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The British Are Coming for Your White-Collar Job

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Re: The British Are Coming for Your White-Collar Job

#31

Post by dukeyukey »

seanhunter wrote: post #24
Rinzler89 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As someone who lives in the UK it's pretty depressing that we somehow seem to have succeeded in mismanaging ourselves into being a low-wage economy. Not sure where you got this from but the UK is far away from a low-wage economy. I once met a British engineer in a bar here in Austria and he was handing over industrial automation activates for relocation of a auto assembly from the UK to Austria, citing the much lowe…

I got that from TFA where it quotes people like Jamie Dimon saying that JPMC is one of the largest employers in Scotland now because wages are so much lower than they would be for comparable employees in the US.

The UK still pays well by European standards, it's the US being the outlier here.

Re: The British Are Coming for Your White-Collar Job

#32

Post by ben_w »

stuaxo wrote: post #16
seanhunter wrote: post #9

As someone who lives in the UK it's pretty depressing that we somehow seem to have succeeded in mismanaging ourselves into being a low-wage economy. The 20% or so depreciation in the pound as a result of brexit, and the subsequent futher devaluation as a result of the chaos of Boris -> Liz Truss -> Rishi Sunak definitely played a part in making the UK relatively attractive for firms from the US say, but there are als…

It's deliberate, if you read their document* from a few years ago "Britain Unchained" that was basically the plan. *I say document, it's written like it's by 6th formers who have just discovered Ayn Rand, but it is pretty short.

In my head, a satire of a Brexit politician: "All those foreigners, coming here, taking our jobs; don't they know that's it's supposed to be us, going abroad, stealing their jobs?"

Re: The British Are Coming for Your White-Collar Job

#33

Post by mike_hearn »

seanhunter wrote: post #9

As someone who lives in the UK it's pretty depressing that we somehow seem to have succeeded in mismanaging ourselves into being a low-wage economy. The 20% or so depreciation in the pound as a result of brexit, and the subsequent futher devaluation as a result of the chaos of Boris -> Liz Truss -> Rishi Sunak definitely played a part in making the UK relatively attractive for firms from the US say, but there are als…

Brexit isn't really a part of the story, regardless of what the punditry may wish. Look at GBP/USD long term to see:

https://finance.yahoo.com/chart/GBPUSD%3DX?showOptin=1#eyJpb...

The big shock was 2008. Then things were stable for a few years but starting in 2014 the value of the currency went into a long period of decline. Brexit in 2016 spooked a bunch of traders who were terrified of the readily apparent insanity visible in the (Remainer) government - talks of massive emergency tax rises and so on clearly had an impact - but then once Cameron/Osborne were booted out and the massive recession the "experts" had promised failed to materialize, the currency regained its value vs the USD until by 2018 it was back at the same level it had been at the start of 2016. Then the currency got weaker with time until a recovery around COVID, then the decline set in again.

So as you can see Brexit had a temporary effect due to the, uh, "broken promises" about the costs of leaving made by the Remain campaign. But within 18 months that had been unwound.

The real story here is a macroeconomic one: the UK economy was permanently damaged by the (American triggered!) financial crisis and never really recovered in the same way the USA itself did. Growth stopped around that time, and it was then dragged down even further by Eurozone weakness starting around 2012-2014 era.

The 2010s were a lost decade for the UK economically. The 2020s will be no better given the way things are going politically. Brexit has little to do with it though, except in the sense that it would enable a hypothetical capitalist/libertarian party that doesn't currently exist to liberalize the economy to US standards and restart growth. There's no appetite to do that in the UK political mainstream at the moment.

Re: The British Are Coming for Your White-Collar Job

#34

Post by dukeyukey »

alephnerd wrote: post #12
Rinzler89 wrote: post #4

Would you mind also looking a bit further please, like on the main European continent? Our wages here are even lower than in London/UK and we also speak good English. You can hire a developer here for what you'd pay a barista at your San-Fran HQ. Thanks!

I've been a hiring manager, and while wages play a role, they do not significantly move the needle. The main driver is talent base, ease of operations, and time zone overlaps. The true value of offshoring comes from being able to essentially run 24/7 operations across a couple countries that have a strong talent base and relatively easy operations for us as a company (easy to fire, easy to hire, tax holidays, etc). T…

I've heard one reason the UK is so popular for European HQs is we can talk to India in the morning, Europe during the day, the East Coast in the afternoon and the West Coast as we sign off. Basically we cover the vast majority of the Western world plus the outsourcing giant that is India.

