10 ms·

The Real High-Tech Immigrant Problem: They’re Leaving

84 points by peter123 18y ago

tristian 18y ago
Well actually the labor government in Australia is currently reviewing the migrant intake policies mentioned in the main article ... http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/18/business/ozjobs.2-410091.php http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/18/business/ozjobs.2-410... But it looks like we're going to keep up the high intake for the most part. We're certainly not losing any from what I've observed. As an aside I have to say I haven't seen much of anti-immigration sentiment here even with the economic downturn. Sure, there's been a fair bit of talk against moving jobs overseas, but barley a whisper with regards to immigration.
- sho 18y ago
  I actually think we should increase the rate. Double it. Triple it, even. There will need to be a concommitent infrastructure investment but with that, no problem. This should be a time of amazing opportunity to absorb the talent leaving other countries.
  - tristian 18y ago
    Yeah, I agree with you. Given the great talent in the Asian region we're sitting on a people gold mine. Also given the already short-supply of housing it would invigorate the property sector as well. But I don't think the media and public would respond well to it with companies like pacific brands and the mining companies laying of so many in the last few weeks. It's probably best if the government doesn't rock the boat on immigration, lest we get a public reaction against it.
smg 18y ago
I am working from India for the past 3 months instead of my San Francisco office. Nearly every large IT company in India offers benefits at par with Google. Yes I mean multiple food vendors. Food being served 6 times a day. The salary of an IT professional in India easily puts him among the highest wage earners in India (something similar to how Wall Street traders were a couple of years ago). Chauffeur driven cars, cooks and daily house cleaning services are all easily affordable. The biggest question I have to ask myself is should I return to my studio in SF.
- yummyfajitas 18y ago
  Food being served 6 times a day. Breakfast, Second Breakfast, Brunch, Lunch, Dinner and Supper? I suppose this confirms the theory that IT workers are all hobbits.
  - earl 18y ago
    Says the dude named yummyfajitas -- that's a great username. But seriously, that was my favorite bit of that movie: Pippin: But what about breakfast? Aragorn: You've already had it. Pippin: We've had one, yes. But what about second breakfast? [Aragorn stares at him, then walks off.] Merry: Don't think he knows about second breakfast, Pip. Pippin: What about elevensies? Luncheon? Afternoon tea? Dinner? Supper? He knows about them, doesn't he? Merry: I wouldn't count on it.
    - dmpayton 18y ago
      But seriously, that was my favorite bit of that movie: Please read the books, they're far superior to the movies. Edit: Downvotes, hmmm. Allow me to explain... The LotR movie trilogy, while being excellent movies in and of themselves, do not do the books justice. PJ's interpretation (and subsequent plot hacking) left me wanting more, and not in a good way. Admittedly, that may have more to do with the medium in which the storyline was delivered. Cinema, while more visually appealing than the written word, simply cannot offer the same depth that a book can. I think it's safe to say that in most cases where books are translated to movies, the book remains the better of the two. Anyways, sorry for the offtopic thread.
      - andreyf 18y ago
        I'd love to hear your opinion on immigration and the intra-national tech community, but LotR is way off topic.
- ajju 18y ago
  I spent 3 months setting up the India operations for the startup I used to work for in 2006. The best part of the experience - Chai (and biscuits) served at my desk. Lunch was served too, but I prefer taking a break for lunch anyway. When you don't have to take a break for caffeine, it does wonders for your productivity.
jleyank 18y ago
If the people leaving are scientists and engineers, people aren't going to be concerned. These folks are getting laid off in droves no matter where they come from and if some ultimately leave the country no big deal. Looking at the last 50-100 years, if there's suddenly a market demand for these fields, students will reappear. It'll take a few years, but people chase money.
- Rod 18y ago
  It's tempting to think that the job market works that simply. However, it takes at least 10 years to train a good scientist / engineer. Waiting 10 years is a luxury. Moreover, people who choose a career based on earning power tend not to be talented or creative. In other words, people who would be attracted to Science / Engineering if the salaries would rise a bit are exactly the kind of people that make mediocre scientists or engineers.
  - adamc 18y ago
    Link, please. I think you are painting with too broad a brush. Many people are attracted to many things, and economics is one of the factors they use to discriminate between them.
    - Rod 18y ago
