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> I agree with a lot of his points about the value of remote work, but the biggest one is that the labor pool is much much larger. That's clearly an advantage
by ebg13 8y ago
> I agree with a lot of his points about the value of remote work, but the biggest one is that the labor pool is much much larger.
That's clearly an advantage for the employer, but not necessarily for the employees who live in globally-more-expensive places. Taken to the obvious conclusion, remote developers in India can do the same remote work for a lot less money than remote workers in the US can afford to.
I know it sounds crass and protectionist, but US workers cannot afford globalization despite the increase in profits for employers.
- mooreds 8y agoAh, that's fair. I guess I'd say it's still a big advantage for an employee, because the number of firms that are available for remote work is most likely larger than the number of firms in any one locality (especially if you limit commute time). Maybe not the Bay area, I have never lived there. The pool is large for both companies and employees. But the biggest advantage to employees I'd say would be the lack of commute. Even with a quick commute (15 min) you are gaining 2.5 hours a week. That is a huge amount of time that employees are not compensated for.
- lloyd-christmas 8y agoWhen I worked remote, I found I worked more hours than the days I went into the office and spent 40 minutes each day commuting. It's a lot harder to walk away from work when it is embedded in your home life. I actually quit my most recent job when they decided to close the office and move to full time remote work, so YMMV.
- ehnto 8y agoA compromise could be a co-working space or separate office in the house. It is very beneficial to have a clear divider between home and work life, so if you felt you weren't achieving it I totally understand the departure.
- robjan 8y agoIf the time difference isn't a problem, there are people with a much lower cost of living who are willing to work for 20 times less money than anyone in the Bay Area.
- JimDabell 8y agoThe ones that are worth hiring don't charge 20 times less regardless of their cost of living, because why would they?
- freddie_mercury 8y agoI'm always amazed at all the developers who are in favor of remote work....as long as you don't offshore.... If I'm going to hire remote workers why wouldn't I hire great talent in Vietnam or China or Poland instead of in the US?
- ForHackernews 8y agoHopefully those employees in Vietnam or Poland would soon start demanding higher salaries. If you're selling your labor into a global market, charge what the market will bear, which is evidently a small fortune.
- arnvald 8y agoIt is already happening. In Poland the salaries among developers are getting closer and closer to salaries in Germany or UK. The reasons are that developers can find a job for foreign companies (therefore local companies need to increase salaries in order to compete), but also that local companies get more foreign customers, therefore they can quote higher prices and offer higher salaries.
- joelbluminator 8y agoI don't know how reliable Payscale is but it's showing software development salaries in Germany to be 2x those in Poland.
- rock_hard 8y agoBecause many tech companies are not looking for sweatworkers but people who fully understand the context in which the product they are working on exists...from my expierence you won’t find these folks offshore
- freddie_mercury 8y agoI don't work in the US. I guarantee you those people exist outside of the US. You think the engineering team behind Alibaba's singles day sale are just a bunch of sweat workers? You think people in Bulgaria can't understand context? Engineers in Canada can't?
- lultimouomo 8y agoOTOH half the articles on HN are about how SF is made unliveable by the high salaries in software engineering, so maybe this will self correct, making some of the most expensive places in the US cheaper (I guess the process would not be painless though)
- matz1 8y agoBecause, assuming similar skill, as by living in cheap place I can afford to undercut other people living in more expensive place. That makes me more attractive to the employer.
- mdpopescu 8y agoI first encountered this idea reading VoxDay. He was against free markets because - to paraphrase - US workers are too stupid to compete. This tribalism is so strange to me. I can sort of understand the US-vs-the-world thing (the US is huge), but being from Europe, with dozens of tiny countries, the ideas that Belgians are intrinsically worth more protection than Albanians is just nuts.
- ebg13 8y ago> the ideas that Belgians are intrinsically worth more protection than Albanians is just nuts They aren't intrinsically worth more, but it matters if you happen to be one of those Belgians who loses your job to an Albanian who earns less than it costs for you to not live on the street.
- mdpopescu 8y agoYou can't lose your job; it's not something you owned in the first place.
- vaibhavsagar 8y ago> I know it sounds crass and protectionist, but US workers cannot afford globalization despite the increase in profits for employers. That's because it is.
- tracker1 8y agoFrankly, I think culture and localization have value. There will always be companies that prefer local. There are definite advantages to having people in proximity together for at least a portion of a given week. In terms of working with remote workers. I've done it in several environments. Often it's time zone differences and differences in approach and culture that wind up costing more, which may or may not offset other needs. The total cost may go down, but the time to complete a project often goes up. It depends on the needs of given project(s) to the company, as well as the distribution and size/scale of management. In the end, I'm happier to see offshore workers ask for more. I live in a city which has a higher pay to cost of income ration (for my field)... I stay here for that reason. I'm not taking less because the average is less.