Relevant: <https://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/on-workforces>

TPS hits the nail on the head beautifully, here.

Look, the genie is out of the bottle: we are a global economy, and increasingly a global society. Everywhere on the planet is reachable via data link within seconds, and ~95% physically within a day - provided money is no object. Every single country is going to have to grapple with this immediately, not at some point in the future.

On the one hand, businesses will always want to have the lowest possible costs. On the other, consumers frequently want local service and support, especially when things go wrong. Countries and Governments want to drive business growth to increase their tax revenue and improve the quality of life of their citizens, but offshoring jobs lowers tax receipts and increases the number of citizens on social services. AI throws gasoline onto this bonfire, demanding immediate action rather than continued can-kicking. The net result is immediate pain as every country struggles to find a path forward.

The countries who succeed will be those who find a balance between increasing tax revenue to fund social welfare programs that their populace requires for necessities (housing, food, education, healthcare), while also promoting business growth in a global marketplace, but also ensuring labor is kept proportionate to the local customer market size. The US is trying to turn back a clock to a time of national markets, while China and the EU increasingly acknowledge the global reality and regulate or subsidize accordingly. Businesses clearly want the freedom to compete globally, but a regulation and governance scheme that’s not as fragmented as the present landscape.

TL;DR: outsourcing to AI or offshoring is a last-century solution for National companies to increase margins. The name of the game going forward is distributing labor and supply chains relative to local market sizes to build a balanced global competitor.