Think twice before moving to Chattanooga, TN (Knoxville, Morristown: real estate, headhunters)

[RiverView]

Originally Posted by TriDad

reading that last post was like looking my old KJV Bible.

LOL.... took me a minute but LOL

[FL ESCAPEE]

This is bad news as I am researching a move to Chattanooga. I work in the healthcare field. Any better options in this area?

[RiverView]

Originally Posted by FL ESCAPEE

This is bad news as I am researching a move to Chattanooga. I work in the healthcare field. Any better options in this area?

I think your ok being in the health care field

[Jon F Moss]

if the politicians who want to close the border get their way, then no one from South Florida will be able to come here :P

[Philagirl]

Oh, I'm so sorry to anyone that has trouble finding a job. It's beyond frustrating and demoralizing, and I wish you the absolute best.

My husband and I were very interested in moving back to Chattanooga last year (where I grew up), but the job market kept us away. It is still, really, quite the Old Boys Network, and most of my friends who live and work there, are either working in the family business, so they never had to seek employment or had connections. There's also not much diversity in the job market. My husband got a job offer, but then the company soon fell apart. We now live in another, much larger city, and while it's more expensive, we feel a lot more secure with our employment options.

Best of luck with your continued searches.

[luvshelties]

I'm very sorry you and your wife are so unhappy. It is also good to hear another side. But it sounds like maybe you need to get a new perspective on your lives. You sound very angry, and it can be difficult to be around people like that. God Bless you both, and I hope you can find some happiness in your life somewhere, even if it's just between yourselves.

[xtranaut]

That is because I am hoping for Divine Intervention!!

Merry Christmas to all!

[xtranaut]

Originally Posted by Philagirl

Oh, I'm so sorry to anyone that has trouble finding a job. It's beyond frustrating and demoralizing, and I wish you the absolute best.

My husband and I were very interested in moving back to Chattanooga last year (where I grew up), but the job market kept us away. It is still, really, quite the Old Boys Network, and most of my friends who live and work there, are either working in the family business, so they never had to seek employment or had connections. There's also not much diversity in the job market. My husband got a job offer, but then the company soon fell apart. We now live in another, much larger city, and while it's more expensive, we feel a lot more secure with our employment options.

Best of luck with your continued searches.

First, LVSHELTIES, we are not angry - just SHELL-SHOCKED. You'd like to believe that growing up in a place that you return to, to offer all that you experienced elsewhere, counts for something. Here, it doesn't.

People that never went anywhere all their lives and stayed here, see you coming from somewhere else, with more to offer and go into the protection mode of their own jobs. Only natural.

We were not expecting to be welcomed with open arms and showered in money and appreciation, but we did expect a much better job climate and to be offered more than we made here when we were 18! Thats no exaggeration.

The biggest disappointment is that the (Chattanooga) market is not open for good (paying) jobs here. It isn't competitive in the same sense as good positions are in large cities, where people from the "outside" are welcomed to equally compete with those on the inside.

Here, more often, people are promoted from the inside to assure status quo, less turnover, and less money paid for the job. Like I said, we started talking to people to know whether this was imagined or reality and verified it is very much a normal practice for this town. This also translates into nepatism and quota factors.

And as Philagirl said, if you are any kind of a specialist in your field, diversity doesn't exist here.

PHILAGIRL, you got the right idea and you know it for what it is. I have to admit that I didn't do my homework before coming home. Now I am faced with having to relocate again.

I'd rather pay a little more to live in a larger city with opportunities and more security, at a higher cost of living, than risk self-employment in a place where government and the mountain elite control the prosperity of the under-class.

I wish that I had something better to say about my hometown but it IS WHAT IT IS and all the pretty postcard pictures won't make it anything else.

I have posted my experiences here to give others who would consider moving here,a warning of caution. HAVE A GOOD JOB BEFORE YOU COME, or bring money to live on or start a business. Yes, it is a wonderful place but it is a town that has, politically, always had it's own agenda and is governed accordingly.

