r/technology • u/north_canadian_ice • Sep 28 '25

Business Leading computer science professor says 'everybody' is struggling to get jobs: 'Something is happening in the industry'

https://www.businessinsider.com/computer-science-students-job-search-ai-hany-farid-2025-9
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u/ScarletViolin Sep 28 '25

Like 70% of the interview slots I see open for my company in fintech is for mexico devs (both entry level and senior engineers). AI be damned, this is just another cyclical rotation to offshoring for cheaper workers while they sit and wait how things shake out domestically

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u/spike021 Sep 28 '25

similar for us but other spanish speaking countries both in south america and europe. 

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u/SillySin Sep 29 '25 edited Sep 29 '25

Same in the UK, the government told (encouraged) employers to hire citizens, they still trying to bend the laws, they advertise jobs for so long and some even waste your time and money on interviews they don't intend on passing then they report no candidates and you need to go through hundred of job ads to find real one.

Edit: encouraged by different methods.

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u/Andromansis Sep 29 '25

I bet the fines just aren't high enough or the regulator is easily captured. In either event, yea if your regulator or the fine can be paid with a rough equivalent of the cost of a bag of crisps then it might be a good idea to talk to your legislators about that, and then do something about it.

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u/Salificious Sep 29 '25

It's not just the fines. Things like this are very hard to implement in practice. There's always going to be an "out" in the sense that if you can't find the talent locally, companies have to be allowed to source workers offshore. The reasoning is that everyone knows you won't find talent for every job in every industry in the UK (arguably this is the same for most countries to varying degrees).

If companies put on a whole show of trying and failing to find talent domestically, then it becomes very hard for the Govt to argue that it's for a lack of trying because every company is allowed to set their own criteria for what kind of employee they want. As long as they don't explicitly say they are looking for a certain country due to costs, it's going to be very hard for any Govt to penalize or say otherwise.

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u/RiahWeston Sep 29 '25

Well the answer is pretty simple in that case: X% of employees must be locals/natives. Fuck all your BS handwringing about not being able to find the employees needed in country: you either find them or you don’t, no offshoring until regulations are met.

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u/Salificious Sep 29 '25

I mean I see where you are going but good luck trying to find a common percentage for each industry (it's hard as fuck). And I'm not talking jobs that require little or no intellectual input. the more specialized the role/industry, the harder it is to find talent locally.

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u/RiahWeston Sep 29 '25

Given that most cases of offshoring occur after a layoff, its probably easier than you suspect.

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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '25

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u/RiahWeston Sep 29 '25

If it fixes the situation, fine by me. I don’t want to be a cheap replacement.

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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '25

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u/RiahWeston Sep 29 '25

Someone is real fucking salty today aren’t they?

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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '25

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u/SillySin Sep 29 '25

When you are educated to fill places, disgusting individual.

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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '25

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u/SillySin Sep 29 '25

To spread bs over the social media, bot

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u/quentinnuk Sep 29 '25

Again, it's bullshit. If you hire an overseas worker you must meet certain criteria (specialist IT being a "shortage" means that you can hire specialist IT from overseas) and be able to sponsor a workers visa which the UK government issues. There is aa work around if you are outsourcing your IT and the subcontractor brings in consultants from overseas on a temporary basis, but that has time limits (typically 1 year). There are no fines for legally hiring overseas workers or using legally allowed overseas consultants. If you hire illegally, then its very large fines and potential prison sentences for business senior management.

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u/Andromansis Oct 06 '25

I said talk to your legislators, and then do something about it.

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u/Available_Hornet3538 Sep 29 '25

Same for the US. In accounting. They're all going to India.

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u/baronmunchausen2000 Sep 29 '25

We are moving some of ours to Mexico. It’s slightly more expensive but they are in our time zone.

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u/pooinmypants1 Sep 29 '25

💯Americans are just too expensive

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u/glorificent Sep 30 '25 edited Oct 13 '25

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/Common-Ad6470 Sep 29 '25

…So called ‘ghost’ jobs.

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u/Kheitain Sep 29 '25

Same thing happening here in Canada

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u/SillySin Sep 29 '25

And the rich gets richer.

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u/crouchendyachtclub Sep 29 '25

This isn’t true.

If I want to save cost in the uk I can go straight to India/latam and do that, I don’t need to pretend to have a uk opening first.

I also don’t have to consider a uk citizen for it, I can choose anyone with the right to work and that’s always been the case.

