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Rural Australia also just has a desirability problem. Rural towns regularly offer significantly above market rate for GPs and teachers, but rarely ever fill the

Rural Australia also just has a desirability problem. Rural towns regularly offer significantly above market rate for GPs and teachers, but rarely ever fill the posts.

kjkjadksj 1y ago
Sounds like they aren't actually market rate if the labor market is rejecting the prices at those levels.
- Teever 1y ago
  Or there are some locations where markets just breakdown because the environmental factors overwhelm whatever salaries you offer.
  - collinmcnulty 1y ago
    Offshore oil rigs beg to differ. For almost any set of circumstances, there’s a salary that will entice people to fill the role. They just don’t want to shell out the mid six figure salary that would be required. It’s only a “breakdown” because we collectively feel entitled to have people fill the role but don’t want to actually pay what it costs.
    - Teever 1y ago
      Salary is only part of the equation. Offshore oil rigs deal in billions of dollars worth of hydrocarbons per day. The revenues make it feasible to offer high salaries and still generate massive returns. Many rural locations just aren't economically productive to justify the kinds of salaries necessary to draw people to them.
      - nucleardog 1y ago
        If we take for granted that "farm requires farmers, farmers require doctor", then the doctor should charge whatever market rate is for someone to work there, and the farmers should be paying that, drawing that from salary from the farm business, and that should be priced into the cost of the farm business's output? Why can't the farms increase prices to support a basic quality-of-life for those living there? I don't disagree there's some breakdown of the market here, but I'm not sure that saying "well there's not enough money coming in to the area" isn't stopping a step short.
        jvanderbot 1y ago
        I think farmers don't set their own prices, (there's nuance, but not really). They haul to middlemen who pay what they pay. Sometimes they even sell to transport companies / truckers that buy it to haul it to middlemen, both of whom pay what they can pay. In that setting, the "regional" middlemen have the power to set prices, not the farmers, so a distant farmer from a poor community has no leverage over what teachers are paid in their community. Generally speaking, I think almost all locally-produced, distributed industries work this way, by aggregating many producers the middleman has a ton of power to set prices, but of course is subject to the prices set by the next tier up, all the way to the commodities exchange, from what I can tell. Anyway, this "averaging over a large area" ruins local economic efficiency.
      - kjkjadksj 1y ago
        Doesn’t Australia also deal in billions in mineral revenue in these remote locations? Seems the money is in the area just the revenues aren’t being captured in a way to fund the teaching.
    - concats 1y ago
      Human entitlement really is the bane of game theory.
  - csomar 1y ago
    There is always a price. At the right price, someone will go to teach in a war zone. This is not a hypothetical either, Libya has expats from the West to this day.
  - lelanthran 1y ago
    > Or there are some locations where markets just breakdown because the environmental factors overwhelm whatever salaries you offer. There's literally no such thing - I wanna see an example! The given scenario is not an example, because you can simply raise the offering until people take you up on it! I mean, you can ask people to work in high-risk life-threatening environments and people will take you up on that offer IFFF the offer is high enough! Want someone to work on a seabed? In an oil rig away from home for 9/12 months? In arctic conditions away from home for 3 years at a time? That's all happening right now. Hell, you could put out an advertisement for volunteers on a one-way trip to Mars and you'll still get those positions filled! If you cannot get teachers to move to a rural area, you are doing something wrong.[1] [1] Where I am right now, I'll take that offer given a good enough salary and long enough contract. Many older teachers, maybe 10 years from retirement, will happily sell up and semi-retire to teach a few more years renting in a rural area before actual retirement. If they aren't doing it, it's because the offer is too low.
- samrus 1y ago
  Markets often dont model the real world well
  - savanaly 1y ago
    Isn't this a case of the market modeling it very well though? It's very undesirable to live somewhere, so wages offered are elevated. The posts aren't filled though, because the wages aren't elevated enough. Occasionally someone who really doesn't mind living out there does come along and take the elevated wages, but mostly the posts go empty. The market is revealing that there's no coincidence of wants [0], and correctly allocating fewer people to the posts. If by "reality" we mean a world where these posts are filled despite costing more to fill than they're worth to someone then yes, markets aren't modeling reality well. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coincidence_of_wants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coincidence_of_wants
    - red-iron-pine 1y ago
      i've lived and worked in very rural Australia. like 6 hours from anything rural. fun adventure as a young man, for a year. but you couldn't get me back out there for $1 million AUD per annum now. sure, there is a price that I'd eventually say yes to, but there is no reality where you can offer $5MM for teachers or hairdressers.
      - kjkjadksj 1y ago
        People are offered far less than that to work on oil rigs or truck in remote alaska. Long work shifts too where you live in company housing for some time between getting to see your family. The jobs are pretty well compensated and people end up taking the deal to do rather dangerous pipeline associated work in the middle of nowhere. I’m sure people can be persuaded to teach public school in the desert for the right price.
        watwut 1y ago
        People do oil rig jobs for a while and then leave. Remote rural places are more frequent then oil rigs and you want the teachers to stay.

