This isn’t unique to Google, same thing happened to me. Working for a name brand technology company in Atlanta, but am located remotely in the Raleigh-Durham area. My pay scale is “corrected” for the difference in markets and am payed a good 20% less than my Atlanta counterparts. By my calculation though, the cost of living in Atlanta isn’t near 20% higher than Raleigh-Durham… so not sure what else is factoring into that descrepancy.
I worked for a consultancy when covid started. They decreased salaries in case the economy tanked. They also started recruiting in cheaper places like Colombia.
Low and behold, salaries were never brought back to pre-pandemic levels.
