Finding good candidates has always been the biggest bottleneck to getting things done in my experience at Amazon. The tightening of US visa rules has it made it harder to recruit. Worse, many of my foreign colleagues are finding it harder than ever to get their visas renewed. Could the worsening US immigration environment be a sufficient reason for Amazon execs to choose a location in Canada for the new headquarters? From what I hear it is much easier for professionals to get work visas in Canada than in the US.
I don’t think so. If it was a crushing burden to attract talent, they would be writing enormous checks to congress to open the flood gates and telling them it’s either invest at home or invest abroad. Either way, they still need to attract American workers, and most Americans wouldn’t want to move to Canada. What’s happening now with immigration puckering up is transient. Amazon wouldn’t bet the farm so to speak to invest in 50k jobs in Canada based on what is likely a transient slowdown in immigration here.
Amazon is the largest corporate lobbiest in DC.
No. Canada is not that great to begin with. Cold weather, limited opportunities and the culture can be a bit much for many people
Its a viable option. Amazon hires a ton of recently graduated students. Most of them are masters students who eventually need h1b. Even the experienced workforce has more than 20-30% immigrants( product and tech). So immigrants form a bulk of their workforce. With the clamp down on h1b, they need to find another location where they can hire people without having to worry about immigration and competition from other major companies. My money is on Toronto!
Not chancr. Canada too liberal
So is Seattle but Jeff committed to it over less liberal nearby cities. In fact California is clearly in the running and is just as liberal as Canada. The H1B crackdiwn DEFINITELY makes Canada attractive. But so do the billion dollar subsidies offered by other cities so I think it's a horse race.
Just curious, which H1B clamp down are u guys talking about? I thought Amazon’s salary and position is not affected by the current H1B tightening regulations
But trump said mean things.
The process for applicants now takes significantly longer. Far more scrutiny is now occurring on applicants who are being asked for much more information. Draft legislation will make H1 visas even harder to get. https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2017/12/05/trump-administration-slows-visa-approvals/jMunwvFWmF8JJnGFVW5NPN/story.html
Amazon has received a lot of goodwill by announcing the HQ2 project. 400+ cities have submitted proposals, many of which screw over their residents to give huge tax breaks to Amazon. Choosing a non-US city at this point in this political climate will be PR suicide. No way that's going to happen
I guess it is already happening and is not limited to Amazon. Google also is scaling presence in Canada. I guess countries with less restrictive immigration regime are seeing more interest
It’s not clear that Amazon (or Apple/Google/Facebook/Microsoft for that matter) are affected much by the uptick in RFE’s. Obviously if Amazon is having a hard time keeping their people here, they would strongly consider Canada. But it is not clear that is the case. I do not know a single person in the companies mentioned above who got rejected for their H-1B renewal or application (except lottery rejections).
I know of several people on my amazon team who are facing a bigger hassle getting their visas renewed than in the past. I am being asked to help people write in depth papers detailing how our team benefits the company as part of the visa renewal process. We never had to do this before.
Yes, there are more RFE’s - requests for evidence - which is what you’re submitting evidence for. After you submit your case, it can either be approved or rejected. Since H-1B is a temporary visa, renewal requires proving that there is “still” a worker shortage for that type of job, and whether their position still meets the definition of specialty occupation - after all, the job market and the candidates available change over the years. But I do not know anyone at a Big-N company who was actually rejected.
Even better, now a college fresh grad can obtain Canadian citizenship in 5-6 years and then they can potentially come and join US office.
I don’t understand why this question keeps coming up other than wishful thinking on the part of H1 holders and Canadians. HQ2 will not be in Canada. Yes, Amazon files a bunch of H1 requests but there’s no way the company is going to decide on Canada just because it will be easier for H1 applicants to get a green card there. With “MAGA” folks in charge there’s no way in hell its going to be Outside the US especially since US cities have fallen over backwards to accommodate Amazon.
Agree. It's amazing how much H1B holding green card wait folks assume (wish?) their situation is a key criterion. Hell no!
This. American people voted for president Donald and agree with his views. He is doing the right thing. H1b is way too lose now
/yawn