      My opinion is based on my personal experience, not on anything I have read. Of all the people I met, the ones who achieved the most were driven by a desire to do things, to deliver impact, to create. Of course, people are attracted to many things... and money is a very important motivating factor. I never argued otherwise. My mentor, a former academic turned serial entrepreneur, once told me: "The best engineers in the world are the ones driven by dreams."
    - ardit33 18y ago
      I agree with Rod. I witnessed this first hand during the dot-com boom. (i was in school then). I attracted a lot of types "I am going to retire by 25" types, which had no talent. They would soon quit within the year when they hit the wall on the mid-higher level CS classes. My school had a notorious class that you had to take either second semester, or first in Sophomore year, which was challenging, but it went deep down in CS concepts. A lot of people failed that class. They will either try again, or just switch to Business, or Information Technology (watered down CS/bussiness combination. Good for somebody doing IT work at some large corp). Just raising salaries is not a path to get more great engineers. More mediocre ones, yes. I think there is a hard limit in the general population on how many good engineers it can produce.
nickpp 18y ago
I left USA after being an H1B for 5 years with delay after delay in my GC application. HARD decision. Hated leaving... Went to my home country, created a software company with successful products. Now a few dozen jobs are here instead of there and some million $$$ are flowing into my country. Still, I would move to the US and open an office if I'd have a legal, fast way to get a residency there. Not likely though.
- abstractbill 18y ago
  I was lucky - I got my GC after 4 years on an H1B. I still count that as 4 wasted years in a dead-end job though.
- nebula 18y ago
  Are there any valid reasons as to why you would still want to move to the US?
  - nickpp 18y ago
    Don't laugh, but it's a kind of patriotism. I love the country. It's beautiful. I like its philosophy. American values resonate close to my values. In the years I lived there I grew to think of it as my home much more than the country I was born in. I could see calling myself American. When I went there I was received well. I was helped. I made friends. Now I think I can help in return. I would like to contribute, especially in a downturn. I would buy a house, I would create jobs. Now, I travel a lot (including in US) so I live all over the world. And financially I'd have little to gain in States (no extra income, higher living costs, higher taxation, higher business costs). So it'd be mostly an idealistic gesture, a way for me to participate in building something larger than myself and what I've already built. Something I truly believe in. But I am not getting myself again in the Kafka's nightmare that US immigration is. Waiting years for some bureaucrat to decide if your life will go on or will be completely changed "just because". No thanks. I'd only consider another country if I'd have a clear, legal and quick path to residency. Otherwise... I'll only be a tourist.
    - redrobot5050 18y ago
DLWormwood 18y ago
From the article... Growing demand for their skills and shining career opportunities back home were cited by 87 percent of the Chinese and 79 percent of the Indians as the major professional reason for returning. Most also cited the lure of being close to family and friends. No surprise here. A few years back, when I was working for a IT company in Chicago which went through a kind of "reverse takeover" by an (East) Indian firm, most of my co-workers gave similar reasons for leaving our U.S. office soon after the .com bubble popped. The stories told me by my supervisors reaffirms the article's contention that Indian programmers have a lifestyle in stark contrast of the countrymen in the rural areas of India proper.
garply 18y ago
I'm a US citizen in the SF bay area, bootstrapping a web company by myself, and I'm heading out to Beijing this summer. PG talks a lot about reaching 'ramen profitability' and there's no easier place to hit that than China. It's going to cost me about $400 a month to live (frugally), and if I needed to, I could teach English for about $60 / hr. Worst case scenario, a native English speaker could dedicate one or two days a month to paying the bills. There is no lack of tech talent in Beijing - from personal work experience, Tsinghua's tech alums are just as bright as MIT's or Stanford's. And you can hire a fresh graduate for about $20k / year. If you can speak Chinese and you don't want to take external investment, screw Silicon Valley, Beijing is a bootstrapper's paradise.
- ced 18y ago
  Is there any reason why Beijing is better than other large Chinese cities? I heard it was expensive and polluted. As for teaching English, do you have first-hand experience backing the (very high) 60$/hr figure? And what kind of visa will you get?
  - garply 18y ago
