Canada is jumping on this opportunity to invite the US tech workers who are frustrated with US H1B visa restrictions and GC backlog by offering an express permanent residency in 10 days
The economics don’t make any more sense for Canada or the EU than they do for the US. The the new $100k H1B fee was imposed because companies have a huge financial incentive to import semi-skilled workers from lower-wage markets rather than hire domestically. Canada and the EU face the same problem. In tech, it's about the kinds of work inexperienced/cheap developers are often doing: assembly line, JIRA-ticket-taker type development.
This is especially impacting Indian tech workers in the US [1] since these are often the types of roles that InfoSys and other foreign tech consulting firms are staffing. The new $100,000 fee to sponsor an H1B visa has made it difficult to justify hiring foreign tech workers when most of the time they are just going to be using American LLMs to do their work anyway.
The foreign tech workers that are worth the $100,000 fee are still easily getting their visa sponsored.
fwiw the h1-b workers I encountered in bigtech were totally on-par with their US citizen equivalents in both coding and english communication. many teams were about 50/50 in my office (SF, non-HQ).
my current talent/placement company works mostly with AI startups who are usually too early to support visa requirements [0]. being able to support the lead-time and planning for international applicants is a huge advantage later stage companies have in terms of being able to scoop up talent at reasonable prices. big loss for the local ecosystems if these jobs move across the border imo.
Yeah, it is not much worth because issue is not that top talent on H1 matches local talent but how average is the rest but get brought to US in name of high skill immigration.
The debate by supporters is set like: Look at these 5 top guys they are best in class in every aspect so why shouldn't they be here. And now don't look over there 500 guys which are business analyst, basic enterprise coders, testers application support engineers lest question maybe asked how come they are considered highly skilled.
Remember H1B is a lottery. So yes, some of them will have the qualifications to get hired at places like FAANG. But many (most?) are pretty mediocre. There's also an extra allocation for people who get "advanced degrees" from a U.S. university. That's also a lottery, so most of the spots go to graduates of diploma-mill Master's programs. These programs are very lucrative for third-tier schools.
I've often wondered what the best way to do this, if the goal was to bring over only top tier talent. I've heard it floated it could be a bidding system instead of a lottery (countered with the fact that only the biggest firms would be able to bid high enough to bring people in), but I'm not an economist so I don't know how that would all shake out.
I think I'm more just speaking out loud here: what is the optimal way to do this that allows a capped influx of talented outside workers, that doesn't allow "degree mills"?
I don't have an answer, but I honestly wonder. Some of the green card folks I've worked with (I know that is different, or at least I think it is in the grand scheme of things?) have been some of the smartest people I've worked with.
H1B's goal is not to bring top tier talent, to qualify for one you need a bachelor's degree (or "equivalent experience") and a job that claims only people with a degree can do, that's all, that is the requirement (there is also a "fashion model" subcategory, which does not even require a degree). There are other visa categories for top talent, e.g. O-1, which has more requirements, which align better with top talent.
They are not supposed to be "on par" with average employees, the visa is supposed to be for exceptional talent that cannot be hired in America. There is no shortage of domestic average devs, so these average h1b devs ought to be leaving.
Ironically, if it's true that the jobs are being off-shored, rather than on-shored and filled by locals, this would be beneficial for the countries who currently find themselves in a brain-drain spiral (be it India, Ukraine, etc.). It would result in a more tech and economically balanced world rather than having two lobes (USA and China). People would say that it's a detriment to the US's future --but those are often the most critical of US hegemony.
The Indian offshore firms are scrambling because of the opposite happening. If all this work was just flooding to India then the panic that’s happening there over the industry imploding wouldn’t be occurring.
The sort of work traditionally handled by cheap offshore labor is now the sort of work most ripe for replacement by AI. So it’s burning the candle from both ends. The low value stuff is getting replaced by AI and not sent there and the high value stuff struggles to get delivered by cheap labor because the play was always cost of and not the quality of the talent.
US has shipped all manufacturing jobs to Asia, including China and got the Rust Belt in exchange (and huge corporate profits). and China is now a manufacturing powerhouse.
Partly that push was created by the labor unions, who pushed the cost of doing manufacturing business far above what was profitable and feasible.
When the environment becomes hostile to conducting business, then jobs will leave and local industries atrophy.
How was the environment that enabled businesses to lower their cost by admitting China in WTO hostile to conducting business?
BTW - with or without unions manufacturing was profitable in the US before NAFTA and China entering WTO. So your narrative that manufacturing was dying because of labor unions does not hold much water.
the offshoring of manufacturing started in the 50s and 60s and accelerated in the 80s. the reason is that US wanted to do specialized high value manufacturing, and was offshoring everything low value and low margin, because of increasing cost of environment and labor regulations and unions.
