5 ms·

TLDR: Singapore embraced automation.

givemeethekeys 4y ago
This is also the direction in which the US is going. There is little appetite politically to let more legal immigrants in.
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
  There will be when we need 10x more nurses in 20 years. The population inversion crisis begins…
  - grapeskin 4y ago
    And in 20 years current immigrant supplying countries will be aging and suffering from low birth rates and in desperate need of their own nurses.
    - toss1 4y ago
      Yup Stay healthy - healthspan is key. Makes Japan's push for automated elderly assist technology seem prescient. I wonder how far they are getting and will get in the next 20 years. anybody have any good info?
      - fyrn- 4y ago
        Not really that "pre" in their case, it's in a reaction to an existing crisis
    - mlyle 4y ago
      But will they be able to compensate them as well?
      - grapeskin 4y ago
        When you factor in cost of living, they'll probably be better off than places like the US. 20 years from now America might have $8000/month starting wages (pretax) with $5800/month rent for a broom closet and thousands of miles away from family and friends. "Poor" countries may only be paying $2000/month, but with $400 rents, $5 dining, public medical services, plus family nearby to help with any troubles you have. People really overestimate the appeal of their countries as an immigrant destination. The luster is fading pretty quickly as the world is catching up to western standards and online work helps balance the employment scales globally, plus crime rates and conflict generally leveling out.
        mlyle 4y ago
        > 20 years from now America might have $8000/month starting wages (pretax) with $5800/month rent for a broom closet Hyperbole. You think, for a US average, that nursing comp is going to go up by 20-30%, but rents will go up by 300%? > People really overestimate the appeal of their countries as an immigrant destination. When the waiting list is huge, trending upwards rapidly, and many don't even bother to try because of the difficulty in clearing the list... there's pretty clearly significant demand. That doesn't mean these trends stay true forever, but it's a fair bit of near to intermediate-term momentum.
        grapeskin 4y ago
        Wages for jobs with an influx of cheap immigrant labor don't rise (they drop) and rents have been rising exponentially and inflation is accelerating. My figures were likely a bit too optimistic so I do apologize for that. Places I rented for $600/month 6 years ago are now reaching $2000/month now, so assuming the trends hold for 20 years and factoring in the drop in the value of the dollar, rents may very well more than quadruple. Immigration has been trending downwards for a very long time in the US[1]. There are far more desirable countries these days (such as Canada), and even then, those will likely lose their appeal as well. [1] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/12/15/just-before-covid-19-american-migration-hit-a-73-year-low/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/12/15/just-be...
  - polishdude20 4y ago
    Better start paying your nurses well now!
    - Hellbanevil 4y ago
  - mlyle 4y ago
    Everyone really overstates this for the US. 75+ population is 6.8% now In 2040, it's forecast to be 12%. It'll be an economic burden for sure. Yes, we'll need some more nurses-- about 25-30% more, during which time the working population grows by several percent.
  - thehappypm 4y ago
    Counterpoint—immigration and generally population growth will not exacerbate things like the housing crisis
- baybal2 4y ago
- nikanj 4y ago
  Unions fight automation tooth and nail, and the people skilled enough to automate things are either retired or in Asia.
- gautamdivgi 4y ago
  I think Singapore makes it easy to immigrate legally if you have a job offer (like Canada, Australia, HK, etc.). I don't think they allow for "family based" immigration.
  - thematrixturtle 4y ago
    That's basically correct, although the top tiers of the employment pass hierarchy are permitted to bring in dependents and parents. Only on long-term passes, though; becoming permanent residents, much less citizens, is off the agenda unless you're willing to sign up your offspring for at least two years of military service.
    - SenHeng 4y ago
      That’s only if your offspring wants their PR too. If they’re willing to leave Singapore after their childhood, they don’t have to serve.
      - thematrixturtle 4y ago
        They have to leave Singapore before a fuzzily defined boundary between 10 and 12yo, meaning it's the parent who has to make the call. Stay beyond that, and they're a deserter who'll be arrested on sight if they ever return.
- fabfabfab 4y ago
  Fab guy here. Lots of references in the article about semiconductors. I posted about automation here a while ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29331417 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29331417 It is already extremely automated in the US for semiconductors. If you have any questions about semiconductor manf, ask away.
  - quanto 4y ago
    I appreciate your expertise and openness to discussion. How much of the business/industry cost is HR/wages, would you say? If the industry is already automated, further attempts to automate would not lead to great cost reduction. It seems like a higher ROI approach would be increasing the efficiency of the existing automated processes.
