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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."
(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.
It also seems possible that MS is just trying to shrink how much they have to pay engineers...
It seems possible that shrinking immigration quotas are has affected America's tax and knowledge base.
Starting with you.
Outsourcing, eh?
"No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson
The government knows they're keeping smart people out, (even though the doors are still open for cheap labor,) because they want to equalize the economies between the US, Mexico, and Canada.
Economic inequality was the major stumbling block for the creation of the European Union. It's no different for the creation of the American one.
The more and more I read, it looks like the software developer is the new steel worker. Sure, you need a four year education, but you as a worker are replaceable commodity. You'll be having to move to Canada, India, or the Czech Republic to get a decent paying job, or deal with substandard wages and an abusive work schedule that your unionized buddies don't have to put up with.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Has no one told them the Canadian dollar is now almost at par with the United States dollar and may infact surpass it by the end of the year.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Microsoft just *had* to throw in the comment about
immigration. Microsoft continues to attack programmers
in the U.S. by attempting to drive down salaries via
the H1B scam.
If it was truly a problem for Microsoft, they would
not be opening new centers in Bellevue and Boston, would they?
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Don't bother. It sounds to me like they are opening this up in Canada because it's easier to get low-cost employees from India or China into Canada than it is to get them into the US. I don't get the impression that they're doing this because it's hard to get Canadians into the US, especially since it isn't.
If Google opens its R&D center nearby and lures some programmers from MS, we'll see chairs flying over the border into Canada.
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.
Many years ago when I realized that American programmers were way over priced than their Chinese counterparts, I decided to move my company's development center to Beijing. Everything has paid off nicely. I get a much higher margin selling enterprise solutions to various companies. I have no problem recruiting because the supply of programmers is abundant. The reality is in order for American companies to survive and be competitive, they need to look elsewhere for capable workforce. I did and am much happier. With stiff competition from companies like Google, Microsoft is doing the right thing by leaving the US for a better high tech workforce.
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.
Do it the same way you retain a CEO- pay them what they're worth. For closed source software, that means cutting royalty checks for code contributed.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
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."
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.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
It could also be that they want to attract skilled Canadian programmers who are not interested in becoming Americans.
Ian Ameline
This smacks of blaming the chickens for being raided by the fox. What H1-B visas and other means of not hiring American citizens has done is essentially subsidize corporate training costs by doing away with the need to train entry level American workers. By using H1-B visas and other means to avoid having to hire and train entry-level citizens, corporations find themselves in a position of having trouble finding technical expertise willing to work for minimum wage because no one could get that expertise without any jobs on which to get them. Their shortsightedness has caught up with them.
Don't believe the propaganda, either. They are not having trouble finding technical expertise. They are having trouble finding people who will accept minimum wage for it. This would be one thing if their profit margins were tightly squeezed, but that Microsoft is complaining about this is rich indeed given the profit margins they already enjoy. If corporations in the U.S. want a robust and affordable labor pool, they should stop hiring foreign workers immediately, create good technology training programs, and start hiring American citizens for entry level technical positions. To assist them, the federal government should stop promulgating immigration policies that work against its own citizens and competitiveness.
they are just opening another Research/Software Development center.
"Other centres exist in North Carolina, Ireland, Denmark and Israel, while full research-and-development locations exist in the U.K., India, China and California's Silicon Valley."
It's really not that big a deal. Microsoft probably can't hire enough people in the US, and opening development centers in other countries make sense. Not that great a story....
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)?
Wait... Microsoft is forcing Apple to move to Canada? How does that work?
is in order. First of all, this gives hope that even as a geek, I'll have a chance.
Secondly, there's no shortage of excellent marijuana in Vancouver. After hours and hours of working for Microsoft, nothing will make you feel better than a few bong hits of BC bud. I think being really high makes Vista worth having. It's slow, you're slow. The nifty visuals are "trippy" and while it's paging out to disk, you can munch.
[http://it-tastes-so-good.blogspot.com] Are you hungry?
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.
The government needs to ensure that it is more expensive to hire a foreign skilled worker than a local worker. This would ensure that immigrants are hired based on their skill and not to save money.