My fear is that if US becomes hostile to foreign tech workers, they will simply create alternatives to US Big Tech in other countries and US economy will suffer.
Current US domination of global tech is partly because of foreign tech talent.
"the offshoring of manufacturing started in the 50s and 60s and accelerated in the 80s. " - not true.
Manufacturing offshoring started in late 90s in small part due to NAFTA and then accelerated when China entered WTO in early 2000s (thank you President Clinton for this one).
Speaking as an Irish person who grew up in the 80's, this isn't true as there were loads of US companies manufacturing in Ireland back then. There were even clothes manufacturers until the mid 90s.
So I'd probably agree more with the OP here, perhaps the Asian outsourcing happened in the 90s (but even then, loads of my toys as a kid were made in Taiwan), but this has been happening for a while.
It's potentially related to the relaxation of capital controls that happened in the 70s.
Patently false narrative, equivalent to saying all americans are fat - both are extremely cheap uneducated arguments.
Every single H1B I worked with was brilliant in their field - and paid extremely well often in excess of $400K. I know several that are earning well past $500K. If you claim these are generic Jira pushers, well you are showing ignorance.
The $100K fees isn’t material to them but the whole vitriolic nonsense poured around what they do and just rolling their work in mud - well that’s where they just move and take their 50 ppl organization with them.
The H1B coworkers I work with really go the entire spectrum. The laziest programmers I met are H1B. And there are also some pretty smart ones that I learned a lot from and I continue to learn from.
To say that the H1B are all brilliant is hyperbole.
> Every single H1B I worked with was brilliant in their field - and paid extremely well often in excess of $400K. I know several that are earning well past $500K. If you claim these are generic Jira pushers, well you are showing ignorance.
It's a lottery system. Yes, by random chance, some of the visas will go to people who can otherwise get a job at FAANG. But most of the industry is "JIRA pushers," and that's where most of the visas go.
That just means you worked with brilliant people paid in excess of $400K. It probably has more to do with where you worked than with the talent or compensation of H1Bs across the spectrum.
I don't doubt your experience is true. But consider the fact that your experience can be true in parallel with the other scenarios people are highlighting.
Canada was already much cheaper than the US for tech. I was shocked to find out how little colleagues in Canada in the same role are paid relative to peers in the US.
If the issue was cost the jobs would already be in Canada. If the issue was cost the jobs would also have already been offshored.
The issue is on attracting the best talent and here, despite doomsday predictions to the contrary, the US continues to lead. The $100k fee is nothing to bring in top talent. Top talent was competing against Indian offshore companies scooping up thousands of visas for iffy-at-best talent.
The cold reality is many folks in tech on this visa were mediocre talent at best coming out of degree mills or body shops, in roles that could easily be filled domestically if there wasn’t inexpensive overseas labor willing to work for less.
Folks casually leave out the bit that all that iffy talent was crowding out far better talent looking to come to the US but couldn’t because they didn’t get picked in the lottery. This raising of the entry bar is freeing up space so the best folks have a better chance.
Agree with it or not that’s what these changes are aiming to fix, and there’s little evidence this will just send all the jobs to Canada.
Canada historically is also one of the worst places to work in tech. Maybe it’s changed but I remember a decade ago tech jobs were paying a 1/4th of what they were in NYC/SF.
If pay and money is the only thing you care about then yeah. But for the rest of us, none of the places are "the worst place to work in tech" as long as you're in the northern hemisphere. Take a look at what the pay is in Chile if it's so scary to you.
Nope, cost of living is what matters and at least at the time major Canadian metros were as if not more expensive than SF/NYC and got you a 1/4th of the pay. I am sure that’s attractive to some but sounds pretty miserable. Chile I imagine has pretty good cost of living economics. Anecdotally most of my friends in Latin and South America live upper middle class on software salaries.
Too many strange datapoints in that comparison. I never paid that much for utilities in CA but who knows. It’s anecdotal but at the time which this link does not cover it was simple math of taking a 2x paycut (not counting RSUs) to have roughly similar expenses.
I don’t know if current SF prices are reflecting the boom in AI. Another anecdote I look at the areas I used to run in under a decade ago and they are all around 60% higher. Really hard to do exact apples for apples between geographies so at the time I just went off basic necessities and it was skewed heavily in favor of SF.
There are several websites aggregating rent data that put SF rent at around 2x that of Vancouver, which is itself the most expensive city in Canada. I agree that many people would be worse off financially moving to Canada due to the lower salaries. But the claim that cost of living is the same is categorically false.
