Google Employees Who Work From Home Could Lose Money (reuters.com) 199
Google employees based in the same office before the pandemic could see different changes in pay if they switch to working from home permanently, with long commuters hit harder, according to a company pay calculator seen by Reuters. From a report: It is an experiment taking place across Silicon Valley, which often sets trends for other large employers. Facebook and Twitter also cut pay for remote employees who move to less expensive areas, while smaller companies including Reddit and Zillow have shifted to location-agnostic pay models, citing advantages when it comes to hiring, retention and diversity.
Alphabet's Google stands out in offering employees a calculator that allows them to see the effects of a move. But in practice, some remote employees, especially those who commute from long distances, could experience pay cuts without changing their address. "Our compensation packages have always been determined by location, and we always pay at the top of the local market based on where an employee works from," a Google spokesperson said, adding that pay will differ from city to city and state to state. One Google employee, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, typically commutes to the Seattle office from a nearby county and would likely see their pay cut by about 10% by working from home full-time, according estimates by the company's Work Location Tool launched in June.
Alphabet's Google stands out in offering employees a calculator that allows them to see the effects of a move. But in practice, some remote employees, especially those who commute from long distances, could experience pay cuts without changing their address. "Our compensation packages have always been determined by location, and we always pay at the top of the local market based on where an employee works from," a Google spokesperson said, adding that pay will differ from city to city and state to state. One Google employee, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, typically commutes to the Seattle office from a nearby county and would likely see their pay cut by about 10% by working from home full-time, according estimates by the company's Work Location Tool launched in June.
Wooo Capitalism! ~nt~ (Score:2, Funny)
~nt~
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Don't worry, those megacorps are working to end it so no one else can get where they are
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Intersting though. Wish I had mod points. But I can see just this happening. It'd be the most evil plan ever (well) played.
Re: Wooo Capitalism! ~nt~ (Score:2)
You keep using that word [Re:Wooo Capitalism! ~nt~ (Score:2)
FWIW the median in 2020 was $78,500 (nationwide) but I would bet the vast majority of the middle class (what is left of it, thanks to capitalism) is making a lot less than that.
Either you don't know what the word "median" means or don't know what the word "middle class" means.
Lost your bet (Score:2)
> but I would bet the vast majority of the middle class (what is left of it, thanks to capitalism) is making a lot less than that.
You would lose your bet. The number of billionaires (a couple hundred) is inconsequential compared to the number of middle class (a hundred MILLION).
You'd also lose your implied bet, that GOOGLE ENGINEERS are making a lot less than $78K. Because that's the topic.
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That said, this policy from Google is senseless unless it is purely for the purpose of repressing wealth growth of employees to maintain dependence. It isn't as if work output changes based on cost of living. If anything someone choosing to seek a lower cost of living is an indication of a resp
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> middle aka working class which includes everyone making more than $35k and under the top 1% by either income or wealth.
Re-read your own definition. Not saying it's "wrong", just read it.
"Everyone under the top 1%".
So, roughly what percentage of people would that be?
See why the median of the that group pretty much IS the median of the entire population? Based on YOUR definition.
> That said, this policy from Google is senseless unless it is purely for the purpose of repressing wealth growth of employe
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> but I would bet the vast majority of the middle class (what is left of it, thanks to capitalism) is making a lot less than that.
You would lose your bet.
This is a bet that depends on who gets to define "middle class," which is an extremely fuzzy term that usually means something different to each individual. Certain terms, such as middle class, moderate, and independent seem to imply qualities associated with objectivity, rational thinking, freedom from negative biases, hard work, earning/deserving the fruits of one's labors, etc. This positive PR leads a huge percentage of people self-describe as middle class and moderate, including people that would be
I don't get it (Score:3, Insightful)
If a job is worth $X to a company, then why does it matter if the he-who-does-the-job is in New York City or Podunk, Arkansas?
The result is the same, the company receives the same benefit from the labour expended.
Duh?
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Basically, sucks but counter argument too: you're doing the same job as your co-worker so why should you live twice as nice just because you live in Podunk, Arkansas?
Start from a clean start and start hiring people again from scratch wherever they happen to be. The folks who are required to live in driving distance of Mountain View will command higher salaries than the Podunk folks cause you'd be competing for them against other high paying employers near by and cost of living.
