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Comment by neerd | Hacker News Reader

Canada has some of the most unaffordable housing in the world. It makes sense that people want the freedom to work from cheaper locations. I moved from Vancouver to Calgary when I went 100% remote and I have not regretted the decision at all

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And yet, we get the short end of the stick when you get a job at a company that applies a location factor, where even living in a rural backwater in Washington pays more than living in downtown Vancouver, BC.

Yea this pains me greatly as someone who lives in BC. I work for a fully remote bay area company and I get paid less than someone who is a full job level below me living in Kansas.

I once worked it all out: if I was located in Seattle instead of BC I would be making over double for the exact same remote position I am in. Not only would I receive a 40% pay bump, but I would also not pay state income tax, and housing is cheaper in Washington than British Columbia. On top of that almost every single good/commodity is cheaper in the USA than in Canada.

All in all I would guess my purchasing power working in BC is around 35% of what it would be if I worked in Washington.

If I wasn’t happily married to someone who is very against living in the USA I probably would have jumped ship and moved to the USA like many of my Canadian peers. The TN visa is easy enough to get as a software engineer.

Companies don’t owe anyone anything unfortunately, it’s about funding one that prioritizes the things you do

What does this have to do with "owing" anything? They will tell you they use location factor to determine salary, and then use a location factor that isn't actually based on cost of living so that a Canadian city that is far more expensive to live in still ends up paying less than a place where the cost of your Vancouver single-room apartment buys you two houses and several acres of land out in the US boonies, and your monthly living cost outside of rent pays for an entire family.

The location factor is based on the local job market (what your next best option is), which is related to the cost-of-living, but is not directly such a measure.

(I'm not arguing that this is right or wrong; I'm just saying how I think it is. This is an "is", not an "ought", argument.)

Indeed, which is how Canada gets the short end of the stick.

They probably are using Seattle rate for the entire state. They probably get most applicants from Seattle so it makes sense. Someone could move to a smaller town in state and profit over the difference.. you could do the same in BC or move to rural Alberta.

Policies like this are sometimes made because US employees might have state/federal tax breaks. Usually it is because the average developer wage in a region is a certain amount. Why pay $500k when $250k lands the same group of candidates. If it's too low let them know and move on.

First a typo.. funding=finding.

When there is a complaint about a company not providing things a certain way, there’s a degree of unfairness owed that was perceived.

Companies do not owe anyone a location based factor of San Francisco and allow the employee to arbitrage it, or not. They have a hard enough time staying sustainable.

My preference is that location indexes are always in the employees favour.

I’m a familiar with some of Vancouver’s challenges, incl downtown.

Depending on one’s situation, it’s often easier to live elsewhere and fly to Vancouver on weekends to live, or schedule flights in advance cheap enough to be in for work meetings.

Anyone who’s had an Amazon recruiter chase them from outside of Vancouver to move there may have done the math.

Van has a lot of sustainability challenges, between schools closing, the amount of household income required to buy a home from outside of its circle, the cost of living.

If someone is able to live in Vancouver, and if they have a family, those kids may not be able to own a home of their own.

And bask in the 230 or so days a year that aren’t precipitating in some way. Incredible city those 100-130 days a year though when the sun is out.

> Companies don’t owe anyone anything

Maybe they should.

Companies can only owe what they contractually agreed to owe. So by definition they already do. Getting paid based on cost of living is a request based on an argument of fairness, something which companies (rather than people - companies are ant colonies, not ants) don't need to care about in the slightest. And thus, Canadians get the short end of the stick. The end, no moral.

Companies exist only because of the law, which can certainly (in theory) mandate that they owe additional things to their employees, such as "a minimum wage" and "a safe workplace free of harassment".

I agree, the best way to make change happen is start a company and set your own table.

We can't all live in Vancouver or the GTA, nor should we. WFH is exactly what a large and sparsely populated country needs. Heck, the government should be encouraging it as much as they can. Maybe they can turn the tide around in some of those dying rural towns out east.

The housing crisis has cemented in people’s minds that living in Vancouver or the GTA is essentially an impossible feat because everything is zoned for cars and single-family housing.

I suppose if your POV is very narrow and limited, then yes it is impossible. But giving up easily when things become difficult is a Canadian cultural staple, so rural dying towns for everyone it is.

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