Where are the jobs in Buffalo? (New York, Syracuse: apartments, lofts, crime)

[xnyer]

Originally Posted by mikesuicide

I guess it comes down to being the best and differentiating yourself. Work at it and you will get your job. If I could give any peice of advice to anyone looking for job or going on an interview, its to be genuine, ENTHUSIATIC, and memorable. This is how you land the job in a tough market.

Good advice mikesuicide, it might make the difference between $7.50 and $8.00 an hour. Unfortunately, as so many perceived good employers have left WNY all that remains in many cases are poorly run businesses (companies like Wegman's excepted, of course), with marginal cash flows, lousy management, greedy owners, etc. Compounding the problem are punitive taxes and regulations from a worthless state government. Furthermore, I would argue that many marginal private sector businesses know that they can never compete with the public sector in wages and benefits or even welfare for that matter, so they give up in discouragement and hire on anyone they can. That only further justifies paying low wages because the better people have left the area or gotten into the public sector. As long as socialism reigns from Albany the situation will continue. When will people finally get enough of the bull and seperate from New York? As far as "perceived" good employers, in my opinion, they were generally "old school" labor intensive manufacturers that time and technology were obsoleting anyway. Buffalo's heyday roughly parallels the Industrial Revolution 1820-1950 (give or take a few years) as Historians are beginning to discover. I would argue that WNY needs first to stabilize the region, get rid of state government and create a new foundation on which to build. Unfortunately, in these posts and threads concerning Buffalo and WNY, there is very little original or creative thought expressed. Perhaps saddest of all is the fact that WNY lacks visionary leadership. What we need is regional "triage", stop the hemorrhaging first and then we can treat the wound. Step 1: seperate New York into 2 states, step 2: reconstitute government to serve the citizens instead of the other way around, step 3: create a business friendly environment, step 4: rebuild the virtues of hard work and community (family) and end the welfare state.

[goldinbuffalo]

Originally Posted by Dockwalliper

We have windmills on the lake.

Not many jobs came with them.

Built with GOVERNMENT MONEY. They broke down and had to be reworked and were way over budget. Don't worry, your health care will be run by the same people very soon.

[goldinbuffalo]

Where are the jobs in Buffalo? One word: GOVERNMENT

All the other info on this thread is pure realtor generated HYPE. If you do not work for the guv, don't come here. Your private sector employer is most likely looking to relocate even while they are hiring you. All the private sector jobs in this area were lured here by HUGE government subsidy payments. That's the only way anyone would ever come here. It's a horrible place to live.

[goldinbuffalo]

Originally Posted by cheese9988

M&T, HSBC, First Niagara, ES&L, Tops, Wegmans, Wilson Greatbatch, Moog Aerospace, Lockheed Martin, Airsep, Sigma, Washington Mills, Delphi, GM, Ford, Trico, Northrup Grunman, Marquart Switch, QED, PCB Piezotronics, Corning, Xerox, Eastman Kodak, Bauch & Lomb, Transcat, UB, UofR, Peatec, Dupont, Dunlop, Kistler, Johnson & Johnson, Wyeth, Ametek, Viatran, Parker Hannifin, Ginna, Sommerset, Geico, Time Warner, Electrochem, Stellar Technologies, Roswell Park, Swagelock, Omnicor, Siemens, West Coast Pharmacuedical, Cardinal Health, Metro Circuit and MCA research.

Some of these extend to Syracuse, I copied them from another post I had made and didn't feel like separating them, just added a couple more. You could try a headhunter also. Alot of companies don't use Monster or job posting sites, but rely on their own. Keep that in mind.

Also keep in mind that you don't need six figures to live comfortably in most places around Buffalo.

