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There’s a fundamental disconnect between how hard it is to relocate and how easy it is to lose your job. The cost of moving is huge: uprooting your family, swi
by jl6 3y ago
There’s a fundamental disconnect between how hard it is to relocate and how easy it is to lose your job.
The cost of moving is huge: uprooting your family, switching the kids’ school, losing your friends and local interests, re-learning a new community, getting grief from your mortgage lender or insurer, paying early termination fees on rent and services, legal fees and taxes, packing and unpacking your stuff, loading up on new risks…
Whereas your job can end at the whim of a boss or the slightest gust of economic headwind.
- simplone 3y agoThat and whoever had a mortgage before 2022 is not looking to go from 2-4% to 7% at the same high prices. Politicians and big business really fucked us with the whole money printer thing.
- cptroot 3y agoHey now. Spare a thought for the corporate goons who decided war-induced shortages was a good time to goose profits by an order of magnitude.
- soLongThx4Phish 3y agoEconomics thought modeled after WW2, when the world outside the US was a crater. Boomers and GenX hypernormalized around a 70 year bubble. Like those at Exxon who accurately modeled climate warming in the 80s, the ecological cost, those who knew knew they’d be long dead before it became obvious.
- seizethecheese 3y agoCitation needed that corporate profits are up by an order of magnitude.
- refurb 3y agoHow did big businesses contribute to money printing?
- xmcqdpt2 3y agoThis is probably a big reason why gigantic cities are continuing to grow everywhere. The best way to reduce the stress of being laid off is to move somewhere with as many employers as possible.
- dsr_ 3y agoTwenty-five years ago a recruiter asked my wife how far she was willing to move. "Why would I move? This is Boston: if there are high-tech jobs at all there will be something here."
- ghaff 3y agoYou can have offers "you can't refuse" even if you live in a major hub. But it's mostly the case that then it's a matter of you really wanting to do something on net as opposed to having to move to keep food on the table.
- antisthenes 3y agoThis varies a lot for different people at different stages of life. For some, +$20,000 to their current salary is an offer they can't refuse, for others, they would need to double their existing six figure salary to even consider moving to another hub.
- zeroonetwothree 3y agoI guess I’m privileged but I wouldn’t move more than 50 miles for any amount of $.
- zen_1 3y agoNot even $20M a year? You could just work for one year and be set for life basically anywhere you want to live.
- 3y ago
- osigurdson 3y agoThis is why remote work is better for the economy.
- WarOnPrivacy 3y agoIt might be better said that remote work is better for the remote worker's economy. In regions where remote workers moved to, people with money in the bank found themselves homeless as there was nowhere left to live.
- DragonStrength 3y agoAnd domestic migration is a zero sum game, so local policies built on in-migration of skilled workers from poorer areas isn't clearly a national good.
- RestlessMind 3y agoOP's quote: "your job can end at the whim of a boss or the slightest gust of economic headwind." If remote work is established properly, then your remote job will end instantly and will be shipped to Canada or Latin America (if bosses care about timezones) or to Eastern Europe or India (if timezones are not an issue). My company had multiple layoffs and then new waves of headcount. Most of the layoffs happened in the US. 100% of the new headcount is in cheaper countries. Remote work seems glorious if you look at 2020-21. But beware the second order effects!
- zeroonetwothree 3y agoEqualising world GDP will be good in the long run at least. Of course it sucks if it happens to be you on the chopping block
- ejb999 3y agoIt won't be good for 50% of the people/countries that are already above average - it will only be good for the 50% below average.
- mozman 3y agoBig cities don't work for everyone, it's exhausting. As an older man I have different requirements.
- gregors 3y agoYou move to a big city when you are young. Enjoy the social activities, the night life etc. If at some point you get married, have kids etc - generally you don't get to make full use of the city anymore, though you're still paying full price. What I see A LOT is when people have kids, if they originally came from somewhere else is that the city's shine really dulls. They move back to where they came from, especially if there's a family support structure there. At one place I worked we snatched several senior engineers leaving LA and SF for a more family oriented life. They move back home, new young people take their place and cycle continues.
- ghaff 3y agoPeople do often stay in greater metros. They just move out of the core city. (Of course, there's no guarantee that young people move into the core en masse either. They often weren't in the 70s/80s. A city like Boston was losing population until almost 2000.)
- bombcar 3y agoBased on: https://www.mark-pearson.com/airport-distances/ https://www.mark-pearson.com/airport-distances/ > Half the people in the United States live within 17 miles of a decent-sized airport, and ninety percent of the country lives within 58 miles (about an hours drive). Twenty-five percent of the population lives pretty darn close: less than 9 miles. it would seem that the vast majority of the USA lives "in or near a greater metro".
