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CBA hiring Indian ICT workers after firing Australians

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Re: CBA hiring Indian ICT workers after firing Australians

#71

Post by roenxi »

rayiner wrote: post #52
thoroughburro wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The future Canadian worker is a Canadian with Indian ancestry, you no doubt mean.

“In The Culture Transplant, Garett Jones documents the cultural foundations of cross-country income differences, showing that immigrants import cultural attitudes from their homelands—toward saving, toward trust, and toward the role of government—that persist for decades, and likely for centuries, in their new national homes. Full assimilation in a generation or two, Jones reports, is a myth. And the cultural traits…

True enough but probably not relevant to anything. Every society is already a patchwork of families with different beliefs that date back centuries. So noting that immigrants will form a complicated tapestry of new beliefs doesn't really bring much to the conversation - there wasn't subgroup of the host nation were they meant to assimilate with in an alternative scenario. The hypothetical culture that countries tell themselves they have appears to be mostly mythical.

So it turns out immigrants are just people too and behave in the only way they possibly can. Although maybe don't just let anyone in, dump them in the middle of nowhere and hope they turn out well. That'll probably end poorly. Setting people up with economic opportunities make for happy societies.

Re: CBA hiring Indian ICT workers after firing Australians

#72

Post by nyeah »

rayiner wrote: post #58
netbioserror wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming perfect assimilation happens. Otherwise you simply have a colony. If the colony outstrips the natives, they change the culture and eventually the governance of a place by right of conquest. Then they can change names and there's no denying it. States encompass territory, but nations are defined by their people and culture.

They don’t even need to achieve a majority. Look at New York City or urban New Jersey. You think those places are the same as they would have been had they remained British and Dutch?

It's been a ... little while since NYC was Dutch. Let me put my tricornered hat on and think carefully.

Re: CBA hiring Indian ICT workers after firing Australians

#73

Post by westpfelia »

komali2 wrote: post #56
logicchains wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a conspiracy theory to suggest that there's some deliberate elite conspiracy to replace white Canadians. It's not a conspiracy theory to state that if current demographic trends continue then whites (as in people with white skin) will be a minority there by the end of the century; it's basic extrapolation.

[flagged]

The problem isnt just "oh no canadian no have job"

the problem is people coming to canada on their version of the H1B visa and accepting jobs for 1/3 as much as canadians. Its the same problem as the US. Its not a racial problem its a socio-economic problem. These companies are trying to squeeze out every looney and tooney they can and the best way to do it is to replace your workforce with people who are willing to work for 1/3 as much just to be able to move there.

Re: CBA hiring Indian ICT workers after firing Australians

#74

Post by modo_mario »

hunglee2 wrote: post #43

Revenue maximisation is an 'embedded imperative' of companies a capitalist system, so of course these jobs will be migrated to where they can be done most productively; they will then be automated as soon as the roles become simplified and the AI becomes more advanced. This is neither 'right', not 'wrong' much less shameful; it is simply the logical extension of the socio-economic system we all willingly subscribe to…

>the socio-economic system we all willingly subscribe to

Do we subscribe to it willingly? I dare say there's been plenty of scenarios and places where the population would favour protectionism of some form but find their desire subverted by capital.

Re: CBA hiring Indian ICT workers after firing Australians

#75

Post by BobbyTables2 »

kypro wrote: post #16
CommanderData wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if sarcasm but let's just obliterate the west's middle class. I'm sure all will be fine.

We did it for all the working class jobs though? Plus the media says all economists agree that protectionist policies are bad... I read that paying workers first-world salary to make things in first-world countries will increase product and service costs which is bad for economy. Apparently if the West can't compete with third-world labour it's better to just outsource the those uncompetitive manual labour and servic…

Agree, but what’s left? How would countries that import everything, export little, actually survive?

Feels like in the medium term, the West survives by importing both goods and skilled engineers/researchers, because it provides a ready-made environment conducive for business. Feels like that is just an aberration that lower cost countries will eventually match.

I’m sick of “American tech startups” that consist of some US-based VC investors, a figurehead “founder”, a few beefy executives who only care about their headshot, and all engineering/manufacturing done in Asia.

It’s not like we can export our realtor and insurance salespeople to 3rd world countries either…

Re: CBA hiring Indian ICT workers after firing Australians

#76

Post by FirmwareBurner »

hunglee2 wrote: post #43

Revenue maximisation is an 'embedded imperative' of companies a capitalist system, so of course these jobs will be migrated to where they can be done most productively; they will then be automated as soon as the roles become simplified and the AI becomes more advanced. This is neither 'right', not 'wrong' much less shameful; it is simply the logical extension of the socio-economic system we all willingly subscribe to…

>the socio-economic system we all willingly subscribe to

Willingly? I don't remember being asked if I want to be replaced by an imported offshore worker.

Most workers don't want this version of capitalism, people want their politicians and businesses to prioritize the interests of local workers first. Hence why you see them voting for the most extreme and radical political candidates since the status quo have made it clear they see the locals as interchangeable cogs in the economic meat grinder.

