The Wall Street Journal reports Fewer Americans Uproot Themselves for New Jobs.
Fewer Americans are moving around the country to pursue new work opportunities, as a tighter labor market and changing family ties make people less willing to uproot their lives for a job.
About 3.5 million Americans relocated for a new job last year, according to census data, a 10% drop from 3.8 million in 2015. The numbers have fluctuated between 2.8 million and 4.5 million since the government started tracking job-related relocations in 1999—but have been trending lower overall, even as the U.S. population grew by nearly 20% over that stretch.
The share of job seekers relocating for new employment has fallen dramatically since the late 1980s, when more than a third moved to take new opportunities elsewhere, according to surveys from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. In the 1990s, job-related moves ebbed and flowed between 20% and 35%, then fell below 20% after 2000. Roughly 10% of job seekers relocated for new opportunities in the first half of this year, Challenger said.
Not on the Move
Why?
- Cost of housing or rent in relocated areas
- Local work is available
- Need for kids to stay close to their aging parents
- Kids living at home have no-cost lodging
- Skimpy relocation packages
- Concerns about how long the next gig will last
Add it all up and it simply is not worth the disruption.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
The problem is that when you move to high cost of living areas, they think they don’t have to pay you so much because you are used to earning less. When you move to low cost of living areas, they lowball you because “it’s cheap here” (but not really). Specifically in one instance, I noted a particular notable midwest city with “low cost of living” but once you get past the sticker price of housing and gas and groceries, you realize you are going to get soaked on state income tax and healthcare. Their flattened tax structure will increase our state bill by thousands. Relatives in the area talk about spending a few hundred dollars here and there out of pocket for medical visits and drugs under their PPOs while we spend $10-25 per visit and nothing for meds while paying the same or lower premiums then they do!!! And it isn’t just because I have good insurance, I’ve had insurance like this at every job where I live. On top of that you’ll pay more for energy even though the per unit cost is lower because you’ll require more heating and cooling… after thoroughly looking into the matter I have new appreciation for why people we know seem to struggle to get by there.
I recently filled 3 IT jobs. 1 was a replacement hire. Everyone I hired lived nearby and were US citizens. They were all looking for a job closer to home. I think 2 of them were over 50. Almost all the younger people I interviewed had attitude issues. They wanted to dictate what they worked on. I wished them good luck with that and ended the interview on the spot.
Just saying that there are plenty of jobs available doesn’t say anything about the quality of those jobs. Nobody is going to move for a job stacking inventory at Lowes. And nobody is going to move to San Francisco and pay $4000/month rent for a $75,000/year job. This isn’t the America of the great industrialists anymore.
From excuses I’ve been given and excuses I’ve heard around the office, employers have rejected candidates because:
1.) Not local, and would try finding a better paying job in the closest major city.
2.) had no intention of hiring anyone, the job was posted so they could claim no available talent and bring in H1B visa worker or comply with rules about posting a position even though an internal candidate had been selected.
3.) big companies view a history of contracting as a liability for permanent positions. It’s a hypocrisy that amounts to a double standard of loyalty, or they want people with little self-esteem who won’t reveal the management team doesn’t really know what it’s doing.
4.) big companies have a quota of race/color/creed/gender to meet even though the selected candidate would not be as cost effective a someone who really knew how to do the job.
5.) big companies discriminate by age, so its not worth trying to make a move to another company.
Re: Skimpy relocation packages:
When I graduated college in the late ’90s, my first gig paid for my relocation AND gave me not one, but two signing bonuses. They sent two guys and a moving truck and drove my furniture 2.5 hours to the new town. Once I was there, my first paycheck had a few extra thousand in it with no strings attached. Sure, the bonuses were taxed at the highest bracket, but I could leave the company immediately and still keep them. It was like being a banker! Unfortunately those days are gone forever for “lowly” IT people.
