to piss off everybody. So when you brought the subject up, it wasn't like the left was happy or the right was happy.

[00:02:55.11] - Dan Paulson

It's like nobody was happy for all sorts of different reasons, with the exception of a handful of people. What's your familiarity with the H-1B visas?

[00:03:05.02] - Rich Veltre

I don't actually have a lot of... Because a lot of my work was not tech-related, which is, I think, where you really run into it the most. So I was a little surprised at Trump's comment that he has them on his properties, and I'm like, well, doing what? How does that fit? Because I know what a H-1B visa is.

[00:03:30.21] - Dan Paulson

Yes.

[00:03:31.05] - Rich Veltre

And I know what he owns as far as his property, so I'm not sure who he's using an H-1B visa for, or if maybe he's not quite right about which one he's using.

[00:03:43.21] - Dan Paulson

Here's been my experience with it. For those who aren't familiar with H-1Bs, because as you said, it tends to be more popular in tech or I would say advanced science degrees, like engineering and whatnot, and that's really where I've had some experience with it. But an H-1B Visa basically allows somebody from another country to work within the US legally, provided they have this visa. And at one point, there were only so many visas released per year. I think they've loosened that up quite a bit, that pretty much if you have the right credentialing, you can use these visas. And for the most part, I think the idea behind it is right, because we have a lot of people from other countries, whether it be China or Europe, or Asia, India, that tend to come here to learn in our universities, and what are the things they're learning? They're learning science-based degrees, as you pointed out, engineering, IT, programming, all that type of stuff. But here's the funny part about a lot of government programs. Basically, the way a H-1B visa works means that as a US company, you could not find somebody of similar caliber with similar experience experience in the US that could perform that job at the going rate.

[00:05:07.23] - Dan Paulson

So this is where it gets funky. So the argument that came through that a lot of people are pushing back with Elon and Vabake Ramiswami was also one bringing this up was people are using this to cut the line and hire people at a lower rate. Now, again, the gray area is you're supposed to be hiring somebody you can't fill the position with locally, and they're supposed to be paid the prevailing wage of that position, even though they are not from this country. It's written into the visa or to the law or however you want to look at it. One thing that I saw online that pointed out that was a really good point is the visa is tied to the company that brings that employee in. So it's not servitude, but if you want to keep your visa, you have to be good, because if you're not good, they can cancel the visa and ship you back home. If you really want to be here, you might put up with some things that other people who are US-based maybe wouldn't put up with. You might put up with maybe You might be more difficult work hours.

[00:06:16.29] - Dan Paulson

You might put up with maybe a much lower salary, even though that salary is supposed to be competitive with what somebody in the US would be making. It's also not just tied to things like IT, engineering, and whatnot. It can really be anything that would require somebody with a similar level of experience where they can't fill that position. So you pointed out Trump. Where could Trump gain on this? I don't know if it would be hiring landscapers, but it could be hiring a hotel manager. It could be hiring a facility person. There's a a number of ways, and it's all on how you write to that visa. And if it gets approved, you're good. So that's what I see. And I think that's what makes the H-1B visa more difficult than just giving it a checkmark to pass.

[00:07:17.04] - Rich Veltre

Yeah, I was a little surprised by the comment that he had made. I guess for the reason of in the beginning, I thought Steve is one of the ones who was looking to squash the program. Now he's all proponent for it. So I'm not really sure what the motivation is for that. But I think on top of that, we say it's a hotel manager, but I guess the question becomes, what's the real push for using someone overseas to bring them here to allow them to work? I think it's for a set term. I don't think it's forever.

[00:07:59.29] - Dan Paulson

It's not forever, but it can be renewed. Okay. I'm not sure about the length of time, but I believe 2-3 years sticks in my head. Okay. And then you have to go through a renewal process.

[00:08:13.08] - Rich Veltre

Yeah. I thought it was monthly. So or six months or something like that. But if it's a couple of years, I could see that that could be something in that industry might work. But I can understand the tech side, right? You bring somebody in, they bring a certain knowledge base, you get something done, and the person goes back, right? And then maybe you can bring them back again the next time you have another project because it's a certain amount of time. If it's renewable and you can get a couple of years out of it, okay. But you and I are always talking about building culture and having longevity. And how do you do that when you're outsourcing still? I mean, this was the problem that... To me, you're still outsourcing. It's just you've got a legal right to bring the person here, and then you're going to send them back. So it's not an American push. It's not a US push. It's I'm bringing someone with knowledge from overseas. So here's my take on it is, I don't necessarily want to say it's bad, and I'm going to be against it, but I'm looking at it and I'm saying, if the goal here is to rebuild the United States, the goal here is to make America great again, the whole MAGA movement, But we're not setting anything up for long term.

