MochiMochiMochi t1_j6mbseh wrote on January 31, 2023 at 10:01 AM

Reply to comment by SvenTropics in How Big Tech is using mass layoffs to bring workers to heel by diacewrb

Pretty much, though as someone who has worked in tech since 2006 I'm seeing something different now: lots of foreign contractors.

We've always had a big cohort of talent in India working alongside us as longtime employees but now I'm also seeing a ton of contractors from places like Brazil, Argentina, Poland, Mexico, etc.

At my company we're told this is our new way of doing business which means reduced US hiring for the extended future. A bunch of my US peers are experiencing the same thing.

Contractors are taking roles in analytics, UX, project management, change management, media production and some product management roles. Development is mostly staying in India.

My manager said the business English proficiency of foreign contractors has vastly improved in the last decade and the company is going to be saving a ton of money.

I dunno. From my lowly position it seems the winds of change are picking up.

nemocluecrj t1_j6mob3l wrote on January 31, 2023 at 12:35 PM

My whole job is screening and hiring, my employer often works with some of the best known blue chip tech companies in the world, and this totally jives with the patterns I've personally observed around working in and around the tech sector. As a whole, it's really hard for me to see what's happening right now as anything other than a protracted attempt to stop long-term wage growth and reduce salaries, primarily by opening certain fields to outsourcing and cheaper immigrant workers—i.e., H1B visa abuse, etc.

SvenTropics t1_j6myzwl wrote on January 31, 2023 at 2:07 PM

Was entry level when the dot com crash happened. For 6 months I couldn't find a job. Everyone was saying that in the future every single software job was going to be in India. Why have it anywhere else? Everyone drew lines parallel in it to the manufacturing industry and pointed out that everything is made in China now. I was convinced I was going to have to switch careers and that software in the US was dead. And then it wasn't, and then I ended up making more money than I ever thought I would make.

It turned out all those stories about every single tech job going to India were wrong. Now I'm hearing all the same people say all the same stuff again. I'm skeptical this time around.