Take into account COVID-19 pandemic and it is not as easy to move somewhere just now.
They all speak Russian. Lithuania has a sizable minority of Russian speakers, and has historical ties to Belarus. Latvia is predominantly Russian-speaking. Ukraine as well.
Knowing Belarusian, they can pick up Polish rather quickly.
As a last resort, Russia is still freer than Belarus politically and better off economically. Smolensk is half an hour drive from the Belarusian border.
This seems to imply the majority of residents of Latvia speak Russian natively. That might have been correct had the USSR existed a bit longer, but history took a different turn.
"Most Latvian businesses, especially in the Riga area, will happily serve you in Russian." That would be a more neutral and correct statement appropriate for this context.
Also relevant would be how Latvian government is publicly angling for Belarussian businesses willing to relocate to Latvia [1].
Regarding native tongues in Latvia... Currently, over 30% of Latvian residents speak Russian, Belarussian or Ukrainian natively, versus 62.3% Latvian. In Riga, the number of Russian, Belorussian or Ukrainian native speakers rises to over 43% [0] versus 47.1% Latvian.
[0] http://data.csb.gov.lv/pxweb/en/iedz/iedz__iedzrakst/IRG080....
[1] https://eng.lsm.lv/article/economy/business/belarusian-busin...
Still, even those statistics admit that Riga is mostly Russian-speaking [1]. This is where the IT crowd would land, anyway.
[1] https://www.csb.gov.lv/en/statistics/statistics-by-theme/pop...
In Latvia, especially Riga, Russian is spoken, but younger generations of ethnic Latvians are less and less welcoming of using it. Again, English is expected. There has been a distinct rise in shops in Riga where it's basically "Speak Latvian or English to me or GTFO".
Source: I'm a Russian speaker who visits all three Baltic countries at least 2-3 times a year, most recently last week.
My experience is anyone 30 or over speaks fluent Russian, but many of those will not admit to it - those in the 30-40 range are highly distrustful of anything Russian - and reasonably so given the history of the country. Anyone under 30 barely speaks Russian unless they themselves are immigrants from Russia.
I'd agree that in Lithuania a software engineering candidate that spoke Russian and not at least a "very good" standard of English or fluent Lithuanian would struggle to find work.
Lithuania is 5.8% Russian with 39% speaking it as a foreign language.
Numbers from Wikipedia.
That's an arguable statement. Russia is also ruled by lifetime president, any protests are being brutally oppressed, opposition leaders are being assassinated or imprisoned, state TV airing anti-Western propaganda 24/7. Ukraine and Lithuania look much better choice by all measures.
> And it's naive to say that there's no borders. You have to be qualified for the visa requirements. You also have to renew this visa every year or so. You have to start all over. Of course everything is possible with some effort and money, but i'm tired of seeing this term "no borders for it engineers".
1. Qualification:
1.1 University degree, usually means a Western university degree, or a few top tier ones in your own country. Lots of people from the East choose Western education not because they think so highly of it, but because a Western degree contributes to their visa eligibility.
1.2 Even if you have a Western degree, your troubles don't end there. Eligibility criteria often cover the most trendy topics as usual, but may stumble at something dumb as a requirement for a verbatim match of the degree title: i.e. the most dumb on my memory was "Electronics Engineering" getting a pass, but "Microelectronics Engineering" not, while this very much being the originaly intended criteria. The inviting countries are obviously more than content with the amount of people they can cherry pick with the utmost capriciousness.
1.3 Your usual age, health, crime check, marriage status check, security check (telling them you are not a spy, and not alkayeda)
1.3.1 The last few former may involve waiting for completely idiotic paper on your side of your border. A fake crime check note costs 1000 roubles cash ($20) to get from every cop, but may take few months if you want to get it legally, especially if you are from a far away province.
1.3.1.1 A completely innocent note on the former, like being a witness in a court case, or a traffic ticket will subject you to months of pain, and if some countries 100% denial rate, after being flagged in every international rogue person database.