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Because you are smart and fiscally responsible and thus choose to reduce your cost of living by living in Podunk, Arkansas. The other moron chooses to blow his wad on overpriced coffee and living in a literal trash dump in CA. The salary should be based on my value proposition not on punishing someone for making good life choices in order to be 'more fair' to those making bad choices. It makes no difference if I'm working in a van in the parking lot vs a van in Podunk, Arkansas. What Google gets is the same therefore the pay should be the same.
"The folks who are required to live in driving distance of Mountain View will command higher salaries than the Podunk folks cause you'd be competing for them against other high paying employers near by"
We are talking about remote work. You are competing against those employers regardless.
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Deal with shitty business, expect them to treat you like shit.
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
No. You have broadened the available labor pool. Used to be locality was a critical thing, so if you had 500 people in SJ who could do the job, you had a slimmer labor market to compete against with your skills.
Now, by not being local, you've expanded the labor pool you are competing against.
If you are a superstar it won't make a bit of difference, you can still demand whatever pay you want and they will do it. Normal, easily replaceable people (90% of us)? Yeah, good luck. If you don't like it quit, and if enough people do it then they will have to change. Hint: Enough people won't quit, Google is not stupid.
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Now, by not being local, you've expanded the labor pool you are competing against.
No... You're not the one have not expanded it: the company have expanded it by being willing to accept remote workers. As soon as they were willing to do so, they have expanded the labor pools for every job role they allow remote workers to fill. The fact that you got the choice now to work remotely from somewhere else means also that Anyone from that 'somewhere else' could have been hired to do what you do instead
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My question is: Since they are willing to accept remote workers, then why are they not making the cut across the board for all employees As soon as they deem their position remote-work-okay? I.E. Why are they willing to keep continuing to pay people who live in the local area a higher amount.. Now that the labor pool has been expanded, and the job can be done remotely - shouldn't they make adjustment to realize those savings for their enterprise?
They still have some amount of decency or compassion? (haha).
It would be extraordinarily shitty to cut someone's salary to $100/month and tell them to move to Somalia if they want to stay employed. Most halfway-decent companies wouldn't do that because it's very shitty and bad PR. Eventually though they might want to just stop hiring new people in the high COL areas and the problem will solve itself through regular turnover.
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It would be extraordinarily shitty to cut someone's salary to $100/month and tell them to move to Somalia if they want to stay employed."
How do you figure this argument holds up when that is exactly what they are doing to people who've relocated somewhere nice and are now told they are taking a pay cut if they don't move to SF among the homeless junkies and trash heaps? IF children can swim in the pond in your front 10 acres or play in the forest
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But isn't there a another side to your logic, and I do see the logic in it, that now the COMPETITION for talent is also increased.
It used to be that a company's ability compete for talent was hampered by the friction that was asking a worker to move / waiting for [random worker] to self-relocate to your area. I'm not talking just the expense to move, but the ability to woo a worker away from their life, their kids school, their family and to convince them your geography is worth the move.
Now, any company wi
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Why are they willing to keep continuing to pay people who live in the local area a higher amount.. Now that the labor pool has been expanded, and the job can be done remotely - shouldn't they make adjustment to realize those savings for their enterprise?
Because that's still where the labor pools are of talent. If you are skilled in XYZ then you live near where XYZ can be employed.
San Francisco and Seattle and New York and Austin have spent decades slowly attracting and accumulating a substantial amount of the experts that companies want to hire. Even going so far as to open satellite offices to be able to tap cities they didn't have a presence in.
Generally though tech workers like having good restaurants, art and culture. So there'll be some inertia as w
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If that were the case this story wouldn't exist. Almost every job at Google can be done remotely and everyone else who needs people skilled in XYZ (or more importantly, with talent because XYZ changes every 6 months anyway) is hiring remotely as well. The only reason to be living somewhere with a high cost of living is because you are an idiot.
Have no fear Google engineers. Ther
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Have no fear Google engineers. There exist mail forwarding services. So just use one in an area google actually pays reasonably for and live where you want.
How could Google, especially Google, ever possibly figure out the ruse?!
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
> There exist mail forwarding services. So just use one in an area google actually pays reasonably for and live where you want.
So, you want to commit tax fraud?
Google will be collecting taxes for California, rather than your state of residence.
You will need to then file your taxes for your state of residence, which will get Google in trouble for not pre-paying; as well as needing to pay taxes to California for each day you are physically present in state. California does not let go of tax income lightly -- if your address, and payroll taxes are California, they will tax you as a resident. Your actual state of residence, will then also try to tax you. Or do you plan on breaking laws about obtaining a local drivers license within 30 days?
