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Based. The west has long relied on international brain drain (caused by imperial wars and neo-colonialism) to accumulate the “best and the brightest” and put a stranglehold on the tertiary/quaternary sectors. It’s amusing to see the shoe on the other foot, especially after the western tech giants have worked so hard to suppress tech worker wages.
In fact, the West gobbling up skilled labor is a factor of imperialism and underdevelopment. Labor is the superior of capital, so the loss of a skilled engineer is always worse than whatever remittances they might return home.
But at what cost
China is Bombarding Tech Talent With Job Offers.
But at what cost?
Those perfidious Asiatics, offering competitive salaries to experienced engineers! Very anti-competitive. I know what we should do - we can quadruple down on harassing researchers and professionals with Chinese origins. Heck, anyone vaguely Asian will do.
I found this line very funny:
State funding for Chinese companies enables them to offer salaries beyond what Western companies can pay.
Source?
ASML made €8 billion in net income in 2023. TSMC, $30 billion (not Western, but mentioned in the same breath). I’m sure they could scrounge a few coins from under the couch cushions to match salaries if they wanted to.
But if they offered higher salaries, how would shareholders afford to buy their third yacht?
So true, but also y’all did the Chips Act and some of the most heavy handed protectionism seen this century. The fuck you talking about
Mmm, China perfidiously stealing the hard-earned talent of Western engineers? I know just the solution! They should build an anti-communist self-defence wall:
We no longer wanted to stand by passively and see how doctors, engineers, and skilled workers were induced by refined methods unworthy of the dignity of man to give up their secure existence in the GDR and work in West Germany or West Berlin. These and other manipulations cost the GDR annual losses amounting to 3.5 thousand million marks.
Some fine historical irony. Of course, given the way the university system works in places like the US, there’s not even a good argument that this imposes costs on the public, who trains personnel only for them to leave and benefit some other state.
Maybe this is what Trump’s wall is for.
trains personnel only for them to leave and benefit some other state.
The entire country of Canada may feel triggered for the last 30 years at this comment.
I mean, all the doctors and nerds come back, but it takes a decade. Are you saying we get a border wall too, and Trump is gonna pay for it ?
Maybe this is what Trump’s wall is for.
There is a video of thin Mexican worker slipping between the bars (wall had to be see through for some reason) from one side of the border to the other. Obviously wall is meant to keep fat Americans trapped inside America.
Why would they say thousand million instead of billion?
At a guess, it’s following older British norms, whereby a billion is what it is in other European languages (a million million) and a thousand million is a thousand million or, more pretentiously, a milliard. You’d have to ask the authors though.
That’s interesting. Thanks
Just let me work remote, thanks.
For 3x the money! Sign me up but I would need a pretty bad ass contract to jumpship!
From what I’ve read about working at Chinese tech companies, you will not get to work remotely. In fact, you will be required to work in an office for 10 hrs a day instead of coming and going as you please.
Just look at the TSMC factory in AZ as an example. Taiwanese work expectations are not very compatible with how top US talent wants to work.
Taiwan is not China.
Agreed, I wasn’t exactly sure how well it would translate countries, but it was the first solid thing that came to mind.
taiwan is china, its just that its occupied by us-backed libs rn.
I think the people living there disagree with you…
not unlike the americans who think they live in a democracy
Ay least we agree, the people living in Taiwan do not believe they are a part of China then, correct?
people living in taiwan are probably not a monolithic block.
but the cia has been doing some mighty propaganda work over there, so who knows if they think being a colony is worth it.
They’re a big believer in 996, so 9am to 9pm, six days a week. Sadly, this is creeping into western tech too, but is commonplace in China.
They should bombard me with job offers
As Western governments make it harder for China to access sensitive technologies—a trend expected to continue under the administration of President-elect Donald Trump—many Chinese companies are trying to get ahead by luring away top engineers in areas such as advanced semiconductors and artificial intelligence.
Hopefully the wsj made up the part about AI. They would do more harm to China than good
AI has plenty of good uses. Its just capitalism that finds the shittiest ways for them to be possibly used.
It depends on what they mean by “AI”
It’s a shitty marketing buzzword so it can mean anything from algorithmic logic to LLMs. Not all “AI” requires it’s own nuclear power plant and a Great Lake to operate.
Chinese capitalists are just as prone to bullshit as western ones. Chinese government might reign it in but they are slow to react.
Slow, sure. But when they do, it’s usually a very final punishment. Puts other oligarchs on notice.
Wym?
Didn’t see any specifics around hours in the article though.
Is it twice the pay for twice the working hours? 996 or whatever they call it?
996 is now illegal in China
Several companies like TikTok still work similar to this. Culturally, I doubt it’ll stop any time soon
based
If you’re a top engineer (or any similar senior position) for a western company, you ain’t working 40 hr/week. 50-70 hours a week is going to be the norm for that type of position in the west as well.
Well the work takes 20 hours per week in any case. It’s just a matter of if the hour sheet is getting 40/50/60/70 marked in
I don’t know what tech companies you worked for, but when I was working for a software company, I was averaging 45 hours in a client IT position, and all the software devs/engineers were definitely working at least 55-60 hours. And that was during normal periods: things definitely went into crunch mode around version releases and client go-lives. As far as I can tell, this is true across the broader industry.
That’s the expectation but apparently according to scientists, and easy to verify empirically, human cognitive levels decline after some four to six hours of deep focus depending on individuals and unique situations. So the ones grinding for 60 hrs all the time basically don’t get anything more or better done. It’s just time sheet theater.
Crunch can be an emergency situation kind of thing but that’s not sustainable and all and needs its own recovery.
The point wasn’t that this work culture was good, but rather it doesn’t make sense to single out China when it’s endemic to the tech industry worldwide.
Yes. Be it the US or China or anywhere else, the hour requirements are an absurd joke
all the software devs/engineers were definitely working at least 55-60 hours
Sounds insane. Would you say that was useful work for some broader goal, or was it just about money? I could not imagine working like that.
Microsoft, Apple and Google all collectively shed one single tear as their concerns for their multi-billion dollar profits. For the Execs that is.
Wish China would offer to triple my pay but I don’t speak any chinese languages so they probably won’t.
I should learn Mandarin
know of any good free resources out there?
Oh no! Won’t someone think of the executives? Anyways.
heyy send some of those bombs my way!|
This is a peaceful path to global conquest. It is warmongering posture that promotes this workaround, and enslaving people to domestic tech oligarchy is an inherently negative consequence of warmongering. A world at war means AI/tech helping war and disinformation instead of making work/life more productive.