    If you're seeking tech employees, Beijing is probably the easiest place to find them. It's China's tech hub - the best universities are there. Google and MS, for example, locate their headquarters right next to Tsinghua University (China's MIT). It's not expensive compared to Shanghai, but it is more expensive than some of the lesser known big cities like Chongqing or Wuhan. The pollution is bad in Beijing. That's the only real downside, from my perspective. Shanghai is certainly cleaner. I'm not sure about the other big cities, but I'd bet they're something like BJ in terms of pollution. I do have first-hand experience on the teaching money, but I also advertised to my students that I have a degree from a prestigious American university, so my sample data might be skewed. Tourist visa for as long as possible (fewer hassles), but eventually I'll need to switch to a business visa.
    - fortes 18y ago
      At least back in 2006, Beijing was more polluted than most other Chinese cities (a notable exception be Lanzhou, which is ridiculous). This is in part due to the huge population, but also due to the geography (there are mountains nearby that trap a lot of pollutants, like LA -- and the Gobi desert is close enough to blow a lot of stuff in as well). I lived pretty well there on about $700 / month (going out and with a 2 bedroom apartment).
Delmar 18y ago
It's interesting the dynamic that IT fields have added to the immigration issue. In a broad sense, it makes for different "kinds" of immigrants, with different skill sets, etc. And I can't help wondering if this adds an element to this country's understanding of race. That's to say: IT has changed the way we see immigration from China and India - more so, I think, than from any other country. Has it changed the way we see the people themselves? Is it a pos. or neg. influence? What does that mean for the way we see immigrants from countries like Mexico that often work in jobs that are harder to organize? And what are these magic factors that so well prepare one or two groups of immigrants for the American work force? Is it the educational systems in India and China? And maybe I'm crazy - does anyone else think IT is playing a role in our collective approach to race?
geebee 18y ago
This article is about the problems that happen when foreign nationals with engineering backgrounds no longer want to live in the US. But it could just as easily be about what happens when the US is no longer able to fill these positions from its own population. And I suspect that there is a correlation between the huge numbers of visas issued and the slow decline of interest among Americans in these fields. I know, it isn't entirely a zero sum game. But when I graduated with an MS in Engineering from Berkeley, we definitely weren't pulling in the starting salaries that the law and business students were earning - even the PhD students weren't at that level, not even close. And guess what? The MBA and Law programs had no problem attracting Americans, whereas Engineering had very few. This article does highlight a danger, but it doesn't really suggest one good solution - encourage Americans into these fields, and this time, don't undermine their careers.
- ardit33 18y ago
  I think you are missing an important part. There is low barriers for your job to be shipped abroad. A doctor's job is hard to ship, especially the emergency ones (you still hear about people going abroad for cosmetical work), and lawyers have barriers (you have to pass the Bar, laws changing constantly by state etc.), therefore they can command higher salaries. But for software engineers, the barrier of job shipping is really low. My company has a team in Argentina, doing decent work. If I was twice as expensive as I was now, the company probably would have just hired all the engineering there, and maybe one or two "architect" types in the US. Eventually american engineers with less experience would have to lower their salaries, to get into a level where the efficiencies that are gained by having somebody with the same culture/understanding on site is worth the extra cost that the average american programmer commands. 1. Remember, you are competing in a global pool of talent. Doctors/lawyers have an huge local advantage that engineers simply don't have. 2. H-1B is an recent trend (late 90s trend). I doesn't explain the lack of interest in engineering/math for american graduates. (see number 1. Even if your salary was so high to spark interest, your job it would be outsourced soon, or your company will go bust as so many did in 2001-2003). 3. In the late 90s salaries were really high. It motivated the wrong kind of people to get into school. I remember, a lot of "I am in CS for the money, not b/c the passion" types in late 90s (when I started school, and the dot com was all the rage. Within the year a lot of them were in a different major, b/c they couldn't handle it. Information technology, or business being the fallback majors of choice. 4. Even until lately, salaries for engineers have been really good. CS is one of the few majors where you can command 50-70k right after college, and where by 25 you can easily be pulling 6 figs. (I was by 25). While I agree, that H-1B should be used to bring really skilled people in (and not used a simply a cost control school), eliminating it, is a sure path to Detroit-ing Silicon Valley.
Vargas 18y ago
