BY VEENA RAO
Atlanta, GA, October 17, 2025: What happens when it suddenly costs $100,000 to bring a skilled worker to the U.S. on an H-1B visa? The Trump administration says the steep new fee is meant to curb misuse of the program, protect American jobs, and ensure that only the most essential, high-value hires come through.
But according to Dr. Jagdish N. Sheth — Charles H. Kellstadt Professor of Marketing at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School and recipient of India’s Padma Bhushan award — the plan will accelerate the migration of high-skilled work to India and further strengthen the country’s role as a global talent hub.
“The impact will be marginal,” Dr. Sheth told NRI Pulse in an interview at his Atlanta home. “First of all, it applies only to new applications — not to existing visa holders or renewals, which make up about 90 percent of all H-1Bs. That means the overwhelming majority of current workers remain unaffected.”
Where the real change could happen, he said, is in how companies respond. Because most H-1B visas are concentrated in the IT sector, firms will likely rethink whether bringing workers to the U.S. is worth the steep new cost. “For the same $100,000, they can hire multiple employees or contractors in India,” Dr. Sheth explained. “It’s simply more cost-effective. And that could speed up a shift that’s already happening — companies building their own employment bases in India rather than outsourcing.”
That shift is already visible in the numbers. “If you look at IT services today, the largest employer isn’t TCS, Wipro, or Infosys anymore — it’s Accenture,” he said. “And in accounting, Ernst & Young employs more than 50,000 people in Hyderabad to run its global back-office operations. The same is true for media, publishing, and engineering, where backend work moved to India decades ago.”
It’s not just talk — companies are making major investments in India to prepare for this new reality. Dr. Sheth pointed to Oracle’s expansion in Hyderabad, where a real estate developer has built a 1.2 million-square-foot facility specifically for the company. “It’s a build-own-transfer model,” he explained. “Eventually, Oracle will take over and staff the building with 6,000 to 7,000 employees. That’s how serious this shift is.”
He summed up the underlying logic with one of his favorite analogies: “If you’re looking for gold, you go to the gold mine. And in today’s global economy, India is that gold mine of talent.”
Still, not every sector will be able to adapt as easily. Fields like healthcare and nursing, where physical presence is essential, could feel the pinch more directly. “That’s where you might see more significant changes in how H-1B visas are used,” he said.
There’s also a chance companies will look to L-1 visas, which allow intra-company transfers of executives and managers for temporary global assignments. “The number of Indian L-1 holders is relatively small right now, but if H-1Bs become too expensive, companies might rely more on L-1s,” Dr. Sheth noted. “Of course, those too could come under closer scrutiny.”
In the end, Dr. Sheth doesn’t believe the steep H-1B fee will slow globalization — it may just change its form. “We’re likely to see more and more companies from the U.S., Europe, and Asia establishing their own employment hubs in India instead of outsourcing,” he predicted. “The work will still get done — it just won’t necessarily get done here.”
