EU tax probe will not affect Apple's operation in Cork

Re:EU tax probe will not affect Apple's operation in Cork – ... by munchor on Wednesday November 11, 2015 @06:30AM (#10546077)

I think this is a great move to fight the lack of efficacy of the H1B visa program[1]. If Apple can't bring everyone they'd like to America, the only obvious option is to employ more people in Europe. Unfortunately, due to how the H1B lottery, this is what big tech companies have to start doing - expanding their offices in Europe. This way they might even get some of the people they want with the L1 visa.

However, it's a shame that the H1B lottery is as it is, because startups have a really hard time hiring people. It would help startups to grow if it were easier to hire people from outside the US. As an European programmer trying to go to the US, I really hope that the US government gets rid of the lottery system.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10539100

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Re:EU tax probe will not affect Apple's operation in Cork – ... by threeseed on Wednesday November 11, 2015 @07:28AM (#10546285)

This has absolutely nothing to do with H1B visas. Cork, Ireland is the EMEA headquarters and where the call centre, finance and logistics are managed. No engineering work is done there.

Developers however are spread all over the place (some in Stockley Park/Covent Court, London, Paris etc) and some of their acquisitions never moved e.g. Cambridge. That said even these developers are on the periphery and mostly doing localisation type engineering e.g. supporting the various EMEA specific payment/shipping methods for the Apple Online Store.

If you want to work on core iOS, OSX, iPhone, iPad etc then you still need to be in Cupertino.

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Re:EU tax probe will not affect Apple's operation in Cork – ... by chrisseaton on Wednesday November 11, 2015 @06:41AM (#10546119)

But it doesn't look like they'll be employing any software developers ('manufacturing, customer care, finance and global supply chain management'). I'm not sure many customer care people would normally come over on an H1B anyway.

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Re:EU tax probe will not affect Apple's operation in Cork – ... by Kurtz79 on Wednesday November 11, 2015 @07:24AM (#10546272)

I really wish more companies would follow suit (and not only in Ireland), including design and development roles in the equation.

Behemots like Apple have the money and infrastructure to make it irrelevant where offices are located, and in Europe (even considering that Europe is not a monolithic entity) there is a potential pool of talent larger than the US.

Where I live (Madrid) salaries for engineering jobs are a fraction of what they are in US, every multinational has a presence here, but most local jobs are sales or retail.

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Re:EU tax probe will not affect Apple's operation in Cork – ... by mcginleyr1 on Wednesday November 11, 2015 @09:08AM (#10546692)

Interestingly I know a lot of descendants of the Irish Diaspora are starting to take interest in returning work to Ireland. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-north-west-ireland-our-ga... is just one example, there's more when you look at things like the Irish American Business Chamber & Network ( http://iabcn.org/ ). Curious to see what happens over my lifetime.

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Re:EU tax probe will not affect Apple's operation in Cork – ... by threeseed on Wednesday November 11, 2015 @07:31AM (#10546308)

Apple very much believes in the importance of face to face communication for the most part so money/infrastructure is irrelevant. I am sure the whole secrecy aspect of their business is pretty important as well. The way Apple works to take advantage of European developers is through acquisitions where they still largely keep the teams in tact.

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Re:EU tax probe will not affect Apple's operation in Cork – ... by raverbashing on Wednesday November 11, 2015 @06:37AM (#10546104)

Yeah, it's hard for the serious players to get their needed H1B when "consultancy companies" clogs the system by hiring warm bodies that barely know how to write a Hello World in Java (but hey they can be allocated to "corporate projects")

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Re:EU tax probe will not affect Apple's operation in Cork – ... by irish_lad on Wednesday November 11, 2015 @06:42AM (#10546125)

I'm not so sure if relating this news to the H1B visa makes sense. From the linked article, I don't think many of these are software dev roles.

Additionally I'm not even sure if there is much dev work going on in their Cork plant? Would love to hear from someone in the know :)

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Re:EU tax probe will not affect Apple's operation in Cork – ... by threeseed on Wednesday November 11, 2015 @07:37AM (#10546330)

There's definitely some development work done on SAP, ERP and other backend systems.

But it isn't your glamorous Apple Car/Apple Watch/R&D development.

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Re:EU tax probe will not affect Apple's operation in Cork – ... by djb_hackernews on Wednesday November 11, 2015 @08:34AM (#10546552)

Why is it any harder for startups to hire people from within the US? The US is big and has A LOT of tech talent within its borders, I can imagine the level of talent being sufficient for nearly every "startup."

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Re:EU tax probe will not affect Apple's operation in Cork – ... by chrisbennet on Wednesday November 11, 2015 @10:21AM (#10547055)

It's hard because most startups don't pay market rates.

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