Microsoft Could Move Some Jobs Abroad Because of US Immigration Policies, Top Exec Says (cnbc.com)

Microsoft does not want to move jobs out of the United States but certain decisions out of Washington could potentially force its hands, the company's President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith warned. From a report: The Trump Administration's tough stance on immigration has attracted a lot of criticism from big technology firms, which rely heavily on skilled foreign workers from around the world. Smith previously spoke out against efforts to stop the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program -- an Obama-era policy that provides legal protection for young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children. Microsoft has advocated the protection of DACA and more broadly supported immigration as a way to make sure U.S. companies are hiring talented people. "We do worry about a couple of the very specific immigration questions that people appear to be debating in Washington," Smith told CNBC's Akiko Fujita in an interview on Wednesday.

[...] "We don't want to move jobs out of the United States and we hope that we don't see decision making in Washington that would force us to do that," he said, adding that Microsoft has been openly speaking to people in Congress, at the White House and even the Canadian government to safeguard the interest of its employees. Microsoft has a development center in Vancouver, which Smith described as a "bit of a safety valve." "We're not going to cut people loose. We're going to stand behind them," he added.

Comments

Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[cunina]

âoeWe want the cheapest workers possible that will endure the most abuse, and if Trump wonâ(TM)t let us have them, weâ(TM)ll go someplace where we can get them. Obama knew to play ball on this, why canâ(TM)t Trump?â

Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[Archfeld]

I call BS. It is all about who will accept the abuse and work 80+ hours for peanuts. There is no shortage of talent here in the US, it is all about cost of living and a decent wage. I've had to train many of those so-called high talent workers from foreign lands, their biggest asset is their willingness to do whatever is asked of them regardless of what it does to their life.

Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[AHuxley]

AC if it cost more to hire a foreigner every job would go to someone in the USA. To keep costs down.
Why would any brand pay more every year for the same skill?

Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL, "Because that's where the talent is" - are you that stupid? How is every illegal running across the boarder "THE TALENT". And for the rest, its not based on talent.

Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[lgw]

Have you ever worked for a large left-coast tech employer. I've worked for many, including Microsoft. Microsoft is unique in have so many Americans on their payroll - it may even be as high as half! I worked at 2 places where it was about 2%.

If MS is complaining about "immigration policy" they're not worried about lettuce pickers, they're worried about H1-Bs. MS already has offices in Canada, specifically because they max out the bodies they can bring into the US. Hardly a surprise if they do more of that.

This is not just virtue signaling by MS, t's also blatant corporate self-interest.

Re:Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not even that. To the best of my knowledge, Trump has not altered the H-1B visa in any meaningful way. I've heard the idea floated that visas will be granted to the jobs that pay the highest. If that is true and Microsoft really needs the "best" people who just happen to not exist or be in shortage in the U.S., they still shouldn't have a problem because they have to money to pay up for the "best" talent.

This is a threat due to Microsoft's opinion on illegal aliens who are great majority unskilled and uneducated (not even high school education). There is no such thing as throngs of college-educated people entering the U.S. illegally. As for DACA, very few will end up getting degrees in STEM. You know how many Hispanic people I saw when I was in college for an electrical engineering degree? One, and neither he nor his parents were illegal immigrants.

Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[OYAHHH]

Having a hard time distinguishing farce from fact on your post, either way I LIKE IT!

Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasn't an issue in the past, it's only an issue now because companies refuse to train their own employees or invest in them in any way.

It's unrealistic to expect that graduates fresh out of college are going to be suitable without more training.

What's more, look at the pointless bullshit that talent we're producing is being used for, developing better and more clever scams to trick people out of their hard earned money. New financial schemes that should be illegal, but aren't due to bribes. And let's not forget taking things that we already do and turning them into apps because apps.

There's also plenty of older workers complaining about not being able to get new jobs in the field once laid off.

The problem here isn't a lack of talent, it's a lack of companies behaving responsibly with their talent and failure to invest in new people trying to enter the industry.

Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't even make it out of the summary without getting pissed at the spin on display. "an Obama-era policy that provides legal protection for young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children". What a crock of shit. There were no legal protections there because it wasn't a law - it was a memo that Homeland Security published about how they were going to NOT ENFORCE THE LAW in a specific way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Watching people try to defend this kind of end-run around the legislative process tells me everything I need to know about them.

Re:Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[dr.g]

+1, anticipated my post

Which was gonna be something along the lines of "Wait. What the fuck does DACA have to do with the H1B program that provides all this foreign "talent"?" Answer: nothing at all. This is clearly political.
Now...since we know MS has gotten some nice considerations from government, and we can see this as a political attack on Trump, not an explanation of real business concern, WHO is MS paying back? And the answer is, the Dems. Of course, that can't be because "The Narrative"© clearly states that only the Republicans do favors for big companies and get political returns from it. So, more cognitive dissonance, lefties?

Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[DigiShaman]

The problem here isn't a lack of talent, it's a lack of companies behaving responsibly with their talent and failure to invest in new people trying to enter the industry.

Societal decay. It's just a very slow process. The end-game is making enough money to survive on their own and to promptly fuck everyone else off. It's parasitic, and there's no returning from that hard drop.

It's the "fuck you I've got mine" attitude of decay that will cause cascading breakdown of trust that will inevitably lead to war. Possibly worse.

Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[nowwith25percentmore]

Substantiate with evidence or GTFO.

Re:Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the dirty secret at Microsoft that no-ones wants to talk about.

Diversity policies resulted in the promotion of lots of Indian workers.

Indian workers, who aren't the slightest bit interested in diversity beyond themselves, promoted other Indians.

White workers have been all but eliminated in Seattle.

If you even mention this purge... you are branded a racist.

Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[Darinbob]

Depends on which kind of talent. There are popular jobs where these skills are taught and used all around the world, then you're going to find more workers outside of the US very easily. But it's also cheaper to outsource these than to directly hire foreign workers to work locally in the US. However for jobs that are in demand because they're harder to fill then it makes sense to be allowed to hire from anywhere just to find the few people who can do it (older technology no longer in fashion, or newer technology that's not taught in the IT job mills). Those hard to fill jobs pay above average, whereas for cookie cutter jobs will not.

Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[Darinbob]

There is a shortgage in some areas. That's why COBOL programmers still get paid big bucks. It's hard to find good C programmers too, even though it's vital in a lot of areas, IoT, embedded, etc. Above average Verilog or VHDL programmers are relatively rare as well. And when it comes to finding senior level workers with good skills and experience for designing new products from scratch, they're always in demand, and it rarely works to outsource those jobs.

Re:Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[SoftwareArtist]

Do you actually have information about this, or are you just making things up? Reviews of Microsoft as a place to work are pretty positive. They have their issues as a company, but abusing their workers isn't one of them. As a rule, large US tech companies treat their engineers well. They may be dysfunctional in a lot of ways, but they pay well, give good benefits, and don't demand insane hours.

Low skilled workers are another matter. You really don't want to end up filling boxes in one of Amazon's warehouses. But they aren't going to waste H1Bs on jobs like that. Unskilled workers are easy to find.

Re:Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[SoftwareArtist]

You're making incorrect assumptions based on a few lines from the summary. Read the full article. He was very clear what policies he was referring to, and they're entirely on topic. Here is the relevant passage.

"We do worry about a couple of the very specific immigration questions that people appear to be debating in Washington," Smith told CNBC's Akiko Fujita in an interview on Wednesday.

He pointed to two particular examples. The first is another Obama-era rule that allows some spouses of people who have a non-immigrant H-1B visa to take on paid work. The Trump administration has proposed revoking that type of work authorization last year but a lack of update has left many in limbo, according to reports.

The second is a rule that allows international graduates in science, technology, engineering or mathematics from U.S. universities to continue working while they're trying to apply for a work visa.

This isn't a political attack on Trump as you claim. It's legitimate concerns about specific proposed changes that really would affect their ability to hire skilled workers.

Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[peragrin]

Except you can never live on your own.

You will need someone else to make your bullets, make your knives, make your guns, to make the roads you travel on to get those things. To make your farm gear.

You want running water, flushing toliets, showers a soft bed? You need other people.

Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[DigiShaman]

Hey, I'm not rationalizing it as sane behavior. It's anything but. However, stupid greedy people are still going to be stupid and greedy.

Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[Zero__Kelvin]

I'm torn here. On the one hand your question is easily answered by countering that your assumption involves a spherical cow. In a perfect world your argument is correct. In the subset of the world that is the management world ... Not so much. On the other hand I'm glad this is happening as the longer it takes for Trump's decisions to have very visible negative consequences the more we will pay in the long run.

Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[Archfeld]

What I've wondered for a long time is why industries don't go into local colleges and universities and teach soon to be graduates what they want the job candidates to know when they graduate. Surely a semester of Cobol, or any of the specialties you mentioned could only benefit both the companies, and the students soon to be in the market for jobs in the area.

Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[Reverend Green]

If the Chinese (or whoever) invade, and Trump orders the army to repel them, will that also be 'cuz racism?

Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[Reverend Green]

I know this was meant as a joke... But I do wonder if this is a major reason Surveillance Valley has been so eager to exclude Americans in favor of imported labor.

Tech company business models have become hostile to freedom and privacy. Perhaps American workers are less willing to obediently implement anti-privacy and anti-freedom software, compared with workers from certain other countries.

Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[Reverend Green]

The inbred upper class Damasos running the VC cabal have a strong social interest in reducing or eliminating upward mobility of the middle classes.

http://sasamat.xen.prgmr.com/m...

Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[Reverend Green]

Microsoft can afford to astroturf Glassdoor.

Re:Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[AmiMoJo]

Do you have evidence to back this up?

Checking Microsoft's own stats they claim that 56% of their workers are caucasion, which is what I presume you mean when you say "white": https://www.microsoft.com/en-u...

The EEO-1 report is here: https://query.prod.cms.rt.micr...

Of course that is for the whole company, but it would be quite incredible if somehow at their main HQ "white workers have been all but eliminated" and yet all other locations put the overall figure at 56%.

Unfortunately it's hard to say how many of their employees are Indian because the EEO-1 form lumps them in with a lot of other nationalities and ethnicities: "A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian Subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam." But it's certainly less than 31% which is the total for all of those, and of course that number includes all Americans who are "Asian" but not foreign nationals.

Re:Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have evidence to back this up?

I would say the link you provided is evidence.

Caucasians make up like 70% of the US population, while Asians make up only 5%.

Contrast this to MS having 56% and 30%

Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[NickGnome]

âoeIn the US there is a shortage of talent, an awful lot. And in any other country at a given time. The question is whether you stop everything until that local talent...â You should give the âoedon your wadersâ warning. There has never been any actual evidence of a STEM talent shortage published. Yah, sure, every few months a few STEM executives get together at the country club or congress, but I repeat myself... and whine that they want cheaper, more pliant, low-skilled laborers with ever more spurious non-merit-based credentials & âoequalificationsâ, with ever more flexibility in ethics, to implement their latest privacy violation, barriers to entry schemes. That is NOT evidence of shortage. They still refuse to relocate talent, still refuse to fly talented USA citizens/ UK citizens/ German/ Scandinavian... citizens for interviews, still refuse to invest in training (or at least not anywhere near as much as they did in the decades before H-1B was hatched), still refuse to purchase print ads, still refuse to do their recruiting in such a way that illegal discrimination in hiring can be caught and prosecuted, still retain sheisters to fabricate phony/spurious pretexts on which to reject able and willing USA...citizen job applicants. IOW, their behavior is evidence that there is plenty of talent. Every year for several decades, tens of thousands of USA citizens have been getting degrees (plus more who attain other academic & non-academic credentials) in STEM fields... only for one-third to two-thirds to be rejected for STEM employment. One could understand if they rejected the lowest 1%, 5%, maybe even 10%. But, of course, if there were actually a severe talent shortage, the execs would be rushing to grab even those up and bring them up to speed through customized training... Only they donâ(TM)t.

