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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.
[...] "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.
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
"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."
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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?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
...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.
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?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
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.
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.
DACA is not about skilled technology workers at all. The man, quite clearly, is against US enforcing its borders in principle...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
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.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
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.
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.
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?
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)
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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.
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"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.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere