Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Saswati Saha Mitra

The thought of writing this post originated from the hours of candidate interviews I do and the current wave of strict labor laws being put in place around the world to curb labor mobility.

It is a well known fact that when it comes to UX jobs, there are some well defined hubs around the world. The Bay Area is the largest, followed by London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich, Helsinki, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Barcelona in Europe. And then there are smaller hubs like Bangalore, Mumbai, Beijing, Bangkok, Singapore, Sydney and Sao Paulo, in no particular order.

In each of these markets, as the tech sector is growing, the demand for skilled resources is high. The result is a mad dash for a limited set of talented people. This article about how a Sales candidate got an interview at Google, Facebook, Apple and Uber all in the same week is quite representative of what is going on in UX as well. What happens is hiring takes longer and we sometimes settle for ‘good’ resources as the ‘greats’ are taken.

But what’s it like in the rest of the world, in the non-hubs? Check Facebook and you will find UX groups for almost every country in the world. These groups are full of talented people, who are self skilling in UX using the internet. They network with practitioners from around the world to learn new skills and discover opportunities while working in hybrid research and design roles because neither of these functions are super well developed in their region.

One the surface, the equation seems simple – we have one part of the world where we have significant demand but not enough supply and then we have another part of the world, where we have reasonable supply, but not enough demand. The two should meet, right? This is easier said than done.

Moving talented resource around the world is quite challenging in today’s socio-political atmosphere. In the UK, with the government imposing stronger policy measures on companies recruiting foreign talent, hiring foreign resources is hard. Based on my personal experience with Google and Uber, it takes 4 to 6 months after you have cleared all the interviews, to clear the labor market tests, get a Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) and the final work permit. Waiting for 6 months for a resource is mind blowing in any fast moving companies. You wait that kind of time only for the most experienced and the very best. The younger resources, unfortunately, get turned down, in favor of a someone local and easier to recruit.

These kind of labour market regulations are now beginning to affect the growth of global UX talent. A telling story is that of a UX Researcher from Azerbaijan. Let’s call him A. A is a self taught researcher. He was keen on joining a tech startup in the UK. The leadership team of this startup found him to be a great fit. They made him an offer only to withdraw it 2 months later after much deliberation with lawyers, tax accounts and the Labour Office. The reason for the withdrawal- the company will incur higher taxes if they were to hire him. This is a devastating news for both sides.

6 months down, the startup still does not have a researcher and A continues to linger in his old job, not getting the hands on experience and mentorship he needed. Stagnation pervades on both sides. This is the tragic consequence of labor protectionism both on the home industry as well as on a global UX resource. No one wins here.

A’s experience is not a one off. This is happening everyday on a systemic basis and in many parts of the world. In my own experience, I am currently recruiting for 3 full time roles in India, San Francisco and in Amsterdam and 3 part time roles in Jakarta, Singapore and Mexico. The chance of getting the right candidates in San Francisco, Singapore and Jakarta from the local market is slim. At the same time, I have at least 10 great candidates from Spain, India, UK, Iran and other parts of the world who are not only qualified for these roles but they are also open to moving, sometimes at their own expense. Yet, I cannot fill these roles with these individuals because the rules of employment against foreigners are getting harder everyday. The regional resource shortage continues while globally unemployment numbers continue to be high.

So where do we go from here?

The governments of the world today need to start thinking fundamentally differently about skilled labour migration. Unlike the 1980s where doctors and engineers had to leave their countries to work in another part of the world, today we have the internet. Since the major concerns against migrants are around physical migration and dependence on social benefits, it is critical for us to start thinking about the labour market, especially for technology related jobs like UX, as something that can operate in both the real world as well as on the internet.

Imagine a world where A could have worked for the London tech company, sitting in Baku.

Sure the company would have to fly him into London several times, reconfigure their work processes to accommodate a remote employee and build a good video conferencing system, but compared to not making any progress, all of these seem like more viable options. Similarly, this would have also given A the challenge of figuring out how to do more remote research. Great deal of innovation in research, organisation design and even governance planning is possible if we free ourselves from the shackles of what a job is today and how it needs to be delivered.

For allowing this kind of online employment, the government can also expect clear benefits. They can levy an online employment tax. The pieces of this puzzle are already in the works. Global online marketplaces like Elance or Amazon’s Mechanical Turk offer jobs from around the world but what is missing is the legitimacy of such employment.

The need of the day is for an organisation like the International Labor Organisation to step in and initiate collaboration between world leaders and business entities on what it means to have non-national hiring opportunities.

What we need to start thinking about is what does an Universal Employment opportunity look like? How can such an idea equally benefit both ageing nations like Japan and Germany as well as young ones like the Philippines and India? What do governments get in return for opening up their national markets? And how do private companies need to evolve to get their very best of talent from anywhere around the world?

Bringing high quality resources to meaningful employment is something I am super passionate about. I am equally keen on collaborating with governance to peel away the structures of the past to make way for something more efficient for the future. I would love to hear more about this topic from those who are facing this challenge, those who are trying to solve it and even those who do not believe this is is an issue.

Let’s discuss.

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Growing UX talent in a protectionist world was originally published in Prototyping: From UX to Front End on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Growing UX talent in a protectionist world

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