How to Ruin an Industry: The Toxic Cycle of Fake Skills, Cheap Labor, and the H1-B Ecosystem

How to Ruin an Industry: The H1-B Ecosystem

Imagine an industry thriving with talented professionals driving innovation and growth. Now picture it crumbling—not from competition or market shifts, but from a deliberate strategy: flooding it with incompetent workers, branding them as "skilled" through fake credentials, and exploiting them to cut costs. In India, this problem is worsened by colleges that churn out graduates like factories, feeding them into companies that prioritize profits over quality. These colleges boast about placements in big names like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, TCS, Wipro, and Infosys, only for headlines to later announce mass layoffs at these same companies. This cycle of manufactured students, deceptive hiring, and short-term gains is destroying industries from the inside out, and the H1-B visa ecosystem in the United States amplifies this damage on a global scale. Here’s how it works and why it’s so harmful, explained.

Step 1: Colleges Mass-Produce Graduates with Inflated Credentials

In India, many colleges operate like degree factories, prioritizing quantity over quality. They admit thousands of students, often with minimal focus on actual learning or skill development. These institutions teach outdated syllabi, skimp on practical training, and award degrees that don’t reflect real competence. To make their graduates seem employable, colleges inflate grades, issue questionable certifications, or help students create exaggerated resumes.

These colleges then partner with companies, promising a steady supply of “job-ready” graduates. They take pride in placement records, loudly advertising that their students landed jobs at top firms like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, TCS, Wipro, and Infosys. But many of these graduates lack the skills needed for their roles. Companies hire them anyway, knowing they can pay them less and replace them easily. This sets the stage for a workforce filled with underqualified workers disguised as professionals.

Step 2: Companies Hire Incompetent Workers as Disposable Tools

Once these graduates are hired, companies treat them like disposable tools. They’re often placed in roles they’re not prepared for, with job titles like “software engineer” or “data analyst” that sound impressive but hide their lack of expertise. Since these workers come cheap—thanks to their mass-produced degrees and the oversupply of graduates—companies save money by avoiding high salaries, proper training, or fair benefits.

These workers are also easy to control. They know they’re replaceable, so they rarely push back against long hours or unfair treatment. When they fail to deliver—due to their lack of skills—they’re let go, and another batch of fresh graduates with shiny resumes takes their place. This cycle keeps costs low but leads to poor-quality work, buggy products, and unhappy clients.

Step 3: Slash Wages and Undermine Skilled Workers

Flooding the industry with underqualified graduates drives down wages for everyone. Skilled professionals, who spent years honing their expertise, struggle to compete with a flood of cheap labor. Companies can say, “Why pay you more when we can hire a fresh graduate for half the price?” This forces even talented workers to accept lower salaries or risk losing their jobs.

Over time, this creates a race to the bottom. Skilled workers, frustrated by low pay and lack of respect, leave the industry or move abroad for better opportunities. The industry loses its best talent, and the quality of work keeps dropping. Meanwhile, colleges keep pumping out more graduates, worsening the oversupply and driving wages even lower.

Step 4: Grab Tax Breaks and Cut Corners

To sweeten the deal, companies exploit government incentives. In India, firms often claim tax breaks or subsidies for “creating jobs” or “training programs,” even if the jobs are low-paying and the training is minimal. Colleges also get in on the act, receiving funding or recognition for their so-called “placement success,” even if their graduates are set up to fail.

Companies also cut corners to maximize savings—ignoring safety standards, using subpar materials, or skipping proper processes. With underqualified workers who don’t know better, it’s easier to get away with these shortcuts. But this leads to mistakes, accidents, and long-term damage to the industry’s reputation.

Step 5: The Layoff Bombshell

The final blow comes when companies announce mass layoffs. Headlines scream, “Infosys lays off thousands,” or “Amazon cuts jobs in India.” These layoffs often hit the same underqualified workers who were hired as cheap labor. Companies use them until they’re no longer needed, then discard them without hesitation. Meanwhile, the colleges that supplied these workers move on to the next batch, boasting about new placement records while ignoring the human cost.

