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It wont help protect american workers though because the company can always just open a remote office in india to get the talent. If americans want the jobs the

It wont help protect american workers though because the company can always just open a remote office in india to get the talent. If americans want the jobs then they need to compete in all levels with the competition which includes wages, skills and so on.

frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
>If americans want the jobs then they need to compete in all levels with the competition which includes wages, skills and so on. Okay but let's also let americans compete on the level that they have an advantage in - Location. If someone wants to outsource, fine, but if they want workers in the states, it shouldn't be foreigners on temporary visas working there.
knuththetruth 8y ago
They won’t open that remote office though because then the execs at these companies wouldn’t have teams that they “manage.” H1bs were a solution to the problem of having a cheaper, more locked down labor force without correspondingly making the execs themselves obsolete. It’s about bringing back a greater degree of authoritarian control in competitive labor categories where such behavior would otherwise make them unattractive to workers.
ashelmire 8y ago
I believe many of these companies have tried that, and have moved away from it - because it didn't work out, and they found having American developers was better. Hence the insourcing trend lately.
logfromblammo 8y ago
Yes, they should do that, if only to learn why that isn't always as simple in practice as it looks in writing. If companies are willing to open remote offices in Bangalore or Mumbai or Shenzhen, they should also be willing to open remote offices in Chicago, Denver, Austin, Atlanta, Boston, Toronto, London, or Berlin, or to just have remote employees that are not attached to any office building. And yet, many of them still want everyone on site in Silicon Valley. Those companies won't go anywhere. They want everyone to come to them. It doesn't matter to them if the talent is in Islamabad or Sacramento, if the talent can't (or won't) relocate. SV is by no means the only place where that happens, of course. Some companies have gone all in on a single corporate campus, even when there are no particular economies of scale to be had in doing so. It makes the org chart simpler. The problem is not in the workers, really. Most companies are completely incompetent at remote management and almost anti-competent at distributed management. Putting together a team that works well without physical proximity is a lot more difficult than periodically counting butts in seats and doing the "manager walk" behind everyone in your open-plan office, to make sure your direct reports at least look like they're working.

frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago

>If americans want the jobs then they need to compete in all levels with the competition which includes wages, skills and so on. Okay but let's also let americans compete on the level that they have an advantage in - Location. If someone wants to outsource, fine, but if they want workers in the states, it shouldn't be foreigners on temporary visas working there.

knuththetruth 8y ago

They won’t open that remote office though because then the execs at these companies wouldn’t have teams that they “manage.” H1bs were a solution to the problem of having a cheaper, more locked down labor force without correspondingly making the execs themselves obsolete. It’s about bringing back a greater degree of authoritarian control in competitive labor categories where such behavior would otherwise make them unattractive to workers.

ashelmire 8y ago

I believe many of these companies have tried that, and have moved away from it - because it didn't work out, and they found having American developers was better. Hence the insourcing trend lately.

logfromblammo 8y ago

Yes, they should do that, if only to learn why that isn't always as simple in practice as it looks in writing. If companies are willing to open remote offices in Bangalore or Mumbai or Shenzhen, they should also be willing to open remote offices in Chicago, Denver, Austin, Atlanta, Boston, Toronto, London, or Berlin, or to just have remote employees that are not attached to any office building. And yet, many of them still want everyone on site in Silicon Valley. Those companies won't go anywhere. They want everyone to come to them. It doesn't matter to them if the talent is in Islamabad or Sacramento, if the talent can't (or won't) relocate. SV is by no means the only place where that happens, of course. Some companies have gone all in on a single corporate campus, even when there are no particular economies of scale to be had in doing so. It makes the org chart simpler. The problem is not in the workers, really. Most companies are completely incompetent at remote management and almost anti-competent at distributed management. Putting together a team that works well without physical proximity is a lot more difficult than periodically counting butts in seats and doing the "manager walk" behind everyone in your open-plan office, to make sure your direct reports at least look like they're working.