Re: The British Are Coming for Your White-Collar Job

#35

Post by doix »

lmpdev wrote: post #20
seanhunter wrote: post #9

As someone who lives in the UK it's pretty depressing that we somehow seem to have succeeded in mismanaging ourselves into being a low-wage economy. The 20% or so depreciation in the pound as a result of brexit, and the subsequent futher devaluation as a result of the chaos of Boris -> Liz Truss -> Rishi Sunak definitely played a part in making the UK relatively attractive for firms from the US say, but there are als…

Wasn’t that all set in motion by Thatcher? Especially the deteriorating economic situation for the entirety of the UK outside of London?

Thatcher left office in the early 90's, right? I remember it was sometime around the 2008 financial crash that the pound just started tanking and never recovered. Every subsequent crisis, the pound falls more vs the dollar/euro and never really recovers.

At least that's how it feels to me as someone that gets paid in pounds. Every year I feel like my money goes less and less far.

Re: The British Are Coming for Your White-Collar Job

#37

Post by emptyfile »

rayiner wrote: post #28
seanhunter wrote: post #9

As someone who lives in the UK it's pretty depressing that we somehow seem to have succeeded in mismanaging ourselves into being a low-wage economy. The 20% or so depreciation in the pound as a result of brexit, and the subsequent futher devaluation as a result of the chaos of Boris -> Liz Truss -> Rishi Sunak definitely played a part in making the UK relatively attractive for firms from the US say, but there are als…

What’s Brexit got to do with anything? If you look at a graph of the devaluation of the pound, it’s a pretty linear decline from 2014 onward. That was two years before the referendum. The UK actually seems to be stuck in more or less the same malaise that’s hit Italy and France, which is failure to recover from the 2008 crash. If you look at a graph of GDP per capita, all three countries have been totally stagnant on…

[dead]

Re: The British Are Coming for Your White-Collar Job

#38

Post by zarzavat »

rayiner wrote: post #28
seanhunter wrote: post #9

As someone who lives in the UK it's pretty depressing that we somehow seem to have succeeded in mismanaging ourselves into being a low-wage economy. The 20% or so depreciation in the pound as a result of brexit, and the subsequent futher devaluation as a result of the chaos of Boris -> Liz Truss -> Rishi Sunak definitely played a part in making the UK relatively attractive for firms from the US say, but there are als…

What’s Brexit got to do with anything? If you look at a graph of the devaluation of the pound, it’s a pretty linear decline from 2014 onward. That was two years before the referendum. The UK actually seems to be stuck in more or less the same malaise that’s hit Italy and France, which is failure to recover from the 2008 crash. If you look at a graph of GDP per capita, all three countries have been totally stagnant on…

2014 was the Scottish independence referendum threatening to cleave the country in half. Then 2015 was the run up to Brexit.

Re: The British Are Coming for Your White-Collar Job

#39

Post by komadori »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #23
rob74 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"hire B-2-B", a.k.a. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_self-employment ?

No, you set up your own legal entity(company) based on the financial/legal framework in your country, and bill your foreign employer for the work you do, but you're not an employee so you have no right to sick days, firing protection, etc. and have to do your own taxes.

Note that if the employer is found to be engaging in "disguised employment" then, in some jurisdictions such as the UK, they may be found liable for these things anyway plus penalties.

Re: The British Are Coming for Your White-Collar Job

#40

Post by antonkochubey »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #21
callamdelaney wrote: post #5

Yes outsourcing to the UK where the average salary is ~$37,000 is I'm sure highly cost effective for US firms. Where we'd reach to say India for cheap labour the US now comes to us. I've seen US Interns get paid more than the vast majority of brits. Even the average dev salary is only say, double that average. Not even accounting for taxes - which supposedly cover healthcare but almost none you can readily access.

>Even the average dev salary is only say, double that average. Dev salary being double the average national salary is very good by western EU salaries. In Austria for example as a dev you earn just slightly above the national average income. I think only in the US and cheap countries like Poland, Romania, SE-Asia, etc it's normal for devs to earn several times the average national income because they're hot markets f…

Devs in my "cheap country like Poland" earn significantly above the national average income of Austria.
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