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Small Cities Are a Big Draw for Remote Workers During the Pandemic

27 points by jbredeche 6y ago

mywittyname 6y ago
I'm interested to see if this move towards remote work will segue into Outsourcing v2.0. The big outsourcing trend of the 2000s failed due to a combination of difficulty of managing remote teams effectively and consulting companies padding teams with poor quality workers. I feel like these issues have been alleviated, and the pandemic has served as proof of this. And if you're okay with hiring a remote person in Burlington, Vermont, it's not a stretch to include candidates from Sherbrooke, Quebec. Once you do that, hiring someone from Santiago, Chile isn't so much different. If that happens, then I'm going to guess that these remote workers won't stick around for the pay cuts. They will move back to the economic centers they migrated away from in hopes of the higher wages they left behind (assuming they are still available).
ponker 6y ago
I don't think the future of remote work is an engineering org of 1000 people living in 1000 locations and working from home over Zoom. I think it's the organization working as 20 engineering teams of 50 people each, and where the 20 leaders meet a few times a year in a single location or perhaps a few locations around the world. I also don't think that people who have lived for 10 years in the San Francisco Bay Area or New York metro area are well equipped to live in a random American small town where the town is nearly monoracial and the local fine dining is an Olive Garden. Both of these are recipes for strong economic growth (and of course, the attendant gentrification) in small cities in America and around the world.
- beamatronic 6y ago
  Who is downvoting this? You shouldn’t be able to down vote without leaving a substantive comment.
specialist 6y ago
Pre coronavirus, my plan was to migrate inland. I'm glad I didn't follow thru. The places I was considering are now the worst hotspots. Ugh.
bird_monster 6y ago
My partner and I very badly wanted to move to Santa Fe. I'm a tech worker and she is not - we both really love the types of housing that's available (and the pricing), but my biggest concern was what happens in 2-3 years when (hopefully) COVID vaccines are common and it's less of a concern. If the jobs all move back to in-person, I doubt I'd be able to find suitable employment in Santa Fe. I'm no super fancy engineer with a big resume, so finding fulltime remote employment when it's less popular and more competitive isn't a guarantee. Ultimately we opted to not move because of it.

27 points by jbredeche 6y ago

I'm interested to see if this move towards remote work will segue into Outsourcing v2.0. The big outsourcing trend of the 2000s failed due to a combination of difficulty of managing remote teams effectively and consulting companies padding teams with poor quality workers. I feel like these issues have been alleviated, and the pandemic has served as proof of this. And if you're okay with hiring a remote person in Burlington, Vermont, it's not a stretch to include candidates from Sherbrooke, Quebec. Once you do that, hiring someone from Santiago, Chile isn't so much different. If that happens, then I'm going to guess that these remote workers won't stick around for the pay cuts. They will move back to the economic centers they migrated away from in hopes of the higher wages they left behind (assuming they are still available).

ponker 6y ago

I don't think the future of remote work is an engineering org of 1000 people living in 1000 locations and working from home over Zoom. I think it's the organization working as 20 engineering teams of 50 people each, and where the 20 leaders meet a few times a year in a single location or perhaps a few locations around the world. I also don't think that people who have lived for 10 years in the San Francisco Bay Area or New York metro area are well equipped to live in a random American small town where the town is nearly monoracial and the local fine dining is an Olive Garden. Both of these are recipes for strong economic growth (and of course, the attendant gentrification) in small cities in America and around the world.

beamatronic 6y ago
Who is downvoting this? You shouldn’t be able to down vote without leaving a substantive comment.

specialist 6y ago

Pre coronavirus, my plan was to migrate inland. I'm glad I didn't follow thru. The places I was considering are now the worst hotspots. Ugh.

bird_monster 6y ago

My partner and I very badly wanted to move to Santa Fe. I'm a tech worker and she is not - we both really love the types of housing that's available (and the pricing), but my biggest concern was what happens in 2-3 years when (hopefully) COVID vaccines are common and it's less of a concern. If the jobs all move back to in-person, I doubt I'd be able to find suitable employment in Santa Fe. I'm no super fancy engineer with a big resume, so finding fulltime remote employment when it's less popular and more competitive isn't a guarantee. Ultimately we opted to not move because of it.