Google will then be faulted for not paying your out-of-state payroll taxes, and associated business permits, and be subject to fines.
It's a bad idea, generally.
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There's a fairly large cost to rehire/train a position so it makes sense to throw a bone to those that need to stay near by because for example their spouse has a job that isn't remote locally, or actually have roots locally.
Plus I think a bit of fairness for similarly skilled jobs but that by nature require you to be on site. Say the folks running the on prem CD systems that occasionally actually need to physically hands on server stuff. Both them and a dev say masters level education, 5yrs with company ma
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If the job can be done remotely, then why would Google (or any other company) pay more to an (easily replaceable) employee who lives closer? I think the next step will be to replace the local employees with new (and cheaper) remote ones.
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If a job is worth $X to a company, then why does it matter if the he-who-does-the-job is in New York City or Podunk, Arkansas?
The result is the same, the company receives the same benefit from the labour expended.
Duh?
Or Mumbai, India vs. San Francisco, CA?
Not saying I disagree with you, but are you willing to apply your argument globally? 'Cause it seems like it follows.
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Globalization:
Shopper: Best thing ever.
Employee: Worst thing ever.
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Globalization:
Employee in SF: Worst thing ever.
Employee in Mumbai: Best thing ever.
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At the same time, mostly yes. If the employee is a US citi
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FTFY
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Tax evasion. Google was not started nor primarily profits from business conducted in Ireland.
"Russian immigrant"
People who legally immigrate to the America are AMERICANS. By this odd logic you'd credit the very regimes clipping peoples wings for the things they accomplish when their wings grow out after they flee to the US. This is a very strange artifact still present in old world thinking, as if there was something magical in the soil of mother russia that led to
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"Google isn't really built on any kind of special IP." OK you know nothing about tech. What are you doing on Slashdot?
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then why does it matter if the he-who-does-the-job is in New York City or Podunk
They cut it because they can
Because they need to pay a premium in New York to hire people there, and if you're suddenly not in New York anymore, then you are outside what their company are having to pay extra in order to get working for their enterprise.
It matters because companies want to pay as little as they can get away with and still accomplish what they want - every way they find of cutting employment costs is extra prof
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We'll see. There are other employers who pay the going rate without regard for their employees location. Normally local wage rates only come into play for non-remote positions.
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yet office space is very very expensive and we've proven that we don't need so many buildings.
Re:I don't get it (Score:4, Insightful)
So by working from home we've reduced the company's costs, and the reward for saving them money is:
they reduce our pay?
I suppose it makes sense in Libertardia, but normal people don't want to live there.
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and you couldn't link arms with the street shitters and illegals given drivers licenses and voting cards and sing kumbaya.
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Since when is a freak like you normal?
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Funny)
Uh, you do realize that a company is always out to lower its costs, labor especially.
Which is why the CEO and other C suit pay is reined in and when the new guy comes in, their salary and benefits are lower than the previous person's until they prove themselves.
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If a job is worth $X to a company, then why does it matter if the he-who-does-the-job is in New York City or Podunk, Arkansas?
The result is the same, the company receives the same benefit from the labour expended.
Duh?
It's all about control - kind of a 'King's prerogative' move. They want to make their power visible, and they want to remind employees of that power frequently and pointedly.
Organizations that huge and complex often develop personalities, just as individual people do. Because the organizations are very powerful, and power corrupts, the personalities developed by such organizations are highly likely to be those of narcissistic-yet-charismatic psychopathic bullies.
Any claims that Google might make about 'savi
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These are employees, not entrepreneurs. They don't understand the proper way to make money at Google:
1) Work at Google
2) Make "friends" with C-Suite executives
3) Quit and create start-up. Invite "friends" from C-Suite to be shareholders.
4) Have start-up get purchased by Google
5) $$$
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Re: I don't get it (Score:2)
Well i guess in a way because of cost of living. Dont get me wrong, I don't think an employee should be punished for moving if they can do their job just as effectively.
But if I was working in the middle of nowhere and a company hired me, they would ask what I expect for a salary. Which would probably then be negotiated. I would factor that salary want on many things including the position, my experience, my circumstance and cost of living.
If a company hired me in a place where I accepted 80k as a reason
Re: I don't get it (Score:2)
And I guess to this end. I don't think a company should be able to make this decision after they accepted the fact that you moved away and became a permenant remote worker. That should be negotiated during that discussion.
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Supply and demand. The company supplies the wages, so they make the demands.