1.4 Regulatory capture works in immigration too. This is they way Microsoft handwrote much of non-public selection criteria for professional evaluation in BC, Canada to unfairly gain advantage attracting foreign labour who are using MS stack.
2. Life situations:
2.1 Lots of Western countries outright deny family applicants, some on other hand given huge bonus.
2.2 Lots of Western countries use immigration programs to repopulate their dying, depopulating regions. Canada will happily settle any amount of Chinese, Indians, and Africans if they agree to live somewhere in New Brunswick
2.3 Lots of Western countries will never allow you to settle down, or pretend to say they will, but then repeatedly change the goalpost in their immigration programs: Canada, Australia.
2.4 Lots of Western countries will outright deny applicants older than forties to mid thirties
2.5 Lots of Western countries will outright deny applicants who are women
2.6 Lots of Western countries will outright deny applicants who are women with children
2.7 Lots of Western countries will outright deny applicants who are women who are single
2.8 Lots of Western countries will outright deny applicants who are women who are not single
2.9 Lots of Western countries will outright deny applicants with just any health condition
3. Incentives:
3.1 Prime majority of countries don't want any more of their own people, let alone strangers. In such, immigration programs are ran as a token sign to say "hey, we are so International, we are not bigots at all!"
3.2 The minority of countries who are actively soliciting immigration are not much better, and some times worse. They obviously have their own agendas. Very often have an interest to crush their own labour into submission, or serve a political agenda. Less frequently, outright exploitation: Gulf, much of East Asia.
3.3 Incentives often are a carrot on a stick, with this stick being constantly moved forward: you a just 1 month away from a permanent residency, a month passes... wham! now qualify for 1 more year for something else
3.4 Countries providing incentives often do so, when their industries don't do well. You will be moving to a country with an already present oversupply of professionals after a downturn. Some times problems will be structural, i.e. Singapore (negative selection, where best leave, and create more openings for cheaper helloworld webdevs to move it.)
3.4 Accordingly, countries that already do well, rarely invite.
3.5 Wages today vary much in between top employers, not so much localities. Earning post tax $10k USD a month somewhere in China, India, or Vietnam is INCOMPARABLY better deal than in the West.
3.6 Accordingly, top companies in the West are no longer eager to employ foreigners in hopes to get top talent anymore. Why hire them for $10k in USA with its unions, labour rights, sjw storm, when you can hire the same guy in your captive outsourcing centre in every major 3rd world country?
3.7 Moving internationally is still freaking expensive, for a person with an already established life, a move from the depth of a third world country to USA can take anywhere up to $40k. This alone may be one years' profit of that man/woman.
3.8 Following 3.7, top tier professionals have much better odds of further progression at home. I knew like 10 guys in China who worked on $10k+ USD jobs in Googles, Amazons, and others who managed to start their business after a single year savings from such jobs. Now, try opening a business yourself as an immigrant abroad.
3.9 A lot of immigration programs outright state that you are being prohibited from running any enterprise.
3.10 A lot of immigration programs for higher calibre talents wanting to setup their businesses in the country are an outright robbery, like a requirement for 51% local capital, waving your patents to inviting research institution, or specifically waving some of your shareholder rights.
Are you talking about properties bought as investments?
I moved out from my home country and in the place I live now people are nice, but I am never going to be one of them (so there are also not nice people, but it is easier to deal with not nice people from your own country).
Some people have it even worse, because I can go back to my own country and have my friends from school and family quite close by. There are people who are children of migrants that are still treated on the streets like they are not part of that society even though they grew up in that country. It gets even worse for them when they go to visit their parents country because they look familiar to people but when they speak they use English or broken local language which makes them foreign there as well. In the end they are not welcome in the place they grew up, they are not welcome in the place where they fit in by looks. They don't have a place in the entire world they can go and feel like home.