Nowadays I have much more experience and I hardly know anyone who gets fully (or even partially) paid relocation. Any transition assistance is geared toward H1Bs to help them set up. Still, I feel sorry for a lot of those guys since their managers often take advantage of their tenuous visa status to treat them like garbage. Ah, glorious corporate America.
Ha! Yeah the good old days. In 1992, I got fully relocated across the country from NJ to SF Bay Area. They packed my boxes, loaded the truck, put my car on the truck and sent everything west. Put me up in a hotel for 30 days and gave me assistance to find a permanent place to live. Gave me money for my security deposit on the apartment I rented and then paid any extra taxes I was going to owe.
20 years later I was forced into retirement because I was too old for tech companies here.
Yep. They reap what they sow. My last employer is regretting letting me go and debating bringing me back as a consultant. But my price went up after I found this out
So all the talk of migration out of states like California and New York turns out not to be true. An interviewer told me this week they were getting a lot of resumes from out of state for the job in Northern California but few locally. But refuse to bring me in for an interview as I was deemed too senior. I’ve been unemployed for 20 weeks now and there is no sign of light even in this economy. Jobs are out there but employers find a reason not to fill jobs. I believe in many cases the jobs actually aren’t real openings as when I attempt to trace down people I know in the departments of the openings say there is no funding for new openings.
This is part of why modern employment data cannot be taken seriously. Some of the jobs listed aren’t necessarily openings in any traditional sense as companies are happy to leave them unfilled indefinitely unless the perfect candidate appears. I’ve also worked in companies where numerous managers are desperate to fill advertised positions but HR will drag their feet for an eternity with blessings from above.
Also, why are 167M Americans considered to be outside the labor force entirely? The BLS would have you believe we’re mostly a country of retirees and children.
I’ve always wondered why someone doesn’t start a company for age 40+ only? Per federal age discrimination rules, you ARE allowed to specify that employees must be over age 40 but you can’t specify that they be UNDER an age Like 40 or 35 or even 30).
Health insurance would kill you
+1
Same reason even single 40+s are reluctant to join paid-in-equity-and-ramen startups. Most have them have finally managed to entrench themselves in a position that provides health insurance; and are an age where going without starts worrying them, hence highly unlikely to want to leave.
Health insurance is another reason to hire seniors. Keep your Medicare and the company hiring you saves a lot of money monthly!
In today’s US economy most employers treat their employees like *hit. As consumers we bear the brunt of the crappy service and products that result from this.
The treat them exactly as shitty as they can get away with. Just like they always have. They can just get away with much more now, than earlier.
Idiocies such as employer provided health insurance, combined with ever higher cost of health care, render employees much more captive than before.
Increased money printing, has resulted in the most important thing for business and business owners, is to get hold of their share of the loot the Fed is stealing from everyone via debasement. Rendering the contribution of employees less important.
Ever stricter regulation, and ever more laws concerning every facet of hiring someone, has rendered competition for employees lower.
Excessive, often comically so, intellectual property laws, again prevents people from setting up competitive shops and poaching poorly treated employees.
Ditto excessive rents, resulting from zero competition in the real estate market.
Like every other problem in the currently dystopian west; this one can too be traced straight back to lack of freedom. People de facto free to route around those they feel treat them badly, wont be treated badly. But when they are instead held captive, by the needs of an incompetent, non productive ruling and owner class to seek ever more unearned rent to sustain themselves…. well, shit is what you get. I’m sure the indentured of the similar Feudal era, weren’t treated all that well either. And for the same reason: They weren’t allowed to simply leave and set up competing shop next door, and poaching other indentured with the promise of slightly better working conditions.
“…concerns about how long the next gig will last…”
This one explains a lot of trends/phenomena regarding work/employment these days. Workers crave full-time employment, but they are no longer willing to pre-pay loyalty or uproot their families “for the job”. Employers can’t/don’t offer loyalty or promises anymore, and so employees have no choice but to ‘return the favor’, so to speak…
I believe that and housing are the key reasons
I’ve found that the further you live from the interview, the higher the salary offered. I guess they are trying to compensate for that reluctance to move.