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Vancouver tech surges as U.S. immigration reform idles

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Re: Vancouver tech surges as U.S. immigration reform idles

#151

Post by potatolicious »

notastartup wrote: post #129

- B.C.'s tech industry has many exploitative employers - B.C.'s tech market is underpayed, below national average. - B.C.'s living cost on average exceeds the average salary. - B.C.'s high real estate cost results in many house poor population. - B.C.'s political party places far more labor rights on nurses and people cutting down trees. - B.C. has a problem of bleeding talent to other provinces because of above reas…

Yeah, I was raised in Vancouver and like the lifestyle enough, but moving back is a complete non-starter. Vancouver's tech salaries are lower than other Canadian metro areas, which are themselves far lower than US salaries.

I'm literally making 3x more here in NYC than a similar position in Vancouver. And housing prices (purchase, not rent) are scarily not that much lower than Manhattan.

The general small size of the tech industry also means that if you don't like this underpaid arrangement you're not exactly a very abundant job market. Vancouver is a huge employer's market, which works out great for founders, but not great for employees.

Vancouver is a lovely city - I have a lot of sentimental attachments to it - but the economics of it for employees is nonsense.

Re: Vancouver tech surges as U.S. immigration reform idles

#152

Post by davidw »

rdtsc wrote: post #127
inoop wrote: post #66

Earlier this year I interviewed for a research/engineering position at Apple. I was offered the job, took it, and went into the H1B lottery. It took the USCIS four months to let me know that my application was not selected, even though it was filed under 'premium processing', and the draw had been done using a computer in the first week after submissions closed. Since the job required me to be in Cupertino, the deal…

Just curious, what would you have done to fix the root issue -- handling a large number of H1B requests? One answer is well why should there be a cap. Well there is a cap and one reason is probably because opening the gates wide open will skew the job market in US. For better or for worse it is hard to say but if you ask those in US they might say for worse. So there is a cap. (And obviously it is being pushed agains…

> if you ask those in US they might say for worse.

Rather than ask J Random Dude in the US, you should probably ask someone with a modicum of expertise in the matter, such as an economist, who will tell you that adding people is generally a net positive, rather than a negative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy

60% of the largest high tech companies were founded by immigrants or their children: http://pando.com/2013/05/29/mary-meeker-highlights-us-immigr...

Re: Vancouver tech surges as U.S. immigration reform idles

#153

Post by jtzhou »

afafsd wrote: post #147
mschuster91 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Other countries with huge immigration demand include England and Spain Spain is just wanted due to the proximity to Africa and a lot of African immigrants/refugees using this vector. > There are simply better ways of dealing with high immigration demand than "dump everyone into a pot regardless of education/experience/viability/urgency and randomly select a few". We Germans deal with asylum seekers by putting > 2.5…

Ah, y'see that's why we, in Australia, stick our asylum seekers in camps in different countries like Nauru and Papua New Guinea, where whatever problems they cause are safely out of sight. My opinion is that the world seriously needs a new refugee convention to prevent economic migrants from abusing the refugee system. The governing idea should be that you can't use refugee status to move from a poorer country to a s…

Great idea but hard to enforce, unless the country is Israel or an island. It's amazing how many migrants are trying to get illegally across the English Channel from France to the UK because of better benefits and jobs.

Meanwhile, Yazidi and Syrian refugees will have to pay thousands to smugglers or scale barbed wire fences to enter a safe country.

Re: Vancouver tech surges as U.S. immigration reform idles

#154

Post by allengeorge »

turar wrote: post #19

This is a repeat of the same story that happened the last time H-1B limit didn't meet the demand for visas. US tech companies, most notably Microsoft, opened "offices" in Vancouver. What happens next is that those employees will work for 1 year in Canada, and then will become eligible for L-1 intra-company transfer back to the US, side-stepping the H-1B quagmire.

Sadly, probably quite true. It's truly unfortunate - it really doesn't help Canada hold on to tech talent.

