Microsoft Could Move Some Jobs Abroad Because of US Immigration Policies, Top Exec Says (cnbc.com) 293
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.
Hereâ(TM)s the Translation: (Score:3, Insightful)
Labor exploitation problem has been solved (Score:3, Interesting)
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 i
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US immigration law is horrendous, unjust and uneven. If you come here illegally, you are VIP and every politicians want to shake your hand. If you apply thru proper channel, be prepare to wait 20 years.
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You can switch employers on an H1-B. Most lager companies and left-coast start-ups have lawyers to manage just this. The incentive to stay put is that many companies promise to pay for the legal work for your green card submission after some delay (I believe Google uses the lack of a delay as its own hook).
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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.
Re:Labor exploitation problem has been solved (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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What takes most of the time is he US green card processing. They are assigned based on a country, so Chinese people will have to wait for about 6 years as of now to get a regular employer-sponsored green card.
You can look them here: https://www.trackitt.com/curre... [trackitt.com] - right now the USCIS is processing cases from 2013 for Chinese nationals. And it is even worse for India.
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It's not even that. To the best of my knowledge, Trump has not altered the H-1B visa in any meaningful way. I've heard the idea floated that visas will be granted to the jobs that pay the highest. If that is true and Microsoft really needs the "best" people who just happen to not exist or be in shortage in the U.S., they still shouldn't have a problem because they have to money to pay up for the "best" talent.
This is a threat due to Microsoft's opinion on illegal aliens who are great majority unskilled and
Re:Hereâ(TM)s the Translation: (Score:5, Insightful)
+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?
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You're making incorrect assumptions based on a few lines from the summary. Read the full article. He was very clear what policies he was referring to, and they're entirely on topic. Here is the relevant passage.
"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.
He pointed to two particular examples. The first is another Obama-era rule that allows some spouses of people who have a non-immigrant H-1B visa to take on paid work. The Trump administration has proposed revoking that type of work authorization last year but a lack of update has left many in limbo, according to reports.
The second is a rule that allows international graduates in science, technology, engineering or mathematics from U.S. universities to continue working while they're trying to apply for a work visa.
This isn't a political attack on Trump as you claim. It's legitimate concerns about specific proposed changes that really would affect their ability to hire skilled workers.
Re:Hereâ(TM)s the Translation: (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's the dirty secret at Microsoft that no-ones wants to talk about.
Diversity policies resulted in the promotion of lots of Indian workers.
Indian workers, who aren't the slightest bit interested in diversity beyond themselves, promoted other Indians.
White workers have been all but eliminated in Seattle.
If you even mention this purge... you are branded a racist.
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Do you have evidence to back this up?
Checking Microsoft's own stats they claim that 56% of their workers are caucasion, which is what I presume you mean when you say "white": https://www.microsoft.com/en-u... [microsoft.com]
The EEO-1 report is here: https://query.prod.cms.rt.micr... [microsoft.com]
Of course that is for the whole company, but it would be quite incredible if somehow at their main HQ "white workers have been all but eliminated" and yet all other locations put the overall figure at 56%.
Unfortunately it's hard to say how many
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Do you actually have information about this, or are you just making things up? Reviews of Microsoft [glassdoor.com] as a place to work are pretty positive. They have their issues as a company, but abusing their workers isn't one of them. As a rule, large US tech companies treat their engineers well. They may be dysfunctional in a lot of ways, but they pay well, give good benefits, and don't demand insane hours.
Low skilled workers are another matter. You really don't want to end up filling boxes in one of Amazon's ware
Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation: (Score:2)
Microsoft can afford to astroturf Glassdoor.
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Why would any brand pay more every year for the same skill?
Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation: (Score:2)
Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation: (Score:2)
The inbred upper class Damasos running the VC cabal have a strong social interest in reducing or eliminating upward mobility of the middle classes.
http://sasamat.xen.prgmr.com/m... [prgmr.com]
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Depends on which kind of talent. There are popular jobs where these skills are taught and used all around the world, then you're going to find more workers outside of the US very easily. But it's also cheaper to outsource these than to directly hire foreign workers to work locally in the US. However for jobs that are in demand because they're harder to fill then it makes sense to be allowed to hire from anywhere just to find the few people who can do it (older technology no longer in fashion, or newer te
Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation: (Score:5, Insightful)
I call BS. It is all about who will accept the abuse and work 80+ hours for peanuts. There is no shortage of talent here in the US, it is all about cost of living and a decent wage. I've had to train many of those so-called high talent workers from foreign lands, their biggest asset is their willingness to do whatever is asked of them regardless of what it does to their life.
