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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.
Also, the corporate tax rate in Canada is very competitive, and health care premiums are much, much lower thanks to universal single-payer health care. Plus, if your income is in USD but your salaries are in CAD, you get a nice little boost.
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).
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The title implies that tech companies are not dealing with the immigration policies. The summary says that they are dealing with them, and dealing with them so well that they are hiring equal or greater numbers of foreign workers. Which is it?
Let's look at the article and see:
“Due to a shortage of green cards for workers, many employees find themselves stuck in an immigration process lasting more than a decade. These employees must repeatedly renew their temporary work visas..."
That problem has existed for >20 years. Much of the article reads the same way:
...there aren’t enough skilled Americans...
...US companies are hiring outside the US...
Most of this could have been written in 1995 and nothing would sound different.
But this is slightly different:
Recent immigration data shows the US is issuing fewer total visas to these types of workers than in previous years. This is a result of an executive order Trump issued...
This quote links to an article showing that only 75% of H-1B visa applications are being accepted. But that conflicts with the statement
Some GOOD news:
Take a look at the chart in the article showing which companies are getting their Visa's rejected. Microsoft, Amazon, Google -- 99% acceptance. Tata consulting: 78%. Accenture: 69%. Good riddance! Companies like Tata and Accenture are the real abusers of H1-B. These firms just hire as many H1-B applicants as they possibly can, and then find jobs for them later by promising other companies they can do the same job for less, then offshoring the work later. That's a garbage business model and if that's the only companies having trouble than good riddance!
As a Canadian working many years as a software developer, while I'm sure examples can be found where this is happening, 99% of the work is still in the U.S. And U.S. employers, as much as they like to complain they cannot find enough developers, are reluctant if not outright 100% against hiring people working in Canada, even with the CAD USD difference.
Just try and convince a hiring manager that you'll get the work done from Canada while the company is U.S. based! I've tried several hundreds of times over the last few decades.
Unless you're willing to move down to the U.S. and be sitting in an office chair at their location 9-5 M-F, you'll never get a call back from HR or the hiring manager.
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
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU Video on how PERM fraud worked, by creating fake job listings that nobody could possibly qualify for (such as demanding 20 years of .NET experience when .NET had only been around for 5 years) and "publishing" in absurdly small markets.
Then the H1B to green card transition became hard, the waiting lists got longer, and USA was losing its charm for the elite graduates. At the same time, Indian economy boomed, these grads were getting great career prospects back at home. The stream of resumes with IIT BTech has dwindled to nearly nothing.
Let Canada keep them. When USCompanies realize most of them are duds, it will be Canada's problem, bot ours.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
1. Nice lie. It's not "get rid of CAFE standards". It's "don't price the working class out of cars". Physics is a bitch, and she doesn't care about your green agenda.
2. It's not about the trade balance; it's about unfair competition and dumping. The Chinese were deliberately, and successfully, dumping to destroy the US steel industry. Jobs are the campaign slogan, but the real problem is national security. Without domestic steel production, our entire economy is completely vulnerable to the Chinese Navy. Just like China and electric vehicles: with only a trivial petroleum reserve, they realize their economy is completely vulnerable to the US Navy or Lloyds shutting down their economy.
3. Keep out the damn illegals. You keep lying and lying and lying, but the republicans are tired of the left-wing importing illegals in the hope of getting more voters. Stop lying. It's not about immigration, it's about illegals. In fact, when you narrow down to groups, it's the progressives who are being hurt the worst, and most aware of the damages from H1B abuses.
It's sad that we're going to suffer batshit insane because so many people like you are incapable of critical thought and unwilling to consider the geopolitical context or listen to your neighbors.
I am well involved in organizing scientific conferences. We organize in the US most of the time but went to Canada last year. And we had WAY more attendees that could not get a visa than any other year on record. In particular north african and middle eastern attendees were the most impacted.
So it may not be true that getting through visa and emigration is going to be easier in Canada than it is in the US. Though I have only the data point of a single conference.
In 1963, with the income taxes only 50 years old at the time, JFK said, "“The largest single barrier to full employment of our manpower and resources and to a higher rate of economic growth is the unrealistically heavy drag of federal income taxes on private purchasing power, initiative and incentive.” John F. Kennedy, Jan. 24, 1963 " He was right.
[Citation Required]
'Cause JFK did slash income taxes.....and there was not a corresponding boom of economic activity.
If you're going to cite his statement, you also need to include the history of what happened when people followed his plan. And it did not have the effect JFK claimed it would.
he little thing about repealing the corporate income tax would have those companies, and all the rest of the companies on the planet at least WANTING to move their operations to the USA where they could operate without having their profits stolen by the gov't.
Only if you ignore that they're spending more money to buy goods and services to pay your consumption tax.
No taxes on the used car.
Your plan does not repeal property taxes. Also, car dealers are offering a service, thus putting them under your consumption tax.
No taxes on the used (existing) house, only taxes if you build a new house
Your plan does not repeal property taxes. Also, there are currently no taxes paid when you buy a house, new or "used" (there are various recording fees). However you did just massively jack up the price of all of the components of the house, massively driving up home prices.
No taxes on the money you make and use for savings
Only if your savings is under your mattress. If you invest your savings, guess what? You're using a service and the tax man cometh.
tuition
....isn't taxed today.
money used to pay your state taxes, car license fees
Were deductible until the Republicans decided to raise individual income taxes to offset a fraction of their corporate tax cut.
because of the lack of at least the Federal gov't tromping thru the door to steal a portion of the business' profits each year.
Instead, the Federal government would tromp through the door to raise the cost of all the goods and services those companies buy.
Money's fungible, yo. Tax income or tax consumption, you're still taking money from the business.
the rich consume like hell
No, they really don't. The poor consume 100% of their income. That's a big part of why we call them "poor".
The rich consume far less than 100% of their income.
The absolute value of their consumption is higher, but absolute value does not tell you anything about the effect your taxes have on that taxpayer. The percent of their income subject to your taxes does.
All of a poor person's income is subject to your tax, because they're spending all of their paycheck on goods and services. Only a portion of a rich person's income is subject to your tax, because they're not spending all of their "paycheck" on goods and services.
"Make the CEO of any company caught hiring illegal aliens spew a year in jail for each illegal employed, and the problem will disappear pretty quickly."
The real immigration problem has little to do with illegal aliens and everything to do with legally imported workers to toss Americans out of high paying tech jobs. They distract you with strawberry pickers while they displace 50k six figure jobs a year. It floods the market and stagnates wages. Whether you actually work in those fields or not this kills the economy and drives the economic depression that leads to you pointing fingers at strawberry pickers.