JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon isn’t fully offered on President Donald Trump’s transfer to impose hurdles on expert international employees getting into the U.S.
Trump introduced in an government order a $100,000 charge for H-1B visas, which let U.S. employers briefly rent non-U.S. employees, usually for specialised tech-sector jobs. The contemporary six-figure, one-time charge will apply to new visas, not these with current or renewed visas.
Dimon mentioned whereas he’s in favor of “merit-based immigration,” the transfer will elicit resistance from U.S. firms who depend on experience from non-U.S. staff.
“I would beg the president. He has accomplished border control—that’s great. I mean, I think all nations want real border control; that helps make a nation. But after that, we should have good immigration,” he advised CNBC at JPMorgan’s tenth Annual India Investor Convention on Tuesday. “I think there will be some pushback on the H-1Bs.”
JPMorgan is among the many prime firms within the U.S. to sponsor the H-1B visa, with 1,990 whole licensed H-1B filings in fiscal 2024, Enterprise Insider reported, citing publicly out there U.S. information. The financial institution will communicate with stakeholders and policymakers concerning the shift, Occasions of India reported.
The JPMorgan boss joins a refrain of CEOs pushing again in opposition to the manager order, warning the proclamation would forestall U.S. firms from accessing prime international expertise, notably to fill in-demand STEM positions. Others, together with Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, have supported the measure as a means to make sure that solely the best expertise is ready to enter the nation for work.
Dimon has mentioned that for JPMorgan, H-1B visas permit the corporate to be nimble in transferring staff to positions around the globe.
“For us, visas matter because we move people around globally—experts who get promoted to new jobs in different markets,” he advised Occasions of India.
“The challenge is that the U.S. still needs to remain an attractive destination,” he added. “My grandparents were Greek immigrants who never finished high school. America is an immigrant nation, and that’s part of its core strength.”
JPMorgan’s broader warning
JPMorgan economists have additional warned of the broader labor market influence of a $100,000 H-1B visa charge. In a report printed Tuesday, financial institution analysts projected as much as 5,500 fewer work authorizations monthly on account of the charge, until all affected employees had been in a position to get authorization via different means. Analysts calculated the determine by figuring out 141,000 authorised petitions for brand spanking new employment in fiscal 2024, 65,000 of which required consular processing more likely to be impacted by the $100,000 charge.
Constraints like H-1B visas have traditionally had unintended penalties on efforts to curb outsourced labor. A 2023 examine by Britta Glennon, an assistant professor of administration the College of Pennsylvania’s Wharton College, discovered limitations resembling H-1B visas have truly inspired the offshoring of high-skilled jobs for U.S. multinational firms, that are in a position to rent extra international labor at their non-U.S. associates. About 80% of the analysis and improvement enterprise within the U.S. comes from U.S. multinational corporations.
“Artificial constraints on resources result in firms circumventing restrictive policies in ways that may not be anticipated by policy makers,” the examine mentioned.
A brand new visa charge may additionally “make it less attractive for foreign students to come to the United States to study,” the JPMorgan report mentioned, as it might cut back the prospect of graduates from exterior the U.S. to discover a stateside job after commencement.
These destructive penalties could not come to fruition, in response to the JPMorgan analysts. For instance, extra international college students could select to attend increased training within the U.S. as a result of the H-1B visa applies solely to candidates “currently outside the U.S.,” and the variety of visa petitions processed throughout the U.S. correlates with the variety of people switching visa sorts, the vast majority of that are college students.
The imposed charge would additionally seemingly not instantly influence the U.S. labor market, in response to JPMorgan, as U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Providers (USCIS) mentioned in July it had reached its H-1B cap for fiscal 2026. USCIS will open its purposes for fiscal 2027 subsequent April.
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