Re:Hereâ(TM)s the Translation:

[shutdown -p now]

Because Canada, and Vancouver especially, is known as a place for sweatshops, right?

Yes...

[SharpFang]

"We don't want to move our asses from our comfortable offices, but as we can't continue importing cheap labor, we'll have to follow where that cheap labor used to come from."

Re: Yes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol they hire foreigners because they cannot find local talent at any price point. It does not exist in sufficient numbers.

Have you worked for or applied at Microsoft? It's very hard to get in there - they want top notch folk. They pay very very well. Half if the r&d staff are foreign because that's where the talent is. These are not sweat shop jobs.

Re: Yes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol you realize what you posted was pure garbage. Plenty of talented people right here in the US, Microsoft does not want to pay the going rate. They just want cheap labor. Which explains Windows 10.

Re:Yes...

[CaptainDork]

I agree with your statement, as far as it goes.

All businesses want cheap labour accompanied by excellent skills, be the employment in the tech industry or the service sector.

Let's step off the silicon valley trolley and enter the space of landscaping.

We want cheap labour, good work ethics, competency, and reliable attendance.

Appreciate that the labour force spends their wages on items in proximity to their living quarters.

That's housing, food, petrol, entertainment, taxes, etc.

Businesses don't give a flying rat's ass about social issues or patriotism or othe cry-baby bullshit.

The objective is to make lots of money.

If that means moving some work overseas, so be it.

I think it would be a lot better to encourage immigration. America has the room and the resources to support such a system.

But do they have the common sense God gave a piss ant to take advantage of immigration?

Re: Yes...

[ichimunki]

In my 20+ years of experience, natural born US Citizens are no better than foreign born developers who work in the US. And I've run into a handful of natural born US coders that were, in fact, terrible at their jobs... whereas I've seen a lot of foreign-born techies come to the US and thrive, do great work here -- and can't recall a single foreign-born coworker who was below average.

Re: Yes...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm same AC. I'm a manager at Amazon, 12 staff. One is American. He's awesome. But the Indians are incredible as well, most have US degrees and moved from OPT -> H1B. You have worked with crap indians I bet becuase the roles have low pay.

Believe me, these are not low cost jobs. I'm paid 360k, i purchased a house in Seattle within 2 years and will pay it off in another 5. The engineers I hire have offers from 160k to 250k in the first year, that rises with stock. These roles in Microsoft are similar, I poach and AM poached from all the time. These are NOT low cost positions. I need to interview 10 people to hire a single one, most don't get through the data structures and algorithms section of the 5 interviews we grill candidates with. I'm always loathed to have to go import someone, but the choice is like this: Jobs been open for 6 months, I've interview 15 people. None have passed. Money isn't the issue. We have an option, open the role in Sydney/Dublin/Hyderabad office and fill it within 2 weeks, or import a H1-B into the role.

It's not the money. It's the availability in the first place of the talent. And if you think paying even MORE above 160-250 is the answer, we'll CERTAINLY move the role overseas.

Please, if you think you can get through the interviews, APPLY. We'll pay relocation and you can own a house in the Seattle region in a very reasonable timeframe.

Re:Yes...

[AmiMoJo]

Is it cheap labour or are they trying to hire highly skilled people?

Because hiring highly skilled people is hard, especially when your immigration system makes it harder. In the UK we are finding that with doctors. Even when they can get a visa they naturally want to bring their families with them, who all also need visas. They also want certainty about the future, so there has to be a solid path to permanent rights to stay in a reasonable timeframe, otherwise why build a life somewhere you might get kicked out of?

The cheap labour angle doesn't seem that compelling anyway. If they really wanted to do that surely it would be easier to just outsource the work to India or wherever and demand they work shifts that match US office hours, with Orwellian telescreens running Skype everywhere. It would be much cheaper than paying someone enough to live in the US, even on subsistence wages.

Re: Yes...

[AuMatar]

That's selection biased- only the best get to come over here. The rest don't get jobs here. Work with some outsourced developers and you'll see utter crap. Or hang out on stack overflow and read the questions posted in broken english.

Re: Yes...

[ichimunki]

Absolutely agree. Whereas the foreign-born who come to the US have barriers to entry, the US-born who work here do not have the same limiting factors.

Off-shoring/outsourcing seems to be a way to hire those "left behind" at really low cost... penny-wise/pound-foolish if you ask me. Never seen outsourced work produce results to match domestic by a long shot... but what MS is planning here isn't really off-shoring in that vein, rather "right-shoring" in the sense that they will be still co-locating a team built from a global pool, just not putting them in Redmond.

Re: Yes...

[ichimunki]

This is anecdotal evidence to be sure.

Re: Yes...

[angel'o'sphere]

Broken english is not the problem. (Keep in mind asian languages e.g. are so far away from english grammar that is extremly hard to learn english for them)
You find plenty of questions where it is completely clear that the poster does not grasp the simplest things about programming. That is the problem.

Re: Yes...

[AuMatar]

Oh definitely agreed. It makes answering harder, but they speak my language better than I speak theirs. Broken english is how you tell they're foreign. And you'll see the degree of correlation is high (not 100, there are broken english questions where you can see they have a legit question and understanding. But high).

Re: Yes...

[Shotgun]

All evidence is anecdotal.

Re:Yes...

[ahodgson]

These immigrants are educated, work hard, and probably won't turn into Democrats.

Re: Yes...

[CaptainDork]

Oh, I apologize for my shortcomings.

I just read up about World War II and how the whole fucking goddam end was orchestrated by not one single solitary American scientist.

I see my error.

Thank you.

Re: Yes...

[c6gunner]

Not all anecdotes are evidence.

