5 ms·

Americans no longer want to move for work

7 points by lxm 3y ago

MPSimmons 3y ago
I feel like we kind of never really did, but we were willing to tolerate it. Now, the places that they want to move us are pretty freaking awful, and I'm used to the rut I've built.
shams93 3y ago
These kind of articles always assume people have choices. Its never been harder to move, it was more economically viable for a working person to move in 1854 than 2023.
- Kamq 3y ago
  > Its never been harder to move The water at the new place won't give you dysentery in 2023. And even if it does, we have treatments for it.
  - pasquinelli 3y ago
    oh cool i guess i can afford to move after all.
jleyank 3y ago
Decades ago, a couple might have a mix of professional and clerical/educational workers. Such couples could (easily) move because the "other" spouse could probably find work in a month give or take. Real estates tended not to be ill-liquid so bridge loans were available to assist the new purchase. Unless there were kids, particularly teenaged kids, no problem. Now, there's way fewer "other" jobs, real estate is less liquid, remote jobs are available and there's less interest to move into undesirable areas than in the previous century. Also, tech areas have sprung up on more cities, making it possible to get a pertinent job without moving and without WFH. Sux to be a company in these times if they're not being flexible.
rcme 3y ago
A lot of these "trends" can easily be explained by the fact that millennials, aka the largest generation in the U.S., are aging. When they were young, many were willing to move. Now that they're older, many are no longer willing to move. The younger generation (Gen Z) is smaller, so, measured proportionally, fewer overall are willing to move.
- foobarbecue 3y ago
  This seems to imply a boom and bust population cycle. Are generations really demographic pulses as you describe? I thought they were just artificial cutoffs.
  - rcme 3y ago
    > This seems to imply a boom and bust population cycle. There is literally a generation called "baby boomer." And, their children are called millennials.
    - foobarbecue 3y ago
      Right. I had learned that boomers were a democratic pulse caused by the end of WWII and resulting period of prosperity. This thread is teaching me that there is at least one echo of that pulse in the US (millennials). I'm not convinced that humans are r-strategists, though, or that there's an intrinsic generational oscillation in our total population. Should I be?
  - SECProto 3y ago
    > Are generations really demographic pulses as you describe? Here[1] is the US population pyramid. You can clearly see the small increases and decreases at various ages - a demographic pulse, as you said. There is a significant decline in the echo currently at ~14 in that image. I would note that early adulthood tends to bring in more immigration (people moving for university and staying), so I wouldn't read too much into it at this point. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USA_Population_Pyramid.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USA_Population_Pyramid.sv...
neogodless 3y ago
Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35973882 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35973882 Americans have never been so unwilling to relocate for a new job (bloomberg.com - 407 points, 781 comments, 4 days ago, based on same source: Challenger, Gray & Christmas)
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
drivebycomment 3y ago
No longer want to, or can not ? Same result, very different causes.
cwp 3y ago
Good. We really need to find a better model than "Ok, everybody move to NY/SF/LA". Yes, getting everybody in a room together is the best way to collaborate, but the cost of it is too high in just about every other dimension.
- chadcmulligan 3y ago
  > getting everybody in a room together is the best way to collaborate Is there any hard evidence for this? I've worked with people all over the world regularly and never had a problem collaborating. Or are we talking non tech people? Communicating tech remotely I find preferable to in meetings, it gives you time to think and analyse.
  - tomohelix 3y ago
    The current surge of WFH is a pretty new phenomenon. Might need some extra time before any concrete data is coming out. Theoretically, there is no reason for a worker to be less productive at home than in the office. But that is assuming the worker is fully devoted to work and not have other higher priorities, such as housework, friends, etc. Also, the fact that there is a subreddit for people teaching each other how to coast and artificially inflate their "productivity" just so they can hold multiple jobs (read 3 or more) at the same time means there are real problems with letting people do whatever they want at home.
  - cwp 3y ago
    I don't know if scientists are studying this - given recent trends they ought to be. But if experience counts, then yeah, there is. I've done a lot of work remotely, in person and on teams where some people were remote and others colocated. If you have a hard problem and you need to apply several brains to it, then you can't beat working together in person. Two or three people in a room with their laptops, a table, a whiteboard, a couch and a door that closes. It's miraculous. In person meetings are really good for getting everybody on the same page. You develop a shared vision, build relationships, and create group cohesion that can really improve everybody's productivity. It's very good for kicking off a new company, project, cultural shift or what have you. Once you've established that group identity, you don't need to be in-person all the time. Remote work is fine for day-to-day product development and operations. It usually allows people to concentrate better than open-plan offices. But that's not improved collaboration, it's improved individual productivity. And note that I didn't say in-person meetings are better than remote meetings in general. Typically that's not collaboration either, it's coordination. All of which is to say that if you're precise and narrow in your definitions, yeah, there's pretty hard evidence that in-person collaboration is better. But remote is fine for most tech work, and probably an even higher portion of general white-collar work. I'm glad that people are refusing to move, because that will help us develop a better model for remote work - a true distributed organization rather than "just like the office, but on zoom". At a societal level, we really really need this to work, and I think we should be willing to accept a small, medium-term hit to productivity while we figure it out.
Krisjohn 3y ago
When the wealthy classes "move" they often don't give up any of the existing locations, they ADD to the places that they have a base. They don't really move, yet they think everyone else should and have no problem saying it loudly. When a working class family moves, they have to give up one home for the next. They leave behind friends, family and their support network. If it's for work, they're risking the new role vanishing out from under them at any moment, even before they've started, but certainly before the move has paid for itself. The wealthy can survive many mistakes and much bad luck. The working class can't survive a single negative event in their financial lives. They're not refusing to move because they want to inconvenience businesses. They're trapped. The wealthy wanted them trapped so they had a workforce that would work for poverty wages, and this is the result. You want workers where you need them, you're going to need to pay them more. Much more.
Mountain_Skies 3y ago
If you've locked in a mortgage at 3%, moving can create a large increase in your housing cost that spans decades. Since layoffs, mergers, bankruptcies, etc are common, it's unlikely the job you moved for will come anywhere near outlasting your mortgage, so you still end up paying a higher housing price long after the job that instigated that cost increase is gone.

