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Comment by ren_engineer | Hacker News Reader

will be interesting to see how the market responds. Companies who are willing to pay the same amount regardless of location will obviously have an advantage in recruiting

plus I feel like it might create tension in teams, people doing the same work knowing other people are getting paid more only because of their area code. Google is swimming in cash, the decision really makes no sense unless they plan on becoming the next Amazon in terms of employee treatment. Most obvious explanation seems to be them essentially trying to prevent work from home without explicitly banning it

also, is there anything legality-wise stopping 20 people from "sharing" a 1 bedroom apartment and then forwarding their mail and to their actual homes in a cheaper place in California or wherever they live?

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People doing the same work already are paid quite differently. Some negotiated better offers. Others joined at a lower share price for their RSUs. The variance in pay is quite high at many companies.

Peer companies to Google also adjust based on zip code. And companies that pay the same regardless of location still don't pay as well as Google, which offers top of market compensation and has one of the strongest performing stocks in our industry.

My point is the market reaction won't change the dynamics here.

> Companies who are willing to pay the same amount regardless of location will obviously have an advantage in recruiting

I'm not sure that is accurate. Companies that pay the same regardless of location are likely to pay less than the going rate in high COL areas, and more than the going rate in low COL areas. As a general rule of thumb, a company can't unilaterally pay more for things than it's competitors and expect to compete; so paying the high COL rate to all employees, regardless of location, is not likely a long term viable approach.

I wonder what the metrics are on productivity while working from home. They must be seeing some drop in productivity, because otherwise they wouldn't care. Having to pay less for office space and fancy office benefits would save them a bit of money.

They care because someone spent $$$$$$$ in real state or is locked in real state sitting idle.

Then you have Investment funds that $invest nearby these locations (BlackRock) and ahem they want their profit.

Then the local govt wants to secure $vote$ because Tech workers tend to vote X. (check Austin vs Texas).

We can't have these pesky "recall" actions.

sounds like they are trying to preserve a transparent employment market. They obviously think that remote employees are not as valuable to them, therefore they need to match the compensation to the labor value.

sounds like the dispute is really about the value of in-person vs remote employees. i'm sure everyone has their own opinion on that, but Google being Google, they may be thinking of certain non-tangibles for in-person benefits. Collaborative creativity, for example.

On the other hand, factoring in employee cost of living allows for the take home pay of each employee to be relatively similar.

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