
Ask HN: Why do US companies mostly hire remote workers in USA? - demianbrener
Most of Remote OK job posts say &quot;in USA&quot;. Why don&#x27;t they look to hire internationally?
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Someone1234
Timezones, navigating two sets of employment laws, payroll complexity, cost of
flying them in (even infrequently), language issues, recruitment (e.g.
understanding foreign qualifications, advertising), and so on.

Typically if companies want remote workers abroad they avoid most of these by
hiring an outsourcing company, letting the outsourcing company deal with the
local stuff abroad, and all the US company has to do is send them a pile of
money.

Hiring US remote worker doesn't solve all of these (e.g. two states in the US
might have different employment laws) however it does solve at least half.

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hijinks
to add to this.. some companies have compliance issues where all employees
need to be legal US citizens.

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davismwfl
In addition to Timezone and Payroll legalities, a number of companies are
worried about IP rights too. In the US, the laws are generally understood
already by US companies, whereas the legal structure and concepts around IP
isn't as clear cut when you employ someone in say Brazil, China or India etc.

Not that any of those Countries are bad, but the complexity for a smaller
business that doesn't already have a footprint in that Country is pretty high.
For a company that already has a footprint in another Country and may already
have formed their own corporation there as a subsidiary then the barrier is
far less with respect to Payroll and IP type issues.

Another point, a company in CA that employs a person in say Kansas, South
Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Wyoming etc, will find they can pay people well
but still save a significant amount of money over hiring locally. All while
having employees close to the same timezone and without any other barriers to
overcome. Not to mention a west coast company having east coast employees can
help with support and overlap, like wise if you reverse it.

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x0x0
Cultural issues too. Wait until someone from a country with a different view
on women in the workplace shares topless pics of his gf on the engineering
slack channel. Or sends engineering candidates a coding test that shows a
picture of a naked woman (in ascii, but def naked). You'll get to have all
sorts of fun with HR and your lawyer.

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nraynaud
I went on the French Hired.com yesterday, and asking me my race is simply
illegal here, and having as option stuff like 'native american form Hawaii'
(from memory, it was in french, making even less sense) did not really feel
culturally sensitive. On the other hand, having my boss commenting on the look
of a female engineer in the lunch room did not really make me feel good.

edit: but I would say that the american culture is shouted so loudly at the
rest of the world that it's not really an issue in this direction.

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toomuchtodo
In the US, asking your race is allowed (but optional for you to complete) for
reporting employment statistics.

~~~
dragonwriter
In the US, asking just about anything is allowed. Certain information is
generally unlawful to use in hiring decisions; though, so if you do ask it and
don't fall into one of the exceptions where it is allowed to hire based on it,
you probably want to both say up front _and be able to demonstrate by evidence
when challenged in court_ that it is (1) used for some specific purpose other
than hiring decisions, and (2) separated from the identifying information
after receipt so that it could not be used for hiring decisions even if those
making that decision wanted to.

There is a popular myth that the things that are illegal to use in hiring
decisions are illegal to ask, which isn't true (this probably comes as a
slight distortion from managers receiving legal advice that those things
should not be asked because asking them increases the risk to the company,
which is true not because they are illegal to ask, but because asking produces
the risk that a jury will believe a charge that they were used in hiring
decisions.)

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gozur88
Payroll is a huge headache. I worked at a California-based company that hired
a Canadian, and I think they spent more money sorting out all the
legal/financial issues than they paid him.

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adomanico
Simply not true. It is very easy to work as a Canadian in the US. This is
exactly why we have the TN visa.

Because of NAFTA, the US and Canada share a ton of workers.

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gyardley
The thread is about remote workers, not immigrants. He's talking about a
Canadian who continues to work remotely in Canada, not a Canadian who's moved
to work in the United States.

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adomanico
It makes no difference if he is a US resident or not.

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gyardley
Of course it does. If you pay someone when they reside in the United States,
you don't have to deal with the Canada Revenue Agency or any of the provincial
and local authorities at all. Instead, you deal with the same federal, state,
and local authorities in the United States that you're already dealing with.
Navigating bureaucracy is hard, and navigating additional unfamiliar
bureaucracies is harder.

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tn13
Quality could also be an issue. I hired some excellent people in India but
they would have power-cuts every now and then, ridiculous internet speeds and
inability to write good english.

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scalesolved
I think it is quite common for east coast companies to hire European remote
workers. I work in a Java team comprised of 7 people currently for a US Boston
based company and 6 of the 7 are based in the EU (2 in UK,2 in Spain, 2 in
Czech Republic).

There are certain barriers to hiring but it allows you to pick some really
great engineers up that would just be impossible to do in San Fran etc without
a huge budget.

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ljw1001
They don't. US companies _mostly_ hire remote workers in India and China, not
in the US. When they do it overseas, they generally work with a local company
to make the legal and logistical aspects simpler.

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PaulHoule
Timezones, for one thing.

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zerr
Although, I've seen a lot of US/Canada only postings as well, so Mexico and S.
America excluded.

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PaulHoule
I have worked with a lot of good folks in S. America, in fact I know a team
there that is better at text analysis than anybody I know in the states who
isn't already busy working for the NSA.

~~~
zerr
Yes, so these places are excluded not because of time-zone or skills gap, but
something else.

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ccvannorman
ymmv, but in my experience, local devs are the best--culture, language, in
person meetings, and timezones matter. Also, quality is usually better in my
experience with local devs

