[bartread]

> Say you have a business entity in the said country and you operate as a subsidiary or you contract to another company, now you pay local wages as per the market.

In my experience that's almost always how it works because you have to employ people in such a way that you abide by all local laws. I have seen people employed as independent contractors but, and again this varies by country, there are often restrictions around criteria like how long you can do that for. It's also kind of a PITA for the "employee" because it means they might have to do things like sort out their own taxes and healthcare. If you have a legal entity in place you can do that for them. That means you either set up a subsidiary, or you using a local offshoring firm. And this applies regardless of the country.