Slashdot Mirror
MS Moves R&D To Canada Due To Immigration Problem
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."
Calling Canada, and Vancouver of all places, backwater, is very insulting. Vancouver is near the top in the Mercer quality of life ratings for cities on Earth; the highest US city is not even in the top 20 (and it's Hawaii, not even continental US). http://www.mercerhr.com/referencecontent.jhtml?idC ontent=1128060#top50all And if you're going to critique Mercer, you better be able to back it up because their research is considered the standard given how widely used their services are.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
The summary is sensationalistic, and wrong. MS is not moving its R&D to canada, it is opening another development lab in Vancouver. And this has nothing to do with immigration visa issues, as it is trivial to get canadians to work in the US via NAFTA.
IBM, EA, ATI, AMD (just to name a few) all have huge labs in major cities in Canada. It's completely unsurprising for MS to finally follow suit and open a lab in Canada, where tech / engineering talents are aplenty. It's a bit surprising that they didn't open it near Waterloo, where a huge percentage of MS engineers are from... But Vancouver just makes more sense because of its proximity to Redmond.
BTW, a somewhat related article on CBC claims the Canada government is throwing money into luring back expat canadian tech workers down in the US:
"Meanwhile, the province is trying to lure back Canadians working south of the border. This summer, it is launching a $2-million program promoting new job opportunities, improved taxation and a higher dollar in their home country."
Draw your own conclusion at why MS is making this decision right after the announcement about "improved taxation" in Canada.
sure I'll have a sig.
Basically for a company to get H1-b applicants, they have to interview American workers and give the American workers an equal shot at the position.
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.
I don't know why everyone needs to comment without looking at the leaked MS Salary documents:
a ry/MSCompGu.jpgr osoft-compensation.html)
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/libr
(from http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2006/03/internal-mic
Fulltime out of university is level 59.