Comment by JoshTriplett 2 days ago
> And the employees most likely to quit will be ones with responsibilities that make it difficult to do the commute 5 days a week
Or senior people who have a dozen offers waiting in their inbox that they've neglected responding to because they're reasonably happy where they are...until the prospect of commuting.
I would take a lower comp for remote work and a better work environment. They will never pay me the amount that would make me choose 2h in traffic everyday instead of having enough time to cook breakfast to my family, take my kids to school, have lunch with my wife, etc.
I live in Utrecht and despite living very close to Utrecht Centraal, it still takes me 45 minutes to get to Amsterdam where my office is. Count late trains and general rush hour, so for me it can take 2h out of my day easily if I'm unlucky (thankfully where I work we count commute time into the work day, the very first time I saw my manager I saw him sprint out the door at 3PM on the dot because he had a lengthy commute lol)
Long commutes are not unique to the US. I'm spending 1.5 hours one way in the UK. It's depend on your personal circumstances. If you are young and single it's usually possible to rent a studio or a room with reasonable commute time. E. g. if you have a family and/or own a house then moving close to the office in response to RTO mandate may not be an option.
That's not how the job market is right now. There's like 5 companies in the world that can compete on compensation while allowing remote work with meta.