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Canada Waives Own Rules, Helps Microsoft Avoid US Visa Problems

Freshly Exhumed writes Citizenship and Immigration Canada has granted an unprecedented exemption to Microsoft that will allow the company to bring in an unspecified number of temporary foreign workers as trainees without first looking for Canadians to fill the jobs. No other company in any other field has been granted such an exemption, and it does not fall within any of the other categories where exemptions are normally given, according to a source familiar with process, effectively creating a new category: the Microsoft Exemption. Microsoft Canada did not immediately respond to questions about the deal, but in an interview earlier this year with Bloomberg Businessweek, Karen Jones, Microsoft's deputy general counsel, said the deal will allow Microsoft to bypass stricter U.S. rules on visas for foreign workers. The entire issue of temporary foreign workers has been as blisteringly hot a topic across Canada as it has been in the USA.

10 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. Fucking Hell, Harper needs to go! by iCEBaLM · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We do not have a shortage of CS workers in this country, we have a surplus, and with some provinces having over 10% unemployment rates Harper is seemingly doing everything he can to keep Canadians out of Canadian jobs.

    Fucking neocons.

    1. Re:Fucking Hell, Harper needs to go! by davecb · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I fear the neo-cons want us back in the day of William the Conqueror, where there were Normans and the peasants they owned.

      --
      davecb@spamcop.net
    2. Re:Fucking Hell, Harper needs to go! by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The article is bogus. If you'll note, the article was written to attack a study by the TD Bank that debunked the whole "skilled shortage" myth. It was written by an employer lobby group, without citing a single statistic to back it up. As has been pointed out many times since, there is no skills shortage - just a shortage of people willing to work for far less than they used to under the threat of "we'll replace you with someone off-shore/with a visa/whatever".

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    3. Re:Fucking Hell, Harper needs to go! by ILongForDarkness · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Agreed. People quickly specialize just like any profession. I think I'm pretty comfortable learning new stuff but my experience and expertise lies with C# and tsql development. So for example going with a recent posting I've looked at: when Google posts a job wanting a javascript and Python coder with 5 years experience with each I'm not that guy. I might be able to talk myself into a shot but it isn't exactly like the recruiter is going to be jumping up and down saying "obviously that guy will figure it out quickly". I need a great resume, have good real world (if not directly related) experience, and solid references to get an interview. Then I need to sell myself like hell to convince the hiring manager to give me a chance. Similar with MS: a lot of people don't have C/C++ experience any more. Some areas of the company that might be fine, others it won't be it all depends on what they want you for.

      Most commenters seemed to be missing the point of the linked article though: these are for trainee positions. MS might be using it as a way to weasle around HB-1 requirements (people getting foreign subsidary experience to get around limits) but it might be that it is a training centre to ultimately send people back to their home countries. It could be hard to scatter around say Office development and have the true experts with the code base mentor junior devs in each of the countries MS operates in. Easier to have them nearby Redmond for a couple years then push them out already relatively up to speed back to India, Ireland, wherever.

      It really depends what MS's intent is with the workers that are "trainees". If they are meant to go back "home" then they probably weren't jobs Canadians were qualified for anyways: language/culture reasons, presumably their home countries have similar hire local first rules, or are otherwise unappealing to most Canadians: earning $10,000 a year in India for example. Similar to H1-B rules if I understand them correctly (I'm Canadian not American) for those workers that MS is allowed to bring in they should mandate that they get comparable wages compared to Canadian workers so as not to drop the market price for "IT" workers in Vancouver down to Indian wage levels. Vancouver is one of the most expensive cities in the world, I moved away from there because of it: earning a programmers salary there is about equivalent to being a college student elsewhere in the country: ie one bedroom apartment and enough money left over at the end of the week to order a pizza. Not my thing, but I guess people make equivalent choices when they live in San Fran or whatever.

    4. Re:Fucking Hell, Harper needs to go! by wiredlogic · · Score: 4, Insightful

      MS might be using it as a way to weasle around HB-1 requirements (people getting foreign subsidary experience to get around limits)

      That's exactly what it is. There's no point in sugar coating it with the presumption of that they're trying to help out the little guy. This is all part of the orchestrated plan by the elites to create an oversupply of labor with foreign workers and drive wages down. Their proximity to Vancouver makes this a slam dunk for Microsoft. Why sink money into lobbying for more H1Bs when L1Bs are unlimited and NAFTA greases the bureaucratic wheels.

      --
      I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
    5. Re:Fucking Hell, Harper needs to go! by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 5, Informative

      And the rich get richer and the poor get poorer -- America where the Walton family (majority shareholders in Walmart) has wealth equal to the wealth of the bottom 42% of Americans combined.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  2. Re:Remember the stripper visa by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 4, Informative

    In my opinion, it is very positive for us to have high educated and motivated individuals working here.

    They won't be working long-term in Canada. FTFA:

    The government notice says the new training and development centre will focus on "software and engineering." The notice also says foreign workers will be given 24-month work permits to allow them to stay in Canada "until they are transitioned by Microsoft into a new position elsewhere.

    That "elsewhere" is the US.

    Karen Jones, Microsoft’s deputy general counsel, said the deal will allow Microsoft to bypass stricter U.S. rules on visas for foreign workers.

    And that stripper program?

    Earlier this year, Mr. Kenney announced that employers with good reputations would be allowed to fast track the hiring of temporary foreign workers and be allowed to pay them 15 per cent less than the average wage for a particular job. Labour groups and the NDP opposition slammed the move, accusing the Conservatives of driving down wages on behalf of employers.

    Same crap, different day.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  3. McD's been doing it for years by X!0mbarg · · Score: 4, Informative

    Until recently, McDonalds and Tim Horton's in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) have been doing this sort of thing for years. Usually in the form of 'minority hiring' that shuns the citizenry. They got their hands smacked soundly over it, and now are being watched like a hawk.

    URL Reference here:
    http://www.vancouversun.com/li...

    Now Microsoft is going to do it en masse, taking away the positions from Canadian citizens that have been training here...

    There will be a reckoning over this one.

  4. Re:Remember the stripper visa by mrchaotica · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've found that foreign western Europeans are welcomed with enthusiasm but foreign Asians with much much resentment.

    Western Europeans are coming from an economy just as good as our own, so they aren't willing to work for peanuts and thus don't drive down wages like people from third-world countries do.

    Asians from developed countries (e.g. Japan) would be welcomed just as warmly, for the same reason.

    --

    "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  5. Re:does that mean American workers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It sounds more like a way to get more overseas workers into the US.

    "The source said that means the company will take advantage of rules governing intra-company transfers, which require employees to work for at least one year at a company subsidiary before being transferred to the U.S."

    Sounds like they'll import cheap labor to Canada. Have them work there for a year and then import them into the US.