The cost of living around the world is highly variable. Just in the U.S. you can find an order of magnitude difference, and as such the pay scales are very different per location. Why would we expect a universal wage?
My only point is, if your boss asks you to train someone, offshore, to do your job, you can slow that roll by making the offshore savings non-existent. It is a historical fact that economic borders and immigration are used to control the labor market. Offshoring labor is the modern practice and the effect is the same.
In the spirit of conversation, i would ask you to consider Bob and Alice, two allegorical characters living on different sides of the same town, doing the same job. Bob has a $1M mortgage in an affluent suburb, and Alice has a more modest domicile in a "working class" part of town. Shall we pay Bob more because his cost of living is higher? Redrawing the boundaries from city to state to country doesn't change the crux of the argument.
Should all remote employees have their compensation reduced accordingly to the pay scale of the location they submit work from, then?
If a Google engineer with a $300k comp in Mountain View decides to work for a month from Nairobi, should their wage be reduced 3,200% for that duration?
The appropriate wage should be a reflection of the remote location's market rate, since that is a decisive business advantage in using human resources in nations with diverse standards of living.
Let's put it another way, one would expect an increase in salary should a Kenyan technology company seek to hire resources from San Francisco instead of hiring locally.
I believe that this model is ultimately beneficial to both parties - the employer gets to enjoy cheaper labour, with the additional bonus of corporate cultural enrichment, while the employees receive a competitive salary as well as gaining necessary skills to get a better life.
Some may claim thst this is an act of exploitation, but I see it as an effect of globalisation. Without the reduced wages, there's a good chance at those workers may never had the opportunity to upskill and learn, leading to a stagnancy in the remote nation's technical prowess.
The distortion (and reality of exploitation) occurs in the value created by employees. Skill is a resource, and they deserve to set the price on it, collectively if they choose.
When their compensation is only a small fraction of the value they create, is their obligation to themselves, their families, neighbors, and governments not to extract the best possible deal? Or is the unfairness of their wage only set so low to subsidize the salaries of highly compensated employees?
The challenges of globalized workforces are not only written from the wealthiest's perspectives. Otherwise, how would Google defend itself from the accusation that they only come to Kenya to take advantage of its minerals and relative poverty?
Doesn't that boil down to "it's the way it is because it's the way it is"? Seems a bit... circular.
The question is why a Kenyan in Kenya is worth less than an American in Mountain View for the same work if it is not dependent on their location? What's happening to all of that excess value that's not being returned to them?
If all of Google's employees in Kenya emigrated to the US, what would happen? What happens when global mobility is not exploited in returning fair compensation to workers?
Not circular at all. Cost of living varies per location based on a wide variety of factors. Where's the circle?
A Kenyan in Mountain View would be paid the same as an American in Mountain View, much like an American in Kenya is paid the same as a Kenyan in Kenya. Similarly, an American in Mountain View makes more than American in Alabama. If they didn't, then the market isn't pricing in cost of living which would be a complete failure of market dynamics. People demand a certain wage because of the price of food, housing, etc, and that cost of living is so universal for a geography that all prospective employees will need the same minimums which drives the price of labor. When you don't have the same basic needs across a population, then those who are willing to work for less will get the position at a lower pay.
If all of Kenyan Google employees emigrated to the US, I'd expect their pay to go up.
Your notion of exploitation strikes me as unaware of world wide standards, and is actively counter-productive. If I'm in Indonesia I can find great fried chicken for $1-3 in a 'luxury' mall. I cannot do that in SF. If American companies pay locals abroad 10x the average pay, you end up causing bubbles that drive up the prices for everyone because some people are now able to move markets. This is why housing is so expensive in SF - there's enough wealth that the market can just keep upping its price and the demand will bear it.
The entire idea of 'fair' compensation is relative and not universal. The world itself isn't uniform, there is no single currency (which is a good thing), and projecting a uniformity on it suggests a dominant mindset. Who get to set the 'fair' prices? If Huawei pays their employees in China half or less of Google employees in Mountain View, does that mean Huawei should also pay the same Chinese wages to those they employ in Mountain View? Is that 'fair'?
That's just describing the current practice of market pricing, not explaining why Mountain View comp is higher than Alabama or elsewhere (ie- why comp is not actually a function of COL + base pay).
Given two people performing the same work that Google derives the same value from, if that value is not dependent on either person's location, then how does Google justify the differential in pay?
Unless they're just pre-assigning a universal value of worth to geographic areas, then what's the logic for their compensation at all? If they reduced overall salaries or moved locations, wouldn't it counter the very situation you described - a la expensive chicken? Wouldn't it be more efficient move to Alabama where not only their expenses would be lower, but their employees'? Why not split Google into entities across the nation to balance comp and uplift more areas?
If your logic were true, it wouldn't make any sense to hire people who lived in "expensive" areas. Because we know that's not what they're doing, it could be interpreted that Google is still taking advantage of largely manufactured inequality, even domestically.
Google does work through Alphabet-adjacent sub-corps that are only legally 'not-Google' that do work exclusively for Google. Several exist in my area, and they pay no more competitively than any other company for the same roles. Talking with their engineers, they're largely just happy that their H1B was approved and that they're not working for Amazon.
In the spirit of conversation, i would ask you to consider Bob and Alice, two allegorical characters living on different sides of the same town, doing the same job. Bob has a $1M mortgage in an affluent suburb, and Alice has a more modest domicile in a "working class" part of town. Shall we pay Bob more because his cost of living is higher? Redrawing the boundaries from city to state to country doesn't change the crux of the argument.