- rufus_foreman 3y ago>> it would seem that the vast majority of the USA lives "in or near a greater metro" To the extent that you consider the cities of Monroe (Louisiana), Ketchikan (Alaska), Elmira (New York), and La Crosse (Wisconsin) to be the centers of "greater metro" areas. They're not greater metro areas in the same sense that NYC, LA, SF, or Boston are greater metro areas.
- hotpotamus 3y agoAs the ideal employee in a 90's Dilbert strip (from the boss's perspective) said, "having a personal life is like stealing from the company". There's yet another headline on this site today about falling birthrates, and I can't help but wonder about the connection.
- BlargMcLarg 3y ago"Having any dedication outside your company is stealing from your company. Now here's an advertisement showing you the excitement of cheating on your partner for some quick fun." May not be causation, but they sure are eager to not let a good crisis go to waste. Funny thing is, at least a few decades ago companies realized having a good employee's kid come work for them was a boon. Now they complain about the lack of good workers without thinking about the consequences of their good workers not reproducing in stable families.
- _fat_santa 3y agoI don't think it's quite that, it was the pandemic and forced remote work. Broadly what I saw is before the pandemic, employers reserved "remote work" for a select few, the boss gets to stay in his city and work from home, but you have to relocate. Anytime you would bring this up with your employer they would just go "well we just don't know [what would happen if you went remote]". The pandemic flipped that on it's head because now everyone was working from home and realizing that most jobs could be done remotely. Now that employer can't tell you that same line before, because everyone knows the game is up, everyone knows you can be equally productive remote as you can in the office, so employees are calling the bluff.
- commandlinefan 3y ago> you can be equally productive remote Oh, but then you'll miss out on all of those "random hallway conversations where the real 'innovation' occurs".
- abeppu 3y agoI think we have to acknowledge that multiple causes are at play. The graph in the article shows a strong decrease from the late '80s to the pre-pandemic period. There's a further decrease from the 2018-2020 bar to the 2021 bar, and another drop between the 2022 bar and the Q1 2023 bar. I think the drop from the 80s to the pre-pandemic years is reflective of both greater precarity in employment and increases in housing costs in markets with lots of job opportunities. The drop from pre-pandemic to 2021 may certainly be because of the greater share of remote-work that you're citing; people relocated, but often _in spite of_ work. I think the gap between 2022 and early 2023 has gotta be at least partly due to the combination of greater economic uncertainty/increased recession fears and high costs to move b/c of high interest rates. We wouldn't have gone from 29% to 1.6% without multiple factors swinging together over time.
- goostavos 3y ago>calling the bluff Maybe at smaller companies, and... for now. I'm placing bets that mega-corps will be back to 5 days/week by the end of the year. If "hallway conversations" are a reason for 3 days per week, then "the data" will show that 5 days leads to more hallway conversations. Managers want to see their empire. Smaller companies will do what they always do: copy bigger companies. Maybe I'm at peak cynicism, but I suspect we'll end up back where we started. A very small number of remote-first companies (that have always been remote-first), and then everyone else. Big corps will say remote didn't work, despite all evidence to the contrary.
- spacemadness 3y agoOne of the most frustrating things I’ve seen during any period of layoffs including this one is seeing people that have just moved for a new position get laid off soon after. Especially so if they’ve moved overseas. Like you said, culturally we’ve decided that the newly laid off and relocated took the risk and it’s their fault for taking that risk. Companies apparently share no part in the burden even while trying to lure folks to work for them.
- zxcvbn4038 3y agoI had a boss who moved a guy from Russia to the US just so he could fire him. He was gone ten days after he arrived and all the paperwork was done. I guess that worker protections in Russia were really strong at the time, the guy was untouchable while he was there.
- busterarm 3y agoI hope you got a different boss soon after.
- junon 3y agoYeah exactly. Stop being a bystander to shitty company practices. A lot of them have forgotten that their employees make them profitable and scalable.
- EatingWithForks 3y agoI agree we shouldn't stand for shitty employers. But, especially right now, it can be hard for a dev to find a job. Especially if the dev has dependents taking up time for take home tests etc. Or if they have a visa the employer needs to manage. I suggest we should have something like an actor's guild instead, where a floor of basic protections are necessary but there's no ceiling on payment and benefits.
- atlasunshrugged 3y ago
- blacksqr 3y agoNormalize employment contracts guaranteeing a year of salary as a condition of relocation.
- VirusNewbie 3y agoGood idea. Sometimes this is a large signing bonus. It could pay out over time but vest immediately on a layoff or something.
- danaris 3y agoThat would be a massive improvement over what we have now, but even having to move within a year after your last move is difficult, expensive, and incredibly stressful.