    - fabfabfab 4y ago
      Semiconductor Fabs would be less than 10% labor costs. But there are also indirect labor costs: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/semiconductors/our-insights/reducing-indirect-labor-costs-at-semiconductor-companies https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/semiconductors/our-insig... There are areas in the fab that are not fully automated. Lot of backend wafer fabrication (Laser scribing, Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate or CoWoS, a bunch of other wild card assembly steps at wafer level, Wafer-to-Tape & Reel processes, etc.) is not entirely automated in terms of material flow in the Fab. There are usually bigger fish to fry when it comes to Fab cost-reduction w.r.t labor. For example, if there is a trade off between having space for laborers to move about vs. using OHTs, the favor is almost always for OHTs. Why? Because every square foot of the Fab is big bucks. Floor space is king. You'd rather jam more equipment than to put humans that need 4 ft clearance and a whole bunch of OSHA needs.
  - moneywoes 4y ago
    What happened to the Wisconsin tmsc deal?
- 0xy 4y ago
  One just has to look at wages in Sweden and Germany to decide that its not in your best interests as a tech worker to allow immigration floodgates to open. Wages for a senior developer can be 250-300% higher in the US, with lower taxes. And no, "free" healthcare doesn't come close to making this huge pay cut worth it. European developers get shafted badly, with the narrow exceptions of Switzerland and London (they get shafted less).
  - jotm 4y ago
    The "immigration floodgates" is by far not the biggest cause of it. Forget developers, engineer salaries are pretty bad across the board compared to the US. Managers, on the other hand, are doing much better.
    - BlueTankEngine 4y ago
      Would you mind explaining the managers part of your comment?
      - jotm 4y ago
        I meant the engineer to manager salary ratio is worse than it is in the US - managers make nearly twice the money for a given level of experience. Afaik the gap is not as bad in the US, but I may be wrong? Engineers turned managers would actually be fine, but we're talking traditionally educated managers who are often hired separately/brought in from outside. Needless to say, they're not all that good, especially with modern startups/software businesses. Which plays a part in making Europe suck at them.
    - 0xy 4y ago
      It's not different for managers. An L6 manager at Amazon for example will make around USD$170k total comp in Munich while new Seattle offers sit at $380k or more. You will take at least a 55% pay cut -- and that's just pre-tax. Now consider Germany's 44% effective tax rate versus Seattle's 32% effective tax rate. The chasm gets even wider. You get the double hit of massively reduced salaries and massive increased taxes. How about purchasing power? Even more bad news. Local purchasing power in Munich is 40% lower than Seattle. Yet another hit. Don't forget Germany recently also hiked their sales tax to 19%(!!!), which is almost double Seattle. The higher you get on the seniority ladder, the worse the comparisons get. You can't get the equivalent of US$500k without being an executive, or for extreme outliers. US$500k is garden variety staff level in most top tier US companies. Work just as hard as your US counterparts for a MASSIVELY reduced rate. Over 10 years, you've lost literally millions of dollars.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

This is also the direction in which the US is going. There is little appetite politically to let more legal immigrants in.

mensetmanusman 4y ago
There will be when we need 10x more nurses in 20 years. The population inversion crisis begins…
- grapeskin 4y ago
  And in 20 years current immigrant supplying countries will be aging and suffering from low birth rates and in desperate need of their own nurses.
  - toss1 4y ago
    Yup Stay healthy - healthspan is key. Makes Japan's push for automated elderly assist technology seem prescient. I wonder how far they are getting and will get in the next 20 years. anybody have any good info?
    - fyrn- 4y ago
      Not really that "pre" in their case, it's in a reaction to an existing crisis
  - mlyle 4y ago
    But will they be able to compensate them as well?
    - grapeskin 4y ago
      When you factor in cost of living, they'll probably be better off than places like the US. 20 years from now America might have $8000/month starting wages (pretax) with $5800/month rent for a broom closet and thousands of miles away from family and friends. "Poor" countries may only be paying $2000/month, but with $400 rents, $5 dining, public medical services, plus family nearby to help with any troubles you have. People really overestimate the appeal of their countries as an immigrant destination. The luster is fading pretty quickly as the world is catching up to western standards and online work helps balance the employment scales globally, plus crime rates and conflict generally leveling out.
      - mlyle 4y ago
        > 20 years from now America might have $8000/month starting wages (pretax) with $5800/month rent for a broom closet Hyperbole. You think, for a US average, that nursing comp is going to go up by 20-30%, but rents will go up by 300%? > People really overestimate the appeal of their countries as an immigrant destination. When the waiting list is huge, trending upwards rapidly, and many don't even bother to try because of the difficulty in clearing the list... there's pretty clearly significant demand. That doesn't mean these trends stay true forever, but it's a fair bit of near to intermediate-term momentum.
        grapeskin 4y ago
        Wages for jobs with an influx of cheap immigrant labor don't rise (they drop) and rents have been rising exponentially and inflation is accelerating. My figures were likely a bit too optimistic so I do apologize for that. Places I rented for $600/month 6 years ago are now reaching $2000/month now, so assuming the trends hold for 20 years and factoring in the drop in the value of the dollar, rents may very well more than quadruple. Immigration has been trending downwards for a very long time in the US[1]. There are far more desirable countries these days (such as Canada), and even then, those will likely lose their appeal as well. [1] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/12/15/just-before-covid-19-american-migration-hit-a-73-year-low/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/12/15/just-be...
