[allcentury]

It took me a long time to realize that these weren't CoL adjustments.

Companies want to be competitive in your local market so they can retain you and so they can "hire the best".

Where this gets murky is now everyone is remote so is there really a local market?

[chubot]

Exactly, not sure why the article doesn't address this.

From the employer perspective, the strategy toward compensation has NEVER been "equal pay for equal work". I understand why that is intuitively fair to people, but it's not rooted in reality.

The strategy is "I want to pay as much as other employers in the area". That is, if you get a job in the same area and your pay drops 40-50%, then that's a BUG from Google's perspective. They were paying you too much.

They want to pay you an amount so your pay will drop 0% or 10% when you get another job. Or conversely, if someone local is going to Google, they should get 0-10% more, not a 40-50% increase.

-----

As you mention, a corollary of this is that if most programmers start working remotely AND most companies offer remote jobs, then Google will be forced to adapt. Basically if all companies start doing what Reddit does, then Google will have to do that too to stay competitive.

It's a market-based system. There are many instances where markets determining prices produces outcomes we view as unfair.

Though I guess you can argue that it shouldn't be purely market-based and it should take into account "company loyalty". As the article mentions, employees can also "quit in place", which changes the calculus a bit.

[chubot]

Actually I just searched for "cost of living" and Bob See (a recruiter I worked with!) answered:

https://www.quora.com/Do-companies-like-Microsoft-Google-Ama...

Companies like the ones you've listed typically base salaries on "Cost of Labor" (for a given role in a given market), not "Cost of Living" (i.e. the price of a bucket of goods in a market) .

So that is exactly the misunderstanding here. People think the goal is "equal pay for equal work", or they think it's "cost of living". But neither of those is true -- it's a "cost of labor" adjustment.

[durovo]

Most people who cry about CoL adjustments don't realize that the developers working in India are doing the same job for 1/5th the salary. In a remote-first world, there is going to be some averaging of pay as the pool of the talent accessible to companies increases.

[landemva]

'the developers working in India are doing the same job for 1/5th the salary.'

My experience is five of them could not replace me. They didnt have the skills. Maybe this has changed in the past year or so.

[Matthias247]

Not only India. It’s even Western Europe - which is generally not a low cost area. US salaries for senior/principal levels are 3-5x of what the rate is there.

[908B64B197]

> the developers working in India are doing the same job for 1/5th the salary

The same job?

Sure.

Getting the same results? That's why every offshoring project I've seen was a complete success...

[lancesells]

I would guess in most cases whatever value the employees provided Google has not changed. Not only that, Google's costs are lower not having to provide a space for their workers.

Trillion dollar companies with their record quarterly profits cutting their employees pay is nonsense.

[hellisothers]

Is it though? How is lowering an existing employee’s pay who moved away different than laying them off and hiring what you perceive as the exact same skill level of employee in this remote location at a lower pay?

Ignoring the whole “well my company already knows I’m a great fit and hiring somebody new is a risk” argument as that is an issue with hiring & firing generally.

[yao420]

Exactly these companies are ultra rich and can afford to pay for talent. Google has $160 billion in cash.

Im NYC, Google just spent $2.1 billion on a Hudson yards building, in addition to the $2.4 billion for the Chelsea market and $600 million for the milk building across the street two years ago.

They have the money, they just might not want to lose their real estate investments value.

[bravetraveler]

Funny to see this mentioned. A friend of mine started remote in the city where we lived, then moved to the sticks.

They tried to pull his chain on this, then realized he essentially was the market there.

Awkward exchange overall; felt very much like 'we want to dial the pressure of the thumb'.

Eventually they did a 180 on it and no adjustment happened. If it were me, it'd erode my trust. I'm thankful my employer only cares to know my location for tax/withholding purposes.

It's like you said... is there really a local market (with everyone remote?). Even then, this person was there just long enough to qualify for raises and already had several.

A bit like a slap in the face to have these rewards (presumably for your efforts) to be clawed back... because the employer essentially realized you didn't need as much anymore.

edit: To be clear, not Google - elsewhere.