Like Working Remotely? This Post Shows The Shift In Employment Trends

Companies in more affluent countries in the West often outsource their labour to countries in South East Asia and South America. This allows them to pay lower salaries to outsourced employees, that too for much more work. Recently, Brett Goldstein, an entrepreneur and techie, shared a series of posts on X (Formerly Twitter) talking about how he encountered a worker who was in the Philippines but was working as a cashier in New York. The worker was connected to the store via advanced video conferencing technology. This X post shows how companies are now outsourcing jobs like cashiers, receptionists, shop assistants, and security guards.

Recalling his interaction with the Filipino cashier, Goldstein added, “Initially I was really excited. But now my mind is wandering to this dystopian future where you live in this concrete jungle and none of the businesses you interact with have actual humans in them. Maybe a punishment for us not treating retail workers more humanely.”

Commenting on Goldstein’s post, an X user wrote, “Everyone should know the script by now: digital technology “automates” jobs by splitting work between the user (in this case you were trained on self-checkouts) and outsourced hyper exploited labor in other countries.”

An X user shared a video, taken in Uruguay, that showed virtual workers logged in too many businesses. While sharing this futuristic-looking video, the X user wrote, “In South America I saw this too A LOT. Many hotels, shops and office buildings had remote security people and doormen. You can see them and they can see you. Not sure where they work from but might as well be the cheapest country in South America (or the world!). Remote jobs going to the next level now.”

People also noted how the lack of “virtual workers” will further disconnect people from human contact.

Someone pointed out the irony of how companies are using remote work technology for the sake of cheap labour but rarely use this technology to aid disabled workers.

An X user wrote, “Now let’s use this tech to allow disabled people to work remotely instead of using it solely for cheap overseas labour!!!”

Another person noted that such remote work often results in exploitative working conditions for people in the “global south”. They wrote, “People saying this is better because you can pay this person in the Philippines less, they’re more grateful, and more pleasant…Absolutely kills me as a diaspora Filipina who regularly sends money to my family back home precisely because of this: they are always underpaid.”