4 ms·

What's the good argument behind preventing remote-work visas? I mean, it sounds like the best of all worlds from a country's perspective - someone from another

What's the good argument behind preventing remote-work visas? I mean, it sounds like the best of all worlds from a country's perspective - someone from another country is paying this person, but that person lives here, and they spend their money here? That's a net inflow, what's not to like?

mertd 5y ago
Think of human labor as a natural resource. If the employer is overseas, you're selling the raw resource. You'd rather make some goods out of the resource and sell that instead.
- PostOnce 5y ago
  It's not as though most countries have a local Google / Facebook / etc clone, so they can't "make the goods" domestically, there's no "means of production" in-country.
- twojacobtwo 5y ago
  To me, that just means that an equivalent local worker is worth more than the remote worker, but the remote worker would still be a net inflow regardless, as the parent comment said.
- austhrow743 5y ago
  You as the country the prospective remote worker could be visiting aren't the owner of the human labor though. The human labor and employer are both overseas and you have the option of getting one to visit you and spend their money in your land. Everything about the scenario exactly mirrors tourism as far as I can see, and countries generally like rich tourists visiting.
srg0 5y ago
> argument behind preventing remote-work visas A remote employer may not pay all the local taxes and contributions. In particular, in EU a part of the social security contributions is usually paid by the employer, not employee. The remote worker will benefit from the social security paid by others . A remote employer will not necessarily respect obligations that local employers may have (e.g. the number of maternity leave days). It may give the remote employers an unfair competitive advantage wrt the local economy.

4 ms·

What's the good argument behind preventing remote-work visas? I mean, it sounds like the best of all worlds from a country's perspective - someone from another

by tunesmith 5y ago

mertd 5y ago
Think of human labor as a natural resource. If the employer is overseas, you're selling the raw resource. You'd rather make some goods out of the resource and sell that instead.
- PostOnce 5y ago
  It's not as though most countries have a local Google / Facebook / etc clone, so they can't "make the goods" domestically, there's no "means of production" in-country.
- twojacobtwo 5y ago
  To me, that just means that an equivalent local worker is worth more than the remote worker, but the remote worker would still be a net inflow regardless, as the parent comment said.
- austhrow743 5y ago
  You as the country the prospective remote worker could be visiting aren't the owner of the human labor though. The human labor and employer are both overseas and you have the option of getting one to visit you and spend their money in your land. Everything about the scenario exactly mirrors tourism as far as I can see, and countries generally like rich tourists visiting.
srg0 5y ago
> argument behind preventing remote-work visas A remote employer may not pay all the local taxes and contributions. In particular, in EU a part of the social security contributions is usually paid by the employer, not employee. The remote worker will benefit from the social security paid by others . A remote employer will not necessarily respect obligations that local employers may have (e.g. the number of maternity leave days). It may give the remote employers an unfair competitive advantage wrt the local economy.