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Comment by ericmay | Hacker News Reader

Can you elaborate more on hiring and immigration in the United Kingdom and Australia with respect to similar skilled visa work?

When you say South Asia could you expand on what specific countries you mean? I think South Asia could mean a few things to a few different people which is why I ask.

> It means less focus in the US which eventually will just become sales and marketing only with perhaps some smaller department sized tech jobs.

As an American I'm curious about this, can you expand on how this will happen or how you think it might happen? If I recall correctly the figure for active H1B visa holders in the United States is under 1 million, so are you asserting that those visa holders all or mostly leave the United States and then the tech jobs that remain will be small in number are most folks working at companies like Google or Microsoft will just be working in sales and marketing? If that's not what you meant to say could you expand?

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> Can you elaborate more on hiring and immigration in the United Kingdom and Australia with respect to similar skilled visa work? > When you say South Asia could you expand on what specific countries you mean? I think South Asia could mean a few things to a few different people which is why I ask.

I was in the process of moving one engineer from Dubai to Manchester, probably all in the process is £20,000-£30,000 overall, spread over several years.

South Asia is India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Predominantly this is India and Pakistan though.

> As an American I'm curious about this, can you expand on how this will happen or how you think it might happen?

Best guess, those software engineering departments with predominantly South Asian engineers will cease to exist, they'll buy real estate in London/Sydney which is a much better long term investment because London prices always go up.

Severance is also REALLY easy in the US compared to countries where actual labour laws exist.

Sales and Marketing will stay, they probably need that American presence, they don't need that in software engineering because the Internet exists.

Thanks for expanding. I thought you were referring to roughly the same locations in South Asia but I wasn't sure. I appreciate it.

I was reading just the other day that some US companies have been spending lavishly on office space in the City of London [1].

[1] No paywall https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/commercial/apple-citadel-and...

Speaking purely from the UK perspective, London is expensive, however, real estate should not be seen as a cost for a large company, it's an investment. Price increases on office real estate on a year-to-year basis just in London is 5-10% per square metre.

For the UK this is amazing news, it also allows for places like Birmingham and Manchester to get a significant boost.

Let’s be real - nobody is moving R&D to Pakistan, Sri Lanka or Bangladesh. Talent is not there and good luck convincing any expats to move there in meaningful numbers.

India is real but every company is already there and very little real high end R&D is happening there - it’s all mostly basic outsourcing. I doubt H1B situation changes anything here frankly.

When OP says South Asia they mean India.

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