Re: Yes...

[c6gunner]

Is it cheap labour or are they trying to hire highly skilled people?

I'm not sure why you seem to think that those two things are mutually exclusive.

Re: Yes...

[SharpFang]

Note, for H1B, it's not enough for the foreign developers to write same quality, or somewhat better. They must do things domestic developers are completely incapable of. If you have sub-par (but still workable) domestic dev, and a superior foreigner, H1B doesn't apply. Only if the domestic just can't deliver at all.

Translation

[Opportunist]

Politics can do what they want, if we want to hire cheap foreigners we'll hire cheap foreigners. Here or abroad.

Ya know, while he's at it, couldn't Trump start putting tariffs on software?

Re:Translation

[Gilgaron]

How would you tariff software? They'd just compile it in a local subsidiary or whatever, physical goods at least have the inconvenience of moving a factory.

Re:Translation

[Opportunist]

Indirectly. Put a tax on every piece of software sold and in turn reduce the tax on labor for domestic software production.

Re:Translation

[Cyberax]

How are you going to tax cloud services?

Re:Translation

[Opportunist]

In the end, someone will have to own something. And that's what you tax. If you try to circumvent taxes, a crafty state can always find ways. The question is only whether a government WANTS to tax something, because they invariably can.

Re:Translation

[Cyberax]

That's easy. A company in the US buys software from India and owns it. A company in India does all the development.

Who is going to be taxed? You can tax the sale, but you can bet that it's not going to reflect the full cost. And you simply can't tax the _use_ of a foreign-made software.

Re:Translation

[drsquare]

Careful what you wish for, the US is a huge exporter of software, you really don't want a trade war on this .

waaah...

[dunnomattic]

...look what you made me do.
-Microsoft.

Feel-good bullshit

[PeeAitchPee]

Let's see the actual demographic makeup of their devs. Spoiler: it's overwhelming male and white / Asian / Indian like all other big tech firms. This is just a cheap soundbite to placate the SJW crowd with absolutely no substance behind it, and everyone knows it. Besides, I'm confused: doesn't the H1B program that Microsoft et al abuse exist in practice solely to bring (temporary) immigrants into the country (to work as indentured tech servants and save big corps money)? Their statement here about caring about immigrants is 100% trash -- follow their money.

Re:Feel-good bullshit

[quantaman]

Let's see the actual demographic makeup of their devs. Spoiler: it's overwhelming male and white / Asian / Indian like all other big tech firms. This is just a cheap soundbite to placate the SJW crowd with absolutely no substance behind it, and everyone knows it. Besides, I'm confused: doesn't the H1B program that Microsoft et al abuse exist in practice solely to bring (temporary) immigrants into the country (to work as indentured tech servants and save big corps money)? Their statement here about caring about immigrants is 100% trash -- follow their money.

I personally know a bunch of Iranians who've gone to work for Microsoft (and other big tech firms) and I'm pretty sure it was under HB1, and I know many of them made really nice salaries and now have green cards.

Now I don't know how typical their story is, but certainly not all use of HB1 is abuse.

Just Another Big Business

[rally2xs]

...that wants to hire cheap foreign labor within the USA. They claim they can't get good US help. Well... maybe they can't. If you are about to embark on a career, and are looking at studying for 4 or more years, incurring massive debt, and then having to wait to be hired by businesses that have lowered their wage scale substantially by importing cheap foreign labor that you have to compete with, what are you going to do? Maybe take up law or medicine, if your that smart, because the software industry is now a comparatively low pay industry, and often with insane work hours to boot. These people are smart, and lots of 'em are smarter than lining themselves up to be mediocre middle-classers instead of upper middle-classers is not all that appealing.

Back before the dot-bomb of the early 2000's, actual Americans were making 6 figures, even in those more valuable year-2000 dollars, because real Americans were doing the work. Then the outsourcing and H1B Visas had their impacts, and news from the software wage front has been pretty dismal. This industry sabotaged itself with complicity by the US gov't working against it's citizens.

Re:Just Another Big Business

[AHuxley]

Once the USA was totally accepting of workers from other nations every generation?
Bring the worker over to the USA for a short time project under their own nations brand and use them as posted workers.

Re:Just Another Big Business

[rally2xs]

No, I have no memory of that. Up until about the 1990's, US industry was populated pretty much exclusively by US workers. Then, the US gov't made it possible to hire 100's of 1000's of foreigners at the behest of big business that wanted to pay less for their labor, and the destruction of good-paying tech jobs began.

Re:Just Another Big Business

[meglon]

Your memory doesn't go back far enough. Reagan was the one who started pushing the "service" economy instead of the manufacturing economy.

Re:Just Another Big Business

[AHuxley]

The change was rapid. From doing everything possible in the 1980's to totally protect US secrets and prevent exports to Communist nations.
The US then just let the world in to study all its secrets.

Re:Just Another Big Business

[rally2xs]

Yeah, I know the service economy, but it was being done with US workers, at least.

Re:Just Another Big Business

[Hodr]

Might be new-ish in white collar jobs. We have been importing migrant labor for farming for as long as we have been a country.

Re:Just Another Big Business

[rally2xs]

Oh, yeah, was talking about tech. I went to school with migrant kids, and that was 50's / 60's. They've been around forever.

Re:Just Another Big Business

[Solandri]

While I agree the program is abused, the program was started due to other countries running similar programs. A study found that the U.S. was suffering a net drain of talented graduates leaving for jobs in these other countries. These work visa programs are basically ways for countries to poach talent from each other, and the U.S. had been on the losing end. So it started its own work visa program.

Re:Just Another Big Business

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree the program is abused, the program was started due to other countries running similar programs. A study found that the U.S. was suffering a net drain of talented graduates leaving for jobs in these other countries. These work visa programs are basically ways for countries to poach talent from each other, and the U.S. had been on the losing end. So it started its own work visa program.

