The revolution in information technology has unlocked a new frontier in the global labor market. It’s now possible for workers in one country to provide their services remotely to an office in another, a phenomenon that can be called ‘telemigration.’ Understanding how telemigration is changing the global workforce is crucial, as it represents a third unbundling: the separation of labor services from the physical presence of laborers. This trend has profound implications for service-sector workers in high-wage countries.
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💼 What is Telemigration?
Telemigration is the idea of people from one country working in an office in another country without physically moving. It’s as if they are ‘beaming’ their services across borders. This has been made possible by a convergence of technologies: cheap and reliable internet, sophisticated collaboration platforms like Slack and Teams, and telepresence technologies that simulate face-to-face interaction. Unlike outsourcing of manufacturing, telemigration allows for the remote trade of individual labor services, from accounting and web design to customer support and software development.
🌍 The New Face of International Competition
For decades, service-sector workers in developed countries were largely shielded from direct international competition. A barber in Berlin did not have to compete with a barber in Bangalore. Telemigration changes this equation. While a barber still requires physical presence, a vast number of office jobs do not. This means that a service worker in a high-wage country is now in potential competition with a similarly skilled worker in a country with much lower labor costs. This creates a new and more direct form of wage pressure on the service sectors of developed economies.
🤖 The Coming Wave: Telerobotics and the Future
The potential impact of telemigration is likely to expand even further with the rise of telerobotics. As robotic technology improves and internet latency decreases, it will become increasingly possible for a worker in one nation to remotely operate a robot in another. This could apply to a wide range of jobs that currently require a physical presence, from operating a factory machine to performing janitorial services. This third unbundling has the potential to be even more disruptive than the offshoring of manufacturing, as it could affect a much broader segment of the workforce.
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Baldwin, Richard. The Great Convergence: Information Technology and the New Globalization. Harvard University Press, 2016.
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