Hum... It is not that they (we) are leaving, it is more like they (we) are not even going. I'm a Spaniard, I have worked in five different countries in Europe and Latin America. I'm currently settled in the U.K. I have worked as a consultant, as a developer in a "one-product" company and now I´m working as an in-house developer in a non-tech company. It simply does not make sense to relocate to USA for me. I have had a couple of offers to work in Boston or New York in the last few years and I turned them down. Weak dollar versus euro means that I won´t be able to pay my euro denominated mortgage while living in the U.S. I am free to work anywhere within the European Union, and I have always been very welcomed in Spanish speaking American countries while I would need some paperwork to work in the U.S. The political climate doesn't help either. I have never been in the U.S. and I realize that T.V. is not necessarily correlated to real life, but every other day you get news about some guy who was traveling to the U.S. for some perfectly legitimate reason, with all their legal documents in good shape and gets detained at the border for 30 hours, their families are not notified and they are not allowed to drink, eat or sleep. On the other hand, I personally know some people (about 15 persons) who travel frequently from Europe to the U.S.,for both professional and personal reasons. They have never had problems in the border. There is clearly a dissonance between my "real-life" experience and my "media-induced" experience. Nonetheless, if I had to travel there, I would be a bit scared... my mother would definitely be very scared. I really hope that things change. My wife is eager to spend a few years living in the U.S. We won't be going for now... may be during Obama's second term (if it happens) it would be economically feasible (strong dollar) and professionally interesting for me. As anyone with a passion for our craft, I have read countless histories about Silicon Valley, and I think the odds would be better for my own (future) start-up in there rather than in Europe, where bureaucracy and lack of funding make things more difficult.
- anamax 18y ago
  > every other day you get news about some guy who > On the other hand, I personally know some people (about 15 persons) Not to defend the US Immigration service, but those samples aren't comparable - one is orders of magnitude larger and less reliable.
  - 18y ago
known 18y ago
There are some interesting comments in http://www.rediff.com/money/2009/mar/02bcrisis-100000-pros-may-return-to-india-from-us.htm http://www.rediff.com/money/2009/mar/02bcrisis-100000-pros-m...
thras 18y ago
At the risk of getting modded to oblivion again, I'll say it again: we need to change our immigration policies to encourage high-skill immigration from high-IQ countries, and discourage low-skill immigration from low-IQ countries. We don't need more yard-workers -- they don't contribute much to GDP, suck up a lot of social services (tax dollars), and even their grand-children have trouble graduating high school. Build a fence across the Mexican border (it's cheap, and it worked for Israel despite the naysaying) and require high-level skills for every immigrant coming in after tomorrow.
- ajju 18y ago
  There are High-IQ countries? Must be the water! </sarcasm>
  - thras 18y ago
    I'm confused. Are you claiming that the populations of all countries score the same on IQ tests? Are you saying that it's all explained by culture and that all that culture goes away when someone immigrates? Do you believe in creationism? What? While I'm sure that your conviction is sincere, I doubt it's based on any actual evidence. Instead it's an expression of how you'd like the world to be.
    - critic 18y ago
      I think if you used words like "cultures that do not value education", you wouldn't come off as a racist/IQist as much.
      - thras 18y ago
        Okay, sure. But then I'd have to think of an explanation for why adopted Asian-Americans do just as well (or better) academically than Asian-Americans raised by their own parents. Culture can't explain that. Maybe you could help me out?
        18y ago
ajju 18y ago
I have now heard of 3 cases of friends who are engineers (with graduate degrees from the U.S.) working at well known US software companies, being held back in India because the US consulate is taking months to do a "background check" after they went to get their H1-B renewals, which have already been approved, stamped on the passport. This used to be an "in and out" procedure since the US government already does background checks on H-1B applicants when they apply for the first time, get their visas stamped for the first time and then apply for a renewal while still in the U.S. At least one of these guys is considering resigning his position in the U.S. and starting something in India rather than sitting at home doing nothing. Maybe this is just random chance. If not, kicking skilled immigrants with jobs out of the country is not a wise move.
palehose 18y ago
Is this really something of interest to Hacker News? It sounds more like political flamebait to me.
- queensnake 18y ago
  From the guidelines: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or egregiously offtopic, you can flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. "

