NEED HELP PLEASE...question about jobs... (Seattle, Tacoma: transplants, get credit, motels)

[janiebug]

Hi! We are a family in the midwest that has a rare genetic medical condition that is highly irritated by both heat and cold and is severely affecting our kids. Well...the midwest has both frigid winters and roasting summers and we need to get out if we can. However, we would have to leave a good job...and all we hear about the economy is horrible news. We want to move to western Washington, where the climate is temperate, but need to know...how bad is the economy? We are in our mid-40's with four young kids. My husband has been a sort of jack of all trades and could apply for jobs in a variety of fields. But with his age, this is a scarey time. Are there lots of people getting laid off? Are there 100 applicants for every job opening? Are all the young people getting the jobs and the middle agers staying unemployed for months? How bad is the job market? The state we now live in has been pretty much untouched by the recession so we have no idea how hard hit other states have been. Any information would be appreciated. We could go to pretty much any city but want to steer clear of Seattle and stay further south and west, say, Tacoma, Olympia, Aberdeen, etc. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

[allforcats]

Hi, janiebug. First, regarding medical conditions being affected by weather conditions: I hope you are aware that it drizzles here most days for nine months of the year, which also means it's cloudy here, seriously cover-the-entire-sky-darkly-sunshine?-what's that? cloudy, for much of those nine months, which aggravates Seasonal Affective Disorder for some people. It's never bitterly cold or "frigid", it's never blisteringly hot or hot-and-humid, there's always a light breeze, and the air is usually clean and clear. Check the wealth of statistics, including great annual climate charts for specific cities and towns, up in the top left corner of this page: City-Data.com. An interesting sidelight: a minority of transplants find their asthma is aggravated in this climate, while most transplants find their asthma greatly improves here. Go figure!

Because of the last D.C. administration's elimination of financial adult supervision, jobs are being lost here as businesses can't get credit and aren't selling their goods and services to buyers who have lost their jobs and thus can't afford to buy things, can't get credit, and in some cases may be losing their homes. That is what is happening nationwide. Western Washington chugged along for a while, healthier than many other parts of the country, but all those factors have seeped into our local economy and each week sees a few thousand to many thousands of jobs lost. Job fairs seem to occur at least weekly and there are thousands of hopeful attendees for hundreds or tens of jobs. It would be much too soon in this recession to determine what age group, if any, gets hired, but as an executive I can assure you that any company which hires only the uninformed and inexperienced will soon be out of business.

As for the cities you mentioned, Aberdeen has no jobs because it has only the most basic economy -- McDonald's, a couple of motels, local hardware stores, feed store, etc. It used to be a timber town until the timber industry in that area ended. Now there's no job market there.
Tacoma (2007 pop. 196,500), an industrial and commercial city, and Olympia (2007 pop. 45,000), the capital of the state of Washington so a government city, are a great deal smaller than -- have a much smaller job market than -- the Seattle area. The city of Seattle has a 2007 population of over 594,000 but draws from all of King County whose 2007 population was about 1.9 million. That size both generates, and is a result of, a much larger job market than Tacoma and Pierce County, and Olympia and Thurston County.

Here are a few resources to do some online research in those locations:
Seattle area including most of King County:
Seattle area jobs, employment advice and information | NWjobs
Renton area:
Kennydale black bear may need hip surgery - Renton Reporter
Tacoma area:
Seattle-Tacoma News, Weather, Sports, Jobs, Homes and Cars from The News Tribune, the South Puget Sound’s Destination | Homepage
Olympia area:
Front Page - The Olympian - Olympia, Washington

I wish you well!