The British Are Coming for Your White-Collar Job • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by alephnerd » Thu, Apr 04, 2024, 1:00 PM UTC

Rinzler89 wrote: post #13

alephnerd wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>This is why Israel, India, and parts of Eastern Europe like Romania, Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine became popular for software outsourcing. Not sure about the rest but it's definitely not easy to fire in Romania at all, and workers there get a lot of mandatory legal benefits like generous sick and parental leave. Unless you hire them B-2-B, which is quite common for high wage outsourcing jobs, then yeah.

> hire them B-2-B, which is quite common for high wage outsourcing jobs

This is what my previous employer did

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

#62

Post by roenxi » Thu, Apr 04, 2024, 1:08 PM UTC

phatfish wrote: post #51

rayiner wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not sure which graph you are looking at but Google Finance shows 2008, the Brexit referendum and Liz Truss giving the Pound/Dollar exchange rate a good kicking, after each of those events it didn't recover. This is the reason UK has been attractive for US and Canadian investors. https://www.google.com/finance/quote/GBP-USD?hl=en&window=MA... The Euro for example has held it's value since the culmination of the debt c…

Maybe we should we all have a go at reading a story into the wiggly line? There was a sharp drop in 2008, back to where it was pre-2002 and seems to be pretty much on trend for the data set overall.

There isn't anything to see in this exchange rate data. Even the apparent blip from 2016 probably wouldn't pass a good statistical test of being evidence of change.

Exchange rates aren't even a good measure of how economies are doing relative to each other, or what the investment opportunities look like.

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

#63

Post by rayiner » Thu, Apr 04, 2024, 1:13 PM UTC

phatfish wrote: post #51

rayiner wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not sure which graph you are looking at but Google Finance shows 2008, the Brexit referendum and Liz Truss giving the Pound/Dollar exchange rate a good kicking, after each of those events it didn't recover. This is the reason UK has been attractive for US and Canadian investors. https://www.google.com/finance/quote/GBP-USD?hl=en&window=MA... The Euro for example has held it's value since the culmination of the debt c…

I’m looking at that graph. The Brexit referendum was in June 2016 and people expected it would fail. There was steep decline from May 2014 to December 2016. Since then it’s kind of been in the same range. It just seems to have nothing to do with Brexit.

It just seems weird to me as a 90s kid that people are trying to connect Brexit to what seems to be a larger structural decline caused by globalism in the first place. (Of course if globalism is anyone’s fault it’s the British’s, so there’s that.)

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

#64

Post by red-iron-pine » Thu, Apr 04, 2024, 1:34 PM UTC

NullPrefix wrote: post #22

resolutebat wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you contract with another business to employ them on your behalf. Legal, common, and much more flexible.

mandatory legal benefits like generous sick and parental leave still apply

not if they're in a different country, and if they're employed as contractors

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

#65

Post by darkclouds » Thu, Apr 04, 2024, 1:38 PM UTC

dukeyukey wrote: post #55

kranke155 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s because inequality is brutal in the island, while the mainland is a bit more equalitarian. So was the UK up until Thatcher really. She released the Kraken of capitalism, and now the UK feels like a small version of the US, inequality wise. Thatcher’s reforms increased GDP and wealth but also massively grew the number of working poor.

Although she also massively increased the wealth of the working class by opening up more property ownership. UK wealth inequality is amongst the lowest in Europe.

[dead]

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

#66

Post by rayiner » Thu, Apr 04, 2024, 1:52 PM UTC

zarzavat wrote: post #38

rayiner wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

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

#67

Post by alephnerd » Thu, Apr 04, 2024, 2:03 PM UTC

dukeyukey wrote: post #34

alephnerd wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The time zone factor for meetings isn't significant, as Indian, Eastern European, and Israeli employees are fine taking meetings that accommodate American time zones because we pay 2-3x more than local competitors.

The reason UK is a base is because UK business law is extremely thorough and any flavor of contract dispute has been litigated multiple times in the UK.

This means it's easier for me to manage operations all over the EFTA and EU via the EU-UK TCA.

The English factor is a massive plus as well because that is the global language of commerce - not French or German. This is why Netherlands tries to treat English as a first class language similar to Dutch, because that is critical for businesses.

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

#68

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 04, 2024, 2:41 PM UTC

blululu wrote: post #49

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!

[flagged]

[deleted]

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

#69

Post by 4ggr0 » Thu, Apr 04, 2024, 2:45 PM UTC

boesboes wrote: post #41

alephnerd wrote: post #6

Kinda related, but why the heck are all third-party recruiters British? Every single third-party recruiting agency seems to be British

I get about half local (dutch) recruiters and half british or irish. Still all useless AF though.

"I see you used C# during an internship 10 years ago, would you be interested in a Senior C# Developer-Role in a different country?"

While completely ignoring that all I've ever worked as is a System Engineer/Linux Admin/Engineer.

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

#70

Post by denton-scratch » Thu, Apr 04, 2024, 2:46 PM UTC

dukeyukey wrote: post #59

returningfory2 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve wondered this too. One theory I have is that in the UK doing an undergraduate degree is a humanities subject has much higher social status than the US. This leads more of the “top” high school students to do these degrees. When they graduate they obviously need a job and recruiting works week due to needing good language and soft skills. Maybe a bs theory though :)

> in the UK doing an undergraduate degree is a humanities subject has much higher social status than the US I'm not really sure there's much of a difference between any subjects in the UK. Like, maybe stuff like Physics is seen as better? There's a big thing against "Micky Mouse degrees", that aren't seeing as leading to a job. Recruiters themselves are seen as one step above estate agents, which is _not_ a high stat…

I have a pretty low opinion of estate agents; but my opinion of recruiters is much lower. I'd put them in a class alongside - I dunno, politicians, maybe.