
Countries that are reducing numbers of immigrant workers - silentguy
https://qz.com/963530/h-1b-its-not-just-trumps-america-indian-techies-are-unwanted-from-east-to-west/
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palerdot
As a matter of fact, in India, engineers mostly avoid service based Indian
companies like Infosys, CTS, TCS unless otherwise they are in the extreme
bottom end of the funnel (they just need a job) or at the extreme top end
(disproportionate high pay).

These firms are notorious for their carrot (probable on-site opportunities)
and stick (mindless work hours clocking among others) approach, and their
typical workplace is full of discontent and frustration. Just for an example,
I have known people working there who were trying to game the clocking system
by finding a bug that allowed them to leave early provided they clock before
midnight from any of the offices which would increase their clocking hours.

That aside, these firms are just a small part of the actual tech scene in
India, except they have sheer numbers when it comes to the H1B process, which
kind of projects these firms as representative entities of Indian engineers.

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letitgo12345
While many Indians seeking employment abroad are impacted a lot by these
changes, I don't think the sentiment behind these changes has much to do with
Indian people per se. There's a global backlash against too much immigration
in general. Indians are just caught in the mix.

~~~
posguy
People are tired of the corporate owned politicians allowing companies to run
roughshod over the laws, morals & expectations of society.

This is expressed in many ways, from xenophobia to the rise of Bernie Sanders
& Donald Trump. People don't want another corporate owned shill like either of
the Clintons, both Bushes, and Obama, and I'd wager that Obama knew this in
2008, hence why he made sure his moderately grassroots organization was put
out to pasture safely.

We need to stop the union busting, bring back workers rights, prosecute
Walmart & T-Mobile for their union response teams (where most potentially
"infected" employees are fired), and fight for a better future.

I think we should open our borders, but when it comes to employment we should
strive to avoid what has happened in Canada, where low cost workers from
overseas work at every single Tim Hortons.

~~~
sanswork
If they didn't want a corporate owned shill why did they elect a corporate
shill?

>where low cost workers from overseas work at every single Tim Hortons.

This isn't reality I think you need to check your information sources.

~~~
JetSpiegel
Trump shills for himself, while the others are much more nebulous.

~~~
pimmen89
We have to take it on faith because we have no tax returns to check who he
owns money too.

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anilgulecha
Nationalistic tribalism, such as we're seeing now, usually comes and goes as a
cycle.

My hypothesis: Increasing automation puts pressure on the job market, leading
to such sentiment. We're seeing this effect, the world over. And India being
the largest low-cost English-speaking tech-center will feel this effect the
largest.

I guess the silver lining is that this will stop the brain-brain from India,
hopefully leading to a more stronger local tech and other industries.

~~~
robjan
I wouldn't say it's all down to populism and tribalism. The company I worked
for in the UK laid off over 1000 local IT staff and replaced them with people
on Tier 2 visas from Tata Consultancy Services and Tech Mahindra who were
willing to work for significantly less than our salaries.

~~~
anilgulecha
Agreed that the replacement happens.

I'm saying "give jobs to locals than outsiders" is tribalism. (Not saying if
it's right or wrong -- just that it's by definition tribalism).

~~~
robjan
Not sure if it's tribalism so much as protecting the local economy against
salary arbitrage.

~~~
godzilla82
Are the products of your "local economy" sold locally. If not, then you have
no right to claim protection.

~~~
en3rme
People don't want what's fair, people want what's better for them.

I don't want my wage to lower just so people in the third world can live
better because I, honestly, don't give a fuck about them. That's the sentiment
that's rising lately.

~~~
pimmen89
And this is where the tribalism comes in to play. At some point, governments
have to do what's fair and not what the angry mob they represents want. White
Europeans might've wanted colonialism hundreds of years ago, and to this day
some people don't really care when their military commits war crimes against
"them".

It's hard for me to sympathise with the view that "the real unfairness here is
that people born in miserable conditions are happy to do my job for less, so
I'm the victim here".

~~~
restalis
_" At some point, governments have to do what's fair and not what the angry
mob they represents want."_

Fair to whom? A government has to be fair primarily to their subjects. It's
their subject's trust and resources that mandate government's power. Outsiders
haven't contributed with nothing prior to their coming so it's unfair to give
them equal amount of consideration about anything in the first place.

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newsat13
I hope the India govt moves fast now. The should take this opportunity to
improve local infrastructure and put in reforms for a domestic software
economy. The TCS, Infosys & Wipro helped kickstart the software revolution in
India but they need to take this to a better conclusion than it is now. We
need product based companies in India and we need a strong local domestic
market. It needs to retain it's talent at home. Any Indians want to chime in
on whether this is likely? I hear great things about Modi.