We've always stood on the threshold of feudalism. Occasionally the lord allow the serfs to have some illusion of agency, if only to keep the economy moving along.
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If a job is worth $X to a company, then why does it matter if the he-who-does-the-job is in New York City or Podunk, Arkansas?
Because suddenly the pool of applicants isn't NYC and San Francisco residents. It's everybody in the world.
Google needs an employee, they "have to be local" to work in the New York office. Everybody that lives in NYC needs like $5,000+ minimum. That's higher than Santiago, Chile where people will work for $1,000+ minimum.
Pandemic hits. You move to Santiago Chile and work remotely. You expect to be paid $5,000. Nope. Now wherever you are Arkansas, Santiago, Shanghai, Mumbai... your company can just as
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Setting salary is at the core a price negotiation.
There is a question of what the employee could get somewhere else, how much they are willing to do the job for. And how much that work is valuable to the employer, how cheaper it could get it for.
The salary you get is somewhere between the "it's worth it" number of the employee and the "it's worth it number" of the employer.
What changes when you work from a different city rather than in the office is that your personal labor market is different. So the value
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Then quit, if you're worth more than what they are offering.
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If a job is worth $X to a company, then why does it matter if the he-who-does-the-job is in New York City or Podunk, Arkansas?
The result is the same, the company receives the same benefit from the labour expended.
Duh?
Because we live in a job market with wages determined by supply and demand. How much the job is worth depends on the market. If there are other workers who will do the same job for less, then the market worth of the job is less. There is no inherent dollar value of the work to the company, just a dollar amount that must be paid to get that job done.
Quiet, walkers are coming (Score:3)
Be ready to walk.
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Exactly, cost of living is one small factor in pay.
Excuse me what? (Score:2)
If you work from home. YOU, the employee, no longer have to incur the transportation, fuel, vehicle maintenance, and parking expenses, and likewise your employer doesn't have to incur the office space costs, that is instead downloaded onto you, the employee.
In general, it's a wash, it costs both of you less to work from home, but the entire reason people have been enduring these asinine 20+ minute commutes in the first place is because they can not afford to live near the office in the first place.
If anythi
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The greater part of salary is not determined by the secondary costs of transportation and/or office space. It's determined by the supply of labor in the field. The bigger the labor pool, the more competitors there are for work, and hence the lower the salary. And, vice-versa.
And, the market just changed dramatically. Widespread acceptance of working from home means that the labor supply just got a lot BIGGER. Businesses are not nearly as limited to the local talent as they once were. Conversely, emplo
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OK, market forces. But then what happens when this greater supply drives down the cost of employees and the people coming in to the SF office every day get lower salaries as a result? Because now they are competing with people living in Tahoe. Or Idaho.
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If that is how it plays out, then I would predict some or all of the following to happen:
1. The people coming into the SF office every day will relocate to Tahoe or Idaho, to lower their cost of living but keep the same salary.
2. The people coming into the SF office every day will quit and find a different job that pays more.
3. The people coming into the SF office every day will quit and find a different job that doesn't require them to come in to the office every day.
4. The people coming into the SF office
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Why should someone who was originally hired in SF be paid more than someone who was hired in Budapest if they actually live and work from home at the same location?
I'm sure the deverlopers there are good, what with Stanford and Berkley, but 10 times better? The reason the salaries got so ridiculous is that the bay area's been getting more and more expensive to live in so they had to constantly increase the salaries so that the employees can pay $3k/month for housing and what not. This goes out the window wh
Greedy executives (Score:2)
Google saves money when you work from home. Google knows that. But they also know that you love working from home. So they want to "charge" you for that privilege.
This is way overblown (Score:5, Informative)
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Yes, came here to say the same thing.
There is a premium for living in high cost areas, like California or New York, and employers are ready to pay extra 10 or 20 percent in salaries. However if you move to a cheaper region, why would you take the premium (which is actually accounting for tax and housing) with you? They could use it for the next employee in the HCOL area.
So, no, this is nothing new.
They should be paid the same if not more. (Score:2)
They are providing Google Electricity, Office Space, Computer Equipment, etc. Google should be required to either continue to pay them the same, or even reimburse the employee those costs. Google benefits by space in the office, less resources needed to support said employee.
Lets see a cost analysis for a inhouse employee and a work from home employee. I bet the work from home one costs google less.
Management costs (Score:3)
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Time to game the system (Score:2)
I foresee a growth opportunity for mailbox rentals in localities with high cost of living.