84 points by peter123 18y ago

Well actually the labor government in Australia is currently reviewing the migrant intake policies mentioned in the main article ... http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/18/business/ozjobs.2-410091.php http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/18/business/ozjobs.2-410... But it looks like we're going to keep up the high intake for the most part. We're certainly not losing any from what I've observed. As an aside I have to say I haven't seen much of anti-immigration sentiment here even with the economic downturn. Sure, there's been a fair bit of talk against moving jobs overseas, but barley a whisper with regards to immigration.

sho 18y ago
I actually think we should increase the rate. Double it. Triple it, even. There will need to be a concommitent infrastructure investment but with that, no problem. This should be a time of amazing opportunity to absorb the talent leaving other countries.
- tristian 18y ago
  Yeah, I agree with you. Given the great talent in the Asian region we're sitting on a people gold mine. Also given the already short-supply of housing it would invigorate the property sector as well. But I don't think the media and public would respond well to it with companies like pacific brands and the mining companies laying of so many in the last few weeks. It's probably best if the government doesn't rock the boat on immigration, lest we get a public reaction against it.

smg 18y ago

I am working from India for the past 3 months instead of my San Francisco office. Nearly every large IT company in India offers benefits at par with Google. Yes I mean multiple food vendors. Food being served 6 times a day. The salary of an IT professional in India easily puts him among the highest wage earners in India (something similar to how Wall Street traders were a couple of years ago). Chauffeur driven cars, cooks and daily house cleaning services are all easily affordable. The biggest question I have to ask myself is should I return to my studio in SF.

yummyfajitas 18y ago
Food being served 6 times a day. Breakfast, Second Breakfast, Brunch, Lunch, Dinner and Supper? I suppose this confirms the theory that IT workers are all hobbits.
- earl 18y ago
  Says the dude named yummyfajitas -- that's a great username. But seriously, that was my favorite bit of that movie: Pippin: But what about breakfast? Aragorn: You've already had it. Pippin: We've had one, yes. But what about second breakfast? [Aragorn stares at him, then walks off.] Merry: Don't think he knows about second breakfast, Pip. Pippin: What about elevensies? Luncheon? Afternoon tea? Dinner? Supper? He knows about them, doesn't he? Merry: I wouldn't count on it.
  - dmpayton 18y ago
    But seriously, that was my favorite bit of that movie: Please read the books, they're far superior to the movies. Edit: Downvotes, hmmm. Allow me to explain... The LotR movie trilogy, while being excellent movies in and of themselves, do not do the books justice. PJ's interpretation (and subsequent plot hacking) left me wanting more, and not in a good way. Admittedly, that may have more to do with the medium in which the storyline was delivered. Cinema, while more visually appealing than the written word, simply cannot offer the same depth that a book can. I think it's safe to say that in most cases where books are translated to movies, the book remains the better of the two. Anyways, sorry for the offtopic thread.
    - andreyf 18y ago
      I'd love to hear your opinion on immigration and the intra-national tech community, but LotR is way off topic.
ajju 18y ago
I spent 3 months setting up the India operations for the startup I used to work for in 2006. The best part of the experience - Chai (and biscuits) served at my desk. Lunch was served too, but I prefer taking a break for lunch anyway. When you don't have to take a break for caffeine, it does wonders for your productivity.

jleyank 18y ago

If the people leaving are scientists and engineers, people aren't going to be concerned. These folks are getting laid off in droves no matter where they come from and if some ultimately leave the country no big deal. Looking at the last 50-100 years, if there's suddenly a market demand for these fields, students will reappear. It'll take a few years, but people chase money.

