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Comment by rightbyte | Hacker News Reader

I don't think the fee is a problem unless the 'top scientists' are actually juniors grinding mundane lab tasks.

The real issue is the symbolism where people don't feel welcome I guess.

You don't think a fee of USD $27000 (fee for family of 4 from article) is a problem for a scientist? Just how much money do you think scientists make anyway? Even for a well-paid software engineer, that's easily enough money to make them not bother looking at jobs in that country, and the UK isn't known for high salaries either so it's even worse.

Ye 27000USD is a no go for like most or almost all prospective scientists if they have to pay it themself.

I think I misunderstood the article.

>I think I misunderstood the article.

That's understandable, I think: This policy in the UK is so shockingly and bone-headedly stupid that it probably seems completely unbelievable, so your brain tries to interpret it in some other way that makes more sense.

>You don't think a fee of USD $27000 (fee for family of 4 from article) is a problem for a scientist?

Presumably the companies that really need to import talent would cover those fees for them if imported talent is actually necessary. Companies in the US pay similar fees to sponsor imported employees and no one complains about the costs.

I won't deal with a company covering those kinds of fees or even a headhunter in the UK for a European job. There's a lot of room there for problems and anyone who is worth paying $27k on top of generous relocation has a lot of choices that are better than the UK in terms of actually delivered compensation.

>There's a lot of room there for problems and anyone who is worth paying $27k on top of generous relocation has a lot of choices that are better than the UK in terms of actually delivered compensation.

That seems like an argument in favor of UK businesses paying these fees. It's an employee's market for top talent and employers bear the burden of paying any sorts of fees necessary to get top talent. The alternative is for that sort of industry to just not be viable in the UK.

A Post-doc at a prestigious research institute will probably be earning around £40,000, almost certainly in a HCOL area where rent for a 1 bed flat is £1,500+ a month. The fee is a legitimate financial concern for them.

'top scientists' in the uk make less than interns at google.

Top scientist anywhere make less than interns at the world's richest AD delivery company.

how much rent does that internship salary pay?

my buddy was paying around $5k/month USD for his rent when he was doing FAANG work in SF.

Yeah, it's not just the UK. Scientists in the US make lousy money too. They're actually a lot better off taking their science degree, quitting science work, and going into patent law to work on patents that the underpaid scientists create. You don't even need a law degree; you can work under a patent attorney. (Obviously the pay isn't as good as someone with a JD or LLM, but it's better than the people doing the actual science work.)

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