Comment by lovich
3 days ago
Are there jobs in those cities who sit in an area named after their economic collapse?
Do student loan costs go down if you move to a low cost of living area?
We had some movement in the direction of people immigrating to low cost areas like that with the rise of remote work, but then execs decided they didn’t like not having control over their workers live and did RTO. To their offices in the cities with high rent and home prices.
You never heard about people taking that “great deal” because it’s not a great deal. Like really, you think there’s money left on the table like that and there’s not at least some low double digit percentage of the population that would have sought out the benefit? Or is it more likely the market evaluated the option and it’s not good
It's very rich when people who are likely 15-20+ years in their career in San Franscisco are telling the modern youth to just "move to Alabama". As if they can just find a cushy tech job in a market that is using RTO's to force layoffs.
People this detached really need to spend a few days on linkedIn applying to jobs. Not with their connection, but through those horrible workday portals and thousands of apps turned in after an hour of the post.
Perhaps you were unaware but there are good jobs in industries outside technology. And if you want a tech job, well there are quite a few in Alabama. Some of them are centered around the Marshall Space Flight Center.
Cool. So lemme just take 4 more years of school for 3x what I paid for back in the day and I'll be good to work at those non-tech jobs. Tough luck to those new grads who didn't have 4 years of foresight (or me who is already a decade into my career).
>if you want a tech job, well there are quite a few in Alabama
Hiring or "had a job up for 2 years but seemingly can't find nobody"?
Seriously. Try applying to some of these jobs and see how far you get. It's tough out there. it's not like 2015 where half your apps get a response.
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Could you export a few of those to Louisiana?
I didn't say move to Alabama. Try Shaker Heights, Ohio. Believe it or not, there are jobs in a metro area with 2 million people in a variety of industries.
Of course there are jobs in these places. Some of these metro areas have 2 million people. They aren't just digging though the mud in the midwest like peasants in monty python. Student loans aren't so high if you went in state.
Exactly. Do people want to live in desirable areas? Absolutely. The much bigger draw to expensive metros, however, are the vastly more robust job prospects that come with those areas.
In a city, you have both much better chances of finding employment suited to your skills specifically, better chances of being paid well for it, and better chances of upwards mobility. Plus, should it become necessary you're more likely to be able to find something to keep the bills paid with even if it's not what you'd like to be doing.
Low CoL areas by contrast come with scant employment that's generally poorly compensated and almost always has a low ceiling.
In some cases one can commute into the city for work and live in LCoL area, but then you're burning time — multiple hours each day, usually — that you'll never get back on your employer instead of yourself or with your family, plus the myriad expenses that come with driving that far and often.
Which skills do you mean? If you're talking about skills in software development or investment banking then that might be true. But skills in welding or nursing can be applied anywhere.
Being capable of being applied everywhere doesn't mean they are compensated the same when comparing any two locations.
Even if that wasn't a factor and both locations paid the same, a dense city with many employers gives you a much better chance of finding a job when needed or seeking out better opportunities if you are being ambitious.
I grew up in one of these "great deal" towns with 2-3 employers that had more than 10 employees. Anyone who had a bad interaction with a single employer, which included asking for a raise, was blacklisted from employment and effectively homeless if they didn't leave town looking for work.
Whenever I visit my parents back home I notice how there appears to be no one in the town in their 20s to early 30s. Its either retirees or older parents who moved there to give their kids a country experience.
The few people I've kept in contact from growing up who are in that town currently make less money than an entry level McDonald's does near the city, and are only able to survive due to the help from their parents either in the form of free room and board or direct subsidizing.
Smaller areas have less hospitals and defense contractors. Nurses and Welders will be affected from the move too unless they already line something up.
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70k goes a lot further in these places than 170k does in a high cost of living area that is for sure. And 70k jobs aren't so hard to find in these places if you are college educated. You can easily pull that in sales. In management. There are consulting offices in these places. Yes, some tech. Jobs where you can make a whole lot more than 70k. Healthcare. Law. Consulting. Real estate. Finance. Accounting. Yes even manufacturing is still present at a certain scale. There are still a few steel mills and these days they employ mostly high skilled engineers. Still a need for pretty much all disciplines of engineering in these places in various sectors.
People think all there is to do is work in a waffle house in the shadow of a closed steel mill, but really these are cities that by definition need a somewhat diversified economy to even function as a city at all. They have all the various pieces that make a city a city and a region a region. Sorry, not much startups, but that's about the only exception, truly, and may not even be the case adjacent to the state flagship universities.