The Underdog's Bark

(Every time you subscribe to things, an angel gets its wings.)

The existing tools for scraping eRepublik do an excellent job of presenting data on buying from the marketplace, but since the data on jobs and business opportunities are not often presented in a useful and up-to-date fashion, this is the reason for the series. This article looks at the job markets of "Allied" countries (allies of Romania, the USA, and other countries), while the next article looks at the job markets of "Neutral" countries. The business report this week will be in the USA, which has just recently reclaimed the title of country with the most residents.

By the way, the first edition of the business opportunity report achieved #2 International behind only the eRepublik Insider. Thank you, everybody! Let's make it international again. Vote for each of the three articles to make it happen... especially the business opportunity report this week in the USA! This week's edition will be presented in three parts, as before, and hosted in these countries:

- Job Opportunities in Allied Countries (this article - in Sweden)
- Job Opportunities in Neutral Countries (Peru)
- Business Opportunities in 27 Countries (USA)

I will choose different countries in another two weeks, when the third edition of this series will be published. A fresh edition should be published every two weeks. This one came down to a real time crunch, as I did not have the benefit of a three-day weekend as before, so I have been forced to axe a section from the business opportunity report in order to push it out the door. I am hoping in the (unspecified) future to automate some of the tasks, which could not only reduce the human effort required but also allow more precision and the presentation of information in richer detail.

Method... skip unless you care

The data was collected over the last 48 hours (September 19 and 20). All currency amounts have been converted to gold amounts, through reference to the top offer of gold for currency at the time. Wages in currency were determined through a fairly simple algorithm, which can be summarized: (1) take the average of the top 2 offers, (2) but ignore the lower of the two if it is lower or the same as the offers for lower skill levels, and (3) if there is only one offer, or no offers, simply take the highest possible offer for a person of the given skill level, even if it is listed at a lower skill. There is a bias towards larger and more active economies, given the principle that the listed job offers are the ones that have not been accepted yet at any moment in time (thus, job seekers may have taken the top offer, but also may have an even better one and thus are not taking the offers). There are also, of course, other factors that may themselves work to increase the wages offered in "larger and more active economies."

There is very detailed data in this Google spreadsheet that is summarized in the following graphs. It was thought prudent not to include the extremes of skills 0 and 7+ in the graphs for different reasons; for 0, because it is a non-profitable offer in most cases, and because it is of little interest to almost anyone who would read this; for 7, because it is often a speculative offer made in the hope of gaining 8+ skill level workers. The division was made between 1, 2, and 3 and 4, 5, and 6 because managers seem to realize the benefits of employing higher skill workers, both in high absolute production and high wellness, and thus pay rather more per skill level at the higher levels of skill.

Land Job Opportunities in Allied Countries

Here is the distribution for Land jobs. The smaller bar shows the average wage per day in Gold of the skill 1 offer, skill 2 offer, and skill 3 offer. The larger bar shows the average wage per day in Gold of the skill 4 offer, skill 5 offer, and skill 6 offer. The listing is done in descending order by the average of the skill 4, 5, and 6 offers.



Manufacture Job Opportunities in Allied Countries

Here is the chart for Manufacture jobs. The bars are used similarly to contrast wages for the 1, 2, and 3 skill offers and the 4, 5, and 6 skill offers. In a change from last time, I have used the scale of 0 to 0.6 Gold per day throughout, and the top-end for Land wages is not dramatically greater than that for Manufacture. At the same time, Manufacture remains the most consistently well-paid profession across countries.



Construction Job Opportunities in Allied Countries

Here is the chart for Construction jobs. The pay is lower on average than Manufacture, but it is reasonable in some countries. Sometimes the best offers come from applications to Q5 Hospital companies wanting to finish the job quickly (with very skilled labor). The scale is the same as in the previous graphs.



For all of these graphs, you can click them to be sent to the Google spreadsheet with both the full-resolution graphs and the numbers that produced them. Your browser may also let you right-click and "View Image" to see a larger image.

What's the Point?

I think it is of obvious interest to many players what wages are in other countries than their own, especially in the case that they may wish to work there. But why the specific list of countries, why the fictitious label of "Allies" for these countries? I apologize for the informality of the label; it was applied by choosing any of the countries of Romania, USA, Spain, Greece, Canada, Croatia, or so on as a starting point and expanding to all MPP'd nations on the list but not including any MPP'd with nations in the PEACE GC. The most obvious purpose is to help players find "vacation homes" at which they can work and, just as important, fight for their native country through the activated MPP's. If you do not find any of these countries suitable or "friendly enough," or if it isn't involved in the war that concerns you, you don't have to consider it.

Just as important, this list will combine with a list of "neutral" countries on which I will present similar data in the next article. Together, the data will help business investors make sound decisions about building the infrastructure (business-wise) in many of these countries. My purpose is not to impoverish any country for the sake of others but rather to strengthen the whole. By working in the hotter job markets, the cost of labor there can be brought down, while the amount of production can be increased, both of which benefit the cause of the Allies. The onus is upon business owners to improve the conditions for work in all Allied countries by seeking out the less competitive labor markets, especially in the resource-independent and sometimes-underpaid sectors of Manufacture and Construction.