Yet you keep missing the point. “Was”. I am not saying prices today or equal. I am simply saying when I did the math pre Covid the cost of living was very similar all things considered. Like I already said the link you provided looks like a bunch of bad data so truly hard to tell. Categorically false are strong words without any data!
I would say categorically false is accurate and an anecdote from 7 years ago isn't adding anything productive to the conversation.
EDIT: Sorry, I just saw that you said "all things considered". I think we agree that when you factor in salary, it is financially worse to live in Canada. I just noticed a lot of completely inaccurate statements about the rent being the same which I was trying to correct. Apologies if you got caught in the crossfire.
> Anecdotally most of my friends in Latin and South America live upper middle class on software salaries
And your North American friends do not? Please.
The commonality is that software engineers all across the globe live pretty great, compared to their local peers. But of course, compare them to inflated NYC/SV salaries and everything looks like peanuts.
Sure. My point was historically Canada was pretty bad from a QOL perspective. Low salary and high cost of living. Not sure what you are trying to argue but have at it!
Trying to help you understand that Canada does not have "low salary" just because it's lower than NYC/SV, since apparently your software engineer buddies live an upper middle class life on software salaries, how "low" can it be then, especially if the cost of living is so high? Something doesn't make sense here.
Sorry I don’t understand why you need to be rude. Historically when I have looked, salaries were drastically lower while having materially similar costs of living. That may have changed though as I have not looked at it in the past years post covid and you have not provided any evidence that says otherwise other than simply being a jerk. Good luck!
It's not even close. Both my current and previous company have substantial percentage of engineering in Mexico so I have good visibility into this. Even middle-tier software engineer salary band in Mexico allows for a very comfortable high class life. Whereas the same level engineer in Silicon Valley is crushed by rental costs without not too much left over, and if they also have kids expenses they are barely scraping by.
Money is just a tool to get what you actually want, the goal itself shouldn't be "more money", unless you want to miserable, because that hole you feel never gets filled by shoveling more money down it.
More money generally equals more freedom, even if you don't know what you want specifically, but you're ultimately talking about a bigger, unrelated issue.
It's still bad. I got a 40%+ pay cut after being transferred from the Bay Area to Vancouver. It seems local companies pay even less than US big techs. And just search and see how Vancouver is regarded as one of the least affordable cities.
Though I don't worry too much about the pay -- it's still a decent amount. It just sometimes makes me feel unfair when I'm doing the exact same job as my US colleagues.
I've been working in Canada for US companies for decades, and pay-wise, it's gotten a lot better, though there's still a big difference. Never been tempted to move though.
Good to hear. I just remember looking at big tech postings at the time with salaries around 60k but then looking at rents that were more expensive then SF and thinking no way.
Canada was bad for tech specifically because of H1B.
Now that H1B pathway is being blocked, Canada can build an alternative tech center and ecosystem. They can do it, Canada has very strong CS programs and is a birthplace of AI and deep learning
This is false. Your source says it's for work permits. Though I still doubt IRCC would process an application in 10 days.
My wife and I have been US tech refugees in Vancouver after our US working permits were indefinitely held for security checks. We are targeting Canadian PR through Express Entry (EE) in case we are not able to return to the US. I have to note it's not a sure path to PR for US tech refugees.
EE heavily favors French speakers and workers with local education/working experiences, and penalizes "old" people above 30. It also subsidizes certain fields (healthcare, transport...) that's not favored by the market. If you can max French points and have a bachelors degree, you are in. If you are not in these favored categories, learn French (which a lot of new immigrants are doing) or wait for years to accumulate Canadian experiences (and hopefully the rule doesn't change).
We have masters and PhD degrees, my wife has gained 1-year working experience here, and we have maxed English scores, but we haven't qualified only because we entered our 30s.
PNP (provincial nominee) is a more guaranteed path to PR, but it requires company sponsorship and the chance still depends on your paid level and other factors. Our US employers view our relocation to Canada as temporary so they don't do it. The alternative is switching to a local position/company. But tech positions here in Vancouver are very limited (at least compared to US tech hubs). I personally don't really want to sacrifice the career just for immigration.
Could we hold off on using the term "refugee" here? My partner works with actual refugees. We're talking about a 12 year old Ukrainian girl who last saw her father comatose in a hospital bed with both legs torn off, and who witnessed her entire neighborhood turned into rubble. I doubt you and your wife moving from a safe country to another safe country makes you a refugee of any kind. Call it what it is: you are economic migrants.
> indefinitely held for security checks
Canada has been known to be extremely lenient when it comes to background checks, which, honestly, is something that should be addressed if we want to maintain the free movement of people between the two countries.
Could we stop meaningless language policing? I give you the context and I'm not pretending to be a war refugee.
