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Microsoft On US Immigration: It's Our Way Or the Canadian Highway
theodp writes Even as it cuts about 14% of its workforce, Microsoft is complaining that the company might be denied some of the "roughly" 1,000 H-1B visas for foreign workers it intends to seek, and made it clear that the company could shift some work to Canada or overseas if it can't get talent on its terms. "If I need to move 400 people to Canada or Northern Ireland or Hyderabad or Shanghai, we can do that," said William Kamela, a senior federal policy lead at Microsoft, who later explained that about 60% of Microsoft's workforce is in the U.S., yet it makes 68% of its profits overseas (where it also stashes its cash out of IRS reach). Kamela made the statements on a panel at a two-day conference on high-skilled immigration policy, where he sat next to Felicia Escobar, special assistant to President Barack Obama on immigration. The day before the conference, Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us PAC — which counts Bill Gates as a Founder and Steve Ballmer and Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith as Major Contributors — posted its "MythBusters" video on H-1B visas.
Let them move jobs overseas. In retaliation, we the people should demand that the government ditch all Microsoft products and go open source!
Only the US charges income tax on profits from foreign subsidiaries which have already been taxed abroad. Besides being unfair, such a disincentive to bring the money into the US obviously discourages the spending and employing here that could be done with it.
The only reason politicians pretend to listen to arguments like Microsoft is making is the money passing under the table. The only reason Microsoft needs to argue this point at all is to present the pretense that politicians are uninformed, as opposed to corrupt.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Corporations want infrastructure, rule of the law, and educated workforce that comes with doing business in US while paying third-world wages and hiding income in tax shelters. You can't have it both ways.
I also highly doubt that Canada, for example, going to look any more favorable on work visas. If they move to Canada, they will have to hire Canadians (or people eligible for NAFTA visas). That won't be 25K/year PhDs from India.
so please let us hire more overseas. Please?
Pretty Please?
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It has nothing to do with training or intelligence and everything to do with money spent on wages.
All these tech companies simply need to open a few satellite offices. Inherently some people don't want to be in San Fransisco, Redmond, etc. if you can't find the talent you need perhaps you aren't in the right area?
who later explained that about 60% of Microsoft's workforce is in the U.S., yet it makes 68% of its profits overseas
Which is pretty much irrelevant when it comes to software. There is no need at all in software to match development costs to geographic locations. It's one of the beautiful things about being in that industry. That's why you can have a development team in India for a product that isn't even sold there and it still makes sense. It's not a tangible good you export.
Now if they cannot get the right talent for the right price domestically then sure they might have to look elsewhere but frankly I doubt that is really the core problem for Microsoft. If they are having trouble getting good talent I think it has a lot more to do with the fact that people are well aware they have a pretty toxic corporate culture where everyone has to have their knives out at all times and so much of the best talent decides to work elsewhere. Microsoft is just not an attractive place to work compared with Apple or Google or some of the other top IT firms.
It's also a little disingenuous to claim you need cheaper talent when you have net profit margins well above 20%. Microsoft's problems are not rooted in their cost structure but in their revenue streams. Their problems are that their key revenue streams (Windows and Office) are tied to tightly to the PC market and they haven't been able to translate them very well to the mobile market. They spent so many years trying to maximize their monopoly on the PC they they found it difficult to acknowledge that mobile devices have different requirements and to relax their grip so that they could grow. Microsoft saw the opportunity in mobile 10-15 years ago but kept trying to cram a PC into a mobile device with predictably bad results.
Corporations want infrastructure, rule of the law, and educated workforce that comes with doing business in US while paying third-world wages and hiding income in tax shelters. You can't have it both ways.
So far they very clearly have been able to have it both ways. Sad but true.
Now let's be fair that Microsoft in general is not paying "third world wages". You only have to look at their financial statements to prove that. They generally pay their employees fairly well. That said, I think they are being more than a little disingenuous in claiming they need workers from overseas when they have net profit margins well in excess of 20%. Microsoft's problems aren't with their costs but with their revenue streams and no amount of cheap overseas talent is going to solve that problem.
[William Kamela] later explained that about 60% of Microsoft's workforce is in the U.S., yet it makes 68% of its profits overseas
Those figures don't compare well, at least not to justify moving Microsoft out of US. The US is one country versus about 200 others; the latters' population is more than 200 times that of the US.
The only conclusion I can make from that figures is that it is very likely that the US is the single country Microsoft makes more profit from.
Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
What??? They clearly stated that hiring H-1B Visa workers creates more jobs. What more proof do you need???
(sarcasm)
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
That's the problem with liberals like Gates. They are very good at telling others how to be responsible citizens but consider themselves exempt from that
And you think "conservatives" don't do exactly the same thing? Bit of a double standard you have there. One standard will work just fine.
This is another call to anyone still holding stock after the Windows 8, Surface tablets, and Windows phone fiascos that the rats have left the ship and the odd pitch and roll of the ship is not a momentary issue that should be shrugged off. Microsoft is the Titanic of corporations. To stupid to think that it could ever fail.
I Cater to the Needs of Stupid People. - from a coffee mug Christmas gift
"but the high end is being too greedy"
So that confirms what everyone here has been saying all along.....that it's not because of a job shortage, it's because H1B's are being used to drive down wages.
