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Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

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Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#291

Post by nkohari »

kbrwn wrote: post #166

This is constantly brought up on HN in the WFH threads. Your employer cannot arbitrarily reduce your salary. The reduction has to be agreed upon by the employee or the employer has to terminate employment and rehire to reduce salary. Very few big tech companies will update salary for a intra country move. It seems to happen most often when an employee relocates to a new country rather than a new state. This is becaus…

> Your employer cannot arbitrarily reduce your salary. The reduction has to be agreed upon by the employee or the employer has to terminate employment and rehire to reduce salary.

There might be state regulations to this effect -- and IANAL -- but there's no such federal law in the US. An employer can cut an employee's pay at any point to any value above the minimum wage, as long as they inform the employee their pay has been cut.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#292

Post by bhupy »

autokad wrote: post #257
subsubzero wrote: post #18

One thing this doesn't mention is the pay cuts that happen if you do decide to relocate to cheaper areas. Both me and my Wife's company have pay bands based on geographical region(most employees know nothing about this and most companies employ these salary COL changes for relocation) and certain regions you can take a big pay cut. Say your salary in the bay area is 100k for example, move to the South, say Florida an…

I personally have always been against paying people different rates based on geography. if a person offers value, they should be paid for that value regardless. some people say, but shouldnt their cost of living be taken into account? yes previously, but not when we choose to live where we want. I feel like that whole argument goes away once we are choosing where we live. that being said, I would expect companies to…

But we already pay people differently based on geography...

If you are a software engineer and you show up to work in an office in Alabama, you already make less than the same software engineer showing up to work in an office in Manhattan — even if you are doing the same work for the same number of hours. This is already happening today.

The only difference with remote work is that you don't show up to work in an office, you show up to work in your pajamas and the office is at home.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#293

Post by kube-system »

ransom1538 wrote: post #48
zaidf wrote: post #14

People won't continue making their current SF salary by working out of Farmville, Ohio. I think this point is missed by many I fully expect Twitter, for example, to come out with salary adjustment policies for people who want to work from home from an entirely different city and state

Salary based on your locale even though everyone is remote: hilarious. "Oh you live in Alabama you get 60k" "Oh you live in Manhattan on 65th street that is 150k". This will backfire into a political hell.

Companies with offices in multiple regions have done COL adjustments for many decades without any issues.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#294

Post by asdff »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #86
aripickar wrote: post #8

I'm pretty bearish on the pandemic actually leading to massive change in the number of people permanently working from home. My boss put out a survey a week or two ago among my org (30 or so people), and 70% said that they want to work from the office, full time, 20% said some time or most of the time, and 10% said fully remote. And this is a group of people that would be largely well suited to working from home duri…

One thing to keep in mind is that this is NOT what working remotely is really like. During normal times if I am missing socialization at work I can make up for it by going out more during the week. During normal times if I want I can spend a few hours working from the local cafe. But the cafes are closed. During normal times, kids are at school for most of the day so they don't disrupt you. But schools are closed. I'…

It doesn't matter if I have my laptop and a hotspot at the beach with tacos and a bucket of beers. It's an issue with a lack of effective communication on emails/slack/zoom compared with meeting with your colleagues face to face. Productivity has fallen off a cliff among everyone I've asked, and this is the reason.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#295

Post by epistasis »

_2d30 wrote: post #275
epistasis wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get where you are coming from, but my intuition is that we have actually created a massive bubble in land prices by restricting use so much. Land would get a hell of a lot cheaper if we massively decreased demand by letting people live in ways that use less land.

Land value != property value

Yes, of course, but the high housing costs in the Bay Area come mostly from the cost of land these days. Single family home-owners work to maximize their property values, and though they have made the construction process very expensive, land is most often far more valuable than the structure on it these days. This is quite shocking for most people around the country; when I was shopping around for home insurance quotes probably about a third of the people I talked to commented on how expensive land was. (But not the house, oddly!)

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#296

Post by oldsklgdfth »

zaidf wrote: post #14

People won't continue making their current SF salary by working out of Farmville, Ohio. I think this point is missed by many I fully expect Twitter, for example, to come out with salary adjustment policies for people who want to work from home from an entirely different city and state

How much of a paycut is acceptable for a given drop in COL?

Ex. SF to Dayton, OH: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=cost+of+living+compari...

If your bills were cut in half, what percentage pay cut would you accept?

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#297

Post by triyambakam »

subsubzero wrote: post #18

One thing this doesn't mention is the pay cuts that happen if you do decide to relocate to cheaper areas. Both me and my Wife's company have pay bands based on geographical region(most employees know nothing about this and most companies employ these salary COL changes for relocation) and certain regions you can take a big pay cut. Say your salary in the bay area is 100k for example, move to the South, say Florida an…

As another data point, the company I work for pays the same no matter where you live - from Montana to Hawaii - so it works out favorably for people wanting to live in a lower COL area.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#298

Post by asdff »

_jal wrote: post #13
aripickar wrote: post #8

I'm pretty bearish on the pandemic actually leading to massive change in the number of people permanently working from home. My boss put out a survey a week or two ago among my org (30 or so people), and 70% said that they want to work from the office, full time, 20% said some time or most of the time, and 10% said fully remote. And this is a group of people that would be largely well suited to working from home duri…

> young, no kids, etc There is your major reason for that survey result. Companies with median-older workforces will see more enthusiasm for remote work.

Median older workforces own more square footage and are probably much happier and better situated to build out a home office. I now need to devote some of my 600 sq feet to subsidize my company's office needs out of my own pocket. All my friends from growing up who lived in big houses with pools are moving back in with their parents during this pandemic, basically having childhood 2.0 with far more booze at all hours. Being strapped to my desk in my tiny apartment is not fun compared to pool days all summer.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#299

Post by whatok »

asdff wrote: post #294
Consultant32452 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing to keep in mind is that this is NOT what working remotely is really like. During normal times if I am missing socialization at work I can make up for it by going out more during the week. During normal times if I want I can spend a few hours working from the local cafe. But the cafes are closed. During normal times, kids are at school for most of the day so they don't disrupt you. But schools are closed. I'…

It doesn't matter if I have my laptop and a hotspot at the beach with tacos and a bucket of beers. It's an issue with a lack of effective communication on emails/slack/zoom compared with meeting with your colleagues face to face. Productivity has fallen off a cliff among everyone I've asked, and this is the reason.

At the end of the day, that comes down to the type of industry/work and whether you have effective management. Organizations that are able to make 100% remote work function properly are at a serious competitive advantage in many ways.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#300

Post by asdff »

triyambakam wrote: post #297
subsubzero wrote: post #18

One thing this doesn't mention is the pay cuts that happen if you do decide to relocate to cheaper areas. Both me and my Wife's company have pay bands based on geographical region(most employees know nothing about this and most companies employ these salary COL changes for relocation) and certain regions you can take a big pay cut. Say your salary in the bay area is 100k for example, move to the South, say Florida an…

As another data point, the company I work for pays the same no matter where you live - from Montana to Hawaii - so it works out favorably for people wanting to live in a lower COL area.

For now. As more companies start shifting to remote work, these geographic based pay rates will only get more widespread. It's always a race to the bottom.
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