Unfortunately, the government fails to realize that the immigration policy doesn't consider outsourcing. The US is better off allowing the skilled worker to live in the US (spending their earnings and paying taxes) than having that work outsourced. It is very easy for an IT worker to live in Canada and telecommute. Protecting local workers is one thing, but a narrow sighted policy drains the US economy like a sieve.
Also, not everyone wants to immigrate. The government needs to grasp the concept of a working holiday. The UK, Canada, Australia etc offer these.
I can see MS' point here. Things have just gotten worse for legal immigrants in last 1 or 2 years in US. Every step w.r.t visa issue will take months or years with no light at end of tunnel. For e.g., folks who are working currently can go out of status (for few weeks) since visa extension or renewal will take months. I am sure MS would use this site to keep its workers affected that way. I am a legal immigrant (H1 visa holder) and things have gotten horrible for tax paying, law abiding legal immigrants recently.
Exactly. I have two friends that have had incidents relating to American laws to protect american workers.
One WAS working in the 'states, but his visa ran out. The company was unable to renew his work visa because he hadn't completed his CSC degree. He HAD been working for this company for 3 years and getting anyone else up to speed would take a LONG time as he was lead developer for a large system. The argument given was that there are americans that are better qualified for the role, i.e. people with degrees who are American citizens that would love the job (which is questionable as the pay wasn't amazing). He did have >10 years programming experience, but that obviously isn't equivalent to someone with a "degree".
The other friend was an artist for gaming companies (he worked at Canadian rockstar for a while and more recently has been art lead at other companies in Canada). He was told straight out by american interviewers, "Great portfolio, wish we could hire you, but you have no degree and we have to hire an American that is "better" qualified."
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
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.
Hmm, that would probably do two things, 1) ruin the US economy totally 2) force US companies overseas (and their tax revenue and employment oversea The problem with capitalism on a global scale, and globalisation in general is that to earn 10x more than someone in a 3rd world country you are soon going to have to be able to DO 10x more, if you cant, then global corps are going to use the cheaper guys? why not if you cant compete that's not their fault. Don't worry too much though, give it 20-30 years and it will start to even out, and you may still have a bit of a head start if you have a decent education. What will be interesting that whilst the current distinction between rich countries and poor ones is made on the basis of how many of the population live in poverty, in the future I would assume it will have to be made in a different manner.
(Saying that, it might never happen, al that is needed is for a few countries to get isolationist again, but then you lose the benefits (cheap consumer goods, foreign markets to sell to) too.)
Ask yourself, why are they moving to Canada and not India/China if low wages is all they are after?
[Several politically-correct suggestions, mostly based on the idea of non-Canadian workers in Canada, deleted.]
As someone who has been liaison with developers in India I can suggest other possibilities:
Canada has people who:
- Speak English understandably and understand us when we speak it.
- Are working in the same time zone rather than offset by a shift or more.
- Are working where administrators can easily visit.
- Have a work ethic.
- Have been known to deliver working code, rather than something you have to rework locally anyhow.
- Have a casteless society within the work force, drastically reducing barriers to communication between workers, the incidence of "drones" who expect the lower castes to do their work for them, and other pathologies (such as women who MUST leave at office closing time rather than being able to work overtime like the rest of high tech).
- Are much less likely to humor you until the project is almost due then quit (leaving you with no product) and start their own company (using local workers) to compete with you using your own IP (under local laws that won't be enforced against them).
- Yet still can be paid a lot less than workers in the US while enbding up with a comparable standard of living.
I COULD go on...
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
When do you find time for lacrosse?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
So, I'm a young American employee at MS. Hired right out of college a year ago, with a much higher salary than I would have gotten from any other company that would have hired me.
Now, having said that, I work on a team that's only about 20-30% US-born citizens. The rest are a mix of Russian, Romanian, Chinese, Indian, and Mexican. But they're not your stereotypical wage slaves hired to save costs. They're bright, intelligent contributors. And my girlfriend, an Australian citizen in a different group, gets paid as much as I do and got even more out of her relocation benefits (apparently shipping across the Pacific isn't cheap).
