This Is What’s Happening With Remote Work And Tech Salaries Right Now

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This Is What’s Happening With Remote Work And Tech Salaries Right Now

Even though tech industries dominate much of the world market during the coronavirus, we must also mention how these salaries have evolved. Thousands of companies had to close, some laid off large parts of their staff and others had to cut wages.

Remote work is possible thanks to technology, but this method also affects tech companies. How is this possible? While the overall impact did not significantly affect tech companies, there was one determining factor in salary changes: no longer working within the company. Why does working from home affect tech employees? In this article, we will review the essential points to find the answer to this question.

Tech Hubs Turned Into Deserts

The arrival of Covid-19 was the (temporary) end of work in enclosed spaces. All those big offices packed with workers in New York or Chicago are now empty. Those big factories with hundreds of employees now seem abandoned. All this due to the instructions of the World Health Organization, which has deemed small and crowded workspaces “places of a high risk of contagion”.

The initial decision was to send the employees home and start the remote work revolution. A BBC study reported that at least 72 percent of workers expect mixed jobs in the future: companies that allow their employees to perform tasks in the company and their homes.

The coronavirus emptied highways and buildings. A My Move study showed that approximately 15.9 million people moved out of their cities during the pandemic. New York was the most affected city in the United States in terms of driving because “The Big Apple” was the primary source of infections throughout the country. The “New Normal” turned US tech hubs and manufacturing cities into true deserts.

Why Were Some Tech Salaries Cut?

In the United States, there are several cities known as “tech hubs”. These places are the epicenter of technology in America and around the world. Much leading technology and many software engineering companies are in just five locations: Boulder, CO; San Jose, CA; Ann Arbor, MI; Washington, D.C.; and San Francisco, CA. In the latter city, we find Silicon Valley, a place that is home to large companies such as Facebook, Google, and Apple.

These cities are the ideal dream of all the tech talent globally. However, living in them is more complicated than many believe. The quality of life in tech hubs is directly proportional to cost. Rates can be 100 percent higher than in other cities in the United States. For that reason, companies pay salaries according to the cost of living. The salary estimate is made taking into account everything that the employee must pay to live: payments for water, gas, and electricity services, food, entertainment, gasoline, and rental housing, among others.

But the coronavirus changed the rules of the game. In May, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that employees who moved to places where the quality of life was cheaper could face pay cuts. This decision would affect hundreds of employees deciding between staying or returning to their hometowns to do remote work.

Remote Education to Meet Demand

The vast majority of tech salaries remained stable, yet many companies continue to provide new employees with fair wages despite remote work and confinement. To meet this demand, bootcamps had to optimize their digital platforms further. Career Karma, one of the main bootcamps rankers on the Internet, assures that these intensive courses’ popularity had an essential growth during Covid-19.

Bootcamps keep the flow of tech workers active in the country. In the first months of the pandemic, hundreds of students began these online courses on coding, data science, or cybersecurity to reach companies such as Amazon, Spotify, Google, and Microsoft.


It doesn’t matter the name, the track record, and the millions of dollars of assets. Not even technology companies, classified as “the least affected by Covid-19”, were able to have total stability in their salaries and production. This teaches us to understand the most significant impact traditional companies suffered. Although we have all witnessed mass layoffs, business closures, and pay cuts, remote work remains an exciting aid for those who want to progress regardless of the pandemic.