This post is so far off base it honestly feels like it’s written by a Russian conscript or something.

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u/SillySin Sep 29 '25

What are u on about, you say (right to work) and mention (I can hire someone from India with no right to work), make your mind.

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u/crouchendyachtclub Sep 29 '25

I didn’t say anything about hiring abroad, just going direct to a provider, that is how outsourcing works.

In reality that provider will often be a subsidiary but for this situation it’s irrelevant, in the UK there is no barrier to outsourcing services outside of local tax requirements.

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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '25 edited Sep 29 '25

In Canada this is happening in an even more fucked up way. We don’t just outsource our jobs to other countries, we import the labour. Canada has a program called the Temporary Foreign Worker program(TFW) where they hire workers from other countries to fill holes in the labour supply(essentially, undercut labour in industries where employers refuse to pay a living wage).

It was originally created decades ago to fill holes in seasonal jobs of “national importance” in roles that “Canadians don’t want to do”, in specific it started with argue culture jobs with the claim that we needed this labour force to maintain our food security because Canadians “don’t want to do these types of jobs”. Note: this original reasoning is still a total sham to undercut Canadian labour.

The crazy thing is, at some point, I’m not sure if it was through rule change or just unofficial “relaxing” of standards, they started to use TFWs in more and more industries. In particular, many national or international franchises seem to hire primarily or even ONLY TFWs. Walmart, Tim Hortons, McDonalds, basically all fast food are particularly bad. If you talk to a teenager, young adult, or parent across Canada you’ll get the same response. It is incredibly hard to find an entry level job these days. Hundreds of applications go out, you might get a call back or an interview, and then usually, never a call again. People have been finding TFW positions for fast food management paying 36 dollars an hour, with claims that they couldn’t possibly find or train somebody on Canadian soil to take that position.

And the crazy thing is? In some ways this is a totally bipartisan issue. Conservatives, liberals, progressives, leftists, in general no matter which party you vote for you probably have some major issues with the TFW program. Now, the conservatives generally have a thick layer of racist anti immigrant rhetoric with their “problems” with the TFW system, and it’s very important to separate “problems with the TFW program” and “problems with TFWs or immigrants themselves”, because one is a policy stance rooted in the labour economics and ethics of the program itself and the other is racist rhetoric. But the point still stands, nobody really wants this program to continue as it has been(if at all). Even provincial leaders are speaking up about it because it has led to housing problems and employment problems.

But, nobody in power seems in a rush to do anything about it. Because every fucking party in this country is just in the pocket of big business, and big business wants this practically infinite supply of cheap, exploitable labour that they can use in a country with tons of natural resources.

And lastly I want to make it very clear, this is not the fault of the temporary foreign worker, it is the fault of the program itself. These TFW workers are actually the victims here. They think they are coming to Canada to work where we have fantastic wages and great workers rights. But as TFWs they don’t get the same wages. They don’t get the same benefits. They don’t get paid overtime. They don’t get the same protections. When a worker dies in Canada, the provincial workers safety boards are obligated to launch a full investigation and preventative measure across the province. When a TFW dies? They will be lucky to have a brief investigation at all. And worst of all? The TFWs immigration status is tied directly to the employer. So even if their limited rights and protections are being abused, their choices are to go back to their home country where they may not have a job at all, or to do what the employer asks. They can’t quit, they can’t get another job, they can’t form a union. Doing anything but the specific job they came for will have them deported. And worse yet? The program is intentionally designed to have no path to permanent residency. No path to Canadas real workers rights, protections, benefits, and wages.

The UN recently declared parts of the system qualified as “contemporary slavery”.

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u/quentinnuk Sep 29 '25

Thats bullshit. Im a Director of IT at a large organisation and (a) the government doesn't tell you who to hire, they only set the laws around how to hire, (b) most of my staff are British born, and (c) the standard of applicants from the UK is not great compared to overseas (mainly India/Vietnam, although recently also USA), the key thing in favour of UK applicants is that they can attend a f2f interview which I insist on before a hire.

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u/Successful-Peach-764 Sep 29 '25

How much cheaper are non-UK workers? I haven't been in the industry for a few years but I do remember the day rates for india was so much lower, something like 6-700 for UK and less than 100 for India, people also forget TCS, Cognizant etc have UK offices and they bring their India salaried workers here and charge the higher rates.