So, why then does MS hire foreigners. Because (arguably, at least) MS isn't interested in the top 4X% of American developers, they're interested in the top X% of all developers. Since that subset isn't entirely American, they're very interested in immigration issues. Not to drive down wages, but to drive up hiree quality.
You can argue all the live-long day that Americans are the best in the industry (correct or not), but you can't reasonably state that *all* American developers are better than *all* non-American developers.
Its amazon to read all these comments about how corporate america is selling us out and how its about finding the cheapest labor, yada yada yada. While I won't attempt to deny any of that, I would like to offer my perspective.
.NET shop. Their resumes stated that a comfortable with C#, windows services, windows sockkets, remoting, message queuing, WMI, and other various components of a typical mid-to-high end enterprise system. When asking basic questions they often can't even answer the thoeretical. When asked to write code, they can't remember what to do. When looking at code and asked to either improve it or troubleshoot it, they don't know what to do.
.NET, then we expect you to get the very most rudimentery service and client up and running. If you have 20 years writing TCP/IP software and 5 of it in C#, then we expect a very simple socket application. If you say on your resume that you have 6 years experience writing asynchronous things in C#, then write a few lines of code demonstrating it. But alas, these people can't.
Where I work, I am often tasked with interviewing senior level software developers and team lead candidates. Occasionally, an architect level position, also, but that is rare as our company has not a software architect, per se.
Over the last 6 months I have interviewed approximately 15 candidates, and I was probly seeing about 1 candidate for about ever 150 resumes submitted. Some of these people had 5 years experience, some had as much as 18 years. We're a
I'm willing to grant that they are nervous, may not know everything, whatever. But overwhelmingingly, the fact is, these people say that can do x and y and in reality, after the stated 15 years experience, can even demonstrate the minimum competency required for the position. We are not rediculous expectations by any standard. But if you've been doing remoting for 7 years in
The typical response is: I just google it. That's fine, but someone who never wrote a line of code before can Google it, too. We need to know you can actually perform well in the duties you'll be assigned. Some people get up and walk out of the interviews stating they are too difficult. We finally hired a couple of these guys and they performed very lousy.
The bottom line is that, it is indeed difficult to find someone qualified for certain tasks. If we hire for a bit of a lower-level position such as typical ASP.NET stuff and maybe some middle-tier business rules tasks, its a bit easir to find people but it is still difficult to find someone that when hired, can perform very well until about 6 months into the task after which, they leave and go to another company making more money and more responsibilities (and we pay relative to the 50th-70th percentile of the local norm) and have a disreable culture.
In any case, just incase it was because I was doing the interviewing and they were nervous... I have recently interviewed for a software architect level position for a fortune 100 company requiring the ability to chug roughly 400 million transactions daily with an extreme degree of reliability, and I did fine in the interviews. I was able to answer and demonstrate all but 2 of the questions or tasks asked of me and received a job offer. I have only 10 years experience and no college degree (yet). I don't know whether I'm special, but I think my observation remains: finding someone qualified is difficult enough, but getting the company to offer what they are worth (rather, what they think they are worth) is even more difficult. Most places I've worked hasn't a problem rewarding people that prove themselves or that dazzle during interviews. But if you just barely get by in interview or just get hired because they are taking a chance while not sure of you, and ask for $100k, you're probly not going to get it.
On that note, I've hired people before that I wasn't too sure of but they showed potential, they wanted a rediculous amount of money and we offered what we thought t
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
You blood profits/greed is great types always seem to conveniently forget about the other half of the people granting an incorporation charter to a company (BTW, you have no "right" to incorporate). Your company must also be of the public good. You may think it is a non story, but that shows where your sympathies lie, with the greed is great crowd.
Not hiring the people from within the nation you are incorporated in does not increase the general public good. It may temporarily increase the profits of your limited sub section of the population shareholders, but that's it. It's a short term get rich quick scam, and the main reason we now have a nation so burdened in debt that it amounts in the aggregate of half a million dollars per person, and it has all happened within the last 20 years of globalization, offshoring and moves like MS is now doing.
