US Companies Are Moving Tech Jobs To Canada Rather Than Deal With Trump's Immigration Policies, Report Says (recode.net)

US companies are going to keep hiring foreign tech workers, even as the Trump administration makes doing so more difficult. For a number of US companies that means expanding their operations in Canada, where hiring foreign nationals is much easier. From a report: Demand for international workers remained high this year, according to a new Envoy Global survey of more than 400 US hiring professionals, who represent big and small US companies and have all had experience hiring foreign employees. Some 80 percent of employers expect their foreign worker headcount to either increase or stay the same in 2019, according to Envoy, which helps US companies navigate immigration laws. That tracks with US government immigration data, which shows a growing number of applicants for high-skilled tech visas, known as H-1Bs, despite stricter policies toward immigration. H-1B recipients are all backed by US companies that say they are in need of specialized labor that isn't readily available in the US -- which, in practice, includes a lot of tech workers. Major US tech companies, including Google, Facebook, and Amazon, have all been advocating for quicker and more generous high-skilled immigration policies. To do so they've increased lobbying spending on immigration.

Comments

Healthcare too

[rsilvergun]

I've lost jobs to Canadian outsourcing because companies didn't want to deal with our screwed up healthcare system. One of the worst/best was when a US based insurance company moved it's call center operations to Canada.

That said, if this really is just H1-Bs shifting to Canada I find it really hard to care. I couldn't have gotten those jobs anyway and to be blunt I see very, very little of the benefits from immigration here in America. Without robust set of programs to take advantage of those economic wealth generated it's all just money going to the top. Even small businesses can be hurt since they're left to compete with companies that can hire engineers for less money (though it's debatable whether wage depression brought on by the influx of cheap labor offsets that).

Re:Not new really

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't try to put the narrative into childish terms

The President of the United States is following policies that have been put together to sound good, and to get a rise out of the conservative base, but that are not tied to effective policy development

In other words, US policy is being transformed to fit conservative bumper stickers

That has had a number of totally expected side effects, which fox new pundits regularly ignore in their own arguments, but which Americans are now faced with
1. Get rid of CAFE standards.
A favorite of 'free market' pundits for years
Net result, elimination of all car production lines as auto companies abandon them for more profitable SUV/light truck production resulting in off shoring of car production and loss of American manufacturing jobs

2. Restore the trade balance, i.e. Sell more products over seas than we purchase
Aggressive conservative pundits love any kind of war so they can flag wave, but ignore the FACT that there will be a trade imbalance as long as the US is the dominant economic power on the planet
Net result people buy even less of our stuff, which they can readily purchase for less in less developed countries. this has affected our primary export of agricultural products, loss of American farms, loss of jobs and increased costs for consumers

3. Keep out them damn immigrants
Favorite source of conservative fear-mongering supported by thinks tanks like CIS
Net result: increased costs for consumers and increased off-shoring of tech jobs (as demonstrated in this article)

So, President Trump has really done us a favor by following the ridiculous policies of his beloved fox new pundits BECAUSE it is really the only way to disprove their bat-shit crazy ideas.

It is just sad that many Americans have to suffer before they can learn they have been mislead