One of the problems seems to be ( and I'm sure some start up will try to solve this) is employing people worldwide has a lot of legal issues with regards to local employment laws and payment issues.
I’ve worked with people doing this in the past and they almost certainly are contractors in name only. That is they are essentially full time employees operating as contractors to skirt legal issues.
A remote worker can be an independent contractor and easily not run afoul of employee/contractor distinctions, especially because a lot of those distinctions have to do with being at a certain place at a certain time, and being locked to one client.
Here’s one of the tests. Notice vacation is explicitly called out.
> Are there written contracts or employee type benefits (i.e. pension plan, insurance, vacation). Will the relationship continue and is the work performed a key aspect of the business?
Your employer is clearly treating you like an employee while paying you like a contractor. This kind of thing is common. But the more US jobs get outsourced like this, the more likely it is that people will notice and demand enforcement actions.
And how or who would enforce this for me, who is an Estonian citizen, Argentinian resident, and operates from under a USA based LLC as a non-resident USA company owner, working mostly for European start-ups? Which country would do the enforcing in this case?
Companies already report how much they pay contractors to the IRS and state tax agencies, so spot checking companies paying a large percentage of their total wages to contractors is the easiest way to do it.
If you’re being paid by any American companies, the most likely theoretical enforcement would be the state the company is based in.
For an example see the response by the OP below.
The remote worker is treated like an employee except for how they are paid.
Few of the distinctions have to do with being in a certain place at a certain time. It’s more about controlling how they work. And in most the examples I’ve seen, remote workers are expected to be available during a certain set of hours, they must do the work in very specific way, they are forbidden from subcontracting, they are provided tools, the work is expected to continue long term, and the level of control generally prohibits them from working for multiple clients at a time.
It’s common for businesses to ignore these guidelines, but the more common it gets for companies to outsource work this way, the more news stories you’ll see and the more likely enforcement will happen.
The employment regulation burden is also massive for going truly global-remote.
Australia and NZ for example have strong employment laws AND do not overlap time zone-wise with most of the rest of the world. We have some great talent here but it's often too hard to make it work.
Disclaimer: I made https://rafo.com.au to collate remote jobs that work for Aussies & Kiwis.
There are certainly companies looking for talent that is only time-zone friendly. Having run an engineering team co-located in SF & Beijing, I know how hard it is myself to be working odd hours for standups, product syncs, etc.
That said, there are other companies that are hiring truly global. I know OneSignal is one such YC startup, having hired somebody during the pandemic in the Netherlands.
Last year alone, YC startups hired across over 40 countries. I can dig into more data re: how many were US-based companies hiring abroad -- that's a good distinction.
As someone who prepandemic was contracting back to nz whilst living in south america and now is starting to hire contractors, NZ and OZ don't represent good value spend in comparison to many other countries that have great people also but are getting paid 5 instead.
I have friends back home I would love to bring on to my team but the thought of paying them gives me shivvers.
letsdeel.com and remote.com are two such companies that provide this kind of service.
* well I should actually call it global HR, not employment.
I've been working for US companies while living in Mexico for years. 100% legally hired in my country, with all the benefits and even equity from the USA startups