What I’ve seen happen in my own industry (software engineering, primarily) is that companies are forced to take more local candidates when they are better ones, just further away.

Remote working has always been some part of what we do, but not on the scale it is now and I do see a tangible difference in how some more progressive companies are hiring for talent rather than locality.

Hopefully it will stick and through a kind of evolution the companies that don’t embrace the benefits of increased remote work will eventually fall behind and either update or fail. As management practices are a big part of a remote / hybrid working company, they will have to change too. Hopefully!