[00:09:34.10] - Rich Veltre

So are we setting something up for short term that we can use cheaper labor? That's always the argument, right? Yeah. But you're doing it anyway. Because either you're outsourcing the project to somebody over in India, which is where everything seems to be going as far as tech goes. And now you're just saying, well, let's just bring India here.

[00:09:54.16] - Dan Paulson

Right.

[00:09:55.07] - Rich Veltre

Well, either way, it's the same thing. It doesn't do anything for America other than, yes, we're a tech great because we have Indian people working here.

[00:10:04.03] - Dan Paulson

We've imported all the help, right?

[00:10:05.15] - Rich Veltre

Yeah, we've just brought them in. So I'm a little confused for the argument, but I understand why there's this argument back and forth So it's on both sides.

[00:10:16.00] - Dan Paulson

Yeah. I just looked it up quick. So we were both wrong. You were somewhat right in that you got the number right, you just didn't get the length of time right. So it's not six months, it's six years. So it would be Visa can be good for up to six years.

[00:10:33.14] - Rich Veltre

Okay. And how do they have to renew that? Is it it's renewable?

[00:10:36.08] - Dan Paulson

So it's- I'd have to do some more research on that. But usually what happens, at least my experience with that, it's very similar to a student visa. There are student visas where, again, you have engineering, you have IT experience, and you've graduated from here, you can get that visa to basically extend your time in US. Usually within that last year of eligibility, you have to start the process to renew that visa before it expires. Because if it expires, you have to go back to your country of origin and basically start the process from scratch. Okay. Again, I was working with an engineering firm. They were having some hiring difficulties. Actually, through one of the resources we had where we were looking for somebody to fill this key role. We weren't finding anyone locally with the experience, but we had found somebody who did have a visa. That visa needed to be transferred because, like I said, it's tied to the company that you're working with. So there's a lengthy legal process that also goes to transferring that visa over to a new business. It was not a cheap endeavor to start with, as if you talk to anyone who's tried to get naturalized or get a long term green card into the US, come in the right way.

[00:12:04.29] - Dan Paulson

It can take several years. I have two family members that have significant others that came from overseas, and it was a very lengthy and expensive way to do it. The H-1B visa tends to be a little less expensive, but there's still a lot of legal costs involved. What I've also heard with some of the online chatter going back and forth is not only do they use it to get cheaper help, but it also ends up in a situation where you don't always get the same quality. In talking IT, for example, there's a number of people who have said, we outsource part of our department to India, or we brought over these people that had an H-1B visa. They would fill key roles, and they would find themselves having to rewrite code that they did because there were several errors in the code. So Vivek made the argument, and to some degree, Eila made the argument, too, that, well, we don't have the experience here. It takes too long to teach people here, and nobody wants to work here anyway. So we can get somebody from India or Asia who's very industrious, wants to work really hard, and will do the job.

[00:13:20.08] - Dan Paulson

But it sounds like the job they do isn't always as good as somebody here. So again, we're in a situation where I don't think there's a perfect outcome. I know we've talked in the past that to some degree, we're going to have to rely on help outside the US, either through immigration or whatnot, to fill positions in the future, because I really don't think we have the people here to do it. At the same point, we can't tell people in coal miners in Kentucky or wherever, hey, you got to learn how to code and then not provide them with any resources to do it. So to me, the other And part of the failure here is we're not taking the time to invest in our current workforce to fill key positions that we need. And we've talked about this before, too. And you can, I'm sure, elaborate on it, too, is push to go to college is great. But when you're going to college for basically anything, you're not necessarily going to get a degree in something that's going to get you a good paying job or a job that's needed.

[00:14:24.07] - Rich Veltre

Right. It's interesting because in my head right now, as we're having this conversation of paralleling it to the fact that right now everyone is trying to outsource bookkeeping level accounting overseas. And now, even audit work at the accounting... An accounting Accounting firms. Big accounting firms are opening offices in India. They're opening, literally, accounting buildings. They're going all in on putting people in India into these processes. Now, you can't tell me it's because we don't have enough people in the US.

[00:15:07.08] - Dan Paulson

But do we have enough accountants in the US?

[00:15:09.28] - Rich Veltre

Well, I mean, there is a shortage, right? There's definitely a known shortage of what they're trying to accomplish. Now, they're not curing the problem here. They're just working around it. So they're going overseas. They're going to get a whole bunch of people and Okay, now you're all auditors, and they're all going to do the work over there for companies that are here. So essentially, all you've done is figured out a way to make it global, to take it overseas. But your motivation is not to do anything in the US. Your motivation is not to fix the problem. Your motivation is keep the cost down, right?