7 points by lxm 3y ago

I feel like we kind of never really did, but we were willing to tolerate it. Now, the places that they want to move us are pretty freaking awful, and I'm used to the rut I've built.

shams93 3y ago

These kind of articles always assume people have choices. Its never been harder to move, it was more economically viable for a working person to move in 1854 than 2023.

Kamq 3y ago
> Its never been harder to move The water at the new place won't give you dysentery in 2023. And even if it does, we have treatments for it.
- pasquinelli 3y ago
  oh cool i guess i can afford to move after all.

jleyank 3y ago

Decades ago, a couple might have a mix of professional and clerical/educational workers. Such couples could (easily) move because the "other" spouse could probably find work in a month give or take. Real estates tended not to be ill-liquid so bridge loans were available to assist the new purchase. Unless there were kids, particularly teenaged kids, no problem. Now, there's way fewer "other" jobs, real estate is less liquid, remote jobs are available and there's less interest to move into undesirable areas than in the previous century. Also, tech areas have sprung up on more cities, making it possible to get a pertinent job without moving and without WFH. Sux to be a company in these times if they're not being flexible.

rcme 3y ago

A lot of these "trends" can easily be explained by the fact that millennials, aka the largest generation in the U.S., are aging. When they were young, many were willing to move. Now that they're older, many are no longer willing to move. The younger generation (Gen Z) is smaller, so, measured proportionally, fewer overall are willing to move.

foobarbecue 3y ago
This seems to imply a boom and bust population cycle. Are generations really demographic pulses as you describe? I thought they were just artificial cutoffs.
- rcme 3y ago
  > This seems to imply a boom and bust population cycle. There is literally a generation called "baby boomer." And, their children are called millennials.
  - foobarbecue 3y ago
    Right. I had learned that boomers were a democratic pulse caused by the end of WWII and resulting period of prosperity. This thread is teaching me that there is at least one echo of that pulse in the US (millennials). I'm not convinced that humans are r-strategists, though, or that there's an intrinsic generational oscillation in our total population. Should I be?
- SECProto 3y ago
  > Are generations really demographic pulses as you describe? Here[1] is the US population pyramid. You can clearly see the small increases and decreases at various ages - a demographic pulse, as you said. There is a significant decline in the echo currently at ~14 in that image. I would note that early adulthood tends to bring in more immigration (people moving for university and staying), so I wouldn't read too much into it at this point. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USA_Population_Pyramid.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USA_Population_Pyramid.sv...

