Slashdot Log In
MS Moves R&D To Canada Due To Immigration Problem
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Jul 05, 2007 05:40 PM
from the not-enough-brainpower dept.
from the not-enough-brainpower dept.
telso writes "Microsoft will be opening a new software development center in Vancouver because of difficulties getting workers into the US. The company said the center will 'allow the company to continue to recruit and retain highly skilled people affected by the immigration issues in the US' It seems possible that shrinking immigration quotas have affected America's tax and knowledge base."
Related Stories
[+]
IT: Bill Gates Speaks Out Against Immigration Policies 722 comments
Jeian writes "None other than Bill Gates has spoken out against tighter immigration policies in the US. According to Gates, the US is losing skilled immigrants to other countries that are easier to immigrate to. Among his comments: "I personally witness the ill effects of these policies on an almost daily basis at Microsoft.""
[+]
Politics: National ID May Have Killed Immigration Bill 481 comments
News.com reports that the immigration reform bill bouncing around in the Senate for the last few weeks has finally been defeated. The site speculates that, perhaps, one of the reasons it was finally defeated was a measure intended to expand the use of Real ID cards. If passed, the bill would have effectively turned the Real ID system into a National ID card. "The American Civil Liberties Union, another longtime foe of Real ID, said the Real ID requirements were a 'poison pill that derailed this bill, and any future legislation should be written knowing the American people won't swallow it.' Another section of the immigration bill would have given $1.5 billion to state officials to pay for Real ID compliance. Even if the immigration bill is goes nowhere, however, the Real ID Act is still in effect. It says, starting on May 11, 2008, Americans will need a federally-approved ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments or take advantage of nearly any government service." As we've discussed before, several states have rebelled against the implementation of Real ID.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
MS Moves R&D To Canada Due To Immigration Problem
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 765 comments
(Spill at 50!) | Index Only
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no shortage of programmers or software engineers in the U.S.; there is a shortage of people who are interested in being paid next to nothing.
I call BS on the BS call (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Sunday October 29 2006, @07:37PM)
Your saying that Microsoft can't find employees because they don't pay enough because salaries are being held artificially low because of the flood of new employees from other countries.
Something not quite right about that argument. Seems to me that if the programming field was being flooded with immigrants, Microsoft would not have trouble finding employees.
Re:I call BS on the BS call (Score:5, Insightful)
You could potentially argue whether their policy or actions achieve this "best bang" effectively, but I dont think there's enough real facts in the story to allow us to do that, so the bottom line is that this is just a draw for Microsoft bashers with the added benefit that you could use this to argue our nations imigration policies are either to lax or strict, depending on your goals..
Sorry.. I think it's really a non-story. Microsoft does business all over the world, and it makes sense that they'd have offices all over the world too.
Re:1/2 of a corporations duties (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Sunday October 29 2006, @07:37PM)
-
It provides a better or less expensive products for the consumer.
-
It provides a lucrative job for the immigrant.
-
It increases company profits, which does the shareholders good.
-
The increase in profits means an increase in taxes paid,
a definite public good.
Seems to do a least some good. What's more, a profitable company grows, increasing demand for more employees including non-immigrants. In other words, a job given to an immigrant does not necessary mean a job lost to a non-immigrant.Major rule of economics: Very few things are a zero-sum game.
Re:1/2 of a corporations duties (Score:5, Interesting)
You have one "american" employee leading an "american" company with 100,000 employees from every other country on earth.
The products which cost pennies to produce- are nonetheless priced at "full retail" in the american market while being sold for much lower prices profitably in other countries. And of course those products are either gimmicked ("indonesian only" $25 windows) or have laws making it illegal to reimport them to the US (My blood pressure pills-- 10 cents in india, $5 here-- illegal to import and sell for 50 cents).
The one "american" only pays taxes on realized profits and income. The rest is funny money stored in various ways. Net result to American- nothing really. Net result to the company- enormous.