We had been living in California for years until USCIS arbitrarily hold my wife's new working permit apllication for longer than one year and had to leave the country to be able to work. The US CBP subsequentially denied my entry and revoked my visas after I visted my wife and used the same travel documents that I had used several times. I was forced to abandon my home in the US and even unable to collect my things and it almost runined my job. Her new US visa applications have been stuck in the consulate for longer than a year.
Even under UN definition, someome forced to leave their home due to unfair treatments is a refugee.
The law of your new country is already taking care of that. There's a clear legal definition to "refugee" in Canada. You aren't one: you are an economic migrant.
> Even under UN definition, someome forced to leave their home due to unfair treatments is a refugee
You are more than welcome to apply for refugee status if you believe to be eligible under the legal defition of the term. I'm sure a lawyer will be happy to take your money and help you file for it.
But from the sound of it you were denied entry into the US because you failed a criminal/security background check. Maybe I wouldn't brag about it to the Canadian authorities...
In my experience, people who didn’t make it in the H-1B lottery go to Canada, try the L-1 and come back to the United States. It’s good for Canada to offer a work permit so quickly, but I’m just not seeing people willing to obtain permanent residency in Canada. After all, for the same job, the pay in Canada is way worse. In fact I’m seeing Canadian citizens come to the U.S. to get a big salary bump while doing the same job.
> After all, for the same job, the pay in Canada is way worse.
OTOH, you have free universal healthcare - and, the best part is that everyone in Canada gets it. You also have gun-free schools, abortions are considered healthcare, and, on top of all that, a sane government and a population that's considered pathologically nice to each other.
Honestly, I'd take the pay cut (in fact, I did - but I live in Ireland instead).
If you have a tech job in America, you have good healthcare, your schools are safe, and you have access to abortions. All the tech jobs are in rich liberal cities.
And this "sane government and a population that's considered pathologically nice to each other" is literally just the definition of chauvinism. Sure _you_ like it, and that's great. Let's not be assuming everyone in the world shares our values though.
My uncle is a skilled immigrant to Canada (electrical engineer) and was never able to find an engineering job. They live in an immigrant-heavy subsidized housing neighborhood full of people in the same situation.
Plus one. My parents experience as well in Montreal. My dad could not understand why Canada bothered to move him and his family and the keep him on welfare. BTW - life on welfare in Canada was 5 times better than life as an electrical engineer in România. My parents never stopped thinking it was a really good idea to migrate to Canada.
I know it's not exactly the same. But would he consider becoming an electrician? Trade jobs are definitely getting more and more in demand, and the pay once established is definitely not worse than most engineer positions. Electricians in major canadian areas (e.g. Vancouver) charge 200$ per hour and more.
The big problem is that when issuing immigrant visas, the Canadian government uses a point system (age, degree, etc.) that never actually checks for employability. In other words, it doesn't ask, "Is someone willing to pay Canadian wages for these skills and credentials?"
The federal government will give extra points to an applicant with an engineering degree without ever bothering to check whether the immigrant's degree would be accepted by an accredited licensing board.
In some cases, it's possible to get accredited by passing a series of exams (the same ones given to 22-year-old new grads). Figuring out why the pass rates are so low for foreign applicants without a mutually recognized degree is left as an exercise for the reader...
He tutors math and science, my aunt (who also has a graduate degree) works in a daycare. Canadian welfare is also quite generous.
Their son is doing well, but I don’t see how it makes economic sense for Canada at that point. It boils down to a circuitous and expensive way to direct government dollars to smart people who are likely to have smart kids. You could save yourself a step and just give lower income kids in Canada IQ tests and throw money at the promising ones.
The US says they don't want them, the point of the article is the new visa requirements (surprise) aren't converting into hiring US citizens but instead pushing the roles offshore.
Well yes, what difference does it make to bring people over to the US vs them doing the work overseas?
Bringing people over has negative consequences in the US (housing demand goes up; water demand goes up; power demand goes up) and in the person's home country (money doesn't flow to the local country; good people leave who should be staying and building their own country).
Skilled is a subset of what the US gets, and that at the detriment to local workers (and to the countries the skilled immigrants originate from). Though to the local business owner's they're great - much cheaper.
the candidate for Canadian PR has to secure a job offer beforehand, so the Canada's plan is that US tech workers move their US jobs to Canada, and big tech employers expand their existing tech offices in Canada, rather than being forced to shell out $100k to Donny.
Why should US employers be forced to pay $100k to Donny or compromise for substandard smaller labor pool in the US and bear increased costs?
