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Comment by samrus | Hacker News Reader

Markets often dont model the real world well

Isn't this a case of the market modeling it very well though? It's very undesirable to live somewhere, so wages offered are elevated. The posts aren't filled though, because the wages aren't elevated enough. Occasionally someone who really doesn't mind living out there does come along and take the elevated wages, but mostly the posts go empty. The market is revealing that there's no coincidence of wants [0], and correctly allocating fewer people to the posts. If by "reality" we mean a world where these posts are filled despite costing more to fill than they're worth to someone then yes, markets aren't modeling reality well.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coincidence_of_wants

i've lived and worked in very rural Australia. like 6 hours from anything rural.

fun adventure as a young man, for a year. but you couldn't get me back out there for $1 million AUD per annum now.

sure, there is a price that I'd eventually say yes to, but there is no reality where you can offer $5MM for teachers or hairdressers.

People are offered far less than that to work on oil rigs or truck in remote alaska. Long work shifts too where you live in company housing for some time between getting to see your family. The jobs are pretty well compensated and people end up taking the deal to do rather dangerous pipeline associated work in the middle of nowhere. I’m sure people can be persuaded to teach public school in the desert for the right price.

People do oil rig jobs for a while and then leave. Remote rural places are more frequent then oil rigs and you want the teachers to stay.

Those oil field jobs in Alaska are usually on a set schedule like 2 weeks on / 2 weeks off. During your shift you work 8 (or preferably more) hours per day, 7 days a week. During your time off you fly back to where you live - some people come from the lower 48 - and have 2 weeks to do whatever you want. Not a bad deal if you're not bothered working in the industry. Of course, the entire state is effectively dependent on the industry, even if you don't work for them directly.

Sounds like teaching where some take summers off.

Not at all. Summer off is 2 months during which you are supposed to prepare. And you are not allowed to take random holidays outside of that season, unlike other professions. As sibling said, rigs frequently work on 2 weeks off every month.

Second difference is that schools do not want revolving doors of teachers, each leaving after a year or two. That is completely normal on oil rigs. People work on rigs temporary, until they move on to doing something else. Quite a few positions are filled by people who do their two years or whatever and do not plan of making it a career at all.

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