Re: Time to game the system (Score:2)
I had this thought a year ago. If I'm working from home and my home just happens to be in SF, don't I keep getting SF pay? So who comes and checks if the place my mail goes to actually is the place I sleep at night?
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Many large cities have residency requirements for Police, Fire and EMS employees. A significant number pay 'rent' to someone on the job who owns property in the city. This allows them to provide a lease, water and electric bill, etc to prove residency. This has been going on for over 50 years. You guys are just new to the game!
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There's a whole industry of services for "Monaco citizens", who don't want to actually spend all their time in Monaco, but need to seem to be spending time there to maintain citizenship. The services will use your credit card in-country for miscellaneous purchases on a regular basis, thereby suggesting "residency".
Second Class Workers (Score:2)
Go ahead. Cut my pay. (Score:2)
Waiting for the birth of the letterbox employee (Score:5, Interesting)
Remember letterbox companies? Where companies pretend to hail from a certain place for various reasons, usually tax or legal related, despite never really having any kind of presence there?
Well, I guess it would be a sensible business model to offer your letterbox to some Google employees if you happen to live in an area where they get paid well.
Remote Workers... (Score:2)
...can't come in and shoot up the place.
You'd think that would be worth the extra 1000th of a percent to keep these people happy working at home, but the ultra-rich didn't get ultra-rich by not shaving a thousandth of a percent off the gross profits.
Aren't these workers under contract? (Score:2)
Save $$$ by shutting offices (Score:2)
So? (Score:2)
They don't need to buy a sandwich on the way to the job, 1,5 hour is long, ditto for the return home, so they have 3 hours more free time, don't need a car, don't need clothes, one shirt for Zoom is enough, nobody can smell the stink...
A bit less money is fair. But they don't profit from the free massages, free lunch, free gym, free...
If the employer pays the mortgage or rent for the work-room, computer, printer, internet, electricity, heating, cooling, furniture... the usual employer thingies.
I wish every company would do this (Score:2)
because the out of market/ WFH people are destroying real estate prices (higher) in my region.
It's Redlining (Score:2)
Equal pay for equal remote work should be the standard. It is reasonable that pay varies by the location of the work. It is unreasonable that pay for the same work location, and I am counting remote as a location, should vary based on where you live.
Paying remote workers less based on where they live is redlining, pure and simple.
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Now think about Google management. Most of them live in the Bay Are and own real estate here. If Bay Area real estate were to go down in price they would lose money. hat could make price of Bay Area real estate go dow
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Poverty in the US isn't based on Redlining. I grew up IN POVERTY. I grew up with people that never grew up. I grew up with people that blamed everyone, everything but themselves for failing to start.
When I was 18 (1991) my friends and I would scrounge whatever we could from our moms because we didn't have jobs to try and get $10 so we could buy a dime bag of shitty "Mexi-Weed" which was hard as a rock, seedy as fuck, and was torn from a compressed brick. If we couldn't get $10 together, we'd go to the l
Cost of living vs lock-in (Score:2)
If living anywhere in the US becomes an option for most non-farm, non-industrial work, I'd expect a reversal of the flow into large cities. Having a nice house, and a $100,000 mortgage is far more attractive than owing 4 times the amount, and being shackled to a limited set of employers who've been shown to collude to reduce labor prices in the past.
Pay cuts (Score:2)
some remote employees, especially those who commute from long distances, could experience pay cuts without changing their address
That depends on how much that long commute costs. The cost of the commute in both time and money could easily outweigh the pay cut.
Heard this story before... (Score:2)
From an older guy that worked at Cisco during the dotcom boom in late 90s. He said it was the trend to do remote work even though many didn't have ISDN or other blazing fast internet. When market took a dump, Cisco wanted people to return to office. If they refused they let go. This was a couple months ago he predicted Google would do the same when pandemic conditions change.
There is that huge cluster of big buildings they are constructing on north part of Ames Research Center, maybe Google wants to put bu
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Less clothes
None, if I'm any kind of example.
Say, is this camera [slashdot.org] on?
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Well, there is a degree to which they are right, the rules don't apply to them. This isn't fair, of course, but it is still true. Being rich has its privileges. Good luck changing that. Reality doesn't care.
And while it is always satisfying to point out the hypocrisy of the rich, poor people are just the same. Hypocrisy is a fairly universal vice that doesn't seem to have a favorite social class. For example, I have previously posted lists of actions that ordinary people can take that will result in a
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Composition of grid (Score:2)