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Comment by DebtDeflation | Hacker News Reader

Labor really is not fungible that way. On shore H1B Indians generally are higher skilled than offshore Indians, perform different roles at companies, and are paid more. Many of them could have chosen different careers than Tech and likely will if they move back to India.

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Or: instead of talented software engineers around the world being drawn to the US, they stay home and build deep talent pools in their home country or in the next non-US SV. In the long run the onshore/offshore becomes less and less about quality and cost tradeoffs.

We're giving away our long term dominance of tech for xenophobia and the possibility of short term job growth

It's not xenophobia anymore--when major percentages of US grads, of all ethnicities, can't find jobs, there is a fundamentally larger issue at stake here.

Labor is not fungible, but that doesn't matter. What matters is if (largely stupid) investors and executives think labor is fungible.

Which, from what I've seen, they do. Its not, and it will backfire, but that's never stopped anyone.

Why not just move US H1Bs back to India and keep paying them US wages? They will be filthy rich in India, their living standards will literally skyrocket. They will be highly unlikely to leave. And keep them on same roles as they did in US.

Why do you think GCCs now exist?

The leadership in a GCC are all ex-US EMs, PMs, PMMs, and FP&As who are given the option to take a haircut on their US salary and build a hiring pipeline within India while meeting the company's hiring requirements.

Tech salaries in India have already converged with much of the EU, especially for top talent.

Remote workers, especially if they’re in a different time zone, are likely not going to be as effective as onshore in-person workers.

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