Should I buy that companies products? Not if I can help it.
Re:1/2 of a corporations duties (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.pandora.be/jurgen.defurne/ | Last Journal: Wednesday September 08 2004, @11:52AM)
For a nice story about taxes paid by American corporations, click here [itjungle.com].
Re:I call BS on the BS call (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molar_mass | Last Journal: Friday September 19 2003, @11:21AM)
Actual MS Salaries (Score:5, Informative)
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/libr
(from http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2006/03/internal-mic
Fulltime out of university is level 59.
bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
That's a nice fairy tale, but you're confusing H1B visas and green cards. There is no requirement to interview American workers for H1B visas; for H1B visas, a company can simply write a letter saying that they couldn't fill the position with an American worker.
The requirement to interview American workers exists only for green card applications. Green cards remove any hold the company may have over their workers, so they are the exact opposite of what a company would apply for if it wants to keep salaries low by hiring cheap immigrants. Companies are indeed trying to skirt that requirement, but that's not to keep salaries low, it's to avoid losing an employee that has likely been with the company for many years and is very valuable to them.
I just recently read this in the news.
Perhaps your inability to read and understand written materials has something to do with your inability to command a higher salary.
Re:bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not a minor mistake: H1Bs are temporary visas, green cards are immigrant visas. Green cards can't lead to salary depression for American workers because people hired on green cards are American workers, with all the same labor rights and mobility. So, your diatribe makes even less sense for green cards. Either you just don't know what you're talking about, or you're deliberately misrepresenting the facts to push your political agenda.
I have an education thank you and my salary is 3x the nation average. So stop being a little dick.
So, you are making $130k/year and you're still whining that you're not being paid enough. And because you're not satisfied with your already big salary, you're willing to bad-mouth companies, keep highly skilled and productive people out of the US, and make the US less competitive.
With people like you around, it's no wonder if the US loses the software industry to China and India, just like we lost the auto industry, steel, TVs, and VCRs to overseas.
And I CALL BS AGAIN! (Score:5, Insightful)
What immigration visa in the US is geared towards skilled people who can later on start a life in the country? Answer NONE. In Canada, UK, Germany, Switzerland, etc they all give you visas towards citizenship.
And please note that this qualified workers is a problem not only in the US, but EVERYWHERE! I know, my wife who is a manager for a software development team in Switzerland is dealing with the skilled labor shortage EVERYDAY...
Its not BS. Its the global economy (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://fromoz.com/ | Last Journal: Friday August 06 2004, @09:40PM)
The fact is whether you are buying a toaster, calling support or getting a job its increasingly a global economy. One way or another you are competing with people from India, China and Canada.
Microsoft going to Canada to hire people can only be attributed to one thing. They feel they get a better deal there. And before we call them greedy or evil, we should consider that most of us do the same thing when buying a toaster, we look for the best quality at the lowest price.
The fact that the USA is a less attractive than Canada as a place to hire foreign workers won't be a surprise to many foreign workers who have worked in the USA. The procedures for foreign workers in USA are complex, slow and characterized by hostility from immigration officials at every stage. (I left USA after my H1B visa was extended for the last time and green card procedures were too expensive, restrictive and lengthy for my taste (I would point out that my time in USA was otherwise excellent and I love the place, the people and the culture)).
In today's world, the only sustainable way to increase your earnings is to make yourself more valuable. If you are asking Microsoft to pay you more than another similarly skilled candidate based on geography or nationality then you are just asking them to subsidize you.
cheers,
David
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent up Plz (Score:5, Insightful)
Could they be moving to Canada because:
-it has a very similar social, economic, and political environment to the US which makes it good for business
-Canada has 'open borders' for highly skilled and educated foreigners (yes, even Americans)
-Canada has very strong labor laws protecting the immigrants: they have the same rights as the natives, can switch employers, won't be deported (in fact, "ratting out" a bad employer can them a permanent visa, as happened to a bunch of welders recently)
-Canada believes in cultivating the best and the brightest, no matter where they were born
Face it, Canada is a mini-US, but with a more reasonable immigration policy. Canada is now the fastest growing economy in the entire G8 (the only one at over 3%), the Canadian dollar, the GDP, and the worker wealth.
