??? Everyone I know in the EU gets like 4x more vacation than most people in Canada. And work 30-40% less hours weekly.

Never in my life have I heard this.

What? EU has way better conditions than Canada

To me, that is an absurd statement. Speaking as someone who has work in EU countries, the US, UK, and Australia, the EU was by far the best for “working conditions” (holiday, flexibility, benefits, overall working environment). I’ve never worked in Canada, I admit, but know people who have.

I worked in both EU and Canada.. and no, lol, Canada does not have better working conditions. Less vacation, longer working hours, less ‘protection’ for employees vs employers.

OK evidently 2 people are unhappy to hear these conditions would be illegal in the EU and have downvoted.

In certain areas of the US maybe. I believe the average wage in the EU is actually higher than in the US. Need to look up the Source, which is hard because I'm on mobile right now.

Salaries are only better for certain fields in the US though. If you are working in a grocery store in the US vs EU, you would be better off in EU. And you wouldn't have to worry about falling ill and skyrocketing healthcare costs.

And lose that advantage the moment you need to go to the hospital.

Just to back up your comment with a citation.

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-state-of-paid-s...

This is the (very common) fallacy that disagreeing with something, or considering it immoral, is equivalent to not believing that it will happen (if not prevented somehow).

So you do bring up a very common line of thinking (and, I think, a common one that isn't expressed often in such topics).

Firstly, you seem to be conflating H1-B with obtaining a foreign contractor. That's an accounting burden, often comes with time zone issues, and does damage to a company's return-to-office agenda unless they are hired for something completely divorced from other teams. This puts the contractor in a considerable position as they can maneuver with effectively zero oversight. Great for the contractor, bad for the employer (at least the first time; after a rapport is established it could be fine).

If that's not what you meant, then the engineer(s) being hired are from a staffing agency or similar. But now you are at the behest of who the staffing agency pulls for local talent and their ability to retain said talent. Often, while incoming engineers can be vetted the employer doesn't have the latitude of choosing any engineer from the region and plucking them like they would s contractor or H1-B.

An H1-B gives the employer the best of all worlds at the cost of sponsorship. The employee works for them and has considerably less options as many companies do not sponsor H1-B visas, so they have less opportunities. Between the value of the US dollar and engineers being salaried much lower elsewhere you could likely pull an H1-B for half the price of a US engineer and in many cases they would still come out very well ahead. As well, by bringing them to the US you fix any time zone issues and RTO questions.

FWIW, I think a lot of US engineers tend to have a negative view on both being in-office AND having compensation reduced; I think most would be fine with a reduction in comp if it meant remote work - but most companies seem much more interested in maximum control AND minimal investment.

Time zones are still a thing to workaround. It's easier to import them or to nearshoe. Tech in south America is there but not super plentiful.

But you're missing the real reason. It's not about salaries by itself. It's control. People like musk would even pay H1b's more than an American when they lack the leverage to easily hop to another job or can threaten to end their visa if they get uppity. Even under American soil, he can coerce them to work to the bone easier than a citizen.

Econ 101. If an employer can pay someone less to do the same job, they will.

https://www.epi.org/press/a-majority-of-migrant-workers-empl...

This compulsive need for data is such a mental crutch. Reason from first principles. Use logic. You don’t need to be spoon-fed data from a scientifically rigorous study in order to deduce basic cause-and-effect relationships.

The plural of anecdote is not data, but at some overwhelming quantity it is as demonstrative as data.

There are sub-$60K H1B jobs. That's below my $55K starting salary as a fresh grad which, after adjustment, is $100K today. That was in an era when CS grads were pulling $100K with no experience so by no means extravagant for the time.

We've had decades of STEM hype but somehow can't produce college grads to do entry level tech work?

As a small amount of data, my asking salary has never been less than the highest paid H1B at a company plus another $30k/yr, and I've always been offered more than I've asked, despite the H1B position being more senior. That doesn't prove wages being dragged down by itself, but it's evidence of H1B workers being paid less than the legally mandated "actual wage", and ECON 101 can take care of the rest in terms of the expected effects on the market.