Rod 18y ago
It's tempting to think that the job market works that simply. However, it takes at least 10 years to train a good scientist / engineer. Waiting 10 years is a luxury. Moreover, people who choose a career based on earning power tend not to be talented or creative. In other words, people who would be attracted to Science / Engineering if the salaries would rise a bit are exactly the kind of people that make mediocre scientists or engineers.
- adamc 18y ago
  Link, please. I think you are painting with too broad a brush. Many people are attracted to many things, and economics is one of the factors they use to discriminate between them.
  - Rod 18y ago
    My opinion is based on my personal experience, not on anything I have read. Of all the people I met, the ones who achieved the most were driven by a desire to do things, to deliver impact, to create. Of course, people are attracted to many things... and money is a very important motivating factor. I never argued otherwise. My mentor, a former academic turned serial entrepreneur, once told me: "The best engineers in the world are the ones driven by dreams."
  - ardit33 18y ago
    I agree with Rod. I witnessed this first hand during the dot-com boom. (i was in school then). I attracted a lot of types "I am going to retire by 25" types, which had no talent. They would soon quit within the year when they hit the wall on the mid-higher level CS classes. My school had a notorious class that you had to take either second semester, or first in Sophomore year, which was challenging, but it went deep down in CS concepts. A lot of people failed that class. They will either try again, or just switch to Business, or Information Technology (watered down CS/bussiness combination. Good for somebody doing IT work at some large corp). Just raising salaries is not a path to get more great engineers. More mediocre ones, yes. I think there is a hard limit in the general population on how many good engineers it can produce.

nickpp 18y ago

I left USA after being an H1B for 5 years with delay after delay in my GC application. HARD decision. Hated leaving... Went to my home country, created a software company with successful products. Now a few dozen jobs are here instead of there and some million $$$ are flowing into my country. Still, I would move to the US and open an office if I'd have a legal, fast way to get a residency there. Not likely though.

abstractbill 18y ago
I was lucky - I got my GC after 4 years on an H1B. I still count that as 4 wasted years in a dead-end job though.
nebula 18y ago
Are there any valid reasons as to why you would still want to move to the US?
- nickpp 18y ago
  Don't laugh, but it's a kind of patriotism. I love the country. It's beautiful. I like its philosophy. American values resonate close to my values. In the years I lived there I grew to think of it as my home much more than the country I was born in. I could see calling myself American. When I went there I was received well. I was helped. I made friends. Now I think I can help in return. I would like to contribute, especially in a downturn. I would buy a house, I would create jobs. Now, I travel a lot (including in US) so I live all over the world. And financially I'd have little to gain in States (no extra income, higher living costs, higher taxation, higher business costs). So it'd be mostly an idealistic gesture, a way for me to participate in building something larger than myself and what I've already built. Something I truly believe in. But I am not getting myself again in the Kafka's nightmare that US immigration is. Waiting years for some bureaucrat to decide if your life will go on or will be completely changed "just because". No thanks. I'd only consider another country if I'd have a clear, legal and quick path to residency. Otherwise... I'll only be a tourist.
  - redrobot5050 18y ago

DLWormwood 18y ago

From the article... Growing demand for their skills and shining career opportunities back home were cited by 87 percent of the Chinese and 79 percent of the Indians as the major professional reason for returning. Most also cited the lure of being close to family and friends. No surprise here. A few years back, when I was working for a IT company in Chicago which went through a kind of "reverse takeover" by an (East) Indian firm, most of my co-workers gave similar reasons for leaving our U.S. office soon after the .com bubble popped. The stories told me by my supervisors reaffirms the article's contention that Indian programmers have a lifestyle in stark contrast of the countrymen in the rural areas of India proper.

garply 18y ago

I'm a US citizen in the SF bay area, bootstrapping a web company by myself, and I'm heading out to Beijing this summer. PG talks a lot about reaching 'ramen profitability' and there's no easier place to hit that than China. It's going to cost me about $400 a month to live (frugally), and if I needed to, I could teach English for about $60 / hr. Worst case scenario, a native English speaker could dedicate one or two days a month to paying the bills. There is no lack of tech talent in Beijing - from personal work experience, Tsinghua's tech alums are just as bright as MIT's or Stanford's. And you can hire a fresh graduate for about $20k / year. If you can speak Chinese and you don't want to take external investment, screw Silicon Valley, Beijing is a bootstrapper's paradise.

