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MS Moves R&D To Canada Due To Immigration Problem

Posted by Zonk on 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."

11 of 765 comments (clear)

  1. I call BS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    (And I hate that phrase.)

    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.

    1. Re:I call BS by rovingeyes · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We need a "Naive" moderation in the list. Stop being naive and accept the fact that you are never going to get paid like you did in 99. Why the fuck would any corporation think of your welfare? Whenever I see a post related to H1B or outsourcing, I see gazillion comments complaining how they are looking for cheap labor. Of course they are! Fuck, even in a socialist country (if there are any) they'd be looking for cheap labor. If you don't like it, form your own Microsoft and pay all the American citizens hefty amounts and don't hire any foreigners. Until then, go back to your dungeon and shut up.

    2. Re:I call BS by wrook · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't know. I've been working in Ottawa for the last 12 years. Many of my coworkers are originally from China or India. They seem to get paid similar salaries to the people originally from Canada (some more, some less). Senior Developers are getting $90K Plus, Intermediate $70-$90, Junior $55-70. Maybe it's less than in Redmond, but I don't think that's "next to nothing".

      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.

  2. Going to Canada by __aaaehb3101 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I read this as Microsoft does not want to take the time, money or effort to get people cleared by Homeland Security. So they can get people from Indian and China to work with temporay visas in canada easier.

  3. Translation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The company said the centre will 'allow the company to continue to recruit and retain highly skilled people affected by the immigration issues in the U.S.'

    Translation: We don't want to pay American employees what they're worth, so we're going somewhere else.

    It's their right to do so, but....

    I was on a congressionally funded study of some specialized skills of which the government believed there was a shortage. We had a distinguished economist on the committee and his first comment was, "There is no shortage. Employers (the government, in this case) always perceive a shortage because they want to pay their employees less."

    There are more than enough qualified engineers in the US to work for the tech firms. They're just not willing to compete on the salaries. When Bill Gates says, "we need more visas for the best and the brightest,' he means he wants to pay less for talent.

    1. Re:Translation by Lemmy+Caution · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Funny how globalization only becomes bad when it affects your own class. I certainly have heard little outcry from the libertarianish techies I know that jobs making shoes, clothes, and cars have moved overseas, nor do I see them looking for "Made in USA" (or other first-world nations) before getting the cheapest product they can find on the shelves.

      If it's good enough for Flint, Michigan, it's good enough for Silicon Valley.

  4. Re:This was waiting to happen... by SgtSnorkel · · Score: 5, Insightful


    The question is. . . Will the Canadians put up with it?

    Or will they insist that Microsoft hire qualified Canadian programmers first (as the US gubermint refuses to do)?

  5. Mod parent up Plz by megaditto · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ask yourself, why are they moving to Canada and not India/China if low wages is all they are after?

    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.

    --
    Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
  6. I call BS on the BS call by rumblin'rabbit · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Let me see if I've got this straight:

    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.

    1. Re:I call BS on the BS call by 172pilot · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Agreed.. Can't argue this both ways. Bottom line is that it is a financial decision. Whether the financial motive comes from tax incentives, cheaper labor, or legal protection from bogus lawsuits, the bottom line is that Microsoft has a financial duty to itself and it's shareholders to find the best "bang for the buck".
      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.

      --
      -Steve Tired of voting for the "lesser of two evils?" Come talk about it on www.bothsidesarewrong.com
  7. Its not BS. Its the global economy by davidfromoz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    On most subjects Slashdot seems to largely adhere to the open competitive markets are efficient markets theory. Except when it comes to this subject, which is repeatedly posted as news every few weeks.

    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