The Microsoft Facility In Vancouver That Congress Built

You know how the best NBA and MLB teams spend enormous sums of money scouting talent around the world? The best U.S. corporations do the same. A failure to do so comes at the cost of future innovation, and in some instance results in obsolescence altogether.

It’s all a reminder of the why behind Microsoft opening up a large Vancouver-based facility back in 2016. The corporation’s initial intent was to house its additional hires in a Seattle-based location, but for rules set by Congress that limit the amount of talented foreign workers allowed to showcase their skills in the United States.

Ultimately Congress’s rules proved too stringent, thus Microsoft’s pivot north to Vancouver. Canada’s immigration laws aren’t as strict when it comes to corporations hiring those they want to hire.

Which explains the title of this opinion piece. Congress essentially built a major Microsoft facility in Canada with its strict approach to immigration. One of the world’s most valuable companies took its investment elsewhere.

To which some will reply that Congress did and does right by limiting the inflow of foreign workers. Shouldn’t corporations hire Americans first?

Let’s first apply the above question to professional sports teams. Shouldn’t NBA and MLB teams be limited to drafting American players? The answer is that such limits would render American teams quite a bit less competitive. “World Champion” would no longer apply to NBA and MLB champions.

The situation for Microsoft is no different. While it’s on top right now, both domestically and globally, it won’t remain on top if it becomes lax in its hiring practices. Which explains the Vancouver facility yet again.

Microsoft had to place it there simply because the hires it wanted to make were not legal to work in the United States. It’s that basic. In order to add the workers it desired to its operations, Microsoft had to create a facility outside the United States. Thanks Congress.

To which some might still say Congress did right in keeping foreign workers out of the United States. They’re taking American jobs, after all. Not really. Just as the best pro sports teams won’t just hire anyone, neither will the best corporations hire just anyone. Microsoft knew the individuals it wanted to hire, only for it to build a facility outside the U.S. to house its hires.

Crucial about Microsoft’s pivot from Seattle to Vancouver is that is that it didn’t just result in high-paying jobs being filled up north, and out of the U.S. It also resulted in all manner of non-Microsoft jobs winding up in Vancouver.

To understand why, consider Cal-Berkeley professor Enrico Moretti’s 2012 book, The New Geography of Jobs. Moretti noted that there’s a “jobs multiplier” quality to the most successful technology companies. Since their employees operate so ambitiously and are paid so well, many multiples of jobs (think investment bankers, lawyers, sommeliers, chefs, personal trainers, etc.) cluster where technology workers are located. Which is just a reminder that Seattle lost twice when Congress erected barriers to Microsoft hiring the workers it desired.

In the present, the perception remains that immigrants are a burden borne by Americans in the form of lower wages and reduced job opportunity. The perception is backwards. Jobs aren’t finite, rather they’re only limited by investment.

By limiting the arrival of human capital to the U.S., Congress erects barriers to the investment without which there are no companies and no jobs to begin with. Yes, by not allowing the best American companies to hire without regard to U.S. citizenship, Congress powers a “hiring multiplier” outside the United States.