Harper Immigration Policies destroy talents...

Canada is gripping with election fever but none of the parties seem to address or even acknowledge the misplaced immigration policies of Mr. Harper. This, while Canada's Global Competitive Index (GCI) ranking, a measure by World Economic Forum (WEF) on the ability of a country to bring prosperity to its population, has slipped to 15^th in 2015. GCI takes over 110 variables into account for the estimation. However, by comparing with US, I think the flawed immigration policies and the system skewed against immigrants could be one of the reasons along with spending cuts to R&D.

It seems there is a lot of groups lobbying to restrict immigration. To an extent, it is true that some tend to import cheap labor but skilled-immigrant population actually helps Canadian economy more than it hurts. For example, African doctors who migrated to Canada saved over 400 million dollars while costing their home countries billions. Assuming an average citizen of Canada makes a million dollars during his productive period, the savings mean 400 more jobs or possibilities to invest in opportunities that could produce even more jobs and consequently more income to the Govt. However, in an attempt to fix this problem the immigration policies enacted, actually seem to aggravate this problem and in some cases, pushing of skilled immigrants out of the country or derogate them to lower jobs. Thanks to improvement of conditions in Asia and the flawed immigration policies, Canada is now seeing reverse immigration.

Prof. McNiven, in an interview to CBC in 2012 said that PhDs from developing countries were lured to Canada with high hopes only to find that their qualifications were not enough making them to drive taxis and work in restaurants. He also mentioned that it is due to the Canadian Government's intention to keep the higher paying "good jobs" among Canada-born young people.  He was also correct in saying that Canada needs immigrants with minimal skill and a lot of drive. From my experience, if I'm to recruit some one to my team or company, more than the skill they have I would look for their ability to acquire the skill. Hence, I agree with McNiven on accepting immigrants with minimal skill and lot of drive. However, the same conditions ("good jobs" for Canadians) still exist and the flaws in the system still helps the industries bring cheap labor instead of attracting and retaining talents - resulting in brain drain.

As case in point is the situation of postdocs and scientists, visiting Canada to work in Federal  and other laboratories across Canada. These immigrants add to skilled workforce involved in the development of technologies and science which ultimately benefit Canada. However, when these postdocs want to find an academic position in an University after their tenure as a postdoc or move to industries, they hit a "glass wall". Since companies are not much inclined to spend time and money (a requirement by CIC), a residency becomes a requirement for a job offer. However, according to the current system, one needs a "valid" job offer to get invited to apply for residency. The end result is either under-utilization or drain of talents. If I'm not wrong, I guess the labs and government perceive these postdocs as expendable cogs. In other words, they are doing the same thing that they want others not to do - exploit immigrants and import cheap labor. What they fail to realize is that these young minds, while they do bring new ideas on their arrival also leave with more ideas on their departure. In addition to attributing to the attrition of talents, the scenario could very well play against Canadian interests in geo-politics.

On the other hand, according to the current point system, the people who would enter Canada are IT and similar professionals, under paid by their company back at home. When these companies bring these professionals, usually they are brought on deputation and instead of a full payment, they would receive allowances. However, after a year these professionals would be eligible for Experience Class immigration and since they already have a "valid" job offer with LMO (Labor Market opinion), they would be successful in immigrating to Canada. I leave it to the readers to determine which one is good for the country in short and long term.

The start-up visa program, is also a bit tricky and may not be effective in retaining talents. First, most of the postdocs prefer a scientific career. After all, they chose to do PhD when they could have very well proceeded to become an MBA, right? Also, it might be difficult for the postdocs in the Federal labs to bring together a team to form a start-up. At the most, some one in some universities could apply for the Start-Up visa program. From what I understand, there had not been many success stories. A person with right business mind, also may not be interested to create a startup/company here because of the cost of labor and raw materials, as well as the size of markets. For example, India and China are bigger markets than Canada.

