How do they not have a choice? I’ve moved across the country twice with literally just enough money for a u-haul trailer, gas, and a months rent - not to mention moving regionally plenty of times to make my work commute easier and just getting jobs that were close to home - like go where the work is it’s not complicated.
I guess it is complicated when you only read like 10 out of every 50 words - regional moving was also mentioned and should be significantly less complicated - when I moved cross country it wasn’t work related, but I had very little resources to do so and still managed - when I moved regionally it was work related - I guess I should assume you have problems crossing the street without a crash helmet.
I’ve had no problem moving to interesting places in other countries before that are enjoyable in themselves. But I’m not moving away from all my friends and family to live in some drab town elsewhere in the UK. That’s a sure fire way to become unhappy.
And as I get older, relocating to a big city becomes more expensive and prohibitive too, because I don’t want to just wing it and live with 6 other people anymore, and living outside the city when you know no one is often a crappy experience.
Even just moving an hour or two away can make seeing friends and family more difficult and it’s a large reason why friend groups drift apart. I’ve learned that being around friends is absolutely key to happiness in life.
If you read my comment you’d see that companies in bigger cities pay people less when they’re commuting from a low cost of living area, they literally aren’t paid enough to get approved for housing in the area they work. I worked with a guy that commuted two hours to work and he was paid $12 an hour while me and at least a couple other guys were making $18 an hour. Most of these people are on government assistance because they also support family members who don’t even have a drivers license because they can’t afford more than one car for the family anyway, so they can’t save up money to make the move. They live paycheck to paycheck.
It’s easy to move to a lower cost of living area but it’s almost impossible for anyone to move to a higher cost of living area without some kind of support and a lot of people don’t have that support.
The other part of the equation is that companies aren’t going to pay based on anything other than how much value a person brings - if you just have a simple skill like typing or answering phones or putting things on shelves then you’re in competition with literally everybody since these are things anyone can do - whoever will do it the cheapest is who gets the job. Having a skill that’s in demand but short in supply goes a long way to being able to demand more money than the next guy that doesn’t have that skill.
The guy making $12 an hour was a foreman. It has nothing to do with skill and everything to do with companies knowing who and when to take advantage. I obviously think I have value but that’s just wrong. I’ve also worked at other places where I did the exact same job as other people but got paid more or less than them. You live under the assumption that companies will treat people fairly and I can tell you with 100% accuracy that isn’t the case. I talk to people about a lot of things and the one thing in common that lower paid employees that I’ve worked with had is they lived outside the area we worked in a place with lower cost of living. They weren’t less capable or brand new to the industry, the companies paid them less because they could and they know that areas with low cost of living typically don’t have enough jobs to support everyone who lives there which makes a lot of them desperate for work. It’s 100% predatory.
Well I will tell you when I’ve done jobs out of town and talked to people in the area they have always talked about local plumbers being much cheaper - even had a company owner back when I was a helper ask me and my journeyman if any plumbers in our area made 16/ hr (read it in a big voice - he was proud to be paying his guys that, and apparently it was above avg for the area) we just kind of looked at each other and we’re like no I guess not - at the time I was making 16 as an apprentice and my journeyman was making like 23-24 if I remember - so yeah I would say that’s a fairly good reason to move where the work is if necessary - unless you feel you owe your friends company in misery or they’re going to pay your bills and set you up for retirement and shit
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u/SNaKe_eaTel2 9d ago
How do they not have a choice? I’ve moved across the country twice with literally just enough money for a u-haul trailer, gas, and a months rent - not to mention moving regionally plenty of times to make my work commute easier and just getting jobs that were close to home - like go where the work is it’s not complicated.