Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

U.S. immigration policy has been a boon for the tech industry in Canada

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 424 posts

Re: U.S. immigration policy has been a boon for the tech industry in Canada

#251

Post by thbr99 »

agilebyte wrote: post #233
thbr99 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately Québec do not have a working skilled immigration system yet. Québec do not follow rest of Canada's immigration system. The CAQ govt. of Québec has completely messed up the immigration system of Québec. Québec focuses on knowledge of French rather than other merits for their immigration, so they get a huge chunk of unskilled immigrants who speaks only French with no employable skills.

You can still apply for a Permanent Residence outside of Quebec and then drive/fly to Quebec though which is 5/1 hour away respectively.

That is ethically wrong even though a Canadian PR allows you to live and work anywhere in Canada including Québec.

I was speaking more to the high skilled foreign workers in Québec who have to wait years for a permanent residency because they work & reside in Québec. This delay also applies to foreign students in Québec who wants to apply for permanent residency after their studies. Québec is not a good choice for foreign workers and students in Québec who wants a permanent residency. Rest of Canada follows Express Entry but those who work or reside in Québec is not eligible for the fast track process. One country two rules.

Re: U.S. immigration policy has been a boon for the tech industry in Canada

#252

Post by hwbehrens »

scarface74 wrote: post #245
linuxftw wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And our company has stopped hiring more tech workers in the US because they don’t want to have to deal with this anymore So, your company only hires people on visas? That's outrageous.

You quoted that he said he stopped hiring tech workers in the US how did you get out of that he only hires people with Visas instead of he stopped hiring people in the US period.

> because they don’t want to have to deal with this anymore

I think it's a reasonable conclusion for the parent to draw, since domestic workers wouldn't have to "deal with this". Thus, stopping all hiring to avoid dealing with visa problems implies a linkage between hiring and visas.

Re: U.S. immigration policy has been a boon for the tech industry in Canada

#253

Post by lr »

jzulli wrote: post #247
zerr wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why your company and employee didn't start H1B to green card conversion process?

My thoughts exactly.

As far as I can tell, this House-passed Bill has yet to pass the Senate: https://qz.com/india/1663752/indian-h-1b-holders-may-be-one-...

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/386...

Therefore, someone from India can't just "start H1B to green card conversion process."

Re: U.S. immigration policy has been a boon for the tech industry in Canada

#254

Post by blaser-waffle »

USA-ian in Canada here. Been able to work remotely for US firms consistently for going on ~5 years here.

I hope these changes drive up tech salaries in Canada -- I fear they won't. Currently they're about 20-40% less than the US particularly due to the currency difference. Cost of living is also a bit higher, and absolutely insane in Vancouver (and a lesser degree, Toronto).

I suspect it will continue the H-1B trend, in that it companies won't pay better wages, just outsource to cheaper Canadian labor, who are in turn taxed higher and squeezed harder.

Re: U.S. immigration policy has been a boon for the tech industry in Canada

#255

Post by tgflynn »

Retric wrote: post #167
blackrock wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The desert sounds like a good place to harvest the sun. Install some solar panels, and use it to crack water, to make hydrogen, and convert it to ammonia. Australia can power the next fuel cell revolution.

That’s taking a huge efficiency hit over using batteries while costing more money. What’s the goal?

Liquid hydrogen and liquid ammonia have almost 10x the energy density of current battery technology. If you could go all the way to synthesized hydrocarbons it's another 2x.

I'm not sure efficiency matters that much when you have far more energy production capacity than you need but it's concentrated in places and times where you can't use it.

As for costing more: compared to what ? Batteries don't seem like an economically effective option for storing solar energy at massive scale, do they ? And in any case they don't allow the stored energy to be shipped to other locations.