Put another way: why should American employers be forced to hire Americans? If the labor pool is indeed substandard, they arguably have a vested interest in improving the quality of that labor pool rather than simply giving up on it. The $100k (and its consequences) are putting a finger on the scale in a nationalist manner to prefer local products. It's tariffs for people.
It comes down to whether you have a globalist or nationalist mindset. Depending on which, you will come to a different conclusion about what to think. Should a government prioritize the individual success of citizens of its country, or the profitability of companies domiciled there (and therefore overall national economic performance)? Which approach, which tide lifts more boats by a meaningful amount? Which comports with a government's stated duties?
Employers have only one job: to maximize profits, thats it. It is not employers' fault that US is unable to train tech workers, despite spending $30-40k per pupil in school system only to end up #27 in PISA ranking.
The problem with all anti-H1B discourse is Lump Of Labor fallacy ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy ). The loudest people are the least educated about the consequences of blocking high skilled immigration.
>Employers have only one job: to maximize profits, thats it.
This is wrong. In practice, we bias toward this rule because it happens to align with benefit to society moreso than other rules (most of the time), but it is not the end, it is the means. The responsibility of employers (and all people participating in society) is to jointly maintain, and ideally improve, society. That's part of why government exists - to control harm-doers.
Also, "the loudest people are the least educated" is probably true on most topics, but it's not a great way to make an argument. You should address the smartest people who disagree with you, not the dumbest (and that way, you also avoid being perceived as believing you are better than other people, which damns so much socially-bisected discourse at scale).
there is no smart argument to ban H1B. Its all pure jingoism and racism. There is really nothing else here.
The fact that America is global tech leader is thanks to foreigners, all these FAANGs and MAG7s and OpenAI and Anthropic, the paper "Transformers is all your need", everything was created by highly skilled foreigners.
Without foreigners there is no tech sector, no sweet MAG7 and FAANG stock returns, America would be steamrolled in tech the same way Ford, Chevrolet, Buick, and Dodge were steamrolled by Toyota and BMW.
You dont know jack shit about how arbitrary the USCIS asjudication process is, thats first. Please dont ever comment on visa and paperwork matters, unless you went through that hell yourself.
Second, this admin (steven miller et al) and loud wignats supporting it, want to shutdown all immigration completely, starting with high skilled one.
So please lets stop pretending that wignats will accept any immigration. Just say you sont want brown people, and that will be honest at least.
A lot of H1Bs are more qualified than the O-1 just because its easier to get coming from top tier Ivy League school and phd
This is a genuinely depressing position to see on HN - the one place left on the internet I will willingly engage with. Not everybody who disagrees with you on policy is simply a racist. You are being uncharitable, and leaning on the drug of "all my enemies are stupid". Everybody is stupid. I'm stupid, you are stupid. Expertise is a fallacious bar for normal discourse. Honesty and curiosity are what actually constitute "smartness" - not knowledge.
Smart people are not arguing that we should have zero immigration forever. They are arguing that H1B should be reformed or replaced (e.g. with O-1, or something else), which, yes, is synonymous with destroying it in its current form. And they are arguing that offshoring should be punished unless actually necessary. This does not conflict with the historical case studies you are using as dramatic rhetorical example.
Maybe the people you are disagreeing with are wrong - you could simply argue that. But you are making a different argument. It's going to be very hard to convince Americans that Americans should not be protected by America, and that everybody suffering is just a stupid racist idiot who should accept what is happening to their homes and livelihoods instead of trying to comprehend solutions.
re "historical case studies you are using as dramatic rhetorical example":
It is very easy to undermine American big tech. If tomorrow China comes up with cheaper version of American tech products it will be over. Same way TikTok took over social media, same way DeepSeek can undermine openai/anthropic, and any other random SAAS can undermine existing american SAAS, because American salaries are 2x-4x compared to other countries. The moment America experiences reverse brain drain and alternative tech hubs are established, they can undercut prices with the same quality. So do not take it for granted that America will be tech leader forever, the global immigration is the only thing that keeps the leadership and drains other countries of top talent.
Immigration must be legislated by Congress, it is their job. GOP controlled the congress during trump1 and trump2 and decided not do anything. Superior Court mostly decided to maintain the status quo.
I am for reasonable and thoughtful reform of immigration, that should be done by Congress. Current admin has zero capability and no interest to pursue bona-fide reform.
All they want is throw defenseless foreigners under the bus and draw blood of innocent people for a big show, all while stealing money for themselves. and GOP voting base has no interest in keeping the people in power in check and demand accountability.
This is why I am firmly against the current admin using administrative procedures to halt immigration via backdoors like "$100k admin fee". Let's be honest here - nobody is interested in recouping admin costs of adjudicating immigration paperwork. They are simply using $100k to stop it.