Are you kidding me? Most of these places have laid off huge numbers in the past years. Dupont? Ford, GM for gods sake? GM went bankrupt and just shut down the V-8 engine line! Trico? Trico moved everything to Mexico years ago! Are you kidding me? Kodak???????????? Kodak has laid off TENS OF THOUSANDS in the past 20 years? What realtor do you work for? Perhaps a used car salesman would be a better line of work for you. Pathetic attempt at pumping this DEAD region! GM, Trico and Kodak..........please.........

and banking is doing so well in the USA these days. I'm sure they are hiring like crazy.

[RocketSci]

Originally Posted by goldinbuffalo

Built with GOVERNMENT MONEY. They broke down and had to be reworked and were way over budget. Don't worry, your health care will be run by the same people very soon.

The windmills were built with private money on private land. There were some tax breaks given for brownfield remediation, and direct payment in lieu of taxes to Lackawanna for the power generated (I believe 100k/year).

There are many reasons to rant against the government, but this is not one of them.

[RocketSci]

Originally Posted by goldinbuffalo

Where are the jobs in Buffalo? One word: GOVERNMENT

All the other info on this thread is pure realtor generated HYPE. If you do not work for the guv, don't come here. Your private sector employer is most likely looking to relocate even while they are hiring you. All the private sector jobs in this area were lured here by HUGE government subsidy payments. That's the only way anyone would ever come here. It's a horrible place to live.

There are over 545,000 jobs in the Buffalo area, and 454,000 are PRIVATE.

The highest category of jobs in WNY is in Trade, Transportation and Utilities, accounting for over 100,000 jobs.

Nationally, government jobs account for 16.4% of all jobs.
In Buffalo it is 17.5%.

In that hotbed of the free market Austin Texas it is 21% government jobs.
In the free market hotbed of North Carolina it is 18.7% government jobs.

These are facts not hype.

Where the jobs are lacking in Buffalo are in industries that are supported by population growth, but those industries are doing poorly nationally.

Places where real statistics (not hype) can be found are:

New York State Department of Labor - to see where the current and historical New York labor market stands

or

Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-11 Edition which is the Occupational Outlook Handbook which identifies types of jobs, job statistics, and also includes links to local data nationwide.

These resources are paid for with our taxes, and provide a benefit to everyone who wishes to use them.

[goldinbuffalo]

Quote all the "official" government stats you wish. The facts remain that most of the young people are leaving in droves and this area has NEGATIVE population growth. The top employers in this area are government. Break it down, town by town, village by village. The Buffalo Board of Education alone is keeping this city afloat. NY State is broke and when GOVERNMENT starts to lay off, this area will be a ghost town. California has laid off 20,000 teachers. It's coming soon to our bloated government here in WNY. Depend on it.

[donbuy]

Originally Posted by goldinbuffalo

Quote all the "official" government stats you wish. The facts remain that most of the young people are leaving in droves and this area has NEGATIVE population growth. The top employers in this area are government. Break it down, town by town, village by village. The Buffalo Board of Education alone is keeping this city afloat. NY State is broke and when GOVERNMENT starts to lay off, this area will be a ghost town. California has laid off 20,000 teachers. It's coming soon to our bloated government here in WNY. Depend on it.

Fact - according to the US Census Bureau the percentage of young people leaving WNY is BELOW the US average. The population decline is due to - VERY LOW in migration and an older population where the birth to death ratio is far below the national average. The largest individual employers in ANY METRO are going to be governmental entities when identified by individual employers. There is one Erie County covering a geographical area of approximately 1 million people, (950K at last census) that same geographic area has thousands of private employers. The fact that the county has more employers than the individual companies is irrelevant. The relevant fact is that the total percentage of government employees is actually less in Buffalo than in many similarly sized metros such as Charlotte or Austin. If indeed the governmental employees are state or federal such as State University or Federal Immigration or SBA offices it actually brings wealth to a region because the jobs are funded by tax dollars coming in from outside the specific metro area - Just look at Washington DC for proof of that fact.

