Hire Calling

Breaking Job News: Trump's $100K H1-B Visa Fee, RTO Stalls, & AI Recruiter “Anna” Reshapes Hiring

• Pete Newsome

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The job market is shifting fast, and in this news update, host Pete Newsome shares a significant update on the H1-B visa policy, where a $100,000 fee for new petitions was introduced by President Trump, causing panic among companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.

He also discusses a WSJ article highlighting the slowing return to office mandates, with many employees still working from home despite company mandates. Additionally, research from the University of Chicago shows promising results for AI recruiting, although limitations still exist. Pete concludes with an update on the Business Roundtable's CEO Economic Outlook Index and a fun fact about sick days.

News Articles:
1. H-1B proclamation: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/restriction-on-entry-of-certain-nonimmigrant-workers/
2. Return to office challenges: https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/workplace/return-to-office-workers-fail-3d966807?mod=careers_news_article_pos1
3. University of Chicago AI research: https://www.chicagobooth.edu/research/center-for-applied-artificial-intelligence/stories/2025/ai-on-the-job
4. Business Roundtable Q3 CEO Economic Outlook Index: https://www.businessroundtable.org/media/ceo-economic-outlook-index/ceo-economic-outlook-index-q3-2025

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Pete Newsome:

Today's job market headlines range from return to office mandates being ignored to the rise of AI recruiters. But let's start with the big surprise that took place over the weekend. On Friday, president Trump signed a proclamation called Restriction on Entry of Certain Non-Immigrant Workers. What it says is that, starting September 21st, any new H-1B petitions filed by a company on behalf of a worker outside of the US will need to include a $100,000 payment. Without it, the worker can't be granted entry. It sent companies into a full-blown panic mode after it was signed. Companies like Amazon, microsoft, google and many others told foreign workers overseas to get back to the US immediately or risk being locked out. Hr departments were literally tracking down employees and booking flights on the spot. Now, everyone initially believed that the change applied to current visa holders and renewals, but the White House later clarified the new $100,000 fee is just a one-time charge, it's not annual and it only applies to new visas. Existing workers and renewals are absolutely safe, at least for now. Workers are still worried about traveling, and their employers are too, because many believe that this is just an initial step in what will be a much broader crackdown on foreign workers. Time will tell and we'll see what happens next In other news.

Pete Newsome:

There have been a lot of reports lately about companies cranking up their return to office mandates, but it seems that employees aren't exactly racing back. The Wall Street Journal reports that the rush to return to the office is stalling. You've probably seen the headlines by now. For major employers like Microsoft, paramount, amazon, dell, jp Morgan. They've all tightened up their rules big time this year, but national office attendance just hasn't moved much. Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom says Americans are still working from home about a quarter of the time, which was the same as last year. It seems clear that these big employers are struggling to enforce their mandates. It just seems like a big mess right now, and while these companies won't admit it, the return to office battles seem a whole lot less about productivity and much more about control and cost cutting. It's a way of reducing staff without having to use the word layoff. So right now there's a standoff going on and it seems like employees are doing pretty well holding the ground. All these companies started jumping on the bandwagon earlier this year and one after the other were announcing it after someone finally took that step. So we'll see. If this now goes back and the pendulum swings the other way. Who will cave first? More to come on that for sure.

Pete Newsome:

On the AI front, the University of Chicago Booth School has been studying how AI recruiters might change hiring. They ran a test with PSG Solutions that involved over 70,000 job applicants across healthcare, it and industrial roles. Some applicants were interviewed by human recruiters and others by an AI voice agent named Anna. The results may surprise you. Ai interviews produced 12% more job offers, 18% more starts and a 16% higher 30-day retention. That's significant. Those are meaningful numbers, and when given a choice, 78% of the candidates preferred interviewing with Anna over a human recruiter.

Pete Newsome:

Now there were drawbacks as well. Some candidates dropped out altogether because they didn't want to speak with the bot, and researchers involved said that AI isn't ready yet to handle high stakes roles that require creativity, crisis management or nuanced leadership. That's consistent with what I've seen firsthand so far, where AI screening is really only effective in high volume roles that just don't have a lot of subjectivity attached to them. So now we know it's going to change, as I am inundated all day, every day, as a staffing company owner, with brand new AI tools. It seems like there's a new one every day in my inbox, and they're not fully ready for prime time. Yet for the most part and that is my assessment We've tested some things out, we've tried using them. I speak to peers all the time and there's a lot of promise, a lot of potential, but I don't see human recruiters going away anytime soon.

Pete Newsome:

The evolution that I see right now and my perspective is changing as the technology evolves is that we'll need fewer people to operate at the same level and in the final headline today, business Roundtable's CEO Economic Outlook Index rose slightly in Q3 to 76, but that's compared to a historic average of 83. The CEO survey indicated that they're comfortable spending more right now, so that's a good sign. Plans for capital spending jumped 12% over Q2, and that's positive. We'll take it, but it looks like they're far from bullish. The thing that I focus on, of course, is hiring, and it looks like that will be stagnant for a while. The hiring sub index only went up slightly and it's sitting below what they consider to be a positive signal that the job market is growing, so we're not quite ready to call this a rebound. I'll take good news where we have it. I say that a lot, but look, here's the thing. A lot of times, hiring will follow spending, new projects, expansion all of that is good. So if companies are spending money, I'll take that as a step in the right direction.

Pete Newsome:

For sure, and before we close today, the fun fact is that the most common day that people call in sick for work is Monday. Oh, today is Monday. So if you're listening to this and you're not at work, hopefully it's not because you're actually sick. But if you called in and said that you are, just don't tell me, I won't judge you. But I guess it's no surprise that a lot of people need that extra day coming out of a weekend. So hopefully your Monday whether you're at work or sick in air quotes is weekend. So hopefully your Monday whether you're at work or sick in air quotes is going well. Thanks for listening. Please like, subscribe, share with anyone who you think might be interested, and if you have any feedback, I'd love to hear that too. Look forward to speaking with you tomorrow.