The federal and provincial labs that host visiting fellows and scientists also provide next to nothing opportunities to build their skill-sets or acquire new skills, to help them move to industry or to improve their employability. This actually aggravates the postdoc crisis. I had attended a few interviews from data science start-ups. Though I have a good understanding on time series data and have been dealing with extremely discontinuous data, and, as any postdoc, acquire the programming skills along the way to complete my tasks, these start-ups invariably rejected opportunities as I was lacking skills in Hadoop or Scala. I was hoping to have an opportunity to acquire those skill sets. However, if I have to acquire them myself I need over 24hrs (I already sleep only for 4 hrs) and more money to set-up my own infrastructure to acquire the experience that these companies, apparently seek. Further, the regulations in effect, prohibits postdocs from attending International conferences (even when they have results to present. The same is the case for Federal Scientists as well.), which are vital to their career development. In short, the policies of the Canadian Government effectively destroys young scientific minds.

I guess these are what some call as invisible racism and Harpers Govt. is not just helping brain drain but effectively destroying them. I think it would do more good to Canada if the underlying problems that hinders the realization of the full potential of immigrant talents are addressed instead of directing racial slurs. However, both the opposition and the public seem to be oblivious to the issue... I guess, immigrant postdocs should be warned against coming to Canada... Would you agree?!

Note to Readers: I have been off for a couple of weeks, as I have been attending interviews. I greatly appreciate your patience and your continued support.  

Top 5 reasons why Graduate Studies are (actually) encouraged

In my last post, I was discussing why a bachelor-degree drop-out may have a better chance at earning more money than a graduate with doctorate. Now, I share my top 5 reasons on why, irrespective of the grim picture for the graduates, is graduate studies encouraged:

1. To compete with other countries

Countries are constantly competing with one another. China, a once developing third world country is now aspiring to excel US in economic and military might. It would have never been possible without the strides in science and technology. Even in India, which was once dependent on farm produce is increasingly dependent on IT services for its GDP. The significance of science and technology and consequently graduate education could not have been well said than Mr. Bill Gates himself. So, in short, higher studies fuel economy and country's might, without which the status and prominence of the country itself would be lost. This one of the reasons, why every country is trying to promote education, particularly higher education. And a very noble one. However, what is there for an individual? While some may argue that while the country grows individual grows it cannot be the case for everyone. As when the country grows, increase in inflation would offset the increase in income. Second, corruption and nepotism grows, making it difficult for people without money or influence.

2. To generate cheap labor for research

Don't get me wrong, but research is costly. Getting qualified individuals for the job is much more. The funding usually provided for research in the universities are highly insufficient to hire contract or consulting scientists. So, most of the Universities and laboratories tries to get things done by exploiting young graduates who have energy and are ready to work without any benefits, in the hope of landing a good position someday. From my experience, I cannot blame the scientists. They are very helpful. Sometime, might go out of their way to get you a position. However, they can only do so much when  the funding cuts limits the number of academic and research recruitment (think about superdocs and junior scientists). But what is disturbing is that none would ever say that by pursuing PhD you are going to put your economic future at risk! I definitely don't know if those scientists hope things would get better, or colluding with their political bosses, or forced not to sensitize the next graduate or outright selfish... In any case, the final sufferer is the graduate. 

3. To exploit workforce

Mr. Bill Gates, Warren Buffet were trying to promote STEM education. However, it seems his own company is not inclined to even give a chance to STEM graduates (postdocs) other than from Ivy league universities. Personally, when I doing my undergraduate degree in engineering Microsoft wouldn't even set their foot on our university irrespective of the fact that Tata, Cognizant and a whole lot holds our university in good esteem. Trying to prove myself, was one of my motivations to pursue higher studies. Anyway, that is a different story. However, their constant promotion is only likely increase the workforce supply, which would naturally lead to the exploitation of workforce. For example, many IT companies in India force their employees to work over 16 hrs without weekends and holidays. I was once penalized, as not being time inflexible, for completing my work before 18h00. The employees have no say because, they are easily replaceable with someone with a need. In the case of recession, some companies laid off their employees but they had no reason to, most of their projects are long-term and most of them saw hike in their profits, generated by these lay-offs. They could do so due to the huge supply of workforce...

In my perspective, Mr. Gates, is either trying to generate cheap labor for his industry or is completely misinformed of the reality.

4. To attain social status

This is a very common reason for parents motivating their children to become graduates and is more common when they are from socially/economically backward community. I believe, this is their subconscious drive to prove that they are equal. While education does bring some social status, the ultimate status is determined only by one's paycheck... Even if the person is a noble laureate, he gets his insurance coverage only based on his premium and net worth, not on his contribution...!