- bradleyjg 3y agoIt’s almost amazing to me that CEOs have all these ideas for how to hire and retain but never once consider the very things they demand to be hired and retained. Almost like they think of the rest of us as not real people.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- geodel 3y agoNothing amazing about. CEO retain lawyers to draft custom contracts with a company before taking offer. This is mutually agreed negotiation and neither company nor job seeker is obliged to agree to such negotiation. No one is stopping you from trying it.
- bradleyjg 3y agoSure, and the next time a tech ceo goes whining to Congress about a shortage of workers I hope my congressman tells him that no one is stopping him from mutually agreed negotiations with candidates.
- maerF0x0 3y agoThis is the purpose of relocation and signing bonuses. Give them a sunk cost to second guess both the hire and the fire.
- jandrese 3y agoIf you are a homeowner it is almost insane to move. Most people I know could not afford their house if they were buying it today. Often by a huge margin. Moving would mean becoming a renter again and losing a much larger chunk of their paycheck every month to housing. It’s too late to start a whole new 30 year mortgage, even when you account for the proceeds from selling their existing house. Prices are insane. This is a natural consequence of home prices doubling or tripling over the past 10 years.
- benjaminwootton 3y agoYou don’t start from scratch. You sell your existing house, which has benefited from inflation, then buy somewhere with the same mortgage payment over the same remaining duration you had if you choose not to trade up. Yes there are significant transaction costs but it isn’t as though you are starting again with your housing equity.
- arka2147483647 3y agoIf you move from not-so-prosperous place to where its booming, there is no way you get equivalent home for the same price
- pcbro141 3y agoInterest rates.
- jnosCo 3y agoInterest rates doubling over the past year change the math on this. For instance, to keep my same mortgage payment, even with significant equity, i could only afford what I paid for the house originally, which would be a significant downgrade in today's market.
- subsubzero 3y agoagree, what really makes me upset is how housing prices in certain areas has not gone down at all given that rates are double what they were a year or 2 ago. The un-affordability is beyond reason.
- whateveracct 3y agoIt's the number 1 reason I will always be remote (and was well before the pandemic). Number 2 is that I get my work & meetings done in the morning and can call it quits at lunch every day (and often do nothing Fridays).
- wwweston 3y ago> getting grief from your mortgage lender or insurer, paying early termination fees on rent and services A lot could be included in this, but let's make some specifics explicit: if you locked in housing costs in 2020, it's entirely credible that a move could involve a 50-100% increase on that front right now. Remote work can have pros/cons but it's more or less a declaration of independence for both employees and employers from having to care about market-specific housing costs in general.
- gabereiser 3y agoThis. OMG this. This has happened to me twice in my career. It’s as if everyone has FAANG money or are like the tenured people who have a large amount of equity to tap into.
- 13of40 3y ago> your job can end at the whim of a boss Maybe it's a big company thing, but every time I've had to end someone's job it took several months of performance management and about 50 to 100 pages of documentation. Imagine about a year of having your team limping and not being able to achieve its commitments, while you have to be polite and supportive to a hostile person who's obviously on their way out but can't see it, and all the while your 1:1 meetings with your boss start with "Sooooo... What's going on with Charlie? Are you documenting? I don't feel like you're documenting." Every meeting you walk into where they ask why "X" isn't done yet, you can't tell them that Charlie fundamentally can't deliver it, because any mention of that is wandering into HR territory, and you can't take Charlie off of "X" because that's going to screw up the continuity of your documentation. Meanwhile, Charlie is wandering around the halls trying to foment some kind of misguided rebellion against you, and (edit: possibly) stealing stuff. So not really a whim.
- dukeyukey 3y agoEven here in the UK, if a company is having redundancies you can be out the door in days or even hours. Firing a specific person for something non-performance needs paperwork, but that's a very specific case.
- maccard 3y ago> Firing a specific person for something <snip> needs paperwork Assuming they've been employed for longer than 2 years. If they've been there less than 2 years, it's pretty much in line with the US.
- Night_Thastus 3y agoDepends massively on the company. Some are like that, in others it can be at the drop of a hat with no performance reasons needed at all.
- yardie 3y agoThey could fire Charlie without cause. Sounds like management just doesn't want to pay out UI or severance. So they'll let you suffer to document a cause. So Charlie is such a big problem they need to get rid of them, but not enough of a problem where the solution is money.
- bonestamp2 3y agoYa, some employers simply don't understand this. The last two times I've moved, the total costs were upwards of $50k, and that doesn't include the $50k I lost on the first house (due to the 2008 financial crisis). My last boss offered me a $30k/yr raise to move to a different country for a small promotion with no real path forward beyond that. I said, "no way... it would take 6 years (after income taxes) for me to pay for that move with the increase in salary, and the new country's higher income taxes."