So keep it up, eventually you'll get what's coming to you, the US as some big fat mexico-like two class nation, and the destruction of the productive middle class so we can have a handful more billionaires and multimillionaires, while they bribe off you suckers with their worthless credit ponzi schemes that they *know* will never be any good long term, but keep you sucked into believing their globalist drivel.
I hope we start yanking the corporate charters of asshole companies like microsoft and other treasonous piratical companies. Haliburton should be near the top of that list as well. Freaking parasites at best.
At least ticks don't lie about where their loyalties are.
I suppose most of the world is observing the Biblical demand to love who you hate, then, because pervasive anti-American sentiment doesn't seem to have so much as caused a blip in the number of folks scrambling to immigrate to the US. ("US Immigration Boom Hits Record Levels", http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10440110/, Dec 12 2005 -- 12% of population now foreign born) I had this conversation with a Chinese researcher at my university once:
e n.php
*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.)
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
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.
Correction: Canada has a more stable cost of living. You don't need to earn 150k/year to live well up here, and nationwide health-care is an oft-quoted perk of being Canadian.
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.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Man, some of the people here are so deliberately misinformed it's clear they've never been involved in a large software dev company. Their injured sense of entitlement seems to be overflowing into any good sense they might normally exercise.
I'm a senior engineer for a large, very well known software company (not MS). One of my duties is interviewing engineers. Lots of engineers. I see five or six candidates a week, in addition to phone interviews. Once we've found somebody -- anybody -- who meets our hiring requirements, we'll do whatever it takes to get them here. Living across the country? We'll relocate your household and find your spouse a job. Living in Canada? We'll get you a visa. Compensation is same in both cases, and due to the costs of acquiring the visa, H1-B workers actually cost the company a lot more. As a result, we prefer Americans, but as I said, we'll take anyone we can get.
We've got development centers in the UK, Africa, India, China, and several places in the US. These all cost us far more per person -- in facilities costs, training, legal costs -- than the US dev centers. We do this to try to attract people who don't want to relocate.
Those of you who think Microsoft is just trying to avoid paying you the billions you so obviously think you're worth, should go apply to the Redmond campus. If you're as good as you think you are, they'll fly you in for interviews. And if you pass those, then they'll talk about compensation. At that point, you can't really lose the offer, barring stupidity. The poster who said they'd use a difference in expected salary to disqualify a candidate in order to get an immigrant worker instead is, to give them the benefit of the doubt, blatantly mistaken.
Look, just do me a favor: If you think you're hot shit and want a six-figure job, make yourself a list of the top ten tech companies in the US. Then go to each of their job sites and submit your resume. My recruiters are waiting. Unless, like most of the posters here, you think that's "slaving away for minimum wage."
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.
Though I can see that Microsoft's statement today does point a finger to immigration policies in the US but this is a little short sighted. I work in downtown Vancouver and know a few former Microsft employees through work I've done in IT and marketing environments downtown. What surprised me most when talking to these people is that they did not relocate to work at Microsoft.
Vancouver City is a small city, but the metropolitan area extends right to the US border. Microsoft isn't that far away on the other side. Until 2001 these people were able to pass through express lanes at the border with little hassle. Since new laws have come into play our trade agreements have come to mean less and the border has slowly closed. These days you do not hear of people working in the Vancouver-Seattle region as much as you hear stories about lovers on either side of the border being rejected for too many "suspicious" crossings. This is just sad, the two cities are separated only by suburbs and a small trench the width of your back alley.
Immigration policy has gone awry in the US but I think the border issue has been simmering on the back burner for much longer. I hope people start addressing both issues or both of our economies will be in the toilet soon.
"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." No, you're asking an American Company to employee Americans. An American company that earns it's money in America and then goes on to say that the United States makes it hard to employ lower cost workers from other countries and then whines about it being unable to pay American workers less doesn't deserve a lot of sympathy. And when you parrot that 'Global Economy' propaganda you're merely helping to pass on that big lie. The American government needs to tighten the foreign workers visas because they are being used to kill off the jobs of higher paid American workers. And big companies have a tendency towards doing evil to their employees when government doesn't look out for the workers. Whether it's 19 Century Mining companies that would charge their employees a dollar a day for the use of the tools and pay them 90 cents or it's Microsoft outsourcing jobs from Americans so as to squeeze that last penny out for the shareholders.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
I have no doubt at all the reason for MS coming to Canada. US customs block every temporary work visa they can, with no regard for how the american companies with their american employees will be hurt.
