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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.
"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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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"
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.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
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.
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.
+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?
"To be fair, I was left completely unsupervised." ~Anon
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.