Does not follow. If US workers were making six figures within the US and were poached by other countries, presumably they were being paid more elsewhere. How would bringing in foreign workers to the US, resulting in severe downward pressure on US wages, alleviate the desire felt by US workers to be paid more outside the country?

I understand spin. It's immoral but understandable. This whole-cloth revisionism is something much worse.

Re:Why not employ skilled Americans?

[AHuxley]

The best US university courses are still graduating the best graduates who got accepted on merit. Every year. For decades.
From artists, to engineers to every kind of computer expert.
What is some other nation doing that the USA cant get from its educational graduates?
Cost of work?

Cost Issue, Not Skill Issue

[nowwith25percentmore]

Tech companies can find experts in any skill they need right here in the US. Any jobs they move abroad are moved to save costs, not because of scarcity of talent.

Re:Cost Issue, Not Skill Issue

[squiggleslash]

That's a distinction without a difference in practice. If a business cannot afford to buy labor with certain talents at the going rate, then labor with those talents might as well not exist as far as that business is concerned.

Re:Cost Issue, Not Skill Issue

[swb]

If a business cannot afford to buy labor with certain talents at the going rate

For definitions of "afford" that include guaranteeing rich executive pay packages, stock buy-backs, a corporate jet.

American executives need to wake up and smell the coffee and start understanding their own personal enrichment is part of the cost structure.

Re:Cost Issue, Not Skill Issue

[meglon]

Like this:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018/07/06/mar-lago-foreign-worker-visas/764053002/

Re:Cost Issue, Not Skill Issue

[DarkOx]

Right there is no reason to move all but the smallest subset of professional jobs over seas other than seeking lower labor costs.

Sure there are handful of PHD level specialist positions for which there may only exists 100's or few qualified candidates the world over - but that does not describe the vast vast majority of positions available at Microsoft, which they seek to fill with foreign workers.

Global trade imbalances, immigration (legal and not), are the cause of the increasing wealth gap! Liberals and non-populist Conservatives alike need to square that. They are not being honest with the public about their polices and their effects.

Re:Cost Issue, Not Skill Issue

[DigiShaman]

Global trade imbalances, immigration (legal and not), are the cause of the increasing wealth gap! Liberals and non-populist Conservatives alike need to square that. They are not being honest with the public about their polices and their effects

Why would they be? That's intentional. Liberals are communist, and Conservatives are act like a feudal .05% upper class. We get the mindset of blue-blooded Conservatives. The real issue with the closet communist Liberals is that they create policies in a "do as I say not as I do" stance with the blind assumption that they themselves will be rich as part of the new political elite class.

In both cases, it leads to a "have / have-not" society with an eviscerated middle-class.

Re: Cost Issue, Not Skill Issue

[nowwith25percentmore]

Exactly!

Re:Cost Issue, Not Skill Issue

[Cyberax]

Wake up. The average salary for H1B employees at Microsoft is $129k ( https://www.myvisajobs.com/Rep... ). Apple leads the pack with $147k. And this is the base salary, H1B regulations don't take into account relocation packages, RSUs and other bonuses.

$129k puts you into top 5% of the incomes in the US. These is pretty much the definition of a specialized high-qualification position.

Re:Cost Issue, Not Skill Issue

[DarkOx]

and 129K is very good society if you live in any part of fly over country - its perhaps enough to cling by your finger tips to the bottom rung of middle class in Palo Alto.

The first thing we need to get past is the BS definitions of middle class the media and government pushes. He is a definition we should work with. Middle class means you enjoy some level of autonomy. You could afford to leave your job or be fired; you have enough personal assets that you could if need be you could move yourself and your family somewhere else; and you can do all this without jeopardizing your standard of living. I don't care if you live in a McMansion and lease to two Cadillacs. If being unemployed for less than a year or so means you'd have to give these things up - you are in fact not middle class you just look like it superficially. if you don't think you could easily find an equivalent job / more work etc in a short time you are not the renaissance free merchant - you are a vulnerable wage slave.

The reality is people living in say Davenport Iowa earning 129K a year are not interested in moving to Palo Alto for a 129K a year. They know they would in fact enjoy lower standard of living and increased vulnerability in doing so. So they won't take that offer. What does that really mean? It means the suppliers (potential workers) won't make labor available in the market place at that price point. In other words 129K is below market rate. The fact that employeers only offer 129k averages for those positions is because their demand is being satisfied by the 'cheap' labor imports. The vast majority of these H1Bs are exactly what I have described them as "cheap alternative labor."

Re:Cost Issue, Not Skill Issue

[Cyberax]

The thing is, the top median income in Iowa is $51k per year. The top 80% percentile income is $95k. People are quite likely to move to California if they are offered $35k more.

Or we can look at the median income in the Bay Area which tops at around $100k for Santa Clara county. Again, the average H1B salary in Google or Microsoft tops this. H1B salaries are near or slightly above the median software developer salaries.

Re:Cost Issue, Not Skill Issue

[drsquare]

America has 5% of the world's population, what makes you think they have 100% of the tech talent?

Re: Why not employ skilled Americans?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quantity. For the size of America the number of graduating engineers is really quite small. Hence they imort from all over the world. Also many smart Americans choose mba instead of engineering generally speaking.

You may have noticed you basically need to be rich to get a degree in America. Not so elsewhere in the world. I'm Australian, imported to Seattle on the strength of 6 yeas uni that cost me 30k.

Fix the eductation problem and you'll fix the hire local problem.

Labor exploitation problem has been solved

[mrops]

It is the wrong kind of immigration policies in US that allow for this "cheapest labor exploitation". Speaking as a Canadian, the work permit here, which is equivalent to H1-B in US is bound to the employer, but the permanent resident status, equivalent to green card is not. So you get here on work permit, apply for permanent resident status couple years later and your employer effectively has no leverage except a just pay and a healthy work environment. Sure it costs 2 years before you can apply, however its not like a decade or so in US at the mercy of your employer.

Re:Labor exploitation problem has been solved

[Anonymous Coward]

US immigration law is horrendous, unjust and uneven. If you come here illegally, you are VIP and every politicians want to shake your hand. If you apply thru proper channel, be prepare to wait 20 years.

Re:Labor exploitation problem has been solved

[lgw]

You can switch employers on an H1-B. Most lager companies and left-coast start-ups have lawyers to manage just this. The incentive to stay put is that many companies promise to pay for the legal work for your green card submission after some delay (I believe Google uses the lack of a delay as its own hook).

Re:Labor exploitation problem has been solved

[Trailer Trash]

It is the wrong kind of immigration policies in US that allow for this "cheapest labor exploitation". Speaking as a Canadian, the work permit here, which is equivalent to H1-B in US is bound to the employer, but the permanent resident status, equivalent to green card is not. So you get here on work permit, apply for permanent resident status couple years later and your employer effectively has no leverage except a just pay and a healthy work environment. Sure it costs 2 years before you can apply, however its not like a decade or so in US at the mercy of your employer.

You've pretty much perfectly described the system in the US as well. I have no idea what you think is different, except maybe the green card process is a bit longer here.

Re:Labor exploitation problem has been solved

[luis_a_espinal]

It is the wrong kind of immigration policies in US that allow for this "cheapest labor exploitation". Speaking as a Canadian, the work permit here, which is equivalent to H1-B in US is bound to the employer, but the permanent resident status, equivalent to green card is not. So you get here on work permit, apply for permanent resident status couple years later and your employer effectively has no leverage except a just pay and a healthy work environment. Sure it costs 2 years before you can apply, however its not like a decade or so in US at the mercy of your employer.

You've pretty much perfectly described the system in the US as well. I have no idea what you think is different, except maybe the green card process is a bit longer here.

No. It's not a bit longer. It's damned atrocious. I know cases of engineers and doctors waiting for 8-10 years for a decision.

I'm like, why are we doing this? If we have a professional working here for 8-10 years, just give the papers to him/her automatically. That person has obviously shown value.

And why wait 8-10 years of more? Put a cap, and tell them yes/no within 2-3 years. That way people can plan accordingly instead of living in a damned limbo.

Our incompetence is turning into cruelty, honestly. This is why I get so pissed at people saying "huurr durr come here the right way" without knowing we are making that all but impossible in the most idiotic, dysfunctional and capricious ways possible.

Re:Labor exploitation problem has been solved

[Cyberax]

You're looking at the very last step of the process - getting the citizenship. It's very easy and simple.

What takes most of the time is he US green card processing. They are assigned based on a country, so Chinese people will have to wait for about 6 years as of now to get a regular employer-sponsored green card.

You can look them here: https://www.trackitt.com/curre... - right now the USCIS is processing cases from 2013 for Chinese nationals. And it is even worse for India.

Re:Labor exploitation problem has been solved

[luis_a_espinal]

I'm not sure you have your facts completely correct, or know some weird edge cases.

https://www.us-immigration.com/us-immigration-news/us-citizenship/how-long-does-the-us-citizenship-process-take/

This is much more what I've heard from my friends who have emigrated here. This is not that much crazier than the rest of the world, generally. Yes, our government could be more efficient, I would support that in a heartbeat.

But you should immigrate the right way - I've done it to two countries. If you're not even willing to respect that amount of the law of the land you're moving to, I for one think you're a disrespectful cunt that shouldn't be allowed to move anywhere.

Oh shut the fuck up. I came here easily and legally and I had no problem becoming a resident and later a US citizen. My case is not the norm, however.

I'm referring to the millions others who also come legally and the right way and still, as a matter of being a numbers' game, they end up in decades-long limbo waiting for an answer or worse.

Go project your sanctimonious bullshit somewhere else.

in other words

[Tsolias]

We can't import them, so we export our offices... and because we don't want to seem like we are the bad guys who outsource everything to non-americans, we will blame the goberment.

Re:in other words

[meglon]

https://www.usatoday.com/story...

Cool

[Kohath]

More skilled people can live and work near their families and we don't need to agree to import tens of millions of welfare recipients or millions of eager workers to bid down wages. Let's go ahead with that.

Why not hire and train?

[the_skywise]

You want to talk the talk about diversity and racial bias - hire minorities from within your own cities that you're currently located at and TRAIN them.
No no... better to leave the country because you can't find "good people" here in the US.

Re:Why not hire and train?

[Cyberax]

I work at Amazon. About 30% of my team are direct college hires. Amazon offered them a job straight after graduation.

All these college hires require mentoring and a huge investment - a college hire is generally not going to produce quality code from the start, but Amazon has to pay them anyway.

Still, it's very difficult to find engineers. As a result, my team is something like 90% immigrants (from all over the world).

Re:Why not hire and train?

[KC0A]

If it were possible to just train the general public to program, programmers wouldn't be paid so well. After almost fifty years of trying, we still don't know how to train programmers. It's a performance profession, like sales or music or creative writing. Plenty of CS graduates, not nearly enough programmers.

Not about "skills"

[mi]

Smith previously spoke out against efforts to stop the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program

DACA is not about skilled technology workers at all. The man, quite clearly, is against US enforcing its borders in principle...

Re:Not about "skills"

[mi]

-1 Offtopic

Re: Why not employ skilled Americans?

[AHuxley]

Re 'For the size of America the number of graduating engineers is really quite small."
The USA gave the world modern computing. Both in terms of theory, production line design and global manufacture.
Traitorous eight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Nothing outside the USA is beyond what the USA can teach its own students.
The USA is still selecting most of its engineering students on merit. They have to pass exams and have to know their work.
Been rich does not grant a person the needed ability to study and the ability to pass an exam.
The US system still looks for all people on merit. When sitting a free exam.

Re: Why not employ skilled Americans?

[OYAHHH]

You have posted this clap-trap reply at least 3 times on this article as an AC. If you are so sure of yourself why don't you act like an adult and put your name to it?

