Employment is primarily the result of the person (how good you are as a person / good at your job ) + proximity (how big of a play area exists for the profession / how close you and competitors are to job).
As proximity shrinks, the value of the person goes
down, surprisingly enough, but often results in greater job security -- if you're a crappy construction worker who does ****ty roofs for a living and one in ten end up leaking, but you're the
only one within the "play area" for your profession.
You would expect the value to go UP for an individual. If the play area for the profession is small, then competition must be fierce! May the best man win!
Unfortunately, employment isn't exactly zero sum. You don't need to make the MOST money. You just need to make enough to make your salary somewhat worth it for your employer.
The result is that the ****ty roofer can have another roofer come in, and as long as ****ty roofer makes enough money in his profession to survive / pay for his salary, he maintains his position.
As proximity goes
up, the value of the person goes up. This is backwards from how we'd think at first instinct. If an entire planet full of people are applying for a position, the best one gets the job. It doesn't mean there are necessarily more jobs relative to the population. If enough "best ones" exist, they set the tone. Any profession that involves people often moving for said profession will result in higher than average talent because sub-par talent doesn't survive for long with such a crazy hiring process.
Oddly enough, most jobs have been flying one way or another -- an increase or decrease in proximity.
Web programmer? Super large play area, super high person value.
Janitor? Super low play area, super low person value.
If you're in the former category, you have the unlucky situation of being forced to stay at the cutting edge of your employment and you can be somewhat abruptly a poor employee because of what a few random thousand people around the globe are doing. "I'm sorry, you don't know Ruby on Rails? That's what our new system is using..."
If you are in the latter category, you are completely replaceable the moment the number of people possible for your position increases to the point that proximity is no longer "small".
- Housing is high, so most people rent and can leave at a moments notice
- Transportation is relatively cheap compared to most paychecks, but still expensive enough to cause a drain on finances
- Population is increasing
- Unemployment is increasing
- Pay for positions is decreasing or remaining stagnant in comparison to cost of living increases
- Most markets are "solved", preventing substantial entrepreneurial investments
- Money is cheap right now, but only available to those who already have it
The combination of the above means that the "play area" is increasing for any job that is of a mid-range salary or higher. Twenty years ago, no one moves across the country for median income. I'd imagine most in this forum would move to another state for a $50k job now.
The combination of the above ALSO means that a large subset of the unskilled population is out-of-work and looking, meaning that previous "easy to get" jobs that are low skill like construction, labor, custodial service, etc., are now all higher proximity than they once were. "Single mom drives forty minutes for cleaning job" is a death sentence for the guy who lives down the street from it looking to get back on his feet.
In general, the value of the person has gone down, everyone is replaceable, you aren't special, and there's no easy outs. So in short, yeah, the situation for employment in general rather than commentary on the person.
But maybe you guys are ****heads, I dunno.
