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Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs

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Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs

#101

Post by RestlessMind »

approxim8ion wrote: post #51
adventured wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I guess it's okay to leave us all out to pasture if it means you can concentrate just a bit more of wealth. If we're speaking of things like employment, of course people should look out for their own self-interest. Proposing the opposite is to propose suicide. The people of Norway should donate their trillion dollar sovereign wealth fund to Togo? As opposed to continuing to concentrate their extraordinary wealt…

You conveniently misrepresented an opinion and then ran it to the most illogical conclusion possible. Saying the most highly paid US workers take a 10% pay cut if it means other economies rose above the poverty line is absolutely fine in my opinion. If you think that is akin to starving the entire US population so my country can live like Sheikhs, I feel like that's on you.

You conveniently missed my argument. If things are going to stop at a 10% cut, I won't be sounding alarm. But a majority of our new hires are going to come from non-US countries. There is barely any new hires joining within the US. That is the big red warning sign that our job opportunities might dwindle because others can do the same job as us for much cheaper.

This is manufacturing story all over again.

Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs

#102

Post by cudgy »

dataflow wrote: post #79
cudgy wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. More Americanization and consumption spread to the rest of the world will devastate the environment.

How did we suddenly go from WF to Americanizing the world and increasing consumption? WFH is an American thing now??

“I don't like my salary going down any more than everyone else where, but how are we going to save the planet without reducing carbon emissions and shouldering some of the resulting impact on our personal lives?”

Increase income of poor countries via remote work increases consumption which increases pollution. Furthermore, jobs going from US to other countries may still be performed in offices further negating benefits of less cars on the road.

Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs

#103

Post by cudgy »

corobo wrote: post #81
cudgy wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you willing to give up some of your salary to hire people in other poorer countries than where you live? Would you rather your neighbors and family get good jobs and/or training for good jobs? Or would you rather those jobs go to people in another country? Are you a “dirtball nationalist” going down a “dark path” for wanting people in your community to get these jobs?

Personally most of my neighbours have jobs that can't be outsourced due to the fact they're physical jobs. Yes I'd love it if they had the training to get good jobs, and the great news there is -- they've already been there and done it! :) Yes I'd absolutely give up some of my salary, assuming it's a fair question and not "haha well you wouldn't give up half of your salary to hire someone so I'm right" yea I don't gi…

Must be nice living in a utopian society where physical jobs pay as well as knowledge workers. In such a place, your community can easily give up some of their salary. Not sure your community is representative of most in the world however.

Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs

#104

Post by underseacables »

hangonhn wrote: post #26

If someone can do what I do here in SV for half the price or less but do it just as well or even better but else where in the world, I don't feel how I'm entitled to my current salary. It's a bit hypocritical for us to bemoan this when software engineers in SV also automated people in other industries out of jobs. People outside of SV, outside of tech, and the US are people too. Don't they also deserve a chance at pr…

Have you made these views known to management? I think they would be very interested to learn that someone could do your job for half the price.

Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs

#105

Post by adventured »

approxim8ion wrote: post #65
adventured wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you think that is akin to starving the entire US population so my country can live like Sheikhs, I feel like that's on you. Talk about jumping 27 places in terms of drawing artificial conclusions. I got to see, up close, what deindustrialization looks like, during the 1980s and 1990s in the US. Its consequences are intensely negative on the population it affects. Allowing the US tech industry to be outsourced to…

>I got to see, up close, what deindustrialization looks like, during the 1980s and 1990s in the US. I don't have the same experience so I can't argue it. > Allowing the US tech industry to be outsourced would be an identical repeat of the stupidity of what the US intentionally allowed to happen to its industrial empire And yet it seems to me that you're doing rather well as an economy all these years later. Wasn't th…

> And yet it seems to me that you're doing rather well as an economy all these years later.

1/4 to 1/3 of the country did well, that much is true. If you're in that group, you're among the best off people on the planet, generally.

> Wasn't the capitalist argument that the size of the pie is not fixed or some such?

The pie does indeed expand, sometimes substantially. Otherwise we couldn't have nearly eight billion people that are better off at the median than at any other time in recorded history. The examples of vast national improvement from around the world the past 30-40 years are prolific.

The pertinent question usually is: who is extracting what share of the expanded pie. Where is it going, to how many people, due to what policies/reasons.

In the US, the tech boom has produced eight people now worth one trillion dollars collectively. That's equivalent to the bottom 100 million (!) having an additional $10,000. Obviously not a trivial sum, in other words, compacted into just eight people. It has also produced 1.47 million software developers yielding a median salary of $110,000 per year (1.47m is 1/2 of 1% of the US adult population).

Tech is particularly potent at concentrating wealth, for various reasons (often rapid growth, global reach and winner-take-most outcomes).

The US middle class has not thrived over the last half century. The US, for the better part of a century (post Civil War up to the early to mid 1970s), had an elite middle class outcome. That is no longer true, the US middle class outcome has receded vs many of its peers.

Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs

#106

Post by majewsky »

mssundaram wrote: post #71
zaphirplane wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s what barrel makers told the horseshoe fitters :) From Wikipedia In some countries, such as the UK, horseshoeing is legally restricted to people with specific qualifications and experience

> That’s what barrel makers told the horseshoe fitters :) I'm not following - can you explain the analogy?

OP said "if you're in a niche and have deep expertise you'll be fine". The analogy apparently means that deep expertise in a particular field won't guarantee your employment when that field is not in demand anymore.

Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs

#108

Post by zaphirplane »

WanderPanda wrote: post #43
zaphirplane wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main discussion aside, there is a living cost that education doesn’t bridge. If you are living in say London plumbers, mechanics, housing, eggs are more expensive than in say Vietnam. you can be paid more in London and have a lower quality of life

I feel it was long overdue for the market to correct this anomaly. I believe there have been some synergies in concentrating geeks in one place but it just went out of control.

How will that help ? A person living in city x needs to be paid y to have a z quality of life. In another city they would need to be paid another amount to have the same quality of life. Zero to do with their occupation

Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs

#109

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

RestlessMind wrote: post #83
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #12

Well at least it'll curb some entitlement from the current IT crowd. A lot of IT people making 4x more than people of other professions assume that they are the cream of the crop and sincerely believe that their work is so hard that they deserve to have a 4 hour working day (because it is 'impossible' on being productive for a longer period of time in a day). No. People in other areas work just as hard, or harder, it…

We should pull other professions up, not pull IT down. Else we will close more doors to a middle class life.

Pulling up other industries isn't something that you 'do'. It happens (or not) naturally, when the industry is growing and generates more wealth. Often at the expense of other people, I must add. Disastrous healthcare situation in the US is actually very lucrative for people in Health and Insurance industries.

Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs

#110

Post by namelosw »

cudgy wrote: post #67
namelosw wrote: post #42

> you will destroy one of the last remaining well-paying job market in the long term. Speaking of the long term, it's not hard to imagine it is doomed no matter what individuals choose. SV exists because there was no efficient way to collaborate remotely. WFH still sucks today, but is much better than before. There are countless startups are trying to fix this, therefore it will get better gradually. Eventually, SV w…

“There are countless startups are trying to fix this, therefore it will get better gradually.” Better how? By making WFH more like working in an office?

It could be, since it might give the employer some subjective confidence. Though I'm not a big fan of the idea... But it seems like an Okayish idea for the transition period.

Many people are trying to tackle this, so their approaches and values provided should be pretty diversed. There are also possibilities that people came up with something really "remote native".

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