[xupybd]

I’m in New Zealand. My friends are really struggling to get work here. Employers here are really tough on Chinese developers. Immigration is even tougher. I think our government needs to address these issues if we want more skilled workers.

[doktrin]

> Employees here are really tough on Chinese developers. Immigration is even tougher

Can you elaborate on this? I'm just curious.

[ponzored]

In New Zealand and Australia Indian and Chinese workers are essentially seen as replaceable due to the huge numbers of them migrating to both countries (those countries make up the #1 and #2 sources of migrants respectively).

The whole point of the migration schemes are to get workers for cheap and to put downwards pressure on wages. A very high skill level is not really required, and big companies will just throw bodies at jobs and rotate out anyone who can't make the cut.

The IT contracting shops there are called 'body shops' for this very reason.

[monkeycantype]

There many Indian Australian and Asian Australian developers, but there are also has many Indian and Chinese citizens working in Australia, employed by large contracting firms like TCS, on contacts under _Indian_ labor laws, with worse entitlements and in more vulnerable negotiating positions than their Australia co-workers. Some of these people are very highly skilled, they also get rotated out as they are useful for establishing teams with new clients. I work with many people who who have asked me, and others, to help lobby on there behalf to stay in their jobs, because they have been told by their contracting company that they will be moved, and if they refuse, their contract contains provisions that could force require them quit and pay back the previous three months pay. I struggle to believe this is legal under Australian law, but I am close to one developer who did this and chose to pay back three months pay rather than speak to a lawyer.

[iagovar]

Exactly the same situation in Spain, except not even foreign workers are needed to put donward pressure on wages...

[jpmoral]

Can you explain why the government would want to depress wages?

[ponzored]

Because their big business mates bribe them into doing it. However, Australia is not a corrupt country, so the 'bribe' will mean a high-paid consulting or executive job after their career in politics.

Additionally most of the wages being depressed are actually for entry-level jobs, and the poor have no voice in most democracies since they are not effectively organised.

Its a common scam to get a student visa (often with fake English test results etc) which allows you to enter the country and work 20 hours a week, then to actually work 60 hours and have the boss pay you for 20. This results in payments 1/3rd the level of minimum wage, but this is still attractive enough for poor Indian males to want to come and do it in the hundreds of thousands.

Plus Australia is has very generous welfare for the elderly (aka pensions) and a sub-replacement fertility level, so there is always pressure to maintain that ponzi scheme with more taxable bodies.

Oh, and in addition to all that, the people that are opposing this type of mass immigration are being called racist.

[workinthehead]

Perhaps under some misguided assumption that it benefits business?

[EdwardDiego]

I presume you mean employers? Can you define tough? And immigration is a doddle if you're on the skills shortage list and have sufficient English.

[xupybd]

I did mean employers sorry. I’ll admit a sample size of 2 is nothing to go by but I’ve seen Chinese and Indians struggle for months to get interviews while other less talented developer easily get jobs. Admittedly both were poor at self promotion.