Re:Why not employ skilled Americans?

[AmiMoJo]

What limits production of highly skilled workers in the US is the US education system.

Public schools vary immensely in quality and funding levels. Higher education is expensive and also of variable quality. Those top schools you mention are pretty exclusive and many can only afford them with assistance.

That's one of the reasons why tech companies are trying to help schools with STEM education. They are trying to increase the supply.

But that's not what people opposing immigration of skilled workers want. If supply increases, there is downward pressure on wages. Better education, more women and minorities entering the tech jobs market, it all has the same effect as tech workers immigrating.

Re: Why not employ skilled Americans?

[Drethon]

You may have noticed you basically need to be rich to get a degree in America. Not so elsewhere in the world. I'm Australian, imported to Seattle on the strength of 6 yeas uni that cost me 30k.

I'm from the US, been working for 14 years from a 4 year degree that cost me $20k, move onto a master's degree that my company paid for. Costs are higher than they were, but the key to me is going to a good priced state college, rather than a 6 figure a year college that doesn't teach anything more.

Re: Why not employ skilled Americans?

[DarkOx]

They'd hire local if they could, but the talent doesn't exist in sufficient numbers at any price point.

I just don't believe it. Sure maybe the talent pool in the region is exhausted but they could certainly hire people away from the midwest or the east coast if they offered enough incentives. They don't need to be non-citizens. Finally if there is no domestic talent why is that?

Could it be because by allowing the mass outsourcing and insourcing of international labor we have allowed the capital owner class to effetively become international tourists? Is that why: they don't invest in our own communities. They don't both developing local talent. They are not working on influencing and funding our educators to create people who can fill other than their sweatshop level needs /?

Re:Why not employ skilled Americans?

[AHuxley]

Why not just get people in the USA to pass an exam on merit?
Pass the same exam as everyone, get into university.
Study a lot to enter a profession.
Apply for a job.
Work for a US company.
Pay back the loan. Some will get merit-based scholarships.
The US education system has added a lot of money per student since the 1950's and every decade.
Books, calculators, computers, the internet, laptops, robot kits, new buildings, more computers and money.
The exams are not exclusive. The person just has to have the ability to study and pass the same exam in a set time.

As if they didn't offshore the jobs already ...

[tommeke100]

That can be offshored.

Re:MSFT defends DACA?

[CohibaVancouver]

Why? Because they are hiring child labor?

Sigh.

Anonymous Coward, please turn off Fox news and go read a newspaper.

The average age of a Dreamer enrolled in DACA is 24 years.

Re: Why not employ skilled Americans?

[sjames]

Perhaps they should consider older workers or open an office somewhere in the midwest where the cost of living is more reasonable.

Re: Why not employ skilled Americans?

[skam240]

How does your post address the comment you quote at all?

Are you saying America has plenty of engineers now because we invented modern computing decades ago? That just doesnt follow at all.

Re: Why not employ skilled Americans?

[angel'o'sphere]

The USA has the freedoms the EU and other nations do not.
Freedom of speech.
That is bolocks.

No having to go to a gov to ask for investment, for permission to start a company
Thats bolocks.

to pay all new profits as a tax.
Corporate tax on profuts is between 20% and 25% all over Europe.

The jobs cant move to a Vancouver/Sydney/Dublin/Berlin/London as their system of laws are not set up to attract investors and keep tech jobs.
That is bollocks, of course the laws are set up to attrack any kind of job.

The USA has the freedom to grow. The EU has the freedom to tax.
Thats bolocks.

Make a profit and their nations tax system will take it.
Why do you write nonsense like this? How would the economy in such a nation work? (*facepalm*)

M$ is BS

[thunderclees]

M$ may have a harder time obtaining incompetent yet cheap and exploitable labor from South Asia so they are offshoring.
Weren't they doing this already? (hint: yes).

Re: Why not employ skilled Americans?

[luis_a_espinal]

You may have noticed you basically need to be rich to get a degree in America.

Utter fucking bullshit.

^^^ This. I don't think a person fitting the economic profile I had 30 years ago could go to college. No way no how.

I made it by sheer luck, a lot of people helping me, pell grants, a scholarship and a non-trivial amount of student loans (which I'm still paying.)

Now, and due to the exorbitant cost of living, all of that is almost gone, except student loans. You either fail to graduate (because you have fucking eat sometimes) or take so much loans you end up in financial indenture for life.

This is not the same for all, though. If you live within driving distance of a 4-year university, you *still* get a chance to make it through college while poor.

But if you do not live within commuting distance from a college or university, forget about it.

I could see the changes coming when I was in college, and boy I'm glad I could graduate. No way I could do it again. And I see how much I need to save in college funds for my kids, it might be cheaper to send them to study overseas (or move my entire family).

I. AM. NOT. FUCKING. KIDDING.

The game is rigged against you unless your parents are within the 13% upper income bracket. Believe it. Believe it now more than ever.

Re: Why not employ skilled Americans?

[luis_a_espinal]

Agreed, there are more free rides in college than ever before, especially if you are not American.

Oh really? Mention a few if you can.

Re: Why not employ skilled Americans?

[luis_a_espinal]

Dude that article is from 1956. America in 2018 just isn't comparable to 1956. It's lost the will to build. Consider there are 550 million europeans with access to education easily as good as American, at a fraction the cost. There are 2 billion Indian and Chinese, of those a small % but high number are rich enough to send kids overseas to get a great education, previosuly the prime target for that was the USA (until Trump, now they go to Europe/Canada/Australia).

This high tech advanced tech stuff is common now and has gone global. Hence, there are more foreigners than Americans with the skills. Hence, it's hard to find Americans.

The choice is this: Import the foreigner, or export the job. Which would you prefer? We can move the jobs to Vancouver/Sydney/Dublin/Berlin/London easily enough.

Well, a lot of this folks still think the World operates as if we were in the 50's. It explains a lot.