Rural Australia also just has a desirability problem. Rural towns regularly offer significantly above market rate for GPs and teachers, but rarely ever fill the posts.

kjkjadksj 1y ago

Sounds like they aren't actually market rate if the labor market is rejecting the prices at those levels.

Teever 1y ago
Or there are some locations where markets just breakdown because the environmental factors overwhelm whatever salaries you offer.
- collinmcnulty 1y ago
  Offshore oil rigs beg to differ. For almost any set of circumstances, there’s a salary that will entice people to fill the role. They just don’t want to shell out the mid six figure salary that would be required. It’s only a “breakdown” because we collectively feel entitled to have people fill the role but don’t want to actually pay what it costs.
  - Teever 1y ago
    Salary is only part of the equation. Offshore oil rigs deal in billions of dollars worth of hydrocarbons per day. The revenues make it feasible to offer high salaries and still generate massive returns. Many rural locations just aren't economically productive to justify the kinds of salaries necessary to draw people to them.
    - nucleardog 1y ago
      If we take for granted that "farm requires farmers, farmers require doctor", then the doctor should charge whatever market rate is for someone to work there, and the farmers should be paying that, drawing that from salary from the farm business, and that should be priced into the cost of the farm business's output? Why can't the farms increase prices to support a basic quality-of-life for those living there? I don't disagree there's some breakdown of the market here, but I'm not sure that saying "well there's not enough money coming in to the area" isn't stopping a step short.
      - jvanderbot 1y ago
        I think farmers don't set their own prices, (there's nuance, but not really). They haul to middlemen who pay what they pay. Sometimes they even sell to transport companies / truckers that buy it to haul it to middlemen, both of whom pay what they can pay. In that setting, the "regional" middlemen have the power to set prices, not the farmers, so a distant farmer from a poor community has no leverage over what teachers are paid in their community. Generally speaking, I think almost all locally-produced, distributed industries work this way, by aggregating many producers the middleman has a ton of power to set prices, but of course is subject to the prices set by the next tier up, all the way to the commodities exchange, from what I can tell. Anyway, this "averaging over a large area" ruins local economic efficiency.
    - kjkjadksj 1y ago
      Doesn’t Australia also deal in billions in mineral revenue in these remote locations? Seems the money is in the area just the revenues aren’t being captured in a way to fund the teaching.
  - concats 1y ago
    Human entitlement really is the bane of game theory.
- csomar 1y ago
  There is always a price. At the right price, someone will go to teach in a war zone. This is not a hypothetical either, Libya has expats from the West to this day.
- lelanthran 1y ago
  > Or there are some locations where markets just breakdown because the environmental factors overwhelm whatever salaries you offer. There's literally no such thing - I wanna see an example! The given scenario is not an example, because you can simply raise the offering until people take you up on it! I mean, you can ask people to work in high-risk life-threatening environments and people will take you up on that offer IFFF the offer is high enough! Want someone to work on a seabed? In an oil rig away from home for 9/12 months? In arctic conditions away from home for 3 years at a time? That's all happening right now. Hell, you could put out an advertisement for volunteers on a one-way trip to Mars and you'll still get those positions filled! If you cannot get teachers to move to a rural area, you are doing something wrong.[1] [1] Where I am right now, I'll take that offer given a good enough salary and long enough contract. Many older teachers, maybe 10 years from retirement, will happily sell up and semi-retire to teach a few more years renting in a rural area before actual retirement. If they aren't doing it, it's because the offer is too low.
samrus 1y ago
Markets often dont model the real world well
- savanaly 1y ago
  Isn't this a case of the market modeling it very well though? It's very undesirable to live somewhere, so wages offered are elevated. The posts aren't filled though, because the wages aren't elevated enough. Occasionally someone who really doesn't mind living out there does come along and take the elevated wages, but mostly the posts go empty. The market is revealing that there's no coincidence of wants [0], and correctly allocating fewer people to the posts. If by "reality" we mean a world where these posts are filled despite costing more to fill than they're worth to someone then yes, markets aren't modeling reality well. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coincidence_of_wants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coincidence_of_wants
  - red-iron-pine 1y ago
    i've lived and worked in very rural Australia. like 6 hours from anything rural. fun adventure as a young man, for a year. but you couldn't get me back out there for $1 million AUD per annum now. sure, there is a price that I'd eventually say yes to, but there is no reality where you can offer $5MM for teachers or hairdressers.
    - kjkjadksj 1y ago
      People are offered far less than that to work on oil rigs or truck in remote alaska. Long work shifts too where you live in company housing for some time between getting to see your family. The jobs are pretty well compensated and people end up taking the deal to do rather dangerous pipeline associated work in the middle of nowhere. I’m sure people can be persuaded to teach public school in the desert for the right price.
      - watwut 1y ago
        People do oil rig jobs for a while and then leave. Remote rural places are more frequent then oil rigs and you want the teachers to stay.