We’re obsessed with companies who don’t want remote work. Meanwhile 100k+ jobs are going begging.

I work in remote work policy. Something weird is happening.

Every conversation about remote work in Ireland turns into RTO doom scrolling. Who's calling people back. How terrible it is. How there's nothing anyone can do.

Meanwhile: over 100,000 remote jobs are advertised every month across Europe. Automattic (WordPress) does nearly a billion in revenue, fully remote. GitLab, Buffer, Doist, Zapier. These aren't fringe players.

We have no national target to win any of these jobs into Ireland. Zero.

Worse: because of how EU incentives work, we actually push remote-first employers into offices. If they want state support, they need a physical establishment. A fully remote company that wants to hire in Ireland gets less support than one building an office.

Here's what's mad. Someone in the last thread said "companies can still pull the rug and force RTO." Sure. Any company can do anything. But these companies have been remote for years or were built that way. Their whole model is distributed. It's not the same risk as an office-first company going hybrid then changing its mind.

And the response to that risk is… do nothing? Stay focused on the companies forcing people back while ignoring the ones actively hiring remote?

We have the National Broadband Plan. 400+ connected hubs. English-speaking workforce. EU timezone. We have everything except the strategy to go and win these jobs.

I genuinely don't understand the pessimism. Is it just that complaining is easier than building? Or is there something I'm missing?

Policy page if anyone's interested: https://growremote.ie/policy/