- polishdude20 4y ago
  Better start paying your nurses well now!
  - Hellbanevil 4y ago
- mlyle 4y ago
  Everyone really overstates this for the US. 75+ population is 6.8% now In 2040, it's forecast to be 12%. It'll be an economic burden for sure. Yes, we'll need some more nurses-- about 25-30% more, during which time the working population grows by several percent.
- thehappypm 4y ago
  Counterpoint—immigration and generally population growth will not exacerbate things like the housing crisis
baybal2 4y ago
nikanj 4y ago
Unions fight automation tooth and nail, and the people skilled enough to automate things are either retired or in Asia.
gautamdivgi 4y ago
I think Singapore makes it easy to immigrate legally if you have a job offer (like Canada, Australia, HK, etc.). I don't think they allow for "family based" immigration.
- thematrixturtle 4y ago
  That's basically correct, although the top tiers of the employment pass hierarchy are permitted to bring in dependents and parents. Only on long-term passes, though; becoming permanent residents, much less citizens, is off the agenda unless you're willing to sign up your offspring for at least two years of military service.
  - SenHeng 4y ago
    That’s only if your offspring wants their PR too. If they’re willing to leave Singapore after their childhood, they don’t have to serve.
    - thematrixturtle 4y ago
      They have to leave Singapore before a fuzzily defined boundary between 10 and 12yo, meaning it's the parent who has to make the call. Stay beyond that, and they're a deserter who'll be arrested on sight if they ever return.
fabfabfab 4y ago
Fab guy here. Lots of references in the article about semiconductors. I posted about automation here a while ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29331417 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29331417 It is already extremely automated in the US for semiconductors. If you have any questions about semiconductor manf, ask away.
- quanto 4y ago
  I appreciate your expertise and openness to discussion. How much of the business/industry cost is HR/wages, would you say? If the industry is already automated, further attempts to automate would not lead to great cost reduction. It seems like a higher ROI approach would be increasing the efficiency of the existing automated processes.
  - fabfabfab 4y ago
    Semiconductor Fabs would be less than 10% labor costs. But there are also indirect labor costs: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/semiconductors/our-insights/reducing-indirect-labor-costs-at-semiconductor-companies https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/semiconductors/our-insig... There are areas in the fab that are not fully automated. Lot of backend wafer fabrication (Laser scribing, Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate or CoWoS, a bunch of other wild card assembly steps at wafer level, Wafer-to-Tape & Reel processes, etc.) is not entirely automated in terms of material flow in the Fab. There are usually bigger fish to fry when it comes to Fab cost-reduction w.r.t labor. For example, if there is a trade off between having space for laborers to move about vs. using OHTs, the favor is almost always for OHTs. Why? Because every square foot of the Fab is big bucks. Floor space is king. You'd rather jam more equipment than to put humans that need 4 ft clearance and a whole bunch of OSHA needs.
- moneywoes 4y ago
  What happened to the Wisconsin tmsc deal?
0xy 4y ago
One just has to look at wages in Sweden and Germany to decide that its not in your best interests as a tech worker to allow immigration floodgates to open. Wages for a senior developer can be 250-300% higher in the US, with lower taxes. And no, "free" healthcare doesn't come close to making this huge pay cut worth it. European developers get shafted badly, with the narrow exceptions of Switzerland and London (they get shafted less).
- jotm 4y ago
  The "immigration floodgates" is by far not the biggest cause of it. Forget developers, engineer salaries are pretty bad across the board compared to the US. Managers, on the other hand, are doing much better.
  - BlueTankEngine 4y ago
    Would you mind explaining the managers part of your comment?
    - jotm 4y ago
      I meant the engineer to manager salary ratio is worse than it is in the US - managers make nearly twice the money for a given level of experience. Afaik the gap is not as bad in the US, but I may be wrong? Engineers turned managers would actually be fine, but we're talking traditionally educated managers who are often hired separately/brought in from outside. Needless to say, they're not all that good, especially with modern startups/software businesses. Which plays a part in making Europe suck at them.
  - 0xy 4y ago
    It's not different for managers. An L6 manager at Amazon for example will make around USD$170k total comp in Munich while new Seattle offers sit at $380k or more. You will take at least a 55% pay cut -- and that's just pre-tax. Now consider Germany's 44% effective tax rate versus Seattle's 32% effective tax rate. The chasm gets even wider. You get the double hit of massively reduced salaries and massive increased taxes. How about purchasing power? Even more bad news. Local purchasing power in Munich is 40% lower than Seattle. Yet another hit. Don't forget Germany recently also hiked their sales tax to 19%(!!!), which is almost double Seattle. The higher you get on the seniority ladder, the worse the comparisons get. You can't get the equivalent of US$500k without being an executive, or for extreme outliers. US$500k is garden variety staff level in most top tier US companies. Work just as hard as your US counterparts for a MASSIVELY reduced rate. Over 10 years, you've lost literally millions of dollars.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]