Google lowered wages for workers in North Carolina. Now the employees are protesting

Equity grants, which typically make up a large portion of total compensation for tech workers, have also been reduced, starting last month. For some employees, that means their stock grants can be up to 25 percent lower than if they worked in other Google offices, such as Atlanta, workers said in the letter.

Employees say they want to reverse salary cuts, and their superiors have committed to being more transparent about how salary differences are determined between regions.

In the letter, the staff wrote: “Why is this new policy being introduced after our work has contributed to record performance in the stock market, despite Covid-19?” google browser Made $257.6 billion in revenue in 2021, up 41 percent from 2020.

Historically, Google’s workforce has been concentrated in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the most expensive places to live in the country. But in 2020, the company said it will double employment opportunities in a wide variety of locations, in part to help increase the diversity of the company’s workforce.

in 2020 Blog postThe CEO, Sundar Pichai, cited Atlanta, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., as places they’re turning to for help. Increasing the number of black employees In the company. In 2021, 4.4 percent of Google’s workforce was black, compared to 3.7 percent the previous year, according to the company’s annual year. Diversity Report.

“In our annual review, we found that the Research Triangle’s bonus guidance exceeded market pay standards, so we made adjustments to align with the local market. Employees working there did not see a decrease in salary or in existing stock grants,” Google spokeswoman Shannon Newberry said. “Our goal is to always push ahead with the local market.”

In recent years, tech giants have swarmed across the country in search of additional – and sometimes cheaper – talent. Amazon conducted a nationwide beauty search “HQ2” before landing in Northern Virginia. Tesla is moving its headquarters to Texas. Google, Facebook and other giants have opened offices in major cities across the country.

Many companies pay different levels based on where employees are located and the cost of living there.

The tech industry has always struggled to increase its diversity among its largely male, white, and Asian workforce. Google in particular has had problems with hiring practices at historically black colleges and universities, The Post reported.

Last year, Kamala Subramaniam, Durham’s chief of staff at Google who is tasked with expanding the company’s presence in the region, said she wanted to work closely with HBCUs.

Subramaniam said in a report interview With Raleigh News and Observer.

Existing employees have said in interviews that Google has between 200 and 300 employees in the area. The company said it wanted it Its existence is growing to more than 1,000, making the region a major engineering centre.

A Google employee from the area, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters, said.

That employee and another employee confirmed that they loved working at Google and felt the company paid them well, but they wanted to make sure the company treats all of its employees fairly.

“We want to see this office succeed, and we want this office to become a very diverse office. We just want it to be a successful and diversified office where people earn as much as their peers do,” the employee said.

The pandemic has also led to more Googlers spreading across the country, as people have taken advantage of the ability to work remotely and have moved to more expensive locations. Staff said many workers in the Triangle area moved there during the pandemic.

The announcement of wage cuts below national levels came after many took the step, workers wrote in a letter to management. One employee said some had left the area.

Google executives said most workers are expected to work in an office most days of the week, once it is safe to do so. The company has set up an internal calculator for workers who have left expensive areas of San Francisco and New York to calculate how much their pay will be cut if they do not return, Reuters mentioned in August.

For workers in North Carolina, wage cuts appear to be particularly targeted.

“It just fits with this pattern of going south to try to get cheaper labour,” said one worker. “That looks really bad.”