Having said this, if you are in mechanical engineering, ALSTOM has announced it is creating a show place facility on it's now sprawling wharehouse barn riverfront property and is creating 300 plus new jobs.

On the downside, a Turkish textiles employer next to Dupont, fired almost the entire 700 people it employed because it's clients could get products cheaper from China. They automated.

To boot, nothing new is ever (allowed) to come here. The city always loses the deal somehow. Toyota was the latest that could have provided hundreds of new jobs. They went to NOwhere MIssisippi instead.

My advice - if you like it here, as many do, buy your vacation home or retirement home now, while the market is soft. There are plentiful deals with acreage outside the area and downtown living development is brisk and abunadant.

Merry Christmas to all!

Incidentally, today is one of theose gorgeous mountain days that lures everyone to live here!

[luminus]

I am a young person - 25. However, my two cents are going to be put in now, so if you don't value the opinion of a college educated, mildly fresh-faced youth, skip this post now. This is mostly a reply to xtra, but also to anyone else who is having trouble working here.

The job market is bad in many areas. Of the country, mind you. Unemployment is fairly high, service positions are appearing far faster than any other sector (besides perhaps healthcare), and I don't care what area of the country you are moving to, this will almost always be true at this time (2007). Don't blame Chattanooga for a problem that is widespread.

Secondly, perceptions about how bad the employment outlook is after you've moved to an area where you have no connections are probably going to be slanted. The job market seems easy when you have a job - you can switch without missing a beat, find out about openings around the country (for your company and others), be headhunted and tracked down by those who hear about your skills - none of this will happen after 6 months of unemployment in a new town. You drop off the earth, essentially, and it's no wonder that things don't get better. Again, don't blame the particular town you are in for the general working of the economy, and in this case, hiring practices. It could happen in Chattanooga, LA, or Atlanta. No need to claim that there is a "good old boy" network - there is a network in place everywhere. Good for some, bad for others - depends whether or not you're a member, regardless of what city/state/company you happen to be located in at any time.

I just have to ask, for the rest of the people on this board who haven't and are no doubt wondering - what kind of person decides to move to a town without a means of employment? I realize that you may have a savings account, and a large one, but the financial drain is so considerable I don't see it ever being an intelligent option. Imagine a business that relocates to a new area because it contains possible customers, without doing much research as to the actual preferences of those customers. It would be a mistake, obviously, and could probably be considered small-scale financial suicide. Even if you have, as I imagine most people who are moving to a small-ish scenic town without employment, made a hefty profit on the sale of what was probably an overvalued house, if you don't intend to retire, you are making a mistake.

Find job, move. In that order. Preferably add "find house" somewhere between those two, also.

For the record, my wife got a job here at Memorial Hospital after working at Emory. I have had a single interview in six months. There simply aren't that many jobs in Chattanooga, to be sure, because it's not very large. Ever heard of Dayton, Ohio? Yeah, barely? Same size as Chattanooga. This is, quite simply, a terrible place to move to without being employed beforehand.

As far as houses and cost of living goes, having been in Atlanta and Columbus (Ohio), Chattanooga is absolutely phenomenal. Houses are overpriced in some areas, as they are all over the country. Chattanooga was not unaffected by the absurd skyrocketing of house prices, and it will feel the effects of the market bust soon enough. There is currently two years worth of housing inventory sitting on the market, so if the price seems high, bid low. There's a lot to choose from.

And I just have to say - if your argument about moving to a town is based on the half-assed assumption that there must not be a slab home available just because you haven't found it yet, please don't post that argument on the internet and make a fool of yourself. If you can afford a marble floor, you can probably afford to build, and with home prices deflating and new home construction stagnating, you probably should anyway. Chattanooga is a railroad-filled town, but please, when the crazy train comes through again, nobody get off here. We're obviously at capacity.

[Jon F Moss]

hehe....crazy train......I love it!