Google to cut employee pay 25 per cent for working from home

Google has released a calculator that shows employees who continue working from home face cuts of 25 per cent from their salary.

Google has rolled out a new internal calculator to explain potential pay cuts to employees who choose to work remotely — and the early results suggests it will penalise its suburban staffers.

Screenshots obtained by Reuters show that Google employees who previously commuted an hour to Google’s Manhattan offices from nearby Stamford, Connecticut, for example, would see their salaries slashed by 15 percent if they choose to continue working from home.

By contrast, “Googlers” who live within NYC’s five boroughs and choose to work from home permanently would not see their pay slashed at all.

The screenshots also showed 5 per cent and 10 per cent differences for commuters living in the Seattle, Boston and San Francisco areas.

Google employees who move even farther away from the company’s offices have been warned they could face even harsher pay cuts.

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The Google campus in Mountain View, California. Picture: Susana Bates/AFP

A worker who left San Francisco for Lake Tahoe, another expensive area of California, would have their pay cut by a whopping 25 percent.

That would mean an employee with a $US150,000 ($204,000) salary would suddenly make less than $US112,000 ($152,000) per year.

The calculator states it uses US Census Bureau metropolitan statistical areas. Stamford in Connecticut for example, is not in New York City’s metro, even though many people who live there work in New York.

A Google employee who previously commuted the hour from Stamford to Manhattan before the pandemic would see their salary slashed by 15 percent if they choose to continue working from home after the pandemic.

News of the Google tool comes amid a broader debate at tech companies about remote work and compensation.

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Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have all warned employees who plan to leave the cities. Picture: Lionel Bonaventure/AFP

Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin have all warned employees who plan to leave expensive cities like New York and San Francisco that their pay will be slashed — while smaller tech companies like Reddit and Zillow say they’ll pay the same regardless of where employees live.

Jake Rosenfeld, a sociology professor at Washington University in St. Louis who researches pay determination, said Google’s pay structure raises alarms about who will feel the impacts most acutely, including families.

Google, which has about 140,000 employees worldwide, took in $US61.9 billion ($84 billion) in revenue during the second quarter of this year alone.

A Google spokesperson said compensation packages have always been determined by location.

This story originally appeared on NY Post and was reproduced with permission