Places in America that pay people to move there

I've learned that too. A careful examination might reveal other opportunities, but the swarm of people trying to optimize and coming to similar conclusions suggests that it's at least a local maxima within a fairly decently sized problem space.

That is some excellent advice. I agree wholeheartedly.

> The problem is the pay in a small town doesn't make up for the lost opportunity due to networking and having a selection of varied employers and colleagues. Also, the pay would have to incorporate a risk premium in case you lose your job, as it is perceived that it will be harder to find a new one.

Correct.

There's no networking without working your arse off in those locales.

And if there are only 3-4 employers in town, you better believe that you don't want to lose your job, ever.

I can not recommend, in today's economy, a software engineer ever moving to a place without knowing there is an existing job creation engine running. It's too risky.

On the other hand, I'd move to Detroit if the employer was willing to 100% financially derisk the move (full relo, golden parachute on departure for any reason, massive funding of retirement, massive pay). :)

That may be true for top professionals, but I have my doubts that someone working at McDonalds is going to make any more in the city. In fact, I'm certain they could make a lot more, even before accounting for the substantial savings in living costs, by getting out of the city. For what it is worth, the median individual income in the aforementioned place is 30% higher than in the nearest major city as well.

I'm not sure I agree with the risk premium either. With the numbers showing that there are more jobs than people, something that is definitely not the case in the city, you are comparatively better off as you can walk into virtually any job out there. If you are hung up on doing one specific job, that may be a different story, but I'm not sure someone at McDonalds is only willing to work at McDonalds.

That is true - although being of an age where I have kids a university I do know people who have stayed in Scotland because they have multiple kids wanting to go to university.

And here is a discussion about someone considering moving to Scotland because of the fees situation:

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1698260...

Wait, $2000/month with 25-40 guaranteed hours of overtime on the low end? That sounds absolutely terrible, or am I missing something?

I think it's difficult to say "Japan doesn't want immigrants" but perhaps more accurate to say that "Japanese society is not friendly to outsiders."

The difference is that rather than being explicitly "we don't want immigrants," Japanese society is a fairly closed one that relies on a niche language. No language, no acceptance.

Beyond that, for educated people to immigrate to another country, you need to have a job market that accommodates those people; Japan doesn't really have that. The wages and benefits aren't competitive and the pension system is unfriendly to immigrants. Additionally, you really need a good grasp of the language.

You can also see another recent post of mine about the difficulty of making friends in Japan, which is another thing that makes it difficult for people to come here. It doesn't help that people who come here often have a mediocre grasp of the language, which makes things more difficult and encourages them to live in a "foreign bubble," which will often lead to depression when it pops.

On the up side, the Japanese immigration process is INCREDIBLY simple, especially compared to the US one (which I've heard about second-hand from Japanese people). In order to work here, you basically need a university degree and a job that pays more than around $25k/yr -- with those, you're a shoo-in within a month or so.

Agree with all the points sdrothrock made. I lived in Japan for 5 years first via working holiday visa and then through a spousal visa after marrying my wife who is Japanese. After getting married, all I needed to do was take the marriage certificate to the immigration office and was pretty much instantly approved for a 3 year visa. I guess the train of thought is "Well, if one of our own approves of you, that's good enough for us."

Getting PR in Japan is pretty much just a matter of having lived there for 5 years and not have broken any laws.

Compare that to when my wife immigrated to Canada. Despite her speaking English, coming from an economically developed country, having a University degree and years of professional work experience we still needed to wait for over a year and it cost $2000 for everything involved.

If you want to work and live in Japan, legally speaking, it's incredibly easy. The difficulty of integrating into society is the tough part. Even with a fluent grasp of the language, you'll always be an outsider.

To say "Japan doesn't really want immigrants" is kind of accurate though. Japan relies on its closer culture to keep immigration low even though it may be more subconsciously and not a formal government policy.

The robots are because they don't want large-scale immigration of low-skill workers to take care of their aging population. On the other hand, they welcome professionals and high-skill workers.