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somerandomii t1_iuaw6xn wrote

Reply to comment by KSRandom195 in Microsoft’s first median pay report shows racial gaps in top jobs by AP24inMumbai

This doesn’t take into account demographics. Does it include international hires? Because US hires are obviously going to be paid more than international hires, on average. And they will be predominantly white.

Eg. Tech support centres based in India would massively skew the stats.

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KSRandom195 t1_iuaxtxg wrote

> Because US hires are obviously going to be paid more than international hires, on average.

Sounds like bias to me. I guess you’re just okay with that kind of bias though?

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sayer_of_bullshit t1_iub0kdq wrote

I'm white and I'd get payed based on my standard of living in a poorer country. There's no racism here.

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KSRandom195 t1_iub1u4e wrote

Nationality is also a protected class. It’d be hard to claim how country of employment is not a strong proxy for nationality.

I get that this law doesn’t protect international workers, but if we claim equality it’s not clear to me why international people are not equal too.

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somerandomii t1_iuc2tic wrote

I live in Australia and we get paid less because our dollar is weaker. Are you suggesting companies should constantly adjust salaries to account for currency fluctuations?

I’d also get paid less if I move to a city with less demand for my skill set. If I want to maximise my pay I need to go where the demand is, regardless of which company I work for.

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KSRandom195 t1_iud5mnr wrote

> I live in Australia and we get paid less because our dollar is weaker. Are you suggesting companies should constantly adjust salaries to account for currency fluctuations?

What is the value of your labor to the company? That’s what you should be getting compensated for, and that doesn’t care about currency exchange rates or cost of living.

> I’d also get paid less if I move to a city with less demand for my skill set. If I want to maximise my pay I need to go where the demand is, regardless of which company I work for.

Industries like software don’t have a “local” demand. A software engineer in Sydney can do a job as well as a software engineer in San Francisco. So there isn’t “less demand” in Sydney vs San Francisco, there is a global demand for software engineers.

Yes some jobs have local demand, a factory can’t have workers around the world from it. But Microsoft is a software company with a few hardware exceptions.

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somerandomii t1_iufj97f wrote

Even if it were reasonable, most employment contracts don’t support a floating wage. You get a salary and the compensation is tied to a currency. To do it any other way would be impractical unless we overhauled the global economic systems. An equivalent of a global EU or something.

As for “software employees can work from home” that’s just not true. A lot can a lot of the time, but security-sensitive material is almost impossible to control remotely. And having people in the same space does increase collaboration and cross-pollination of skills and ideas. Despite the narrative, companies aren’t pushing for return to the office just to stroke the egos of middle managers.

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KSRandom195 t1_iufpqr7 wrote

Sure you’re not a middle manager with that last paragraph?

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somerandomii t1_iuk8de7 wrote

I’m definitely not and I’m pushing for more WFH at my office. But there’s a difference between 2 days a week and being in a different country.

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somerandomii t1_iuk8ei5 wrote

I’m definitely not and I’m pushing for more WFH at my office. But there’s a difference between 2 days a week and being in a different time zone.

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LeastDescription4 t1_iubyykn wrote

Just cutting in here to point out that cost of living can vary a lot even within the same country and wages can often reflect that. For example Sydney and Newcastle can have different pay rates for the same job, as Sydney is more expensive to live in. This is despite them being in the same state, having very similar demographics, and being just 2 hours drive apart.

Wage rates and bands will fluctuate a lot between locations and this is a good thing as it means that the take home pay can be comparable in buying power after taking COL into account.

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