The authority for stopping/reforming immigration lies firmly with Congress.
Economics is generally not a zero sum game. At least according to what they taught me in Econ 101, on a macroeconomic scale skilled workers tend to increase job availability. They spend a larger portion of their income on services, which has a positive multiplier effect.
> skilled workers tend to increase job availability
Who'd imagine squeezing the middle class would backfire epically? Compensation hasn't reflected the GDP per capital increases for the majority of the workforce. I don't think even the productivity increases from personal computers in the end of the 1970's have trickled down.
> Who'd imagine squeezing the middle class would backfire epically? Compensation hasn't reflected the GDP per capital increases for the majority of the workforce. I don't think even the productivity increases from personal computers in the end of the 1970's have trickled down.
Why would investments by employers result in higher compensation for employees?
Most of the 'squeeze' comes from things like housing and health care. The former driven by NIMBYs pulling the ladder up after them in so many desirable places.
The subcategory of NIMBY hate regarding overdevelopment of existing communities (as opposed to things like datacenters, multi-home owners concerned about investment, etc etc) is mostly hatred of the average citizen, which is not a great category of people to decide to hate. 90% of people would react the same ways in the same situations.
The obvious problem is that you can only develop a "desirable" area so much before you have fundamentally altered it. When there is a perception that the demand is driven in large part by people moving into the country, rather than by being born, that naturally engenders bitterness. When there is a perception that there are plenty of other areas available for development, which would then become desirable over time, but the developers want money and the government is focused on short-term goals, that further engenders bitterness. This is all very natural, and doesn't necessitate people to be unreasonably NIMBY to oppose it. Again, most people would.
It's not hate, it's just something that changed in the US in about the 1970ies. In the past, you'd have a booming area and people would build homes as a result and things weren't perfect, but kind of balanced out in terms of housing.
A huge amount of housing demand comes from immigration. You can't call people who like their neighbourhoods "NIMBYs" for not wanting their nice area to triple in population to solve a problem. They aren't the problem. The demand is the problem.
So lack of supply isn't the problem, it's the people who want a place to live who are the problem? Would you make this same argument if the increased demand was from people being born rather than immigration (because it is both)?
I think if you want to be able to block your neighbors from building denser housing on their property then that should only be enforceable if it was agreed to by everybody in advance when they bought the place (e.g. via an HOA contract or some similar type of restriction on the property deed). Otherwise this is tantamount to allowing Walmart to get a vote on whether to allow Target to set up next door.
> So lack of supply isn't the problem, it's the people who want a place to live who are the problem? Would you make this same argument if the increased demand was from people being born rather than immigration (because it is both)?
I totally agree it's both, although most first world populations have low birth rates (until you add in generational immigration from high birth rate cultures), so slow building works well.
Actually you can blame them because it was the done thing throughout US history to build more homes when people moved to an area. And there is nothing more American than moving to a place with better opportunities or amenities. "The pursuit of happiness" and all that.
Actual immigration from outside the US is a vanishingly small part of our housing problems, just as immigrants do not actually "eat the cats and dogs".
Where I live in Oregon the conflict is almost entirely about other Americans moving here vs those pulling up the ladder - which doesn't, of course,stop anyone from moving here, it just means only the wealthy can, rather than teachers, nurses, firefighters and so on.
> Actually you can blame them because it was the done thing throughout US history to build more homes when people moved to an area. And there is nothing more American than moving to a place with better opportunities or amenities. "The pursuit of happiness" and all that.
Of course you can - good point. It's just extremely misleading to. However, "throughout history" America is only about 400 years in total, and for a lot of that there was loads of free land available. And - more importantly - no benefits, so you came to the US to carve out a new life from the soil, not to join a successful nation and raise house prices.
Land in America is now settled, and that means that historical time is over, and no more applicable to debates today than it would be in any other nation, for most of whom the first 400 years would also have been a time of settling and opportunity.
>immigrants do not actually "eat the cats and dogs"
This is a pretty stark straw man. It's very normal to be critical of immigration policy without believing that immigrants will eat your pets, and it's petty to try to implicitly cast the person you're talking to into that camp.
It's really dismaying how many people on this site seem to think immigration and the job market are a zero sum game... and that hasn't changed 12 years after I wrote this:
It's an oversimplification to portray the "other argument" as asserting that everything in society is strictly a zero-sum game. In some important ways, it is; and in some important ways, it isn't. People may be wrong about those details, but that's not the same thing as the common quip "it's not a zero-sum game", which essentially portrays the other side of the argument as dunderheads (a trap that well-meaning people who believe they are on the "right" or "moral" side of an argument very easily fall into).