In fact I would say it is a good thing that the area is not dominated by a single company or two. Ask Charlotte how they are doing with Wachovia going belly up or ask Rochester about Kodak, or Detroit about GM and Chrysler. Indeed one of the reasons that the Brookings Institute ranks the Buffalo metro as one of the top 20 performers out of the 100 largest metros is the diversity of the economy and it's lack of dependence upon a handfull of companies. It is why for the first time in the last 100 years we were one of the last metro's to enter the recession and for the first time in at least 100 years we have lost fewer jobs (as a percentage) instead of more than the national average.

The area has finally turned the corner.

[RocketSci]

Originally Posted by goldinbuffalo

Quote all the "official" government stats you wish. The facts remain that most of the young people are leaving in droves and this area has NEGATIVE population growth. The top employers in this area are government. Break it down, town by town, village by village. The Buffalo Board of Education alone is keeping this city afloat. NY State is broke and when GOVERNMENT starts to lay off, this area will be a ghost town. California has laid off 20,000 teachers. It's coming soon to our bloated government here in WNY. Depend on it.

Yes some people are leaving, but how do you quantify "most." What ages and from where? Where and what data supports this?

Young people leave from everywhere, but Buffalo has fewer people arriving than growing cities, particular immigrants who tend to have more children. It is the smaller household size (i.e. fewer children being born) that has the greatest effect on Buffalo's population, as 3rd generation and later Americans are having fewer children.

You are also wrong about who the top employers are. While "government" is undoubtedly a large employer (as I stated in a previous post) the majority of jobs are private.

For example, the City of Buffalo employs about 8200, including Buffalo Public Schools, and employs fewer than the top private employers.

- Kaleida is the top private employer with over 10,000. A quick internet search shows 179 job openings.
- Catholic Health System is 2nd, with 8400. I found 280 job openings.
- HSBC is 3rd with 5848. I found 56 job openings in the Buffalo area.
- Employer Services Corporation is 4th with 4880. They do not post jobs directly.
- M&T Bank is 5th with 4820. I found 56 jobs posted.

The State of New York is the biggest local and government employer at 16,000 and includes employees of UB and Buff State. I found 147 openings at UB, and 44 openings at Buff State.

So far in 5 minutes I have identified 762 job openings in Buffalo.

However, if you want to get a job as a house framer or mason in WNY you may be up for some tough competition. These jobs are also scarce in the sunbelt now, too, but even when it was booming you had better speak Spanish and be prepared to work for low wages.

The lesson here is that education has become more important in Buffalo than in most of the boom towns. It takes brains more than brawn to get a job in WNY. That can only help the area in the long run.

Relative to sunbelt cities Buffalo is not creating as many new jobs, but the jobs that are here held up better than the boom town jobs did during the recession. There are over a million people in WNY, and there ARE jobs. They may be specialized in many areas, seasonal, or there may be limitations to advancement since Buffalo is not a headquarters city. The prevailing wages in some professions may be less in Buffalo, but in some it is more.

A broad brush (negative or positive) on WNY employment is not helpful in making decisions on whether to stay, leave, or move to WNY. Buffalo will never be what it once was, but NO PLACE is.

Finally, New York State may be headed toward a deficit, but as of last week Buffalo is running a SURPLUS and is looking at ways of REFUNDING TAXPAYERS.

[livecontent]

"...Buffalo will never be what it once was, but NO PLACE is..."

Absolutely correct! While Buffalo is much worse than it was, there are many cities across this country that are much better than they were. Not all cities are dying like Buffalo as you are trying to say. Many other cities that are attracting new wealth, new creative people and new industries. That cannot be denied.

It makes me sad to see the Buffalo area in such a decline. It is much worse than when I left, 40 years ago, and it was bad at that time. Many people do not have much choice other than to relocate and find a better life; just as many people moved to booming Buffalo at the turn of the 19th to the 20th Century.

We can only live in the present time and take advantage of what now has to offer. Perhaps in the future, Buffalo will be destination city of opportunity and I hope it does happen. However, the place for opportunity, jobs and a better quality of life are today in other cities in other states.

Livecontent