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Even relatively small tech companies can afford overseas offices with full time employees nowadays. The kinks and legalities have largely been worked out. It'

Even relatively small tech companies can afford overseas offices with full time employees nowadays. The kinks and legalities have largely been worked out. It's just a matter of time really. The US automotive industry, consumer electronics industry, and even the chip industry were thought to be invulnerable until, one day, suddenly, they weren't. And most coding isn't a fraction as technically difficult as the engineering done in those industries.

gregjor 3y ago
You continue to confuse WFH with offshoring. Yes, some companies and entire industries did move manufacturing out of the US to take advantage of lower cost of labor. I wouldn't call all of those jobs unskilled, but they don't require high-end technical expertise. And local employees in Mexico or China or Vietnam can work at a local facility (no need for work permit or visa), don't have to learn English, and have logistics, timezones, cultural differences, and legal/government regulations handled at an organizational rather than individual level. And I doubt many of those overseas employees get to work from home. Offshoring software development to India and some other countries started back in the '80s and still happens when it makes economic sense for the American companies paying for it. But programmers in India working for a US bank (for example) are getting paid Indian salaries, not US salaries. Despite lots of worry and fear back early in my career (yes, back to the '80s) about offshoring eliminating jobs and lowering salaries for US-based programmers, that didn't really happen. It turns out that managing offshored software development comes with its own set of problems that I won't get into. Offshoring programming doesn't have the logistics problems of manufacturing, and talented people exist around the world, but few programming jobs work with the developers so detached from the rest of the business. The OP asked about lower salaries around the world pushing salaries down in the US. Labor prices do get affected by supply and demand, but also by other things such as geography, local labor laws, education, language, etc. Where a person lives, and what passport they hold, still makes a difference. People with remarkable talent and skill who can demand high salaries wherever they live exist but as a proportion of people working in software development those exceptional people represent a small percentage. With so many people (look at the sweeping layoffs across the US tech sector recently) chasing a relatively small number of WFH/remote jobs employers offering those jobs will have their pick of actually talented and productive people. I travel full-time and work for US companies. I have US citizenship, so I don't present any novel tax or labor/immigration law problems to the companies I work for. The jobs available to me as a full-time nomad working from home (wherever that is) look pretty sparse, and represent some of the most desirable kinds of jobs because lots of people want f/t WFH/remote jobs, but few companies want to do that if they can find someone local. If I didn't have decades of experience, some talent, and a good professional network I would have to physically locate myself somewhere in the US to avoid unemployment.

gregjor 3y ago

You continue to confuse WFH with offshoring. Yes, some companies and entire industries did move manufacturing out of the US to take advantage of lower cost of labor. I wouldn't call all of those jobs unskilled, but they don't require high-end technical expertise. And local employees in Mexico or China or Vietnam can work at a local facility (no need for work permit or visa), don't have to learn English, and have logistics, timezones, cultural differences, and legal/government regulations handled at an organizational rather than individual level. And I doubt many of those overseas employees get to work from home. Offshoring software development to India and some other countries started back in the '80s and still happens when it makes economic sense for the American companies paying for it. But programmers in India working for a US bank (for example) are getting paid Indian salaries, not US salaries. Despite lots of worry and fear back early in my career (yes, back to the '80s) about offshoring eliminating jobs and lowering salaries for US-based programmers, that didn't really happen. It turns out that managing offshored software development comes with its own set of problems that I won't get into. Offshoring programming doesn't have the logistics problems of manufacturing, and talented people exist around the world, but few programming jobs work with the developers so detached from the rest of the business. The OP asked about lower salaries around the world pushing salaries down in the US. Labor prices do get affected by supply and demand, but also by other things such as geography, local labor laws, education, language, etc. Where a person lives, and what passport they hold, still makes a difference. People with remarkable talent and skill who can demand high salaries wherever they live exist but as a proportion of people working in software development those exceptional people represent a small percentage. With so many people (look at the sweeping layoffs across the US tech sector recently) chasing a relatively small number of WFH/remote jobs employers offering those jobs will have their pick of actually talented and productive people. I travel full-time and work for US companies. I have US citizenship, so I don't present any novel tax or labor/immigration law problems to the companies I work for. The jobs available to me as a full-time nomad working from home (wherever that is) look pretty sparse, and represent some of the most desirable kinds of jobs because lots of people want f/t WFH/remote jobs, but few companies want to do that if they can find someone local. If I didn't have decades of experience, some talent, and a good professional network I would have to physically locate myself somewhere in the US to avoid unemployment.