[00:15:52.23] - Dan Paulson

Yeah, because what's the cost difference between the accountant doing it here versus the accountant doing it in India? It's probably what? One-fourth?

[00:15:59.13] - Rich Veltre

It's significantlyC'est significantly different.

[00:16:00.23] - Dan Paulson

Yeah. It's a lot for that.

[00:16:02.12] - Rich Veltre

That might actually work. A quarter of the rate? Yeah, probably. It probably could work. At least the numbers can work. I don't know that I like that operation, but because I think you hit on it before. The information that comes back, the thing I've heard from other companies who have outsourced, forget the big companies doing the audit thing, right? That's a totally different animal than the small business that I deal with every day. The smaller business basically is looking for quality. The biggest thing that comes back from the outsource is they're all happy that they paid less money because it went overseas. But when the work comes in fact, they all are complaining because the quality is not there. That's not the solution. I think I'm getting us off task here, or off topic, but that's what I see is the problem here, that why are we still looking at the how do we take it overseas to get it cheaper, and then we get a bad quality, we turn around and say, well, we got bad quality. Well, you got what you paid for, right? That's what it comes down to. So I don't necessarily feel for anybody who's sitting there saying, well, we can't get the people here, so we're going to go over there.

[00:17:25.10] - Rich Veltre

But then they don't start anything. They don't start any training. They don't start something that three, four, five years, all of a sudden the trend goes the other way. It still comes down to we needed it cheaper.

[00:17:37.11] - Dan Paulson

Right. And I think you see that more in some areas, less than others. I know that I do quite a bit of work in the grades. There is a strong push now from a lot of construction companies, plumbers, electricians, that type of thing to really work locally with even middle schools and grade schools in some cases to start getting these kids interested They're interested in doing something other than maybe engineering or social studies or something like that, showing them other opportunities where they can make a good living and do something maybe that's going to interest them more than just going to college and getting a degree for whatever purpose. You really didn't get off subject because all we're doing with an H-1B visa is we're outsourcing the work overseas, but we're bringing overseas here. So It's the same result. We're not going and building a building in India, but we're bringing maybe some Indian, maybe some Philippines, maybe some Chinese, wherever. We're bringing them over here to do work. And I I work in... We live close to a big tourist town. And for years, that tourist town, I don't think these were H-1B visas.

[00:18:53.19] - Dan Paulson

These were temporary situations. They worked with a separate company that would go to, I would say Eastern Bloc, European countries, and bring them over for filling wait positions, hotels, facilities, things like that, because there weren't enough high school and college kids to fill all the open slots. And that was a big push for many years. And then, of course, COVID shut it down. To some degree, some of the uprising over in Ukraine and whatnot has shut things down as well. But still, we're always going to be outsourcing training people. The question is, what do we need to do to get the quality? And I think that's where you and I, as we go forward on this XCXO thing, is really trying to find the quality here to train up To fill that gap, hopefully a little bit quicker than starting at middle school to bring these kids in to learn various aspects of business that they're not going to get necessarily through college.

[00:19:56.25] - Rich Veltre

Yeah, I think that's where my key argument comes down to. Again, I said it before, I'm not against the H-1B if it's truly being used the way that I think it's being or wanted to be used. If you're truly telling me that we can't get the people here, then bring the person in, that's fine. But I think somewhere along the line, there has to be this switch that says, Training has to be here. There has to be You can't tell me that every virtual assistant has to come from the Philippines. You can't tell me. I mean, you just can't. Nobody here can be a virtual assistant.

[00:20:39.01] - Dan Paulson

Exactly.

[00:20:40.08] - Rich Veltre

I mean, as it is, I keep getting these ads for... Now, I can't remember the company name, but somebody's come out with a way to take your schedule and actually become almost your virtual assistant. It's like AI generated virtual assistant. So these are the types of tasks that you know there's going to be somebody who can use this AI to do the work. So are you telling me there's no one in America that can learn how to use this software to become your virtual assistant? It has to be someone overseas. The only reason you can tell me it has to be someone overseas is because they're going to take $4 an hour.

[00:21:16.08] - Dan Paulson

That right there is probably the biggest issue.

