121–130 of 264 posts
This seems very distortionary to the market. So if you're a blue-collar worker, your ability to pay for housing is "less" compared with a similarly-aged white-collar worker just because the latter has his company subsidise his rent.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A trend that started already in a lot of companies a couple of years ago and will only be accelerated by Covid. Many places do overbook desks in offices right now and have flex-tables without fixed assigned workers. Seems fair to think about compensating employees for the costs that are being pushed to their side.
As a non-remote employee, I had to find housing near my office. Now, as a remote employee, my only real requirements are a power source and internet connection. Sure, I have to live somewhere, but that need isn’t a result of my employment. It seems that non-remote employees have more specific and expensive housing requirements and costs.
Thought: - Companies that now realised that remote schemes works for them, will push for that scheme to remain, with the aim of reducing their fixed costs (office rent, utilities, insurance, etc). - This eliminates a big chunk of fixed costs... as most are shifted to the employees. - If authorities/employees start demanding that part of those costs are covered by the company, companies will push to get avoid work-fro…
> I'm sure that there are other unintended consequences, such as higher rents, but who knows. For Amazon's reputation for internal cost-cutting (such as displaying the pricing on computer peripherals in vending-machines in their SLU offices), Amazon makes me scratch my head for building-up their HQ in one of the most expensive cities to buy land in the world - ditto Facebook in Menlo Park. Why didn't Amazon choose Ke…
Someone needs to take a closer look into this. It feels sketchy. This is an article (from yesterday) based on a pay-walled article (from yesterday, and in a different language), which itself is based on a court decision (from April 2019). This is not related to the current pandemic (which the article vaguely states, but not explicitly). Also, to give you a time-frame: The linked court decision is from April 2019, the…
Well, what do you find sketchy about it? a) Of course, a decision from 2019 is not related to the coronavirus lockdown b) the "different language" is German, which is one of the official languages in Switzerland. If you want more sources, albeit also in German: https://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/arbeitgeber-muessen-einen-teil-de... c) the public court decision has also been linked: http://relevancy.bger.ch/php/aza/http/index…
b) Not my point. Translating from one language to another is prone to loose some information. Whoever did the translation, might have lost some information. However, this cannot be cross checked, as the source article is behind a paywall.
c) That's where I got my facts from - not from the article itself.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Given Facebook's propensity to attract and hire young twentysomethings then surely their exact location in the Bay Area is immaterial Twenty somethings are the exact group of people who don't want to live in a socially dead place. And except for recent college grads even twenty somethings will have significant others who won't want to suddenly move to somewhere else. It's why startups keep being created in SF which…
But the Bay Area is a big place and I consider the whole area to be socially alive. I fully understand wanting to stay in the Bay Area - but there's a big difference in land-value between being situated around Mountain View and San Francisco vs. the east-side of the Bay). What I don't understand is why the east-side of the Bay seems overlooked or even neglected lately (even more-so considering Berkeley's history).
Berkeley is hardly cheap (more expensive than Seattle, for instance)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a non-remote employee, I had to find housing near my office. Now, as a remote employee, my only real requirements are a power source and internet connection. Sure, I have to live somewhere, but that need isn’t a result of my employment. It seems that non-remote employees have more specific and expensive housing requirements and costs.
If you use that new-found freedom to pick an area with a lower cost of living though, you're going to get your salary cut.
I don't get it. Why should someone working from home make more money than someone who does not?
Well, take a job that requires a truck, or expensive construction equipment, or whatever, to do. Is it surprising that a job that requires the employee to furnish his own such pays a bit more? In this case, the employee is asked to provide his own office (in a country where real estate is immensely expensive).
Someone needs to take a closer look into this. It feels sketchy. This is an article (from yesterday) based on a pay-walled article (from yesterday, and in a different language), which itself is based on a court decision (from April 2019). This is not related to the current pandemic (which the article vaguely states, but not explicitly). Also, to give you a time-frame: The linked court decision is from April 2019, the…
Nothing sketchy, i just linked to the semi-offical english Swiss news-feed. It was distributed in our local languages through all the standard media yesterday and has been the center of discussion in (virtual) office chitchat today. This is real and now Swiss companies have to figure out how to deal with it.
This decision is from 2019, so they have to deal with it since 2019. Or did I miss something about the swiss legal system?
And, if challenged, I'm pretty sure that judges might "judge" different if confronted with the current "state-of-emergency"-kind of situation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you use that new-found freedom to pick an area with a lower cost of living though, you're going to get your salary cut.
How does that work?
Thought: - Companies that now realised that remote schemes works for them, will push for that scheme to remain, with the aim of reducing their fixed costs (office rent, utilities, insurance, etc). - This eliminates a big chunk of fixed costs... as most are shifted to the employees. - If authorities/employees start demanding that part of those costs are covered by the company, companies will push to get avoid work-fro…
That's not that easy.
While Switzerland doesn't do rent control per se and there can be regional differences depending on scarcity of real estate for rent a landlord is rather restricted in raising rent once a contract is signed.
The only reasons why a rent can be raised are:
- Additional investments into an apartment, but the raise needs to be in proportion to the investment
- The bench mark mortgage rate goes up (on the other hand the rent needs to be lowered when the bench mark rate goes down, which is rarely the case nowadays, with a benchmark of 1.25%)
- Inflation to a certain amount, but quite restricted
Else than that rents can't just be raised.
All that said and while I see where the decision is coming from I think it's a bit ludicrous and I don't think that many employees will actually try to get this benefit. To begin with: labor laws are more flexible than rental contract law. So there's always a threat of losing your job if you try to push it.
But there's - at least in my opinion - an ethical edge. I, for one, felt highly privileged to be able to work from home and not being dependent on public transport during rush hour. In addition my employer invested a lot to get the infrastructure for thousands of people up to scratch in a very short time.
My ethical compass would feel it's wrong to squeeze additional benefits from an arrangement, which potentially safes my life and from which I feel that my management puts a lot of trust in me and my colleagues.