I.e. no, it's not a zero sum game, but it is a complex system with inputs, outputs, some finite resources, and lots of human subjectivity and desires. Concrete harm easily comes from bad immigration policy (regardless of the "direction" of the policy's badness).
This is true in the literal sense in which you are using the phrase, but the context is not realistic. This sentiment is used a lot in defense of bad policy.
Economics is a zero sum game, just not a static one. People are variables in the equation, which makes it non-trivial (after all, people are the entities splitting the sum, which is normally not part of the system of a "zero sum game").
The point is that the implication that "more people === better" is an oversimplification, to be point of being meaningless. In some contexts, more people makes everything better for everybody. In some contexts, more people makes everything worse for everybody. In most contexts, it's somewhere in between. Where the sparks really fly is when more people makes things better for the new people and worse for the existing people.
While the U.S. capricious immigration policy gives an opportunity for Canada, it only gives it one particular opportunity: that of hiring educated, high-potential, but inexperienced immigrant workers.
The thing about potential is that it needs to right environment to be realized. Canada still has two hurdles to create that environment:
- Access to capital, either in the form of risk-tolerant VC funding or established companies willing to invest significantly in R&D. Those are not quick to move over the border.
- A critical mass of _experienced_ talent. Entrepreneurs and high-agency ICs who've seen what it looks like to build a successful startup and capable of replicating it. Those don't have much incentive to move over the border either.
The U.S. has hundreds of startups that later became unicorns. The employees of those startups are typically the key members that drive the success of new ones. For Canada, the only name that easily comes to mind is Shopify.
Canadian salaries are terrible once you realize that the cost of living in Canada is just as high or even higher than the US, which is why a lot of Canadian engineers left for the US
This just isn't true. Yes, ratio of salary to cost of living is better in the US, setting aside the precarious immigration process, political instability, high rates of gun crime, lack of healthcare, etc. I left this reply to someone else claiming the same thing:
You can easily look up the cost of living for e.g. Vancouver:
> Cost of Living Including Rent in San Francisco, CA is 57.8% higher than in Vancouver
> Rent Prices in San Francisco, CA are 91.7% higher than in Vancouver
I was just transferred from the silicon valley to Vancouver so I have to comment...:
1. Vancouver is well regarded as one of the least affordable cities.
2. I stay in the same role but got a 40%+ pay cut so that offsets the "Cost of Living Including Rent".
3. If you compare other bay area cities (Sunnyvale, San Mateo, Fremont...) where tech workers live to Vancouver, it's not as dramatic.
4. While I support universal health care, which is good for average people in society, it's not necessarily a pro for tech workers. US tech companies buy good health insurance plans for their employees. I used to walk in my company's on-site health centers to get same-day health care in the US. In Canada, I have to wait for days to see the primary care provider and drive one hour to another provider to get exams.
Yes, I agree on all points. I have researched this a lot as I'm also planning a move to Vancouver for life reasons. I was just replying to the plainly false claim that cost of living in NYC/SF is the same as that in the most expensive cities in Canada.
Side note: if you're willing for me to ask you some questions about your move I would be really grateful.
This isn’t a good comparison because a better comparison would be the SF Bay Area (the metro) instead of just SF. Also my point is that the Canadian cost of living is comparable to the US while simultaneously having salaries that are a fraction of the US. I believe your nurses are also going south for the same reason though a few places like Vancouver have started to subsidize their housing.
Then we should compare to the Vancouver metro area, which is also cheaper.
I'm not denying that the cost of living to salary ratio is better in the US. But it is simply false to say that the cost of living in cities like Vancouver (widely considered the most expensive in Canada) is the same as SF or NYC. Rent in SF is roughly double that of Vancouver, which itself has the most expensive rent in Canada.
I was just in Vancouver staying with some friends who had a 3 bedroom in a nice neighborhood for $3700CAD ($2700USD) per month. I know several people in SF paying that for a studio.
Beyond anecdotes, various comparison websites have rent in SF at around 100% more than Vancouver.
Obviously salaries are lower in Canada and your disposable income can very likely be lower living there if you're in tech.
For the nth time, most people who work in Silicon Valley, even the ones who work in SF, do not live in SF where the prices are more comparable to Vancouver. This is one of the major reasons we didn't move to Canada.
And not everyone who works in Vancouver lives in the city of Vancouver either. There are 10 or so other cities within commuting distance.
A fair comparison would compare areas outside of SF with areas outside of Vancouver. There are obviously some outliers like Oakland, but on average you would expect to pay 50%-100% more in rent in the Bay Area than in the Vancouver area.