[00:21:18.17] - Rich Veltre

So there's my problem. That doesn't solve anything. That just switches where the problem was. You're telling me the problem is we don't have enough tech people, and then you're going to create tech people with these other people. And then there's a hole of nobody doing the lower level, and you still got to outsource. You still got to offshore or off, however, you still got to take it overseas. From a short term vision, I understand it. From a long term vision, I don't understand it. I think from a long term vision, there really has to be someone who steps up and says, here's how we're solving this problem over time. And I don't know, maybe it's political in four years isn't enough. Four years, you can't get anything done, and somebody changes it on you four years from now. But let's not make it a political issue. Take it out of that and make it, This is American business, this is American ingenuity, technology, any industry you want to call it, this is how we cure that industry.

[00:22:24.26] - Dan Paulson

Yeah, we definitely need to bring it back home. I do agree with you. I think the H-1B visa with all good intents can fill short term gaps to provide solutions. Personal experience, again, a lot of the people that are coming in on those H-1B visas fill a price point, don't necessarily fill an experience point. So while they can do the job, can they do the job at the quality that we need to do it? Probably not. We're still going to need some oversight. You're going to need experience to make sure things are working out. And you might find out that you actually have more experienced people over here. But the difference might be paying somebody $100 an hour versus $30 to $40 an hour. Are you willing to do that? Some people look at the bottom line and say, well, this saves me money. It makes sense for me to do that. But ultimately, there's a cost somewhere else, especially if you have to do a lot of reworking. To me, reworking is just insane. Try to get it done right the first time or done mostly right and make a couple of tweaks. Don't get it done, then have to go halfway back and start all over again and fix the problem that you created.

[00:23:36.06] - Dan Paulson

And I think that's going to be the hardest part for a lot of these companies, because when they start looking at, I can save two-thirds of the cost, and I don't have to worry about some 20, 30 something that thinks he's going to be CEO of the company, and he wants to work from home, and he only wants to put in 20 hours a week. Those are all issues that I think we're going to have to work through. It is going to take a little bit from each side So employees, you can't have your cake and eat it all the time. I think you have to do some split to get the experience that you need. But, yeah, I don't think getting rid of H1BVs, this makes sense. But at the same point, becoming fully reliant on that, especially in areas of tech where we really need to develop more of an onshore workforce versus exporting it from overseas, probably needs to be done.

[00:24:28.25] - Rich Veltre

I agree.

[00:24:30.29] - Dan Paulson

Well, that has been an exciting discussion, and I hope somebody gets something out of it. We got a new commercial. Did you see it?

[00:24:40.29] - Rich Veltre

I did. I've been sending it around saying, Everybody's We got to take a look at this.

[00:24:46.06] - Dan Paulson

Well, I actually have it on here. This is going to be our exit from now on. We're going to show this commercial. And so this is for XCXO. And for those of you who don't know, Rich and I have been working on a process to And hopefully tap into some key experience people that you can have for a fraction of the cost. But it's not that you're necessarily paying them less. It's that you're only using them for the time that you need them. So we're thinking a lot of cases for many companies, 10 to 20 hours a week is plenty, especially if you have the staff on board to handle what I would call the heavy lifting. Because as you and I have talked, when you're at a sea level position, what you're looking for is somebody who's more of a visionary to get projects moving and to get things on track, build a culture in the organization or extend the culture that you're trying to create. That's really what this position is for. And there's a lot of businesses that can't afford to pay somebody upwards of $200,000 plus benefits and incentives for working 40 hours a week when there may not be 40 hours worth of work there for them to do.

[00:25:56.29] - Dan Paulson

So that's where XCXO comes in. Before I show this video, because I'm going to just let it go out and write off in the sunset, how do they get a hold of you, Rich?

[00:26:09.24] - Rich Veltre

Rich@xcxo. Net. Send me an email and we'll go from there.

[00:26:13.09] - Dan Paulson

There you go. And for me, it's Dan xcxo. Net. Now, the premiere, I guess the premiere on our podcast of our XCXO.

[00:26:25.19] - Bob

Want to boost your sales and profits but need the talent to help you grow? Xcx XCXO is a one-of-a-kind platform to find skilled fractional executives to help develop your team into a high-performance powerhouse. Fractional leadership is a great choice when you consider the average executive-level candidate can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars in salaries, benefits and incentives. Xcxo finds you the executive and utilizes their talents to build your team's experience, all for a fraction of the cost of a full-time C-suite leader. Contact XCXO today to fill the gaps in your leadership team. Visit xcxo. Net.

[00:27:08.08] - Dan Paulson

There we go. That was awesome. So we've got xcxo. Net. Be sure to visit that. Be sure to check out our other podcast, and we will be catching up to you again next week. So thanks again, Rich.

[00:27:26.03] - Rich Veltre

Thank you, sir.

[00:27:27.29] - Dan Paulson

You bet. We will talk you soon. All right.