🇬🇷 17 European nomad visas

Good Morning,

One of my favorite places to work from - in multiple cities! - closed down abruptly last week. Foxtrot had 33 storefronts, all serving up that trifecta of coffee, food, and alcohol. And they always had plenty of space for people to work or study, which meant their locations catered especially well to remote workers.

There’s a lot of news left to come about the situation, given their rapid expansion followed by a swift, unexpected shutdown. After the news broke, a friend jokingly called it the “WeWork of bodegas.” I hope someone launches a similar model down the road, though ideally with better financial oversight 😬

Remote Source Job Board

Featured companies:

CivicPlus: 13 remote jobs
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Axon: 110 remote jobs

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Need to Know

🗽 New York is using AI to tax wealthy remote workers
We’ve written before about the tax complications that remote workers can endure with variations of the “jock tax” - and now it seems state agencies are finding new ways to search for that tax revenue.

By enlisting AI to dig through phone records and more information, New York and other states are apparently targeting wealthy individuals who have claimed to move to states with lower tax burdens. As one tax professional in this article notes, this is a difficult task because wealthy individuals can have residences in multiple states; and just because they do something like buy a TV in New York doesn’t prove that New York is their primary residence.

Another data point worth noting: in 2022, New York’s tax audits increased by 56% year-over-year to 771,000, although they employed 5% fewer auditors than in 2021 (less than 200). If this continues, it seems they’re ready to keep increasing the number of audits, issuing them if there’s even a small chance they could justify a wealthy person paying more in state taxes. (Business Insider)

🇬🇷 The 17 European countries with digital nomad visas
This comprehensive list from Euronews includes visa lengths allowed, application fees, income requirements, and benefits of each country’s offer.

The financial requirements - as well as the overall experiences - can vary substantially, as you might expect. For example, the Czech Republic only requires proof of €5,000 in an applicant’s bank account, while Estonia requires monthly income of €4,500. (Euronews)

💼 Startups use remote work to attract more talent
In 2023, 35% of new businesses hired remote workers. This reflects a sharp increase from new businesses hiring 22% remote workers in 2022 and 16% remote workers in 2021. Further, 43% of new businesses hired fully in-person employees in 2023, which is down significantly from 65% in 2021.

It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement; startups want to keep costs low, and remote work reduces or removes their office costs. On the other side, employees generally prefer remote work, and are often willing to have slightly lower salaries in exchange for that location flexibility.

It’s a win-win, and this trend is only going to pick up steam from here. (Boston Business Journal)

🚀 Fully remote companies report highest productivity
Productivity is a fickle thing - and measuring it with one-size-fits-all metrics often leads to baseless headlines. So when I saw Tech.co’s headline that remote workers were more productive, even though I appreciated it, I was skeptical.

But unlike many other studies preceding it, the 2024 Impact of Technology on the Workplace study allowed respondents to self-report productivity.

Tech.co surveyed over 1,000 business leaders in a variety of industries, and found that 64% of fully remote businesses believed they were highly productive, whereas 54% of fully in-person businesses believed they were highly productive, and only 53% of hybrid businesses said the same.

Further, 44% of fully remote companies found recruiting talent to be “easy.” Only 32% of in-person companies and 31% of hybrid companies could say the same.

Self-reporting obviously isn’t close to a perfect science, but if business leaders across the board are more likely to say they’re productive when running fully remote companies, it gives more credibility to what remote workers have been saying for years and years: it works for both individuals and their companies. (Tech.co)

🙅🏻‍♂️ FTC bans non-competes: what you need to know
The Federal Trade Commission made waves last week when it announced it’s banning employers from putting noncompete agreements in place with their employees. Michael Girdley, who writes this great newsletter*, summarized the major points in a post on X:

• Existing noncompetes for senior executives can remain in-force; new ones are banned

• Employers must let non-senior-executive employees know if existing noncompetes are no longer valid

• It becomes effective August 22, 2024

• It covers all employees: full-time, consultants, interns, etc.

• There are exceptions for sales of businesses

• This ruling is subject to legal challenges and likely to be struck down in federal court; if that’s the case, none of these changes would actually take place

If that final point proves true, this may be all for naught. But it’s at least bringing awareness to a rule that often hurts employees and job seekers unnecessarily. (X/Twitter: @girdley)

Stuff We Like

📝 Scale.Jobs: a “sidekick for your job search”
This company allows job seekers to hire an assistant or two to apply on their behalf to hundreds of jobs. At higher pay scales, the assistant(s) will apply to more jobs, use AI to generate cover letters for you, and can even provide a resume review and mock interviews. Plans start at $199.

I reached out ahead of this issue to see if they’d like to offer a discount code: they’ve generously created the promo code REMOTESOURCE10OFF for 10% off any of their plans. (scale.jobs)

🎥 Study says to spice up your video background
A study last year consisting of thousands of participants found people generally assumed they should make their background plain to appear more competent. But it turns out a plain background does not (statistically) make a person look more competent.

In fact, having a revealing background - as long as it’s giving a glimpse into the employee’s personality, and not showing something off-putting like a messy room - is actually more likely to build trust with those on the other side of the camera. (Wall Street Journal)

🤝 Remote sales jobs
For those looking for a new place to find fully remote sales jobs at any level of an organization, the RepVue job board currently shows 105 job openings. Similar to Glassdoor, RepVue maintains a ranking system that judges companies based on their employees’ experiences - but this one is strictly for sales employees. (RepVue)

*Denotes a sponsored or affiliate link. Any paid sponsorships, products, or services are thoroughly vetted by us before we make recommendations to readers.