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There is a shortgage in some areas. That's why COBOL programmers still get paid big bucks. It's hard to find good C programmers too, even though it's vital in a lot of areas, IoT, embedded, etc. Above average Verilog or VHDL programmers are relatively rare as well. And when it comes to finding senior level workers with good skills and experience for designing new products from scratch, they're always in demand, and it rarely works to outsource those jobs.
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What I've wondered for a long time is why industries don't go into local colleges and universities and teach soon to be graduates what they want the job candidates to know when they graduate. Surely a semester of Cobol, or any of the specialties you mentioned could only benefit both the companies, and the students soon to be in the market for jobs in the area.
Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation: (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation: (Score:2)
Except you can never live on your own.
You will need someone else to make your bullets, make your knives, make your guns, to make the roads you travel on to get those things. To make your farm gear.
You want running water, flushing toliets, showers a soft bed? You need other people.
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Companies are behaving responsibly (Score:3)
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)
Re: Companies are behaving responsibly (Score:3)
Thing is, most candidates who say they want to raise taxes also support every anti-worker bill that comes along. And most candidates who say they want to lower taxes, are lying.
the best choice omong bad solutions (Score:2)
Yes, government is inefficient and vile, and should never be trusted out sight, but despite that we DO need it in certain instances. The challenge is to keep it reigned in and on target, while ensuring it doesn't take over everything and do what it does best, bureaucratize everything to a stand still.
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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.
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I would think that setting the target is part of the process, but I agree with your point.
Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation: (Score:2)
If the Chinese (or whoever) invade, and Trump orders the army to repel them, will that also be 'cuz racism?
Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation: (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation: (Score:5, Insightful)
Watching people try to defend this kind of end-run around the legislative process tells me everything I need to know about them.
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Having a hard time distinguishing farce from fact on your post, either way I LIKE IT!
Re: Hereâ(TM)s the Translation: (Score:2)
I know this was meant as a joke... But I do wonder if this is a major reason Surveillance Valley has been so eager to exclude Americans in favor of imported labor.
Tech company business models have become hostile to freedom and privacy. Perhaps American workers are less willing to obediently implement anti-privacy and anti-freedom software, compared with workers from certain other countries.
Yes... (Score:5, Insightful)
"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."
Re: Yes... (Score:2, Insightful)
Lol they hire foreigners because they cannot find local talent at any price point. It does not exist in sufficient numbers.
Have you worked for or applied at Microsoft? It's very hard to get in there - they want top notch folk. They pay very very well. Half if the r&d staff are foreign because that's where the talent is. These are not sweat shop jobs.
Re: Yes... (Score:5, Interesting)
In my 20+ years of experience, natural born US Citizens are no better than foreign born developers who work in the US. And I've run into a handful of natural born US coders that were, in fact, terrible at their jobs... whereas I've seen a lot of foreign-born techies come to the US and thrive, do great work here -- and can't recall a single foreign-born coworker who was below average.
Re: Yes... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's selection biased- only the best get to come over here. The rest don't get jobs here. Work with some outsourced developers and you'll see utter crap. Or hang out on stack overflow and read the questions posted in broken english.
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Absolutely agree. Whereas the foreign-born who come to the US have barriers to entry, the US-born who work here do not have the same limiting factors.
Off-shoring/outsourcing seems to be a way to hire those "left behind" at really low cost... penny-wise/pound-foolish if you ask me. Never seen outsourced work produce results to match domestic by a long shot... but what MS is planning here isn't really off-shoring in that vein, rather "right-shoring" in the sense that they will be still co-locating a team buil
Re: Yes... (Score:4, Insightful)
Broken english is not the problem. (Keep in mind asian languages e.g. are so far away from english grammar that is extremly hard to learn english for them)
You find plenty of questions where it is completely clear that the poster does not grasp the simplest things about programming. That is the problem.
