Remote workers in India don't compete for housing, energy, health care, education, and food. If an American isn't getting the job anyway, then why bring them here in the first place to drive prices up for everyone else?
> Remote workers in India don't compete for housing, energy, health care, education, and food
You’re talking about an immigrant population that is notably net tax paying, better educated and less unemployed than population.
As for your list: housing is a political choice; residential energy use is increasingly a rounding error; nationally, we’re closing hospitals and schools more than finding them constrained; and we’re a major food (and energy) exporter.
FWIW the "international" folks I work with hardly spend any money in the US. Most of it is saved and spent or invested during 2-month annual visits to homeland.
Sorry but there is no competition for health care in US. US basically has no health care. Unless of course you buy it (i.e. pay the fraudulent companies to give you false sense of security and leave you alone in the worst moment of your life)
Yup, this is much more likely to lead to more offshoring than companies hiring more American workers. Which also means that communities in the US with a large amount of workers on visas will also suffer.
Offshoring it hardly new. Take Microsoft for example. They offshored heavily over 20 years ago. Allow more immigration or the jobs will be offshored is an idle threat. Companies have done tons of offshoring and reshored many things after it didn't work out. More or less immigration isn't going to move the need on offshoring much either way.
Of course it's not new. And of course it never really stopped. But there is a new incentive for execs to give it a much bigger push given all the recent remote work tooling and when they now think a programmer is just monitoring AI output. So why not pay the monitor SE Asian wages rather than US wages.
A key difference is that at least one isn’t competing for limited housing with offshoring. That is the number 1 driver of the affordability crisis atm.
I’m a fan of the YIMBY types but we aren’t building enough annd, until we are, it’s a problem to put more people where we already have little housing!
I'm old enough to remember when people gnashed their teeth about the U.S. taking talent from abroad being 'brain drain' that hurt those countries. Which is it? We want to take the rest of the world's best and brightest and screw those other countries in the process, or we feel bad about that and don't want to do that? EDIT: Cynically, it could be both!
Well it depends if you live in the US or you live in a country that is hemorrhaging your best workers to the US. No idea why you are trying to lump both groups together as if they should both have a single opinion.
Ok, let’s say it leads to 60% offshoring and 40% hiring more Americans.
That 40% is a win for Americans. It means more new grads will be hired instead of losing out to “experts” from TATA to copy and paste from ChatGPT. Our vibe coders will be home grown, corn fed.
The argument works no matter what you think the breakdown is, 70/30, 80/20 etc.
No, that is the incorrect take. Offshoring isn't easy or cheap. Especially when Trump is basically trying to get companies to hire American workers by any means.
It is risky to invest in offshoring when the outcome isn't guaranteed to save you money.
Is it meant as a rhetorical reply to the officials as in "aha, but Microsoft will prevail and make it even worse for you, American workers" or as a reply to the workers: "don't fret, move back to your country and work the same job anyway". Or was it meant as a hint for the officials "don't forget to close that loophole as well"?
Like you I suspect the former. But if we really believe that economics is not a zero sum game then offshoring is better for everyone because it keeps talent in the countries they can help improve, and it is a rising tide that lifts all boats, serving to equalize wealth. Yes, for a while it should have the effect of reducing incomes in the U.S., but so does importing the rest of the world's talent into the U.S., so arguably offshoring is much better. But if [regardless of whether we believe economics is/is not zero sum] we want to keep the rest of the world down then we should absolutely take their talent.
Hiring remote workers also doesn’t require filling out H1B applications and dealing with USCIS. If using remote workers was just as good, companies would already do that.
One might argue that it should, but as a remote worker in a low cost area I don't mind making 20% less than my NYC/Bay colleagues as I can still live like a king in my midwest city on regionally adjusted swe comp.
Regulated industries often have business language mandating onshore, citizens-only employment. If it isn't required by immigration, the businesses buying the product are requiring assurances (likely due to their own compliance).
As for non-protected roles, global market participation has ups and downs.
Shouldn't the company still advertise the role for locals before offering remote? Also, for some roles it's mandatory to have on-site or at least hire within US due to compliance.
People need to stop asking what's better for the "economy" and start asking what's better for themselves. If the two don't align, it should be tough luck for the "economy", not the people.
"The economy" is often just another way of saying "everyone in aggregate."
Of course "the economy" is a vague, undefined term. But it's easy to think of various specific measures like median household income or the unemployment rate that capture this dynamic.
So regarding your final sentiment, I think that often "the economy" and "the people" are the same thing. If something raises the unemployment rate, that will bad for "the economy" and also "the people."
Probably not a simple question or answer on the face of it, but it's really not worth looking at this action in such a narrow lens, because this is not happening in a vacuum. Instead, we should look at it through the overall context of all of this admin's immigration policies, which have been bad for the US economy.