Trump hasn't reduced the # of H1-Bs

[rsilvergun]

in the slightest. He talks a big game but never does anything. He could undo the Obama era rule regarding spouses of H1-Bs whenever he wants, instantly adding 100k jobs for Americans (and putting pressure on the H1-Bs to demand higher salaries to afford stay at home spouses). He promised to do it on the campaign trail, so it's not like he's unaware of the issue too.

Trump runs his businesses with H2-Bs. This is well known. Cutting back on work visas reduces his businesses profitability. Anyone expecting him to do anything that doesn't benefit him personally hasn't been paying attention.

Apartment buildings around Microsoft in Redmond

[BrookHarty]

Lots of Indian contractors living 5-6 to an apartment building, just walking distance to Microsoft, hardly any furniture except a TV, they work crazy hours, and send money home.

M$ has been using cheap visa workers for years, everyone around the Seattle area knows it, sees it.

Are these the workers M$ will move overseas? Or the flux of middleman project managers they burn through?

Companies are behaving responsibly

[rsilvergun]

to their shareholders, which is the only legal requirement they have.

If we want them to behave well to their employees we have to force them, and that means electing the kinds of people who will do that. That means less Nancy Pelosi and Paul Ryan and more Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-cortez. But the latter leaves a bad taste in people's mouth because nobody likes paying taxes, even if it's for things they want (like enforcing pro-worker regulations)

Re: Companies are behaving responsibly

[Reverend Green]

Thing is, most candidates who say they want to raise taxes also support every anti-worker bill that comes along. And most candidates who say they want to lower taxes, are lying.

This. So much This

[rsilvergun]

if they could have outsourced the jobs to someplace cheaper they would have already done it. You can safely ignore these threats. Lack of H1-Bs will never be a reason to lose jobs. The ability to outsource them is. Capital flows to where labor is cheapest (and yes, that's from Marx, he was right about some things ya know).

I've found the US citizens better

[rsilvergun]

note I said "US Citizens". Because they're here for the long haul. They're citizens. They expect to have careers. Throw away contractors know they're throw away contractors and behave accordingly; spending as much time preparing for the next contract as doing their jobs.

the best choice omong bad solutions

[Archfeld]

Yes, government is inefficient and vile, and should never be trusted out sight, but despite that we DO need it in certain instances. The challenge is to keep it reigned in and on target, while ensuring it doesn't take over everything and do what it does best, bureaucratize everything to a stand still.

Re:the best choice omong bad solutions

[StikyPad]

"The challenge is to keep it reigned in and on target."

Not really. The challenge is that people have a wide range of opinions about what the target is.

Re:the best choice omong bad solutions

[Archfeld]

I would think that setting the target is part of the process, but I agree with your point.

Might be "forced"?

[Jerry]

It's time the US put tariffs on Microsoft products manufactured in China and the EU, and it is time to send H-1B workers home and give those jobs back to Americans.

https://www.oregonlive.com/sil...
" Microsoft was moving production to the same place it makes all other Surface products. ... Microsoft has previously said it makes its other Surface computers in China."

And, it's been going on for a long time:
https://gizmodo.com/5517137/mi...
"The conditions—supported by photographic, not just anecdotal evidence—sound downright horrendous:
  Workers are hired as "work study students" as young as 16 years of age
  They work extremely long shifts, typically "from 7:45 a.m. to 10:55 p.m," for $0.65/hr, less food deductions. (Actual wage: $0.52/hr.)
  As is common in large manufacturing operations in China, the workers live onsite:
        Fourteen workers share each primitive dorm room, sleeping on narrow double-level bunk beds. To "shower," workers fetch hot water in a small plastic bucket to take a sponge bath. Workers describe factory food as awful.
  Workers are kept from leaving campus, except during designated hours
  There are reports of sexual harassment of female workers by male security guards"

And, its been going on for years. Learn how NOT to employ Americans here in America:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Business as usual

[manu0601]

We are now used to this stance: big corporations take economy as an hostage, and elected leaders must accept their rule.

But the news is that president Trump may have no problems with having the hostage killed to prevail.

I know how they are going to update notepad now

[BrookSmith]

I know how they are going to update notepad now, get some foreigner who knows how to code to do it.

Re: Why not employ skilled Americans?

[sjames]

Then they're not all that serious about there being a shortage.

sell low quality MSFT to the Red Chinese

[NickGnome]

They already gave them their source code. Ill-Begotten Monstrosities already sold them Lenovo. This could drag down the Chinese economy for decades, while the USA is freed of kludgey baggage to advance the state of the art. Way to Win!

Odd... so...

[Doctrinsograce]

This is weird. Does this mean that Microsoft is uninterested in hiring US citizens?

Labor Participation Rate

[callahan2211]

There are plenty of developers here now in the U.S. It boils down to money, tech giants don't want to spend money on more expensive home grown talent or spend money on training.

adios, MF...sorry, MS

[geowash01]

Bye, don't let the door etc.

You know Reagan did the same thing

[rsilvergun]

right? Business want cheap labor. The left doesn't want to be unnecessarily cruel. Personally, I'd like to see us legalize drugs so Mexico & South America can stop being hell holes and maybe fix out foreign policy. While I'm at it tariffs should be based on working conditions & environmental impact.

Re:Why not employ skilled Americans?

[KC0A]

Plenty of CS graduates, both American and foreign, but not nearly enough programmers to meet demand. I've been interviewing developers for about 30 years now, and it's still the case that about 80% of the candidates can't solve simple programming problems in an interview, or answer basic questions about the fundamentals of CS.

Why Can't Programmers Program? (https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/) is just as true today as it was in 2007, in 1997, in 1987.

Re: Why not employ skilled Americans?

[luis_a_espinal]

Agreed, there are more free rides in college than ever before, especially if you are not American.

Oh really? Mention a few if you can.

Still waiting. Don't let the crickets chirp.