The offshoring wage floor has stopped falling.
For thirty years, labor arbitrage rested on one assumption: somewhere, there is always cheaper labor. Across eleven delivery geographies and 4.2 million employment records, that assumption no longer survives contact with the data.
Download the report (PDF)Four findings.
Each is stated as a claim, not a theme, and each is traceable to the underlying series named in the methodology.
Real delivery wages converged faster than modelled
Median real compensation in tier-2 delivery cities rose 6.1% annually against a modelled 2.3%. Every major cost model in circulation understates the trajectory.
Attrition is the true cost line, not salary
Fully loaded replacement cost now exceeds the nominal wage gap in four of eleven geographies studied. The arbitrage is booked but not realized.
Capability moved before cost did
Judgment work migrated on a different curve than transaction work, and the receiving markets repriced accordingly. This was foreseeable and was not foreseen.
The next decade is a supply problem
Demographic arithmetic, not policy preference, sets the ceiling. Fourteen of the twenty largest economies face a binding constraint before 2040.
What is inside.
Methodology
Built from national employment microdata and firm-level payroll returns, not vendor surveys or practitioner sentiment. Series, vintages, and every transformation applied are named in Appendix A. Where a figure could not be sourced to a primary series, it does not appear in this report.