neogodless 3y ago

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35973882 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35973882 Americans have never been so unwilling to relocate for a new job (bloomberg.com - 407 points, 781 comments, 4 days ago, based on same source: Challenger, Gray & Christmas)

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

drivebycomment 3y ago

No longer want to, or can not ? Same result, very different causes.

cwp 3y ago

Good. We really need to find a better model than "Ok, everybody move to NY/SF/LA". Yes, getting everybody in a room together is the best way to collaborate, but the cost of it is too high in just about every other dimension.

chadcmulligan 3y ago
> getting everybody in a room together is the best way to collaborate Is there any hard evidence for this? I've worked with people all over the world regularly and never had a problem collaborating. Or are we talking non tech people? Communicating tech remotely I find preferable to in meetings, it gives you time to think and analyse.
- tomohelix 3y ago
  The current surge of WFH is a pretty new phenomenon. Might need some extra time before any concrete data is coming out. Theoretically, there is no reason for a worker to be less productive at home than in the office. But that is assuming the worker is fully devoted to work and not have other higher priorities, such as housework, friends, etc. Also, the fact that there is a subreddit for people teaching each other how to coast and artificially inflate their "productivity" just so they can hold multiple jobs (read 3 or more) at the same time means there are real problems with letting people do whatever they want at home.
- cwp 3y ago
  I don't know if scientists are studying this - given recent trends they ought to be. But if experience counts, then yeah, there is. I've done a lot of work remotely, in person and on teams where some people were remote and others colocated. If you have a hard problem and you need to apply several brains to it, then you can't beat working together in person. Two or three people in a room with their laptops, a table, a whiteboard, a couch and a door that closes. It's miraculous. In person meetings are really good for getting everybody on the same page. You develop a shared vision, build relationships, and create group cohesion that can really improve everybody's productivity. It's very good for kicking off a new company, project, cultural shift or what have you. Once you've established that group identity, you don't need to be in-person all the time. Remote work is fine for day-to-day product development and operations. It usually allows people to concentrate better than open-plan offices. But that's not improved collaboration, it's improved individual productivity. And note that I didn't say in-person meetings are better than remote meetings in general. Typically that's not collaboration either, it's coordination. All of which is to say that if you're precise and narrow in your definitions, yeah, there's pretty hard evidence that in-person collaboration is better. But remote is fine for most tech work, and probably an even higher portion of general white-collar work. I'm glad that people are refusing to move, because that will help us develop a better model for remote work - a true distributed organization rather than "just like the office, but on zoom". At a societal level, we really really need this to work, and I think we should be willing to accept a small, medium-term hit to productivity while we figure it out.

Krisjohn 3y ago

When the wealthy classes "move" they often don't give up any of the existing locations, they ADD to the places that they have a base. They don't really move, yet they think everyone else should and have no problem saying it loudly. When a working class family moves, they have to give up one home for the next. They leave behind friends, family and their support network. If it's for work, they're risking the new role vanishing out from under them at any moment, even before they've started, but certainly before the move has paid for itself. The wealthy can survive many mistakes and much bad luck. The working class can't survive a single negative event in their financial lives. They're not refusing to move because they want to inconvenience businesses. They're trapped. The wealthy wanted them trapped so they had a workforce that would work for poverty wages, and this is the result. You want workers where you need them, you're going to need to pay them more. Much more.

Mountain_Skies 3y ago

If you've locked in a mortgage at 3%, moving can create a large increase in your housing cost that spans decades. Since layoffs, mergers, bankruptcies, etc are common, it's unlikely the job you moved for will come anywhere near outlasting your mortgage, so you still end up paying a higher housing price long after the job that instigated that cost increase is gone.