ced 18y ago
Is there any reason why Beijing is better than other large Chinese cities? I heard it was expensive and polluted. As for teaching English, do you have first-hand experience backing the (very high) 60$/hr figure? And what kind of visa will you get?
- garply 18y ago
  If you're seeking tech employees, Beijing is probably the easiest place to find them. It's China's tech hub - the best universities are there. Google and MS, for example, locate their headquarters right next to Tsinghua University (China's MIT). It's not expensive compared to Shanghai, but it is more expensive than some of the lesser known big cities like Chongqing or Wuhan. The pollution is bad in Beijing. That's the only real downside, from my perspective. Shanghai is certainly cleaner. I'm not sure about the other big cities, but I'd bet they're something like BJ in terms of pollution. I do have first-hand experience on the teaching money, but I also advertised to my students that I have a degree from a prestigious American university, so my sample data might be skewed. Tourist visa for as long as possible (fewer hassles), but eventually I'll need to switch to a business visa.
  - fortes 18y ago
    At least back in 2006, Beijing was more polluted than most other Chinese cities (a notable exception be Lanzhou, which is ridiculous). This is in part due to the huge population, but also due to the geography (there are mountains nearby that trap a lot of pollutants, like LA -- and the Gobi desert is close enough to blow a lot of stuff in as well). I lived pretty well there on about $700 / month (going out and with a 2 bedroom apartment).

Delmar 18y ago

It's interesting the dynamic that IT fields have added to the immigration issue. In a broad sense, it makes for different "kinds" of immigrants, with different skill sets, etc. And I can't help wondering if this adds an element to this country's understanding of race. That's to say: IT has changed the way we see immigration from China and India - more so, I think, than from any other country. Has it changed the way we see the people themselves? Is it a pos. or neg. influence? What does that mean for the way we see immigrants from countries like Mexico that often work in jobs that are harder to organize? And what are these magic factors that so well prepare one or two groups of immigrants for the American work force? Is it the educational systems in India and China? And maybe I'm crazy - does anyone else think IT is playing a role in our collective approach to race?

geebee 18y ago

This article is about the problems that happen when foreign nationals with engineering backgrounds no longer want to live in the US. But it could just as easily be about what happens when the US is no longer able to fill these positions from its own population. And I suspect that there is a correlation between the huge numbers of visas issued and the slow decline of interest among Americans in these fields. I know, it isn't entirely a zero sum game. But when I graduated with an MS in Engineering from Berkeley, we definitely weren't pulling in the starting salaries that the law and business students were earning - even the PhD students weren't at that level, not even close. And guess what? The MBA and Law programs had no problem attracting Americans, whereas Engineering had very few. This article does highlight a danger, but it doesn't really suggest one good solution - encourage Americans into these fields, and this time, don't undermine their careers.

ardit33 18y ago
I think you are missing an important part. There is low barriers for your job to be shipped abroad. A doctor's job is hard to ship, especially the emergency ones (you still hear about people going abroad for cosmetical work), and lawyers have barriers (you have to pass the Bar, laws changing constantly by state etc.), therefore they can command higher salaries. But for software engineers, the barrier of job shipping is really low. My company has a team in Argentina, doing decent work. If I was twice as expensive as I was now, the company probably would have just hired all the engineering there, and maybe one or two "architect" types in the US. Eventually american engineers with less experience would have to lower their salaries, to get into a level where the efficiencies that are gained by having somebody with the same culture/understanding on site is worth the extra cost that the average american programmer commands. 1. Remember, you are competing in a global pool of talent. Doctors/lawyers have an huge local advantage that engineers simply don't have. 2. H-1B is an recent trend (late 90s trend). I doesn't explain the lack of interest in engineering/math for american graduates. (see number 1. Even if your salary was so high to spark interest, your job it would be outsourced soon, or your company will go bust as so many did in 2001-2003). 3. In the late 90s salaries were really high. It motivated the wrong kind of people to get into school. I remember, a lot of "I am in CS for the money, not b/c the passion" types in late 90s (when I started school, and the dot com was all the rage. Within the year a lot of them were in a different major, b/c they couldn't handle it. Information technology, or business being the fallback majors of choice. 4. Even until lately, salaries for engineers have been really good. CS is one of the few majors where you can command 50-70k right after college, and where by 25 you can easily be pulling 6 figs. (I was by 25). While I agree, that H-1B should be used to bring really skilled people in (and not used a simply a cost control school), eliminating it, is a sure path to Detroit-ing Silicon Valley.

