The person should get what the market process decides.
If a person lives in a "poor" country, it changes nothing. They can spend less? Sure, but peeping in other's pocket under capitalism is a huge communist red flag :-) Maybe the person has opportunities to relocate to a "developed country", but chose deliberately to get more money instead of "social support".
Ask HN: What a universal remote job salary should be?
21–30 of 48 posts
Re: Ask HN: What a universal remote job salary should be?
#22Interesting and what if i work remotely from a poor country? would i be subject to the same salary as them?
Yes. Products companies produce aren’t cheaper in say India or Mexico then they are in the US.. because they are valued at a certain dollar amount they deem fair. Why should a human being be any different? A good engineer produces certain value, regardless of where they live
The value you produce is just the upper bound of you salary. The salary you need to survive is the lower bound. Then what you get is in-between, based on supply and demand.
Re: Ask HN: What a universal remote job salary should be?
#23The person should get what the market process decides. If a person lives in a "poor" country, it changes nothing. They can spend less? Sure, but peeping in other's pocket under capitalism is a huge communist red flag :-) Maybe the person has opportunities to relocate to a "developed country", but chose deliberately to get more money instead of "social support".
no when you look at it
they are not spending less(beside rent)
they are just buying lower quality stuff to sustain life
an iphone is an iphone all around the world you wont find it for 50$ if you are getting paid 100$
Re: Ask HN: What a universal remote job salary should be?
#24Assuming that there should be a universal salary, I seem to recall a lesson an economics lesson on the interaction of supply and demand in determining price.
The bigger question is whether there should be a universal job salary for remote working jobs.
Re: Ask HN: What a universal remote job salary should be?
#25Long ago I was part of startup based in developed country which was hiring people from one of developing countries. Salary offered was lower than if it was somebody from startup's area, but it was very competitive on the market where developers was recruited from. Developers was very happy to be offered salary higher than their peers, in the same time startup was happy to get qualified engineers for less money than it would have to pay if sourced locally. This would not work today because salary expectations are now similar in both countries - this same startup is now bringing those jobs back to the local market.
I was observing similar situation 15 years ago in one of big corps who outsourced everything to India. For a price of one engineer from developed world they was getting many engineers in India, and those engineers could afford services like personal chauffeur. I could not believe when I heard it first time from friends I have there. Again - situation now is much less in favor of big corp, which is now trying to bring some of those jobs back to the local market.
Re: Ask HN: What a universal remote job salary should be?
#26A thing I never understood is, what happens if, let's say, I stay in a HCOL area until I am doing interviews (eg Switzerland) and then when hired I move back instantly to a LCOL area (eg Albania): what happens now to my salary? Do I get a cut just because I decided to move? And what if I am a digital nomad and know I want to change nation in which I stay every x months?
I think it depends on the company. Some companies (GitLab) seem to (or used to) build location into their salary calculations. Others (Automattic, where I work) don’t, or at least try not to. But even expanding that to situations where you move, both companies I mentioned state that they don’t reduce salary in general.
At Automattic, that means you would get paid the same if you started in HCOL and then moved to LCOL. But at the same time, you might theoretically start out making a bit more than average in LCOL or a bit less than average in HCOL, depending on your situation and experience.
Some more info: https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/26/how-automattic-pays-its-re...
Disclaimer: I don’t know the exact specifics of these programs, just sharing some basic info :)
Re: Ask HN: What a universal remote job salary should be?
#27This is a nonsensical question and of course there is no answer.
Any time you are asking about universals in regards to the lived experiences of human beings you need to take a step back. This principle applies to issues many orders of magnitude less complicated than employee pay which i think goes to show how absurdly far off track this question is.
To illustrate the point,say you conclude some "universal pay" (good luck even defining what that means, who it applies to and when it applies) . Why do I care? I'm still going to go live my life and maximize my pay for my particular situation. So your universal pay is already not universal after the thought experiment of trying to apply it to the first person who you cannot directly control .
You'd be just as good debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Re: Ask HN: What a universal remote job salary should be?
#28This is a nonsensical question and of course there is no answer. Any time you are asking about universals in regards to the lived experiences of human beings you need to take a step back. This principle applies to issues many orders of magnitude less complicated than employee pay which i think goes to show how absurdly far off track this question is. To illustrate the point,say you conclude some "universal pay" (good…
I second this opinion. From experience, as I was on both sides of hiring desk, if market offers better pay than the one candidate accepts, it is almost certain candidate will be gone a few months later. I cannot imagine how "universal pay" would work here. If market is forced to pay X then one of the sides would be unhappy and would seek to change the situation.
Also people face different circumstances, like person with mortgage vs person without mortgage, person with savings vs person without savings, person with family vs person with no family. Different circumstances will translate to different pay that will look good in the one's eyes.
Maybe we have some opportunity at the moment (on both ends) - that opportunity will probably be gone after some time, as more people take advantage of it. Market will even out until "the next thing"..
Re: Ask HN: What a universal remote job salary should be?
#29The person should get what the market process decides. If a person lives in a "poor" country, it changes nothing. They can spend less? Sure, but peeping in other's pocket under capitalism is a huge communist red flag :-) Maybe the person has opportunities to relocate to a "developed country", but chose deliberately to get more money instead of "social support".
no when you look at it they are not spending less(beside rent) they are just buying lower quality stuff to sustain life an iphone is an iphone all around the world you wont find it for 50$ if you are getting paid 100$
What do you mean by "lower quality stuff"?
(edit:typo)
Re: Ask HN: What a universal remote job salary should be?
#30They should be paid relative to the value their skill set provides the employer. Not all employees are equal.