The problem with flyover countries and other places inside the US is the same fickle immigration rules apply. And how many people around the US want to migrate to Alabama or Mississippi?
>At the same time, if the companies export their labor to exploitative countries, their goods and services can be tariffed.
This isn't manufacturing. I really doubt local techies in Canada or India are being exploited.
> The problem with flyover countries and other places inside the US is the same fickle immigration rules apply. And how many people around the US want to migrate to Alabama or Mississippi?
There are many universities in Alabama and Mississippi that produce ample high-quality graduates. I can tell you that, comparing with the courses published on OCW, my curriculum and its rigor did not differ much from that of MIT.
This is where the tech companies located throughout the region get most of their employees. There are, right now, tech jobs in places like New Orleans, Mobile, Huntsville, Birmingham, Hattiesburg, Jackson, and at least a half-dozen other cities in those two states - and not just one or two employers in each, but enough to jump around a little during your career.
So, a company opening there could expect to draw from the same pool of talent everyone else is, and successfully attract a lot of candidates for salaries great for the area and substantially less offered by FAANG. Not a lot do it (just one guy in my class, for example), but as the number of jobs and their pay increased, less people would leave to work in CA. Eventually, yes, you'd drawn in people who want to move here from other places. About a quarter of my current workplace (~150 employees) relocated from elsewhere in the country.
If you get to the point where you can't find anyone else for any sane amount of money, then...open up another office somewhere else in the country. Why is your first jump that fickle immigration rules are going to be the problem rather than hiring the people already here?
For many companies, cost is not as much a factor as being able to attract top talent, and not fragmenting their offices too much by spreading teams across them.
Many people in smaller metro areas that you mentioned are able to relocate to the West Coast, and many people actually do. The are no visa or immigration issues for them.
If the choice for a new location is between Vancouver and Mississippi, literally anyone in the world can work in Vancouver easily, expanding their potential hiring talent pool. Whereas a Mississippi office only attracts people that are unwilling to relocate to the bigger metro areas within the US. Any new location in the US has to deal with these new immigration issues if they don't find an exact match or if they have to hire a foreign born grad from one of the schools you mentioned. Vancouver does not have these issues.
