Job market in Madison? (Verona, Rio: insurance, houses, buyer)

[robind]

We're looking at making a move from Seattle to possibly Madison. Seattle has traffic, high housing prices and feels too big for us. However, it does have a great job market for us.

Are there a fair amount of tech jobs in Madison? Specifically internet or online marketing, search engine marketing or comparison shopping engine marketing?

Thanks for the help!

[mhannah]

I'm no expert in the local job market, but Madison usually has the lowest unemployment rate in the state. But Silicon Valley it's not. I've lived here for more than 20 years, and the only businesses in your (very large) ballpark I've heard of here are Sonic Foundry plus a couple of dot-com businesses (eg Guild.com). Now, if you wanted biotech, this would be a great place.

[AnonymousCoward]

Unemployment is low, and there are plenty of jobs in Madison, but they may not necessarily fall in the category you are looking for. Grocery stores and home improvement stores seem to struggle to get people to work entry level jobs for $10 - $14 /hr. Plenty of well educated people come to Madison, either to the UW or as tourists, and want to stay. Plenty of employers seem to be more than willing to exploit the popularity of the city and offer salaries that are substantially lower than those offered in Minneapolis and Chicago.

While the traffic isn't even close to what you would experience in a larger city, NIMBY-ism and growth have made it worse than you might expect it to be. Not to mention that plenty of people in Madison (especially Realtors) will tell you how long it took to get from one place to another in 1995, not how long it actually takes now.

That said, in addition to Sonic Foundry, Berbee (now part of CDW) might offer some jobs of interest. American Family insurance hires a lot of IT people, but mostly as developers and analysts, not marketers. There are some smaller consultant shops that might have jobs of interest as well.

[robind]

I love this site! Thanks for the responses.

[XFILESMULDER]

ha ha ha ha why are you moving to Madison then? even thou the city is much smaller then Seattle its population is very dense on 2 busy interstates so the traffic in madison is bad to. its a big college town with lots of crappy jobs . with a huge illegal immigrant population. no thank you please.

[GreggB]

Originally Posted by XFILESMULDER

ha ha ha ha why are you moving to Madison then? even thou the city is much smaller then Seattle its population is very dense on 2 busy interstates so the traffic in madison is bad to. its a big college town with lots of crappy jobs . with a huge illegal immigrant population. no thank you please.

Madison Wisconsin DOES NOT have a "Huge Illegal Immigrant Population". Your statement is inacurate--PERIOD!!!!

[Drover]

Originally Posted by XFILESMULDER

with a huge illegal immigrant population. no thank you please.

Is this a joke? It's possible to spend all day in Madison without seeing one single Hispanic. Or are all these illegals from the Netherlands or something?

[tanyagail]

My husband and I moved back to Madison b/c of my family. We unfortunately are finding ourselves looking to move due to lack of high paying tech jobs in Madison (more entry level). There are a lot of consulting houses that take a good percentage of your hourly or companies that just don't pay good rates. Madison is not a strong tech town. Check out Austin, TX as an option if you don't mind going warmer/hot.

[tanyagail]

oh I forgot, there is a company called "Jellyfish.com" that is a new here in Madison. It is a small company with an online shopping search engine that gives a percentage of profits back to buyer (or something like that). Looks like it might fit your interests.

[katreese]

How about EPIC in Verona (basically Madison) - I've always been unclear on what it is they do, but they just hired 1000s of people from all over the country. Software stuff I think.

http://www.epicsystems.com/