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Its not a crazy conspiracy, I know it's pretty clear why it's being done. And I know I can't do anything about it other than look for new opportunities. But sh

Its not a crazy conspiracy, I know it's pretty clear why it's being done. And I know I can't do anything about it other than look for new opportunities. But should location based pay be just accepted because that's the norm? There are variables that can't be used to do discriminate like age, gender, race, sexual orientation etc. We've accepted equal pay for equal work in these cases. Is it that far fetched that even location should be treated the same?

1659447091 4y ago
If looking at it from a company perspective, I'm not sure I would see much benefit for them in doing so. If a company is based in the US/EU and pays the same wage to workers in someplace like Asia, they would not gain much(financially) by hiring in Asia in the first place (companies that have no need to hire in Asia). Why bother dealing with the grumbling at home about exporting jobs to outside locations if they are just going to pay the same anyway. Might as well be the hero providing jobs to local workers at home and keep the money circulating there. As for the other, age, gender, race etc. All of that is also at home, so not discriminating against it is beneficial. What is not at home are foreign located workers.
- brodock 4y ago
  Talent is scarse. People are hiring outside of the US because there is no one else to hire from at current payrange in those locations. You could start a biding war and pouch from other companies but that may not be financially viable for your business.
Panzer04 4y ago
You’re missing the point. Location based pay is not the norm, the norm is paying you as much as it would cost to find an equivalent replacement. That just happens to be location-dependant. It’s got nothing to do with discrimination, it’s purely about hiring for the lowest cost. They have to pay more in EU and US to get employees, and less wherever you live.
- layoric 4y ago
  So if they quit, are you saying the company to refuse to hire a replacement from the US/EU due to some purely budget related limit? That is definitely not my experience working with a few remote first companies. They will try to find a suitable replacement in the relatively short period that is recruitment (1-3 months, depending on seniority). The cost difference for one employee is usually not big enough to worry about in the larger scheme of things. The opportunity cost of not having that senior dev on board for more than 3 months is damaging for rest of the team and company goals/time lines. In the current market, my guess is that this person would be replaced with someone NOT in that location unless for some reason it is business critical to have someone in that area, which is almost never for software developers.
  - RestlessMind 4y ago
    > The opportunity cost of not having that senior dev on board for more than 3 months is damaging for rest of the team and company goals/time lines. I work with HR team who sets compensations for our global workforce. If you think that HR and leadership does not take this opportunity cost in consideration when setting policies, you are badly mistaken. They are very rational in their decision making.
    - vladvasiliu 4y ago
      But then, why would the company agree to an increase in compensation if OP moved elsewhere? This is the point that doesn't make any sense. If it costs them X in OP's locale and 2X in EU, the company should kick them out if they decided to move and replace them with someone in the original locale, or maybe someplace even cheaper.
      - sokoloff 4y ago
        Most people who haven’t already moved countries won’t when offered that rebuttal. (Some can’t. Many more won’t, for some good and practical reasons.) Because of that, the rare employee who does move can be paid the new location wage without increasing the costs of the people who don’t move. Companies don’t care about the costs of the <5% of people who move. They care about the costs of the >95% who don’t. (Side note: There are companies who budget in headcount and work like GP suggests. I think most companies budget in money and work like you suggest.)
googlryas 4y ago
Would you accept if your landlord got upset when he saw how much some people are being charged for rent in silicon valley, and decided to triple your rent?
- wruza 4y ago
  If it makes your neighborhood and/or city very similar to these in SV, why not?
  - googlryas 4y ago
    Why would it? Paying someone in (say) Warsaw a SV salary isn't going to make Warsaw like SV either.
  - quelltext 4y ago
    So, like full of homeless people and litter? No, thank you.
t6jvcereio 4y ago
You know why, and yet you were asking why. > If the company is willing to pay me that amount in a different location, why can't it pay me the same here?
naniwaduni 4y ago
The norm isn't location-based pay, it's location-based summary rejection. I think it should be clear why we accept summary rejection based on location.
mattdeboard 4y ago
I agree with you it's horseshit. What you're saying sincerely makes total sense to me. Has to feel terrible. I would feel detached from my work as well, I think. You're experiencing alienation from the fruits of your labor. Your labor being exploited to maximize profit. Unfortunately, the comments here are right. It "makes sense" in the sense these experiences are characteristic of life within capitalism as a laborer. Functionally, your location is being "colonized," so to speak, by capital. I don't know if there's a real phrase for it, but I suppose it could be described as "telecolonization." Management has found a resource (your labor) that can be cheaply extracted by alienating you, the "telecolonized," from the value your labor creates. It is bullshit. If you want solutions, your recourse is either collective action/unionization or finding a new job. You're being exploited by capital more than your coworkers. That is the context from which this sense of unfairness arises, I believe.
- jsmith99 4y ago
  Would it be less exploitative if firms refused to hire people in lower cost countries?
  - mattdeboard 4y ago
    Yes, because the workers would not be contributing labor to the company's output. To put it another way: Yes, zero exploitation of OP's labor is less than "some" exploitation of OP's labor. It clarifies things for me to replace "cheaper labor" with "more profitable labor". Why would a company refuse to hire more profitable labor? How could the company not having any relationship with OP exploit his labor more than hiring him as more profitable labor?
    - therealdrag0 4y ago
      The employee is welcome to work for a local company at local rates. It seems they prefer the colonizer? Is that exploitation any more than the US employee not getting paid 2x or 5 or 100 their current rate?
navjack27 4y ago
Imagine paying someone in my town where the median income is $39k and the median property value is $87k the same as someone in San Fran where the median income is $120k and the median property value is $1.15M. that would be unfair to everyone in my town who can't work remotely with a tech company that's in that area.
- tradertef 4y ago
  This doesn't make any sense. Your pay should be based on the value you provide to the company you work for.. Not based on whether it is fair to your neighbor or not.
  - RestlessMind 4y ago
    > Your pay should be based on ... So do you advocate uniform global salaries across different locations in different countries?
  - closeparen 4y ago
    Even from a lefty perspective: people vary wildly in the value they produce. A society that paid based on output would be as if not more unequal than today's. Plus it does nothing for the people who need money to live but can't or don't do economic production: children, elderly, disabled, caregivers, etc. Socialists will sometimes emphasize the share of productivity captured by capital to argue for redistribution to labor as a class, but for individuals to be paid their own productivity is AFAICT not any serious movement's demand. And then obviously from the capitalist perspective, your employment only exists to the extent that the employer derives more value from your work than they pay you.
    - oreally 4y ago
      This. For all the talk that says software benefits the world, software developers do forget what's the perspective from the other side.
  - navjack27 4y ago
    Should and I agree.
RestlessMind 4y ago
> But should location based pay be just accepted because that's the norm? If we don't accept location based pay and start paying a uniform global salary, the wages will sync to Asian job market level rather than rising to SV level. Any company doing so will not be able to hire anyone in SV. OTOH any company paying SV level wages to everyone will do so only for a short while before they realize that they can increase the profit by reducing pay elsewhere. Why would they not do that?
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1659447091 4y ago

