[gwright]

The more interesting question is not whether that was your experience but what the aggregate data might say about that.

It seems to me that companies that don't make that adjustment are spending a lot more on labor than they need to, but it may be that for certain types of businesses that it just doesn't make a difference in the overall financial picture.

There are very few businesses/industries that have a revenue/employee (or profit/employee) ratio like high-tech companies. And so fine-tuning employee compensation geographically may just be lost in the noise of their operations.

I doubt that practice is consistent across other business types though and it also suggests that employees at these businesses should be asking for even higher compensation!