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Silicon Valley can't import talent like before. So it's exporting jobs

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31–40 of 118 posts

Re: Silicon Valley can't import talent like before. So it's exporting jobs

#31
post #7

We warned everyone that this would happen [0] but HN fell for the populism trap. And no one on the Hill will do anything to impact services exports, especially for voters who work in maligned industries like Tech [1], Big Oil [2], and Wall Street [3] that are overwhelmingly concentrated in single party states like California, Washington, Texas, and New York and as such can't swing elections the same way an Autoworker…

I love how this is always framed as a "pipeline and talent" problem issue (its not), when it's really a "pipeline and talent at salaries I want to pay" issue.

I like paying as little as possible for everything I buy as well and so does everyone else reading this. So what's the problem?

Re: Silicon Valley can't import talent like before. So it's exporting jobs

#32
post #28

> If tech talent can’t come to the U.S., American companies will go where the talent is. LOL! They're going to send the jobs where the wages are cheaper, and that's exactly what they're doing. IIRC, my employer stopped offering new H1-B sponsorships in most cases, after they opened an office in India (10+ years ago). They didn't open the office because they had a hard time hiring in the US. They opened it because the…

I worked at Google for years. We simply hired as many people as we could find who could get through the process. If they were outside the US we would try to get them here. If not, we would find a spot for them outside. We would never hire a less qualified person simply because they could work in the US. We were always behind, to the point that having open “headcount” in an org was worth little, what you needed was pr…

This was the old Google, new Google lays off teams and moves them to India. New grad hiring is all but paused, hiring just enough to Seniors to backfill attrition and trying to slot them in at n-1 or n-2 levels.

Re: Silicon Valley can't import talent like before. So it's exporting jobs

#33
post #17

Good for India, as it should, for far too long there was a brain drain from India > US. India needs more entrepreneurs.

In narrow terms this is bad for Indian entrepreneurs since it drives up engineering costs for them. It's good for Indian tech employees though since they can demand higher compensation. In broad terms it's good for the Indian tech ecosystem (and the economy in general).

But not particularly good for the startup ecosystem; it could make it even less attractive to not take a corporate job

Re: Silicon Valley can't import talent like before. So it's exporting jobs

#34

> If tech talent can’t come to the U.S., American companies will go where the talent is. LOL! They're going to send the jobs where the wages are cheaper, and that's exactly what they're doing. IIRC, my employer stopped offering new H1-B sponsorships in most cases, after they opened an office in India (10+ years ago). They didn't open the office because they had a hard time hiring in the US. They opened it because the…

Why are Americans entitled to those jobs? If there are people in other countries happily willing to accept 1/10 of the pay do to the same work, why is it morally wrong deny them those jobs?

Re: Silicon Valley can't import talent like before. So it's exporting jobs

#35

This is a complete lie, they have been exporting jobs for a very long time.

Ah the classic “behavior X happened before, so an uptick in behavior X is not worth talking about!”

Not to mention that in this case, it is the opposite intended effect of new policies.

Re: Silicon Valley can't import talent like before. So it's exporting jobs

#36

> If tech talent can’t come to the U.S., American companies will go where the talent is. LOL! They're going to send the jobs where the wages are cheaper, and that's exactly what they're doing. IIRC, my employer stopped offering new H1-B sponsorships in most cases, after they opened an office in India (10+ years ago). They didn't open the office because they had a hard time hiring in the US. They opened it because the…

I think this is normal? You want free market to work only till it justifies the 200k salaries but not when it leads to similar increase elsewhere.

Re: Silicon Valley can't import talent like before. So it's exporting jobs

#37

We warned everyone that this would happen [0] but HN fell for the populism trap. And no one on the Hill will do anything to impact services exports, especially for voters who work in maligned industries like Tech [1], Big Oil [2], and Wall Street [3] that are overwhelmingly concentrated in single party states like California, Washington, Texas, and New York and as such can't swing elections the same way an Autoworker…

Warned? I knew this was going to happen and want to see more of it. I don't believe in government enforced discrimination based on country of origin. If you can't compete with someone overseas that's on you, don't make it my problem and don't go crying to the government to force others to hire you.

Re: Silicon Valley can't import talent like before. So it's exporting jobs

#38
post #8

We warned everyone that this would happen [0] but HN fell for the populism trap. And no one on the Hill will do anything to impact services exports, especially for voters who work in maligned industries like Tech [1], Big Oil [2], and Wall Street [3] that are overwhelmingly concentrated in single party states like California, Washington, Texas, and New York and as such can't swing elections the same way an Autoworker…

Yes I say you are right, but that only proves these companies only want to hire very cheap labor. There is talent in the US, all it takes is training. Decades ago companies would train new hires out of college, but that trend ended in the 90s. Wall Street started forcing these companies to chase fast market growth and high stock prices. In many cases profit has no meaning for these startups, the only metric is stock…

It’s less this but more that talent diversity is present elsewhere. You need constant supply of talent and a good ecosystem that sustains it.

Focusing talent only in a small geographical area has its own risks.

Re: Silicon Valley can't import talent like before. So it's exporting jobs

#39

> If tech talent can’t come to the U.S., American companies will go where the talent is. LOL! They're going to send the jobs where the wages are cheaper, and that's exactly what they're doing. IIRC, my employer stopped offering new H1-B sponsorships in most cases, after they opened an office in India (10+ years ago). They didn't open the office because they had a hard time hiring in the US. They opened it because the…

Why are Americans entitled to those jobs? If there are people in other countries happily willing to accept 1/10 of the pay do to the same work, why is it morally wrong deny them those jobs?

[dead]

Re: Silicon Valley can't import talent like before. So it's exporting jobs

#40
post #23

> If tech talent can’t come to the U.S., American companies will go where the talent is. LOL! They're going to send the jobs where the wages are cheaper, and that's exactly what they're doing. IIRC, my employer stopped offering new H1-B sponsorships in most cases, after they opened an office in India (10+ years ago). They didn't open the office because they had a hard time hiring in the US. They opened it because the…

The language people use is funny. When companies offshore skilled factory jobs to foreign countries, they call that "offshoring." But when it comes to programmers, they call it "going where the talent is." They act like programmers are in a different class than machinists.

In some ways they are.

For a bit of time I worked offshore for a company in the US. That was pure cost cutting, I was making probably around 5x-10x less than someone with similar skills in the US.

After a while I landed a job that required me to migrate to a different country. I actually make more here than the average salary for a local engineer.

I don't know many machinists that are hired from halfway across the globe, relocation costs included, to make more than the average machinist in the destination country.

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