Actually, we do - in Poland, but most developers are from Ukraine. All other operations stays in UK. The salaries leveled up after a few years, but it is still slightly more cost effective comparing to UK. But the actual skill levels and work attitude is night and day. That's why I am perplexed that so many US software engineers want to stand their ground in terms of working from home policy, potentially exposing themselves to compete on a global market while big software houses like Microsoft or Google cutting jobs like there is no tomorrow.
You are exactly right! So why give up one of the biggest trump card - locality, and allow free access for other people from around the world to your job market because you want to work permanently from home.
How does requiring staff to come into an office stop a company from hiring remotely globally? The only solution is unionization and nation state regulation. If you don't have labor representation, there are no controls on corporate behavior besides shareholder interests.
You're spot on and I totally agree with you. But pushing hard for remote work might backfire for current IT folks. If bosses get comfy with everyone being remote, they'll wonder why stick to local talent when they can hire from anywhere in the world.
Sure, companies can and do hire globally, but at the same time managers still want most of the people to appear in the office from time to time (for whatever reason). But if IT guys demand working permanently from home, then it changes everything. Suddenly, being local doesn't cut it anymore, and the job could be done by someone halfway across the globe. Be careful what you wish for; demanding remote work is a double-edge sword which could make lots of positions way less secure.