5. To attain economic status

Many believe that higher education would lead to better income. There is some truth in that but also a lot of lies. As have indicated in my previous post, an undergraduate is likely to derive more benefits. This could be justified by the plethora of job opportunities available to them and low debt accumulated during those undergraduate studies. Further, since they start early, they are likely to accumulate more over the years. However, the situation would change immediately once you venture beyond your undergraduate degree. With Masters, the opportunity reduces, reduces further with PhD and proceeds towards zeros as the number of years in one's postdoc increases. Take my case for example, I left a nice job to do graduate studies in robotics. Yes, it is a very good subject with lot of civilian and military applications. The consequence, I'm now desperately hunting for a job after a PhD in remote sensing and 2 years of experience as a postdoc as my funding would run out in another 6 months. 

Conclusion

Now comes the interesting question, irrespective of the risks involved, how and why is that many of the articles continue to sing paeans encouraging graduate education? First, these studies project amazing life-time earnings based on past earners, who now have comfortable in jobs and have a decade or more years to retire. Those studies didn't take into account the present job market and its evolution over time to predict its future state. They conveniently left out the truth about the risks involved and were also "unethical" in failing to highlight the limits of their analyzes. Regarding why they do this, it may probably be to reduce competition. For example, if every one knows the truth about graduate education, they would try to emulate people in power i.e., businessmen and politicians, which would increasingly make the market competitive. Since, it is impossible to derive economic benefits from a perfectly competitive market, the best alternative for those in power is to make the people believe in a system of long-duration education. This would reduce the competition immediately and would also shift the unemployment crisis to a later date. 

Limitations:

This analysis is based on an average perspective. Ivy leaguers and "close-enough"s get preferential treatments, so they may not agree with this. And obviously certain subjects would be better preferred than other. These aspects are not discussed in this study.

Do you have any personal experience that buttress or counter the arguments in this post?
I would more than happy to hear from people with different views...!

Future of Postdocs: Impediments and possible solutions

I’m currently a postdoc and have been hunting for jobs since my funding is run out by the November of this year. Recently, I came across an article in Nature 1 which was investigating the plight of postdocs and some of the suggestions in the anvil, which was forwarded through my ‘Young Scientist’ mailing list. However, I thought present my thoughts on this problem, from a postdocs perspective.

Problems and Causes    

While, I cannot comment on the whole Postdoc population, as the experiences changes from person to person, institution to institution and from subject to subject, the following are some of the causes I have observed as problems facing a postdoc to land a career:

Government Regulations:

I’m now under a work permit which restricts my employment to my lab.  As such, I couldn't teach or even provide tutoring services. In this context, I recently attended two interviews with Indian institutions and in both the cases my lack of teaching experience is what stood out. The head of the department of one of the universities was hostile even before I presented myself. Her only contention is that I don't have teaching experience. I’m not sure,however, if it is absolutely necessary, as I have a friend who is now an Assistant Professor in one other IITs with a postdoc in France and with no teaching experience. But she was alumni of an IIT unlike me who was in Europe for my Masters as well. With PITS, they are only interested to know, if I can teach or not. That's their only question and the entire interview was for 5 minutes. They had no interest in my research or its significance. However, the inability to pursue teaching seems to limit the number of jobs for which I'm eligible.

Further, as postdoc opportunities are LMO (Labour Market Opinion) exempted, not many companies are interested in sponsoring visa for postdocs.

Student or Employee:

This is a question that many postdocs have but many articles highlights the dilemma only when it comes to salary and benefits and not in job-hunting. Put it simply, as a postdoc, should I apply as fresh graduate or an experienced employee? How are the companies considering the postdocs’ candidature, as a fresh talent or otherwise? No clarification is available till date, in this regard.

Lack of opportunities:

1. Lack of assured funding: In most cases, funding is ad-hoc. Without assured tenure, a postdoc is in a continuous state of job-hunting, which saps his zeal for science and make his/her productivity suffer.
2. Lack of learning opportunities: I have been processing time series data throughout my PhD and postdoc but mostly using MATLAB. However, industries who have similar jobs expect Java, Hadoop and similar hot tools. Unfortunately, this is not easy as our access rights are limited on the software we could install. As a mac user, I cannot afford another computer for just learning these skills as I also have to provide for my family.
3. Lack of academic positions: In Postdoc manufacturing countries like US, this is a problem but in countries like India the problem is nepotism and racism or whatever.
4. Difficulty in creating start-ups: Start-ups require a team and for most NSERCs, confined to their cubicle, it is difficult to get a team to work for a start-up and then come the problem of visa.