~~~
sreenadh
TCS, Infosys & Wipro are more of a sweatshops than innovative companies...

~~~
geodel
They weren't from day one. At some point the idea and implementation of cost
arbitrage was itself innovation.

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usgroup
As a small business owner, revenue streams are fickle these days. It makes pay
as you go, zero hour labour alluring even if it's more expensive because it
can be planned according to the revenue stream.

This same discipline leads one to encapsulate work better. A senior data
scientist goes for £700/d in London; theres a significant advantage to being
able to use her counterpart in Delhi.

It is salary arbing. It is also inevitable. Companies buy services that they
could perform themselves more often than not, in order to keep focus on core
business. After a certain price they don't.

Forcing the immigrants away pushes up prices, which literally changes the
internals of companies and how and what they buy over time. this is constantly
afoot but there's an inherent risk that any given change may be for the worse.

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superasn
Being an Indian engineer myself the funniest part is that regardless of your
branch/stream almost every person in my college got an IT job (your branch is
decided by the entrance test).

We had a saying about TCS in our college "trespassers will be recruited". And
they asked chemical engineering and GK questions during the placement tests.
It was so weird when I think about it now.

~~~
pkaye
What are examples are branch/stream? Are they just different engineering
majors like Civil, Chemical, Mechanical?

~~~
superasn
Yes that is exactly it.

Competition is really fierce in Indian engineering colleges. The ratio is 1
out 10K (or something similar) for getting into good colleges so you end up
picking any branch you can get.

I'm not sure how it is in other countries though.

~~~
pkaye
Kind of the same in the US. Some majors are "impacted" which means tougher to
get in due to heavy demand. Computer science/engineering used to be tough to
get into even 20 years back before the internet became popular.

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guelo
If India were smart they would copy China and ban Facebook, Google and the
rest of the American web companies. This would have the effect of creating
powerhouse Indian web companies similar to Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, etc in
China which are now starting to break out to become global brands. India more
than has the talent to pull this off.

~~~
palerdot
China didn't ban those web companies for using their local talent. They did it
as part of their censorship practices. There are plenty of Indian people
working now in Google, Facebook etc. Google CEO itself is an Indian. It would
be extremely foolish of any government to ban any entity solely to create an
alternative with the hope of utilising its local talent. In India, so far this
kind of discussions is solely focused on getting tax concessions for home
grown companies (like for Flipkart, Ola which are Indian Amazon, Uber
respectively). Even then, they are faced with lot of flak, since their
investor money is mostly from abroad.

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oceanghost
People recognize Indian engineers (competent or not, racism or no) as the
weapons of wage suppression.

~~~
SamUK96
I mean, when you put your "scum-bag profit or nothing boss" thinking hat on,
it makes so much sense.

You can hire these people, and they'll accept extremely noncompetitive wages
(lowers wages), over-saturates the labour market (lowers wages), AND gives a
nice boost to PR because on the outside it seems like this company is
"diversely hiring from all backgrounds".

Great!

~~~
oceanghost
All the people who didn't wear that hat-- got fired by the people who did.

------
zac99
1.I don’t agree with the author, issue is local job loss due to immigration
2.Don’t forget Google and Microsoft CEO’s are INDIAN Engineers 3.Looks odd A
Global leader Country advocating protectionism 4.Rather than job loss at micro
level check How many Job loss due to wrong practice by companies to make more
profits check “double-Irish” tax system used by Google, Apple and Oracle
5.Check Job loss due to scandals Enron,Lehman brothers [http://www.accounting-
degree.org/scandals/](http://www.accounting-degree.org/scandals/) 6.Yes its
eye opener for Indians only focusing on services thats why we don’t have
Baidu,Yandex and QQ What will happen If every country started nationalism,
protectionism and avoids Products made by other countries? Who will hurt more?

------
contingencies
I met an Aussie guy here in Shenzhen this week who is quite wealthy indeed and
who actually wants to spend money to bring some manufacturing to Australia
from China.

Unfortunately, he can't get a visa for the one (Chinese) employee who really
needs it (to plan out the factory and begin many million dollars of
investment), and can't get a reason why out of the immigration department.
Nobody in Australia can do the job because they don't have experience with
current gear (Australian manufacturing is today basically a few specialist,
legacy facilities and some defense-related stuff only) and it's only
documented in Chinese.

Because the guy is wealthy and well connected and Australia is a small place,
he managed to get some phone calls directly with the Immigration Minister, Mr.
D., who essentially said "re-apply, I can't do anything". Meanwhile, the
target region (with no jobs) has lost 200 planned jobs (including 30%
committed to be allocated to disabled workers, and others likely to be
allocated to challenged demographics such as aged workers) and the significant
accompanying economic stimulation from the planned facility, and the guy is
paying 10s of 1000s a month in opportunity costs. True story, this week.

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threeseed
What a rubbish article.

In Australia for example it has NOTHING to with Indians and the situation is
basically the same in all the countries listed. It is pure politics within the
right-wing governments in power caused by the rise of nationalism, the
struggles of blue collar workers who have been left behind and the fear of
terrorism.

Politicians are so scared of being flanked by the right (e.g. Tony Abbott in
Australia) that they are pushing the anti-immigrant angle at every
opportunity. But if you look at the details you will see that any immigration
changes are more about "feeling good" than doing anything substantive. For
example recent changes in Australia have seen a "values" test added which is
hilariously pointless. And in fact we have made it easier for highly skilled
migrants to enter the country e.g. Indian IT consultants.

------
joelthelion
All these returning engineers might be a great opportunity for India.

