Reply to: Indians can now ‘remote-work’ in the UK while on a tourist visa

[Destiny2]

Apparently, many IT roles are in the skills shortage list.
Fkn Rishi and his Infosys wife.

[dsc]

Huh? Estonia and Hungary cheap?

Been working with people from both countries including remote for over a decade.

Cheap-er than Poland / Czechia I'd say. Have you talked to the people you work with re cost of living in their countries? or know the rates they are on?

[vetran]

welcome to global capitalism!

[SueEllen]

Loads of Ukrainians fled to Poland, so if they can work remotely they will carry on from there. I'd venture a guess and say that countries like Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Hungary are still relatively cheap, but their neighbours on the Western side - that ship has sailed, cost of living is so high, you can no longer get people there on the cheap (you still get a good bang for your buck and good solid engineers, it's just not cheap).

Huh? Estonia and Hungary cheap?

Been working with people from both countries including remote for over a decade.

[dsc]

[...]
Not sure what the situation is in Eastern Europe now. Ukraine was a big outsourcing location but I guess a lot of that has been absorbed elsewhere recently. One supplier I worked with last year had moved many of their staff from Ukraine to Estonia.

Loads of Ukrainians fled to Poland, so if they can work remotely they will carry on from there. I'd venture a guess and say that countries like Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Hungary are still relatively cheap, but their neighbours on the Western side - that ship has sailed, cost of living is so high, you can no longer get people there on the cheap (you still get a good bang for your buck and good solid engineers, it's just not cheap).

[DoctorStrangelove]

[Paddy]

Not just Indians.

I absolutely agree, the industry is full of cowboys.

[edison]

Costs of outsourcing to India are no longer as cheap as they once were. Other growing/emerging Asian offshore centres include Vietnam and even Pakistan. These two countries alone have 350m people and longer term I reckon they will start to be more serious competitors to India. The same might apply to Indonesia one day.

The Phillipines is another although historically they have been geared up to work with mainly North American companies.

Not sure what the situation is in Eastern Europe now. Ukraine was a big outsourcing location but I guess a lot of that has been absorbed elsewhere recently. One supplier I worked with last year had moved many of their staff from Ukraine to Estonia.

Asia / South America - perhaps that's doable, but I'd still say double that figure
East / Central Europe (Czechia, Poland etc.) - absolutely no way, they would easily charge you 4-5k euros per month as individuals on perm contracts, I'm not even going to mention how much it would be via consultancies or directly via b2b arrangements.

[NotAllThere]

Indians can now ‘remote-work’ in the UK while on a tourist visa

Not just Indians.

[dsc]

20 years ago when I first directly witnessed offshoring. But 10% average wage increases plus shortages have caused wages to Balloon. Now they look at Thailand, Mexico, Prague etc.

Try this:
https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/pu...cms_638305.pdf

Asia / South America - perhaps that's doable, but I'd still say double that figure
East / Central Europe (Czechia, Poland etc.) - absolutely no way, they would easily charge you 4-5k euros per month as individuals on perm contracts, I'm not even going to mention how much it would be via consultancies or directly via b2b arrangements.

[vetran]

Where is this figure coming from? and which country? There was a user in the State of the Market thread who had some proper info on India and salaries and for £12k no one would lift a finger.

20 years ago when I first directly witnessed offshoring. But 10% average wage increases plus shortages have caused wages to Balloon. Now they look at Thailand, Mexico, Prague etc.

Try this:
https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/pu...cms_638305.pdf

[dsc]

If you pay a rock star salary (£12k) in the poorer country[...]

Where is this figure coming from? and which country? There was a user in the State of the Market thread who had some proper info on India and salaries and for £12k no one would lift a finger.

[vetran]

"While visitors can work from the UK, remote work should not be the primary reason for their stay."

Interesting use of the word "should", so I guess it can be, but shouldn't or is forbidden? what stops anyone from saying I came to the UK to do sightseeing? Seems like a solid rule...

On the other hand, lets assume you bring someone in from a country that pays peanuts, those people still need to live somewhere in the UK and be able to survive. Also, why would you even bother if the can do their work remotely? sure, for some roles you need physical presence, but for those they probably already have local bods no? is it worth sacking them and bringing in someone from outside on a tourist visa to save money?

My experience is that the employer has a company house (totally tax deductible) or they end up in a cheap hotel/air bnb paid for by the employer or sharing with existing UK Employees. Food is expensed and delivered to the site while they work extra time. 2-5 years doing this makes them eligible for rapid promotion.

If you pay a rock star salary (£12k) in the poorer country buying a cheap house in the UK still leaves plenty of change when replacing 4-10 * £50-100k staff. Even a hovel in Southall is better than some parts of many poor countries.

Part of the problem is that cheap resources hollow out the skill set and drop wages. Then stuff gets offshored and no one pays UK tax. Its all very well getting upset with 'rich disguised employees' paying 10% less tax but this is multinationals not paying any UK tax.

[dsc]

"While visitors can work from the UK, remote work should not be the primary reason for their stay."

Interesting use of the word "should", so I guess it can be, but shouldn't or is forbidden? what stops anyone from saying I came to the UK to do sightseeing? Seems like a solid rule...

On the other hand, lets assume you bring someone in from a country that pays peanuts, those people still need to live somewhere in the UK and be able to survive. Also, why would you even bother if the can do their work remotely? sure, for some roles you need physical presence, but for those they probably already have local bods no? is it worth sacking them and bringing in someone from outside on a tourist visa to save money?

[northernladuk]

The immigration board is gonna blow up with this news.