- justinzollars 3y ago> There’s a fundamental disconnect between how hard it is to relocate and how easy it is to lose your job. Absolutely. I would never move for a job.
- tinglymintyfrsh 3y agoAmericans don't realize how bad they have it. America is only a Good Place(tm) for the very rich while its suffering expands out in a Power law distribution. No other "rich" country abuses homeless, the disabled, the almost homeless, and the working poor with as much unequal treatment as much except so-called "third-world" countries. The middle class of America is small, privileged, and unaware of the suffering and exploitation of ~100 M Americans below it and of its enablement of the "1%" to continue the status quo.
- ok_dad 3y ago> The middle class of America is small, privileged, and unaware of the suffering and exploitation of ~100 M Americans below it and of its enablement of the "1%" to continue the status quo. I would defend those in the middle class by saying that they are more comfortable than the poor in America, but have about the same amount (zero) of political power. The middle class is still a worker class, and as such is still subject to the whims of the wealthy capital owners. I don't think I am in the middle class, as I don't even own a home, but I do make a good living and I would say I am more well-off than many people in the town I currently live in. I know about what's going on in America, and it pisses me off, and if I had the power to change a tiny bit of it I would, but I don't.
- ninkendo 3y agoDo you have any statistics to back up anything you're saying, or is everything "just so"? How precisely are we "abusing the disabled"? Are there metrics for this? How does it compare to other countries? Can you give examples of what you're even talking about? Or how about even just... be specific?
- JohnFen 3y ago> Americans don't realize how bad they have it. I don't know about that. At the very least, a large percentage of Americans know how bad they have it.
- loa_in_ 3y ago> no other country Certain Arabic country comes to mind, where fancy skyscrapers and the richest are the only news that one hears from there.
- jjav 3y ago> There’s a fundamental disconnect between how hard it is to relocate and how easy it is to lose your job. This is it. The risk is completely one-sided and massive. Just ~6 months ago a recruiter reached out with a job that to be honest was perfect for my career path goals. But not remote, they wanted me to move across the country. Briefly considered it but it makes no sense, the risk is way too unreasonable. If a company wants me to move, give me a contractual guaranteee of at least two years salary to be paid even if they reorg my position away. Then it's fair game.
- najoes 3y agoThis. My recently-laid-off partner received an offer from a company in Germany (we're from the US), and they offered a guaranteed contract of at least 2 years salary and a short probation period. That's an easier thing to stomach... You mean you _have_ to employ me for at least 2 years? Okay!
- stefap2 3y agoSo I guess, if you are in a situation when you can easily relocate one could use to their advantage and ask for more money. But with remote work relocation will be less of a necessity. Usually all the fees are covered by the relocation benefits.
- toss1 3y ago>>There’s a fundamental disconnect between how hard it is to relocate and how easy it is to lose your job. Exactly! Plus, if you already have a house, you probably have refinanced into a low-rate mortgage which itself has enormous value contrasted with dropping it for a higher-rate mortgage on a new home. Even a new apartment lease will likely entail higher costs. Plus the expense and time of moving. Except for workers basically just out of college and making a major upgrade in title and pay, I cannot see anyone moving for a new job unless there is a hard written contract with liquidated damages if fired/laid-off (and very tight specifications on being fired for cause). Employers' behavior over the past several decades has simply eradicated any credibility they once had.
- shams93 3y agoIn my experience the more experience you have the worse you get treated, and economic headwinds are constant and continual, on top of that they're getting ready to cut people off of food stamps they're so confidant in this economy while intentionally shutting it down literally it makes you crazy, it makes you homeless.
- astrea 3y agoOh it’s a willful disconnect. Have you ever asked a job if they’d be willing to pay relocation expenses? They know how expensive/difficult it is.
- dheera 3y agoAnd this is exactly why people congregate in places like Silicon Valley and New York. If you lose your job there's a 98% chance you can find another job you like within commuting distance. For people in relationships it also means both people being able to pursue a wide spectrum of changes in their careers without moving, and one person don't need their partner to make a sacrifice in their career to pursue change.
- Mizoguchi 3y agoAre there still people relocating just for a job?Purely observational but the people I know willing to relocated (or already gone) it's mainly because they want to move out of the city, due to weather, crime, lack of things to do, infrastructure or whatever their reason is. I know there are exceptions where the opportunity, the money or both is so good that if offsets the risk of things not working out. But the vast majority of people changes companies to a slightly better position with a slightly better compensation.
- JohnFen 3y agoThis is precisely why I won't relocate just for a job. It's too big of a risk.
- cyanydeez 3y agoAlso, COL means the only benefits are typically moving from high to low, and low now typically means someplace marching against progress.