Can you explain more? This statement is already true before this policy change, so I don't understand why this is not a non sequitur. But I know this is a common rhetoric so I am trying to understand what the logic is.
They should clamp down on that next. Looking at the past 50 years, offshoring has only caused trouble for the citizens of the country and led things like the rust belt happening.
The rust belt was not caused by call centers in Pakistan, that was the Petrodollar and China deals. But it would be great to have both back (call centers and manufacturing).
I'd love to understand how people think the H1B program is going to survive the LLM era. Why in the world would I import a foreign worker to do something I can just as easily tell a clanker to do? The clanker is better at this stuff than I am!
Is it really just a matter of empire-building, at the end of the day? That can't last. Management realizes that, right?
This is an inane comment. Here are the two types of "remote" work:
1. Remote within the US. You still need valid work authorization;
2. Remote outside the US. This is just offshoring and if it really worked, every tech jobs would be offshored. Companies have been trying to do this for decades. Companies would love nothing more than to offshore every white collar job. They would if they could.
So the exact same person working within the US, even better if sitting in an office, is a good employee but if they're working from abroad all of a sudden they're not that good?
Remote workers in India don't compete for housing, energy, health care, education, and food. If an American isn't getting the job anyway, then why bring them here in the first place to drive prices up for everyone else?
> Remote workers in India don't compete for housing, energy, health care, education, and food
You’re talking about an immigrant population that is notably net tax paying, better educated and less unemployed than population.
As for your list: housing is a political choice; residential energy use is increasingly a rounding error; nationally, we’re closing hospitals and schools more than finding them constrained; and we’re a major food (and energy) exporter.
If a mansion is surrounded by a slum is society better off? In India the answer is yes but in america we see slums as a failure.
5 replies →
To keep all of that money you just enumerated flowing in the local economy.
FWIW the "international" folks I work with hardly spend any money in the US. Most of it is saved and spent or invested during 2-month annual visits to homeland.
4 replies →
Do we need to make the rich richer or allow locals affordability?
3 replies →
Sorry but there is no competition for health care in US. US basically has no health care. Unless of course you buy it (i.e. pay the fraudulent companies to give you false sense of security and leave you alone in the worst moment of your life)
Yup, this is much more likely to lead to more offshoring than companies hiring more American workers. Which also means that communities in the US with a large amount of workers on visas will also suffer.
Offshoring it hardly new. Take Microsoft for example. They offshored heavily over 20 years ago. Allow more immigration or the jobs will be offshored is an idle threat. Companies have done tons of offshoring and reshored many things after it didn't work out. More or less immigration isn't going to move the need on offshoring much either way.
Of course it's not new. And of course it never really stopped. But there is a new incentive for execs to give it a much bigger push given all the recent remote work tooling and when they now think a programmer is just monitoring AI output. So why not pay the monitor SE Asian wages rather than US wages.
5 replies →
A key difference is that at least one isn’t competing for limited housing with offshoring. That is the number 1 driver of the affordability crisis atm.
I’m a fan of the YIMBY types but we aren’t building enough annd, until we are, it’s a problem to put more people where we already have little housing!
1 reply →
The post-Covid offshoring is looking quite a bit different though.
2 replies →
Offshoring to India is an idle threat due to radically different work cultures and expectations.
Offshoring to, say Poland or Portugal on the other hand...
1 reply →
Then let them already. Relocate all the work to India. I’m tired of US companies threatening everyone with job losses. Just fucking do it already.
They already are.
I'm old enough to remember when people gnashed their teeth about the U.S. taking talent from abroad being 'brain drain' that hurt those countries. Which is it? We want to take the rest of the world's best and brightest and screw those other countries in the process, or we feel bad about that and don't want to do that? EDIT: Cynically, it could be both!
Well it depends if you live in the US or you live in a country that is hemorrhaging your best workers to the US. No idea why you are trying to lump both groups together as if they should both have a single opinion.
3 replies →
Ok, let’s say it leads to 60% offshoring and 40% hiring more Americans.
That 40% is a win for Americans. It means more new grads will be hired instead of losing out to “experts” from TATA to copy and paste from ChatGPT. Our vibe coders will be home grown, corn fed.
The argument works no matter what you think the breakdown is, 70/30, 80/20 etc.
It's not so simple because it's also a drop in demand for american goods and services. Fewer taxes paid, less consumption, etc.
No, that is the incorrect take. Offshoring isn't easy or cheap. Especially when Trump is basically trying to get companies to hire American workers by any means.
It is risky to invest in offshoring when the outcome isn't guaranteed to save you money.
> It is risky to invest in offshoring when the outcome isn't guaranteed to save you money.
Now apply that same line of thought to AI.
"Suffer"? It might help bring home prices back down to reality.