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Oh definitely agreed. It makes answering harder, but they speak my language better than I speak theirs. Broken english is how you tell they're foreign. And you'll see the degree of correlation is high (not 100, there are broken english questions where you can see they have a legit question and understanding. But high).
I've found the US citizens better (Score:4, Insightful)
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All evidence is anecdotal.
Re: Yes... (Score:2)
Not all anecdotes are evidence.
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I agree with your statement, as far as it goes.
All businesses want cheap labour accompanied by excellent skills, be the employment in the tech industry or the service sector.
Let's step off the silicon valley trolley and enter the space of landscaping.
We want cheap labour, good work ethics, competency, and reliable attendance.
Appreciate that the labour force spends their wages on items in proximity to their living quarters.
That's housing, food, petrol, entertainment, taxes, etc.
Businesses don't give a flying
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Oh, I apologize for my shortcomings.
I just read up about World War II and how the whole fucking goddam end was orchestrated by not one single solitary American scientist.
I see my error.
Thank you.
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Is it cheap labour or are they trying to hire highly skilled people?
Because hiring highly skilled people is hard, especially when your immigration system makes it harder. In the UK we are finding that with doctors. Even when they can get a visa they naturally want to bring their families with them, who all also need visas. They also want certainty about the future, so there has to be a solid path to permanent rights to stay in a reasonable timeframe, otherwise why build a life somewhere you might get kicked
This. So much This (Score:2)
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These immigrants are educated, work hard, and probably won't turn into Democrats.
Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
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Indirectly. Put a tax on every piece of software sold and in turn reduce the tax on labor for domestic software production.
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waaah... (Score:2)
-Microsoft.
Feel-good bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
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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.
I personally know a bunch of Iranians who've gone to work for Microsoft (and other big tech firms) and I'm pretty sure it was under HB1, and I know many of them made really nice salaries and now have green cards.
Now I don't know how typical their story is, but certainly not all use of HB1 is abuse.
Just Another Big Business (Score:5, Interesting)
...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.
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Bring the worker over to the USA for a short time project under their own nations brand and use them as posted workers.
Re:Just Another Big Business (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I have no memory of that. Up until about the 1990's, US industry was populated pretty much exclusively by US workers. Then, the US gov't made it possible to hire 100's of 1000's of foreigners at the behest of big business that wanted to pay less for their labor, and the destruction of good-paying tech jobs began.
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Yeah, I know the service economy, but it was being done with US workers, at least.
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Might be new-ish in white collar jobs. We have been importing migrant labor for farming for as long as we have been a country.
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Oh, yeah, was talking about tech. I went to school with migrant kids, and that was 50's / 60's. They've been around forever.
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The US then just let the world in to study all its secrets.
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in other words (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Cool (Score:2)
More skilled people can live and work near their families and we don't need to agree to import tens of millions of welfare recipients or millions of eager workers to bid down wages. Let's go ahead with that.
Why not hire and train? (Score:2)
No no... better to leave the country because you can't find "good people" here in the US.
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All these college hires require mentoring and a huge investment - a college hire is generally not going to produce quality code from the start, but Amazon has to pay them anyway.
Still, it's very difficult to find engineers. As a result, my team is something like 90% immigrants (from all over the world).
Not about "skills" (Score:5, Informative)
DACA is not about skilled technology workers at all. The man, quite clearly, is against US enforcing its borders in principle...
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-1 Offtopic
As if they didn't offshore the jobs already ... (Score:2)
Trump hasn't reduced the # of H1-Bs (Score:2)
Trump runs his businesses with H2-Bs. This is well known. Cutting back on work visas reduces his businesses profitability. Anyone expecting
Apartment buildings around Microsoft in Redmond (Score:3)
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?
Might be "forced"? (Score:2)
It's time the US put tariffs on Microsoft products manufactured in China and the EU, and it is time to send H-1B workers home and give those jobs back to Americans.
https://www.oregonlive.com/sil... [oregonlive.com] ... Microsoft has previously said it makes its other Surface computers in China."
