
 Why Americans Are Moving Less: New Jobs Aren't Worth It  - jrs235
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2014/04/why-americans-are-moving-less-new-jobs-arent-worth-it/8973/
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mapt
The rapid rise in dual-income households goes unnoticed, despite being
inordinately important to this question. Intergenerational caretaking (of
parents/grandparents, or of children/grandchildren) goes unnoticed. Overall
labor participation (an inverse first-choice proxy for Actual Real-Life
Unemployment) isn't broken out as a term. The incredible rise in housing
prices relative to stagnant or falling early-career wages (and the fact that
much of the country is paying off their housing at the lower prices of
mortgages made decades in the past) isn't broken out as a term.

~~~
pash
"The authors explore several competing explanations to the joint declines in
residential and labor market mobility, including _changes within the housing
market_ , the decline in higher paying manufacturing jobs, the polarization of
the job market, and the _rise of dual-career households_ , but find little
empirical support for them."

~~~
001sky
This intuitively is flawed. If you offer me more money in a place with
expensive housing, the decision is based on the joint NPV(x|y) wher x is an
income vector and y is a cost vector. Likewise, a single job offer is going to
be only 1/2 of the x vector. On its faces, a new job offer for a two income
household stream would be 1/2 as implactful as under a 1 income scenario. That
is not even counting doing the joint probability of x=xa+xb when xb has to
change because xa'=/=xa. These variables are also non-observable, so without
actually reading the study its implausible to consider them well accounted for
IMHO.

Similarly, there is a lot of technical overhead when dealing with housing
costs in relation to work opportunities. Each opportunity has to be considered
in relation to the balance sheet, not the income stream. Most 100k jobs lose
30k to taxes and 30k to expenses each year (at a minimum) netting 30k of
savings. But many US metro's where 100K jobs are prevealent have homes with
average prices edging north of 10x 100k. So, that is 30 years of net saving--a
hugely consequential trajectory for a NAV calculation. So, if you have assets
invested in a hot housing market, it will take more than just a good job offer
in another area to get you to move. because moving reduces your exposure to a
market that is equally if not more consequential to your NAV than your Job.
Unlike the stock market, you can't just keep the same portfolio of residential
RE as you move about.

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beachstartup
we've recently hired 2 well paid tech workers to work 100% remotely. 10 (5?)
years ago they would have had to move. now they don't. in fact, it never even
came up. we only wanted one thing - their skills and experience.

also, more people are commuting via plane or long drive from monday-thursday.
companies in wealthier areas can easily cover airfare and hotel for the
difference in the price of living - it can be very cheap if you purchase
everything ahead of time, like < $2k/month or $24k/year which could easily
cover the difference in pay and expenses from, let's say, new york to western
pennsylvania or LA to Oregon (on a $150k salary vs. $200k salary that's still
a $26k/year savings - no brainer). it happens more with consultants but it
also happens with very senior employees i.e. VP level and above.

i don't mean this to be facetious at all but i think the general development
and adoption of easy and effective (this stuff didn't actually work until a
few years ago!) audio and video conferencing in the past few years makes this
all possible. a face to face conversation can be had over the weekend if
your'e the boss, or any time during the week if you're a parent.

~~~
x0x0
what is your company? am looking for remote data scientist position

~~~
davidw
I thought data scientists had to be in San Francisco by virtue of them being
statisticians elsewhere :-)

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ryandrake
I wonder how it breaks down by age, years experience, or industry. As a
programmer, when I was younger and less experienced, I could hop from job to
job from region to region and get pretty nice bumps in salary each time. My
last two job changes however have come with pretty much no change (probably
negative when you consider cost of living). As you get more experienced, you
definitely run into a salary ceiling, and it no longer becomes worth uprooting
your family and moving every four years.

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jbellis
The incentives in unemployment benefits mitigate against relocation:
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/unemployment-
benefits...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/unemployment-benefits-
should-encourage-geographic-
mobility/2013/04/12/c84880be-a382-11e2-82bc-511538ae90a4_story.html)

~~~
delinka
Can this be extrapolated into what the employment landscape would look like
with a minimum income for all? If unemployment benefits mitigate against
relocation, would minimum income mitigate against even seeking a job?

One acquaintance I have suggests removing people from her stack of applicants
would be a good thing - those remaining would probably have more of a tendency
to be the kind of reliable employee she seeks.

~~~
fennecfoxen
I think most serious economists would agree that unemployment benefits of any
sort mitigate against seeking jobs.

I don't mean this in an ideological "if you don't agree you're not serious"
sense, I actually think I've seen a very similar question in a paper titled
something like _Where is there Consensus among American Economists? A survey
of 40 Propositions_ \- there are several dangerously-similarly-titled papers
though and I don't have the tools or motivation to look them up right now.
(JSTOR etc). It's pretty well-predicted by theory and I believe that there
exist studies that back it up a little.

Of course the real question, as most in economics, isn't an all-or-nothing
proposition, but a marginal one: _How much_ unemployment benefit maximizes the
utility experienced by society? Would spending more of our national resources
on these benefits, or spending less, help or hinder our current situation?

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jasonkester
Yet another article about a broad negative economic trend that completely
skips the entire software industry. We truly are blessed.

Developers are moving less because it's becoming easier to work remotely. So
sure, go nuts and move your head office to Pittsburgh. We can telecommute
there as quickly as we can to Palo Alto.

Paradoxically for me, this means I've actually been moving _more_ lately. With
no fixed office to tie me down, I'm free to explore the boundaries of
"remote."

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the_watcher
As someone who is moving states to take advantage of a major career
opportunity, I'm interested to see what others here feel about this study.

~~~
jrs235
Are you in a committed relationship? If so, does your SO have a job or are
they able to relocate easily too?

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fit2rule
Frankly, I'm glad to hear it. When I lived in the US, I counted a number of
times where I'd go visit some friends or colleagues at their place, only to
discover they lived cold, segregated lives, because "they're always moving and
never had time to unpack" .. its a matter of comfort, I guess, but I was never
comfortable hanging with my American' friends homes after they'd just moved -
and they sure moved around a lot, 6 months on average ..

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up_and_up
Watch remote working become the next big trend.

Cost of living is also a factor since relocating to a more expensive area is
no longer generally worth unless the new salary is way higher. Kids and home
ownership would make it very unlikely I would relocate to somewhere likely SF
even for double my current income.

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IanDrake
When I was a kid I never knew of anyone who drove more than one town away for
work. Now, I only know a few people that actually work in the same town they
live. I think the willingness to commute plays a role in this too.

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a3n
Maybe attractive jobs are more evenly distributed than before, or maybe
attractive jobs/areas have already attracted most of what they need and so
don't signal as loudly.

