Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Let People Move to Jobs

jefftk.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 314 posts

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#111

Post by laputan_machine »

6c696e7578 wrote: post #109

I've never understood why with IT jobs in the UK that they're all centred around London. Especially when they then offshore bits of the company to India or Eastern/Southern Europe requiring contracted staff to use a VPN. It seems companies want staff onsite in London, purely for the enjoyment of making people commute there. This does no good for the environment other than help to conversion of fossil fuel into co². I…

There's a push to make less expensive northern cities (Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool) appealing for tech. London still has (and will do for the foreseeable future) the lion's share, but there plenty of good tech jobs up north.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#112

Post by Apocryphon »

kgwgk wrote: post #107
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of countries where the state owns and manages a substantial proportion of housing. As high as 34% in the Netherlands[1] for example. [1] http://www.iut.nu/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Social-Housing-...

Social housing associations in Netherlands are not owned or managed by the state.

Okay, how about Singapore?

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#113

Post by ozim »

neilwilson wrote: post #63

This argument has been made for decades. Isn't it about time we realised that people live somewhere amongst social capital they have built up throughout their lives. And therefore business capital should move where the people are - to avoid damaging that social capital. Not the other way around. Ultimately people work to live. Those who live to work are a tiny minority. With modern technology there is little excuse.…

Problem is that "business capital" is also the same as "social capital". Rich people have influence because they hang out with other rich people.

If you want to have startup you have to hang out with rich people so they invest in it or they buy your services. You don't want to have your company 10 hours or more away from customers.

It can argued that it does not matter as much for Google, but if you are a product owner of a "FizzBuzz maker", you need social capital with high ranking people in organization so they don't cut your budget. In the end it works the same, that you have to play golf with the right people so they trust you and don't cut your funding.

Of course, it is not enough just to hang out with right people. Don't get me wrong, because hanging out with people will validate all skills so if person doesn't deliver no one is going to hang out with such person.

There was an article on HN not long ago with a line "Talent is distributed equally. Opportunity is not.", because social capital in big cities is much more valuable than in country side. In terms of money, in terms of no one is going to talk to you, in big city you can find new friends easier.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#114

Post by icebraining »

neilwilson wrote: post #63

This argument has been made for decades. Isn't it about time we realised that people live somewhere amongst social capital they have built up throughout their lives. And therefore business capital should move where the people are - to avoid damaging that social capital. Not the other way around. Ultimately people work to live. Those who live to work are a tiny minority. With modern technology there is little excuse.…

> With modern technology there is little excuse. Fewer and fewer enterprises require physical concentration to operate.

True, but they're still a small minority of jobs; and those people will need/want services provided by workers of professions that do require physical presence, who will have an incentive to move away to big cities. So the only way to sustain that is to have a group of extremely highly paid remote workers, who can pay a premium to keep those other service workers in the area. Meanwhile, everyone who doesn't have a customer service job nor a remote one will move away, so you're left with a bifurcated pool of workers. Doesn't really sound like a great community to me.

The alternative is for remote workers to live mostly isolated from non-remote workers, but I can't see that spreading beyond a few exceptions.

EDIT: Now that I think of it, we already have those bifurcated communities, in the form of areas to where people with money move after retiring (which also frees them from the physical part of the job). I guess they're reasonably popular.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#115

Post by icebraining »

6c696e7578 wrote: post #109

I've never understood why with IT jobs in the UK that they're all centred around London. Especially when they then offshore bits of the company to India or Eastern/Southern Europe requiring contracted staff to use a VPN. It seems companies want staff onsite in London, purely for the enjoyment of making people commute there. This does no good for the environment other than help to conversion of fossil fuel into co². I…

> Especially when they then offshore bits of the company to India or Eastern/Southern Europe requiring contracted staff to use a VPN.

But that's the point, isn't it? If you're giving up on locality, you might as well hire someone cheap. The fact that they can commute into the office is one of the things keeping the salaries of UK workers higher.

In other words, be careful with what you wish for, you just might get it.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#116

Post by ozim »

Apocryphon wrote: post #100
ozim wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because remote is hard, if it would be just about typing code then yes you could live in igloo in Greenland. You need people who are able to work remotely together. It is not only about having really smart devs who can grasp how to do Y with tech Z. It is also about having really smart managers and really smart company owners. Building such a team takes years, it is not like you can hire 10 devs, a manager and dump l…

Just because it's hard doesn't mean it's worth trying. For an industry so ostensibly focused on innovation and experimentation, much of tech remains as conservative as any other in terms of trying out new ways of work. Though certainly there are some bright spots opening up to remote: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21764110 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19444960

This is a bit weird argument from my point of view.

I argued about that it is hard to get 100% remote companies with 100% remote positions. Nothing about no one should ever do it. If you have smart people who you trust, you can do it.

You bring up examples of companies that are doing remote work so someone is trying to do that. It works for them. Expecting every company to do it is not the way to go.

Every company should be doing what is best for them, based on people and possibilities they have. Just like Yahoo tried remote work and Merissa Mayer come up with remote work ban, not sure if it was good for company but that was their decision.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#117

Post by arendtio »

To me, it sounds as simple as everybody does what he thinks is best for him:

1. Companies are founded in the big cities, to have access to talent

2. People move to big cities to have access to better jobs

As long as the benefits outweigh the cost, the chances are small that anything changes...

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#118

Post by rightbyte »

lazyjones wrote: post #83
duxup wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would be great for Googlers ... kinda horrible for locals in KC who would still be making the same amount, and housing costs skyrocket.... funding sudden needed school expansions ... and so on... The economic and political messes of sudden expansion can be an absolute mess.

> kinda horrible for locals in KC who would still be making the same amount, and housing costs skyrocket Surely the locals already have their houses in KC and would benefit more than they'd suffer, as renters, sellers, shop owners.

What if you have kids or grandkids who have to move away far.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#119

Post by kgwgk »

Apocryphon wrote: post #112
kgwgk wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social housing associations in Netherlands are not owned or managed by the state.

Okay, how about Singapore?

https://boingboing.net/2018/03/11/capitalist-ideal.html

"Singapore is indeed a country where rich people run pretty much everything and where the finance sector holds primacy. It's also an autocracy run by a dynastic series of strongmen who have expropriated 90% of the land on behalf of the state, which owns nearly all the nation's housing, and whose sovereign wealth fund has a serious stake in most of the country's significant businesses.

"Singapore is a template for what China hopes to become: a state that uses surveillance, selective law enforcement, and claustrophobic control over individual behavior, in tandem with market systems, to create wealth and (above all else) stability -- perpetual rule for the people on top."

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#120

Post by rightbyte »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #70
duxup wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would be great for Googlers ... kinda horrible for locals in KC who would still be making the same amount, and housing costs skyrocket.... funding sudden needed school expansions ... and so on... The economic and political messes of sudden expansion can be an absolute mess.

The only reason this happens is because of (perhaps misguided) attempts to resist the changes caused by population growth from local voters. If it was up to the market to decide, what would happen if there was a sudden spike in the demand for housing? Developers would build more housing. Prices might move a bit, but you’re not going to be looking at a crisis. However, entrenched homeowners don’t want that, because it…

Isn't that an example of functional local democracy? Why bother make your town a mess in the name of growth.

In SF's case the external pressure just was to huge and they should have given up long time ago keeping it a low built city.

Post reply on HN