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Well, I think a major factor is that with less friction for workers to move between countries / industries / companies, it no longer pays for companies to culti

Well, I think a major factor is that with less friction for workers to move between countries / industries / companies, it no longer pays for companies to cultivate their talent from within. Either the talent will leave, or it is easy to find some talent by hiring from elsewhere -- by the way, where the work to cultivate and support the talent has already been done for you. And all you're doing is applying the filter / cutting the top candidates to choose from. Back when there was much more friction and lack of info for people to move about between good opportunities, you were tied to your employer and a better bet to invest R&D money in. Not now. Except for a few select industries where there are artificial barriers put in place to prevent this. (Certification, unions, national security, etc)

ben_w 6y ago
> with less friction for workers to move between countries While I agree with regard to companies, I disagree with regard to countries. The equivalent for a nation is education, which would mean every nation would be happy to accept any immigrant who can speak the local language while also doing whatever they can to prevent people leaving. The higher the education, the more this matters, but even K-12 equivalents are ~13 years of state support. Potentially more if they were born somewhere where the state pays for early childhood and p/maternity. Moving country is still hard for most people.
- usrusr 6y ago
  > Moving country is still hard for most people. That doesn't invalidate the assertion that it used to be even harder before in any way.
masklinn 6y ago
> Well, I think a major factor is that with less friction for workers to move between countries / industries / companies, it no longer pays for companies to cultivate their talent from within. The fall of R&D labs also largely correlates with repeated corporate tax cuts: R&D labs were a way for corporations to lower their tax burdens while investing in themselves, which benefited society as a whole (either because the corp produced better value, or because others found avenues for that research). Today they're much better off paying accountants. It's also a bit rich criticising workers when companies were the ones to break the "social contract" and start throwing employees out on the street with little to no warning or recourse.
sgift 6y ago
This assumes that your employees will just leave even if you value them fairly. In truth it's the other way around: Companies don't care for their people anymore (as seen in payment, investment in their career / training, not firing on the spot etc.) and people respond to these incentives. I also think it has nothing to do with movement between countries. The same "problem" (more like a self-inflicted wound) exists within countries if you have competitors.

ben_w 6y ago

> with less friction for workers to move between countries While I agree with regard to companies, I disagree with regard to countries. The equivalent for a nation is education, which would mean every nation would be happy to accept any immigrant who can speak the local language while also doing whatever they can to prevent people leaving. The higher the education, the more this matters, but even K-12 equivalents are ~13 years of state support. Potentially more if they were born somewhere where the state pays for early childhood and p/maternity. Moving country is still hard for most people.

usrusr 6y ago
> Moving country is still hard for most people. That doesn't invalidate the assertion that it used to be even harder before in any way.

masklinn 6y ago

> Well, I think a major factor is that with less friction for workers to move between countries / industries / companies, it no longer pays for companies to cultivate their talent from within. The fall of R&D labs also largely correlates with repeated corporate tax cuts: R&D labs were a way for corporations to lower their tax burdens while investing in themselves, which benefited society as a whole (either because the corp produced better value, or because others found avenues for that research). Today they're much better off paying accountants. It's also a bit rich criticising workers when companies were the ones to break the "social contract" and start throwing employees out on the street with little to no warning or recourse.

sgift 6y ago

This assumes that your employees will just leave even if you value them fairly. In truth it's the other way around: Companies don't care for their people anymore (as seen in payment, investment in their career / training, not firing on the spot etc.) and people respond to these incentives. I also think it has nothing to do with movement between countries. The same "problem" (more like a self-inflicted wound) exists within countries if you have competitors.