" Microsoft was moving production to the same place it makes all other Surface products.
And, it's been going on for a long time:
https://gizmodo.com/5517137/mi... [gizmodo.com]
"The conditions—supported by photographic, not just anecdotal evi
Business as usual (Score:2)
We are now used to this stance: big corporations take economy as an hostage, and elected leaders must accept their rule.
But the news is that president Trump may have no problems with having the hostage killed to prevail.
Re:Why not employ skilled Americans? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
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What limits production of highly skilled workers in the US is the US education system.
Public schools vary immensely in quality and funding levels. Higher education is expensive and also of variable quality. Those top schools you mention are pretty exclusive and many can only afford them with assistance.
That's one of the reasons why tech companies are trying to help schools with STEM education. They are trying to increase the supply.
But that's not what people opposing immigration of skilled workers want. If
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Pass the same exam as everyone, get into university.
Study a lot to enter a profession.
Apply for a job.
Work for a US company.
Pay back the loan. Some will get merit-based scholarships.
The US education system has added a lot of money per student since the 1950's and every decade.
Books, calculators, computers, the internet, laptops, robot kits, new buildings, more computers and money.
The exams are not exclusive. The person just has t
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The USA gave the world modern computing. Both in terms of theory, production line design and global manufacture.
Traitorous eight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Nothing outside the USA is beyond what the USA can teach its own students.
The USA is still selecting most of its engineering students on merit. They have to pass exams and have to know their work.
Been rich does not grant a person the needed ability to st
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How does your post address the comment you quote at all?
Are you saying America has plenty of engineers now because we invented modern computing decades ago? That just doesnt follow at all.
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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.
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The USA has the freedoms the EU and other nations do not.
Freedom of speech.
That is bolocks.
No having to go to a gov to ask for investment, for permission to start a company
Thats bolocks.
to pay all new profits as a tax.
Corporate tax on profuts is between 20% and 25% all over Europe.
The jobs cant move to a Vancouver/Sydney/Dublin/Berlin/London as their system of laws are not set up to attract investors and keep tech jobs.
That is bollocks, of course the laws are set up to attrack any kind of job.
The USA has th
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You may have noticed you basically need to be rich to get a degree in America. Not so elsewhere in the world. I'm Australian, imported to Seattle on the strength of 6 yeas uni that cost me 30k.
I'm from the US, been working for 14 years from a 4 year degree that cost me $20k, move onto a master's degree that my company paid for. Costs are higher than they were, but the key to me is going to a good priced state college, rather than a 6 figure a year college that doesn't teach anything more.
Re: Why not employ skilled Americans? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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Agreed, there are more free rides in college than ever before, especially if you are not American.
Oh really? Mention a few if you can.
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You have posted this clap-trap reply at least 3 times on this article as an AC. If you are so sure of yourself why don't you act like an adult and put your name to it?
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They'd hire local if they could, but the talent doesn't exist in sufficient numbers at any price point.
I just don't believe it. Sure maybe the talent pool in the region is exhausted but they could certainly hire people away from the midwest or the east coast if they offered enough incentives. They don't need to be non-citizens. Finally if there is no domestic talent why is that?
Could it be because by allowing the mass outsourcing and insourcing of international labor we have allowed the capital owner class to effetively become international tourists? Is that why: they don't invest in our own communities.
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Perhaps they should consider older workers or open an office somewhere in the midwest where the cost of living is more reasonable.
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Then they're not all that serious about there being a shortage.
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If a business cannot afford to buy labor with certain talents at the going rate
For definitions of "afford" that include guaranteeing rich executive pay packages, stock buy-backs, a corporate jet.
American executives need to wake up and smell the coffee and start understanding their own personal enrichment is part of the cost structure.
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https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018/07/06/mar-lago-foreign-worker-visas/764053002/
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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
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$129k puts you into top 5% of the incomes in the US. These is pretty much the definition of a specialized high-qualification position.
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Why? Because they are hiring child labor?
Sigh.
Anonymous Coward, please turn off Fox news and go read a newspaper.
The average age of a Dreamer enrolled in DACA is 24 years.