Most companies will cut your pay based on where you live, though.
You aren’t usually paid the same. That isn’t the norm.
Secondly and probably more important is there is zero guarantees that WFH will be supported by the work places they can support it will, we have seen a huge RTO surge. I’d hate to be in one of these cities and get that call.
If WFH opportunities had legal protections and incentives it’d be a different story I imagine
Whether or not locality-based pay is the norm is an open question. Every place I've ever worked had a budget for the role and that was that, but most places I've worked only hire folks within the US who don't need visa sponsorship so that's already a smaller group than "anyone who can type JavaScript into a computer."
Would you rather live and rent in NYC and work from home for 4 years until asked to commute again, or live and rent in Detroit or Pittsburgh or Indianapolis and take that $50-400k you saved and move?
Moving is easy and if you need to move to support an RTO mandate, especially if you were hired remote and weren't local you can almost certainly negotiate some relocation assistance. It's not a big deal to move unless you have kids in school which if you went remote during COVID and had a kid basically immediately is still likely not a huge issue. Moving in middle school or high school can be impactful, moving during kindergarten or first grade is a nothingburger.
Even if there aren't location-based salaries as such, there's a lot of "ROFL, we're not going to match your Facebook offer." I worked for someone who eventually ended up with very few California employees and, I believe, eventually closed their relatively small office there.
>Moving is easy
I disagree with this. If you have a relatively small number of possessions living by yourself in an apartment, maybe. But, as you say, with a partner and even kids with an established circle of friends—and maybe a house, is definitely not easy.
Yeah, that's part of the reason I haven't left NYC.
I've wanted to leave here for a couple years but I have been afraid that if I moved to a more rural area, I'd have trouble finding work if there was ever a huge return to office, in which case I might be forced to move back to a big city and I'd have to buy a house for a lot more than I paid.
You aren’t usually paid the same. That isn’t the norm.
Secondly and probably more important is there is zero guarantees that WFH will be supported by the work places they can support it will, we have seen a huge RTO surge. I’d hate to be in one of these cities and get that call.
If WFH opportunities had legal protections and incentives it’d be a different story I imagine