If looking at it from a company perspective, I'm not sure I would see much benefit for them in doing so. If a company is based in the US/EU and pays the same wage to workers in someplace like Asia, they would not gain much(financially) by hiring in Asia in the first place (companies that have no need to hire in Asia). Why bother dealing with the grumbling at home about exporting jobs to outside locations if they are just going to pay the same anyway. Might as well be the hero providing jobs to local workers at home and keep the money circulating there. As for the other, age, gender, race etc. All of that is also at home, so not discriminating against it is beneficial. What is not at home are foreign located workers.

brodock 4y ago
Talent is scarse. People are hiring outside of the US because there is no one else to hire from at current payrange in those locations. You could start a biding war and pouch from other companies but that may not be financially viable for your business.

Panzer04 4y ago

You’re missing the point. Location based pay is not the norm, the norm is paying you as much as it would cost to find an equivalent replacement. That just happens to be location-dependant. It’s got nothing to do with discrimination, it’s purely about hiring for the lowest cost. They have to pay more in EU and US to get employees, and less wherever you live.

layoric 4y ago
So if they quit, are you saying the company to refuse to hire a replacement from the US/EU due to some purely budget related limit? That is definitely not my experience working with a few remote first companies. They will try to find a suitable replacement in the relatively short period that is recruitment (1-3 months, depending on seniority). The cost difference for one employee is usually not big enough to worry about in the larger scheme of things. The opportunity cost of not having that senior dev on board for more than 3 months is damaging for rest of the team and company goals/time lines. In the current market, my guess is that this person would be replaced with someone NOT in that location unless for some reason it is business critical to have someone in that area, which is almost never for software developers.
- RestlessMind 4y ago
  > The opportunity cost of not having that senior dev on board for more than 3 months is damaging for rest of the team and company goals/time lines. I work with HR team who sets compensations for our global workforce. If you think that HR and leadership does not take this opportunity cost in consideration when setting policies, you are badly mistaken. They are very rational in their decision making.
  - vladvasiliu 4y ago
    But then, why would the company agree to an increase in compensation if OP moved elsewhere? This is the point that doesn't make any sense. If it costs them X in OP's locale and 2X in EU, the company should kick them out if they decided to move and replace them with someone in the original locale, or maybe someplace even cheaper.
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      Most people who haven’t already moved countries won’t when offered that rebuttal. (Some can’t. Many more won’t, for some good and practical reasons.) Because of that, the rare employee who does move can be paid the new location wage without increasing the costs of the people who don’t move. Companies don’t care about the costs of the <5% of people who move. They care about the costs of the >95% who don’t. (Side note: There are companies who budget in headcount and work like GP suggests. I think most companies budget in money and work like you suggest.)