There is a lot of data available online that you can find very easily. Zillow for example, regarding rent for a one bedroom:
SF average rent: $4,440 USD [1] vs. Vancouver average rent: $2,500USD [2]
Mountain view average rent: $3,395USD [3] vs Burnaby average rent: $1,989USD [4]
Union City average rent: $2400USD [5] vs Surrey average rent: $1689USD [6]
1. Your comparisons aren’t that great. Burnaby’s twin is Oakland and not Mountain view.
2. You’re ignoring the option of buying homes which is impossible for Canadian vancouver salaries but still possible with American salaries in the SF Bay Area
Again, I am not making comparisons adjusted to salaries. I'm just proving that claims that the cost of living is "just as high or even higher than the US" (not adjusting for salary) are false. Simply looking around Vancouver on zillow proves this to be obvious. For example, I found multiple 3b2b houses with backyards for under $3kUSD in nice areas walking distance from central Vancouver, which is literally impossible in SF.
Otherwise, as I already stated, we agree that it is almost always better from an economic perspective to live in San Francisco as an engineer, given the vastly higher salaries.
NOTE: I'm specifically responding to your claim that "the cost of living in Canada is just as high or even higher than the US", in the context of HCOL areas where tech workers typically reside.
Honestly I don't know what can convince you, so maybe we can just agree to disagree.
2. There is also a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment in Canada even from people on the left if you’re not white. Canadians just do not like Asians anymore.
3. Canada has so much red tape for business that it forces many entrepreneurial Canadians to either gravitate towards real estate, online streaming as entertainers, or simply just move down south.
I mean Canada has jumped so many times in last 8-10 years with these express residencies, hiring H1B laid off workers, grabbing people who are stuck with travel restrictions to US I'd have thought they be half way to the moon.
In any case I wish well to people in Canada and Europe and people who are looking to move there. More spreaded opportunities lead to better outcome for everyone including US even if it does not look like one.
> I mean Canada has jumped so many times in last 8-10 years with these express residencies, hiring H1B laid off workers, grabbing people who are stuck with travel restrictions to US I'd have thought they be half way to the moon.
What if I told you the people Canada really want have no issues getting a US work visa/Green Card?
> What if I told you the people Canada really want have no issues getting a US work visa/Green Card?
This is ignorant. Stop pretending like the government is just barring illegals or "low-skill" workers (as you indicate in another thread) and welcome everyone else.
I used to hold O-1. I have approved EB-1A I-140. Yet I ended up surprisingly being denied entry by the US CBP, unable to return to my home in the US, almost losing my job.
The government is targeting all fronts. Those with slightest law violations are prosecuted and deported by ICE. High-skill workers from certain backgrounds are facing increasing visa/green-card scrutiny. International students are barred from internships (see recent regulatory changes for CPT and news about potential 100K fee for OPT as well).
While I feel irritated, I still in principle feel it's a good thing to continue the discussion and share different experiences and viewpoints to open people's eyes. So let me tell you more.
After my wife moved to Canada to wait for her US work permit / visa last year, I visited her every few times. I hold O-1 status in the US but didn't have an O-1 visa. I had been able to return to the US through a program called Automatic Revalidation [1].
At the same port-of-entry, using the same documents, CBP let me in three times. Every time they put me in secondary inspection, ask me for a lot of details about my travel. But they did let me in. The fourth time, the CBP changed their mind. They said a student visa I used to use was revoked a few years ago and wanted me to apply for an O-1 visa to prove my eligibility to enter, which I argued had nothing to do with my O-1 eligibility.
Why was my student visa revoked? I quote the email the consulate sent me years ago: "The revocation of your visa was due to additional information that became available after the visa was issued." That's it. I had sent follow-up emails and requested FOIA but never got any more details. That was a hard-earned visa. When I left the US to a Latin American country to apply for the new visa, I was detained and interrogated by CBP at the airport, presumably because of suspicions of Chinese espionage -- I was also investigated by FBI at some point. I lived in a country that was badly hit by COVID for two months to wait for the administrative processing of my visa. They stamped the visa, then revoked it, and that hit me again after years.
Surprising? Having the same travel documents at the same port, being eligible for entry for 3 times but denied the 4th time is definitely surprising. Not surprising? Yeah I have had a lot of troubles with the US government.
I never technically "fail a background check". Every of my previous visas and immigration petitions got approved after an unusually long obscured process. But how fair is it? Can I even expect an end to this?
And I'm definitely not the only one. I know a community of Chinese students / workers with more or less similar experiences. You can also search on Reddit for stories about long visa administrative processing that ruined people's careers and life.
https://canadabychoice.com/services/move-to-canada/usa/occup...
Canada also floating idea of alliance with Europe for travel and job opportunities
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-european-union-eu-me...