Start packing your home office…WFH just shot your job!

Your WFH thriving state is soon to come to an end. Jobs are on a caravan heading overseas! The chilling thought of your job being hijacked by your companies brilliant idea of hiring someone at a waaaayyy lower cost in your neighboring country is soon to become your new reality. Sorry :(

COVID is driving a white-collars unemployment tsunami

Of course, COVID had a major direct impact on the global economy, the labor market, and led to massive jobs destruction in many sectors. But the massive threat is that by experiencing new work from home policies, employers and managers are starting to realize that there's a brand-new cost killing opportunity… white collars outsourcing.

According to the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (Source: Bloomberg):

One in five jobs based in the U.K. could be outsourced to other countries in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, threatening the loss of well-paid white-collar employment.

The truth was lying just in front of our eyes. If a job could be done by an employee from home, it could perfectly be done by any skilled person from another country, for a fraction of the cost.

Occidental countries lived for decades in the illusion that they would forever keep the value-added jobs, while transferring the basic work to country with cheapest labor costs.

What a blind and arrogant (and unconsciously racist) way of thinking.

Why now?

Think of the industry history. It was perfectly feasible to build factories overseas and outsource production far before the massive outsourcing waves of the 80s. One of the most powerful trigger was the marginal cost of transportation that reached a low psychological threshold.

As remote work technologies such as Microsoft Teams are becoming the new normal, and work from home actively promoted, the latest psychological barriers are collapsing. Distance, difficulties to effectively collaborate asynchronously and cultural differences are fading away.

It already happened to IT, and we’re now seeing entire R&D teams from occidental companies outsourced. The question is not “if” but “when”. It’s from now on just a matter of time for this trend to impact marketing, finance, and other well-paid white-collar departments.

Get ready, the shift has begun!

“Outsourcing” … What a sweet word for “local unemployment”. In this new border-free landscape, the labor market is becoming a worldwide battlefield.

Enjoy your new work from home lifestyle, the war of all against all has just begun.