~~~
stuaxo
There will be a personal cost to many many of them becoming unemployed, but
you are right - there will be some companies starting out this.

------
masondixon
> Countries that are reducing numbers of immigrant workers

Is this headline accurate? Are numbers of immigrant workers reducing?

The H1B visa program is always over-subscribed more than 4x so if the number
of applicants decreases, there is still the same number coming in.

Every country looks to be trying to reduce low-skilled immigration which is
fair enough.

Its tiring these days that every headline is made alarmist by lumping all
immigrants into one big group. Illegal immigration vs legal immigration is
always referred to as simply "immigration". Low skilled vs high skilled =
immigrant. Temporary working visa vs. foreign-born US citizen = immigrant.

------
n0pn0p
A rare example of government legislation being ahead of private sector
practice.

------
golergka
Despite the title of the article, I see one thing unmentioned: general
reputation of incompetence. However, nearly everybody I know in IT, from
different countries and backgrounds, knows "Indian code" to be a meme of not
only bad quality but gross, mind-boggling incompetence.

I don't have a personal experience with indian companies and/or engineers, so
don't have a personal opinion on that matter. If anything, it seems strange to
me to translate an opinion about outsourcing companies from a poor country to
top engineers from that country immigrating abroad. But regardless of whether
that opinion is valid or not, people believe it and it certainly has an
impact.

~~~
cryodesign
I've met a few brilliant Indian engineers. I asked one of them why he was
different to his peers.

He explained that most of his peers don't enjoy or like what they are doing.
They chose to become a developer, because it's a potential path to become a
'manager', which has a higher status in the eyes of their parents, friends and
family.

Edit: But we have to be careful not to stereo type. I think a comment made
here is pretty good 'Shit code doesn't have nationality'. We just need to
understand the motivators for people to become an engineer and if the joy of
creating something with code isn't up there and it's mainly about money or a
stepping stone to higher status, then code quality will suffer as it seems.

~~~
thewhitetulip
True, I am an Indian engineer living in India and have written one of the most
user friendly guides to writing webapps in Go,
[https://github.com/thewhitetulip/web-dev-golang-anti-
textboo...](https://github.com/thewhitetulip/web-dev-golang-anti-textbook)

Thus, we can't just generalize.

~~~
cryodesign
Thanks for sharing that link. A developer friend wants to explore GO, so I'll
be forwarding your work.

~~~
thewhitetulip
The pleasure is mine :)

Thank you for forwarding!

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Kurtz79
I don't really get why the submission title was changed from the initial
"Everywhere Indian engineers are unwanted," to the current one, since the
former is the literal title in the linked article and its actual focus ?

I'm all for having reasonable Politically Correctness on HN, it just seems
weird in this case.

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rebossz
Visas are essential only for jobs for which face-2-face spitting is deemed a
must. I am a programmer. I do not remember to ever have done a project where
this was the case. If the client insists on unimportant issues, already when
just recruiting programmers, what is the likelihood that his project will NOT
fail? Every piece of bullshit is always just the beginning. You should expect
an entire avalanche of bullshit to follow after that. In that sense, Indian
programmers who worry about visas, undoubtedly deserve to worry about them,
while the ones who don't worry about visas, know exactly why they do not need
to worry about them.

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bendermon
American salaries along with low taxes are way more attractive even compared
to Nordic countries which apart from high taxes also have some of the highest
living costs in the world.

The whole debate on suppressing incomes is quite debatable. Though one can see
the argument for people who have spent decades working exclusively on legacy
systems. When these become cost centres, companies try and outsource them.

The brief period that I spent working for an Indian outsourcer, I noticed
almost every project was about maintenance of legacy systems.

~~~
posguy
Bringing in low cost foreign workers to maintain a system directly drags down
the average wage, hurting Americans in the IT industry and lowering their
income & benefits. Foreign workers are a tool that companies like to use to
scare IT workers away from organizing & unionizing, keeping the Americans they
do employ under foot and poorly paid.

As an example, Kroger has a support center for its Fred Meyer brand of stores
in Portland, OR. As of last year, they were paying $12hr while expecting in
depth networking knowledge, familiarity with SUSE & SunOS, and the ability to
write moderately complex scripts for these legacy systems.

Comparatively, another employee who was transfered from Portland to Cleveland
went from making a little over $14hr to $120k a year, as the market in
Cleveland is apparently so barren of talent that poaching is a serious issue.

~~~
bendermon
What you say is true, but as I mentioned that works only with legacy systems,
which are often just cost centres.

There are in general very few people who can work with or want to work with
legacy systems and therefore does demand a very good pay but it does not add
any value to the American economy.

~~~
posguy
These aren't legacy systems, just a few years back Kroger started moving off
IBM 4690, which was a legacy OS. That is gone from most areas of the business
at this point, hence the expectation to be familiar with SUSE.