These layoffs aren’t just about “market conditions.” They’re a sign of a broken system. Companies hire underprepared graduates to save money, but when poor performance hurts profits or projects fail, they blame the workers and let them go. The cycle repeats, leaving behind a trail of unemployed graduates, disillusioned professionals, and a weakened industry.

Step 6: The H1-B Ecosystem Fuels the Problem Globally

This destructive cycle doesn’t stay confined to India—it’s exported to the global stage through the H1-B visa program in the United States. Many Indian IT firms, like TCS, Wipro, and Infosys, use H1-B visas to send underqualified workers to the U.S., branding them as “highly skilled” to meet visa requirements. These workers, often products of the same degree factories, are placed in American companies at lower wages than local talent. U.S. firms also participate, hiring these workers to cut costs, while colleges in India celebrate these placements as proof of their graduates’ “global success.” However, the same issues—poor quality, errors, and inefficiencies—follow, damaging the reputation of the tech industry. When projects fail or budgets tighten, these workers are often the first to be laid off, mirroring the layoff patterns in India. The H1-B ecosystem thus becomes a global extension of this toxic cycle, undermining skilled workers, lowering standards, and destabilizing industries worldwide.

Why This Destroys Industries

This toxic cycle—colleges mass-producing graduates, companies hiring them as cheap labor, exploiting the H1-B system, and then laying them off—has devastating effects:

• Poor Quality Hurts Customers: Underqualified workers produce shoddy work—buggy software, faulty products, or subpar services. Customers lose trust and take their business elsewhere, damaging the industry’s reputation.
• Skilled Workers Flee: Talented professionals, tired of low wages and competing with underqualified graduates, leave for other industries or countries. This brain drain cripples innovation and growth.
• Industries Lose Credibility: When companies like TCS, Wipro, or Amazon are linked to poor performance or layoffs, the entire industry suffers. Clients and investors start looking at competitors abroad.
• Innovation Stalls: Skilled workers drive progress. Replacing them with undertrained graduates kills creativity and leaves industries stuck in the past.
• Economic and Social Fallout: Mass layoffs create unemployment and financial hardship for thousands of workers in India and abroad. Graduates who believed their degrees guaranteed success feel betrayed, and public trust in education and industry erodes.

Real-World Examples

This cycle is rampant in India’s tech industry. Many colleges churn out engineering graduates with minimal coding skills, yet secure placements at companies like Infosys, Wipro, or TCS. These firms hire them at low salaries, often sending them to the U.S. on H1-B visas, only to lay off thousands when projects underperform or budgets tighten. In 2023 and 2024, news reports highlighted mass layoffs at tech giants like Amazon and Infosys, with thousands of Indian workers losing jobs, both in India and abroad. Meanwhile, colleges continue to advertise “100% placements” at these companies, ignoring the instability their graduates face. Other industries, like healthcare and construction, face similar issues, with undertrained workers causing errors or accidents due to inadequate education.

How to Break the Cycle

Stopping this destructive cycle requires effort from all sides:

• Colleges Must Prioritize Quality: Universities need to focus on real skills, update curricula, and provide hands-on training. They should stop chasing placement numbers and start preparing students for meaningful careers.
• Companies Must Value Talent: Firms in India and abroad should hire based on ability, not just cost. Investing in proper training and fair wages will lead to better work and long-term success.
• Governments Must Act: Regulators in India and the U.S. should crack down on fake credentials, enforce educational and visa standards, and ensure tax breaks are tied to genuine job creation.
• Students and Workers Must Demand Better: Graduates should seek out quality education and training programs, while workers should push for fair pay and opportunities to grow.
• Customers Can Help: By supporting companies that prioritize quality over cheap labor, consumers can force businesses to rethink their approach.

The Bottom Line

Flooding industries with underqualified graduates, branding them as skilled, and using them as disposable labor—whether in India or through the H1-B ecosystem in the U.S.—is a recipe for disaster. In India, colleges fuel this problem by mass-producing students and celebrating placements in companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, TCS, Wipro, and Infosys, only for those same companies to announce mass layoffs when the system fails. The H1-B program extends this cycle globally, undermining industries and workers worldwide. To build strong, sustainable industries, we need real skills, fair pay, and honest practices. Anything less is a betrayal of trust and a path to ruin.