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You are behind in your knowledge base, amigo. Please don't tell me you have some sort of advanced degree and still fail to research something before posting here as gospel
I don't think I've carved anything here in stone... and I haven't worked in a corporate slot in, um, pretty much 15 years. So I cop to being out of touch, but I am fairly cognizant of employment trends and I still don't see any major segments working remotely outside of tech-centric jobs. I can bring to mind more cases where remoting was tried and then discarded. I'm open to being convinced, though.
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Yes, it is vague since it encompasses some different things. I assure you, some consulting firms have employees who don't have to meet in an office and primarily work remotely. Does this mean they never have to visit a 'home base'? No! Sometimes it's necessary. Do they get the same work done? Absolutely.
I have worked as and with consultants many times. But the term isn't just vague, it's nearly meaningless in a discussion like this because it encompasses a huge variety of possibilities. Yes, most "consultants" that are hired out to companies can and now probably do work remotely - but as temporary, gig, or contract workers I'd say they kind of outlie the idea of corporate remote workers.
But argue away, and if you have any cites at hand about industries and departments and fields using significant numbers of remote workers (preferably native ones, not temps and contractors)... I'd be very interested.
I worked remotely the last five years of career, but as Quietude suggested it was indeed software dev.
My mothership was east coast and I was west. It sucked making the occasional 6:00 am mytime conference call, but that was nicely evened out knowing that by Friday around 3:00 pm everyone back east was already gonzo and I could grab the fishing pole and throw some beers in the cooler a bit early.
I would have love to meet her. Thats really a dream job! COl shouldnt rise due to increase in pay.. it should be base on the LOWEST average rate in the community/town so they too can afford to eat.
The laws of Supply and Demand are what they are. That's not going to change. If those earning the lowest average rate want to remain in a highly desirable, highly paid area they have 2 choices: Earn more or accept living with roommates or family to share costs.
Does high COL coincide to the fact their is jobs that have a higher then market salaries?
you could work for a large system, IE healthcare/govt that operates out in a rural area but get paid the same as if you are in the city where they are located
basically, take your city wages and live in a rural community which tend to be cheaper
IT companies do this as remote work, sales jobs don't care where rep is as long as they can get to an airport
high cost of living areas are not high in a vacuum . they are high because property taxes are high . property taxes are high because home values are high because the areas are desirable and in demand .because THAT IS USUALLY WHERE THE HIGHER PAYING JOBS ARE .
when we had our poconos home i could get a job with a competitor there , they pay half of what i earn in long island . the cost of living was about 1/3 less than i pay here
To this point, there are usually a handful of factors that affect it to one degree or another. Taxes are one of them. Population/jobs are another. The General desireability of an area is a third. The ability to "build out" or densely infill is a fourth.
The example of a single player coming in and singlehandedly adjusting the COL is mostly a fiction. WalMart in Bentonville, AR, or Caterpillar in Peoria, IL, or State Farm in Bloomington Normal or American Family in Madison Wisconsin...
Take the Bay area, with a perfect storm of property taxes, rules that prohibit building up at least in San Francisco, rent controls that cause vacant apartments to be artificially expensive, a large part on a peninsula, etc...Then throw in the fact that its a universally pleasant climate, near a world class city, and and has been home to a high paying industry for 50 years now, and its hardly surprising.
Somewhere similar, but not nearly as insane, is Austin TX...Same tech industry, and it is expensive, but it isn't the Bay Area. At least there they can build out.
Raleigh Durham is also something of a tech hub, but has low property taxes, relatively lower COL compared to Austin or San Fran or Northern VA or Long Island, but doesn't have the same cache has these places, and fewer cultural amenities. Schools are funded differently, so you don't have pockets where people are paying $15K in property taxes next to slums, everyone is taxed 1% and the schools are administered on the county level.
And, you have places that are expensive to live for other reasons. Asheville, NC is really expensive; its in the mountains, a tourist town popular with retirees. There are very few well paying jobs outside of the hospital. Its expensive since its hard to build there since everything is up and down, since its desireable as a getaway location so people buy/build vacation homes, etc...
to a new yorker like myself we looked in to ashville as a lower cost living area we might like .
Compared to NYC it is inexpensive, but I'd imagine that's most places except parts of California. And, for retirees, it is popular, since your presumably unconcerned with employment opportunities. It is expensive for Rural North Carolina, which is what it is, a medium sized town surrounded my national forest and Appalachia, despite its funky vibe and food co-ops.
But, unless you're a doctor or otherwise employed in a higher paying position with the Hospital or maybe UNC-Asheville there isn't a whole heck of a lot of opportunity.
The laws of Supply and Demand are what they are. That's not going to change. If those earning the lowest average rate want to remain in a highly desirable, highly paid area they have 2 choices: Earn more or accept living with roommates or family to share costs.
Again force out of town or to change the status que when we was doing just fine till so call Suppl and demand kicked in. What if nothing changed just person the salary? You would still jack up the COL because they earn more now. It does happen.. thus the person who got the raise is being offset again. Cant win for gaining anything.
The $10 worker can leverage his free time in figuring out another source of income. If that's not a desire, they can take classes to increase their earning potential in the future.
What other fields have significant remote employment and are NOT contractor/gig/freelance based? I can think of only things like distributed call center workers and other rather commodity positions. What am I overlooking?
(I mean, technically I am a "remote worker" since my clients are distributed around the globe, but that's not really the same thing as fully employed by a company and working from a non-company location.)
There are tons of people across various functions that I know who work remotely... I mostly deal with Sales, Marketing, and Finance folks as well as IT.
I do think remote work tends to make more sense at larger companies, where employees are already spread out across multiple office locations in multiple countries. Even if I worked from our HQ office, 80% of the people I work with would be remote to me.
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