googlryas 4y ago

Would you accept if your landlord got upset when he saw how much some people are being charged for rent in silicon valley, and decided to triple your rent?

wruza 4y ago
If it makes your neighborhood and/or city very similar to these in SV, why not?
- googlryas 4y ago
  Why would it? Paying someone in (say) Warsaw a SV salary isn't going to make Warsaw like SV either.
- quelltext 4y ago
  So, like full of homeless people and litter? No, thank you.

t6jvcereio 4y ago

You know why, and yet you were asking why. > If the company is willing to pay me that amount in a different location, why can't it pay me the same here?

naniwaduni 4y ago

The norm isn't location-based pay, it's location-based summary rejection. I think it should be clear why we accept summary rejection based on location.

mattdeboard 4y ago

I agree with you it's horseshit. What you're saying sincerely makes total sense to me. Has to feel terrible. I would feel detached from my work as well, I think. You're experiencing alienation from the fruits of your labor. Your labor being exploited to maximize profit. Unfortunately, the comments here are right. It "makes sense" in the sense these experiences are characteristic of life within capitalism as a laborer. Functionally, your location is being "colonized," so to speak, by capital. I don't know if there's a real phrase for it, but I suppose it could be described as "telecolonization." Management has found a resource (your labor) that can be cheaply extracted by alienating you, the "telecolonized," from the value your labor creates. It is bullshit. If you want solutions, your recourse is either collective action/unionization or finding a new job. You're being exploited by capital more than your coworkers. That is the context from which this sense of unfairness arises, I believe.

jsmith99 4y ago
Would it be less exploitative if firms refused to hire people in lower cost countries?
- mattdeboard 4y ago
  Yes, because the workers would not be contributing labor to the company's output. To put it another way: Yes, zero exploitation of OP's labor is less than "some" exploitation of OP's labor. It clarifies things for me to replace "cheaper labor" with "more profitable labor". Why would a company refuse to hire more profitable labor? How could the company not having any relationship with OP exploit his labor more than hiring him as more profitable labor?
  - therealdrag0 4y ago
    The employee is welcome to work for a local company at local rates. It seems they prefer the colonizer? Is that exploitation any more than the US employee not getting paid 2x or 5 or 100 their current rate?

navjack27 4y ago

Imagine paying someone in my town where the median income is $39k and the median property value is $87k the same as someone in San Fran where the median income is $120k and the median property value is $1.15M. that would be unfair to everyone in my town who can't work remotely with a tech company that's in that area.

tradertef 4y ago
This doesn't make any sense. Your pay should be based on the value you provide to the company you work for.. Not based on whether it is fair to your neighbor or not.
- RestlessMind 4y ago
  > Your pay should be based on ... So do you advocate uniform global salaries across different locations in different countries?
- closeparen 4y ago
  Even from a lefty perspective: people vary wildly in the value they produce. A society that paid based on output would be as if not more unequal than today's. Plus it does nothing for the people who need money to live but can't or don't do economic production: children, elderly, disabled, caregivers, etc. Socialists will sometimes emphasize the share of productivity captured by capital to argue for redistribution to labor as a class, but for individuals to be paid their own productivity is AFAICT not any serious movement's demand. And then obviously from the capitalist perspective, your employment only exists to the extent that the employer derives more value from your work than they pay you.
  - oreally 4y ago
    This. For all the talk that says software benefits the world, software developers do forget what's the perspective from the other side.
- navjack27 4y ago
  Should and I agree.

RestlessMind 4y ago

> But should location based pay be just accepted because that's the norm? If we don't accept location based pay and start paying a uniform global salary, the wages will sync to Asian job market level rather than rising to SV level. Any company doing so will not be able to hire anyone in SV. OTOH any company paying SV level wages to everyone will do so only for a short while before they realize that they can increase the profit by reducing pay elsewhere. Why would they not do that?

deleted 4y ago

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deleted 4y ago

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