Microsoft emailed hundreds of employees to relocate overseas, and employees faced a dilemma

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2024-05-16 16:43Posted in Beijing, creators in the field of science and technology

Reporter Daniel Zhang

Edited by Gao Yulei

Beginning on May 15, a number of Microsoft employees in China began to post on social platforms, saying that they had received emails from the company asking if they were willing to move to Microsoft's offices in other countries, and that Microsoft would be responsible for visa issues for family members traveling with employees, involving hundreds of employees.

According to Microsoft's response to the media, this is to give some employees an optional internal transfer opportunity, which will not affect the company's domestic operations.

In addition to the AI team, which has the most obvious relationship with the current AI competition, the Azure cloud computing team is also very important as an AI infrastructure: the employees involved in the related business are distributed in Microsoft Suzhou and Beijing, and most of them have received the email this time.

According to one Microsoft employee involved in the "migration", the move was not about "taking the AI experts away" as it was rumored, but more like keeping the full team size as possible as the address of the business unit changed: their entire team received an email notification about the relocation, both senior and junior employees.

Since the scale involved more than hundreds of people: the team that received the email was more than 400 people, and of course there were many Microsoft employees who would not eventually migrate with the team and stay in the country, and as the team moved as a whole, these employees also had to face the situation of transferring or leaving: Considering Microsoft's current All in AI and large-scale layoffs around the world, it is clear that the second option is closer to reality.

Due to the large number of people and teams involved, many Microsoft employees who received the email began to speak out intensively on social platforms, making the migration already spread on the Internet before it officially began - even if this is not the first time Microsoft has tried to relocate Chinese employees overseas.

Last June, Beijing-based Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA) also launched a relocation to relocate a small group of top AI researchers to Microsoft's Vancouver branch.

But at the time, MSRA had a top-notch R&D team of more than 200 people in Beijing, and Microsoft had no plans to shut down Microsoft Research Asia at the time, but it did take "protective measures" to restrict these researchers from doing politically sensitive work.

The New York Times reported that when the Biden administration drafted a ban on U.S. companies investing in sensitive Chinese technology over the past two years, it privately asked Microsoft's top executives about the advice and about Microsoft Research Asia.

Microsoft has less than twenty days for these employees who have received their "choices": they need to decide on the key issue of where to stay by the beginning of June.

Some of the current junior employees are anxious about the situation, partly because of concerns from family and friends: in addition to friends, some employees say that family members who have settled in the country and have their own jobs do not see redevelopment in a foreign country as an option, but also express concerns about such unprepared relocation plans.

In addition to the concerns of family and partners, some people are also confused by this uncertain career decision: in the absence of a significant adjustment in salary scale, leaving home not only means an unfamiliar environment and lifestyle, but also a significant reduction in the quality of life compared to Suzhou and Beijing.

Younger employees face "life choices", while senior and older employees need to consider whether they can settle down locally, even if Microsoft says it will provide placement costs for employees, and help employees with visas and solve related problems, these are only the first steps in a long journey for home relocation to a foreign country.

It has even spawned a series of industrial chains around migration: Xiaohongshu even has a "Seattle Housing Guide" post for Microsoft Transfer employees, guiding employees to focus on local housing and even educational resources.

For the involuted Seattle real estate, there are already real estate agents who have heard the wind and started to contact these potential customers through various channels to promote their listings. Another employee of a technology company who is familiar with the local housing price situation in Seattle told reporters that the housing prices in Seattle have gradually risen in recent years, and at the same time, the supply is seriously insufficient, and the overall cost of living itself has become a factor that many North American employees have to consider when receiving Microsoft offers, and these problems will be more challenging for Chinese employees who have moved to other countries.

And not all employees who receive emails will travel to Seattle: the AI team is based in Seattle, Microsoft's headquarters in the United States, and the cloud services team is mainly based in Australia. Some employees have even said they will travel to Ireland, Canada, and other places — but none of these regions are subject to the regulations of China and the United States for AI computing data, and in fact there is not much difference to the team's day-to-day business.

Since Microsoft currently offers L1 visas to employees considering relocation, the L visa also means that it will be difficult to settle or change jobs in the U.S. even if they leave Microsoft in the future due to other changes.

A Microsoft employee complained to reporters that according to the current L1B priority date, it is difficult to get a green card if you do not change to an H1B visa. In recent years, the H1 visa lottery has become more difficult, and many employees have never imagined these problems before.

As Microsoft faces layoffs and cost cuts in its offices around the world, Microsoft has launched a global "go to India" wave, cutting a large number of entry/mid-level positions in the United States and relocating to cities such as Bangalore, which has left many Microsoft employees worried about whether they will encounter the same situation one day in the future, even if they go to the United States.

With compliance policies gradually tightening in both China and the United States, Microsoft wants to maintain its competitiveness by preserving talent as much as possible, so it has to come up with this extremely costly strategy.

But this underscores the unusual nature of the operation, which is a testament to Microsoft's judgment and decision, as it is a statement that Microsoft's judgment and decision will be made regardless of the outcome, as the placement costs for hundreds of employees and ancillary work such as visa applications

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