[pessimizer]

> The thing is, for those workers in "poor" countries, this is a step up.

Not if the companies can help it. Just because they're in a low labor cost country doesn't mean that they want to pay any more than the minimum they can there - they're not looking to give a step up, they're looking for the minimum cost to attract a sufficient workforce.

Everybody always talks about these jobs as if they are necessarily great jobs. They may be great, maybe if the company has some sort of local political arrangement that would stay favorable if the jobs stay good, maybe if the management is simply bad and is accidentally paying more than the prevailing rate. But, on the other hand, these jobs are often with awful subcontractors who pay bargain basement wages even for the area, cut safety corners, demand unpaid overtime, and have any potential union leaders killed.