Re: Vancouver tech surges as U.S. immigration reform idles

#155

Post by Xylakant »

afafsd wrote: post #148
cperciva wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if we ever start a second YC location, this will be the reason Please do. Tarsnap will apply to be part of YC Vancouver if it happens. (I'm assuming that if you create a YC somewhere outside of the US it would be in Vancouver, because really, nowhere else in the world is anywhere near as awesome.) FWIW, I think there's two "markets" of which you've only mentioned one -- in addition to founders who can't get U…

> I know plenty of talented Canadians and Europeans who don't want to live in the US due to the current political climate. Don't worry, Obama will be gone in '16!

Obama is not the political climate.

Re: Vancouver tech surges as U.S. immigration reform idles

#156

Post by Tiktaalik »

I've found it odd that for so long there hasn't been many Vancouver branch offices of Silicon Valley tech companies as it seems like a perfect fit. Vancouver offers cheaper employees, the same time zone as Silicon Valley, and an attractive, livable city* perfect for luring talent.

It's good to see that things are finally changing, even if for some companies it seems they're setting up purely for immigration purposes. Hopefully even if these US immigration issues pass, these companies will realize the advantages Vancouver offers and continue to stick around.

* Highest rated North American city and 15th overall according to Monocle Magazine's 2014 Quality of Life city rankings.

Re: Vancouver tech surges as U.S. immigration reform idles

#157

Post by jtzhou »

exstudent wrote: post #63
x0x0 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Claiming not wanting open borders == xenophobia is, well, good luck with that, champ.

Why don't you want open borders? You haven't said why it's bad.

Immigration is very important for all countries, but assimilation takes time. (If you believe in the country enough to want to immigrate there, then the existing culture must have some value.)

Ask Syria, Iraq or South Sudan, how they are enjoying their open borders. Meanwhile, Iceland, Japan and other countries are doing fine. Arguably, they could be richer if they allowed in more immigrants, but I'll take the rule of law over the chaos of uncontrolled borders.

Re: Vancouver tech surges as U.S. immigration reform idles

#158

Post by trusche »

disbelief wrote: post #96
pekk wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American citizens are not entitled to work in the EU. If an American wants to plan their long-term life around working in the EU, that is far from a sure thing. Even with a masters and PhD. So why should the US be singled out for this?

Countries in the EU (and elsewhere) have more sane immigration systems. As a Canadian having immigrated to both Germany and the US, I can say that the US system is at least two orders of magnitude more difficult, costly, needlessly complicated, and in the end a lot of it comes down to luck (most of it bad). Germany has no lottery system, and renewal is very straightforward. I applied for my visa while in Germany as a…

This. For comparison, when I had to renew my H1B for another 3 years, I had to leave the country and fly to Berlin for my "visa interview". But first I had to send them my passport, which of course I needed to get into Germany first. So after a lot of expense, several days of wasted time, and anxiety if the courier would deliver my passport on time, the "interview" took all of one minute (handing me my passport back with the Visa stamp). Well, two hours, actually, with going through security and waiting in line. Kafka comes to mind.

Re: Vancouver tech surges as U.S. immigration reform idles

#159

Post by tadfisher »

davidw wrote: post #152
rdtsc wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, what would you have done to fix the root issue -- handling a large number of H1B requests? One answer is well why should there be a cap. Well there is a cap and one reason is probably because opening the gates wide open will skew the job market in US. For better or for worse it is hard to say but if you ask those in US they might say for worse. So there is a cap. (And obviously it is being pushed agains…

> if you ask those in US they might say for worse. Rather than ask J Random Dude in the US, you should probably ask someone with a modicum of expertise in the matter, such as an economist, who will tell you that adding people is generally a net positive, rather than a negative. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy 60% of the largest high tech companies were founded by immigrants or their children: http…

I am a Random Dude, and my first assumption is that bringing a highly-skilled, highly-paid person into this country would result in more taxes being paid and more goods and services being purchased.
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