Re:Mod parent up Plz (Score:5, Funny)
There, fixed that for you.
Re:Mod parent up Plz (Score:5, Funny)
Canada has very strong labour laws, eh ...?
There, fixed that for you. :-P
Re: Mod parent up Plz (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mod parent up Plz (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mod parent up Plz (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://fnarg.com/)
A developer earning 50-60k up here is considered middle-upper class. He can afford a house on his own, along with all the latest tech toys. Try that in Redmond... yeah right!
Then throw in the pervasive anti-American sentiment that continues to grow all around the world, and well, we Canadians don't look so bad anymore. We're far from perfect, we still have dirty dirty politicians and high tax rates, but to many people we're seen as a much lesser evil than our southern neighbors. I'm going to get flamed for this, but you guys need to start working to clear your name. Maybe a decade ago, the USA was a land of riches, I even contemplated relocating for a development job... then Dubya showed up and changed everything around. Not since Truman has there been a worse hated US president around the world. People are afraid of the USA. We see how badly their own citizens are treated, I can't even imagine how bad it is for immigrants.
Pervasive anti-American sentiment?? (Score:4, Insightful)
*snip long rant about the Bush administration*
Me: Wow, sounds like you are less than happy with the US.
Him: I hate everything the government stands for.
Me: Maybe you could go home to protest it? Send a letter to the Congressman and tell him thats why you're taking your PhD home with you.
Him: Are you "#$"% nuts?
And yes, thats what most immigrants feel like. There are occasional frustrations with living in America -- complaining about incompetent bureacrats is a well-established tradition for everybody, regardless of place of birth. (And the INS and its successor agencies are probably among the worst in the federal government.) But would large numbers of folks give up the tremendous opportunities living in America has over those frustrations? As my Chinese-accented colleague put it, are you "#$"# nuts?
The number of citizenship applications, one easy barometer of "So, how many of you folks want to hitch the rest of your lives to the United States of America?", is up 60% in four years. That is more than double the number when Clinton left office and a Dark Shadow Fell Across The Land. http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/05/news/citiz
Also, I don't know if subtleties of domestic politics make it abroad that often, but while Dubya's Republican Party is often depicted as being anti-immigrant, and that might well be true for a large part of the party base (also true for a large portion of the Democratic base), Dubya is personally *extraordinarily* pro-immigration. He wanted comprehensive immigration reform, which would have included a mass legalization of illegal immigrants living in the US, to be his domestic legacy. It failed for a couple of reasons, including opposition from broad portions of the bases of both parties and absolutely incompetent political maneuvering. (I think that is distressingly common in the Bush administration, and I say this having voted for him twice.)
(Disclaimer: I'm actually an expat in Japan, but I feel like waving the flag a little bit this close to the Fourth of July. America should be justifiably proud of how it treats immigrants, in the main. The system has its fair share of issues, but its nothing intractable, and its so much better than Japan its not even funny.)
(P.P.S. On the general topic of the thread, to all Slashdotters who worry that the immigrants are forcing you into poverty: learn to compete. I got a degree in Japanese along with my IT skills, and now on either side of the Pacific for jobs which require a bilingual English/Japanese engineer I can compete quite favorably with folks making a tenth of my salary, because if they can't speak both languages than hiring ten of them still won't replace me. Languages are just one way you can make yourself something other than an interchangeable cog. Domain expertise, business skills, communication skills, a finance background, proficiency in obscure legacy technologies, jumping early onto new ships like the Ruby on Rails boomlet, etc, etc.)
