[sandworm101]

Correct. Every job that can be done remotely can equally be done very remotely. At home tech workers compete in a global marketplace. My job requires me to be in the office, not by anyone's choice. It's a legal requirement. That offers me protection should cuts ever come.

[Fanmade]

Hah. One of my clients is in German insurance tech. They thought the same as you and started recruiting from around the world. They said that German employees are just too expensive. For comparison, a PHP software developer in Germany usually has a salary between 50k and 70k (between 31 and 42k after taxes), which is far from what's being paid in the US. But of course, you can still get cheaper ones from other countries.

Well, it turns out that these specific German business cases, which are hard enough for the average German developer to understand, are even harder to explain to someone if there's an additional language barrier between them. Most people using that software don't speak English, so there's always a proxy between the developers and the stakeholders.

I could write a lot about this (I actually deleted two very long versions of this comment here already), but I really would not recommend that any company recruit too many people from outside of its own country, apart from a few exceptions where that fits the business model. Having some diversity in your team structure can help, but as with most things, too much is not good. But many companies will have to learn that for themselves. I have already seen some that did not survive that lesson.

[mleo]

Yes and no. Everyone on the team tries to be cognizant of time zones and coworkers availability. Trying to schedule meetings across multiple time zones quickly limits available working hours.

[pdntspa]

This isn't necessarily true -- language, cultural, and timezone barriers do exist and will come up, which makes it still advantageous to keep WFH employees domestic

[dartos]

We love legally backed job protections.

[sandworm101]

The laws are just the embodiment of the requirement, not the requirement themselves. Many jobs involve information and processes that simply cannot be handled in a home office environment. For instance, there aren't any work-from-home air traffic controllers. Nor do many companies let certain trade secrets be discussed outside dedicated facilities.

[pokerface_86]

especially when our friends in tech get laid off

[shanusmagnus]

Maybe not _equally_ but yeah, this is a key point. There's not a good way to place this bet, but I bet the day comes when the full-remote advocates will rue that advocacy, or at least, many of the Americans will.