Evaluations/Recommendations:

In almost all of the cases, the next opportunity of the postdoc is determined by a set of factors: reputation of the supervisor, reputation of the institution, recommendations of the supervisor and the work of the postdocs. When the article was suggesting “super-star” postdocs, it made me flinch as it is a purely subjective term. Anything from the style of writing to cultural differences may set a postdoc’s supervisor off, and in some cases the postdocs are made just a scapegoat. So to be a “super-star” postdoc, scientific acumen and hard-work are not enough!

Proposed Solutions are inadequate

Upper limit for postdocs

One of the arguments in favor of imposing the upper limit on the duration of a postdoc is that they would enter the stream to find a job and move out. While the intention is good, the practice is made difficult due to many factors:

1. Its roulette not science anymore: As I had mentioned previously, the career prospect for a postdoc is highly dependent on the reputations and recommendations of his supervisors, the reputation of his lab and himself. While landing in such “super-platforms” itself is dictated many similar factors. Hence, by this limit, many postdoc would be devoid of opportunity to reinvent and prove themselves. For example, it is extremely difficult for a PhD from a small university in France to land a postdoc position at MIT or Stanford. He can either slowly move upstream or should roll-over and die, if this system is to be fully implemented.
2. The suggestion also did not address the question of postdocs who had already exceeded the said limit with no permanent career options

The Elite Postdoc

                This suggestion was to limit the number of PhDs entering the postdoctoral stream. While it is appealing, it fails to answer the future of the PhDs. University PhDs of industry-favorite subjects like computer engineering would have little trouble, PhDs from research laboratories with little connection to the university, like the author himself, are the ones likely to suffer from this proposal. Further, it is not easy for non-natives to find job in France and many other countries due to governmental regulations, culture differences, language, xenophobia, etc. When I was in France, I attended training in the University for PhDs to help them in job-search where the instructor told me that a resume with a French name on it is 7 times more likely to get an interview call.

The ‘Superdoc’

                This is funniest of all the suggestions. The suggestion is to provide better salary and benefits. First, this would only change the title and would have not real change in reality. Second, it is already being practiced without much help to the postdocs.  It is just a temporary solution, which is difficult to implement in many cases due to lack of funding and would effectively be reduced to the first suggestion.

Conclusions

From the article, I believe the solutions proposed are nothing but political gimmicks to transfer the blame from the policy maker to the postdocs. In contrast to the above solutions, I suggest the following:

1. Instead of restricting the PhDs and postdocs at the fair end, restrict the students who move from one grade to another. It is an old Indian system, every year 10% of the students are made to sit in the same grade and only the rest are promoted to the next grade. During 10th and 12th grade, the filtering is severe where only 50% of the students move forward.
2. Instead of encouraging students to pursue science, they should be encouraged to pursue subjects that are likely to benefit their future. Of course it is difficult to make such predictions, as the opportunities are a result of a complex combination of factors ranging from political to socio-economic factors.
3. Postdocs are not idiots. They learn new techniques and tools every day. They could easily acquire the skillsets required to succeed in their job with little training. Companies like Tata Consultancy Services and Cognizant Technology solutions had excellent training programs (I don’t know if they have now) for undergraduates. However, I don’t understand the reason they don’t want to train the postdocs for their companies. In US and Canada, I increasingly seen companies looking for specific talents and able to jump to work with no efforts. Ex: Amazon. I’m not sure if Microsoft and Google have any training program. However, if these companies are encouraged to absorb postdocs, the problem could easily be moderated.
4. Governmental regulations, which are mostly political gimmicks, are the biggest of the problems. Be in Maharashtra, India where MNS demands people from other regions to leave Maharashtra or in Canada where Tories blame “brownies” stealing Canadian Jobs. Further, the “licence raj” in Canada is another major impediment.
5. Socio-economic factors such as racism, xenophobia, and nepotism further aggravates the problem.

Hence, my humble opinion is that instead of proposing “shallow” solutions and being hypocrites, all parties concerned should try to stem the source of the problem and not port the problem from one shoulder to another.

References

1              Powell, K. THE FUTURE OF THE POSTDOC. Nature 520, 144 - 147 (2015).