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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.
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.
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.
Aren't drug prices subsidised too? In the UK there is a fixed cost per prescription, about Ã10. That is usually a month's worth of drugs. You get medical equipment for free too, they will even come and modify your house to your needs if necessary.
No. Drug prices vary by province, but not by a huge amount. The differences are usually due to distribution costs or pharmacy dispensing costs. Rather instead of subsidizing it, the entire country(all provinces, territories, and federal government) buy for the entire country at a flat rate. The projected costs are based on year-on-year trends for the demand of the drugs required for the amount of users. We don't get our medical equipment free, crutches are $39 at my local hospital if you're wondering.
Most people pay with their supplemental insurance for it, and nobody comes to modify your house. You pay for that, if it's a fundamentally life changing thing like a stroke? You're better off selling your old property and buying something new. You may be covered to have someone help take care of you, but in general your family is the one who's doing all the hard work.
Give you an example from the full rundown, diagnostics, costs, everything. When my grandmother was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer, the first doctor diagnosing was a ER doctor because she coughed up blood. From there it was 11 days to see her family doctor. 39 days to see her specialist. 40 days to meet with the oncologist, 15 days to start targeted radiation therapy. The doctors and oncologist remarked at the fast turn around time and asked if she knew someone "high up the chain" who might have bumped her name for faster treatment. Most people wait double. She was a head nurse, nursing teacher, and had a bunch of other certifications so maybe someone did, but if they did - we didn't know about it.
For her treatment, we drove 51km one-way. Luckily her residence was "far enough away" that the VON(Victorian Order of Nurses - The VON is a not-for-profit care program, and is mainly funded by donations) which operated a hospice, and took patients to the treatment center would take her on. After that treatment, she was cut loose by the system until her care became so bad that family could no longer take care of her. That was around 9 months of pure hell with degrading health, memory, and various bouts of cancer and drug induced dementia of me taking care of her because both my dad and uncle worked between 40 and 50hrs/week and had no room in their houses, or because it wasn't very good to have a person who couldn't keep their balance walk up or downstairs for a bathroom. Her planning a head, before that she put herself on the list for a nursing home. The average wait time is 4 years, luckily or unluckily someone died and because she was already in the "last 6mo of estimated life" they got her in. She was in there for 3 weeks before she took an even harder turn. The hospital had no room for long term care for the last 6mo. Rather it was the VON again, who had space in a end-of-life hospice care facility. That was the last 27 days of her life.
The state of care for end-of-life is pretty shit. It's shit enough that the government offers "escape" programs for people where a nurse comes in for a couple of days so you can bug the hell out, and try not to have a complete breakdown.
What we pay is based in earnings and hard to calculate as it's rolled up with other social security items, but it's affordable and free for those on lower incomes.
You pay pretty much for everything unless you're old age or on disability here. What is considered "critical care" is mostly covered, but there's plenty of people who go financially broke from the secondary costs of healthcare. And the 'safety net' is really your family.
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