Re: U.S. immigration policy has been a boon for the tech industry in Canada

#256

Post by blaser-waffle »

mabbo wrote: post #166
jariel wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a problematic comparison because few people in Canada earns $170K CAD writing software unless they are contracting for the government. Even then. There are a few people lucky enough to 'make the deal' that you have. Also, there are very few 'great companies' in Canada to work for, that can leverage high end talent - Canada is 1/10th the size of the US and spends less than 1/2 on R&D per capita. This is because C…

Amazon has 1300 people in Toronto, nearly all devs. For an sde2, 170k CAD total comp (salary + RSUs) is pretty typical. Vancouver office had 2200 people, similar situation.

Currently the exchange rate is .77, so $170k CAD is $128,025.30 USD.

That's nothin to shake a stick at, but by NYC, DC, Seattle, LA, SF, etc. rates it is middling.

Meanwhile, SDE2 at Amazon or others is like $200K USD, at least according to HN a year ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18439144

Seattle is expensive as hell these days, but Vancouver still blows it out of the water, and Toronto isn't cheap either; an improvement over SV or Manhattan, for sure, but not like Raleigh-Durham or rural Arkansas.

Re: U.S. immigration policy has been a boon for the tech industry in Canada

#257

Post by jbay808 »

amatecha wrote: post #66
tengbretson wrote: post #63

Companies that are nowhere near as successful as those in the US, developer salaries that are nowhere near those in the US. I don't think I get it.

Those wildly successful US companies have Canadian offices too, usually ;)

For some reason, they generally seem to have a policy of paying significantly less for the same role in their Canadian office.

Re: U.S. immigration policy has been a boon for the tech industry in Canada

#258

Post by jdright »

eralps wrote: post #230

As unfortunate as this is, I think this only applies to Indians and Chinese. I was surprised to see Yoluk did not want to bother applying to jobs in the US. I am a foreign person from ROW (Rest of the World) in the US studying with F1 visa and trying to immigrate here via employment based options. I have friends who also immigrated to Germany and Britain. The process is definitely easier and guaranteed there but for…

I keep being head hunted to work on SF/SV. And my reply is basically automatic and always the same:

"Due to US external policy and cost of life I can't see it being financially practical to move. Although, I would gladly consider any remote position."

I think the immigration complexity is the lesser problem there. My research based on housing, school, transport and food tells me it looks like absurdly expensive. To be able to even consider to move there I would need a salary bump of 3x-5x. No way this will ever happen.

Re: U.S. immigration policy has been a boon for the tech industry in Canada

#259

Post by jrs95 »

blaser-waffle wrote: post #234
dmurdoch wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'd like some numbers to back up the government comment. I live in Ottawa, my SO works for government as does many many friends. I make more then all of them. If you speak french, then maybe this is true as you can move up to director etc. but the VAST majority of the people I know in government do not make more than devs I know.

I'm a USA-ian in Canada, working remotely. I'm in a big Canadian city, we have a hockey team. The average IT salaries where I live are in the ballpark of 70-100k Canadian Dollars (CAD) -- at least according to Indeed.ca, LinkedIn, and Glassdoor. Given a 20-30% currency difference that's capping out at around $80K US Dollars (USD). Not terrible by US national standards, but not impressive for tech; i.e EMC offered me…

Yeah that doesn’t seem great I make 25% more than that with 5 years experience and no degree in the Midwest. Salaries here have risen so a large number of mid level people are making 6 figures. Even at some banks and retail/e-commerce companies that are a lot more corporate and old school.

Re: U.S. immigration policy has been a boon for the tech industry in Canada

#260

Post by kyawzazaw »

eralps wrote: post #230

As unfortunate as this is, I think this only applies to Indians and Chinese. I was surprised to see Yoluk did not want to bother applying to jobs in the US. I am a foreign person from ROW (Rest of the World) in the US studying with F1 visa and trying to immigrate here via employment based options. I have friends who also immigrated to Germany and Britain. The process is definitely easier and guaranteed there but for…

I am in a similar position. Yes, you can work with OPT but apart from the very top companies and a few consulting shops, it has become much harder to get employment on it.

And from H-1B to greencard, you again need company sponsorship.

Canada looks good now because with Express Entry, you can become a PR relatively fast and from there within 5 years, you get citizenship. From there, getting work in the US as a tech worker can be much easier through a TN visa.

Post reply on HN