Vargas 18y ago

Hum... It is not that they (we) are leaving, it is more like they (we) are not even going. I'm a Spaniard, I have worked in five different countries in Europe and Latin America. I'm currently settled in the U.K. I have worked as a consultant, as a developer in a "one-product" company and now I´m working as an in-house developer in a non-tech company. It simply does not make sense to relocate to USA for me. I have had a couple of offers to work in Boston or New York in the last few years and I turned them down. Weak dollar versus euro means that I won´t be able to pay my euro denominated mortgage while living in the U.S. I am free to work anywhere within the European Union, and I have always been very welcomed in Spanish speaking American countries while I would need some paperwork to work in the U.S. The political climate doesn't help either. I have never been in the U.S. and I realize that T.V. is not necessarily correlated to real life, but every other day you get news about some guy who was traveling to the U.S. for some perfectly legitimate reason, with all their legal documents in good shape and gets detained at the border for 30 hours, their families are not notified and they are not allowed to drink, eat or sleep. On the other hand, I personally know some people (about 15 persons) who travel frequently from Europe to the U.S.,for both professional and personal reasons. They have never had problems in the border. There is clearly a dissonance between my "real-life" experience and my "media-induced" experience. Nonetheless, if I had to travel there, I would be a bit scared... my mother would definitely be very scared. I really hope that things change. My wife is eager to spend a few years living in the U.S. We won't be going for now... may be during Obama's second term (if it happens) it would be economically feasible (strong dollar) and professionally interesting for me. As anyone with a passion for our craft, I have read countless histories about Silicon Valley, and I think the odds would be better for my own (future) start-up in there rather than in Europe, where bureaucracy and lack of funding make things more difficult.

anamax 18y ago
> every other day you get news about some guy who > On the other hand, I personally know some people (about 15 persons) Not to defend the US Immigration service, but those samples aren't comparable - one is orders of magnitude larger and less reliable.
- 18y ago

known 18y ago

There are some interesting comments in http://www.rediff.com/money/2009/mar/02bcrisis-100000-pros-may-return-to-india-from-us.htm http://www.rediff.com/money/2009/mar/02bcrisis-100000-pros-m...

thras 18y ago

At the risk of getting modded to oblivion again, I'll say it again: we need to change our immigration policies to encourage high-skill immigration from high-IQ countries, and discourage low-skill immigration from low-IQ countries. We don't need more yard-workers -- they don't contribute much to GDP, suck up a lot of social services (tax dollars), and even their grand-children have trouble graduating high school. Build a fence across the Mexican border (it's cheap, and it worked for Israel despite the naysaying) and require high-level skills for every immigrant coming in after tomorrow.

ajju 18y ago
There are High-IQ countries? Must be the water! </sarcasm>
- thras 18y ago
  I'm confused. Are you claiming that the populations of all countries score the same on IQ tests? Are you saying that it's all explained by culture and that all that culture goes away when someone immigrates? Do you believe in creationism? What? While I'm sure that your conviction is sincere, I doubt it's based on any actual evidence. Instead it's an expression of how you'd like the world to be.
  - critic 18y ago
    I think if you used words like "cultures that do not value education", you wouldn't come off as a racist/IQist as much.
    - thras 18y ago
      Okay, sure. But then I'd have to think of an explanation for why adopted Asian-Americans do just as well (or better) academically than Asian-Americans raised by their own parents. Culture can't explain that. Maybe you could help me out?
      - 18y ago

ajju 18y ago

I have now heard of 3 cases of friends who are engineers (with graduate degrees from the U.S.) working at well known US software companies, being held back in India because the US consulate is taking months to do a "background check" after they went to get their H1-B renewals, which have already been approved, stamped on the passport. This used to be an "in and out" procedure since the US government already does background checks on H-1B applicants when they apply for the first time, get their visas stamped for the first time and then apply for a renewal while still in the U.S. At least one of these guys is considering resigning his position in the U.S. and starting something in India rather than sitting at home doing nothing. Maybe this is just random chance. If not, kicking skilled immigrants with jobs out of the country is not a wise move.

palehose 18y ago

Is this really something of interest to Hacker News? It sounds more like political flamebait to me.

queensnake 18y ago
From the guidelines: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or egregiously offtopic, you can flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. "