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Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

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Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#71

Post by londons_explore »

guidovranken wrote: post #59
bamboozled wrote: post #2

Except a lot of places are “going back to work” and let’s be honest, timezones aren’t and probably will never be an easy problem to solve.

With regards to timezones, there are a bunch of software companies which are completely remote and global which operate fine. If employees have a fair amount of autonomy and/or work with their local teams, and have sync calls during mutually suitable time slots, there is no real impediment to operating a functional company.

The "flexible" approach does work, but tends to be quite a drain on workers lives. Theres always someone somewhere who has to wake up at 2am for the weekly 'sync' meeting, or who doesn't see their children after school because their calendar is clogged with 1:1 meetings with all their USA reports most evenings.

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#72

Post by da39a3ee »

bwb wrote: post #44
ctvo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the rest of Europe pays 80k.

Very fair salary, especially when you take into account they have real health care, real social safty nets, etc.

Again, you’re patronizing people outside the US telling them that they should be happy with lower salary. US tech workers have their healthcare paid in addition to their high compensation. Someone earning 120k in London might earn $350k in the US. It’s not up to you to tell the little Europeans that they shouldn’t want their missing $230k because their healthcare and public services make up for it.

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#73

Post by flatiron »

zthrowaway wrote: post #49
JohnWhigham wrote: post #14

In the short term, I think it's going to be a lot harder than this article lets on, but long term, it is abundantly clear: cushy developer jobs in the US are on borrowed time. Salaries may continue to go up for a little while longer, but they will fall to reflect the rest of the world catching up with the US. And that's a scary prospect for those under 35 now. And I don't think there's a way out of it. We embrace rem…

Is there any extra cost to hiring non-American workers though? I do wonder if we’ll have some politicians who will try to make it harder for companies to just shortcut to cheap labor and try to never use American workers. But I also see foreign workers at my shop demanding what we make and getting it, which I think is great and I hope that trend holds. Then there’s no cheap labor alternative and comes down to merit.…

I think the whole “evil white person” demeans the effort to be inclusive. Nobody is saying white men are evil when they hire a diverse candidate. They are just valuing having a diverse workplace over traditionally looked at traits.

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#74

Post by dominotw »

JohnWhigham wrote: post #14

In the short term, I think it's going to be a lot harder than this article lets on, but long term, it is abundantly clear: cushy developer jobs in the US are on borrowed time. Salaries may continue to go up for a little while longer, but they will fall to reflect the rest of the world catching up with the US. And that's a scary prospect for those under 35 now. And I don't think there's a way out of it. We embrace rem…

I've been hearing a version of this since the early 2000's, always with a PS "this time its going to happen for real guys" .

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#75

Post by flatiron »

blensor wrote: post #63
AlexAltea wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, I don't see how the supply/demand ratio of talent will significantly change by remote work. Companies will pick from a larger pool of people. People will pick from a larger pool of companies.

Except that developers from countries that earn on average less than their US counterparts have an incentive to work for a US company remotely but a developer from the US does not have many incentives to work for less for a company abroad

The politicians will fight back with work visas and limits etc. protecting domestic work forces should be a primary concern for politicians.

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#76

Post by DeathArrow »

I see many people here comparing US with EU in term of wages. But for the comparation to work taxes, healthcare, education, and subsidizing several public services like transport or heating should be taken into account.

Also, the comparation should take into consideration PPP.

$300 000 pre-taxes in US is not 3x $100 000 after-taxes in EU. Especially if you adjust for other factors.

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#77

Post by pi7h3n »

formerly_proven wrote: post #69
eb0la wrote: post #65

I don't believe the US has a monopoly on talent. The US has a monopoly on being able to go to market. US corporations are extremely efficient getting funds, putting that capital to work, and deliver a product people want to buy. Historically they got that advantage because (among other factors) their internal market is HUGE, and successful US products were also appealing in other countries. As I said there are other…

The EU has a similarly sized internal market, but it's consistently self-sabotaging on many levels (EU, countries, state, local) so does not realize a lot of the benefits it could get.

Self-sabotaging in what ways?

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#78

Post by locallost »

The author focuses on physical presence in a country, but as she points out, immigrants flocked to the US because it's an economic powerhouse. This will not change, and for all intents and purposes the talent will still be in the US, since their work will be in the US. If anything, it will make it even stronger, since most of the interesting things in e.g. tech are done there, and there is now less of a barrier to get the talent. Big fish will eat the small fish, you can see this clearly in e.g. the EU, where "talent" from smaller poorer countries goes to richer countries massively, since there are effectively no borders or barriers.

So they might not be there physically, but this is not really a big concern if you're a US company. It might be different for the country as a whole though.

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#79

Post by bwb »

DeathArrow wrote: post #68
bwb wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compare corruption in NYC to India or Thailand or Romania :) A waist high pile of poop is much different from one the size of a skyscraper. I am not saying it doesn't have aspects of corruption, but it is low and solid resources on the local and national level to constantly investigate and make cases. Legalizing corruption through lobbying is a good move. There are other options but better than keeping it underground…

>Compare corruption in NYC to India or Thailand or Romania :) Corruption in Romania and other Eastern European countries is more generalized in the sense that there is more small corruption. Corruption cases in US are more serious.

proof? data?

Not backed up by a lot of companies/orgs/data... https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2020/index/rou https://risk-indexes.com/global-corruption-index/ https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/corruption-index

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#80

Post by eb0la »

ndm000 wrote: post #37
polycaster wrote: post #19

From my personal experience I think that the most challenging factor with outsourcing is in fact the time zone. Being situated in Germany I see many webdev jobs being outsourced about 1 hour to the east and about all the way down to South Africa and Mauritius („Cyber Island”). This are the projects that work like normal. Then of course the vast majority is outsourced to contractors in India or China – but frankly com…

The North American equivalent is Latin America. I’m in consulting, and every new project has some set of near shore resources billed much lower than their North American counterparts. In most cases the only discernible difference is proficiency in English.

I remember after "corralito" a lot of US companies started opening their CoE (center of excelence) in Argentina because wages were really low, and they could hire easily.

I heard (not sure if it is true) people wanted to be paid in USD because car loans were denominated in dollars rather than pesos.

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