Morgan Stanley CEO tells employees if they want to WFH they will face pay cuts | Hacker News Reader

Morgan Stanley CEO tells employees if they want to WFH they will face pay cuts

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23 pointse2e423 comments

Genuinely hope companies like Morgan and Goldman feel the pain of talented employee walkouts.

It's a free market baby!

For every employee that walks out many more talented and hungry employees will march right in. I get the impression that there’s a perception that the work from home crowd is starting to get a little entitled

Today's entitlement is tomorrow's baseline expectation

Were your assertion true, there would be millions of Americans lining up to be burger flippers and welders-- the market is showing that isn't happening.

Morgan hasn't been hurting for the last 16 months-- maybe the CEO was on the office fun planning committee.

I'll say this though, I'm one of those who would gladly take an in office position. I've found that I'm significantly less productive during wfh.

Have you ever ridden a NYC/NJ subway/path train?

Even if you don't get stabbed or mugged, it constantly smells like throw up and there's usually no seats.

sure they will. but they will cost more money and will lack institutional knowledge of existing employee.

Besides, the new employees themselves may demand WFH

After all, many of the software engineering offices are in New York, while employees live in New Jersey(2 hrs away)

Even if you can replace the workers high rates of attrition and loss of trust in senior management is still likely to cause significant problems.

If there’s such a glut of talent, why aren’t wages decreasing?

Wages staying the same over time while inflation happens is the same as wages decreasing.

And wages have been largely static since the 70s. They certainly haven't kept up with inflation.

i think that is true for jobs in general, but I strongly suspect it doesn’t apply generically to tech and finance salaries.

As long as we compete in a global economy, I can assure you there are foreigners who will work twice as hard for less. They will not have a problem filling the positions

This won't solve anything. The bosses that want people in the office wouldn't hire these foreigners. The bosses that are all in on WFH value strong communication skills and schedule overlap, so they also wouldn't hire these foreigners

This is ignorant of the reality of the personnel strategy in these institutions over the last decade, at least.

Strong technical teams in securities are almost entirely foreign. I was one of two Americans in a unit of fifty. Good communication in mathematics and software doesn’t require you to be from the USA.

They’ve also been building quantitative and technical teams in places like India for years to stand up core functions so that they can effectively deliver larger objectives, and moving responsibilities there for components of larger mandates.

This is only accelerating due to their inability or unwillingness to compete in the US for tech and quantitative talent.

This wasn't my experience. I consulted at ~20 different large (non-tech) companies. Every software development offshoring attempt failed and all the jobs ended up coming back to the US.

I don't doubt there will be international competition for specialized SWE jobs, but most of the jobs that revolve around everyday business automation and support will likely stay 'local'.

Let’s say I work for a big multinational. Why are the billing rates for Indians (in particular) $20/hr whereas the rates for Americans are 10x or more? Why is this apparent wage gap so high? Maybe a rhetorical question.

That's fine. Let other people race to the bottom.

More difficult to keep employees indoctrinated when they're at home.

Makes sense. JPM and GS are both ruthless anyway, and if you work there you're probably someone who values a high salary more than the average engineer.

GS is known for the “discount”: they pay less to all levels of employees than their peers.

Both of these companies pay somewhat low wages relative to jobs requiring equivalent expertise in tech. A common story I hear from technical managers in these places is their subordinates being hired away by tech for a significant premium over the managers compensation.

Perhaps it's regional.

My context is the UK, where FANG like salaries are mostly found in finance.

Morgan Stanley advertises a discount for recruiting talented wfh employees.

So both reduce salaries and not pay premium office rates. Win win!

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