> When I briefly worked for non profits in rural America, despite offering VERY lucrative salaries, we were simply not able to fill positions because no one wants to relocate to middle of nowhere.
That just means that relocating to the middle of nowhere isn't worth that lucrative salary you offered. Raise it, and they will come. The issue is that for lots of people, living there has huge costs: less networking, harder to get the next job, friends are far away. But if you offer enough money, some will say "I can see my friends at Christmas" and will live & work in the middle of nowhere.
On the other hand: with remote work, that shouldn't even be an issue. They don't need to relocate to the middle of nowhere to write code for nowhere's local government.
That's the market doing its work. It sucks when you can't fill positions, but I don't think we're anywhere close to "everybody gets FAANG level salaries". Those are 1%-Salaries, and the lower 25% are below $100k.
Like I said before, economics of paying too high to attract people to rural America simply doesn't work out. The example I was talking about was a salary of $130K with benefits in KY. That was with stretching out all of our budget and months of project delays. We finally had to hire a consulting firm that probably hired H1Bs to finish the job.
I intentionally left out the part about "remote work". The thing about it is that, it took a pandemic to make people realize that remote work is okay. And even then, even in Silicon Valley, a lot of firms and the employees are still not comfortable with it. I don't think you've worked with a lot of folks out in not so urban states and cities, but there is an even bigger aversion to remote work. Plus, there are parts of government regulations that require you to be physically present in specific locations. There is a reason why these jobs don't get shipped abroad and instead you bring people in to work here.
That just means that relocating to the middle of nowhere isn't worth that lucrative salary you offered. Raise it, and they will come. The issue is that for lots of people, living there has huge costs: less networking, harder to get the next job, friends are far away. But if you offer enough money, some will say "I can see my friends at Christmas" and will live & work in the middle of nowhere.
On the other hand: with remote work, that shouldn't even be an issue. They don't need to relocate to the middle of nowhere to write code for nowhere's local government.
That's the market doing its work. It sucks when you can't fill positions, but I don't think we're anywhere close to "everybody gets FAANG level salaries". Those are 1%-Salaries, and the lower 25% are below $100k.