H-1B visa restrictions: The promise of globalisation was built on a simple idea: capital, talent, and ideas should move freely to where they are most productive. That vision is fraying. Goods still travel, and capital continues to circle the globe, but people no longer move with the same freedom. The world now trades in an uneven system: your products may enter our markets, but your people may not. The free flow of ideas persists, but borders are tightening around the workers who create them.
The latest US move captures this shift. Washington will raise the H-1B visa fee to $100,000 from September 21, 2025, a sharp escalation that will reshape incentives in the global tech industry. The H-1B programme has long served as America’s primary channel to attract foreign talent, especially from India. The policy is framed as protection for domestic workers. In practice, it acts as a steep tariff on skilled labour mobility — an economic iron curtain.
The outcome may be counterproductive. Instead of pushing firms to hire locally, the measure may drive them to relocate operations abroad. When labour cannot move to capital, capital simply moves to labour. This is already visible in India. Accenture’s proposed campus in Visakhapatnam, expected to employ 12,000 workers, follows a similar pattern seen in Tata Consultancy Services and Cognizant, which together announced over $337 million in fresh India investments. H-1B visa restrictions, once administrative hurdles, are now instruments that redirect global investment flows.
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H-1B visa restrictions and tightening of borders
The US is not alone. Australia faces political unease over rising Indian migration. Western countries that face acute skills shortages are simultaneously narrowing pathways for foreign workers. The result is an economic mismatch: India has a large, underemployed pool of skilled workers, while firms in advanced economies struggle to fill vacancies.
This reveals a fundamental contradiction in 21st-century globalisation. Advanced economies rely on global talent yet increasingly restrict mobility. For India, this exposes a gap in foreign policy priorities. Despite its demographic strength, labour mobility rarely features in India’s diplomatic negotiations, even though it is central to the country’s growth model.
India’s inconsistent strategic posture
India’s external engagement adds to the complexity. It seeks closer ties with the United States through the Quad, opens parallel channels with China via BRICS and the SCO, and aspires to a mediator’s role in the Russia–Ukraine conflict. These shifting alignments make India’s bargaining position harder to read. In a world where countries use trade regulations, technology standards and visa quotas as tools of statecraft, ambiguity looks like weakness.
Labour mobility is one of India’s strongest leverage points. The country’s human capital exports contribute more than $125 billion annually in remittances, according to the World Bank. Yet India seldom places worker mobility at the centre of its economic diplomacy. As advanced economies harden their borders, this omission becomes costly.
H-1B visa curbs and the reshoring opportunity
India may appear to benefit from the reshoring wave triggered by Western visa barriers. But the question is more fundamental: can India absorb and convert this redirected capital into quality jobs?
Unemployment remains high, and the formal sector has limited capacity to absorb the nearly one million young people entering the labour market every month, per CMIE. Skilled workers returning from Silicon Valley will also encounter mismatches in workplace culture, compensation, and innovation depth. A surge in investment in a handful of cities cannot offset systemic weaknesses in job creation.
Reshoring may deliver short-term gains but risks becoming another narrow growth spurt unless India reforms labour markets, expands high-skill job ecosystems, and raises productivity across states.
The missing strategic doctrine
India’s challenge is not just economic. It is also strategic. As the global order shifts, countries articulate clear doctrines to guide state action — from NATO’s strategic concepts to China’s industrial policy frameworks. Pakistan, despite its economic weaknesses, speaks with clarity on its priorities.
India, by contrast, tends to hedge. It avoids explicit positions, seeks multiple alignments, and often sidesteps difficult negotiations. The H-1B shock is more than a visa issue; it is a warning. When a single policy decision in Washington can push thousands of jobs to Andhra Pradesh, India must recognise the scale of the inflection point.
Globalisation is entering a new phase marked by tighter borders and restless capital. India now faces a decisive choice: remain a responder to external shocks or set the terms of engagement. This will require a clear doctrine centred on labour mobility, high-skill job creation, competitiveness, and strategic alignment. The world is changing fast; India must decide whether to keep pace — or fall behind.
Tanvi Patil is an Economics student, and Rituparna Kaushik is Assistant Professor of Economics at FLAME University.