4 ms·

Remote work will drive wages down, not up. The company can get a remote worker from overseas. Remote work is to the office worker what NAFTA and container shi

Remote work will drive wages down, not up. The company can get a remote worker from overseas. Remote work is to the office worker what NAFTA and container ships are to the manufacturing worker.

zmmmmm 4y ago
> Remote work will drive wages down, not up I know you don't mean it this way, but it should right? It's fundamentally cheaper - no commute on the employee part, no office space on the employer side. Greatly enhanced flexibility all round. Both sides should definitely splitting the dividends. I'm fine with it if that is how it works.
- massysett 4y ago
  I agree actually. Stated differently, commuting is a pain for workers, so they're willing to accept a lower wage to avoid it. This also means the worker can live where the cost of living is lower, and be willing to work for less--thus pushing down wages. Arguably the worker still comes out ahead though if she can live where she wants to...assuming she likes working remotely from a low cost-of-living place. If she'd rather live in NYC and go to the office, she might not be happy to see her wage go down.
  - zmmmmm 4y ago
    > If she'd rather live in NYC and go to the office yep - in the short term there will be some discontinuities like this. But longer term - more staff working remotely is going to take pressure off real estate prices in cities, so it will actually be justifiable even there that salaries can fall. Unfortunately since so many office space leases are long term, and rezoning of land use even slower, this can take a very long time to flow through.
mjburgess 4y ago
Organizations are currently able to use remote workers from foreign countries. The relevant legal change would mandate them to accept them from their own country. If remote work would "drive wages down", it would already do so -- since that's an option available to employeers now
whatever1 4y ago
Probably a bimodal distribution will be the outcome. The skilled on-shore would be paid more, the fungible would be paid less. But again offshoring is not always the cheapest answer due to the inefficiency that time difference introduces.
- moneywoes 4y ago
  Is that over $200k a year ( per engineer) in inefficiency
  - Firmwarrior 4y ago
    Yeah, obviously, or they'd just be offshoring whole teams/departments at a time already. The reason they don't do that is because there's a market rate for good engineering. When an offshore contractor gets good enough, they figure out the market rate and start charging it. I've been hearing this sort of doom and gloom since the 90s, yet here I am making bank in the USA still
  - whatever1 4y ago
    Cannot make generalizations, but anecdotally I have experienced situations where senior engineers have to spend half of their time to coordinate work due to this. Things that can be resolved in 5 minutes have to wait for a day.
  - ambicapter 4y ago
    Well if the inefficiency is blocking a couple people who all make $100k/year...seems pretty easy.
- kyawzazaw 4y ago
  Currently trimodal now
throwbadubadu 4y ago
That argument existed now for how long? Depends if you are doing just the ""barista equivalent tech job"", but it seems there is more to it.
red-iron-pine 4y ago
NDAs don't work in different countries. We've already learned what hassles there are offshoring IP to China -- who promptly stole it. Ditto for non-competes, stock grants, etc. -- these get very messy across borders. That's fine for L2 support drones or QA box checkers but no way I'm hiring anyone I care about for this purpose. AI is coming for those roles before they end up in India or PI. Speaking of NAFTA, that's one of the reasons we're seeing Mexico City as an offshore hub. Better timezone overlap, can usually trust that their credentials are legitimate, and it's not hard to find a (Mexican accented) Spanish speaker in much of the US. Plus the NAFTA TN visa means if they're good you can easily bring them across the border with no H1B headaches. Cheaper flights, too.

Remote work will drive wages down, not up. The company can get a remote worker from overseas. Remote work is to the office worker what NAFTA and container ships are to the manufacturing worker.

zmmmmm 4y ago

> Remote work will drive wages down, not up I know you don't mean it this way, but it should right? It's fundamentally cheaper - no commute on the employee part, no office space on the employer side. Greatly enhanced flexibility all round. Both sides should definitely splitting the dividends. I'm fine with it if that is how it works.

massysett 4y ago
I agree actually. Stated differently, commuting is a pain for workers, so they're willing to accept a lower wage to avoid it. This also means the worker can live where the cost of living is lower, and be willing to work for less--thus pushing down wages. Arguably the worker still comes out ahead though if she can live where she wants to...assuming she likes working remotely from a low cost-of-living place. If she'd rather live in NYC and go to the office, she might not be happy to see her wage go down.
- zmmmmm 4y ago
  > If she'd rather live in NYC and go to the office yep - in the short term there will be some discontinuities like this. But longer term - more staff working remotely is going to take pressure off real estate prices in cities, so it will actually be justifiable even there that salaries can fall. Unfortunately since so many office space leases are long term, and rezoning of land use even slower, this can take a very long time to flow through.

mjburgess 4y ago

Organizations are currently able to use remote workers from foreign countries. The relevant legal change would mandate them to accept them from their own country. If remote work would "drive wages down", it would already do so -- since that's an option available to employeers now

whatever1 4y ago

Probably a bimodal distribution will be the outcome. The skilled on-shore would be paid more, the fungible would be paid less. But again offshoring is not always the cheapest answer due to the inefficiency that time difference introduces.

moneywoes 4y ago
Is that over $200k a year ( per engineer) in inefficiency
- Firmwarrior 4y ago
  Yeah, obviously, or they'd just be offshoring whole teams/departments at a time already. The reason they don't do that is because there's a market rate for good engineering. When an offshore contractor gets good enough, they figure out the market rate and start charging it. I've been hearing this sort of doom and gloom since the 90s, yet here I am making bank in the USA still
- whatever1 4y ago
  Cannot make generalizations, but anecdotally I have experienced situations where senior engineers have to spend half of their time to coordinate work due to this. Things that can be resolved in 5 minutes have to wait for a day.
- ambicapter 4y ago
  Well if the inefficiency is blocking a couple people who all make $100k/year...seems pretty easy.
kyawzazaw 4y ago
Currently trimodal now

throwbadubadu 4y ago

That argument existed now for how long? Depends if you are doing just the ""barista equivalent tech job"", but it seems there is more to it.

red-iron-pine 4y ago

NDAs don't work in different countries. We've already learned what hassles there are offshoring IP to China -- who promptly stole it. Ditto for non-competes, stock grants, etc. -- these get very messy across borders. That's fine for L2 support drones or QA box checkers but no way I'm hiring anyone I care about for this purpose. AI is coming for those roles before they end up in India or PI. Speaking of NAFTA, that's one of the reasons we're seeing Mexico City as an offshore hub. Better timezone overlap, can usually trust that their credentials are legitimate, and it's not hard to find a (Mexican accented) Spanish speaker in much of the US. Plus the NAFTA TN visa means if they're good you can easily bring them across the border with no H1B headaches. Cheaper flights, too.