1. The US may become a white-minority country. Europe, not really. Whites are still the majority, and are going to remain so in the distant future. The "Great Replacement" isn't real.
2. Most immigrants to EU countries are from other countries within the EU and white themselves.
3. Many people from outside the EU, even though they're not considered "white" by Westerners, look white from the outside (think of e.g. Arabs) and the differences are purely cultural. Within a few generations you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between them and "white" people.
4. One's ability to integrate and be welcomed depends far more on cultural differences than "looking" different. This is why people from former colonies immigrate to the country that colonized them - lasting vestigial ties and a common language help far more than sticking to people who share one's skin color.
The US government officially considers Arab people to be "white". [1] Some Arab Americans disagree with this and believe they are not "white", other Arab Americans identify with the "white" label and want to keep it. The former group have been lobbying the US government to create a separate category, e.g. "Middle Eastern and North African", thus far non-successfully.
Unlike the US, I don't believe most EU countries have a formally adopted definition of "white" (the EU as a whole certainly doesn't.) But, just like in the US, it would be wrong to think there would be a single viewpoint. So the statement that Arab people are "not considered 'white' by Westerners" is a bit dubious – some Westerners no doubt think that, other Westerners actually do think Arab people are "white", yet other Westerners just don't think about the concept "white" or its definition that much at all, or think that "white" is an arbitrary category which should not be used
[1] https://www.census.gov/topics/population/race/about.html
And BLM demonstrations in europe... Sorry, but this is ridiculous. Those are more about protest against goverment ant police than BLM.
I am definitely not "super progressive".
As far as I know the religion has no effect on your skin color.
US culture is very focused on racial categories – who is and isn't "white". Most other Western cultures are not – European cultures, Australia, etc
I think in Israel, people think about who is Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi, Beta Israel, Arab/Palestinian, Druze, Secular vs Religious Zionist vs Haredi, etc, not about whether or not they or others are "white". The question of "who is white" is very American, not one that has a lot of relevance for Israeli society
Regarding the US, that's a bit of a misleading statement. US Census Bureau projections have "white" people as a majority in the US until 2060, which is as far out as their projections go [1].
The claim that "whites" are going to become a minority soon is arrived at by redefining "white" to exclude white-identified Hispanic people. Indeed, "non-Hispanic whites" are projected to become a minority in the US by 2045. But "whites" overall are not going to become a minority in the foreseeable future.
In 2060, the US Census Bureau projects the US will be 68% white-identified (white-identified Hispanic people included). By comparison, their actual estimates for 2016 are that the US was 76% white-identified (again, Hispanic people included). Although their projections don't go out that far, it seems likely the US will still have a white-identified majority at the start of the next century.
[1] https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/popproj/tables/2017...
You can look at the numbers in your chart and see that basically all of the U.S. Hispanic population is found under this "white" category, 55 million Hispanics. Total Hispanic population in U.S. is at most a few million more. 90%+ of all U.S. Hispanics feel like they are part of a "white" majority? You must be joking.
So I don't think that "white identified majority" in the census numbers means what you think it does. The vast majority of Hispanics in it fully realize and are made to feel like they are part of a minority in the U.S.
> 90%+ of all U.S. Hispanics feel like they are part of a white majority?
I feel very hesitant in speculating about the feelings of tens of millions of people whom I don't know–and who of course are not all going to think or feel the same way, but who are going to have a very diverse range of feelings and opinions. Rather than speculating about their feelings, why not just go by what they voluntarily choose to put on their US Census forms?
> The vast majority of Hispanics in it fully realize and are made to feel like they are part of a minority in the U.S.
There are white minorities, so identifying as "white" doesn't necessarily make white-identified Hispanics non-minority. If an (ethnic majority) German or Russian or Finn moves to New York City, they are going to be an immigrant minority in their new home, but they and everyone else will see them as "white". A European-descended person who moves to New York City from Buenos Aires has Spanish as their native language instead of German or Russian or Finnish, but why would their experience be fundamentally different? The Spanish-speaking immigrant will be officially classified as "Hispanic", the German/Russian/Finnish-speaking immigrants wouldn't be, but they are all equally white ethnic minorities.