Re: CBA hiring Indian ICT workers after firing Australians

#77

Post by BobbyTables2 »

komali2 wrote: post #54
kypro wrote: post #5

Isn't this good? I thought outsourcing meant we get cheaper goods like iPhones and laptops. Now we can outsource middle-class service jobs for cheaper services?

The thread you kicked off with this comment is one of my favorite I've read on HN in a while because it seems you've somehow gotten people to accidentally spout Marxist ideologies in the comments in their attempts to reconcile their belief in free market economics with the natural result of free market economics.

It’s also a national security argument. Not just in terms of military defense but also political/trade relations.

Entirely outsourcing all critical goods and services is foolish. Who wants to be vulnerable to the whims of other countries?

Re: CBA hiring Indian ICT workers after firing Australians

#78

Post by zdragnar »

DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #30
f1shy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> via contracing companies that force them to sign separate secret contracts that prevent them from pushing for their full legal rights under Australian labor law Where is the line between that and plain slavery?

Slaves are not paid wages. There’s no need to resort to hyperbole here, the practices are abhorrent enough without it.

Indentured service is often colloquially conflated with slavery, as the legal protections are removed and so too usually the freedom of association.

Re: CBA hiring Indian ICT workers after firing Australians

#79

Post by FirmwareBurner »

guiriduro wrote: post #53
RachelF wrote: post #31

Sadly Western IT workers are too expensive for the MBAs running modern corporations. Just before their last big US layoffs, Microsoft announced: "Microsoft is expanding our presence in India with a $3 billion investment"

Maybe the problem is the MBAs and letting them run your company? Surely AI could do a better job than most MBAs? The knowledge requirement is lower, the reasoning and analytical capability lower, just learn a few frameworks and glib vacuous McKinsey-speak, have an AI produce those meaningless powerpoints instead of expensive suits if the C-suite really needs to see it (also candidates for replacement), then instead i…

>Maybe the problem is the MBAs and letting them run your company?

The vast majority of companies in the world are run by MBAs. Welcome to the club.

SV companies were an exception to this rule for a short time in history since tech moved faster than the dinosaurs in suits could comprehend or regulate, so it made sense to put engineers in charge to innovate quickly. Having zero interest rate money also helped a lot.

But now that the tech market has matured and consolidated, it's becoming like all the other "uncool" traditional industries, run by MBAs. Except unlike those old traditional industries, there's no credential barrier to entry or unions to protect them, for better and worse.

Re: CBA hiring Indian ICT workers after firing Australians

#80

Post by kannanvijayan »

geraldwhen wrote: post #40
breitling wrote: post #34

Canadian banks, telecoms, and even retail chains, have been shamelessly replacing Canadian workers with Indians for decades. At this point, a plurality of our new immigrants come from one or two states in India. I would challenge you to go to a coffee shop in any major city and try to find a Canadian worker. Not sure what the future is for a Canadian worker, but it's bleak.

Based on immigration rates and birth rates, Canada will be mostly Indian at some point in the future. The “future Canadian worker” is Indian.

When I was a fresh immigrant child comments like these used to make me feel more uncomfortable than they do now. How I perceive these comments has changed over time.

What I want to address about this comment is the implicit identity associations involved. It's clear that you're drawing an identity distinction between "Canadian" and "Indian".

One of the things I've noticed about my own personal associations is that my own identity as an "Indian" kind of dissolved over the course of a decade or so after I immigrated as a child.

And when it evolved it didn't evolve in the direction of "Canadianness", for some generic definition thereof. My cultural identity broadened along horizons that had nothing to do with nationality.

When I think of "my tribe" now, it's on a values and interest basis. "My people" aren't Canadians or Indians, they're programmers and engineers and scientists and mathemeticians. Where I draw identity lines, it's no longer along national lines. My tribe's Gods are Turing and Church. Our saints are Torvalds and Carmack and Stroustrup and Van Rossum and Wall. We are friendly with the neighboring tribes that follow Euler and Goedel, as well as the yonder followers of Einstein and Newton and Feynman.

And I think that perspective dichotomy is reflective of an underlying deep shift in how people form identities, one that's being driven by the rise of instant, rich global communications through the internet.

So when I read comments like yours these days, I see yet another sign of the tension between that old structure and the new.

To bring this back to a Canadian context, Stephen Harper (former conservative PM) actually called this out very astutely a long time ago when talking about the Somewheres vs the Anywheres:

https://macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/stephen-harper-has-some-...

> Harper argues that today’s conservative populism deserves a respectful hearing because it harnesses the legitimate anxieties of the Somewheres, who haven’t been doing all that well in the globalized economy. As for the Anywheres, they don’t get it.

I'd only disagree about that last statement. I get it :) It's just that having been born in a very Somewhere place and having become an Anywhere, I really can't explain the depth of freedom you feel when you escape those identity bounds.

It's not that I don't understand the cultural perspective of the Somewheres. It's just that I see it as a prison.

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