Re:Pervasive anti-American sentiment?? (Score:4, Insightful)
But this is in Vancouver (Score:4, Informative)
A developer earning 50-60k up here is considered middle-upper class. He can afford a house on his own, along with all the latest tech toys. Try that in Redmond... yeah right!
Except Microsoft is opening this up in Vancouver, the most expensive city in Canada to live in. Average house price: $750,000.
50-60k is most certainly not middle-upper class in the bigger cities in Canada. Not Vancouver, not Calgary, not Edmonton, not Toronto. Maybe Regina or Winnipeg.
Re:As someone who liaised with developers in India (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it's because Canada is Microsoft's #3 exporter of staff, behind India and Japan (link) [smh.com.au] and an L visa is obtainable after a year.
Also, Microsoft DOES have R&D in China, India, Ireland, among other places, so opening one in Vancouver is incredibly overdue.
Sorry, I'm just nitpicking and I agree with your post, Mr. Lightning. This message isn't for you. However everybody else who posted trash about Microsoft opening an office in Canada because it's cheaper:
FUCK YOU
You assholes obviously haven't spent much time in Vancouver or Toronto in the last decade or Alberta in the last year. Stop posting shit about nonsense you have no fricking clue about. Have you guys actually sent your resumes to Microsoft? Geez. Sound like the neighbor's barking dogs.
Oz
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://peter-hurley.com/)
A useful threat over engineers and politicians... (Score:4, Insightful)
Give us the tax/law breaks we need or we'll hire less people in Redmond and the state/US will earn less tax.
Having some flexibility just over the fence gives MS a lot of options to get heavy handed.
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://mangahowto.dnsdojo.org/howto/)
My take on it is that it is what they say it is. Yes, there is no shortage of US programmers. But what's missing are *good* programmers willing to relocate to the Redmond area without a huge incentive. I would imagine that Vancouver is a great place to pick up new talent.
And having a variety of ethnic backgrounds working on a product is extremely valuable. The US is not the only market MS is going after. Their software needs to reflect the cultures its moving into. I will give a relevant example.
I once worked on a word processor that the marketing and sales team were trying to sell to the Japanese market. This word processor claimed (on the box) to support Japanese scripts. Well, one of them anyway. Katakana to be precise. Katakana is used in Japan almost exclusively for foreign loan words and signs. A word processor that only supports katakana is completely useless.
We had a Japanese programmer on the team. He explained this to management. Some talk went back and forth about what to do. In the end, the decision was made to remove it from Japanese shelves. Seriously, before this fellow clued in Management, they thought the word processor must be massively pirated in Japan. Otherwise how come no sales?
You want a diverse culture in your development teams. Having lived both in Canada and the US, Canada values diverse culture more. The US is the "melting pot" (your uniqueness will be added to our own). Canada has "multiculturalism" (which admittedly has its own problems). It makes sense to move some development to a place like Canada (as long as management is moving with it). There are lots of other places that would be good too. But Vancouver is quite close to Redmond.
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.metlin.org/ | Last Journal: Friday July 20, @01:58PM)
Now, I work in R&D and let me tell you that the majority of folks at American universities who graduate with masters or doctoral degrees are non-Americans. For whatever reason, the vast majority of Americans do not seem to particularly favor staying in school for grad school. If you do not believe me, just have a look at the graduate student list of any technical school and you will see that there is a significant number of non-Americans in there.
I work at a baby-Bell doing R&D and in our team, we have 4 PhDs, and only one one of them is American. Two are Indian and one is South Korean. Even in grad school, the numbers are similar. In fact, most of the interns that we have tend to be non-Americans, as well.
So is it any wonder that MS is moving part of the R&D to Canada? If you are comparing a software engineer or a programmer with the kind of people MSR employs, you have no clue about what is happening.
And secondly, I doubt MSR would pay "next to nothing". Most people in R&D, especially in areas like EECS tend to get quite a bit, easily making six figures or more.