You chose to bring race into the discussion, when one can make the same point without any reference to race.
In Sydney, Australia, a woman wearing a niqab is still a rare sight, and she is likely to get starred at, a lot–even other Muslims are going to stare at her. Women wearing hijabs are a far more common sight, so they will get starred at a lot less, although I'm sure they will report being starred at sometimes too. But, a lot of Muslim women don't wear any head covering – like the women in my uncle's family – indeed, in Albanian Muslim culture, women rarely cover their heads, and a woman who starts wearing a hijab is likely to be suspected of religious fundamentalism, which is viewed about as negatively in their culture as in my own. Should my uncle's family be considered a "visible minority" then?
Sydney is over 20% Asian (including East Asian, Southeast Asian, and South Asian people in that term)–Asian Australians are a minority, and obviously a visible one–but do Asian people get starred at in Sydney solely on account of their race? You usually stare at the unusual, but in a city which is over 20% Asian, there is nothing unusual about seeing a Chinese/Indian/Japanese/Korean/Vietnamese/Filipino/etc person, you see them every day, you count them among your friends, classmates, coworkers, neighbours, etc.
I remember one time I ventured with a Finnish colleague to a working class bar in Bangalore, and we got a lot of stares there, because nobody was expecting to see people like us in such an establishment – by contrast, in the airport, hotel, offices, shopping centres, tourist sites, etc, nobody starred at us, because Indians are used to encountering foreigners in those places.
+ boyfriends, romantic partners
I agree with the motivation of your statement, just wanted to complete it to reduce the (likely unintentional on your part but implicit) hetero-male stereotype of software engineers.
The first step toward positive change is to change the way people think about these roles, and remove the automatic mental picture of a hetero male when people say "software engineer". That feeds back into the hiring loop and worsens the problem.
I have no intention to start a fuss, but I just think that it would be a nice gesture to make sure our language is as inclusive as possible, and so made a suggestion on a small change that would do that.
(Also, I'm surprised at all the downvotes, I thought HN was a better crowd of people than that. I mean if you don't want to upvote it that's fine, but I'm really surprised that many people actively downvoted my comment. How would it hurt you for the language to be more inclusive? By downvoting it, did you want to maintain that we only mention "girlfriends"? By downvoting, you are part of the problem in tech today.)
People may think that career choice is something special and magical when it is not.
Let's say you have become a successful developer. Now you want to work on a side project. There are so many choices and possibilities. Most of them are equally good. You choose something. Then you get stuck, bored or the rest of your life gets in the way. You scrap the old thing and do something new. Rinse and repeat. After 5 unfinished side projects you feel like you have accomplished nothing.
The reality is that you didn't actually care about any of the side projects. If you cared about them you would have stuck with them until completion. Making a choice and staying with it is difficult at any stage in your life. Unless... it is extremely obvious and necessary. Suddenly there is no question about it. You you know very little about electronics but think you absolutely need to design a custom PCB for this important project and you're not going to compromise on this at all. You read up on electronics theory for 3 whole weeks without even thinking a single thought about your final design, pick some components and feel lost reading the datasheet. Start up your EDA suite get mad and feel like everything is hopeless the first few days. Two weeks later you have finally designed a good enough schematic and then suddenly everything is easy in hindsight.
You didn't have the qualifications to finish this project but did so anyway, all you needed was a little motivation and dedication.
If there is a need, it will be met. If you think someone should do X, then give them a reason to do X. This applies to "software engineers" and all other professions equally.
The overlap between talented and motivated students exists for a reason. Talent is just motivation in disguise.
Uhm yeah, but they also have parents, siblings, girlfriends. Probably they might have some properties bought already. So as it may seem really advantageous to be in IT, one might not be able to move to another country just like that...