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
It is all about keeping wages down: Microsoft cuts 2,100 jobs in its latest round of layoffs (http://www.engadget.com/2014/09/18/microsoft-layoffs-round-2/) Intel to cut over 5,000 jobs (http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/17/technology/intel-jobs/) Cisco plans 6,000 layoffs in restructuring plan (http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2014/08/13/cisco-plans-6-000-layoffs-in-restructuring-plan.html?page=all) https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Most large tech businesses are following this strategy.They are just responding to our illogical tax and immigration policies. The US can compete, or try to be a self-sufficient island. Like it or not: Workers compete for jobs. Businesses compete for customers. Governments compete for businesses. All three compete for capital.
COE
Come on Microsoft, stop the horseshit and just hire workers from within the US. You fucksticks have had it your way too long.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Yes, because if there's one thing you can say about the US, it's that it doesn't do enough for businesses....
I am a fan of smaller government, but we have a far more dire need for that to happen on the side of greater personal liberties, with many of the laws we have being problematic because we are so beholden to corporations.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I'm fine with H1B sponsorship, so long as a company can show they put an equal about of time, money and resources into college hire and training programs. When I first started programming it was very common for me to see programming interns and college hires. I consult with many mid and large companies, and I haven't seen a programming intern in 7 years. I've seen two college hires in that time as well. At some point in the 2000s some bone headed bean counter figured they could pay an H1B about the same as a college hire. If that's the case, hire the "experienced" resource. The problem is that created a devastating hole in Junior level programmers for almost a decade. Now companies are finally starting to hire college folks again they want to increase the H1B levels again, and repeat the cycle over again.
Canada would welcome the jobs. One could also argue that at least moving the jobs to Canada would have a larger net positive impact on the US economy anyway due to our trade relations. Not to mention if you are a unemployed US tech worker, a move to Canada for work isn't that big a deal either.
This ought to be an outrage and insult to American citizens who are being kicked out on the street by having their jobs stolen from them so that Bill Gates can add to his billions dollar fortune. Studies have shown that there is a surplus of American workers, which means we have a lot of people in this country who cannot find work becuase the work is being stolen by foreign immigrants, illegal aliens, H1B visa holders, and so on. The H1B visa program is a scam designed to enrich the 1%. That Obama is involved with this shows what Obama really is, a traitor who hates the United States, and who does everything he can to undermine our citizens. It is time to completely abolish the H1B program, and stop all immigration. This will as well create the press and necessity we need to fix our own countries problems, such as improving our education system, and promoting family values, such as marriage, so that we do raise healthy (mentally and otherwise) workforce. You cannot have a country without borders. Ultimately I fear what drives companies such as Microsoft is that they are globalists that want to eventually dissolve the United States and as well destroy it as a unique entity.
Undercover of helping immigrant agricultural workers who have long needed a break in America, the American technology sector - lead by Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg - has seen fit to heavily lobby Congress to increase H1-B and other worker visa permits, vastly increasing H1-B visas at a time when very good research shows that there is no shortage of tech workers in America. Zuckerberg has so far succeeded, in the Senate. What is motivating the claim for more H1-B visas?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
previously
One of the most respected technology pundits in Silicon Valley has this to say about the H1-B worker problem and Two H1-B's walk into a Bar: More on the H1-B visa problem
One of many examples of what goes on behind closed doors: an immigration attorney and his consultants teaching corporations how to manipulate foreign-worker immigration law to replace qualified American workers.
H1-B's are only the tip of the iceberg; there are more than 20 categories of foreign worker visas.
Professor Norman Matloff's extremely well documented studies on the H1-B and foreign worker visa problem. Matloff claims that Hi-B abuse has cost Americans $10Trillion dollars, since 1975. Inc. Magazine weights in Professor Matloff's Webpage
Mother Jones weighs in:How H1-B visa abuse is hurting American tech workers
Marc Zuckerberg and other wealthy tech scions - including large immigration law firms and corporation who profit from importing H1-B's continue to perpetuate this trend
How H1-B malpractice hurts the American economy
Most of the new crop of H1-Bs is coming from one of the most corrupt university systems in the world.
Indian government officials are not happy that the universities that they collude with might have some limitations placed on the abuses that have enabled them to "sell" their product to the American IT sector.
How the new immigration bill could ignite a trade war with India
How to underpay an H1-B worker
I'll leave aside the fact that most of these "charities" are tax-avoidance scams, and would probably do the world a favor by not existing.
Bill Gates gives about 40 times as much money to charities as do the Koch brothers, who together have about the same amount of money as Gates. The Koch brothers, in turn, are about 25X as generous as all the Walmart heirs combined- 85% of whose donations come from Christy and 15% from Alice. Jim and Rob also each have their $35 billion and together they donate approx. $30,000 to charity each year- i.e. 4 ppm of their total income. If I make six figures and I toss a dollar at a homeless person, I've just donated 10 ppm.
In comparison, the LDS church for example receives approx. ten billion dollars in "donations" (i.e. tithes) per year- ostensibly for charitable purposes- but spends only fifty million for charity, an overhead of approx. 99.5%. The Gates Foundation has an "overhead" of 90% (meaning 90% of his wealth is stuffed in his mattress). Charities would benefit 20X more if Mormons sent their tithe payments directly to scum-of-the-earth Bill Gates!!!!
I agree, that was a bad video hitting all the corporate dogmas. It makes an unwarranted assumption behind the scenes that only H1-B workers have computer or technological skills. And that's the lie being told, that no domestic worker with the skills can be found, despite these jobs often needing only basic IT drone skills.
As for Microsoft, it should be made to prove under penalty of perjury that for any H1-B worker they want to get that they did not lay off a worker that had those skills.
I would even go one step further: They can only hire an H1-B if they did not offer these jobs (and any training) to the 18,000 people laid off.
In other words, someone hacking on Office could be offered a job writing software for XBox with minimal re-training.