For the first time in my life I'm seeing high-income earners as a big drag on society.
There is a lot more to an economy than just housing prices. All the local business now have less customers to sell their good and services to.
> You know who doesn't need visas? Remote workers
Is it meant as a rhetorical reply to the officials as in "aha, but Microsoft will prevail and make it even worse for you, American workers" or as a reply to the workers: "don't fret, move back to your country and work the same job anyway". Or was it meant as a hint for the officials "don't forget to close that loophole as well"?
Like you I suspect the former. But if we really believe that economics is not a zero sum game then offshoring is better for everyone because it keeps talent in the countries they can help improve, and it is a rising tide that lifts all boats, serving to equalize wealth. Yes, for a while it should have the effect of reducing incomes in the U.S., but so does importing the rest of the world's talent into the U.S., so arguably offshoring is much better. But if [regardless of whether we believe economics is/is not zero sum] we want to keep the rest of the world down then we should absolutely take their talent.
Hiring remote workers also doesn’t require filling out H1B applications and dealing with USCIS. If using remote workers was just as good, companies would already do that.
I assume you mean offshore rather than "wfh" style remote. If so, companies already do that and they have been doing it on a much larger scale - https://www.reveliolabs.com/news/business/american-companies.... This will simply be another accelerant.
Not that salary expenses is a big problem for top tech companies, but remote workers don't warrant US west-coast comps either.
> but remote workers don't warrant US west-coast comps either
I mean, we don't really need that west coast comp either? If I was pulling my old FAANG comp here in Spain, I'd be in the top 0.1% of earners...
Why don't we need it? I wouldn't mind being in the 0.1% or 0.0001% of earners in a place.
4 replies →
Why not? Doesn’t that depend on the worker output?
Hatred of the labor theory of value. This isn't my judgement on it. Just my guess why certain people with certain interests argue against it
One might argue that it should, but as a remote worker in a low cost area I don't mind making 20% less than my NYC/Bay colleagues as I can still live like a king in my midwest city on regionally adjusted swe comp.
Regulated industries often have business language mandating onshore, citizens-only employment. If it isn't required by immigration, the businesses buying the product are requiring assurances (likely due to their own compliance).
As for non-protected roles, global market participation has ups and downs.
Shouldn't the company still advertise the role for locals before offering remote? Also, for some roles it's mandatory to have on-site or at least hire within US due to compliance.
Which begs the question: What's better for the US economy?
Compared to having someone move to the US, does hiring a remote worker help or hinder the US economy?
People need to stop asking what's better for the "economy" and start asking what's better for themselves. If the two don't align, it should be tough luck for the "economy", not the people.
"The economy" is often just another way of saying "everyone in aggregate."
Of course "the economy" is a vague, undefined term. But it's easy to think of various specific measures like median household income or the unemployment rate that capture this dynamic.
So regarding your final sentiment, I think that often "the economy" and "the people" are the same thing. If something raises the unemployment rate, that will bad for "the economy" and also "the people."
8 replies →
Probably not a simple question or answer on the face of it, but it's really not worth looking at this action in such a narrow lens, because this is not happening in a vacuum. Instead, we should look at it through the overall context of all of this admin's immigration policies, which have been bad for the US economy.
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/new-aclu-afl-cio-report-...
https://www.npr.org/sections/planet-money/2026/05/12/g-s1-12...
Depends a lot on how that remote worker's children vote.
Don't worry, I'm sure their leadership is thinking "AI Bots" instead of remote workers.
Can you explain more? This statement is already true before this policy change, so I don't understand why this is not a non sequitur. But I know this is a common rhetoric so I am trying to understand what the logic is.
Thats true but now they hate remote workers. They want you in that timezone.
Plenty of tech workers in Canada and LATAM in the same time zones
They want you in the US for tax purposes too.
They should clamp down on that next. Looking at the past 50 years, offshoring has only caused trouble for the citizens of the country and led things like the rust belt happening.
The rust belt was not caused by call centers in Pakistan, that was the Petrodollar and China deals. But it would be great to have both back (call centers and manufacturing).
That will come next.
And AI.
I'd love to understand how people think the H1B program is going to survive the LLM era. Why in the world would I import a foreign worker to do something I can just as easily tell a clanker to do? The clanker is better at this stuff than I am!
Is it really just a matter of empire-building, at the end of the day? That can't last. Management realizes that, right?
This is an inane comment. Here are the two types of "remote" work:
1. Remote within the US. You still need valid work authorization;
2. Remote outside the US. This is just offshoring and if it really worked, every tech jobs would be offshored. Companies have been trying to do this for decades. Companies would love nothing more than to offshore every white collar job. They would if they could.
So the exact same person working within the US, even better if sitting in an office, is a good employee but if they're working from abroad all of a sudden they're not that good?