... we aren't talking landscaping and fruit picking, which you Americans insist on passing off to foreign workers when you could do it yourself.
... and be right there at the fax machine in the customs office at the moment an updated letter arrived from the client. If she was in the bathroom when it arrived, too bad, she would have been denied. What a stupid system! She eventually got in, after missing a connecting flight, and the USA company that needed her services, was able to carry on with their business of making money for their American shareholders.
... The USA company that needed her services just happened to be owned by a Canadian parent company. The dumbass customs officer would not investigate the facts, he could not comprehend the idea that the USA company was a real, USA registered company, with real assets, with real USA employees. He decided the USA company was an empty shell, and that it must really be the Canadian parent company that called her to work in the USA. The officer threatened to declare my wife's actions as being a fraud, which would have banned her for life from working in the USA. He refused entry to my wife.
... he didn't even understand that for any fraud to have been commited by my wife there would have to have been a criminal intent to deceive. At most there was a misunderstanding created by the American employees of the American company. Not fraud.
... did the asshat customs officer do a proper investigation and let her proceed? ... NO. He was off shift. A different officer gave her the work visa and let her enter the USA without any hesitation, without reviewing the incident with the first custom's officer, or even asking her anything that might have resolved the confusion. He probably wasn't even aware that there had been any incident. ... so we went from a brainless shit who was going to block my wife and put a group of American citizens out of their jobs, to a brainless shit who let her pass with no questions asked, who didn't even try to resolve the first shit's concerns. Now that's just awesome security! Tell me, Do you feel safe?
... my wife's boss was flying to south america for work, with some simple scientific field gear with her. She had a brief stop over in the USA where she never left the secured area of the airport, she just needed to go through customs (even though she was in limbo, not actually departing for a US destination), and then onw
It must be an utter nightmare for MS to bring in the smartest developers available around the world, enriching the intellectual capacity of the USA, helping an American company grow wealth for their American shareholders.
In an unrelated field, my wife, who is a Canadian with two science related bachelor's degrees and a professional registration has been blocked twice from entering the USA on temporary work visas by ignorant american customs officers.
And she was going to perform work needed by American companies that were not able to find qualified American professionals. High end specialized scientific work
The first time, the company she was going to consult for made a small mistake on their reference letter. She had to wait for several hours
The second instance
This fuckwad didn't have even the most basic understanding of the situation
Her client nearly lost her services, which would have delayed their project, which would have meant laying off American citizens from their jobs, and would have delayed or pre-empted millions of dollars of economic activity in a remote area of the USA where the jobs are desparately needed.
But many hours later, after missing her connecting flight, she did get through
There was another incident
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
Actually, it's because Canada is Microsoft's #3 exporter of staff, behind India and Japan (link) 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
Absolutely correct.
Also don't forgot that first world citizens from countries such as England, Germany and Japan need visas too. A lot of Americans on this forum are dumbing this issue down into a "slave labour" issue but I call BS on that.
There are many extremely bright people across the world and not letting them into America to train Americans just makes your country even dumber.
Good luck with that.
It appears to me that Microsoft isn't "moving" R&D to Canada. The article says they are building a new center in Canada, but I don't see any mention of closing a US campus, which usually is part of a "move". So please, as much as I don't care for Microsoft either, let's be precise about the language used in the article summary.
The American immigration policy is buggered up. I know I have gone through many immigration systems in the world. The problem is that the American immigration policy favors unskilled labor. For example in Canada, or Europe if you are skilled you will get an immigration visa, no ands ifs or buts. What Canada, and Europe does not want are unskilled labor.
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...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
I say bankrupt them.
What are they going to do, not make the drug at all?
Yeah, like a lack of profit stopped ugg from making the wheel.
Considering how many people die in America for being unable to afford drugs, the profit model is extremely harmful - indeed, it's a national security risk. Look what happened with the flu vaccine shortage last year.
