Isn't this pretty soundly debunked at this point? Honest question because I hear alternately "US manufacturing is dead" and "US manufactures more crap than anyone else except China, barely". I get the sense that saying the US manufacturing industry is dead because it doesn't employ many people, is the same as saying the US agriculture industry is dead for the same reason, and also wrong for the same reason (i.e. number of people employed is a weak metric for the strength of an industry).
nope. you are mistaken, nothing keeps companies in any specific place except opportunities. With labor prices so cheap in Asia, what would stop company to just move all production off shore like they did for electronics?
they are trying, have tried and will try again countless time to outsource tech jobs, but it will take more years for them to figure out the quality issues they're having in doing so.
anyway it's not like oversea there are millions of great coders and engineers just waiting to code for food. STEMSs tend to be of higher education overall, which makes exploiting them harder.
a) US companies will hire those remote workers, causing cash to flow out of the US
b) companies will set up in those countries to compete with the US companies, but without the burden of the US' skyrocketing salaries.
This happened in manufacturing: the US had high salaries, so costs of manufacturing were too high, so the US started outsourcing to Asian, and now the manufacturing industry in the US is so bad that companies can actually afford to hire US manufacturing workers again.
The solution: when wages skyrocket, bring in foreign engineers. When wages are depressed, don't.