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H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

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271–280 of 378 posts

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#271

Canada/Australia have thriving scene, but somehow the number of jobs is really low. There was a nice discussion on reddit about brain drain to Australia/Canada. https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/9l1pug/w... https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/9l3ueo/which_coun...

You won't have any trouble finding IT jobs in the big cities. But ironically enough, the difficulty of getting a visa in Australia has also been ratcheted up recently, meaning that many employers who would love to hire can't sponsor the visa...

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#272
post #118
post #2

As horrible as it sounds, in this specific respect, the current US administration has been really fantastic for Canada. More and more new grads are choosing to stay in the country and work with local tech companies, and we're experiencing a reverse brain-drain like never before.

From a Canadian viewpoint, the last couple of years of populism has been a bit like discovering your favorite Uncle has a probably lethal opiate addiction. But, you're going to get to inherit his Corvette.

>your favorite Uncle has a probably lethal opiate addiction.

are you talking about the crack smoking mayor?

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#273

I wonder how much of this is just the political winds. Under the George Bush days there were similar sentiments and attitudes, but it never went anywhere and SV still remained dominant. Canada has long tried to capitalize on the US political situation with mixed results. Salaries are low, most of Canada has poor weather and unaffordable housing prices in the major cities. I guess if you're willing to stick it out you…

Canada does not have "a far less valuable citizenship compared to other western countries". It's standard of living is (size of house, consumer spending power) is better than any large country except the USA. And the weather is not that different to Boston, Chicago, New York (for Toronto) and Seattle (for Vancouver). Canada won't develop a racism problem because 20% of the country are already immigrants and Canada do…

I live right on the coast, a stone's throw away from NYC. People here are racist as fuck. And my girlfriend was harassed in Germany and Austria for the color of her skin to such a degree that she had to cut her trip short. If the coastal US and Europe are your barometers, then Canada has a racism problem too.

I really despise this kind of regionalism because it allows real problems to be smugly swept under the rug. I don't know where you live exactly, but people there most likely aren't inherently any more righteous than people elsewhere.

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#274
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As more of the best engineering talent moves to Canada (or decides not to come to the US in the first place), it should: 1) increase salaries in the Bay Area in the short-term as their a shortage of engineers 2) decrease salaries in Canada in the short-term as their is a surplus of engineers The more interesting thing to consider is whether US tech companies will begin to build out more aggressively in Canada instead…

More importantly, with more and more talent present in Canada, more and more startup funding will move there.

I'm not sure that's true. Availability of VC capital is a tricky thing. There's some in Canada but only seems to be in small pockets. The startup scene in Vancouver is so small that basically everyone knows everyone else, for example. Vancouver is also suffering a real estate crisis that is worse than Silicon Valley's. I think it really takes large institutional draws to make a serious dent in the size of a talent pool that would ultimately draw larger VCs.

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't particularly matter when you can't get or retain a visa to work in the US. Maybe salaries in those places will increase as a result.

It will be interesting to see if this is true, or whether they will go down and the local workforce will be negatively impacted as a result. Conversely, it will be interesting to see whether salaries for US techies will go up, or older people will have more opportunities. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Interest in offshore talent will go up. The US is lagging in education and can't fulfill the need for cost effective talent. The benefit of developers being in the US is not much of a benefit globally.

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#276
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USCIS considers pretty much everything that results in monetary gains (other than investing) as "working". Even renting your own house counts as working, so people on H1B can't do that either.

That’s not true. Passive income (like renting out your room/house) is not considered work unless you spent a lot of time on it e.g. AirBnB.

What if you clean up after your guests leave instead of cleaning it yourself? Or do the work of renting it out yourself instead of hiring a property manager Or renovate your home to create room(s) to rent out?

What if the renter plugs a toilet and you unplug it yourself instead of hiring a plumber?

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#277
post #110

As someone who is contemplating this move, I can share some thoughts. First, money isn’t the force that’s driving immigrants out of India and into the US, Canada etc. Among the people I know and including myself, the top driving forces are safety, good governance, clean air and water. While living in the US has the benefit of higher pay, it comes at a significant cost. Here is a short list of things I can not do whil…

re: crypto mining, that’s funny. I thought a passive activity like crypto mining is allowed as long as one doesn’t actively “work” on it. Maybe the NAFTA/USMCA rules are different?

How is crypto mining anything different than gold mining? If I invest in $$$ equipment and land to mine gold, do I only pay capital gains taxes for the value of the gold mined? Of course not.

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In America you're more likely to get violently harmed. More likely to become truly poor. all these only apply to lower income ppl in US not to ppl on h1b, they can simply move back to higher middle class in India if things go wrong.

I can't tell if this comment is ironic or not. But I'll bite anyway. The choice is between H1B in Canada vs H1B in US. Presumably permanent residency is the plan, so "simply moving back to India" isn't the plan if things go wrong 5 years later.

It's hard to ignore the trolls. The phrase "simply move back" is always a clear flag that someone has no idea what they're talking about.

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#279

Isn't compensation, even after adjusting for cost of living and health insurance, much lower in Canada than anywhere in the U.S.?

As more of the best engineering talent moves to Canada (or decides not to come to the US in the first place), it should: 1) increase salaries in the Bay Area in the short-term as their a shortage of engineers 2) decrease salaries in Canada in the short-term as their is a surplus of engineers The more interesting thing to consider is whether US tech companies will begin to build out more aggressively in Canada instead…

By HQ3 do you mean HQ2 (the one Amazon is currently in the process for selecting a city for), or are you talking about a theoretical far future new new HQ?

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The half-of-salary thing is a bit rich. Tech people unknowingly push up their second or third sigma downside in America and cost of living is hard to compare. In America you're more likely to get violently harmed. More likely to become truly poor. More likely to develop life-long medical conditions. Don't have actuarially balanced government pension (SS accounting is off book, CPP is fully funded). Higher net-debt-to…

I really like Toronto, but cost of living is high (one of the largest housing bubbles in the world, high taxes), salaries are low and jobs (not only in tech) are scarce. In the States you won't find engineers, doctors, accountants working in the supermarkets/starbucks. Go to any store in Richmond Hill/North York and you will see plenty. There is an ugly truth that people don't like to discuss much, Canada accepts too…

It's not because Canada is accepting a lot of professionals relative to the lesser number of jobs.

Canada's institutions do not accept the immigrant professional's academic credentials, training or their work experience.

A general nurse with 15 years of work experience from India cannot practice the same job duties in Canada due to this restrictions. So they resort to other jobs like home care.

A lot of immigrant nurses in Québec who are from India and Philippines are working in factories now because Québec nurse's association do not recognize their nursing degrees.

The doctors who immigrate drive taxis in Toronto because their credentials are not recognized.

Unlike in the US, for some reason Canadian regulatory bodies have a hard time recognizing credentials of immigrant professionals there by forcing them to take up another job.

A colleague tells me there is this Canadian doctor's and nurses lobby which "protects" the Canadian professional order from immigrant professionals who have come to take up their jobs.

Right now, only IT professionals are accepted as they are. Every other professionals immigrating to Canada should be prepared to re certify their professions or take up additional courses.

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