Take profit out of pharmaceuticals. Necessity will always be the mother of invention. What idiot thinks that these CEOs would just rather go without medicine that'll later save their lives?
Besides... pharmaceuticals rely mostly on Government - via university research. Taxpayer funded research, thankyouverymuch.
This analogy was a very bad one.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Another hardship Microsoft has run into is convincing people to move to the united states. I've traveled a great deal in the last 30 years and been to the states twice. I simply can't see myself ever going again. I had an offer from Microsoft to visit, fully paid. And I was going to go, if I could get diplomatic passage. No way am I submitting myself to the public entrance requirements. I'm not going to put up with draconian policies just to see some nice offices. Canada on the other hand is one of my favourite counties. And I'm more than happy to go there. As is everyone I have ever spoken to about such things. Rail and whine against labor practices if you wish. Just know that its not the only factor. Land of the free. Yeah... keep telling yourself that.
Very few Americans have work , no one has any money to buy anything from this company or any other , the government gets little tax and the whole economy collapses.
Yes thats an extreme example but thats where this outsourcing approach ultimately leads. People are NOT just "resources" that can be picked up and dropped at will. They're all part of the feedback mechanism that keep the economy going - no job , no money. No money , no spending. No spending , no economy. Its time business started to appreciate that.
The problem is: you are trying to get 5, 10 or 15 years experience with 50-70% of the local normal salary. [sarcasm] I can't fathom why you only get liars and incompetents! [/sarcasm]
When you want top talent and/or qualifications, YOU PAY. Else, you get what you pay for.
I know what I am talking about, I am stuck at hiring people with 20%-under-norm salary and temporary status... and half of the people we get suck. But sometimes, we get good candidates... and all we have to retain them is warm, fuzzy "you're in the family" feelings. We are so notorious for our stingy paycheques that a candidate in the last recruiting round asked about the salary when we called him for the interview, and declined the invitation when we said the amount.
You're not old until regret takes the place of your dreams.
Not trying to point out the obvious, but customs people everywhere can suck.
I have been hosed getting into Canada from the US before.
One instance you stated there was a mistake on her forms. They still let her in, after oh no, SHE had to get proof and a CORRECT copy?
Oh my, those horrible bastards wanting her to have legal forms filled out correctly.
As for my last screw up to getting into Canada?
I showed up for planning meetings to decide whether or not and if we were, how to implement a shop floor system for a manufacturing facility outside of Ottawa.
I had my laptop with me, because, well that's what people do when they travel.
The customs official insisted on speaking French to me. (I went in the bilingual line because it was shorter) My piss poor high school French got enough by to ask him to speak English, and when he said no, I asked if I could get a different agent or go to the other line. He said no. Escorted me to a security room.
Where I was told to wait. I took out my phone to let my call some people, (wife to let her know I had landed, coworkers to let em know I might not make it into the plant today, etc)
IMMEDIATELY someone came in and told me I was NOT allowed to use my cell phone from this area. They informed me if I tried again, they would confiscate it.
1.5 hours later, someone came back in and told me I was not going to be allowed into Canada since I was coming to steal all jobs from all Canadians. (It was in French, so I am sure it was more like doing a job a Canadian should do, but I suck at French) I asked again if they could speak in English, since my French was very poor.
They left, came back in 30 minutes with a "translator"
The two first officers spoke only in French, the translator translated for me. I responded in English, then the two officers went right on in French. The "translator" never translated what I said. Finally after ~6 hours I was able to purchase a short term work visa, and get out of there. Unfortunately by then the rental car counters had closed. So I called a coworker to come pick me up.
Another time, flying up to Toronto, I got denied entry completely. (I was going up to discuss data and hardware security for once we announced a plant closing) I got a connecting flight to Buffalo, rented a car, and drove up to go to the meetings. (Shh, don't tell the authorities)
By the same token, I have traveled up there probably 25 other times and not had any problems. Never had a problem in Hungary, UK, Brazil, China, Mexico or Japan either.
Not trying to start anything, just pointing out that customs officials can be horrible anywhere. (Also that customs officials competence probably has about zero to do with this move. It's just giving R&D people another option for where they can live)
I am 31337 or something.