'Can't Run From Reality': Jaishankar Stresses Relevance Of Global Workforce Amid H-1B Fee Hike

A global workforce is a necessity in today’s changing world, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Thursday, adding, nations cannot escape the reality that demands for the same cannot be met due to national demographics.

His remarks come amid trade and tariff challenges, as well as Donald Trump’s hardline stance on immigration, including a new USD 100,000 fee on H-1B visas that largely affects Indian professionals who make up the majority of beneficiaries of these temporary work visas.

Speaking in New York at an event named ‘At the Heart of Development: Aid, Trade, and Technology’, hosted by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) on the margins of the UN General Assembly session, Jaishankar called for the creation of a more acceptable,

contemporary, efficient model of a global workforce, which can then be located in a distributed, global workplace.

“Where that global workforce is to be housed and located may be a matter of political debate. But there’s no getting away. If you look at demand and you look at demographics, demands cannot be met in many countries purely out of national demographics,” he said.

“This is a reality. You cannot run away from this reality. So how do we create a more acceptable, contemporary, efficient model of a global workforce, which is then located in a distributed, global workplace? I think this is a very big question today which the international economy has to address,” he said.

“We will see, as part of this re-engineered world, new, more different trade arrangements between countries, countries which will make decisions which they may not have made in other circumstances, countries which today will feel the desire, sometimes even the compulsion, to have new partners and new regions,” Jaishankar said.

Jaishankar said that technology-wise, trade-wise, connectivity-wise, workplace-wise, “we are going to end up in a very different world in a very short term.”

In today’s “very turbulent” atmosphere, it is important particularly for large countries to build capacities to be more self-reliant, he said, asserting that it is “very much” the focus in India, the External Affairs Minister said.

In a sudden move that may hugely impact skilled Indian professionals in the US, US President Donald Trump ordered a steep hike in the annual H-1B non-immigrant visa fee to USD 100,000.

As the order came into effect on September 21, it sparked panic and outcry, with immigration attorneys and companies asking the H-1B visa holders or their family members, currently outside America for work or vacation, to return within the next 24 hours or risk being stranded and denied entry into the US.

Later, a White House official clarified that the H1-B visa fee of USD 100,000 would be applicable only to new applicants.

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