US salaries are surging for in-office jobs

Data isnt linked to in the article and browsing ZipRecruiters website I cant find it or anything that supports this... That being said I'm sure they have SOME data that supports this but having worked at a recruiting company that put out an annual report in the past, this data is probably questionable at best.

Recruiting companies are hired to fill roles companies cant fill on their own. Typically hard to fill roles. (many) People like working remotely and are used to it now. Companies who want people to come into an office have a hard time finding people. ZipRecruiter puts out a little pro in office propaganda to help their conversation numbers when they get a, "I dont want to commute to an office" response to their recruiter spam.

Literary zero downside for them in doing this. Again, I'm sure there is SOME data that SOME company paid more for SOME people to be in office than remote. Is it significant? It really doesnt matter now that the BBC picked up their pro office propaganda.

"The result is that US wages for fully in-office roles are surging. According to ZipRecruiter data, seen by the BBC, companies were offering on average $82,037 (£64,562) for fully in-person roles by March 2024 – an increase of more than 33% versus 2023 ($59,085; £46,499). The trend is cross-sector: compared to hybrid ($59,992; £47,211) and fully remote ($75,327; £64,320) roles, workers appear to be more likely to increase their salaries by returning to pre-pandemic office schedules."

So the first fully in-person shows it's gone up 33% since last year, but this year the full remote vs full in-person is $75K vs $82K, which is $7k more for in office.

Given the commute costs in places like NYC, where the average NJ transit monthly is $200-400, depending on where you are, and then paying for food in the city too, a large amount of that extra salary is really cancelled out.

Very strange numbers that make me think this is an incomplete analysis that follows “find the data to support your hypothesis” pattern. Seems fully remote and fully in person were similarly compensated last year and saw different increases this year, but hybrid comes with lower salaries than both.

Either the job classification isn’t correct or there’s other things at play.

This isn’t the first anti-remote work article author Alex Christian has written for the BBC.

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20231207-the-permanentl...

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20231206-how-bosses-won...

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20230920-zoom-and-grind...

Also the same topic for Terra in Brazil:

https://www.terra.com.br/economia/como-os-empregadores-vence...

https://www.terra.com.br/economia/dinheiro-em-dia/as-razoes-...

And for El Pais in Spain:

https://elpais.com/icon/2024-02-20/contrarreforma-en-la-ofic...

He seems to have it as a popular topic for his writing across a number of news outlets and languages. All of them negative towards remote work.

https://muckrack.com/alex-christian/articles

There’s a lot of shilling going on in this topic currently by the press. I’m deeply distrustful of the volume of these negative articles coming out over the last year.

I suppose this could muddy the waters over WFH productivity. Assuming its incorrect that in-person workplace is more productive (personally believe WFH same or better, but its still up for debate and may depend on a few things), then, an employer might be foolish to pay extra to get people there in person... but.. once they do, the higher salaries might attract more highly skilled applicants, who are.. more productive! So then by paying a premium you get more productive people, but that's because they are inherently more productive not 'cos they're physically there, but.. it looks like its because they're physically there, this reinforcing a myth that being in the office is more productive.

Weird how it never seems to be enough to buy a place near that office, and with schools for kids that aren't total disasters.

This has always seemed like simple supply and demand - I assume that the few US cities where tech jobs are concentrated are about the highest paid labor markets in the world, so if they can be outsourced to lower cost places (even within the US) then prices will come down.

Really interested to see the price discovery for this, how much do you think it is worth to go back for a whole week?

I gave up looking for software engineering jobs last year. My interview to application ratio was absurdly low.