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Comment by barcadad | Hacker News Reader

It doesn't make sense to do it if they don't cut their pay.

Apparently they’re not engineers, but stylists. Can the difference in pay for stylists be very large across states?

If there were no difference, what would be the motivation to fire in CA and hire elsewhere? I guess office rent is a factor, but that's probably small compared to salaries.

Nothing compared to salaries for engineers. Office space averages $17k a year a head, and it’s probably higher in area like CA and NYC where land is expensive.

Wow, 17k per head outside the valley and nyc? Seems exceasive, its the first time i har of this figure. Any idea how much that would be in california/nyc?

When I was doing some budgeting in London, England several years ago, I found that the monthly rent for a small apartment was similar to the the cost of a desk in the office, so 17k per head sounds about right to me in large urban areas.

> 17k per head sounds about right to me in large urban areas.

I don't know about the US, but in France, in large urban areas like Lyon or Toulouse, you can easily find office space for 100 to 200 €/m²/year. Which means, translated in $, that $17k per year would grant you 75 to 150 m² (800 to 1600 sq. ft.).

That would be a very very nice office, far from the shoulder-to-shoulder openspace model, even if you add other expenses than pure rent :-)

There are some American cities where prices are similar. The data is old, but Dallas was about $10k cheaper per head than NYC was in 2015.

Of course, in America rents in NYC and SF are going to drive up the averages by a lot, with companies like FB and Google willing to pay huge amounts for prime real estate and luxury build outs.

So the interesting question for you is: how much are rents in Paris, and how does that affect the averages of France as a whole?

Office space is both cheap and shockingly expensive. It’s cheap because it’s usually a few dollars a square foot, often as low as $1-2. It’s expensive because you need a lot of square feet, plus room for expansion. Your average employee needs 100-150ft in order to not feel cramped, including personal and communal space.

Here’s an article from 5 years ago that showed a $10k per employee per year cost difference between NYC and Dallas. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-how-much-your-compan...

Keep in mind that office prices are going to vary wildly based on location. High rises in the downtown with good access to public transit are going to cost a lot more than an office park that’s just barely within city limits. So these averages per city are going to hide huge standards of deviation.

> Your average employee needs 100-150ft in order to not feel cramped

Haha, tech companies in the Bay Area use open office designs that pack people like sardines. Each employee probably gets closer to 30-50sqft.

they can cut their pay and their employees could still be better off since they are going to be expaning in Austin where there is not state income tax.

Also, the company will be able to save more money since everything is cheaper from taxes to real estate in other states compared to California.

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