Regulations like minimum wage are what pushes the search for Labor around. I live in a so called 2nd World country, and the problem here is corruption and a toxic management culture that springs from it. It isn't the same everywhere but you make a good point about local startups.

Interestingly, in fact the local outsourcing businesses struggle to find and keep employees, even when management is expats as well.

The real issue is that outsourcing is a defensive strategy. This means these companies are far from innovative also. There will always be a scale of success for any given market relative to others, but the real issue is a lack of innovation.

I left my native country to find work elsewhere. I curse on the regulatory environment at home, it stopped me fnding stable employment in so many ways. Where I am now is better but what I hope to bring is innovation, in partnership with local capitalists with vision.

Free market solutions appear where they can or must. They succeed most when they can leverage the gaps in what is not regulated where they operate. It is a difficult environment but you cannot work with politicians, they may help you directly but they will then smother your field.

When people realise value is subjective and cannot be legislated, a lot will change. But in the meantime, the biggest opportunity lies in building market systems that resist recognition when they find a gap, and defend themselves with innovations that let more people join without joining the rat race.

More than anything else, the biggest leaps come when people can bridge markets and eliminate borders. Arbitrage, basically. That is why to the extent it succeeds, outsourcing is successful. Barriers to trade only help politicians and their cronies.